Do I yell at BTN or Comcast?

Submitted by DesHow21 on

So having ponied up my 10 bucks a month, I was dumb enough to expect to be able to see us kicking the crap out of DSU.

Lo and Behold, I am treated to the bucknuts gacking it up against Purdon't. In retrospect not a bad trade but I was pissed as hell at the moment and am still kinda bummed they didn't have another channel where I could at least switch over and watch the first half of our game.

The liveblog had mysterious references to some "overflow" channel, but I swear I flipped through something 800 channels and couldnt find it.

So whose fault is it? Comcast or BTN ?

OMG Shirtless

October 19th, 2009 at 12:49 PM ^

Did you check the BTN Gamefinder? It will tell you where the game is, often times the channel guides are wrong or cut off most of the entire program description.

For example, the description this weekend was something like: College Football, Ohio State @ Purdue or Delaware State @ Michigan. Unless I hit the info button on the channel the only thing that showed up was College Football, Ohio State @ Purdue, the Michigan portion was cut off.

Of course you could fall in one of those states where Comcast doesn't even carry the Overflow channels in which case it was a combination of you not asking Comcast if they carry the overflow channels before paying for it and Comcast hating the Big Ten Network outside of the Big Ten Footprint.

Six Zero

October 19th, 2009 at 12:50 PM ^

in my area... The BTN 'rents' additional channels as needed for gameday and I got to tune into the DSU game on an 800-level channel. Granted, it wasn't in HD, but still better than nothing.

For more info on future games, consult the BTN site directly-- you can find out all possible games and channel numbers for your specific cable provider here:

http://www.bigtennetwork.com/gamefinder/index.html

willis j

October 19th, 2009 at 12:58 PM ^

and i punched my wife until I found the overflow channel 2 channels above the BTN. I never knew I had it until Saturday. All it says is "Sports-1" and in the info it said TBA.

I think on the BTN website it has an indicator that it is the overflow game. I'm not sure what it is though.

Maize and Blue…

October 19th, 2009 at 12:59 PM ^

Multiple BTN feeds. My two kids who had a game at 7 (mom wouldn't let them go) called me at the game to find out what channel the game was on. They had no probably finding the game on the dish after I told them what to do.

maracle

October 19th, 2009 at 1:02 PM ^

Comcast's fault. Maybe.

AT&T's UVerse and the Satellite companies all carry the overflow channel, but down here in Texas Time Warner cable also does not have this channel. Either cable companies are cheap assholes or they have more constraints limiting how many channels they can carry, and in all fairness there is rarely anything aired on the overflow channels.

Probably both, cheap assholes with bad technology.

formerlyanonymous

October 19th, 2009 at 1:06 PM ^

I agree with this 100%. BTN tries to get as much coverage as possible. They had to fight to get overflow channels in the first place. Providers tend to be the ones in the wrong.

If you did look at the gamefinder, you should have been able to find it easily. In that case, I think it's definitely on comcast.

Yinka Double Dare

October 19th, 2009 at 1:29 PM ^

I presume you don't have a clear view of the southern sky and don't have a balcony then? If you face south and have a balcony your building cannot stop you from having a dish installed on your balcony, so long as it doesn't overhang the building. This presumes you're in an apartment -- I think a condo association can do whatever they want.

Bigasshammm

October 19th, 2009 at 1:17 PM ^

I have something like 4 or 5 overflow channels. The first couple weeks of the year there were usually 3-4 BTN games on at the same time and I could switch to every one of them all in HD. This is definitely a carrier issue since when we had satan's TWC there was only one "overflow" channel and it was not in HD. U-verse is a great service if you can get it where you live.

KBLOW

October 19th, 2009 at 1:39 PM ^

It's an issue with your regional/local Comcast for not having the extra channels. Not that it helps except for if you want it on your DVR, but BTN does rebroadcast the "other" game in HD on Sunday.

The lame thing for me is that BTN still isn't offering any sort of live streaming for the football games.

Niag

October 19th, 2009 at 2:40 PM ^

had the Michigan game on the regular BTN, with the OSU-PU game on the overflow channel 692, just as announced on the BTN web page.

03 Blue 07

October 19th, 2009 at 2:52 PM ^

In Chicago, Comcast had PU-OSU on the main channel, but using the "search" feature (you hit "guide" or "menu" or something first) it was easy to find the game on channel 692 or something like that. I think it would be weird (but obviously not unheard of) for Comcast to have overflow B10 channels in certain places and not in others...although I live in the Big Ten footprint, so perhaps that explains it.

umjgheitma

October 19th, 2009 at 2:54 PM ^

I have U-Verse and there are channels labeled ALT1HD, AlT2HD, ALT3HD etc.... and those are set aside spill over channels for the BTN which all come in HD. Im surprised other carriers don't have HD channels available since the signal broadcasted is in HD. Just a way to lose a customer to another carrier