TV And Films

The shows and movies I like (or don’t).

UtiliTV

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As long as I’m babbling about the boob tube and whining about cable pricing, I might as well toss out my pie-in-the-sky, never-going-to-happen concept for what I want as an option. I actually have two possible concepts, both of which seem like they’d be very doable in the present or soon-to-exist all-digital world.

  1. A-la-carte: Get rid of these ridiculous “bundles” that give me seven channels that I’d pay attention to and sixty-three that I’d ignore. Show me your lineup and let me put my own bundle together. Give me what I want to watch (local channels, Discovery, History, Sci-Fi, etc.), and don’t force me to pay for crap that I’ll never pay attention to (the six thousand variations of QVC, foreign language channels, etc.). I don’t have any issues with paying for content that I’m interested in, but I do have issues with paying for content that I’m not interested in.

  2. TV as a Utility: Open the pipe and give me access to everything, but track what I watch and bill me for what I watch. Watching a few shows here and there is a small bill, feeling lonely and desperate for company and leaving the TV on 24/7 is a larger bill. Bill me for what I actually consume, not what you hope I might try to consume in my most desperate, anti-social, couch-potato moments of depression.

I don’t expect that either of these options are likely to appear anytime soon, if ever, but they make a lot more sense to me than any of the current pay-TV models do.

Maybe @comcastcares after all!

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Back when Prairie and I moved into this apartment, we ended up with Comcast cable. I wasn’t super excited about this, given all the horror stories about Comcast’s customer service floating about the ‘net, but we didn’t have much choice. Over the air TV reception in the Kent valley is nearly nonexistent, and we’re on the wrong side of the building to get a DirecTV connection.

So we signed up for Comcast’s most basic, entry level, all analog “Limited Basic” package. $18 a month gets us local channels plus a few extras, and our favorite surprise in the package was Channel 99 CBUT, Vancouver BC’s CBC affiliate. We watched almost nothing but CBUT during the Olympics, and still tune in from time to time, having become fans of Canadian TV, and especially their sports (during the Olympics, they actually recognized that there were other countries competing) and news coverage (their coverage of the US Elections was an interesting break from the US media). In any case, our cable package isn’t fancy — we don’t even have a cable box, but just run the coax straight from the wall to the TV — but it’s enough for us.

Yesterday I stumbled across an article about Comcast Seattle’s upcoming digital transition. While separate from the broadcast digital transition, it’s the same basic idea (replacing high-bandwidth analog with low-bandwidth digital) and, through somewhat unfortunate timing, will be occurring at about the same time as the broadcast switch. Since our package is analog, I was understandably curious about what to expect.

According to the article, “Customers with limited basic — just channels 2-29 — won’t be affected at all. Those channels will stay analog, so those customers can still just plug their cable into a new or old TV.” So far so good…but what about those channels above 29 that we’re currently receiving? Admittedly, there aren’t a lot of them, but there are a few, including those friendly Canadians. Are we going to lose them? And if so, would we really have to nearly triple our monthly cable bill in order to keep them around (since the lowest digital package that Comcast offers is a ridiculous $56/month)?

I figured I’d see if I could get a quick answer. I’d been following the comcastcares Twitter account for some time, after stumbling across some of the impressive stories about their customer service approach, and fired off a couple brief tweets.

It’s hard for me to believe that @comcastcares when their TV tiers jump from $18/mo (bare bones analog) to $56/mo (entry level digital). #

@comcastcares BTW, that isn’t a rant at you or the stellar customer service you do through Twitter. I just think TV pricing is horrendous. #

@comcastcares When you go all digital in Seattle http://xrl.us/o2kzp will I lose the channels above 30 I currently get with Limited Basic? #

A little bit later that evening, he came back to me with a preliminary answer:

@djwudi I have to get the specifics but as I understand it all channels above 30 will not be available. I will find out more tomorrow #

Not bad — within just a couple hours, I had a response. Admittedly, not an encouraging response, but a response. Then, this morning, I woke up to find that within an hour after he’d responded, he’d referred me to a local Comcast representative, who told me the following:

@djwudi Hi,Re:Comcast–You will not lose channels, you will actually get more. If you have basic cable, we’ll give you very small conver … #

@djwudi Oops, meant to add that Comcast will give you (free of charge) a small box that will allow you to get additional channels. #

I’m guessing that the “small box” that Shauna is referring to here is the “DTA” also being provided to multiple-TV basic digital subscribers.

