Time Warner set me up with a 3100HD box...here is my review and a few questions!!

[ajnike]

Hi all. I was just set up with the new 3100hd box. We had the 2000hd box, but it was not working properly. They said it has had a lot of problems. Well...they came the next day and said they only had a few of the new hd boxes in. So they set it up and it works better than the 2000hd box. The channel surfing is quicker. There aren't any new features I am aware of. The sound appears to be a little better. Maybe it's just me though. There are still 3 channels. Hbo, Showtime, and PBS. Hbo is great! Picture quality is outstanding. Showtime is kinda dissapointing because most of their movies arent broadcasted in full HD. Pbs is AWESOME! But, being stuck watching PBS programming can get a little boring.  The only problem we are having is at night, are digital channels won't come in. Sometimes they look scrambeled. The last 3 days we were not able to watch any digital channels at night. In the daytime...its great. Night time..it sucks. I think it is the cables outside. They are over 20 years old. TWC is going to e-mail the director of action operations and try to figure out why this happens. Maybe someone around us has a descrambler. I dont know  Any ideas anyone?  
Any questions..post them here and I will respond right away.
Here are my questions...Anyone know the deal with CBS, FOX, NBC, Discovery channel, ...any other stations coming to time warner? Any rumors, statements...anything!!??

thanks for your time

Mike
________
Finnish cooking

[gparris]

CBS in Milwaukee could be very well be negotiating with TWC to get signal placement. NBC does HDTV on the "Tonight Show" at 10:30 weeknights and "Crossing Jordan" - the TWC channel is 712 according to the website for Milwaukee. Showtime upconverts movies as it gets them if the signal it gets is not true 1080i. Fox is worthless at 480p - if your HDTV set is setup correctly, it already upconverts the NTSC signal to 480p anyway. The Discovery Channel's "HD Theater" is set to broadcast full 1080i, 24/7, starting June 17th with over 115 HD titles ready-but don't hold your breath for cable systems like TWC to jump on the bandwagon if CBS 58 isn't already on TWC in HD - why should Discovery HD Theater come any faster? Read the forums on this website-CBS HD has been in Milwaukee awhile and to date, not on TWC! Hope this assists you. Too bad you don't get a dish and drop TWC - HDNET on DIRECTV is fantastic - who cares if it isn't PBS - and they too, have websites for daily offerings-MPTV's is still " under construction"!

[Gregg Lengling]

HdNet also has a daily newsletter that you can sign up for.  So I actually get the programming schedule for 2 or 3 days every day.  Neat feature.  58's and Fox6's daily e-mails don't give you anything.  When 58 first started they did list the HD programs on their Newsletter but don't anymore.


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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
gregg@camelcomm.com

[RickNeff]

Actually, channel 712 is a PBS station with TWC.  Additionally, TWC has really just offered HD cable boxes in the area, so I don't expect to see any major progress with local channels soon.

I would also like to see the upcoming HD Discovery channel, but unless it's a deal done with the corporate Time Warner/AOL, I doubt you'd see Milwaukee TWC do much.  (Of course, I'd love to be proven wrong!)

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Richard Neff
Proud Toshiba 56x81 owner!

[kjnorman]

Well I move house on Tuesday to Whitefish Bay.  I will be less than 2 miles from the transmitters bt will I get the OTA digital signals?  Nope, because my wife will not let me spend the money on the digital tuner.

Happily though, with the move I am upgrading my cable from analog to digital and will be getting the SA 3100HD box.  I'll be getting HBO but will not bother with Showtime.  I can't wait to see what PBS and HBO look like.  I hope that the improvement in picture will stun my wife   in letting me invest more in HTDV equipment (mainly the JVC HD DVR due in September.

During setting up the new service, I casually asked about local channel feeds in digital and Discovery HD.  She said that there are planning to have Discovery HD and are in negotiations - but could not commit to a switch on date.  

She also said that they were in negotiations with NBC and CBS.  It did not seem like there was much forth coming with NBC, but CBS seemed closer.  One sticking point with CBS58, seemed to be that CBS wanted TW to pay them more for channel 41 than other stations and that TW does not want to.  It all comes down to money.

Locals or not, hopefully on Friday next week (when the service is installed) I will get my first dose of HDTV  

I'll post my review and comments when I get it all up and running.

