i am very pissed at time-warner right at this moment, i got the usual, and inevitable, january price increase, but this time it was way over the line.

i was paying $5 a month for the DVR and $5 a month for the channel changing set top box (both contained in the same unit by the way), so $10 a month to change channels and record shows.

now, without the channel changer i CANNOT watch any of the hi-res shows on the digital tiers that time warner offers, which is anything above channel 99 (with an exception here and there).

and yes, i know that i CHOOSE to record and i don't really NEED the DVR, as the rep kindly pointed out to me.

so, back the point:

the channel changer, which I MUST have to use the product i am buying form them went form $5 month to $11.75 a month. (it's like selling a car without a steering wheel and then charging more if you want one and you want it to work)

and

the DVR (which i know i CHOOSE to have) went from $5 to $12.99

so my monthly $10 bill to change channels and record shows increased to $24.24 a month, nearly a 250% increase.

and then they wonder why people are leaving cable in droves.

this week i will check out prices on dish and direct TV.

and i find it amazing that you cannot purchase one of these boxes anywhere. how come no one has them for sale?

The set top box is proprietary. There are 3rd party DVRs I think though.

yes, TIVO, and ROKU, i believe are the most popular, but i think you still need their channel changer.

My girlfriend had Time Warner cable.

She ditched their cable TV altogether for Hulu and Netflix.

She pays considerably less and has considerably more choices. She loves it.

Roku is not a dvr. It's a streaming set top box.

Call them back and tell them you can't live with their price increases and you're going with DirectTV. That may shake them up to the point that they decide to be reasonable...

It sounds like they are going all digital and are giving up the analog channels. Unfortunately, 12.99 is pretty much the going rate for DVRs but I do think that the remote is too much. They really should treat you better.

This. COX is doing the same. An extra $2 per TV in most markets, my market is lucky enough to be charged an extra $3 per TV. The result has been a run on digital antennae.

That Time Warner price increase is way out of line. And its not that their hurting, their stock is a leader in their tier.

Rick A.

DirecTV charges $5 or $6 per month for the DVR stuff. I think they've been giving new subscribers free HDTV (screw us old customers, who have to pay for it). If you have multiple TVs, you can get wireless units for those, which is nice, but they do charge extra for each of those.

At the risk of having to ban myself, I agree with Chris. Think about cutting the cord. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, YouTube ... those options cover a lot of ground, and much less expensively than cable.

Unless you want to watch local sports.
I can not watch the Twins on the MLB package, nor the Wild on the NHL.

I would like some sort of tv revolution though.
I don't mind paying for what I watch, but I pay for so much that I don't.
As I checked all the HD channels, I counted 32 of 116 that I actually would pay to have.

I've been lucky: The city I live in has there own CTV & Internet system. It's quite good & slightly below market priced. Unfortunately, they don't usually go into mobile home parks, so it looks like i'm going to have to downgrade to comcrud or last Century Unlinked. NOT PLEASED.

Renny: my understanding is the problem with the dishes (especially on the internet) is bad weather = poor to no reception. That's also the case with digital over the air TV.

I have a dish and it really doesn't go out much but it can get just as expensive as cable.

You're banned!

(I always wanted to say that to you. )

Was it good for you?

well, i pissed and moaned and played a couple of cards i had in my back pocket and time-warner not only relented, but my bill is now $4 LOWER (you read that correctly) than it was before they raised the prices.

they are really and truly one fucked-up company, just think of all the people that they raise their prices for and never question it, and just pay their bill.

so, i found this out too: my bill, my mother-in-law's bill, my friends bill and and a person i teach with's bill are all different and we all have the exact same services......you figure it out, cause i just don't get it.

He's smoking, isn't he?

It can get expensive. At least according to my wife.

As for the weather, yes, bad weather can make it go out. But it takes really heavy rain or a fair amount of snow and/or ice buildup on the dish. I had a cover on my dish for a couple years - apparently it was coated, and that wore off. It was great the first year, but then any time we had rain, I'd lose signal. Took the cover off, and the drop outs are significantly reduced.

It's been 25 years since we had cable here, but we used to lose cable a lot. My only cable now is internet, and it's pretty reliable.

Comcast sucks too. i just noticed that they did something really shady - one of the channels that used to be in the basic cable lineup (CMT) is still in the basic cable space (2-99), but it's suddenly become a HD channel. The SD feed of that channel is now in the premium section 500 something). I don't normally watch that channel, but there was a movie on that I was going to put on (Gran Torino) when I figure out what they had done.