Remember when cable cost $18 a month and there were no commercials?

[elmo3]

I pay $60/month--but that pays for both cable TV *and* 6 megabit broadband.

Combine that with the ReplayTV (both of them), and I'm a happy camper.

[olnacl]

I have ReplayTVs and before that Showstoppers and just bought a Series 3 TiVo in order to escape the SA8300HD monstrosity that Comcast (nee Adelphia) foisted on me. I hooked the TiVo up to an indoor antenna and tried to watch some news shows the first day (hadn't made any recordings yet) and I couldn't believe how frustrating it was to watch live TV. I was anxioyus to try out the TiVo, but after a half hour I just scheduled a few shows and went back to the RTV until I had some recorded content to watch. I think I could have lived with the SA if it had 30 second skip, but dealing with the ff and reverse to wade through the commercial drivel was just too much.

[JoeH]

$55 a month now for Comcr@p extended basic service and no digital, internet, or VOIP add-ons. Was paying less than half that 10 years ago, have the check registers to prove it. Would have gone to satellite years ago but large trees on neighbors' properties block line of sight. As for commercials, the ones that annoy me the most are ones that Comcr@p sticks in on various channels. They are always getting the time codes wrong and stomping on the beginning or end of part of the show broadcast. Add that they have programmed their emergency broadcast test cut ins to happen about 3 times as often as required by the regulations, and I am so waiting for FIOS so I can wave goodbye to them. At least I convinced their phone sales force to never call me again, won't go into that.

[estnyc]

Between Roadrunner, Digital Cable, HDTV, two recorder boxes, one digital, one HDTV, and HBO/Cinemax, I pay a bit over $150/mo. I've just about decided this is effing ridiculous. Here in NYC, Time Warner has very clever multi-tiered pricing so that no matter what level you're currently buying, for just an eensy bit extra you can get so much more. Conversely, you don't save all that much by canceling stuff. If I cancel EVERYTHING except Roadrunner (which is great, WHEN IT WORKS), I'd still pay about $60/mo. I wonder if I can get unscrambled QAM if all I'm ponying up for is Roadrunner.

I'm beginning to think I should say the heck with it and get whatever I must watch off the Internet.

I'm also thinking of saying the heck with Roadrunner and going with Verizon's $30 or 35"naked" DSL. On paper, it doesn't offer as good numbers as Roadrunner, but my Roadrunner dies about five times a week.

[JoeM]

I'm going to look into replay or Tivo but wasn't there talk of them doing something so you couldn't bypass commercials?

My new kvetch is the @^%#$ animated ads in the lower third for upcoming programming that some networks like USA, TNT slide in while you are watching a program.

Can't these basteards leave us alone for the frickin' 3 minutes of program we get between their main programming, the commercials?

[lafinfil]

I remember when it was only OTA and there wasn't even any picture!



Oh wait - that's radio

[tuqqer]

Another big fan of a Tivo-type device. We simply don't watch any TV that isn't first recorded. Even if we come across something that we want to watch right now, we record it, and go away for 15 minutes. That allows us enough forward time to be able to zip through the comercials. And JoeM: Tivo doesn't erase the commercials. It just allows you to hit the "Go Forward 15 seconds" button, which you can then push 6 to 8 times in rapid succession to get to the next segment of what you're watching. Takes about 4 seconds total each advertisement section. Once you get used to this method, it's the only way to watch anything on cable/dish.

[davester]

[quote JoeM]I'm going to look into replay or Tivo but wasn't there talk of them doing something so you couldn't bypass commercials?
There is no way that Replay will change their commercial skip, so I'm hanging on to mine until it the remote is pried from my cold dead fingers.

The only way to automatically skip commercials is to buy a used 50xx or older model Replay. The newer (though still used) Replay 55xxs have manual skip which is not as good, and I believe that some of the TiVos can be hacked to give a manual skip (though I don't have one so I'm not sure about that). The downside of the 50xx Replay (and all except the most recent TiVo) is that it can only handle standard definition broadcasts, and the company that owns replaytv has stopped developing new hardware, so there is no HDTV in its future. Perhaps eyetv or Replay series 3 is the way to go, though fast forward is not an acceptable alternative to commercial skip and I'm not sure that the series 3 can be hacked to do it.

[elmo3]

The only way to automatically skip commercials is to buy a used 50xx or older model Replay.

Or get/build a MythTV box. MythTV is way cool.

The newer (though still used) Replay 55xxs have manual skip which is not as good,

The manual skip is 100% identical to the automatic skip, except for the automatic part. The viewer must push the button to invoke it.

But it uses the same mechanism that auto skip uses to mark the commercial breaks. In fact, a show recorded on the 5500 can be played back on a 5000 over the network, and the 5000's auto commercial skip will see the markers and auto skip.

[Don C]

Saturday I turned on the HD recorder and went dancing. Upon returning home, I watched both NCAA final four games, fast forwarding through every time out, both half times AND the break between games. Aside from rewinding a few times to see how a play developed, it took 60 minutes to watch each game.

A GREAT way to watch!

Last fall I recorded a football game and was not able to fast forward through the commercials. Don't know what was different that made that broadcast play only as broadcast. I thought it might be because i recorded in HDTV, but Saturday's games were HDTV too, so it must have been something else.