…Comcast decided to also start providing a secondary type of cable box to homes with multiple TVs.

Called a “DTA,” this device is about the size of a box of frozen spinach and can be mounted behind a TV. It allows the TV to display channels 30 and above without a full cable box. They do not record shows, display program guides or enable rentals like a full box.

So, if I’m understanding this correctly, sometime around the February switchover, Comcast should be providing us with one (or hopefully two, as we have two TVs) DTAs that will allow us to keep our Limited Basic bare-bones service, while still getting the channels we’ve been receiving…and possibly a few more. Not bad.

Also of note (to me, at least) is just how effective and easy this was. I’m used to “customer service” that actually prevents me from even making an attempt (calling Quest, for instance, involves navigating through a phone tree at a call center that operates on East Coast time, even though their customer service pages simply list hours of operation with no time zone listed, so us West Coasters don’t realize that closing at 6pm really means closing at 3pm when we’re still at work until we call and get nowhere). Being able to toss off a short, quick note and get a useful and polite response within a few hours is wonderful.

Comcast the corporate behemoth may very well have its fair share of issues (and then some — I must be honest, I’m not at all convinced that I’d trust my internet connection to them), but — at least on the Twitter level — Comcast’s employees are doing some very nice work.

Somewhat coincidentally, this morning Frank (the man behind comcastcares) posted on his personal weblog about his personal customer service philosophy, and it’s clear just why he does such good work. If only more people and companies would approach their customers with this kind of mindset.

I have seen a lot of press and blog posts about the efforts of my team on the web. I have always been surprised by this because I do not see what I am doing as that special. If you review how I defined Customer Service, you will notice that I believe it is everyone’s responsibility to talk with Customers. I also believe that it is important to be where they are when possible. The internet provides that ability.

To me if I hear someone talking about the company I work for I always offer to help. I have done this at parties, on the street, and one time in a Verizon Wireless store. I never have done it in a negative way. I would just say let me assist, here is my business card. My business card has my email, office phone and my cell phone clearly listed on it. It is very simple. “Let me know if I can help.”

So now we look at engagement in social media spaces. In many cases I write simple messages, “Can I help” or “Thank you.” I do not use the time to sell which many marketers have tried to do. Yet these simple acknowledgements have led to many sales. The key is to be genuine and willing to sincerely listen and help. I never press, I simply provide the opportunity for someone to obtain assistance. For me if I saw someone who wanted or needed help anywhere, I would be happy to assist. As many of you know I have been known to do this many hours of the day, but that is because if I see someone that needs help, and if I can, I will.

I didn’t even have a major issue, but between comcastcares and ShaunaCausey, it was a good experience. Thanks, you two!

Now we’ll just wait and see what happens come February. ;)

To Blu or Not To Blu?

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For Christmas this year, Prairie and I have decided to treat ourselves and upgrade our TV set from the one I bought when I moved to Seattle seven and a half years ago (!!!!!). It’s a nice enough TV (a Sony Wega 27-inch), but it’s huge, heavy, and while still in good shape, it’s old tech. The original plan was to wait until it died, but between Sony’s generally good longevity (my parents had a little Sony 13″ TV that went for almost thirty years) and my geeky techno-lust, Prairie surprised me by suggesting that we go ahead and upgrade to the new hotness.

So, the hunt is in progress. At this point, I’m pretty much decided on a 32″ Samsung, most likely either the LN32A550 or the LN32A650, depending on where prices land in the weeks between Black Friday and Christmas.

