Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Lies from the cable company - part II...

When the installer came to hook up the digital adapters on the analog TVs and the HD box on the big screen, he told us the new flat screens in the living room and kitchen were all ready to go.  Nothing was needed for them.  We don't use either of those TVs often so it was several days after the change over that I discovered neither TV would go past channel 11.  When I called MediaCom, I believe my call was answered in India.  A very, very polite young man kept apologizing and telling me each TV needed a digital receiver at a cost to me of $7.95 each/month.  So, another $16.00 on our cable bill.  Ask me if I was livid?

Back to the internet.  I decided between an extra $16.00/month or just watching channels 2-11 (which includes ABC, CBS, NBC and Judge Judy), we would put up with the limited number of channels.  And then I discovered that if you hooked up a digital adapter (like for the analog TVs) to a VCR and hooked up the VCR to the TV, you could use the VCR to tune the TV.  We happen to have a spare VCR for the kitchen and the living room TV has its own VCR.  We just went down to Media Com and picked up two more digital adapters for a whopping $.99/month each.  When we got home, I was just playing around and attached the digital adapter to the TV without the VCR.  Guess what?  It works just fine and we get channels 2 - 127 on the TV.  I suspect the same will be true of the living room TV.

So:  I would suggest that Media Com train their employees about their equipment - what it will and won't do.   We actually had two employees who lied to us.  The installer who said the TVs would be fine, no additional equipment needed and the customer service rep who said the two TVs needed a digital receiver, otherwise they would not work.

All of our TVs now work correctly except the analog TV with the VCR inside it.  We've left it as is.  I can record quite a few of the shows that I normally record with it, the rest I will watch on my computer.  I love progress.....

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