Time Warner's HD service.

From time to time, I've had some problems with my HD service from Time Warner Cable. It was quirky. It would lose video and audio sync. I've always managed to work around it, though. Tonight, though, I was very disappointed by Time Warner's service. Check out the HD video below.

Now, before you ask, I didn't contact Time Warner's technical support. I simply don't have the patience to talk to corporate technical support. I'm a technical person. I have more computers and network gizmos in my house than any healthy man should. I simply can't take a technical support person asking me to go through some checklist that verifies there's power to the cable box.

I put on the game. It was choppy (see above). I changed to another HD channel. It was a little choppy, but far less so. I changed to a standard definition channel, and it was fine. I changed back to the game, with the same result; choppy. I changed back to another HD channel with the same result; choppy, but not as bad.

I turned the box off, and back on. Same result.

I unplugged the cable box from its power cord, gave it plenty of time for its capacitors to exhaust themselves, and the internal hard drive to spin down, and then reconnected the power. SAME RESULT.

I don't know what the problem is, but it's frustrating. And on a night where the BCS championship is on, it's unacceptable. I wrote Time Warner a friendlygram, letting them know that I wasn't happy, but I know there's nothing they can do about it (tonight). We'll see where it goes.

When I'm paying for HD service, I expect HD service. If I'm not getting it, it seems like there's a breach of commitment from the provider; not out of malice, mind you, but out of omission.

I'll let you know if my HD service improves. In the mean time, I'm paying $150/month for internet access, TV service that I could get for free over the air, and enough taxes to make me wonder why my NC state taxes "needed" to go up nearly 3% this year (combination of sales tax and income tax).