"...and traded one arrogant company whose junk doesn't work for another one."
Once upon a time not too long ago, I had Cox High Speed Internet and Cable TV.
My 56" JVC TV, my Denon AVR-590 home theater system, my Sony Blue Ray DVD Player and my something or other multi disc CD player all worked and played well together for the two hours each month I actually used the damn things. All was well, and life was good.
Then one day Cox decided to do a firmware update on their Scientific American cable box, and the fun times were gone. My screen flickered to static for a second to two once or twice every few minutes. It was maddening. Cox came out to fix it, but couldn't.
We rewired the Cable box to go around the AV receiver, and the process of switching back and forth between DVD and TV became an exercise in futility. It sort of kind of worked, if you stood on one foot with your eyes closed, completed three revolutions without going over and spit to the north while you changed the configuration around. Even then, I got the flicker to static once every half hour of so.
I begged and pleaded to just change back to the way it was when life was good, but Cox can't do that. Progress only moves forward. Technology only works by accident anyway, right? Always go forward, never go back. (There's a software patch available from Scientific American to fix this problem, but Cox won't distribute it. They think I should take what they give me, and like it.)
Meanwhile, AT&T has asked me at least once a week for a year to give them a shot. I refused. I'm not an AT&T fan. I stood my ground, thinking that the devil I knew was better than the one I didn't know. I resisted staunchly for a long time. Finally one gloomy Saturday in August, I was trying to watch Good Will Hunting on Encore and the signal wouldn't stay connected. My screen went black, then back then flickered.
I'm done.
I grabbed a clothes pin to clamp my nose closed as I drove to the nearest AT&T store and humbly signed up for U-Verse. They finally installed it last week, and sure enough, it doesn't work right either. Hooked it all up, I did, to my AV Receiver, TV, DVD, Ethernet and CD player. No Surround Sound.
Evidently AT&T has decided that 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound through the HDMI output is trivial. "2 Channel Stereo was good enough for Ma Bell and it's good enough for you." Cox, DISH, Direct TV, the Blue Ray player and everyone else on the planet sends surround sound audio through the HDMI cable. What, did AT&T think nobody would notice?
Fortunately, my AVR has two slots for optical audio input, one for the CD player and one for U-Verse. It's the only way to get surround sound from them, evidently. So for $30 at Radio Shack, I was able to compensate for AT&T's incompetence. Life is good again - until AT&T does a firmware update anyway.
I should send them the bill.