My Time Warner Review

[Talos4]

It's been a month since I moved. I was a D* sub for 13 years with no complaints.

New place has no LOS. I already knew that and confirmed by a mover's connection tech visit. I'm stuck with TWC. No FIOS or Uverse available in the area (yet)  to even try.

My Review? it stinks.

Reading the TWC problem comments all over this forum did not bode well.

So far here's what I've noticed...

Pixelation everywhere, PLEASE WAIT..., stuttering, drop outs, freezes, motion artifacts, Clunky guide, duplicates of duplicates in the guide, (making a favorites list is a 2 hr ordeal)

My display is calibrated and I touched it up after the move. The overall PQ appears to be soft. It may be me, but it still looks soft.

I have one 8300HDC DVR and one standard box (not sure of the model #). Hardware is OK, I don't have any real complaints about the hardware itself other than the dinky internal hard drive. I will be addressing that with an external in the future.

Do I get the programming I was looking for? Yes. Is it the quality I was used to with D*? No.  

I understand that I'm now sharing the feed with thousands of other subs instead of getting my signal straight from the source but geez, Can't I watch at last one program without having some kind of anomaly?

Thanks for reading my rant (review) As I said I'm stuck now and have to learn to deal with it.

[LoadStar]

If the pixelation, breakups, freezes and such continue, I'd definitely get TWC back out to test the line. With digital cable, signal level in both directions is vital. I don't seem to have the pixelation/breakups/freeze-ups/etc. that you describe, although it did take a couple of service visits before I was satisfied.

(I have RoadRunner as well and use it to communicate with work, so it was vital to have rock-solid signal level and quality. Once they got the line issues resolved, I haven't had any issues with either RoadRunner or cable... both have been very, very solid.

I have to say that, while I probably would prefer a satellite service, overall I'm rather satisfied with Time Warner... but then again, I have a TiVo, so I don't have to use TWC's worse than awful cable boxes and software.

About the only HD channel I think I'd still like to have back is HDnet... but other than that, I can't think of a time recently where I've gone looking for a show and not had it available to me on an HD channel.

[Jack 1000]

If the pixelation, breakups, freezes and such continue, I'd definitely get TWC back out to test the line. With digital cable, signal level in both directions is vital. I don't seem to have the pixelation/breakups/freeze-ups/etc. that you describe, although it did take a couple of service visits before I was satisfied.

(I have RoadRunner as well and use it to communicate with work, so it was vital to have rock-solid signal level and quality. Once they got the line issues resolved, I haven't had any issues with either RoadRunner or cable... both have been very, very solid.

I have to say that, while I probably would prefer a satellite service, overall I'm rather satisfied with Time Warner... but then again, I have a TiVo, so I don't have to use TWC's worse than awful cable boxes and software.

About the only HD channel I think I'd still like to have back is HDnet... but other than that, I can't think of a time recently where I've gone looking for a show and not had it available to me on an HD channel.

I agree,

Call TWC and ask to speak to a level 3 tier tech support person for a problem that has not been resolved.  When you reach this person, have them schedule a truck roll and check signal and line strength.

Our box about a year ago was rebooting all the time and we were having our Internet go on and off, behaving very inconsistently.  A good tech came out and replaced the line and put some kind of new signal meter thing on the line and that took care of everything.  I'm happy with TWC Road Runner and Digital Phone.

The Navigator Guide remains a POS with slowness, bugginess and other lagging crap! (HDMI not supported error, sometimes on box turn on, forcing a reboot.)  This is very true on the HDC boxes. This issue, choosing to develop a guide in house to save money, rather than stick with the Passport software, and btw, Passport, on the newest version, I saw the screen shots, it looks great!

A software update was supposed to be applied soon to deal with the slowness of the HDC boxes.  But a Black Screen channel changing bug exists in this upgrade, and they may need to fix that first.  When this update comes, the boxes will go much faster, listings are better organized, and program guide information, at least on the HDC/Samsung boxes is not truncated.

First, get your line and signal issues checked out by a level 3 tech supervisor.  In fact, when you call him to set up that service call, ask him to bring a new Samsung box.  The difference in speed between that and those clunky HDC's is like night and day.  The Samsungs run Navigator like a dream.

Jack

[Talos4]

Thanks for the responses

It seems that the Explorer 4640 HDC has the most problems. The 8300 HDC DVR has far fewer issues.

My RR seems to pretty good too.

I'm pretty familiar with how strong the signals should be, I'm a long time RR sub and used to have their phone service also and have had related issues at the old house in the past.  

All of the issues taken as a whole are not ruining my viewing, and looking back on when the dropouts and pixelating were the worst does coincide with some of the reports of others.

I just very disappointed that I've experienced about a years worth of D* issues in the short span of a month.

It's going to take a while to figure out which hardware is going to work out the best.  

If the issues with the 4640 continue I will be making that call for service.

One other question.. How do you select the favorite list I made to display in the guide. I see no option to select a favorites list for display.

Thanks

[ddeerrff]

How do you select the favorite list I made to display in the guide. I see no option to select a favorites list for display.
Thanks

I don't believe you can.  You can only increment through it with the 'FAV' button.  If there is a way to display only the favorites, I'd sure like to know too.

[Talos4]

I'm not at home right now but,

Here's a suggestion from a friend I received in an email this morning:

Press "Settings" to access the Quick Settings Menu
Arrow left/right to highlight Display
Arrow down to highlight "Sort by Favorites" and press "Select"
Choose "Favorites First" and press "Select"

He say's it works for him. I'll give it a try tonight.

Maybe someone home during the day can try it and see if it works.

He say's he found it on the TWC website but, I find navigating through their site like trying to dance through a mine field.

[Jack 1000]

I don't believe you can.  You can only increment through it with the 'FAV' button.  If there is a way to display only the favorites, I'd sure like to know too.

My understanding was the Sort By Favorites was removed in later versions of the software.  You now only have the option to set up a Favorite Channels list and than if the guide is open for browsing, pressing FAV takes you to the channel.  It leaves the guide open. With the guide closed, FAV just tunes to the favorite channel.

An upcoming software update will be called "Guide Filtering."  With this feature, you will be able to filter the guide to do the following:

Display Favorite Channels Only
Display HD Channels Only
Display Subscribed Channels Only
Display All Channels (Default)

No notice of when this will be available.  The next update is supposed to be a speed boost for the boxes, with features for the future multi-room DVR roll-out.

Jack

[Nels Harvey]

I'm happy Dish Network has done DVR's pretty right.  There are only a couple of things Tivo does better.  I can set up four favorite lists which is more than we need, and access is super easy.  from what I've read on this forum, the TWC units leave much to be desired.