Who else hates Comcast?

[Matt_H]

Activate rant mode!

I really can't believe these guys. All the mayhem before the summer about the US transition to digital broadcasting was soothed with assurances that any TV hooked up to cable will be absolutely peachy keen and 100% fine with no changes. A few short months later, Comcast sends out a converter box in the mail that's supposed to go between the TV and the cable jack. The result of this box? I lose access to the high-def variants of my local broadcast channels and get a picture quality roughly equivalent to an ultra-low-res MPEG1 clip. And it's not a bug, it's a feature!

My patronage of their services will be ending imminently. I hope the FCC tears them to shreds in their ongoing dispute.

Any similar tales from Amiga.org users?

[Argo]

I've got TimeWarner. Absolutely nothing has changed for me. I take it Comcast decided to stop broadcasting analog signals on their system and went all digital. Thus you need a converter box.

[Matt_H]

I've got TimeWarner. Absolutely nothing has changed for me. I take it Comcast decided to stop broadcasting analog signals on their system and went all digital. Thus you need a converter box.

Yeah, that's what they're saying. But I don't understand from a technical standpoint why a box is necessary - I already get/got digital local channels through the existing, box-less cable. And I thought the whole point of "digital" and "cable-ready" TVs was to eliminate annoying boxes.

Still, that's no excuse for the piss-poor image quality.