Channel suddenly moves to premium with no notice

Channel suddenly moves to premium with no notice
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tzs @ 21st Jul 02:57PM:
Channel suddenly moves to premium with no notice

A friend of mine told me an interesting story this morning. He found that all his scheduled recordings on the Speed Channel came up blank. When he tuned to the channel, it said he was not authorized.

He called Comcast, and they told him that Speed had been moved to the sports package. No advance notification--they just suddenly moved it. According to Comcast, it was always supposed to be there, and it was a mistake that it had been included in non-premium packages for these last few years. They just noticed the mistake and fixed it. Would he like a one month free trial of the sports package?

His DirectTV is being installed today.

I find it hard to believe it would take them years to notice a channel being mistakenly free.
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neufuse @ 21st Jul 03:08PM:
Re: Channel suddenly moves to premium with no notice

There is always a notice... it's required by law.. you just might not of saw it or even look where they put them
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goober22 @ 21st Jul 05:50PM:
Re: Channel suddenly moves to premium with no notice

said by tzs :

I find it hard to believe it would take them years to notice a channel being mistakenly free.

My mother received HBO free for 8 years after it first rolled out in the late 70's. She thought it was a free channel added as part of her cable subscription. Comcast (originally Cablevision - originally Clearview Cable) failed to install a trap after the 30 day preview. 8 years later, a system-wide re-wire found the error and a trap was installed on the line.

Mistakes do happen and the fact that he had it by omission does not mean he should keep on receiving it after the error was discovered.
--
Certified Jenius!
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Greg_Z @ 21st Jul 06:45PM:
Re: Channel suddenly moves to premium with no notice

said by tzs :

A friend of mine told me an interesting story this morning. He found that all his scheduled recordings on the Speed Channel came up blank. When he tuned to the channel, it said he was not authorized.

He called Comcast, and they told him that Speed had been moved to the sports package. No advance notification--they just suddenly moved it. According to Comcast, it was always supposed to be there, and it was a mistake that it had been included in non-premium packages for these last few years. They just noticed the mistake and fixed it. Would he like a one month free trial of the sports package?

His DirectTV is being installed today.

I find it hard to believe it would take them years to notice a channel being mistakenly free.

There has been plenty of notice. As for DirectTV, unless this has been a thought of his for sometime, just because one channel moved to a better package, is no reason to go with Satellite.
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tzs @ 22nd Jul 12:10AM:
Re: Channel suddenly moves to premium with no notice

I don't think I was clear, goober22. It wasn't just my friend getting it by "accident". I had it free too, as long as I've had Comcast TV, which is well over two years, at two different locations. It looks like it was free for everyone with anything beyond the basic package.

I can understand them not noticing an isolated customer's account being misconfigured to authorize a channel by mistake, but not noticing that a channel is free for nearly everyone in a county? That seems hard to believe.
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tzs @ 22nd Jul 01:00AM:
Re: Channel suddenly moves to premium with no notice

DirectTV was always a thought. Both he and I had been long-time DirectTV customers before switching to Comcast. Neither of us had any problem with DirectTV, but switched to Comcast for other reasons. (I happened to need new internet and phone service, and adding TV let me get a good Triple Play deal).

Changing one of his favorite channels with no notice (and there was, in fact, no notice as far as I can tell...no messages on the DVR, and nothing in the mail) was just the last straw. The crappy DVR, the reduction of the number of lines of show information in the guide to make room for ads (we just got that here a few weeks ago), and the poor picture quality on several channels was the build up.

What I mean by poor picture quality is that several channels (notably Comedy Central and Discovery, and to a lesser extent on History and SciFi) have problems with certain colors. If there is a scene with an area of solid yellow, it will have several vertical lines in the yellow. Here's a photo showing the problem:

»www.tzs.net/yellow.jpg

Note the yellow in Pip's hair, and the edge of the desks. There are other artifacts in that picture due to JPEG, and using a P&S camera without a tripod, but the vertical lines in the yellow is an accurate representation of the TV picture.

That's on Comedy Central. That same scene, when shown on the local channel that runs syndicated South Park, would be excellent, with no signs of those lines in the yellow.
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