Thank you FCC for screwing up yet again
Yesterday I tried to hook up my Digital DVD recorder up to comcast and it was so annoying. I have a Digital tuner in my DVD recorder which will pickup QAM and Analog signals. It picks up a few broadcast channels. FCC has allowed Comcast to encrypt their basic cable channels so you can't use anything but their equipment. This makes almost any HDTV/DVD Record or third party DVR worthless except as a expensive monitor. I got a free convert box which is a completely worthless piece of junk, it provides a great modulated NTSC signal which is so awful I might as well get a 30 year old TV to hook it up. So why am I annoyed at the FCC. They approved the encrypting of the QAM. So why is Comcast encrypting basic cable. Its to stop people pirating cable. But it ends up hurting everybody else who actually pays for cable and the FCC rubber stamped a solution that hurt any form of open standard in the TV industry QAM requiring cable boxes. It was very interesting that a FCC commissioner just went to work for Comcast conflict of interest be damned. For those of you who says that Comcast is a private business and can do as they like , go back to college and understand that Comcast is a utility and a monopoly so they have to follow certain rules. If you still think Comcast is a private business and can do as they like even though they are a monopoly, they you should be OK with paying over $100 a month for a $40 dollar service and get internet speed a the bottom of the developed world.
posted by Unknown @ 10:19 AM
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