Re: [ARSCLIST] DVD audio level

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Bob:

Having worked for my town's cable channel when I was in high school, more than 20 years ago now, I 
can say that you're right. Back then, my dad was on the town cable committee and he'd call up the 
provider Adams-Russell if there was a problem. Nowadays, the whole area is Cablevision, one of the 
most customer-hostile companies on the planet. Very soon to get theirs because Verizon is laying 
fiber like made throughout Westchester County. In my neck of the woods now, it used to be RCN, who 
was OK with cable but great with cable modem. They sold their cable ops because they turned out to 
be a dot-bomb. Suscom owns it now and they're know as suxcom for a reason. No antenna works up here 
since 9/11 -- no line of sight to NJ or the Empire State Building. The Trade Center tower was high 
enough that a really big antenna with a good booster worked OK but not always well. We tried that 
for the first 2 years we lived here and then succumed to the cable monopoly, mainly for cable modem 
service, since dialup was unreliable and slow.

Bottom line is that most cable companies couldn't care less about customers and put out the minimum 
quality level. I cannot wait until they get competition from telco's. Satellite has turned out to be 
not much competition. Most people I know who have the dishes tell me they don't work in really bad 
weather and solar storms effect reception on some channels. I'm talking small dishes, not the big 
dishes, which seem way more complex than I care for TV.

I must say, to cable companies' credit, they got right out ahead on broadband and most cable modem 
service seems pretty reliable. Ours hasn't been bad and Cablevision, of all companies, provides 
excellent cable modem service in Westchester. Verizon botched DSL very badly. They've improved 
somewhat in recent years but now it's smarter to just wait for them to drop fiber and get TV and 
data and telephony. People in my area with cable telephony got the last laugh the past 2 days since 
Verizon had phone service out while they replaced a copper trunk line -- with more copper. Nice.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Hodge" <rjhodge@xxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, July 07, 2006 9:19 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] DVD audio level


> I've held back on this subject for a while , but cannot any longer.
>
> Having maintained a 7 channel cable distributuion system for Syracuse
> University for several years, I can state that it is not impossible to
> maintain consistant audio and video levels between channels on a cable
> system.
>
> It all has to do with whether or not the engineering and infrastructure
> be kept to a proper level of support. Modulation , deviation and RF
> levels need to be made consistant with proper splitters, trunk amps,
> hardline and drop cables properly maintained.
> And none of this hardware lasts forever.
>
> My two bits.
>
> BH
>
> When it isn't, everything goes to hades. Period.
>
> > > > tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 7/6/2006 7:14 PM >>>
> well, they'll take NTSC out of my cold dead hands, so I'll be adjusting
> the volume for the
> foreseeable. Digital cable is the biggest ripoff going. Who wants 10
> channels of each already
> thinly-programmed cable "network"? Also, every system around here (our
> own Suscom -- Suxcom -- and
> Cablevision in Westchester and Time Warner in Manhattan) have awful
> looking pictures coming out of
> those digi-boxes. Pixellation, off-color, digital dropouts, etc. No
> thanks!
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2006 7:59 AM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] DVD audio level
>
>
> > At 07:26 AM 7/6/2006, you wrote:
> > > Well, my analog cable is certainly not aligned then. DVD's are much
> softer than over-air or VHS
> > > tapes.
> >
> > By definition, analog cable is old school and not aligned. The
> alignment only starts when the
> > transition to digital cable is made.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Richard
> >
> > Richard L. Hess                   email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Aurora, Ontario, Canada       (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
> > Detailed contact information:
> http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
> > Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.