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So long and thanks for all the fun!

April 9th, 2010, 3:54 pm by

The Gadgetress blog launched five years ago as a spot to post my high-tech musings. It evolved into a gadget-review column, then a how-tech-saves-money site and finally a blog dedicated to reporting the latest on local TV and mobile services.

But all good things must come to an end and the Gadgetress blog is retiring. That’s because after nearly 10 years at the Orange County Register, I’m leaving this great gig — and Orange County — for that mysterious “to pursue other opportunities.”

It’s really a mystery to me what I’ll be doing next. I’m taking a break for a few months. Seriously. I may return to the world of tech journalism. If you want to keep track of what’s next for me, just head to my personal site at tamara.net.

I enjoyed every minute, especially the interaction with readers. Thank you readers, fans, critics, the companies and even Time Warner Cable. I’ve learned a lot from all of you and hopefully vice versa. I’ve updated the story archives so if you’re looking for an old post on TV service, here’s where to go:

For all other tech-related stories and questions, here are a few people who may be able to help you:

Farewell good readers. I’ll be on Twitter, Facebook and who knows where else? May we meet again!

Signing out,

Tamara “The Gadgetress” Chuang

Posted in: news • • • • • • | 51 Comments »

Ditching cable for Xbox saves Seal Beach man $70/month

April 8th, 2010, 5:12 pm by

This is the first in a short series about alternatives to TV service. More coming on Friday.
DITCHING CABLE: Jeremy Baker gave up cable after he lost his job. But he still watches the latest shows thanks to services like PlayOn, Netflix and others. Photo by CINDY YAMANAKA

Everything changed when Jeremy Baker lost his job in November 2008 — including how he watched TV.

The Seal Beach resident  didn’t watch a ton of TV but his cable bill had crept up to $130 a month. Scrambling to cut costs, he canceled cable and bought a Microsoft Xbox 360 game console.

Read more:

“I know it doesn’t make sense but I did the math. After 6 months, the Xbox was paid for,” Baker said.

It’s what he did with the Xbox that helped him save money. By changing the source of his TV service, Baker was able to watch most of his favorite shows on his TV for half of what he had paid the cable company.

He purchased PlayOn software for $30 and got a subscription to Netflix. For $8.99/month, Netflix offers unlimited access to its online video library, which includes thousands of movies and TV shows, plus one DVD rental at a time. PlayOn gave him access to several TV shows plucked from sites like the popular Hulu.com, ComedyCentral.com (including ”The Daily Show with Jon Stewart“) plus an assortment of on-demand shows from MTV, Food Networks, HGTV, SyFy and Discovery Channel.

The best part? He can still watch it all on his regular TV, thanks to the Xbox.

“I got really into watching the old ‘Law & Orders’ and every ‘SVU’ and ‘Criminal Intent,’”  Baker said. “I’m probably paying $60 a month.” Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Internet • Video & TV • • • • • • • • | 27 Comments »

Time Warner joins 3-D cable frenzy for Tiger’s return

April 7th, 2010, 7:49 am by

Time Warner Cable has put its foot in the 3-D TV ring and said Wednesday it will offer the upcoming Masters Tournament in 3-D. The golf event, which has the added publicity of Tiger Woods returning to the tournamnet,  starts April 8.

Time Warner, however, will only offer the coverage on demand, unlike other cable providers Cox Communications and Comcast Corp. (see “Cox getting into 3-D; ESPN 3-D starts in June“). Those companies are offering viewers a mix of live 3-D broadcasts and on-demand coverage.

Offering 3-D broadcasts is a big step for cable companies, which are maxed out when it comes to channel capacity on existing cable lines. Hence, they tend to be behind the competition for the number of HD channels offered. While Cox is using switched digital video technology to convert some channels into a type of on-demand channel so they’re not broadcasting 24/7, Time Warner has been moving the space-hogging analog channels to digital.

Time Warner’s 3-D coverage will be available until April 30 to customers with a cable HD box and HDMI cord. But to get the full 3-D experience, consumers must also have a 3-D HDTV.  (Read related story: “Should your next HDTV be 3-D?)

“We remain committed to bringing our customers not just the latest programming, but the most innovative ways to watch it. The Masters coverage and these viewing parties will provide a good test for the future rollout of 3-D TV in our footprint,” said Melinda Witmer, Executive Vice President of Programming for Time Warner Cable in a statement.

If you don’t have a special TV but were hoping to watch the game in 3D, Time Warner is hosting two private viewing parties. Looks like anyone can sneak in to the San Diego event. Here’s where to show up: The Country Club of Rancho Bernardo on Saturday, April, 10th, from  1:00 PM – 4:00 PST, at 12280 Greens East Rd, San Diego, CA 92128. More details at Time Warner’s site.

Previously on 3-D TVs:

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • | 2 Comments »

Time Warner adds baseball channel free for 1 week, $179 for season

April 6th, 2010, 10:05 am by

Is the batter up? Who’s on first? Customers of Time Warner Cable and other paid-TV providers can find out for free this week as MLB Extra Innings channel offers a free preview through April 11.

Time Warner is the only one with an official announcement on the freebie. The baseball package, which will broadcast “well over 2,000 out-of market baseball games” this year is $179 for the whole season from Time Warner if you order by April 11. After that, it goes up to $199.

Some special features for this season include a way to watch the same game broadcast from the home team and the visiting team. You choose. Also, there will be a multi-screen mosaic so viewers can watch multiple games in the same TV frame.

In Orange County, Cox Communications also offers the MLB package. Consumers can check with their local TV service to see if the MLB free preview is available. More details at www.getbaseball.com or by calling 1-888-SPORTS-iN.

