TWC TV for PC (and Mac too!)

Time Warner Cable this morning introduced a “beta version” of Time Warner Cable TV for PC, the latest iteration of the company’s “TV Everywhere” project.

TWC TV requires a current cable television subscription, a Time Warner Cable My Services registration, and a home computer with a current version of Silverlight (if you do not have it, it will likely prompt you to download it).  You do not have to use Time Warner Cable broadband to access the service.

In addition to streaming live TV to the desktop, you can manage DVR listings and remotely change channels on your set top box — the ultimate in laziness if you’ve misplaced the remote control.

We’ve been testing the service here at Stop the Cap! headquarters this afternoon, and so far the service works as described with few glitches.  The channel lineup is similar to the company’s streaming service for Apple’s iPad.  Missing are local channels and cable networks with whom Time Warner has yet to secure streaming agreements.

Video quality could stand some improvement, however.  Netflix and Hulu appear to use higher bit rates than Time Warner is using during its beta test.

Here’s the full list of features:

1. Live TV – Users scroll the “channel browser” to see a list of available channels with listings displaying network logo, show name, and episode name.
2. Guide – Up to 7 days of listings data. Option to filter guide display by “favorites only,” “HD only” or ”available to watch on PC.” You can also set channels as favorites from the Guide.
3. Set-top box tuning – “Watch on TV” button within the program description to tune an MDN/ODN set-top box directly to the channel.
4. PC tuning – “Watch on PC” button within the program description to tune PC directly to the channel.
5. DVR management – Schedule one-time and series recordings on MDN/ODN DVRs directly from the Guide’s show pages. Click on the “DVR” tab to see a list of all upcoming recordings and make changes or cancel recordings.
6. Search – Ability to search the Guide by show title, episode and/or by person.
7. Settings – Ability to manage Favorite channels, link to set Parental Controls, choose the Device (STB/DVR) to which you are connected for STB/DVR management, and turn on/off Closed Captioning on the website’s video player.

This will work for both PC and Mac. Here are the supported browsers:

• Internet Explorer 7.0 and up
• Firefox 4 and up for mac and windows
• Safari 5 and up for mac and windows
• Chrome: Latest stable release which is 17

You’ll need to download or possibly upgrade Silverlight to version 4.

(Customers with iGuide set-top boxes and analog video customers cannot tune their TVs using the TWC TV apps or website. Analog customers and those with iGuide and SARA boxes won’t have access to the TV tuning or DVR features, but are offered a basic program guide based on the zip code on their accounts.)

[Updated 9:09am 2/15/12 — Thanks to our readers, we now know “you have to be connected to a Time Warner Cable network connection, with a modem on your account to connect to live TV.”  We stand corrected.]

Courtesy: WCVB Boston

Correction: In an effort to concatenate two stories regarding Springfield, we erred in reporting about Springfield’s move to sell its municipal cable operation to Knology.  That story referred to Springfield, Fla., not Springfield, Mass.  We appreciate one of our readers bringing this to our attention, and we regret the error. –PMD

Comcast customers in Massachusetts are hopping mad over the latest round of rate increases from the state’s largest cable operator — the second in 10 months in some areas.  Higher cable bills for customers will start arriving by early spring.

City officials in Boston expect eastern Massachusetts customers will face up to 2.9% more for basic service this spring.  In western Massachusetts, Springfield city officials finally resolved a prolonged legal battle with the cable operator and granted the company a 10-year franchise renewal that preserves senior discounts for existing customers.

Boston mayor Thomas M. Menino said an examination of Comcast’s cable rates over the past few years proves deregulation “has failed” consumers across greater Boston.  Menino says basic cable rates have increased by 80 percent in the three years since the city’s rate control agreement expired.

Menino wants restored authority to regulate cable rates, and has asked the FCC for permission to bring back the city’s oversight powers.

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WCVB in Boston talks with city mayor Tom Menino about the latest round of rate increases for Comcast customers.  Some Boston locals are responding by dumping cable television altogether.  (2 minutes)

Comcast basic service will rise another 4.9 percent this spring, bringing the mostly local-broadcast-channel cable service to $16.58 a month.

The only other major cable provider in Boston, RCN, which serves mostly apartment buildings and other multi-dwelling units, is not planning to increase its prices on the lowest price tier. However, RCN already charges more than Comcast — $17.50 — for comparable service.  Other RCN customers face general rate increases this spring.

Verizon says it has no plans to increase prices in Boston either.  That statement was deemed ironic by some, considering the fact the phone company has never provided FiOS fiber-to-the-home cable service inside the city of Boston.

All affected providers blame increasing programming costs for the rate hikes.

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WGGB Springfield Cable Rates Going Up 1-18-12.mp4[/flv]

WGGB in Springfield led a recent evening newscast with news Comcast and competing satellite providers are increasing rates in western Massachusetts, with local residents increasingly questioning the value of their cable-TV services.  (2 minutes)

Time Warner Cable subscribers who are passionate about their hockey and basketball won’t be watching all of the Buffalo Sabres or New York Knicks games, thanks to another year-end programming dispute primarily affecting cable subscribers in New York State.