Of course, with the jump to an HDTV comes the jump to HD programming. Day-to-day entertainment will come courtesy of Comcast — we’re already getting our cable through them, so we’ll just upgrade that to the minimum possible digital/HD package. For movies, though, we’re doing a bit of back-and-forth (though, to be honest, Prairie’s on the “back” — that is, staying with what we have — while I’m on the “forth” side of the discussion).

My movie-loving, technology-geeking little heart tends to go all a-pitter-pat at upgrading to Blu-Ray. I jumped onto the DVD bandwagon as soon as it dropped into the realm of affordability, loved the jump in video and audio quality from my old VHS tapes, and have been looking forward to the next step forward.

Prairie, however, doesn’t really see what all the fuss is about, and her approach is one that I’m having an amusingly tough time arguing against: if we can see the show and enjoy the story, than what’s the big deal? She never saw a big difference between VHS and DVD, doesn’t really care about surround sound (a moot point at the moment, as living in an apartment building means that standard stereo at reasonable levels is far more realistic than full surround and gut-thumping subwoofers — something we really wish our neighbors would realize…), and just doesn’t see the point in adding another piece of electronics and another remote to the stack we have to keep track of already.

I’ve gotta admit, it’s hard to really say, “But…it’s better!” without realizing just how foolish that sounds.

Not that I don’t try. I’d have my geek card revoked if I didn’t at least try.

(And on a not-unrelated-at-all side note, I think it works wonderfully that our respective geek levels generally balance out into reasonable end results. I don’t know how couples made of dual übergeeks can manage!)

In any case, I think part of the conversation is simply the fact that we don’t really know how much of a change we’re going to see when we upgrade. Sure, I’ve looked at all the numbers and can see the mathmatical difference between SD 640×480 and FullHD 1920×1080, I’ve done simple little experiments looking at resolution increases, and I’ve been working with digital photography long enough that I can get a feel for the difference betweeen a .3 megapixel image and a 2 megapixel image (the approximate difference between SD and FullHD). But running numbers and reading webpages is no substitute for actually seeing what happens when we plug it all together.

So I tried a little experiment today, and tossed out two questions on Twitter…

You who’ve moved from “old school” TV to a new HDTV (pref. w/some form of HD feed): is it really that big of a difference? Turned up to 11?

Same question, part 2: Along the same lines, how about the DVD to Blu-Ray transition? Again, is it that much visibly better?

…and got the following responses:

  • axsdeny: DVD to Blu-Ray: yes. If you have even a 720p TV you can tell the difference. It’s beautiful.
  • lyracole: i don’t notice the difference between my standard and hd, but sir does. also, fuck blu-ray.
  • stoppableforce: w/r/t the difference between SDTV and HDTV: YES. YES. DEAR GOD YES. The difference in clarity is A-FUCKIN’-MAZING.
  • stoppableforce: w/r/t the DVD-to-Blu-Ray thing: Not so much. We’ve got both, Blu-Ray looks slightly better, not enough to make me buy a PS3 yet.
  • mellzah: I hate to admit it, but blu-ray looks great. DVDs don’t look sharp on my TV– non-HD projection 50ish inch–but Blu-Ray movies do!
  • skyler: Huge difference. I attribute most of it to HDMI, actually. Clearer interference free signal. Xbox 360 + 1080p is great w/DVDs.
  • antifuse: short answer? Yes. Longer answer? Depends what you watch. Plain DVDs upscaled by Blu ray look fab, and many shows look great too.
  • wnalyd: Finally answering your HDTV question: Heck yeah there’s a difference bwtn HD + SD. Turned up to 17. Wouldn’t go back.

So the final consensus (admittedly, since I used Twitter, drawing from a very weighted sample of at least somewhat geeky-type people), while not clear-cut across the board, seems to be that yes, there is a difference, ranging from “better” to “A-FUCKIN’-MAZING”. We’ll just have to wait and see where we fall along that spectrum with the equipment we have (we’ll have the HDTV and HD cable from Comcast for the pretty pretty pixels, and a non-upconverting DVD/VHS combo deck for movies), and maybe see if I can find anyone with a Blu-Ray player for us to borrow for a night to help us decide if we want to add that piece, too (of course, if the Blu-Ray players don’t drop into affordability, that’ll make the whole point moot as well).

