I hate you Comcast

Comcast finally encrypted the OnDemand content in the Denver area. For years you've been able to use a QAM tuner in modern digital TVs to do a lot of the same work as a Comcast Digital Receiver. Living in a dense urban area, this gave me access to a lot of paid programming for free. Now it's been locked up, and I sure am sorry to see it go.

I paid Comcast $13.29 a month for all the networks in HD, plus I got digital Bravo, WGN and TBS. I got a couple ghosty analog channels, including Food, SciFi and VH1 (Rock of Love! WHoooo!) In addition, the OnDemand content was typically 2-6 programs at any time with up to 10-15 on Friday and Saturday night.

Most new releases play 5-10 times the week they come out. I use Netflix for older content, but the chance to catch Zack & Miri a dozen times for free, or check out Baby Momma, Choke or Milk and decide I don't need to rent them was totally awesome. Bill Maher is also popular in my neighborhood. Every Friday somebody in my neighborhood watches The Soup on E! which I love. Every Sunday we'd see "SoftPornoGuy" checking out some Skinimax - fast forwarding,rewinding and...pausing (Ew).

Now, Comcast raised the rate to $14.99 and added no services, plus encrypted all the OnDemand content. The starting tier at which just the crappy free Comcast OnDemand is available costs $56. The starting HD package runs $130. Conversely, HD OTA is free, meaning I now pay Comcast almost $20 a month for a few crappy basic cable channels.

I understand I'm not a "good" customer from Comcast's point of view. I just don't see the value in paying for their huge bundles of services. I only use about 20% of what Comcast charges for. Why pay for 400 channels of SD crap just to get to the HD tier? I'm very sorry to see such a good thing go.