MSG terminated their program feed for approximately 2.8 million Time Warner customers early Sunday, leaving the cable operator to make amends with irritated subscribers.

Once again, the cost of sports programming was the issue. MSG has raised prices at least 70 percent over the last five years, according to cable research group SNL Kagan.  The package that includes MSG and MSG Plus now sells at a wholesale price of more than $4.50 per month, rivaling the most expensive sports network ESPN, which will charge $5.06 a month in 2012.  Time Warner reportedly balked at a renewal deal for 2012 that would have increased prices well beyond the six percent the cable operator offered to pay.

Time Warner has e-mailed subscribers indicating MSG pulled the plug, and is offering some replacement programming to ease the suffering of sports-addicted subscribers:

At Time Warner Cable, we’re sports fans too – that’s why we fight hard to keep the sports you love on the air at a price you can afford.

With the game clock running down, MSG Networks rejected all proposals, refused to engage in any meaningful way, and refused to allow us to keep the channel on. In the end, MSG pulled the plug on Time Warner Cable customers. We regret that MSG Networks has taken away their sports programming, but remind fans that even without MSG, Time Warner Cable will carry nearly 20 percent of this season’s remaining Sabres games, and dozens of other NHL and NBA games and most of the NHL and NBA playoffs. For information on where to find your favorite teams, visit www.twcconversations.com/MSG.

We don’t think that MSG’s actions are fair to sports fans, so Time Warner Cable is offering the following in appreciation of our customers:

•

A special month-long preview of the Time Warner Cable Sports Pass, a package of more than 15 sports-oriented channels. This package—which normally costs $5.95 per month for residential customers—will be available from January 1 – 31, 2012. (Visit www.timewarnercable.com/sportspass to see the full list of channels and channel numbers.)

•	A free preview of the NBA League Pass premium sports package which offers up to 40 live games per week. This offer is good through January 8th and more details are available at www.twcconversations.com/MSG.

•

The launch of YNN Hockey Tonight, a new nightly hockey show, premiering January 2nd on YNN in Western New York, including the Buffalo and Rochester areas. YNN Hockey Tonight will feature live interviews & analysis, plus scores, standings and information from all around the world of hockey, every night at 11:15 PM through the end of the NHL season.

We think MSG is being unreasonable – and unfair to fans. They continue to demand a 53% price increase for their programming, which just doesn’t make sense. We do want MSG to return to our channel lineup, and we will continue to work hard to reach an agreement that gives you the sports you love at a price you can afford to pay.

Don’t forget: every TV provider is at risk for blackout threats. Last year MSG pulled the plug on DISH – so switching is not a solution. If MSG really cared about the fans, they wouldn’t be holding your sports hostage.

Thank you for your patience and continued loyalty.

Tell MSG to Get Real and Do the Deal.

MSG is telling Time Warner customers to cancel their cable service and sign up for Verizon FiOS TV or one of the satellite dish providers instead.  But those alternative providers are not happy with the rising cost of sports programming either.

DirecTV’s Michael White and Dish Network Corp. Chairman Charlie Ergen have both repeatedly criticized price inflation for sports networks, and both have fought their own battles over the issue.

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WHAM Rochester MSG Pulls Programming Disappoints Sports Fans 1-1-12.mp4[/flv]

WHAM-TV in Rochester talks with irritated sports fans about the loss of MSG Networks on Time Warner Cable.  (3 minutes)

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Bloomberg News reports that wholesale rates for sports programming have grown so great, cable operators may be prepared to drop sports networks off cable television altogether.  (4 minutes)

As Time Warner Cable continues it channel re-alignments in markets across the country, some subscribers are coming up with fewer channels after the changes, but they are still paying the same cable bill — for fewer channels.

“It’s classic cable bait and switch,” shares Stop the Cap! reader Kyle from Kansas City, who spent hours fiddling with his TiVo box after Time Warner re-mapped the area’s channel lineup earlier this month.  “TiVo really underlined it for us, albeit unintentionally, when we discovered several channels no longer available to us unless we paid extra.”

While Time Warner Cable moved Kansas City to its theme-based lineup, which places similar channels together and aligns HD channels with their standard definition counterparts, they also used the occasion to re-tier some of their “free” channels into mini-pay tiers.

Among the channels out of the digital cable standard lineup:

• Encore MoviePlex — Seven theme-based commercial-free movie channels;
• IFC — Independent Film Channel
• Fox Movie Channel
• Flix
• RFD-TV
• Ovation

The movie channels are being re-tiered in a mini-pay package called TWC Movie Pass, which will eventually sell for $4.95 per month after some early promotional discounts.  RFD and Ovation are part of a new “Digital Choice” tier.

“It’s the usual deception from Time Warner, which claims to sell you ‘free HD’ service without also telling you a rented set top box is required, which adds at least $7 a month for the ‘free HD’ channels,” Kyle says.  “Now they don’t even give you that as they start stripping networks away from their HD lineup to sell you for more money.”

