Lessons learned: Switching to the TiVo HD
As a Time Warner Cable customer, I've experienced rather annoying issues with the Scientific Atlanta 8300HDC digital video recorder (DVR). I've been forced to replace it on several occasions. Other times, it would simply stop working, requiring me to unplug it from the wall to reboot.
It had become such a problem that I finally decided I'd had enough last week and that I'd ditch Time Warner Cable's HD DVR for a TiVo HD. For $239.99 at Best Buy (the company was offering it on sale--the TiVo HD usually retails for $299.99), it was a great deal. I also paid $129 to get one full year of TiVo service.
My new toy.
(Credit: TiVo)With the TiVo HD in hand last Monday, I was ready to enjoy my new toy. I contacted Time Warner Cable to get all the details I needed to get set up.
Training anyone?
When I called Time Warner Cable last Monday, I was extremely displeased by the company's customer service. No one quite understood what I was talking about when I told them that I wanted to switch from my HD DVR to the TiVo HD. I asked them what the set-up process was. I wanted to know if I lost any channels.
After waiting for about five minutes for the customer-service representative to find information on the TiVo ("Sorry, we don't get many of these requests," she told me), she finally read to me, verbatim, what it said on her sheet.
According to the technician, I would need to have a multichannel CableCARD installed to get my programming. Unfortunately, I would lose several channels even with the CableCARD. I was told by the agent that I would need a Switched Digital Video adapter in addition to the CableCARD to retrieve those channels. An SDV adapter is basically a black set-top box that connects to the TiVo HD, allowing you to watch switched digital video channels. It's a fancy term for saying that Time Warner Cable is trying to save bandwidth.
Somewhat satisfied by the information, I told the agent that I wanted to schedule an appointment for a Time Warner Cable technician to come to my house and install both the CableCARD (you're not allowed to install it yourself) and the SDV adapter. No luck. The agent told me that I would first need to go to the Time Warner Cable Web site and fill out an online form. Upon doing so, I was put in line to receive an SDV adapter.
In order to get that adapter, I would need to wait for an e-mail confirmation and a letter in the mail. I could then bring that letter to my nearest Time Warner Cable office and pick up an adapter. I asked her how long it would take to get that letter. Once again, the answer wasn't all that clear. She said it could take between one day and one month to receive it.
The troublesome Scientific Atlanta 8300HDC.
(Credit: Cisco )OK, I could live with that. But rather than looking at a useless TiVo HD, I asked the agent if I could have a technician come to my house to install the CableCARD so I could at least watch those other channels while I waited for the adapter. She indicated to me that I needed to wait for the adapter to be made available before I did so. She then assured me that the wait wouldn't be too long.
As the days progressed, I was growing more and more annoyed. I hadn't heard back from Time Warner Cable about my SDV adapter. And I still didn't have an appointment scheduled for my CableCARD installation. I decided to call back on Thursday.
When I finally reached another agent, she told me that, for some reason, my request for an adapter wasn't displayed on my account. I expressed how displeased I was. The apologetic agent understood and personally e-mailed a person in my area named Chris who would be able to get an adapter for me.
That night, Chris called me to tell me that not only would I have an SDV adapter by Friday, but he was scheduling a technician to come to the house that same day to install my CableCARD.
The installation
Overall, the installation of my multichannel CableCARD went well. The technician installed it, set it up properly, and it worked like a dream. Unfortunately, he didn't have the SDV adapter with him, so I was forced to head down to the local Time Warner Cable office to pick it up. It was a hassle, but at least I finally had the Cisco STA1520 tuning adapter that was holding me up all week.
I hastily returned home and set it up. I waited for it to boot up, only to find that the green LED light on the front of the adapter was blinking and I didn't have switched-digital channels.
After being reassured by Chris earlier in the day that if I had trouble installing the SDV adapter someone at Time Warner Cable could help me, I was expecting a quick solution. Oh, how wrong I was.
For about 40 minutes, I sat on the line with a supervisor in the tech support division at Time Warner Cable. The first person I spoke with said she had no knowledge of the SDV adapter and couldn't help. Even the supervisor said that she didn't know too much about it and could only do so much.
The SDV tuning adapter I was waiting for.
(Credit: Cisco)After determining that everything was set up properly, the supervisor couldn't figure out what was wrong with my adapter. She told me to unplug the device, wait 30 seconds, and plug it back in. It didn't work. She asked me to pull the USB cable out of the TiVo HD that connected it to the SDV and plug it back in. It didn't work. After sifting through some documentation on the product, she finally said that she didn't know what was wrong. I was asked to set up an appointment with a technician who would come to my home on Monday.
Once again, a faulty Time Warner Cable product had caused me to lose some of the value I derive from television. Granted, all my favorite channels--ESPN, ESPN 2, the major networks, and the YES channel--were all available. But some of the channels I enjoy, like TLC HD, were not. The error message said that the signal couldn't be read on the TiVo's Cable IN port. It needed to be fixed.
I decided to try Time Warner Cable's tech support one last time on Saturday night. This time, I spoke with a technician who made me feel like he had the time and willingness to help me out. We spent an hour on the phone trying to determine the issue. He searched Google, I searched Google. He read me what he found, I read him what I found.
Finally, as a last ditch attempt, he asked me to read the MAC IDs on the back of the SDV adapter. After reading them off, he told me that he might have found the problem. He put me on hold for a couple minutes to fix it. When he returned, he told me to unplug the power cable and plug it back in. When the SDV adapter finally booted up, it worked. Evidently, it had something to do with those MAC IDs, though he wouldn't say exactly what it was.
The experience
After waiting nearly a week, I was finally free to use my TiVo HD. I started recording shows. I set up Season Passes. I even watched some films on Netflix. It was great.
