Friday, June 26, 2015

(switching to) Oceanic basic cable

My DVR crashed.  I had it unplugged for a few days.  Plugged it back in.  Apparently it needed to be activated as there was a message that showed on the screen for a little while.  Unplugged it.

Plugged it back in the morning.  The screen said boot, then some scrambled letters, then blank, then back to boot, then back to the scrambled letters, and on and on for hours.

I heard some clicking sounds so apparently the hard drive crashed.

Called Oceanic and the call center girl went to their standard trouble-shooting (which is unplug and plug back in, send an activation signal, send a signal to turn off) which predictably didn't work.

OK time to turn in the DVR.  Actually I hadn't been using it that much as I've been watching more Netflix and Hulu.  Though I hooked up the cable box if there was a basketball game in HD that I wanted to watch.  But once we got to the NBA finals, the games were shown on ABC, so I just bypassed the cable box and plugged the cable directly into the TV.

The main reason I was keeping the DVR was that I had some old sports games on it.  Most notably the Linsanity vs. Dallas game.  And the 2012 "Dream Team" Olympic game.  Also some old UH volleyball replays.  And some What Color Is Your Dog?  episodes (which I had transferred to DVD).  The main one was the Linsanity game which I wanted to record in HD somehow, but hadn't figured out the best way to do it.  Probably with a Hauppage PVR.

Unfortunately they said there's no way to transfer the videos out of the DVR, especially now that it crashed.  So I guess I don't have to worry about that now.

So this gave me the opportunity to cut the cable.  But I kind of like the idea of watching the network channels in HD especially for live sports.  And also the UH Sports Channel.  So I figure I'll switch to Basic cable which is supposed to give you only the local channels, but I know a couple others with Basic cable who have a lot more than the local channels.  So hopefully I'll get the others too, like CNBC and OCSports.  The TV guy is supposed to come today to filter out the other channels, so I want to see how much they filter out.

So let's see what I get now, then see what he filters out.  Here's what I have currently, by plugging in the cable directly into my TV.  And while I'm at it, let me rescan them.  63 analog channels, 56 digital channels

Here's the lineup (updated 3/27/15)

2  QVC
3  KHON
4  KBFD
5  KFVE
6  KITV
7  KGMB
8  KHNL
9  KIKU
10  KHET
11  KWHE
12  OC16
13  HLN
14  CNN
15  Fox News
16  OCSports
17  MTV
18 - VH1
19  NBCSN
20 - FSW
21  ESPN2
22  ESPN
23  TWCSports
25  KALO
26  KAAH
27  KPXO
28  TBS
29  USA
30  Golf
31  Prime Ticket
32  Nick
33  Disney
34  ABC Family
35  CN
36  TVland
37  Syfy
38  MSNBC
39  Spike
40  Bravo
41  FX
42  AMC
43  TNT
44  TCM
46-1  KPXO-HD (ion) [see below, formerly 66-1]
46-3  KHON-HD
46-55  TEC 355 (currently UWtv, also on 78-30)
47-1  MeTV
47-2  this
47-3  KHON-SD
47-4  CSPAN
47-5  KFVE-SD
47-7  KGMB-SD
47-8  KHNL-SD
47-10  KHET-SD
47-25  KALO
47-27 KPXO
48-1  KGMB-HD
48-9  KITV-HD
49-1  KFVE-HD
49-3  KHNL-HD
49-12  KHET-HD
50-6  KUPU
50-7  CW-HD
51-1  OCSports HD [see below]
51-3  CNBC-HD [see below]
53  Olelo 53
54  Olelo
55  Olelo 55
56  Zap 2 it
57  HSN
58  travel
59  HGTV
60  food
61  E!
62  Comedy Central
63  Hallmark
64  LMN
65  Discover Life
66-63  QVC
66-64  OC16 (also on 79-16)
67  OWN
68  LIFE
69  Discovery
70  Animal Planet
71  TLC
72  History
73 - NGC
74  A&E
76-6  C-SPAN3
76-10  HSN
76-49  Olelo 49
78-21  KBS WORLD
78-29  Civil Defense
78-30  UWtv (also on 46-55)
79-1  PBS Kids
79-10  On Demand trailers
79-16  OC16 (also on 66-64)
98-1  OCSports
99-16  OC16 HD
115-3  KBFD HD (!)
134-8  C-SPAN2
134-13  Antenna
134-14  KWHE
134-26  TBN
134-49  olelo 49
134-53  olelo 53
134-54  olelo54
134-55  olelo55

[so a few more digital channels than the "official list"]

Channels 102-2 through 132-2 are probably temporary and will fade away.

