On 03/12/10 02:31, Phil Cook v2 wrote:
> Ah but you have a choice of cable companies, we don't. Competition should
> keep the prices down...lol

	I get to choose whatever cable company I want - as long as it's Comcast.

-- 
Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright
ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little
sign of breaking down in the near future.

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On 03/11/10 10:14, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Comparatively speaking, though, the amount you pay for your TV license is 
> far less than Cable TV costs in the US - so for me, my reaction is kinda 
> like most UK residents' reactions to US people complaining about the 
> price of petrol.
> 
> You pay 142.50 GBP per year (about $210 at current exchange rates).

	Oh wow. Why do I get the feeling you've had this argument often?

-- 
Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright
ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little
sign of breaking down in the near future.

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On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:49:30 -0800, Neeum Zawan wrote:

> On 03/11/10 10:14, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Comparatively speaking, though, the amount you pay for your TV license
>> is far less than Cable TV costs in the US - so for me, my reaction is
>> kinda like most UK residents' reactions to US people complaining about
>> the price of petrol.
>> 
>> You pay 142.50 GBP per year (about $210 at current exchange rates).
> 
> 	Oh wow. Why do I get the feeling you've had this argument often?

Dunno - I haven't, actually, but as my wife and I have talked about 
moving to the UK, she's looked into the costs of a number of things so we 
have an idea what the cost of living is like there. :-)

Jim

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On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:49:01 -0800, Neeum Zawan wrote:

> On 03/12/10 02:31, Phil Cook v2 wrote:
>> Ah but you have a choice of cable companies, we don't. Competition
>> should keep the prices down...lol
> 
> 	I get to choose whatever cable company I want - as long as it's
> 	Comcast.

A fair point.  If I want something other than Comcast, my "choice" is to 
move - I wish I'd thought of/said that. :-)

Jim

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And lo On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:13:51 -0000, Jim Henderson  
<nos### [at] nospamcom> did spake thusly:

> On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:31:41 +0000, Phil Cook v2 wrote:
>
<snip>
>> I drive past a station on the way to work and watched it go from 110.9p
>> to 114.9p over a couple of weeks.
>
> Yeah, I pulled the pricing for the UK from a UK site that tracks petrol
> prices.

It's now 115.9p

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Phil Cook v2 wrote:
> And lo On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:13:51 -0000, Jim Henderson 
> <nos### [at] nospamcom> did spake thusly:
> 
>> On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:31:41 +0000, Phil Cook v2 wrote:
>>
> <snip>
>>> I drive past a station on the way to work and watched it go from 110.9p
>>> to 114.9p over a couple of weeks.
>>
>> Yeah, I pulled the pricing for the UK from a UK site that tracks petrol
>> prices.
> 
> It's now 115.9p
> 

And it's going up by 3p in April

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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Warp wrote:
>   The government, so far, is not hearing the people on this. (Tells
> something about democracy, doesn't it?)

Yeah, it means you don't have it. We don't either. We have a republic too. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The question in today's corporate environment is not
   so much "what color is your parachute?" as it is
   "what color is your nose?"

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Warp wrote:
>   The only way the recorder can do that automatically is if the TV channel
> sends metadata telling when the commercial break begins and ends.op 

Nah. I have an automatic commercial cutter that does a good job. The only 
thing that happens is it'll sometimes chop out instant replays in oliveball.

It looks for change of resolution or aspect ratio, change in the size of 
black bars, and most commercial breaks wind up having a frame or two of 
digital silence and black on either side, because the commercials are coming 
from a different server than the programming, so there's a frame or two to 
regain sync at the transmitter.  At least here this works remarkably well.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The question in today's corporate environment is not
   so much "what color is your parachute?" as it is
   "what color is your nose?"

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> It looks for change of resolution or aspect ratio, change in the size of 
> black bars, and most commercial breaks wind up having a frame or two of 
> digital silence and black on either side, because the commercials are coming 
> from a different server than the programming, so there's a frame or two to 
> regain sync at the transmitter.  At least here this works remarkably well.

  If the broadcasting companies were smart, they would make the commercials
indistuishable from the actual broadcast by using those tricks.

  (I think there's a law here that states that commercial breaks have to
be clearly marked as such, usually by using a clear and very distinguishable
commercial break "logo" or whatever, in other words, it must be completely
clear to the viewer that the commercials are not part of the actual program.
In other words, it would be illegal to sneak commercials in the middle of an
actual program as if they were part of it. However, just because it's clear
to a human viewer when the commercial break starts and ends, that doesn't mean
it has to be clear for a machine. Showing the "commercial break logo" or
whatever is being used could look indistinguishable to a recording machine
from the regular broadcast by avoiding blank frames, complete silence and
such. AFAIK doing *that* is not illegal.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:

> nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> BTW, once upon a time cable TV was supposed to be free of ads because you
>> were
>> directly paying for the shows.  Somehow, that plan didn't work out...
> 
>   So you pay for cable... and have to watch commercials regarldess?

Yes.

In Argentina, they wanted to pass a law to forbid ads in cable TV. The 
channel owners said that'd have to wait ~6 months since they already had 
contracts for ads. Then everybody forgot about the topic. Years passed, 
nothing changed.

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