Metrocast adds HD channels to lineup - sort of

In New Hampshire and Far Southwestern Maine, where Metrocast Cable crosses over the state borders to do business, the channel lineup can change right before your very eyes.

With no fanfare or announcement, Metrocast added Fox 25, the Fox Affiliate out of Boston which is in High Definition, to their lineup. I was surprised and called Metrocast to see if this was permanent or just some sort of test. The reason I called is that Maine has a Fox channel, Fox 23 out of Waterville, but they are not broadcasting over the air in HD and won't until February 17, 2009. It's all due to some FCC rules and it's a long story. In any case, I was told that Fox 25 would be permanently added to the channel lineup for those of us in Maine (even though technically we shouldn't have it because Maine has as Fox channel with broadcasting rights to this area. And even if/when Fox 23 is ready to broadcast in HD in Maine on February 17, there's nothing that says Metrocast will carry that channel. We have yet to test receiving Fox 23's digital signal because it's just not there yet.

Low and behold a few weeks went by and the channel disappeared. I called Metrocast to find out what was going on and nobody knew but the said they would get back to me. Anybody care to guess if they did? Any wagers? No? None? You are correct. Nobody ever got back to me. So I wrote to them via email and still nobody has gotten back to me.

So know the rest of the lineup. For 2009 Metrocast added QVC is HD. Wow, now there's some real progress in the world of HD. QVC launched their HD channel but the actual picture size is smaller than regular analog QVC because QVC decided to fill up a third of the screen with white space, advertising that they sell HD TVs. Not quite sure where the benefit is there.

Then we have Versus HD. I never even heard of Versus regular, never mind HD. And if you are going to launch an HD channel, shouldn't you have HD programming. Every time I channel surf, Versus HD isn't in HD; they're not even in wide screen format. And it's a bunch of shows about fishing.

So thank you Metrocast for yet more disappointment. You removed FOX in HD, you added QVC in HD but it isn't really HD, and you gave us a fishing channel that's not in HD either. Great work! You're really showing those satellite companies how it's done.

Fox 25 magically appears in digital/HD

The Fox affiliate in Maine, WPFO-Fox 23, came into existence after the FCC had assigned UHF channels to broadcasters for the sole purpose of broadcasting digital TV signals while still using their existing TV channel for analog.



So, while Fox 23 does provide digital signals via fiber optic cable to some Time Warner customers and DirectTV customers in Maine, they can not "broadcast" a digital signal until they do a flash cut over from analog to digital on 2/17/09.



So this is what we, in Maine, have all been dealing with. I have written to my cable company, Metrocast, which services Rochester, NH, and the Sanford, ME area. I've asked why they can't provide us with Fox 25 out of Boston in digital/HD since we can't get Fox 23 in digital. I was told that due to FCC rules and cable/TV station agreements it was not possible. I was told I would just have to wait until Fox 23 went digital over the air and then wait even further for Metrocast to carry that digital TV station in their lineup. The possibilities were remote at best.

All of a sudden, last Monday, September 29, Fox 25 in digital/HD magically appeared in my digital channel lineup; no announcement, no nothing from my cable company, it just showed up. I've attempted to call Metrocast several times but have never been able to last as long as they have wanted to keep me on hold. I want to ask them "What's the deal" with this new Fox channel.

In the end, it doesn't really matter, I guess. I just hope that it is not there as some sort of mistake and will end up being removed for some reason. I don't watch Fox that much, but it will be nice to be able to record shows on my DVR in HD as opposed to the analog channel provided to us known as Fox 23.