We could hear better, too! (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
We live in a rural area, too rural for cable television. That's been fine for the last five years, we've coexisted quite comfortably with our satellite dish which has been attached to the chimney. All was well with the world until we bought a new television for the bedroom which has HD capability. This purchase necessitated a new dish which allows the HD signal to be received.
The dish guy came out, "Oh, NO" he says; an HD dish is much too heavy to go on your chimney. It will need to be installed in the back yard!" I was thinking "why does everything have to be so complicated?" He assured me that everything would be exactly like it was, PLUS, we'd receive HD in addition. I asked that he speak to my husband before I offered the back yard as a satellite dish parking lot, I dialed the number and handed him the phone. Neither one of us, my husband or myself, were too excited about the prospect; but we figured we'd either: a) get used to it and not notice it eventually and/or b) be so totally enamored with HD reception that the backyard placement would prove worth it.
We live in a rural area, too rural for cable television. That's been fine for the last five years, we've coexisted quite comfortably with our satellite dish which has been attached to the chimney. All was well with the world until we bought a new television for the bedroom which has HD capability. This purchase necessitated a new dish which allows the HD signal to be received.
The dish guy came out, "Oh, NO" he says; an HD dish is much too heavy to go on your chimney. It will need to be installed in the back yard!" I was thinking "why does everything have to be so complicated?" He assured me that everything would be exactly like it was, PLUS, we'd receive HD in addition. I asked that he speak to my husband before I offered the back yard as a satellite dish parking lot, I dialed the number and handed him the phone. Neither one of us, my husband or myself, were too excited about the prospect; but we figured we'd either: a) get used to it and not notice it eventually and/or b) be so totally enamored with HD reception that the backyard placement would prove worth it.
Let's just say neither a) nor b) were ever realistic options. The dish is an eyesore. (Let's just admit that, the Emperor has no clothes!) The installer was unreasonable and if the truth were known the whole reason he refused to put it on the chimney is because he was too lazy to climb up the ladder with it and too impatient to wait for help from another installer. We've learned all of this after the fact. After a dozen phone calls to Direct TV tech help, and the revelation that the existing televisions (those that don't receive HD) now won't pick up half the channels they used to after this "enhancement", we requested that the satellite service be removed, permanently. "No, no; we'll be back out. No additional service/installation fee. We'll put the dish on the chimney which will allow you to receive all the channels you did before... PLUS HD." That's more like it. It shouldn't be this difficult. My husband disconnected the HD cable in the meantime, that allows us pull in the other stations until repairs are completed. We did watch the Auburn-Florida game in HD while we had it hooked up, it was an incredible picture! (The outcome pleased us too, War Eagle y'all!) Just when life was seemingly returning to normal I picked up the remote to click off the TV in the kitchen and another TV, in another part of the house, turned on! Hmmm...
Stay tuned folks, this isn't over yet. I'm listening to CD's while quilting these days...
The music has never sounded more lovely.
Life is Good!
Stay tuned folks, this isn't over yet. I'm listening to CD's while quilting these days...
The music has never sounded more lovely.
Life is Good!
2 comments:
I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble with getting HD set up properly, it really is incredible as you said.
After we bought our HD set we had a lot of trouble with faulty chips, etc. which left us without a TV for a few months while we sorted it out with the manufacturer. During that time I was frustrated, but also in some way it was nice to enjoy the silence, listen to music, read a book, or spend quality time just talking with Paula. Sounds like you're getting a taste of that with listening to CD's!
Isn’t it interesting how customer service can be so poor until you say, “That’s enough, I don’t want it anymore”. All of a sudden the story changes, you can have exactly what you want, and you realize that you’ve been taken advantage of until you stand your ground. I’m not sure why they call it “customer service”. Good for you, for getting exactly what you want, even if you’ve had some hassles to achieve it.
We have an HD flat panel mounted on the wall in our bedroom which was a Christmas gift from my sweet husband. He ordered the DVR cable box with HD and now I can record programs in HD as well. The problem happens when we want to watch sports in HD….it’s not like you can invite our company up to our bedroom to sit on the bed and watch the football game with us! Once you have HD, there is no going back so one of our next projects is to get this new technology for the family room so it’s more “visitor-friendly”.
Now, all of this said, I can remember when my parents bought our first “color” TV. Wow, I was so excited and I thought my parents must now be rich. We had had an old black and white television and the transition to color was just amazing. I think that was more amazing than us moving to HD. How much this newest generation takes for granted. I can even remember when there were no personal computers, and a computer was something that took up an entire room somewhere! Remember punch cards to program that computer? Now that I’ve digressed and also shown my age, I’ll end by saying that I’m happy I’ve experienced all these wonderful changes in technology. But I do wonder what’s in store for us in the next fifty years.
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