Comcast Extortion Racket

Currently, we have the Digital Starter level. As of this writing, this costs us about $77 dollars per month.
We don't need many of the channels on it. We especially don't need ESPN and it is one of, if not the most, expensive channel set in the lineup. So I went looking for a lower priced lineup.
Ta-Da! Digital Economy would be the answer. It has all but two of the channels we want, Speed and Syfy, and we can view those over the internet. Easily cuts $30 off our bill per month.
Well, it would, except that the dta's don't work with it. So it's a no-go on Digital Economy.

Now you're probably saying, "why not just drop cable altogether and watch over the internet?" Sure, Hulu, Netflix, etc.
Well, we would, except we live with my father, who is 84 years old. No way is he ever going to deal with a computer. Not happening.
Comcast is better than some companies in that it gives us one DVR and two dta's free. We have a third dta rented for about $3 per month.
In order for dad to keep watching, we are stuck with our current $77 a month bill.

We could just rent a cable box for him, but that's about $9 per month, so eats into the savings. Not worth it.

This is extortion, plain and simple. Absolute criminal behavior. We CANNOT go to a lower level of service without losing the dta's, so we don't. Precisely as Comcast intends.

I have looked into buying a box, and I fear that Comcast won't activate it. We are forced into renting from them. A second layer of extortion.

AT&T Uverse appears to be no better. We need a box on each TV, and only one is free. In point of fact, from a money saving standpoint, they are worse than Comcast. Another band of merry highwaymen.

Forget Verizon, not available here. Having Verizon for cell phone, I can tell you that they are the spiritual children of Al Capone, so I doubt they'd be of help either.

I am just now reading up on something called a roku, but so far, all I've read is hype.

Basically, I'd like to set my father up with just those few channels that he watches, so that he wouldn't even get confused. Then we can drop to the Digital Economy, have it on one TV, and use the internet for the rest.

If that Roku works for what I want, I'll be mentioning it here, and probably often.

If not, I'll just keep wishing for some content delivery company to save me from Comcast.