So far, I'm impressed by the TiVo HD. The sheer number of features it boasts is enough to easily eclipse the box Time Warner Cable offers. And although it's a slightly more expensive alternative, it's worth the price.
That said, I do have some gripes. The huge info display on each channel will take some getting used to. I'm also a little upset with just how slow the TiVo HD's boot time is. If it goes down, expect it to take at least five minutes for it to boot. That's unacceptable.
I should also note that I'm having trouble recording two shows at once. Twice last night, the TiVo HD froze and rebooted on me while it tried to record two shows simultaneously. It was maddening.
Finally, I'm sad to see my Time Warner Cable OnDemand channels go. I often went to HBO OnDemand to access old episodes of The Sopranos or to watch movies. Those days are gone.
But in the end, I guess it's a small price to pay for such a capable product. The TiVo HD isn't without it's faults, of course, but it's better than that Scientific Atlanta 8300HDC DVR that was causing me so many headaches.
If you're a Time Warner Cable customer planning to switch to a TiVo, I recommend it. You'll have some headaches. But once everything works, the payoff is worth it. Click here if you're a Comcast customer who wants to move to the TiVo.
Check out Don's Facebook profile, Twitter stream, and FriendFeed.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Mine has never frozen, at all. Even when recording two shows whilst playing back another (CNET Tech TV weekly! Eh?! No? Okay...) You should have that looked at.
And FYI: for anyone who uses Charter, it is a piece of cake to get Tivo HD set up, as long as your technician knows how to set up cable cards. The technician got the multi-stream cable card installed and configured in about 10 minutes flat. He actually said to me "Man, I wish Charter's DVRs were this easy to set up."
I've never had a problem since.
First, great article. While, yes, a DVR is a DVR to some extent, the interface and features really do matter. I'm glad to see some press on the differences.
Huge Channel Display: Try using the right arrow on the big round button when it's up. You'll cycle through some smaller options.
Freezing: not a great sign; it absolutely shouldn't do that. That's usually indicative of a bad hard drive. We have replacement hard drives for that model here:
http://www.weaknees.com/s316.php
But since it's new and under warranty, you should probably either call TiVo (877 367 8486) or bring it back to BestBuy.
Finally, like when CableCARDs debuted, SDVs do create some problems for installers, mostly due to lack of experience. But as they get to be more commonplace, we expect that installers will cease to have issues with them.
Anyway - feel free to email other questions or issues to me - michael@weaknees.com.
Thanks!
*I was recently notified via mail that I too would need a tuning adapter and that Tivo owners will get them for free but that other CableCARD owners (TV's) would need to return them for a company DVR with 1 year for free.
:)
Before the appointment, I received a call from someone who was clearly a rather high level tech in a department specializing in special deployments. This gentleman took the time, got the specific make/model of TiVo so they could be prepared, discussed the install with me, and promised to accommodate both of my requests.
The day of the install came, and not only did I get a tech come out, but also the tech's area supervisor. They spent two hours trying to get the system to work... the only reason it took that long was because someone at the central office apparently had trouble reading the text message the tech sent in with the ID number from the cablecard, because the resulting number that was entered bore only a faint resemblance to the actual one.
Since the install, I've had absolutely no issues with the system. Yes, the restart is slow on the TIVo, but that happens so infrequently that it isn't a problem. And as said, the TiVo is so, so much better than the maddening experience trying to deal with the horrific Time Warner Navigator software on the Explorer 8300HDC.
If your Tivo is freezing, that is a bad sign. The only time I have had to reboot it was when I added the external drive to expand it. It's been on for YEARS without a hitch. It probably reboots on its own in the middle of the night for software upgrades, but I can honestly say I've never had to do anything with it.
Where is some wood to knock on..
-Don
Now upgrade that hard drive so you can have a million hours (okay, so maybe not a million) by following this upgrade guide..http://www.rosswalker.co.uk/tivo_upgrade/
Also stream movies from your PC by using pyTivo http://pytivo.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/PyTivo
TivoHD is the best DVR out there (I like it better than my Myth box too)
Before even calling TWC, I went online to the Tivo Community Forums to check out what horror stories existed and if there was anything I could learn about how to get a knowledgeable technician at my door the first time out.
No such luck. Both technicians, in both cities, knew nothing about the install and then complained to me the they had been given little to no instruction on how to set these up. From reading the forums, I knew more about the install process than they did! My thought is that TWC does not want these CableCards installed because they lose their DVR subscription fees.
In the end, both times, an awesome TWC engineer that monitors the Tivo Community Forums helped me out. I told him my MAC address and in less than 2 hours everything was working fine. I feel sorry for less technical people trying to get this setup.
- by gconnery October 22, 2009 8:19 AM PDT
- @Don: Great writeup. Glad to see the issue getting more publicity. I don't think its shocking that the average TWC installer knows nothing about such things, but they should by now at least have a procedure for handing the install or call off to somebody who does know. This is the obvious sign that they are dragging their feet.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(28 Comments)In my limited experience with a few Cable Card installs on Comcast the usual culprit is that they have several long number strings they need to communicate over the radio/phone back to HQ. And the person there needs to type them in incorrectly. If they screw this up you're hosed and you might as well punt that Cable Card to the curb and try another one. Given how critical this is you'd think they'd double check and maybe read the numbers back before hitting enter right? Well they don't. Which is where the failures come in. If you do it again you might suggest to the tech that they should do that when he comes out.
Sounds like they typed your MAC address in incorrectly, and from then on you were screwed. When they corrected it things worked perfectly.
Be prepared for issues with the Tuning Adapter. On the Tivo Community forums lots of people are still having issues--reboots, etc. You might want to check that out.