Headcase Design

It's not just you. Hotel TV systems are a constant pain point for frequent travelers. A partial checklist of complaints I've heard (and, frankly, voiced): There is rarely an interactive onscreen channel guide, every time the TV is turned on it resets to an information channel (with the volume jacked up), and it can take a second or more for the TV to change from one channel to the other.

So why don't hotels just use regular cable services? Like many disgruntled consumers, I long assumed it was all part of a carefully crafted cash grab. After all, it isn't difficult to see how resetting the station to an information screen that advertises hotel restaurants and amenities or pushes the latest pay-per-view offerings can make the place more money. And the missing onscreen TV guide? Well, I figured someone was hedging against the possibility that knowing the original Die Hard was showing on TNT might make a viewer think twice about shelling out cash for Battle: Los Angeles on PPV.

While there turned out to be some truth to my musings, the situation is actually more complex. Hotels typically rely on specialized television providers that have built their businesses around catering to hotels' needs. Most consumers have never heard of these vendors, which go by names such as LodgeNet and Cox Hospitality Network, but they are big deals in the travel industry. These services are definitely designed to turn TVs into a cash pipeline through their information channels and PPV offerings, but most hotels get only 10 to 15 percent of a PPV film's revenue, according to a LodgeNet rep.

The other service the vendors supply is a set of solutions to logistical challenges. For example, your home cable system likely requires a connection between a decoder box and each and every TV. Filling a massive Marriott with hundreds of these boxes would be expensive and leave the system vulnerable to thieves looking to graduate beyond bathrobes and mini shampoo bottles. And when a box died, the hotel would have to send a technician up to the room, which would mean additional costs, plus irritation for guests.

Instead, hotel cable systems usually work by hooking up each room's TV to a central stack of decoder boxes located somewhere in the complex. "The basement or top floor is the most likely place, but in reality it is simply any location with climate control, power and access to the cable infrastructure," says John Fountain Jr., director of network technology at Cox Hospitality Network. Each box in the stack stays tuned to a particular channel. So, when a guest surfs to ESPN, for example, his TV is tapping into a dedicated decoder box that is always playing that one channel. I was surprised to learn that the actual TV feed usually comes from the same satellite and cable providers that service local residences.

On-demand and PPV programs work a bit differently. Typically, the TVs tap into a central serveragain, situated in the hotelthat holds all of the current PPV offerings, stored on either a digital file server, optical discs or, in some cases,­ VHS tapes (seriously!). For example, Cox updates its PPV offerings by dispatching movie-toting reps to the individual hotels, while LodgeNet uses a private satellite network to remotely send the new movies.

Okay, so we know why hotels use different cable services. But that still doesn't explain why these services work so badly from a user's point of view. Here are some answers, point by point.

→ The Cranked-Up Volume. Hotels often use what are known as commercial-grade hospitality TVs. The main benefit of these sets is a group of copy protection features that Hollywood studios require as part of their PPV deals. The TVs also give their owners the option of defaulting the volume to a particular level every time they're turned on. Unfortunately, many hotels seem to overestimate the volume level needed to get your attention.

→ The Slow Channel-Change. Yes, hotel TVs usually have a slight delay when you change the channel, but, according to the hotel chains and television providers I spoke with, this is actually an unavoidable byproduct of digital television and is no worse in hotels than at home. It might just seem worse because, in an era of onscreen interactive menus, people rarely manually surf through stations on their home TVs.

→ The Lack of Interactive Programming Guides. Most hotel TV services offer resorts various tiers of television service, some including interactive onscreen channel guides. Unfortunately, you're just more likely to find a hotel room without one of these at this point.

So, could hotel TV services be better? Undoubtedly. And while it's reassuring to know that there's a reason behind all of their shortcomings, the only way these things are going to improve is if you let hotels know that you expect more. Maybe then they'll splurge on the interactive channel guide option. And until then, there's always that paper printout of channel listings by the TV. View it as an interactive analog channel guide.

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