[6/27/15]  Checking again the next day:
gone are
104-2  tbs
106-4  Hallmark
131-1 arirang
131-2  ntdtv.com

Changed
120-2 AMC from TCM

added were
102-4 OC16

Still waiting for the Oceanic guy to come and take away my ESPN and other channels

[6/28/15]
120-2 changed from AMC to Nat Geo TV
102-5 Hallmark has been added
132-2  syfy is gone
[that afternoon]
102-1 CNBC changed from 102.2
102-4 Hallmark changed from 102.5
120-2  Nat Geo is now gone

[7/11/15]
66-1 KPXO-HD has disappeared (which is odd because it's been on over a year)
still getting ESPN, etc. / I'm wondering what my next bill will be

let me rescan:

compare my last scan

gone
66-1  KPXO-HD (ion)
102-1  CNBC *
102-4 Hallmark *

(102-1 and 102-4 were likely gone before today)

added
103-5 Animal Planet (gone seventh, in the afternoon)
105-1 insp (gone the next evening, only TCM now left)
105-4 msnbc (gone third)
106-2 arirang (gone fourth)
110-1 A&E (gone late evening)
110-2 syfy (gone minutes later)
118-1 ntdtv (gone sixth)
119-2 Hallmark (gone fifth)
121-4 National Geographic (gone minutes later)
126-2 TCM

manually going to 102 gets
102-3 SURF (now gone)

the added channels will likely be gone soon enough

now 110-2 syfy is already gone
and 110-4 tbs is added
121-4 Nat Geo is gone too
105-4 msnbc is gone

[7/12/15 a.m.] all the added channels are now gone except for 105-1 insp and 126-2 TCM.

[7/17/15] 66-1 KPXO HD is back

[8/14/15] OCSports HD (51-1), CNBC HD (51-3), Prime Ticket (66-1), LMN (66-2) are now scrambled :(  Hopefully they'll come back.  They're listed on the "official list" as linked above.

[8/15/15] OCSports and CNBC are back.  (Whew.)  Prime Ticket and LMN are still scrambled, but no biggie.

*** [6/27/15]

I'm wondering how much they'll take away from my TWC app.

Let me check what I'm getting now on my iPad

Live:
AlJazeera
BBC HD
beIN n Sports
beIN Sports
COOKING HD
DIY HD
EL RAY
FOOD
FOX Sports
FOX Sports 2
FXM
FX HD
FXX HD
HGTV
HSN HD
natgeo
NatGeo Wild
QVC
QVC PLUS
REVOLT

There's a bunch of other channels you could catch if you were hooked directly to your Oceanic cable network, including TBS and TNT (don't know if they work if you hooked up via wifi).

These are the On Demand channels currently available on my account

A&E
AlJazeera
AMC
BBC America
BET
BeIN n Sports
CMT
Comedy Central
COOKING
diy
E!
El Rey
Esquire
Food
FOX
FOX Sports 1
FX
FXM
FXX
fyi
GSN
H2
Hallmark
HGTV
History
IFC
Lifetime
LMN
Logo
MTV
MTV 2
National Geographic
Nat Geo Wild
Nick
Nick Jr.
REVOLT
Smithsonian
Spike
Sundance
Teen Nick
Travel
TV Land
VH-1
VH-1 Classic
WE

*** [7/18/15]

Checking my cable bill, still got charged $114.25.

I turned in my cable box on 6/25, but the bill is dated with a statement date of 6/20/15 with date due 7/17/15.  But the monthly charge is for dates Jul 16 to Aug 15.

I shall assume that this will be adjusted in the next bill since apparently this bill was generated before I cut my service.  The next bill should be generated in a few days and I can check to see any adjustments were made.

[8/14/15]  Yep, my Oceanic bill is now listed as negative.  Evidently there's a lag between payments and the service.  They charge you in advance so my bill was already generated before I cancelled.

[2/26/16] most of the TWC On Demand channels (on my ipad) are inaccessible are gone from my basic account (as noted here).  I'm only getting Fox now.

[3/27/16] KPXO HD is now 46-1, formerly 66-1.

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