hey,
I took sometime to write rogers in regards to my disappointment with the HD buffalo channels at 1:00 a.m. New Years Day hoping it would make some sort of impact on them being that its a holiday and all and that they basically ruined my plans. It was pretty simple, and since I dont know if there are any particular reasons why they have to have the buffalo channels I only ask for an explanation. This is what I wrote.

Dear Rogers,
I have been extremely disappointed with HDNBC, HDCBS, and HDABC since the switch from Detroit channels to the Buffalo channels. Not only is the quality inferior, but the programming as well. I was especially disappointed when my plans to stay home New Years Eve and watch New Years Rockin Eve with Dick Clarke on HDABC was interupted between 11:30 and 12:00 A.M. by the downtown New Years Eve party in Buffalo a situation which I know did not happen on the Detroit channels. I was curious if there is any effort or ongoing talks for a possible switch back to Detroit channels sometime in the near future because I can no longer tolerate the quality of picture, sound and programming from the Buffalo stations. I have heard many complaints from close friends and family who have advised me to switch to another television service provider to fix these problems, something they have already done and I am more than willing to do if these problems continue to be ignored. In the end I want to continue my relationship with Rogers, but I would like an explanation as to why Rogers settled for this inferior selection of channels when the availability of better ones are present.

Thank you in advance

There just take it as a drunk ranting what make a difference.

italfrank, this has been covered before. Rogers is simply abiding by CRTC regs. They can't go back, even if they wanted to.

If you have a complaint then contact the CRTC.

Actually, from all the posts I remember reading, it seems more like a Rogers decision than a CRTC decision. If Rogers told the CRTC that the Buffalo stations were simply not up to par in terms of reliability (which they really haven't been) then I'm sure the CRTC would let them switch back to Detroit.

My other impression from reading posts is that it never was a CRTC thing whatsoever and that Rogers just used that as an excuse.

I actually contacted the CRTC a few months back and they pretty much claimed that they had nothing to do with it. Rogers is just passing the buck.

"Thank you for taking the time to contact the CRTC.

"In point of fact, Rogers must apply to the CRTC for changes in its U.S. "feed". That being said, however, the CRTC does NOT dictate from where Rogers must get that feed. That type of decision is up to the cable company and not to the CRTC.
All I can suggest is that you contact Rogers again and let them know of your concerns. In our experience, cable companies are ultimately responsible to the audiences they serve and are generally receptive to comments they receive from subscribers."

See the following thread, post 12 on...

http://digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32957

Yeah and I heard Rogers compresses their HD signals too

Yep, MPEG2 lossy compression is used at various processing stages of HD over CATV. They take a stream that has already been compressed at a loss, decompress it, remodulate it as needed from 8VSB, 8PSK, or some other stream and inject something like a bug or some other simsub related thing or whatever, recompress it at a loss, and on and on through to the final compression/recompression to get it from their local cherry picker via QAM to your house. That's just the basic stuff.

Have you heard that they're using compression for ulterior motives? The OTA signals from Buffalo are reportedly excellent.

Stampeder, Hugh's post was sarcasm.

And I just sold all my HD equipment because DHC told me that HD is going to be virtually dead in a few years--replaced by widescreen SD.

Stampeder, Hugh's post was sarcasm.I thought so, but it was awfully dry so I wasn't sure even after reading the entire thread. Must be a Rogers customer thing.

And I just sold all my HD equipment because DHC told me that HD is going to be virtually dead in a few years--replaced by widescreen SD.
In black and white.

I was especially disappointed when my plans to stay home New Years Eve and watch New Years Rockin Eve with Dick Clarke on HDABC was interupted between 11:30 and 12:00 A.M. by the downtown New Years Eve party in Buffalo a situation which I know did not happen on the Detroit channels.

It has been a known issue with WKBW (ABC Buffalo) for years. They've ignored Times Square coverage until 12:05 every year. My approach has been to catch ABC Boston live on ExpressVu (if you have a dish) and ABC Seattle delayed (if you have the time-shifting channels on Rogers or ExpressVu). If any of these are not possible, try moving to Windsor :-)

I was in buffalo this new years, and i found out that WKBW is the main sponsor of First Night Buffalo.

I was watching ESPN's new year show.