Despite the best efforts by creditors who didn’t like the bankruptcy conditions, Charter Communications has announced that the company has exited Chapter 11 after filing for bankruptcy back in March of this year. The bankruptcy process and reorganization eliminated about $8 billion of Charter’s $21 billion debt load. According to Charter CEO Neil Smit, the bankruptcy will help the company to “remain focused on further enhancing the customer experience.”

Unfortunately for Charter, a lousy customer experience is one of the major reasons the company went bankrupt in the first place. Charter consistently coming in last place in nearly every survey that measures customer satisfaction among ISPs and TV operators.

Link to the original article…

Charter Communications continues to battle with the companies lenders, who are trying to prevent the bankrupt cable company from exiting bankruptcy so they can appeal a court ruling approving the reorganization. Creditors have been fighting against Charter’s reorganization plan all summer and fall, primarily because they don’t like the pre-bankruptcy interest rates agreed to in the deal. “Hundreds of millions of dollars of additional interest and would put at peril the entire plan,” Charter attorneys claim in court filings.

Last week Charter executives indicated that a post-bankruptcy Charter would explore price hikes and metered billing for the company’s customers.

Link to the original article…

If you listen to some certain monstrous cable company, their overpriced and oft-litigated cables are worth every penny. I disagree. As do a lot of other people and companies that have been proving that same company claims to be more marketing hype than quality product. Sure, all you have to do is Google the phrase “high price cable challenge” to verify that the ongoing debate about high priced cables versus lower-priced cables is still ongoing as of today. But in the end… it just boils down to what works well for you and what you can afford.

With some cables coming with esoteric terms and overly expensive prices, let’s face it… nobody can really afford a bad experience due to the cables if they’re expensive or not.

So for this review, I got to do something extremely fun. Instead of going through a bunch of electronic scopes to measure the effectiveness of a cable or two… no time for that nerdy nonsense. I just grabbed the nearest LG 47LH90 [ site here ] and a Sony PlayStation3, a Monster THX 700 4′ HDMI cable [ Best Buy link here ] and an Optimized Cable 6′ HDMI cable [ site here ]. For the record, I also included some thin 6′ HDMI cable that came with some other piece of hardware I’ve had laying around that came with some piece of equipment as my “control group”.

With the unnamed cable, the thing had one end that absolutely refused to fit properly into my television. It was warped slightly but it would “fit”. I expected the video from this ill-fitting HDMI cable to be rather bad but it was rather clear… as long as I didn’t touch the cable. This is far from ideal. So I replace Mr. Unnamed Cable for the Monster cable… mind you, as unscientific as this review has been so far, the video was infinitely better and the audio was clearer. Things just worked better, as it should. But let’s’ be clear… this is an $80.00 cable. So it had better work as advertised.

After a full hour of playing Uncharted 2 on the PlayStation3 with the Monster HDMI cable, I had to give the Optimized Cable Company 6′ HDMI cable a chance. Won’t lie… for $13.00 bucks, I wasn’t really expecting much. Sure, the company has a good idea – bringing good cables to good people for less money. That usually works for me… it means more money for yet another PlayStation3 game, or a few Blu-Ray movies. But there is a thing as too cheap… such as that unnamed, thin HDMI cable that I had laying around. That unnamed cable was just… too bad. I’d lose my religion if that were the only cable I had laying around.

Looking at the specs on the Optimized Cable HDMI cable, it has specs that go head to head against the Monster THX 700 cable:

Cable Type: HDMI Male to HDMI Male Cable
Length: 6 Foot
Most Current HDMI Version: 1.3b1
Gauge: 28 AWG (American Wire Gauge)
Bandwidth: 340 Mhz 10.2 Gbps / 120 Hz Refresh Rate
Connector Finish: Gold
Shielding level: 3x Triple
Shielding type: EMI (Electromagnetic Interference)
Certified HDMI: Yes
HDCP Compliant: Yes
CEC Compliant: Yes
ROHS Compliant: Yes
Backwards Compatible with HDMI Version 1.2: Yes
Supports Blu Ray & HD DVD 1080p: Yes
Supports 480p, 720p 1080i, 1080p, 1440p: Yes
Supports Lossless DTS 8 Channel Audio: Yes
Supports TrueHD & DTS-HD: Yes

So how did the Optimized Cable Company HDMI cable do? It fit properly, was heavier than I expected, and didn’t feel cheap or flimsy. And I didn’t see a difference with it and the Monster one. Not one bit. No loss in sound, no loss in color, no bleeding, no static, it didn’t get in the way of me playing Uncharted 2 for another 2 hours ignoring the phone and bypassing a couple of bathroom breaks nor did it really seem like it was a less superior cable.

Sure, I could hook up all kind of machines to show that this cable probably can only use about 95% of the proposed 10.2Gbps throughput, but as far as I can tell you as a consumer… it is $68 dollars cheaper than the Monster Cable and delivered the same exact experience. And in this economy… that’s enough savings and positive experience to recommend cables from Optimized Cable Company.

4.5 out of 5 (Highly Recommended)

[ Optimized Cable Company ] [ Optimized Cable HDMI Cable ]