Me and Comcast might be parting ways, THE F#CK$!

[WhiningKhan]

Yeah, in the past Neilson (sp?) ratings could only poll selected households and then extrapolate that to the populace at large. Now with cable (and satellite to an extent) being the dominant carrier of even broadcast channels, it's far easier to get direct and more accurate numbers from the cable companies.

It's Nielsen.

They still monitor only statistically preselected and voluntary viewers. That's the best they can do, since they can't get information of _all_ viewers. Just monitoring some viewers without any demographic information of them (for example, people having certain type of receiver allowing direct feedback) would distort the results.

 

[eastmen]

It does as it affects the commercial stats that provide information on whether those advertisers should continue to advertise as well as how much they should pay the stations. And those ad blocks are pay rated by the time slot AND by how many people watch the show (with commercials, whether TIVO'd or not, or whether you go to the fridge or bathroom or not). Although I believe at least the cable companies are now also tracking whether shows are recorded and whether commercials are skipped, as well as tracking which commercials are not skipped when recorded.

And if you have cable TV, those stats are provided without the need of a meter.

And that doesn't address commercial free shows provided by paid for premium channels.

Heck, I download foreign shows and movies that are unavailable in my country for purchase. I don't disillusion myself that I'm not technically breaking the law, but at least in my case it's most often not possible for me to reimburse the producers of those shows. At least until it's sold in my country, at which point I can buy it.

Regards,
SB

Its interesting to me.

I love how I met your mother but my parents just switch from fios to cablevision (my dad is saving $80 a month so it be almost 2grand by the end of the 2 year fios contract) so i was using the fios dvr and forgot to set up the tivo i bought to replace it . So I went on thier website to watch it. I had about 4 minutes of comercials for what is normaly a 30 minute block on tv. Watching another program on cbs (big bang) i noted almost 7 minutes of comercials.

So how can that be , are they okay with making less money on the internet or what.


I just buy alot of tv shows on dvd or bluray and then rip them to my server.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

If you are required to use a custom receiver, maybe. On a standard receiver (cable or sat or even terrestrial broadcasts, doesn't matter) it's not possible to track which of many channels you watch. They are all transmitted in parallel, and all the receiver does is tune in on one particular frequency and ignore the rest. There is no information going back to the source.

That's true in the past, but the mandatory switch to Digital cable boxes (with Comcast at least) means they can track all their customers viewing habits now.

You could, of course, not switch, but then you're limited to 10-20 channels maximum.

Regards,
SB

 

[Sonic]

Its interesting to me.

I love how I met your mother but my parents just switch from fios to cablevision (my dad is saving $80 a month so it be almost 2grand by the end of the 2 year fios contract) so i was using the fios dvr and forgot to set up the tivo i bought to replace it . So I went on thier website to watch it. I had about 4 minutes of comercials for what is normaly a 30 minute block on tv. Watching another program on cbs (big bang) i noted almost 7 minutes of comercials.

So how can that be , are they okay with making less money on the internet or what.


I just buy alot of tv shows on dvd or bluray and then rip them to my server.

I don't know how they break it down but if say you're watching Hulu there will be one commercial in place of 5 or 6 for the break and then the show is right back. It is much better for me to watch these commercials as it means I don't have enough time to get a snack so basically it kind of guarantees that the viewer will see the commercials. And I'm sure it is or can be lucrative in the sense because the commercial quality on Hulu isn't so bad, though I am beginning to despise the 5 hour energy one.

 

[WhiningKhan]

That's true in the past, but the mandatory switch to Digital cable boxes (with Comcast at least) means they can track all their customers viewing habits now.

That is true in theory, but are they really doing it? Have you read about it somewhere?

I actually used to work on related field years ago, and the idea of client application running inside the set top box didn't seem to be catching fire any time soon at that time.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I did around when ratings for the latest Superbowl in the US was being discussed somewhere, but I can't remember where unfortunately. The discussion revolved around how ratings for the current Superbowl are much more accurate than the Nielson ratings for the same back in the 70's and 80's for example. Anyway, such is how the debate went, with people arguing both sides.

