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How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

latimes.com

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Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#21
I have a FiOS Motorola QIP7232 cable box with a builtin 320GB harddrive (circa 2013).[1]

My last bill shows them charging me $21.99 per month for that box. (That's $263.88 a year not including taxes.)

Last week, I called Frontier FiOS to cancel the cable TV but keep the internet. After the customer rep cancelled the tv, I asked if she was mailing out a shipping box so I could return the Motorola. She said she wasn't going to bother with it. So there's one anecdote to gauge how much the hardware is worth to them. (I do see that used ones sell for ~$50 on ebay.)

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=motorola+QIP7232&source=lnms...

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#22

Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.

How much does journalism cost? Americans would prefer Europeans didn't ask.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#23
I'm reasonably certain the $231/year figure the author quotes is not the amount paid for a single set-top box (as he says), but the average total paid by a household for all their set-top boxes. That averages out to around ~3 boxes per household at rates similar to those quoted in the story, which is about what I'd expect.

That said, the charges are still a ripoff, and just one of many reasons I do not miss paying for cable TV.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#24
On a slightly related note, I am highly disappointed with the Spectrum boxes and really miss my Comcast X1 box.

Spectrum and Comcast both rely on the same third-parties to supply their gear but Comcast works with partners like Arris to build their own custom boxes. They have their own custom OS running on the box. They're really fast and have a very modern UI. For instance it'll open sidebars to show current sports games with realtime scores. They also have their voice remote feature which, at first was a total gimmick to me, but ultimately became really helpful. You rarely know what channel # you want but to say "go to TLC" or "go to the world series" is really handy. They also have a remote control with an accelerometer that will glow when it jiggles, unlike any competitor. This is very useful at night.

Meanwhile my Spectrum box is virtually a thin client. For things like on-demand it's piping commands across the network to a remote host that is rendering what is displayed on your screen. The latency is horrible.

I've cut the cord once or twice with services like Playstation TV and Sling... but none of them really shake a stick to a proper cable plan. I'm disappointed with this price hike and Spectrum's hardware but for folks (my wife and I) who grew up in the generation of cable TV it's a difficult habit to break.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#25
post #5

I have the same reaction every time I read about any cable company, and that's, "WTF are you all still giving them your money for?!" They have a monopoly on a dying service you literally don't need at all, and most people hate having to deal with them. The pricing and contracts are antagonistic to customers. Is it just momentum at this point?

For the past year, I've been trying to convince my grandparents to ditch cable for internet TV, and the transition has been surprisingly difficult. After two attempts (I don't live near them), I am still not successful, however I did reduce the TV/phone/internet bundle from $250 to $200. Next time I see them, I'm coming prepared with the items that prevented me from succeeding before, and hopefully I'll be reducing them down to antennae/phone/internet.

The biggest problem I've found is that the cable company installed their cable modem on the entirely opposite side of the house from where the living room is (where the office is), and the wifi signal is too week to stream video. My general options are either a) get a repeater, or b) try setting up a second internet source from the living room cable (not sure if it's internet ready).

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#26

Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.

This article should be switched to an alternative that doesn't have restrictive geofilters or removed.

It's an article about a domestic US issue.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an assumption in this statement that doesn't survive scrutiny. This is original reporting. What makes you think there's an equivalent alternative? † † This perception is obviously a huge problem for papers like the L.A. Times (and for writers, in general). For better or worse, this is how people see it, now. If you don't like the source, then you just imagine substituting in another one, like you're buying po…

The assumption may be that any worthwhile article will immediately be "reported on" (restated with no new information) by a dozen other sites. Edit: I'm not saying that's a good thing, guys. I agree with dionidium.

"rereported"

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article should be switched to an alternative that doesn't have restrictive geofilters or removed.

There's an assumption in this statement that doesn't survive scrutiny. This is original reporting. What makes you think there's an equivalent alternative? † † This perception is obviously a huge problem for papers like the L.A. Times (and for writers, in general). For better or worse, this is how people see it, now. If you don't like the source, then you just imagine substituting in another one, like you're buying po…

[deleted]

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#29
post #3

I would really like to buy a box that was sophisticated enough to cache which channels I have and what is showing on those channels. They all seem to do a very slow refresh every time I switch between menus. It's now a distant memory being able to switch between channels instantly. I should at least be able to page through the menus quickly.

I always thought about putting multiple tuners in the box, and just decoding multiple channels simultaneously. Then to switch a channel you would just "put another window in the front". You could have a predictive system that would decode the three most likely next channels and start decoding them. In the best case, this would move the latency of the first switch close to zero, and of subsequent switches to 1/2 or 1/…

Doesn't this already exist, and that's how picture-in-picture works?

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#30
post #6
post #3

I would really like to buy a box that was sophisticated enough to cache which channels I have and what is showing on those channels. They all seem to do a very slow refresh every time I switch between menus. It's now a distant memory being able to switch between channels instantly. I should at least be able to page through the menus quickly.

If you have a cablecard based system you can often get a network tuner like the HD Homerun Prime and do away with the company's cable box altogether. It's what I did, and I'm pretty happy with the results - through Plex I have unlimited DVR and the ability to watch on any device. Channel switching is still slow, though...

Last time I signed up for cable was about a decade ago, and at the time, I had a HD TiVo box with twin cable cards. Worked out to something like $1-3 a month for the cards, IIRC. Way more reasonable than what my parents were paying for their awful, laggy Comcast boxes.

Of course, my cable provider had to make like three visits before they managed to scrounge up two working cards.

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