TWC buys Insight

2471 Views 9 Replies 7 Participants Last post by HeatherA, Aug 26, 2011

dlfl

Discussion Starter · Aug 15, 2011

Just saw a streaming banner that TWC has closed a deal to by the outfit that owns Insight Cable TV.

My condolences to the Insight subscribers! (I can guarantee your service will not improve as a result of this.)

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Iluvatar

· #2 · Aug 15, 2011

ack

there goes the neighborhood.

Have many friends in TWC areas that have horrible service and issues. I have had relatively great service from Insight, CCI issues aside.

Well at least Insight has already phased out analog so I shouldn't have to put up with a tuning adapter.

I think TWC buyout was a worst case scenario for the customers

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JPA2825

· #3 · Aug 15, 2011

Count me as skeptically waiting for the transition from Insight to TWC in the NKy (Greater Cincinnati) area. Not happy w/ the CCI issue w/ Insight, but expect nothing different from TWC. We'll see how it goes.

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unitron

· #4 · Aug 16, 2011

dlfl said:
Just saw a streaming banner that TWC has closed a deal to by the outfit that owns Insight Cable TV.

My condolences to the Insight subscribers! (I can guarantee your service will not improve as a result of this.)

As a fellow TWC victim I would advise them not to look for their monthly bill to go down any, or probably even stay the same, unless it stays the same but they get less for it.

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dlfl

Discussion Starter · #5 · Aug 16, 2011

I assume TWC reasons that, since TiVo users comprise well under 1% of their digital cable subscribers, they can afford to ignore us (while pretending otherwise to the FCC). I question their reasoning. My theory is that TiVo users as a group have much greater economic and political influence than the average cable TV subscriber. Thus TWC will eventually pay a far bigger price than they imagine for alienating us. Or not.

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lafos

· #6 · Aug 16, 2011

JPA2825 said:
Count me as skeptically waiting for the transition from Insight to TWC in the NKy (Greater Cincinnati) area. Not happy w/ the CCI issue w/ Insight, but expect nothing different from TWC. We'll see how it goes.

TWC is an industry leader in setting the CCI byte on every possible channel. They even lost a channel a year or so ago (HDNET I think), because the owner did not want the byte set, but TWC did it anyway. Only local broadcast channels are not encrypted.

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lrhorer

· #7 · Aug 17, 2011

Iluvatar said:
ack there goes the neighborhood.

Have many friends in TWC areas that have horrible service and issues. I have had relatively great service from Insight, CCI issues aside.

Well at least Insight has already phased out analog so I shouldn't have to put up with a tuning adapter.

I don't know why you think that. The analog spectrum only represents a few dozen HD channels and zero interactive services such as VOD, IPPV, and TWC's "Start Over". SDV provides the ability to deliver an unlimited number of channels - literally thousands of channels.

Iluvatar said:
I think TWC buyout was a worst case scenario for the customers

That's an exaggeration, but they certainly can look forward (eventually) to utterly lousy customer service and a complete lock-down of their transfer capabilities.

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lrhorer

· #8 · Aug 17, 2011

lafos said:
TWC is an industry leader in setting the CCI byte on every possible channel. They even lost a channel a year or so ago (HDNET I think)

Two Channels: HDNET and HDNETMV, and it was May, 2009, over two years ago. I think Insight may host those channels, in which case the Insight users can probably kiss them goodbye once the contract expires.

lafos said:
because the owner did not want the byte set, but TWC did it anyway.

That may be a bit apocryphal. Certainly it is true that Mark Cuban publicly stated he was opposed to having the byte set on his product. It is also true that shortly thereafter, negotiations to renew the contract with HDNET and HDNETMV were terminated. It is not known whether the negotiations were terminated by Cuban or by TWC. Brighthouse Networks claims TWC refused to pay Cuban's demand for higher prices. Whether this is true or not, and what extent the requirement not to set the CCI byte may have played is unknown. Personally, I don't believe the Brighthouse statement for a second, but we may never know.

lafos said:
Only local broadcast channels are not encrypted.

Encryption is not the issue. Encrypted programming can have its CCI byte set to "copy freely", and then one would be able to transfer to one's heart's content. Conversely, perfectly unencrypted content can have the CCI byte set, in which case it can't be transferred by an unmodified CableLabs Certified device such as the TiVo.

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lafos

· #9 · Aug 17, 2011

lrhorer said:
Two Channels: HDNET and HDNETMV, and it was May, 2009, over two years ago. I think Insight may host those channels, in which case the Insight users can probably kiss them goodbye once the contract expires.

That may be a bit apocryphal. Certainly it is true that Mark Cuban publicly stated he was opposed to having the byte set on his product. It is also true that shortly thereafter, negotiations to renew the contract with HDNET and HDNETMV were terminated. It is not known whether the negotiations were terminated by Cuban or by TWC. Brighthouse Networks claims TWC refused to pay Cuban's demand for higher prices. Whether this is true or not, and what extent the requirement not to set the CCI byte may have played is unknown. Personally, I don't believe the Brighthouse statement for a second, but we may never know.

As you say, the story around HDNet is muddled. Thanks for your clarification

lrhorer said:
Encryption is not the issue. Encrypted programming can have its CCI byte set to "copy freely", and then one would be able to transfer to one's heart's content. Conversely, perfectly unencrypted content can have the CCI byte set, in which case it can't be transferred by an unmodified CableLabs Certified device such as the TiVo.

Yes, I definitely misused the word "encryption". Copy protection is different as you said. Sorry about that.

Even with all that, I see no advantage of being on TWC. I had Mediacom before moving to Ohio, and they did not pair cards nor use the CCI byte. If a competitor ever moves here, I'd give a serious look.

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HeatherA

· #10 · Aug 26, 2011

dlfl said:
Just saw a streaming banner that TWC has closed a deal to by the outfit that owns Insight Cable TV.

My condolences to the Insight subscribers! (I can guarantee your service will not improve as a result of this.)

The worst part of this is that Insight already sucks. We left for WOW in Jan/Feb and haven't regretted it. Now they'll just go from bad to worse. Sad

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