My Comcast Experience

I recently upgraded my home theatre set-up. I bought a 40" Sony Bravia LCD TV with 1080p resolution. It replaced my old 30" Sony Wega tube set. The Wega weighs 150 pounds and I didn't want to carry it up the three flights of stairs to my new apartment. I also retired my 10 year-old Kenwood receiver. My new Denon reciever has 3 HDMI inputs and one HDMI out (to the TV). HDMI carries both video and audio signals with one cable. Awesome. I have a PS3 and an Xbox 360 that both use HDMI. My Comcast cable box, however, uses only component video. It doesn't have an HDMI port. So I called Comcast to see if I could get one of the newer HDMI boxes. The first person I talked to said that they were out of the HDMI boxes and that I should call back in a week. When I called again about 10 days later, the second person I spoke with told me that some Comcast centers had them and that some didn't. The ones that had them only had a few and they were "spoken for". He told me he'd call me back the next day with more information. He didn't. I called again and the third person told me that they didn't have any HDMI boxes. I asked if I could be put on a waiting list or something and she said no. I told her I'd look at other options. I called Dish Network and within two days was switched over. My Dish box has HDMI and a huge capacity DVR. Dish also has more HD channels than Comcast (who likes to brag about their HD "programming" which includes their OnDemand service that sucks my balls with its crappy free movies...see my Cliffhanger rant in my review of Red). So, I called Comcast to cancel my cable and return their equipment. The guy I spoke with asked why I was cancelling. I told him about my problems with trying to get an HDMI box. He told me it would be no problem to get one. Pissed me off. The only way I can get anyone at Comcast to work with me is if I threaten to cancel my service? Nice business model, douchebags. I've been a Comcast customer since 2002 and this is how they treat me. What they do is they give the new HDMI boxes to new customers ("spoken for") and don't upgrade their existing customers until they threaten to cancel. Well, I canceled. And I won't be going back. Take your OnDemand HD Cliffhangers and shove them up your component port-holes, bastards.