TWC Updated GUI

[newscutter]

Finally!  IMO it looks great.  Very refreshing new look from the old grey.  

http://i.imgur.com/1PZ2g.jpg

[PONIES]

It is awful. I don't care how good it looks as long as the Firewire output is broken now.

I am thinking of canceling service with Time Warner.

[Snard]

Finally!  IMO it looks great.  Very refreshing new look from the old grey.  

http://i.imgur.com/1PZ2g.jpg

It's hard to tell from your picture, but it looks like the program guide fills your entire wide screen. On my two cable boxes, the guide is in a 4:3 area with side-boxes.

Is there a setting to enable the guide & other screens to use my full 1920x1080 frame?

[cdnelson]

It depends on what box you have, the newer Cisco and Samsung boxes will do the full screen (although it's NOT HD), but the older boxes cannot.

[Jack 1000]

There's some good discussion in the TWC Navigator thread.  There are two bugs on the older boxes such as the SA-8300HDC:

1.) When doing keyword searches for many multiple listings of a Sports Show. (say like 30+) the box will take at least 20 seconds to show the letters on the screen. Try searching on the keyboard for MLB Baseball on the SA-8300 HDC and you will see the slowness issue.  It's terrible.  Rebooting the box has no effect.  Note however, when there are only a small amount of shows to display, the keyboard responds a little faster, but not as fast as the older software.  If you have a legacy box, try this and see for yourself:

2.) The date in the Time Grid does not change when advancing the guide by day.  The data changes, but not the day.

The positives of the new guide are:

1.) Nice Black Interface
2.) Fast Time Grid Scrolling
3.) Fast Guide Filtering
4.) The quick A button sub menus are nice.

Right now, the #1 Achilles Heal is the slowness of the keyboard on legacy boxes when tons of multiple shows are tiered within that title.  (MLB Baseball.)  The boxes are slow with multiple listings of the same Title guide data.

Jack

PS. Report box slowness like with the keyboard and other bugs at our local forum here:  The E-mail Us option is recommended, scroll down to see/select that option:  Select Feedback for the type of inquiry:

https://www.timewarnercable.com/Midwest/about/contactus.ashx

Chat is not recommended, it is just scripted talk.

Also report issues on the TWC Feedback Form here:  Ignore the zip code nag screen by closing it, fill out the form and click submit.  TWC DOES read these things:

http://www.timewarnercable.com/northeast/learn/cable/guide/feedback.html

[Jack 1000]

Multiple Listings of Titles Have Awful Lag Time on Keyboard Search

(Legacy TWC Boxes With New Guide)

I can now give SPECIFIC Guide data speed comparisons concerning the lag time on the legacy boxes when using the Keyboard. A friend of mine has an SA-8240HDC box. I have an SA-8300HDC box. The keyboard will freeze for up to 25 seconds from the time the response goes from the Remote Control to the screen on the legacy boxes when more than 7 instances of a show title are in the system. The more shows in the system, the longer the lag-time on the SA-8240HDC and SA-8300HDC. We both searched for MLB Baseball (which has about 40 games under the Title MLB Baseball) by keying the information on the new guide keyboard We timed this: Also the engineers should note that on the legacy boxes, after this lengthy search. We tested it out on the SA 8240HDC, the SA-8300HDC and the Cisco 8742 and there was quite a difference!

SA-8240HDC: (His Box)

M - 3 seconds
L - 22 seconds
B - 21 seconds

SA-8300HDC (My Box)

M- 5 seconds
L- 22 seconds
B- 21 seconds

Cisco-8742HDC: (His Other Box)

M - 1 second
L - 5 seconds
B - 3 seconds

As you can see, the speed tests on the different boxes, show that a software update is needed for the legacy terminals. We don't expect the speed to get down to the quickness of the modern Cissco's. But the legacy boxes for keyboard searching should still not have any more than a 10 SECOND MAXIMUM FOR ANY TYPED DATA. 8 SECONDS WOULD BE IDEAL, GETTING IT DOWN TO 5 WOULD BE GREAT! When Football season starts this fall, if a software patch is NOT applied to speed up the keyboard response data of the legacy boxes, customers who search for College Football and NFL Football using the keyboard will be very frustrated.

Jack

[Jack 1000]

Multiple Listings of Titles Have Awful Lag Time on Keyboard Search

(Legacy TWC Boxes With New Guide)

I can now give SPECIFIC Guide data speed comparisons concerning the lag time on the legacy boxes when using the Keyboard. A friend of mine has an SA-8240HDC box. I have an SA-8300HDC box. The keyboard will freeze for up to 25 seconds from the time the response goes from the Remote Control to the screen on the legacy boxes when more than 7 instances of a show title are in the system. The more shows in the system, the longer the lag-time on the SA-8240HDC and SA-8300HDC. We both searched for MLB Baseball (which has about 40 games under the Title MLB Baseball) by keying the information on the new guide keyboard We timed this: Also the engineers should note that on the legacy boxes, after this lengthy search. We tested it out on the SA 8240HDC, the SA-8300HDC and the Cisco 8742 and there was quite a difference!