Previous TV coverage:

Posted in: news • • • • • • | 2 Comments »

Time Warner Cable adding new HD sports channel, plus 2 more

March 17th, 2010, 5:45 pm by

No, the NFL channel isn’t coming to Time Warner Cable. Now that that’s out of the way, there is a new HD sports channel just around the corner for Orange County and Los Angeles customers.

Called iN Demand Sports HD, the new sports channel will feature baseball and hockey games and be part of the existing MLB Extra Inning pacakge and NHL Center Ice package. iN Demand calls the channel GAME2 and for Time Warner customers, it will be available on channel 731 beginning April 19.

iN Demand is a network owned by several cable companies, including Time Warner and Cox.

“iN Demand calls it GAME2. This channel will be added to our lineup in order to further expand the HD game offerings as part of NHL CENTER ICE and MLB EXTRA INNINGS. This will bring a significant increase to the number of HD games available in these packages,” said Time Warner spokesman Darryl Ryan.

The addition of the HD sports channel brings the number to 4 HD channels that Time Warner offers from iN Demand. The others include HD PPV on channel 431, and seasonal sports packages on 732 and 733.

Time Warner also announced that two foreign-language channels, plus two radio channels will be added to the lineup beginning April 19. Those are: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • • • • • • • • | 20 Comments »

Free previews for Dish, DirecTV, FiOS and Time Warner

March 16th, 2010, 5:12 pm by

In an attempt to get TV subscribers to pay a bit more for new channels or tiers, free previews are quite common. Here are some current and upcoming freebies for Orange County-area customers:

Time Warner Cable:

  • Showtime On Demand, from March 25 to 28. Go to Channel 1006 (or channel 1 and look for Showtime ONDEMAND) (source: Time Warner)
  • CBS College Sports Network, Channel 261, free through April 5 (more)

DirecTV:

  • Game Lounge (ch. 110): Free Trial from April 2 to 4 (source: DirecTV)
  • Showtime, between March 25 to 28 for the following channels: 537, 538, 539, 540, 542, 544, 545, 547, 549 (source: FreePreview.tv)

Dish Network:

  • Style, channel 115, through April 4 (source: Dish)
  • CBS College Sports Network, Ch. 152, through April 7 (source: Dish)
  • Fuse, Ch. 158, through March 31 (source: FreePreview.tv) Not happening this month, according to Dish.

Verizon FiOS

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • • • • • | 2 Comments »

Enough with the fees! TV providers team up to fix rising TV prices

March 12th, 2010, 2:28 pm by

Corrected, 3:50 p.m.: Apologies to Phillip Swann for mispelling his name. Also, I incorrectly said Comcast is buying CBS. Comcast is interested in NBC, as I’ve previously reported (sigh).

CATCHING UP: Time Warner Cable led a group on Tuesday asking the government to fix the rising price of TV service.

Well, sort of. The issue wasn’t about a customer’s rising bill but over “retransmission fees,” which TV channels charge to TV providers that want to retransmit the channel to customers. The TV services, of course, blame the fees for pushing up a customer’s monthly bill.

On Thursday, U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski appeared to have listened. During an Senate committee meeting, Genachowski talked about the retransmission issues and said that the ”framework that is in place … may have lost pace with changes in the marketplace,” reports the L.A. Times.

These retrans fees gets renegotiated every year or so and pretty much always go up. Here is one estimated list of how much a TV customer ends up paying for each channel.

But disputes over retrans fees have left some cable customers wondering if they’ll be staring at a blank TV screen. We here in Orange County felt this over the holidays when Fox threatened to take away channels from Time Warner customers. The fee fight was resolved with no disruption in TV service.

But last weekend, Cablevision customers on the East Coast missed the first 30 minutes of the Oscars because the cable company didn’t come to an agreement in time with Walt Disney-owned ABC. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • | 8 Comments »

More Time Warner price increases coming? Not in O.C.

March 12th, 2010, 9:25 am by

In case you spotted today’s L.A. Times story headlined, “What?! Another Time Warner Cable rate hike?” don’t freak out. At least if you live in Orange County.

The story mentions a 4 percent rate hike that goes into effect April 1. This “follows an identical increase in January for the rest of Time Warner Cable’s nearly 2 million SoCal customers, as well as prior increases last year.” That statement plus the headline made me think that a second price hike was coming for 2010. Did I miss something?

I checked with Time Warner to verify what was going on. Company spokesman Darryl Ryan immediately called me back to say, no, this isn’t a second increase this year. This adds in the rest of Time Warner’s Los Angeles customers who didn’t get hit with the 4 percent increase in January.

2010 TV price increases

“Any price adjustments affecting your readers has already been adjusted,” Ryan said.

Whew!

Now, of course, this doesn’t explain why Time Warner had to hike our bills in the first place. But keep in mind, the cable company wasn’t the only one to raise prices this year. Cox Communications, Verizon FiOS, DirecTV and AT&T U-verse all raised their prices in recent months too. See links to those reports on the right. The same companies all raised rates last year too.

Time Warner, like all TV providers, face increasing fees from the TV channels. Most of the time, the TV providers pay the new price. Occasionally, negotiations go public when the two sides can’t agree on a new price. Most recently, Walt Disney threatened to pull ABC from Cablevision viewers on the East Coast, which meant no Oscars. In the end, the two sides made amends but cable customers missed the awards show introduction.  The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is investigating such disputes to prevent the loss of TV service to consumers in the future.

Recent Time Warner news:

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • | 6 Comments »

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