Klueless
Very Senior Member
Spectrum/Charter is steering me towards "shrinking" Cable and I'm fine with that. I "halved" my costs when I switched to Spectrum for phone, TV and Internet (60 x 5 Mbps) services.
We have five TVs. Two are on HD converter boxes, the other three get "basic TV" by simply connecting them to the provided coax cables (one of the cost savings of switching; no longer needed a converter box for every TV).
Recently Spectrum has been advertising that they are eliminating "basic TV" to free up bandwidth for more HD channels and faster Internet. I assume this claim to be true since they recently increased my service to 100 x 10 Mbps at no charge. But it also means I will have to rent more converter boxes or convert to "IPTV" and use the "Spectrum App" for viewing.
(I also think it's a clear indicator that Spectrum is transitioning towards IPTV. Vizio? Not so much.)
We already had a "smart" Samsung so I "connected" it, loaded the Spectrum App and it works great. Buoyed by my success I bought two Roku sticks, loaded the Spectrum Apps and they also work great.
The other two TVs are relics (due for replacement anyway) so I replaced one with a Vizio Smart TV. Didn't "work". Yeah, it's a smart TV but Vizio does it different. They provide some apps but haven't seen fit to provide a Spectrum (nor DirectTV, etc.) App. I asked the Vizio support desk if that would be happening? They had no idea.
I have one more TV to replace and it won't be with a Vizo. I'm probably not the only one. Spectrum has something like 25 million subscribers, many with multiple TVs. Vizio has something like 20% market share in the US. This change could have been a windfall for Vizio; instead it's going translate into something like 5 million TVs (assuming 20% of 25 million) in lost opportunity for Vizio.
We have five TVs. Two are on HD converter boxes, the other three get "basic TV" by simply connecting them to the provided coax cables (one of the cost savings of switching; no longer needed a converter box for every TV).
Recently Spectrum has been advertising that they are eliminating "basic TV" to free up bandwidth for more HD channels and faster Internet. I assume this claim to be true since they recently increased my service to 100 x 10 Mbps at no charge. But it also means I will have to rent more converter boxes or convert to "IPTV" and use the "Spectrum App" for viewing.
(I also think it's a clear indicator that Spectrum is transitioning towards IPTV. Vizio? Not so much.)
We already had a "smart" Samsung so I "connected" it, loaded the Spectrum App and it works great. Buoyed by my success I bought two Roku sticks, loaded the Spectrum Apps and they also work great.
The other two TVs are relics (due for replacement anyway) so I replaced one with a Vizio Smart TV. Didn't "work". Yeah, it's a smart TV but Vizio does it different. They provide some apps but haven't seen fit to provide a Spectrum (nor DirectTV, etc.) App. I asked the Vizio support desk if that would be happening? They had no idea.
I have one more TV to replace and it won't be with a Vizo. I'm probably not the only one. Spectrum has something like 25 million subscribers, many with multiple TVs. Vizio has something like 20% market share in the US. This change could have been a windfall for Vizio; instead it's going translate into something like 5 million TVs (assuming 20% of 25 million) in lost opportunity for Vizio.
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