SA-8240HDC: (His Box)

M - 3 seconds
L - 22 seconds
B - 21 seconds

SA-8300HDC (My Box)

M- 5 seconds
L- 22 seconds
B- 21 seconds

Cisco-8742HDC: (His Other Box)

M - 1 second
L - 5 seconds
B - 3 seconds

As you can see, the speed tests on the different boxes, show that a software update is needed for the legacy terminals. We don't expect the speed to get down to the quickness of the modern Cissco's. But the legacy boxes for keyboard searching should still not have any more than a 10 SECOND MAXIMUM FOR ANY TYPED DATA. 8 SECONDS WOULD BE IDEAL, GETTING IT DOWN TO 5 WOULD BE GREAT! When Football season starts this fall, if a software patch is NOT applied to speed up the keyboard response data of the legacy boxes, customers who search for College Football and NFL Football using the keyboard will be very frustrated.

Jack

Putting above post into the Navigator/Box Update threrad so that more people can see it.  Tom, can you merge this thread into that one?

Jack

[grenier]

Is there a reason why you don't get a newer box, do the legacy boxes have some advantage over the newer boxes?

[Jack 1000]

Is there a reason why you don't get a newer box, do the legacy boxes have some advantage over the newer boxes?

From TWC's perspective, two reasons:

1.) Economic:  It costs money for them to swap out the older boxes with new ones if the older boxes are working well.

2.) Model Availability is not Known till you get the box:  You have to take what the tech has on his truck.  You can REQUEST a newer box make/model, but you still have to take what is available when the tech comes out.  You could drive 5-10 miles to an office center to get/swap a box, but there's no guarantee that they will have the newer boxes in stock either.  It's a division management call.  I was told a while back that TWC-Milwaukee was only giving out the newest boxes to Whole House/Signature Home subs.  Other divisions may be in short supply of the new boxes.

The legacy boxes MDN models, (a.k.a No C and Not a Samsung) work better with expander drives.  NOW I DON'T KNOW IF THAT HAS CHANGED WITH THE NEW GUIDE.  I don't have reports of how the new guide is working on the MDN boxes.  The MDN boxes were the fastest for speed and had better DVR Compensation.  I will post if I find out how well the new guide works on the legacy boxes.  I'll find out the model number as well.

I have an inside source at TWC Management who goes to corporate meetings, and he estimates it is going to take about three to five years to get the legacy boxes out of the system.  So in the interim, TWC wants to attempt to standardize the boxes with features and functions as best they can.

The medium term goal is to get all the boxes in the field to a cloud-based system. (3 years+) The long range goal, (5-8 years+) is to do away with ALL of the boxes and have all of your TV information go to a secure cloud based server with settings, shows, series, and backups on that server.

Jack

[grenier]

I understand TWC's stance, it's always about money.

I was just curious why you don't get a newer box. If you know they're faster, why are you sticking with a legacy box?

[Jack 1000]

I understand TWC's stance, it's always about money.

I was just curious why you don't get a newer box. If you know they're faster, why are you sticking with a legacy box?

Cuz, this box has worked well and continues to work well for the last three years.  I don't want to lose recordings and settings on it, and as annoying as the slow keyboard search is, it's not HORRIFIC.  Just something that should be corrected.

The main thing is, I don't want to have to go to different centers and find out they don't have a newer box.  What's worse is, you could just as easily wind up with another box with its own set of problems.

The software updates usually  improve things, and the new team is doing well developing them.  I can wait a couple months for a software update.

I still follow the advice of two techs for years past, unless you need a new box for more hard drive space, and your old box continues to work OK, it's better to just keep it.  You just have no control over what you are going to get in an exchange.

Jack

[Jack 1000]

Consistent patterns of slowdown in the guide 30-45 days after a cold reboot:

Hey All,

I reported to the TWC Direct to Tech Forum about several divisions having that 30-45 day pattern of slowness since the upgrade to ODN 5.2.09: The keyboard seems to remain at good speed, but the other menus start to slow down after that time. In our division, they seem to be good up until that 30-45 day cycle. The only way to bring the guide back up to speed is to do a cold reboot. This has occurred in the Milwaukee Wisconsin area on my SA-8300HDC box, which is fine with this last update until the slowdown starts. I have friends in the North Carolina region and the Syracuse, New York area, with modern Cisco boxes that have the exact same slowdown trend, so this has to be a software related issue.

Jack