[mike31154]

Yeap, channel overload big time. I can count the ones I watch regularly on one hand. I pay an extra $5 a month for DW TV so I get a bit of a European/International flavour to my programming with NO ADVERTISING! For sports I like to watch the odd soccer match, but those channels are not part of my bundle & cost extra, along with most other programming I find worth watching. I like local news & stuff so I watch CHBC for that and guess who owns the network? Shaw. Last year I dropped a bunch of channels that were making my monthly bill just too hard to take. Trying to spend a little more time in the real world instead of the fake world of 'reality' TV. I could spend hundreds a month if I used their pay per view service! They must think I'm made of money.

I didn't talk much about hardware in my last rant. The Motorola HDTV cable box I purchased when first subscribing to Shaw is somewhat dated by today's standard. I think they're in the process of bringing out new ones. Another reason I'm hesitant to switch providers is the hardware. That stuff is getting obsolete almost as soon as it hits the market these days, just like LEDs or even TVs themselves. I thought I made a pretty good buy a few years back with my LCD TV, but the thing's already a dinosaur. Only one DVI input, no 3D and certainly no 120 Hz refresh rate. Back to the Shaw cable box. It's a power hog, warm, even hot to the touch even with the TV off. I measured the wattage last year & the thing uses over 40 watts just by being plugged in. It needs to be powered to retain the Guide & Menu info, but I've started unplugging the thing at night now. This means it takes 5 to 10 minutes after plugging back in to get all the Guide info loaded back up. I can live with that to save the wasted KWhrs of having the thing plugged in 24/7. Might not seem like much, but over the long term, that's a lot of wasted power.

The box also comes with a myriad of inputs such as USB, ethernet, smart card etc. None of these are enabled so pretty much useless. I phoned Shaw one day to ask why and/or how I could use these ports & they had no clue. I got the proverbial Catch 22. The box manual says to contact your service provider about those features & the service provider Shaw, says to get the information from the manual. I did not buy the box with the hard drive for PVR option. They wanted way too much extra for a stupid hard drive inside the box. I managed to find the info on the net (some home theater forum) on how to use my notebook hard drive connected to the box to record programming. One of the Shaw reps I talked to said "Really, how did you do that?". Duh. Anyhow, conventional hard drives are quickly being replaced by Solid State drives. So all you folks with the built in PVR hard drives already have dinosaurs as well. This is another reason I wouldn't be too hasty to switch at the moment. Not sure what Telus Optik hardware has in it, but I doubt they are Solid State drives at this point. We're only now seeing the odd notebook computer being offered with Solid State drives & they're still pretty pricey. Either way, PVR is not an option I'm that excited about. If I'm not home to watch something, so be it. Can always catch up by streaming or web cast on the interweb.

Whew! Another novel...