Did I miss anything?

Star Trek Original Series DVD Choices Suck

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Prompted in no small part by the upcoming movie, I’ve been on a complete Star Trek kick lately. I’ve been reading Star Trek novels like they’re going out of style (check out my library sorted by what I’ve read most recently for an idea), I’ve been jonesing to watch the movies, one by one, in order (though I don’t know when I’m going to manage that, as Prairie is decidedly not of a mind to do any such thing…the things she has to put up with, living with a geek…), and I’m really noticing a pretty glaring gap in my DVD collection. While I’ve got the entirety of TNG and DS9 on DVD, I don’t have the ones I grew up with. I don’t have the original series.

And, sadly, I don’t think I will anytime soon, because the current choices…well, they aren’t good.

When Star Trek was first being released to DVD, the ‘season set’ trend hadn’t kicked in, so they were initially being released on the same model of the old VHS collections: two episodes per DVD, with two DVDs released every few months. Slow going, and expensive. I made it about halfway through Season One when those were first being released, then gave up, and eventually sold the DVDs off.

The second stab was a bit better, collecting an entire season in a set. In all honesty, these are the sets I’d like to have. However, they’re out of production, and I remember them being priced pretty high. No matter what they were priced originally, they’re rather ridiculously priced now: Amazon has the full three seasons for $199.99 used — that’s $67 per season! If I actually wanted a new set, it’d be $400! I like Trek, but I’m not that dedicated. Even eBay only brings the full collection down to the $150 range…better (but not great), if the price doesn’t get pushed up too high, if the seller doesn’t ship you scratched, crappy disks, and if you’re willing to take the risk of eBay — which I’m not.

Then there’s the current releases. They’re all overpriced, at around $80 each, or $200 for the full three seasons (come on, most TV season sets are now in the $30 range, and even the full 40-disc 7-season Buffy set is under $200), Season One is a weird hybrid normal DVD and HD-DVD (which is unplayable for me) that would keep me from accessing all the special features…and to top it all off, they’re the new “remastered” versions. Now, I’ve heard good things about the work done on the remastered episodes, and I wouldn’t really mind owning those versions…if the originals were included as well (gee, does this sound familiar, Star Wars fans?).

I don’t want my only option to be the new, George Lucas inspired, “we’ve got to put new special effects in or noone will want to watch this show anymore, even though it’s been consistently popular for forty years” versions. I want the show that my dad introduced me to. The show that had me pointing excitedly somewhere behind me and over my shoulder, exclaiming “Speeeeshhh!” as the Enterprise flew by in the opening credits. The show I grew up with, that I watched whenever I had the chance, that Royce and I would quote lines at each other from, that influenced my ongoing love of science fiction. The show that got me to my first ‘con, many, many years ago in Anchorage.

And right now, I can’t get it.

And I’m annoyed.

Meh.

(On the bright side, at least I’m not posting about politics….)

Pushing Daisies: Candy-Coated Family Friendly?

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Pushing Daisies is one of my favorite shows on TV right now — wonderfully quirky, and often feels to me like what might have happened if Edward Scissorhands-era Tim Burton had gone into television. The Disney Weblog has been doing weekly wrapups, and something about this week’s review got under my skin a little bit.

(Since what follows hinges upon the final shot of the show, I’ll pop it under the cut to avoid spoilers…)

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Obama, Meet Bartlet

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There’s a New York Times column where West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin writes a bit of political ‘fanfic’: what advice could Barack Obama get from former president Jed Bartlet?

OBAMA They pivoted off the argument that I was inexperienced to the criticism that I’m — wait for it — the Messiah, who, by the way, was a community organizer. When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude. How is that a liability?

BARTLET Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.

I love that line: “The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.” So sadly true.

Then, leading into a rant more than worthy of some of the best West Wing episodes…

OBAMA The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?

