Tag: CABLE

As anyone reading this is surely aware, the 'information age' has come with its fair share of visual noise. With Internet, television, and phone companies aggressively competing for market share, the need to install physical equipment in neighborhoods around the country continues to grow. And, in case you hadn't noticed, the delivery mechanisms are ugly as sin. Thankfully, several towns are ...

From all the coffee shop musicians here at Switched and Engadget, we'd like to sincerely thank Belkin for producing this marvelous device. For the rest of us who run around on stage like madmen, we have our doubts about how well this will work. Nevertheless, the BreakFree Connectors were designed to add a magnetic breakaway point in your 1/4-inch cable, meaning that things will simply snap away ...

Alright, so you're stocked up on locking HDMI cables, but what are you to do about those real tight situations where a traditional HDMI cable end simply sticks out too far? Panasonic to the rescue. As the pre-IFA news continues to trickle out, Panny has introduced a new HDMI cable with a swiveling head, one that can point up or down in order to work nicely in wall-mounted TV applications and the ...

Far from being the first time Time Warner Cable has upset its subscriber base, the Los Angeles city attorney's office is pulling a Dee Snider and refusing to take the carrier's lackluster service anymore. In a 25-page lawsuit, the city is alleging that the operator "caused major havoc and distress" two years ago when it "failed to live up to its part of the franchise cable agreement requiring ...

Back in the old days of the Internet, when a 14.4 kilobyte-per-second dial-up connection was hot, providers charged by the hour -- a flat fee for a dozen or so hours' worth of time online and a couple bucks more for each additional. As Internet access became more popular, prices dropped and subscribers dumped such plans in favor of "all you can eat" packages, but it appears that Time Warner is ...

Shortly after hearing TiVo's top dog speak of a "whole home model" to reduce the amount of STBs required for entertaining individuals in various rooms, along comes Time Warner Cable's chief executive talking up some innovation of its own. We'll be frank -- we're not entirely sure what Glenn Britt is getting at here, but through a broken series of quotes, we're led to believe that the carrier is ...

Since the inception of cable television subscribers have had to deal with the clunky cable box. When most TVs were finally able to take coaxial inputs and didn't need boxes anymore, cable companies then introduced digital cable, again requiring a converter box. Then came cable HD, and again more advanced boxes, making escape seemingly impossible. But, that may not be the case forever, if an ...

Conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day with this story. In fairness, so will just about everybody else. We hope. Comcast is experimenting with camera technology. More specifically, it trying out technology that turns cable boxes into camera-equipped devices that would utilize body-form-recognition as a means to provide custom-tailored service, and, of course, custom tailored ...

NBC and CBS, and ABC already offer full episodes of new and classic shows online -- a huge help to those who lack a DVR and find themselves missing an episode or two. Now ABC is taking that a step further, offering a free video-on-demand service straight to digital cable subscribers' boxes. There's a catch, though: You won't be able to fast-forward through the commercials. This too is similar to ...

A fourth undersea cable that carries Internet connectivity to and from the Middle East has been cut, according to various reports. The previous three cuts caused major disruptions to Internet service in the region and in some cases led to complete Internet blackouts. This latest cable is operated by Qatar Telecom, and the disruption affected mainly that part of the United Arab Emirates, the ...

Today at CES, Comcast CEO Brian L. Roberts announced a bevy of new services and technologies for the cable giant's customers. The signature development Roberts touted is the launch today of Fancast, a Web site that that translates cable television services to the PC. Under the new service, consumers will be able to search for content from most major networks and a plethora of video sources, ...

Internet users have become accustomed to the idea of things getting faster as time goes on, but a warning from analyst firm Nemertes Research Group is raising fears that within three to five years, Internet access in the Americas could actually get slower. Much, much slower. The reason for the fears, which some are calling a 'meltdown,' is simply the popularity of the Internet. As anyone who ...

DirecTV is breaking out the big guns in the war for TV superiority. The satellite TV provider has bumped up its HD lineup from just a handful of channels to over 70, with plans to offer 100 by the year's end. T Overnight, this addition channels pushes DirecTV from dead last in the HD race to first, and by a huge margin. For example, satellite TV competitor Dish Network -- previously the HD ...

Now that you've shelled out for a nice new HDTV, it's time to learn how to get the best possible sound and video out of it. Switched explains just what all of those inputs on the back of your set are for, how to connect them, and which ones will maximize your home theater experience. Related Links: Just Tell Me What to Get: 42-Inch Plasma Who's Got the Most HD Channels? The ...

Making the switch from dial-up to broadband feels like a huge increase in speed -- and it is. The fastest you could ever hope to get over a modem is somewhere around 56kbps, or 56,000 bits of data per second. Your average DSL line offers connection speeds somewhere around 200kbps, around four times faster, while cable modem speeds are often upwards of 5,000kbps, which is 90 times faster than ...