Sunday, June 05, 2005

Some Petty Spoiled-Brat Gripes

So during Memorial Day Weekend we got an HDTV (which I love) and on Thursday Comcast set us up with an HDTV/Digital Video Recorder cable box (which I like). Here are my two gripes:

1. Comcast runs ads touting their HDTV installation. In them CC states it will connect the sound on the HDTV box to your stereo. CC says the same thing on its Website. Yet the installation guy (who otherwise did a great job) connected the sound to the TV using RCA cables -- rather than to the surround-sound receiver sitting right next to the TV, with an optical cable that would enable the digital Dolby sound. I had to do the optical cable connections myself. That leads to the second petty gripe:

2. For years I've been trying to get true surround sound from broadcast TV. Now I finally get a cable box with an optical cable output, connect it to my TV, and discover there are numerous cable-available stations (even those that do not broadcast in HD) that send out a 5.1 Dolby Surround signal. How long has this been going on? And why haven't I been able to access it with the digital cable box Comcast previously supplied? The normal Motorola digital cable box from Comcast has all sorts of connections that Comcast never uses (a phone line, audio and video inputs, etc.), but no jack for an optical cable.

Yeah, yeah, I'll go have some cheese with my whine . . . .

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