Kerry

[kjnorman]

 

Originally posted by kjnorman:
Locals or not, hopefully on Friday next week (when the service is installed) I will get my first dose of HDTV  

I'll post my review and comments when I get it all up and running.

Kerry

Well I got my first does of HDTV.  Okay it was only the PBS demo, but it still impressed my wife and bother in-law with the picture.  It is a very impressive picture.  

We tried HBO next and were showing a film in HDTV.  Again very sharp and clear.  However the picture did look washed out and the colours did not look that bright.  I am hoping that it is because I have not colour  calibrated the 1080i inputs on my TV.

We only watched a few minutes worth, because I have still not reconfigured my system after moving house and Riversplash was a bigger draw last night    

I'll build my system today, and will really get down to seeing what this 3100HD box can do.

Kerry

[MesaV]

Congratulations, but don't OD on the HD or your wife may disconnect the TWD.  

[JoeK]

TimeWarner replaced my SA 2000HD box with a SA 3100HD box on Wednesday. The pleasant suprise has been getting DD 5.1 readings on my processor instead of DD 2.0 on most digital movies. I couldn't resist watching Shrek again Saturday night. Great HD picture and DVD quality sound for the first time over cable.

[This message has been edited by JoeK (edited 06-03-2002).]

[kjnorman]

Yep, Shrek looked great and sounded superb.  The detail in the picture was fantastic and being a digital transfer (computer straight to HDTV - I assume) there was absolutely zero noise in the picture.

I agree with JoeK in that it is a wonderful change to hear 5.1 digital sound coming from a cable broadcast.

This leaves me with two problems - you can not record 5.1 digital sound on a Tivo -analog sounds so flat now, and the system has got so complex that my wife can not figure it out now!!  Well I guess you can not have too much of a good thing at the same time.    

Incidentally, I colour calibrated my component imput that I plugged the 3100HD into, and the picture looks a lot better than my first attempts on Friday.  Now I have moved the tely into the new how, I will calibrate it more, so hopefully the picture will just improve over time.

Kerry

[This message has been edited by kjnorman (edited 06-03-2002).]

[kjnorman]

 

Originally posted by MesaV:
Congratulations, but don't OD on the HD or your wife may disconnect the TWD.  

My wife now likes the picture and the improved sound, but is still annoyed at HDTV (of even standard DTV with digital sound) as she can not TiVo things like she used to.

What I need is a digital cable ready TiVo box, that can record both HTDV and digital sound on SDTV.  

[Gregg Lengling]

I'm waiting 6 months for the New Star Wars episode that is in the theaters right now to hit DVD.  It was not filmed but digitally recorded with HighDef cameras.  There was a blurb that only about 100 theaters nationwide had the digital projectors to run the real movie.  The rest have to show it on film which is was transfered to for distribution because the theater owners don't want to pop the 100K right now.  So it should be excellent, if I recall correctly Shrek was one of the new breed of movies done directly to digital.

So beats the hell out of the StarTrek TNG series disks out.....the series was filmed and then edited on NTSC, so the disks are from the NTSC source and it's pretty sorry.


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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
gregg@camelcomm.com

[gparris]

 

Originally posted by kjnorman:
Yep, Shrek looked great and sounded superb.  The detail in the picture was fantastic and being a digital transfer (computer straight to HDTV - I assume) there was absolutely zero noise in the picture.

I agree with JoeK in that it is a wonderful change to hear 5.1 digital sound coming from a cable broadcast.

This leaves me with two problems - you can not record 5.1 digital sound on a Tivo -analog sounds so flat now, and the system has got so complex that my wife can not figure it out now!!  Well I guess you can not have too much of a good thing at the same time.      

Incidentally, I colour calibrated my component imput that I plugged the 3100HD into, and the picture looks a lot better than my first attempts on Friday.  Now I have moved the tely into the new how, I will calibrate it more, so hopefully the picture will just improve over time.

Kerry

[This message has been edited by kjnorman (edited 06-03-2002).]

Tivo records in DD5.1 in SDTV on DIRECTV systems automatically;not on standard Tivo's that have stereo RCA inputs used with cable and OTA usage. Systems are planned to record HDTV with DD5.1 soon using firewire on large hard drives assuming no insanity comes from the big studios. Mitsub. sets incorporating firewire connections and their DVHS VCRS are sold now to record up to 4 hours of HDTV and DD5.1 and the "wife" will not go crazy figuring it all out!