catheroominations

February 13, 2007

Why, Comcast? WHY???

I don’t get to see a lot of Kentucky Wildcat basketball here in California, and as this is California, we don’t get a lot of sports news about Kentucky either. So when I saw Big Blue would play the Tennessee Volunteers, and would air today, I set the DVR to record it. In high-definition, no less. I watched part of the game while it recorded, then went out to see my boyfriend Joe (Trader Joe, that is), confident that my magic box would record the rest of the game for me to watch when I returned.

I arrived home from TJ’s, put away my groceries, popped a frozen Thai green curry entree into the microwave, and turned on the TV and Comcast DVR to watch the recorded game.

I fast-forwarded to the end of the part I had already watched and listened to the game while feeding the cats as my dinner spun around in the microwave. Suddenly, Kentucky was down by 3 and the game was almost over. Whoa.

Just as I started to head to the TV to rewind what had just happened, I heard…nothing. Silence. What? Where did it go? Momentary satellite loss? No picture either. Just dark. Then, just as quickly, the audio and video both came back on, but the channel had switched to the local news coverage. Wha? Who changed the channel? I was the only one home. The remote was on the coffeetable, and the cats were in the kitchen, their heads shoved into their food receptacles.

Why? What? Huh?

I ferociously pushed buttons on the remote to take me to the DVR screen that showed my recordings and fast-forwarded through the game to nearly the end. I hit play and watched as the clock ticked down. There it was, 84 to 81, Tennessee. And then? This:

Comcast strikes again.

It just STOPPED recording after 112 minutes. WHILE THE GAME WAS STILL PLAYING IN REGULATION. Mind you, the game was on the Comcast schedule from 4 pm to 6 pm. That means 120 minutes (I’m not good at math, but I think that’s right). Yet, the recorder let me down. Instead of living up to its promise of 2 hours, it decided to stop 8 minutes early. Just when there was a mere 29.5 seconds left, and the ‘Cats were down by three points.

I am very disappointed in you, Comcast.

Kentucky lost, by the way (sigh).

7 people have roominated about “Why, Comcast? WHY???”

  • dionna says:

    We live in small town NM, with a small town NM b-ball team. The other night we were ecstatic to see that an away game was being broadcast just for us on Comcast. Suh-weet! And then we laughed for the first 20 minutes (and off and on thereafter) as Comcast lost signal and sat on a blue screen. Comcast basically sucks.

  • Kelly says:

    That totally sucks!

  • Alison says:

    Oh, crap! (Hey, there’s Jodie Meeks!)

    That really stinks. I’m sorry you got let down, both by Comcast and the Cats.

  • Carmi says:

    It seems every television provider has a reputation roughly parallel to that enjoyed by a certain group of ultra-fascists in Germany in the wake of WWII.

    Did you search for the Torrent file online? Often, folks post AVI files of stuff they’ve recorded off of TV. No commercials, either!

  • music_mama says:

    This is why I haven’t gotten Tivo yet.

  • catheroo says:

    TiVo has never messed up. But Comcast doesn’t use TiVo. They’re supposed to be converting to TiVo which will make a WORLD of difference. Whatever company they used in their DVRs at Comcast, needs to re-assess their software, bigtime. I usually even use TiVo as back up to the often unreliable Comcast DVR.

  • Cindy says:

    I’ve heard bad things about the Comcast DVR. I’ll stick to Tivo.

    Have I told you how much I like the Winter Solstice mix?

roominate back to Cindy