It's the Pioneer BD-V1000. Really old box, probably 7 years old. As for a Navigator version, I don't know right now. I've pulled up the diagnostic screen(Hold SELECT until the Message light comes on, then press right arrow>). There's 26 pages of light colored text(white, yellow) and no dark background. I'll try to get a version up soon.

The Pioneer boxes are the slowest because they don't have the added memory that Navigator needs. Pioneer box users with Navigator should exhange for an SA or any model other than a Pioneer. Pioneer doesn't even make cable boxes anymore.

Jack

The Pioneer boxes are the slowest because they don't have the added memory that Navigator needs. Pioneer box users with Navigator should exhange for an SA or any model other than a Pioneer. Pioneer doesn't even make cable boxes anymore.

Jack

I figured that. It was even slow with the old version of Passport. Next month it's going back to be replaced by a SA HD box. It's a bedroom TV not used much and a non DVR box, so I'd be OK with an OCrAP box. My guess would be a 4250HDC.

Do you have a HDC box(The "C" meaning it has a cable card in it) or an older box(i.e.8300HD, 3250HD)? The boxes use slightly different software b/c OCAP.

I've noticed that too. Many of the channels, especially digital ones over 100 have not worked at all at night. They were doing something to the channels over 100. I have the grey sidebars and I noticed a black stripe on the left of the screen btw the picture and the sidebar, similar to channels under 100.

I'll have to get my notes on Navigator up here from the cleveland forum. So far it sucks!! The delays are horrible!
I have the 8300HDC. I can be watching TV fine for hours, then right about midnight, boom, everything turns to crap. I think I usually end up rebooting in the morning, but I do not attempt to reboot at night because normally it gets stuck on L-13/E-13. By not rebooting, at least I can still watch the DVR during the hours that the live channels are not working.

-Marty

We got Navigator here in Desert Cities TW last night. So far the only issue is it did not bring over my output resolution settings, but once I reset to 1080i only as before everything looks fine. All my existing recordings and scheduled recordings came over. Speed seems okay.

http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/9674/img0326fa1.jpg

Here is a capture of the diagnostics screen (channel 888) from my SA8800HD. Navigator version 2.4.1-92.
We also got Navigator last nite as we are on twc desert cities in Rancho Mirage. I have 3 of the old SA8300HD boxes and all were updated last nite. All seem to be working ok for now but I have not had much time to test yet.
I just talked to a friend in Palm Desert that also has a SA8300HD and Just today hooked up a WD My Book DVR Extender (500GB) for extra space and she says it is working well. It just asked to format and she said yes and now it shows 11% where they are usually almost full.

Our version is the same 2.4.1-92

Roy

We got Navigator on the legacy SA8300HD in the family room this morning, in the Kearny Mesa area of San Diego. I spent about an hour toying with it, checking out every feature that I could think of. (Checking out little things that are important to me, like whether it keeps a "bookmark" in every recording--it does--something that SARA failed to do which drove me nuts). So far, so good. All the existing recordings seem to have survived the "upgrade". It seems pretty solid and considerably faster than Passport doing some things, like incremental title search (I like that the search matches VOD programs). It's possible though that it's just the difference in speed between the 8000HD and the 8300HD--the last box that I regularly used Passport on was the former. On the 8000HD, I'd type the first character of a title search and it'd be some seconds before it filled the screen with matches; with this it happens more or less instantly. The text and graphics are crisp and pleasant, though I wish that I could adjust the color scheme, and the GUI seems pretty smooth and easy to use. I miss a few features of Passport, like 15-minute skip, but maybe those are in there in some undocumented way. People locally have reported success with using external SATA drives; one guy had all of the recordings on his external drive survive the transition.

I'm sure that many people will appreciate the "percent full" idiot meter and the black bars on 4:3 content in "normal" mode.

Overall, not at all bad. I was quite pleasantly surprised, given all the bad press that even the recent versions have gotten online (in particularly YouTube clip linked to above--this is several orders of magnitude smoother than that :rolleyes:). Of course, this is MDN that I'm talking about--the OCAP version running on the 4250HDC in my housemate's room seems pretty slow and wretched, though it has twice the memory and the same pair of 250 MHz clocked processors that the 8300HD has.