BARTLET Well … let me think. …We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know … I’m a little angry.

OBAMA What would you do?

BARTLET GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

Oh, but how I miss Jed Bartlet. What I wouldn’t give to see Martin Sheen step back into character and let that little rant fly.

(via MeFi)

Star Trek Story Record #8 (BR 513)

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Star Trek Story Record #8 (Front)

Star Trek Story Record #8 (Front), originally uploaded by djwudi.

A treasure I found a long time ago, and recently reacquired from my brother. Star Trek Story Record #8, Power Records BR 513, still in the shrink wrap. This set includes the LP and a comic book with two stories: A Mirror for Futility by Alan Dean Foster, and The Time Stealer by Cary Bates and Neal Adams. While there’s a little bit of damage to the top right corner (it looks like it got nibbled at while in storage at some point) so I can’t claim perfect mint condition, since most of the shrink wrap is still intact, I assume the record and comic are both still mint. From this eBay search it looks like I could get as much as $60 for this if I wanted to…I’m just not sure that I want to!

Kevin Smith Hasn’t Seen the New Star Trek Film

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Really. Thanks to TrekMovie.com for posting this excerpt from a radio interview with Kevin…

Host: So thumbs up on The Watchmen, what else you got?

Smith: I saw a movie last night that I cannot talk about.

Host: Was it good?

Smith: It was phenomenal.

Host: Any stars, any break out stars, and do they trek?

Smith: The stars absolutely trek in this film. It is fantastic. Anybody who was worried doesn’t need to be worried–about this film I cannot talk about…It was in very capable hands. The director did a phenomenal job–the director and his crew. Top notch cast and the guy that plays the lead is an instant star. That dude is going to be so famous. He is so wonderful. He picked up a role that I would say is pretty challenging for someone to step into the shoes of, because it is a role that has been played before many times by the same guy.

Host: How do you out Shatner, Shatner?

Smith: I don’t know what you are talking about.

Host: I was just saying that as an expression.

Smith: Yes, absolutely, in a world of expressions, I would agree with that…I am so not good with this game, you are going to bury me man.

Host: We had you on before The Dark Knight and I remember asking you if you could direct a movie like Dark Knight and you said ‘hell no’ it was so far out of your sphere…but I bring that up to preface this. Let’s say a franchise like Star Trek, not that you have seen the movie or we are talking about the movie, but we are talking about it for example. That is something that is so dangerous to attempt. Is that the kind of project you would like to do? Would you like to be the guy who gets to do a movie like that?

Smith: I would not like to be the guy. In the case of something like Star Trek, it would take a really insanely talented filmmaker–storyteller. Like in the case of Star Trek, JJ Abrams. So leave it to the people who are best equipped for it. I am just the guy who should be watching those movies.

More on Pixar (Or, Why I Suck at Soundbites)

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A couple weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Jaime Weinman, who writes for Macleans (in her words, “sort of Canada’s TIME and NEWSWEEK”), asking for a quote for an article she was working on about Pixar’s future. I agreed, and in my usual style, sent her a small book. The final article was published late in June, and — proving yet again that I just cannot write for soundbites — my quote was boiled down to one simple line:

[Non-Pixar animated films] follow the Pixar example in some respects; they’ve especially learned from the fact that Pixar’s movies all focus on male characters and appeal the most to boys. (Michael Hanscom, a computer analyst who blogs at michaelhanscom.com, dubbed WALL-E “MISOGYN-E” and says that while he likes Pixar, he’s not going to see their movies in theatres “until we see some evidence that they’ve let a girl into the clubhouse to play.”) But for the most part, these movies are far away from Pixar’s artist-oriented approach.

Heh. Not at all inaccurate (except, perhaps, for titling me a ‘computer analyst,’ as flattering as that is) — and believe me, this is not a complaint, I don’t envy Jaime or her editors the task of boiling my response down to something that would fit within the scope of the article — but for the sake of completion, under the jump is my full response to her question. If you’ve read my earlier posts on this matter, there are no big surprises awaiting.

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