Calling all SLU/Toothpaste fans in the Capitol District

marty · February 01, 2007, 09:27:45 PM

Time Warner in their brilliance is telecasting the central NY hockey game from Starr on Friday - on Albany/Troy channel 3. So the half dozen hockey fans of these two illustrious teams can watch the damn thing.

Thanks goes out to the same geniuses for not broadcasting the games last week. Helped me get a bit further through the novel I've been reading.

::cuss::

Al DeFlorio · February 01, 2007, 09:30:58 PM

[quote marty]Time Warner in their brilliance is telecasting the central NY hockey game from Starr on Friday - on Albany/Troy channel 3. So the half dozen hockey fans of these two illustrious teams can watch the damn thing.
[/quote]
Hey, Marty, why not invite them all to your house to watch? One six-pack oughta do it.

marty · February 01, 2007, 10:28:52 PM

I was just talking to my RIP fan/friend who reported that TW was hawking the Colgate/Cornell series a week ago - which makes the announcement for this week suspect as well.

jtwcornell91 · February 02, 2007, 04:06:03 AM

bona fide regional sports networks available nationwide via satellite >> chickenshit cable outfits

I'm just sayin...

marty · February 02, 2007, 06:07:00 AM

[quote jtwcornell91]bona fide regional sports networks available nationwide via satellite >> chickenshit cable outfits

I'm just sayin...[/quote]

Sometimes only marginally so.

Even though I can receive CSTV and three regional Fox feeds, the damn cable seems to allot less bandwidth to some channels than others. The four named feeds suck big time. I have to put up with digital artifacts and generally make sure I don't get too close to the set.

TW is coming to the house today supposedly to put in a new drop to the house. We'll see if they 1) show up, 2) do any work (unlike the drone who last visited us) and 3) whether it helps the picture.

::bugeye::

RichH · February 02, 2007, 01:13:52 PM

[quote jtwcornell91]bona fide regional sports networks available nationwide via satellite >> chickenshit cable outfits

I'm just sayin...[/quote]

Alright. I let your snide slams go a couple of times. At three, I'm in.

So what you've said in another thread:

[q]I have a lingering bias against cable broadcasts, since they tend not to be available to people in other parts of the country, as opposed to broadcasts on actual networks which are available via satellite.[/q]

OK, fair enough. Satellite is a marvelous thing for national and worldwide access to events that garner less-than-adequate national or even regional coverage. Collegiate sporting events, more often than not, are usually of regional interest. How many people in the Hartford, CT market care about seeing Oregon football? Not enough to warrant widespread coverage, but I'm sure there are some who are tickled that the Satellite revolution has given access one way or another.

Cable systems have been losing customers to Satellite. Another plus for satellite systems: forcing cable outfits to compete, where they didn't really have to before. One way to compete is to keep rates competitive. We're all in favor of that. Another way is to provide exclusive content to keep customers. All cable systems are regional. Thus providing at least some events of interest to regional customers is a smart thing. CN8, TWC-Sports have all arrived because of the threat of satellite.

Yeah, it sucks for satellite customers, but...and this is my main point...that's the exact same "chicken-shit" that DirecTV has been pulling for years, only they hit with something much more in the heavyweight class...national professional sports. When the NFL Sunday Ticket went exclusive to DTV, I bet the numbers really started switching over to satellite. That was a HUGE Lambeau Leap forward, (sorry), and it probably guaranteed DTV's survival at first. And what just happened now? DirecTV has now signed an exclusive deal to take MLB Extra Innings away from every other provider. That's every bit as chicken-shit (I say even more so since I live in a building where satellite isn't an option) than a central NY cable outfit exclusively broadcasting a central NY collegiate hockey game on their own system, using their own cameras and own staff.

Satellite has been a godsend for the industry for the above reasons and more, and now with telephony providers moving into the TV business, even more competition is coming. So suck it up that DTV can't get Time Warner content. It goes both ways, and both formats are pulling the same stunts, just on different scopes.

Jim Hyla · February 02, 2007, 03:58:02 PM

[quote jtwcornell91]bona fide regional sports networks available nationwide via satellite >> chickenshit cable outfits

I'm just sayin...[/quote]So, excuse me, but what is different from TWCNY doing this, as opposed to the local TV station doing this. Do you think they would sent it over satellite? Excuse me, but I don't think any national will come to CNY and broadcast these games. Try and work on it will you. Otherwise those that can see the games should just be happy and you will get to see those on satellite that we can't get. We just won't complain since we don't suscribe to those bona fide.

billhoward · February 02, 2007, 04:18:47 PM

We may be the most powerful nation in the world, but our cell system sucks and so does alternative TV feeds. In Europe, a 25-megabit internet connection to your tiny (by our standards) house is readily available (and cheap) and you can stream real, broadcast quality TV. Soon HD. You don't need to be restricted by the channel/bandwidth limits of cable TV or satellite TV. You just have to have someone with decent quality cameras at the rink (hello, Lynah) and a reasonable quality feed to the outside world (hello, again, Lynah). That's why I keep hoping Cornell becomes a leader in this, but first it has to divorce itself from boat anchors like CSTV.

marty · February 02, 2007, 05:47:25 PM

Bill,

Or anyone else for that matter,

Do you know if different digital channels get different amounts of bandwidth? The upper tier sports channels on our system look like crap at my location, and the tech couldn't help me with this when he visited my house today.

billhoward · February 02, 2007, 07:04:23 PM

[quote marty]
Do you know if different digital channels get different amounts of bandwidth? The upper tier sports channels on our system look like crap at my location, and the tech couldn't help me with this when he visited my house today.[/quote]

Satellite radio definitely allocates bandwidth differently: most to classical radio, least to talk radio. It may well be the same for TV. HD obviously gets more than standard def. But I dson't know about whether b/w issues would affect picture quality as opposed to making it softer.

marty · February 02, 2007, 09:54:09 PM

I have two types of what I would call digital noise. One looks almost like a snowy quality at the margins of objects, when motion increases in the picture. (The crowd in a basketball or hockey game looks noisy.)

The other is a blockiness that while minor is annoying. The blockiness is similar to the what you can see in a poorly converted DIVX compressed video vs. an original well made low noise DVD.

And the noise seems worse on some of the stations. I haven't noticed it as much on HBO which might be due to higher quality digital transmission on the premium channels.