I miss a few features of Passport, like 15-minute skip, but maybe those are in there in some undocumented way.


You can do that by holding down the ffwd/rewind button.

xnappo

I miss a few features of Passport, like 15-minute skip, but maybe those are in there in some undocumented way.

I wasn't aware that much of anything regarding the box's or the remote's capabilities was documented ... he!!, at least some parts of the country are getting advance notice of upcoming "upgrades" on their boxes!

About the only communication here in eastern NC that we get is the monthly bill.

I wasn't aware that much of anything regarding the box's or the remote's capabilities was documented ... he!!, at least some parts of the country are getting advance notice of upcoming "upgrades" on their boxes!

About the only communication here in eastern NC that we get is the monthly bill.I wondered about it a little, googled around and found this (http://www.twcdigitalphone.com/MediaLibrary/4/22/Content%20Management/Products%20And%20Services/MDN/NavigatorBook_lowres.pdf) at TWC's site, under the domain "www.twcdigitalphone.com" :rolleyes:. It even says how to do that 15 minute skip and how to invoke slow-motion.

I just called TWC to add an additional HD-DVR. The guy told me that would be an additional $18 per month because they charge you $9 for the box and an additional $7 for the DVR service which is actually in the box! Has anyone else been charged this much when adding an additional DVR box?

Is there anyway around that? At $7 a month it is ok. At $17 a month I might as well buy a Tivo.

I asked the guy if it would have navigator on it. He paused and then said yes it will. I asked if they have had many problems with it. He said yes they have but it will offer more HD channels in the future by going with navigator! I said well if the DVR doesn’t record what good is it? He didn’t have an answer!

I just called TWC to add an additional HD-DVR. The guy told me that would be an additional $18 per month because they charge you $9 for the box and an additional $7 for the DVR service which is actually in the box! Has anyone else been charged this much when adding an additional DVR box?

Is there anyway around that? At $7 a month it is ok. At $17 a month I might as well buy a Tivo.



That is one of TWC ridiculous policies. They charge a "DVR Fee" for each set top, not per account. In my market they include your first set top in the price of the digital package, so in essence, my DVR Service is only costing me $8. I went to add a second DVR to my bedroom thinking I'd only have to pay the lease fee on the set top because I already have DVR service. Wrong! I then told the rep nevermind, keep the box.

What's next? Charging for each individual channel of the HBO package?

Well that's nice--neither provider here (TWC or Cox) includes the cost of box rental in any package.

Well that's nice--neither provider here (TWC or Cox) includes the cost of box rental in any package.

That's one thing that bugs me with cable providers, the inconsistencies from market to market. At least with satellite you get a standard package and price guideline. A prime example here is how the next TWC market to our east has 50 HD channels while we have 20, yet the service costs the same in both markets?!?!? Should my monthly rate be less for the lack of those 30 channels?

It also goes to say that is why in some areas cable gets a really bad rep. Some markets are horrible all the way around -price, service, selection, etc. while others are quite good. I consider our market to be decent with the only exception being the snails pace of HD additions. They get that and they remain in good graces. They give us a functional and reliable Navigator version to replace my SARA with and I might even start to like them! :o

That's one thing that bugs me with cable providers, the inconsistencies from market to market. At least with satellite you get a standard package and price guideline. A prime example here is how the next TWC market to our east has 50 HD channels while we have 20, yet the service costs the same in both markets?!?!? Should my monthly rate be less for the lack of those 30 channels?

It also goes to say that is why in some areas cable gets a really bad rep. Some markets are horrible all the way around -price, service, selection, etc. while others are quite good. I consider our market to be decent with the only exception being the snails pace of HD additions. They get that and they remain in good graces. They give us a functional and reliable Navigator version to replace my SARA with and I might even start to like them! :o

Ben,

Any news of Navigator in your SARA market yet? I remember you reported to the board first quarter of 2008, which is almost over. Does your area have Motorola boxes? I know that TWC scrapped Navigator deployment on those boxes? It's going to be very interesting, knowing that SARA is SDV compliant, if TWC might proceed with a SARA update if Navigator is not ready in those areas. As for the Motorola boxes not getting Navigator, I could imagine considerable costs involved for TWC to swap out those boxes for SA models, especially if Navigator is still buggy if and when it comes to your area.

