Why on earth can't a company just manufacture a tv that can

[avebury]

receive digital sigals?

My local cable company is going all digital soon and if you don't get a box from them (free for 1 year and monthly fee after that) your tv won't work after that). So of course you bill continues to go up. I have a box on 1 tv and no box on the other. I refuse to get a box for the second tv. Fortunately I rarely turn that other tv on.

I just don't understand why no one is building a tv that can process digital signals without any additional boxes/features. It really irritates me. I am getting closer to just yanking the cable and getting rid of the tv. With the internet there are so many other entertainment/news options either free or at a much lower cost.

[PoliticAverse]

1. Because of encryption which allows the cable company to control what channels you get....

See: https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/cable-system-encryption

[avebury]

2. But in you pay for service from a cable company, their system knows

what channels you pay for. You should just be able to plug their cable into your cable and be good to go. I know a lot of people who don't rent the boxes for all of their tvs but maybe rent a couple and just plug the rest directly to cables. It works just fine and I only get the channels I pay for. The only reason that the cable company is making this change is to force their customers to rent some type of box for every single tv they want to use in their home. It is a racket, pure and simple. To get the same of service I am already getting I would have to rent an additional box that I don't need now.

I commented to the Cable Company that I can see more and more people cutting the cord to cable. With decent internet there are so many ofther options available. I need to take a pledge to not turn the tv on for one full month and judge how close I am to cutting the cord and going internet only.

[Brother Buzz]

3. Them converter boxes can be had for one-two dollars at every thrift store in america

They're in the box will all the 56k modems.

This Luddite is pissed the phone company no longer supports my rotary telephone. I can receive calls, but I can't dial out. What's up with that?

[Iggo]

10. What? Can't dial out on rotary phones anymore?

THAT'S COMPLETE MOTHERFUCKING BULLSHIT!

HOW DARE THEY!??!?!

[ohnoyoudidnt]

4. Idk, but you can buy the converter boxes from other manufacturers instead of rent them

from your cable company.

[Thor_MN]

5. And the boxes have crappy interfaces.

I don't think if I were trying to torture someone with a bad design that I could program something so shitty.

Let me blank out the channels I don't watch, or at least the channels I don't get. Let me choose the order of the channels so I can put similar stuff together. WTF do I have to hit the up arrow to go to lower channel numbers?

[yuiyoshida]

6. I have been without Tv for a long long time...

Most great stuff can be found on the internet including free movies from all over the world. Youtube features free movies, as for TV shows, there are places to see them free as well. The internet provides everything you need including this website! I just love it!! Why pay for more than an internet service? Games are also on the internet as well as great music!

[Kaleva]

7. I switched over to internet streaming with Roku a month or so ago.

We prepaid for Sling TV for 3 months and got a free Roku 2. After the 3 months, we'll probably just cancel as it will be near summer and we have too much outside work to do and little time for tv.

[mnhtnbb]

8. Our cable company did this a year ago and I ordered a box for our bedroom TV

which had just been connected to the basic cable, while we have three other TV's that have
the full boxes/special channels, etc.

I never got around to connecting the box on the bedroom TV until last week. When i opened
the box the instructions said it had to be done within 21 days of receipt or it wouldn't work.
I called the company, the person looked up the serial number and said it could be done.
I got off the phone, hassled with the connection, it ran through it's activation, then reset
and stopped. I called again and this person said, no, I had to go get a new box.

I took the damn box and turned it in. I also protested about the size of my bill while I was at it.
They gave me $60. credit and agreed to reduce our cable bill by $35/month for no change in
service (other than not having these new digital boxes).

I am so fed up with cable companies and the BS of hitting you up for every little damn thing. And no service.
They want you to do everything yourself.

[avebury]

9. I decided to just go ahead and cancel my cable.

My actual data usage on my internet is not that high so I could easily switch over to other online sources to make up for getting rid of cable and save money at the same time.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. Currently manufactured TVs can all get digital broadcast signals over the air

When my cable company went all-digital in 2012, I had a little money on hand, so I decided this was time to buy a digital TV.

Then I investigated a bit and found that Comcast would charge me an extra $10 a month to receive HD cable. Otherwise, I would just get a signal that lacked any detail and looked kind of nearsighted.

So I bought my new TV and a tabletop antenna and experimented: lo and behold, my new TV brought in all the local channels and their digital variants in beautiful HD without any cable connection.

Unfortunately, I still have to have Comcast for Internet, but I'm not paying for sports channels, shopping channels, or fundie channels. Yeah, there are some shopping and fundie channels on broadcast, but I'm not paying for them.

If you live in a good reception area and don't watch sports, there's no reason to have cable. Everything that is worth watching shows up on streaming eventually anyway, and streaming gives you great access to all sorts of foreign programming from English-speaking and other countries around the world.

With my streaming subscriptions, I'm probably paying more than I would be for cable, but I'm paying for what I want to watch.

The cable companies could have reduced competition from streaming if they had instituted a la carte pricing (e.g. any five channels for this price, any ten for that price, etc.) instead of insisting that customers pay for channels they didn't want. But they were stupid and greedy, so instead of paying for five kinds of ESPN and screaming fundamentalists and shopping-channels-for-bored-idiots, I'm watching great dramas from France, Scandinavia, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries, and catching up on U.S. programs that other people recommend.

I used to be a fan of cable, back when channels like History, Discovery, A&E, Bravo, and BBC America were so high-quality that some Congressional Republicans were saying, "See? Who needs PBS when the private sector is providing the same kinds of things?"

But starting after 2000, a couple of conglomerates bought up these channels and began dumbing them down till they were unrecognizable. Viewers protested on the channel websites, but the companies responded by disabling comments.

I dropped down to the lowest tier of cable, local channels plus public access only, in 2005, when BBC America started showing reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Dancing with the Stars (the U.S. version).

Cable companies may not realize that their troubles are their own fault. They are incapable of offering any promotions that could bring me back to paying for garbage.