Some subscribers are less than happy with the outcome, considering they now have fewer channels and are still paying the same cable rate they were before the channel change.

“It’s a shell game they always win — find the channels, keep your eye on the channels, wait — they are gone.  Pay us anyway.”

Aaron Barnhart, who writes for the Kansas City Star, called it a PR failure.

“Time Warner proved once again to be its own worst enemy, hyping all the good things and leaving it to customers to discover the not-so-good-things on their own,” Barnhart wrote.

Time Warner’s reasons for the channel changes, reported by Barnhart, seemed less than convincing to customers.

Time Warner’s spokesman Matt Derrick pointed out that “in most places, Encore is bundled as a premium package with Starz.” Liberty Media, which owns both Encore and Starz, used to offer Encore to cable operators as a digital-cable value alternative to premium channels. But that has changed, and Time Warner negotiated this 12-month rate with Liberty to encourage customers to go along with the switch.

Derrick explained that Digital Choice was designed as a low-cost alternative to its larger Digital Variety package, where the same channels are also available.

“Wait, that doesn’t even make sense,” Kyle argues.  “Time Warner negotiated with Liberty to turn a free set of channels into a pay tier to encourage us to go along?”

Kyle doesn’t think the reasons for Digital Choice made any sense either.

“How many people are demanding to pay extra for Ovation and RFD, exactly?” Kyle wonders.  “What is missing from all this is why our rates did not decrease to compensate us for the lost channels.”

Kyle says the $4.95 a month rate for TWC Movie Pass may not seem as much as a pay network, but he reminds us Time Warner will continue to collect money from every subscriber for the channels they’ll no longer get.

“So if it costs them $4.95 a month for Encore, we’re all still paying that because our bill isn’t going down; if we actually want those channels, that costs another $4.95 — $9.90 a month.

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WLWT Cincinnati Time Warner Channel Realignment 4-18-11.mp4[/flv]

WLWT-TV in Cincinnati explains to certain Ohio viewers how to accomplish a needed channel “re-scan” that comes along with the channel re-alignments Time Warner Cable is performing across the country.  (2 minutes)

Some Time Warner customers think there is more up the cable company's sleeve than "subscriber convenience."

Time Warner Cable customers across the country have been coping with some dramatic channel realignments over the past year, in some cases finding as many as a half-dozen channels gone missing from their analog basic cable lineup when it’s all said and done.

Communities in South Carolina, Ohio, and Nebraska are the latest to find dozens of channels assuming new positions on the dial, some now requiring a $7-10 digital set top box rental to keep watching.

The reasons for the changes?  To make room for an increasing number of HD channels, upgrade to DOCSIS 3 technology to support faster broadband, and to simplify finding networks on a lineup with hundreds of choices.

In Lincoln, Neb., Time Warner Cable will be aligning all of their analog and digital standard definition channel numbers with their HD counterparts.  So if CNN occupies channel 120 on the standard definition cable lineup, CNN HD will be found on channel 1120.  Customers simply have to add a “1” in front of the three digit channel number to get the same network, when available, in HD.

Lincoln residents may appreciate the fact some channels will be easier to find, but many analog customers without a cable box are not happy several of those channels will be gone from their lineup altogether.  The “victims” of the analog to digital switcheroo are familiar to those who have already been through channel realignments — C-SPAN 2, ShopNBC, TruTV, Travel Channel, and Oxygen will be available only to those who have a digital cable box or CableCARD.

In the Myrtle Beach, S.C., area, Time Warner Cable also moved the Speed channel to a new digital-only home.  Brett Phillips who lives in Georgetown called that a hidden price increase, telling The Sun News Time Warner was effectively taking away a channel while not reducing his cable bill.

In Nebraska and Ohio, Time Warner is handing out “free” digital boxes for 12 months, but only to those who do not have one now.  Those with existing digital boxes cannot obtain a second one or get their existing box for free.  Some critics, including our Lincoln reader Marta says that is a ripoff.

“As a good customer who already pays for two digital boxes and spends almost $200 a month on my cable service, why am I paying for my digital boxes when those who want the lowest priced analog service get one for free,” Marta asks.  “Clearly this is a way to get those boxes into peoples’ homes so at the end of the year they will reluctantly pay for the $7 a month to keep renting it.”

Marta was turned down when she asked if she could get a free extra box for her kitchen television.

“No, Time Warner only gives these free boxes to people who never had them before,” she said.  “I understand the company needs to make room for new things, but they have got to get these box prices down — they could turn the whole system digital as far as I care -if- the boxes were free, or at least much cheaper.”

Some other subscribers have their own conspiracy theories about the channel realignments.

One Nebraska resident noted Time Warner Cable was moving Fox News Channel to channel 44 — an ominous turn of events for this individual:

“It seems that the liberal unionized TWC is putting Fox News on channel 44. Obama is the 44th President. [George] Soros is behind this I just know it.”

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WEWS-TV in Cleveland and KSHB-TV in Kansas City tell their respective viewers about the grand shuffle in their channel lineups.  (3 minutes)