News: Comcast To Buy TechTV, Merge It With G4

[Rogmeister]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=599&e=1&u=/nm/20040325/media_nm/media_comcast_dc

This has been mentioned before but I guess this makes it official... 8-)

[Lady Jaye]

Now, the question remains: will Tech TV Canada remain at a standstill, or will it too reflect the merge with G4?

D'oh! Just checked TechTV Canada's website and just saw the news that they can't air Anime Unleashed! It's not that they don't want to or haven't tried to do so, but rather that the CRTC has denied their request to air anime! :angry:

[Rogmeister]

I'm not even sure the U.S. version of TechTV is showing that anymore. I thought they dropped it when they started airing double episodes of XPlay. I never really watched it so I'm not positive but that's what I thought.

My main thoughts are which shows will stay and which will be cancelled. True, G4 does air a fair amount of junk but there are several shows that I do enjoy...Judgment Day, Pulse, G4tv.com among them.

[Raedon]

old news.. I remember hearing about this weeks ago. I think it's a good idea as 1) we don't get G4 and 2) TechTV has some GREAT programs but then they have 4 or 5 crap programs they imported from the UK like future fighting and that battlebot program.

[Tritoch]

Since I don't get either of 'em, I view this as a good thing. Maybe their collective clout will now allow the new station to become a part of Time Warner's standard cable service. :)

[SoulBlazer]

Yeah, Cox does'nt cary either channel either, so who cares? :P

[Raedon]

it's in the digital tier of cable service. The analog area is taken up completely already by controllers like Viacom. Both Time Warner and Cox have Tech TV and Time Warner has G4.. both are on the digital package.

[NE146]

Well heck maybe this means I'll get back Tech TV again. Ever since I moved, I had to transfer my Comcast service which meant I had to "re-subscribe". Turns out that even though I ended up paying more ($70 per month for basic + premium package), I stopped getting TechTV because it wasn't included in those two packages! I'd have to fork out another $30 to get it and a bunch of other channels I didn't want. :angry: I do get g4 though.

[SegaAges]

I have cox digital cable and I get both tech tv and g4

[ManekiNeko]

Now, the question remains: will Tech TV Canada remain at a standstill, or will it too reflect the merge with G4?

D'oh! Just checked TechTV Canada's website and just saw the news that they can't air Anime Unleashed! It's not that they don't want to or haven't tried to do so, but rather that the CRTC has denied their request to air anime! :angry:

Gee, you'd think Tech TV's crappy anime would be boring enough even for Canada. Guess not.

JR

[Sniderman]

Hell, ever since I got Dish Network, I have neither. Shame, as my cable company got G4 AND Tech TV. Great stuff. But not worth the cable hassle. But I miss 'em both.

You'd think two specialty channels based on higher technologies would try to get themselves on Dish and DirectTV

[spooie]

TechTV still airs their Anime Unleashed shows... it comes on at 1am-2am EST Tuesday-Saturday, and 2am-3:30am EST Monday mornings.

I'm somewhat saddened by the news myself, because TechTV is a serious network that doesn't mind acting goofy, and G4TV is a goofy network that pretends to be serious. Especially with G4's recent "Look at us, We're such a hardcore, badass network!" image relaunch of their shows, moving even more and more closer to MTV dreck, it's going to be sad seeing TechTV's shows subjected to that. Of course, we'll never see Wil Wheaton do a guest appearance on the TechTV shows again, considering G4's sordid past with him... and of course, as time goes by the anti-Nintendo influences and Nokia sucking up will surely take place when new management takes over Xplay.

But, hey... that's just my take.

[Famidrive-16]

They still air anime unleashed on TTV here. tho i dont watch it much, only two good shows they had on that were lain and betterman.

[SoulBlazer]

I don't know what you mean by 'digital' cable -- can someone explain that to me?

I thought I allready had the biggest package -- over 100 channels with Cox. And I'm allready paying $45 for it! :eek 2:

[Ed Oscuro]

Almost seems like a consolation purchase for Comcast after being rebuffed by Disney ;D

[§ Gideon §]

SoulBlazer, digital cable is a service offered only in areas where broadband cable internet connections are available. The rest is self-explanatory.

Gee, you'd think Tech TV's crappy anime would be boring enough even for Canada. Guess not.
lol. I feel the same way.

[SoulBlazer]

Okay....then maybe Cox DOES offer this 'digital' package. I just never heard of it before. :o

Right now, I'm paying $45 a month with Cox for my Extended cable package -- gets me about 100 channels. And then I'm also paying them $40 a month for the cable modem (broadband) connection, even though I have my own cable modem. So they get about $85 of my bucks each months and I do NOT feel like giving them any more. -_-

So yeah, maybe I could get one or both channels -- but if they are not part of my extended plan, I'm NOT paying any more money to those bastards for them. O_O

[Raedon]

SoulBlazer, digital cable is a service offered only in areas where broadband cable internet connections are available. The rest is self-explanatory.

Actually digital cable is seperate from broadband cable modem. Digital cable was out years before cable modems.

Digital cable was pushed as the next "high end" TV viewing thing in the early-mid 90's. It was suppose to, "bring high quality sound and image to your living room."

What really happened was the Cable companies were running out of channels and HBO/PPV/ESPN/etc wanted HBO1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,latino and ESPN2. etc. so there wasn't enough room.

Digital cable compress' 10 channels into 1, that is what Digital Cable is and was.. a way to take a quality analog station and turn it into 10 or more highly compress channels. Then the Cable operators sold the whole cheapening as a "High quality must have Tech."

Satallite TV is even worse, but most people don't notice the VCD quality of satillite for some reason.

In reality an analog channel like CNN is of better quality then any of the digital HBO's now.

When HDTV comes around the cable companies are going to be back in business as they have far more bandwidth then the dish people can push no matter what they do as the air is regulated but the wires are wide open. So far the Direct TV has the worst HDTV and it won't get any better as they baught into equipment they shouldn't have. Dish Network is better.

Cable companies are going to use a DVR HDTV tuner that connects to your home network. The Motorola I'm demo'ing right now for my company has an 80gig that allows you to add firewire HD's, DVD-R's and allows you to move your shows off the HD onto any computer in your house over CAT5 or you can use a notebook wifi adapter.

it's a newer version of the 6200 but they look the same. http://broadband.motorola.com/consumers/products/dct6200/

[Ed Oscuro]

Wow, I didn't know all that...thanks Raedon :D