Posted on 11/17/2010 9:27:44 AM PST by Slyscribe
U.S. cable TV operators lost 741,000 basic video customers in the third quarter, research firm SNL Kagan reported Wednesday. That’s the single largest quarterly drop for cable since SNL Kagan began compiling data for the segment in 1980.
Cable’s share of the multichannel pay television market continues to slide, dipping to 60.3% from 62.9% in Q3 2009.
Gains in telecom and satellite TV services were not enough to offset the loss of cable subscribers, so the overall multichannel pay-TV market lost 119,000 customers last quarter.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.investors.com ...
I say wrong. Most TV for sale these days seem to have 1080P. If you want to also use it as a computer monitor, you are giving up inexpensive resolution increase.
Maybe you should get some glasses (I have a couple of pairs) to be able to see the difference.
Note that broadcast digital TV seems to have higher resolution than that cable stuff.
For a number of years (until 1080P LCDs got to my price range) I used a recycle store 23" CAD/CAM tube monitor (~$25) and a $100 game composite/S-video to VGA output converter and an old VCR (for the channel selection). My wife wasn't happy, but it's all over now.
If you are serious about tv over the web, check out www.Boxee.tv...... that is the future (so my geek son tells me.)
Boxee goes on the web and finds tv for you. Not only hulu but other places as well. It too is free. I run it on my lap top connected to the HD TV as a second monitor.
My laptop is old and has cheap graphics card so I can’t watch Hulu but can watch movies on my hard drive and some web movies.
Boxee has developed and very recently offered a box for sale that is a wireless web computer that eliminates the need for a computer.
If youare interested, check out Hulu and the network sites to understand how they provide stuff. Then get boxee and try it out as a common interface for all the various internet offerings.
It is all free, with some limited commercials but is the future. The cable companies are going to be left with only internet and telephone before very long
I’ll check them out.
see also my post 103 on Boxee if you haven’t been there.
Which will precipitate the most important change of all: WE will pick what/when to watch instead of the other way 'round.
Doesn't sound like much, but that's the biggest change yet that will be wrought by the interweb thingy.
for later
Your judgement agrees with mine. I got a Panasonic Viera plasma. It took a bit of fiddling with the color tuning, but the picture is great (of course, my basis for comparison is a 1993 Mitsubishi CRT “big screen” console). Looking forward to trying it out with blu-ray.
Thank you (and your “geek” son (”Geeks” shall rule the world!!” B. Gates - 1981). I’ll check out all the info you and he have provided as soon as I get home from work.
I bought mine at Sears on Black Friday. I do not think that Best Buy or Walmart carried that TV at the time.
No I did not or have ever bought an extended warranty. They are a rip off.
I think Plasma’s are the best product on the market right now. The only downfalls they have is they use more power and the glass refects light. Therefore, close the curtains during the day and don’t leave them on when you leave the room.
I believe 5-10 years from now LED will be the way to go. Just like light bulbs. They need to get in the production cost down. They use almost no electricity, are much lighter weight, thinner and use very little electricity. We could have TV/computers monitors that are 8’ wide , weigh 50 #’s and are less than an 1” thick.
Don’t buy stock in movie theaters or Bestbuy. Their business model is obsolete.
I didnt even think of watching it on the web
thanks for the tip
Wart Dog.....Careful we were looking at plasma, good quality and great pricing, but with the glass on the front of the screen there’s viewing problems in daylight in a room with a lot of windows. Also night time reflections from lamps can be bad also. We ended up with a LCD (I think), great picture and wonderful viewing day or night.
“They pay local broadcast channels about $1 per subscriber.”
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I still can’t believe the broadcasters managed to get paid by cable companies for what is free to anyone with an antenna. It is absurd. You pay for cable and you are paying for local channels that you could get for free with an antenna and you still have to be plagued with commercials. It is getting so even a lot of the cable channels have so much advertising that it is not worth watching. Why do I have to pay a cable fee and still have to have one third of the time taken up with advertising.
We have cable internet but refuse the TV. We are paying a premium of course, but the fiber optic internet service has been extremely reliable.
Plasma tends to use more electricity. My 50 inch gets quite warm. Can feel the heat from the screen up to 3-4 feet away....
They are made of rod.
I don’t know about Fox News. But anything you CAN get on your computer (streaming, etc) you can ship straight to your TV.
I defer to 4mer Liberal, my engineer other half for specifics.
It seems to be free. I confess we haven’t actually used it yet. Let’s see who chimes in about this.
ping
We had an excruciating DSL connection from a local provider. Just swapped for Qwest which is only minimally better. We’re in a new neighborhood and the more people hook up the slower it gets.
Counting the days until Comcast is available.
We shut off the cable about two months ago in favor of using a $30 indoor UHF antenna for HDTV reception. Yes, we are back to the local 5-7 channels, but the picture is STUNNING in its quality compared to cable (we are only 5 miles from the towers). Amazing how little you actually need from cable. Stir in a little Netflix and Redbox and what more do you need?
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