This is my 3 month ultra condensed work period in Japan however (10-12 hours a day 6 days a week. ), so don't have much time to try to track it down again.

I can't remember if proof positive was ever shown, rather someone claiming to work for Comcast, claiming that's what they did.

Regards,
SB

 

[digitalwanderer]

Comcast security left me another message today that I should contact them soon, then I checked my router log: 986683 MB last month.

Oops.

 

[Kurt]

I checked my router log: 986683 MB last month.

Oops.

I bet the counter rolled over once or twice without you noticing I can see why they would be pissed

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Shame on you, using the bandwidth of ~4 people.

Regards,
SB

 

[Kaotik]

I still can't understand those bandwidth limits, heck, even my phone has unlimited speed and bandwidth use with no extra fees. At least some things are better here

 

[Frank]

Even the maximum bandwidth of my usenet provider (50 Mb/s) is slower than the speed of my internet connection at home (80 Mb/s, 120 Mb/s in a few months). But of course, if I would rip a list of newsgroups (and have 2 accounts), I could download 1 terabyte in about 30 hours (20 hours in a few months).

But it's pretty hard to download a TB from other sources than that, as (except for bittorrent, which is rather slow, compared, except if it's a new AAA release) most are capped, even if you pay. Like, it isn't possible to download more than 15 GB/day from Depositfiles with a paid account, and you would have to find those downloads somewhere in the first place.

But where do you store all that data? Buy a new harddisk each month, and archive an old one?

 

[Frank]

It seems they already increased the download speed, but the upload is still rather craptastic (should be at least 10Mb/s):

 

[digitalwanderer]

Shame on you, using the bandwidth of ~4 people.

Regards,
SB

With only 4 people sharing my connection too!

 

[Frank]

I just checked my router, and I seem to have downloaded 860 GB over the last month, on my own...

Much more than I expected!

 

[digitalwanderer]

See? It all adds up quicker than you think!

 

[RobertR1]

Tried my best but I have no other options than comcast around here.

 

[Davros]

Ive downloaded 9gb over the last month and ive watched several tv shows on bbci player

 

[Frank]

It grows on you. I only had 8 Mb/s a few months ago. The easier it is, the more you download. Like, I couldn't watch YouTube video's in 480p without letting them load up front (I often had to pause them a bit even in 360p), but now I watch them at 1080p (if available) and they're fully cached in seconds.

It's very nice having a connection that is 15 times as fast, and only a bit more expensive.

 

[Mize]

How many of you have multiple vendors for (true) high speed internet?
Here in Cincinnati we have only Time Warner Cable (15 Mbps max DL) and Cincinnati Bell DSL (like 8 Mbps)...and that's it. No Verizon, no At&T, no Comcast. [Edit: the DSL here is 5 Mbps]

 

[Frank]

Here in the Netherlands, almost all people can choose between slow ADSL from KPN (the network provider, although there are many resellers, ~8-12 Mb/s in general, up to 32 Mb/s max if you're really lucky), fast cable from Ziggo (up to 120 Mb/s), or SurfNET (optic fiber, up to 10 Gb/s up/down) if you're a higher, technical student (you get it mostly for free, depending on location and such, but somewhat capped, although with a very high cap).

Prices range from free (if you're a student) to 67 Euro/month for the fastest Ziggo one (which includes digital TV and telephone). There are more expensive ones, but they're either really expensive, or just expensive for less.

To counter the cable speeds, some providers now offer multiple ADSL lines (up to 15) and a stack of routers, but you still pay more for less (although you can get DSL, with a high upload speed). And the conversion to optical fiber from KPN is severely lacking, but will happen in something like 5 years time. And Ziggo is following close behind. Then it's SurfNET speeds for everyone.