Jack

I just called TWC to add an additional HD-DVR. The guy told me that would be an additional $18 per month because they charge you $9 for the box and an additional $7 for the DVR service which is actually in the box! Has anyone else been charged this much when adding an additional DVR box?

Is there anyway around that? At $7 a month it is ok. At $17 a month I might as well buy a Tivo.

I asked the guy if it would have navigator on it. He paused and then said yes it will. I asked if they have had many problems with it. He said yes they have but it will offer more HD channels in the future by going with navigator! I said well if the DVR doesn’t record what good is it? He didn’t have an answer!

Unfortunately, my wife did not think $17 a month was unreasonable! If I don’t want all of my shows deleted then I will have to Pony up! It looks like I would still have to pay between $8-$12 a month for the Tivo anyway. You just can’t win can you?

You just can’t win can you?

Nope and all the providers know it. That's why no ala carte, similar prices points and packages, etc. You either take it or leave it. Cell phone service is the same way now. It's like a monopoly under the competition disguise. Unless massive numbers of people banned together and canceled service for the case, across the board, this will continue. Think if all the beta markets that HATED Navigator when it came out canceled service en masse? There a good chance TWC would have worked another option. The people could easily dictate the cost, but that means going without.

Back to Navigator: It's good to at least hear that San Diego had a fairly successful deployment to the legacy boxes. It gives me some hope when it's my turn!

Except that cell service isn't as much of a true monopoly as cable, at least in most locales. There are many situations in which people can't have a dish and there is no television service from any of the telcos yet (AT&T U-verse, Verizon FiOS); it's cable or no multichannel television.

hey whats up guys. I'm a CSR for TWC (Video support) and one of the major complaints we recieve is the Navigator. The thing apparently got rid of some beloved features, like today I recieved a call about the missing keyword feature, and instead replaced by a title search and for some odd reason the Education page also features Reality shows in addition to documentaries/education programs.

In a way I'm actually glad that I didn't get the updated box. I specifically asked for it when I went to get a HDDVR from my cable provider (Cox Comm) but after seeing all the problems, especially on older boxes, I'm glad that its not the MDN but then again, my 8240HDC is a Sara box so its really outdated and devoid of features, worse thing is, I'm paying 23 bucks for it! We don't even have On Demand here like Wisconsin does even though its supposedly coming soon in 08, I hope we don't get the on demand issues like everyone gets in WI because at one point VOD was real bad and people still have issues with it to this day (some acct probls, most is the videoserver incl too many connections)so I hope that Cox has a good reason to delay the implementation of VOD.

TWC developers are in Colorado, where there is no TWC service. Go figure they don't have to go home to a guide they created.While trying to explain the difference between ODN and MDN in a post a few pages back I quoted a job description (http://www.timewarner.com/corp/careers/jobtools_us/search_jobdetail.html?partnerid=391&siteid=36&AReq=92226BR&Codes=NDEM) at TWC's corporate site for a Senior Product Management Engineer who was obviously going to be helping to build and manage a team to work on these IPGs; that was a full-time position in Charlotte, North Carolina. I don't know what development group you're talking about, but Charlotte's quite definitely TWC territory. Why do you think that they're doing R&D on this in Colorado?

So it showed up in the Clairemont area earlier this week, unannounced and as unwelcome as a steaming bag of poop on the doorstep. I hadn't heard of this thread herebefore and couldn't believe my eyes as I read it.

My experience:
- Half the shows in my series manager have disappeared.
- Adding shows back in while another show is recording leads to the currently watched show blacking out for upwards of 5 minutes.
- Is it my imagination, or are SD recordings of lower quality?
- The menus are so slooow and so clunky.
- One series that survived, set to record only on Thursdays has sprouted 9 different recordings throughout the coming week.
- Survivor was not recorded last night (grrr!)
- Missed a good 20 minutes off the front of Poker after Dark.
- I'm sure there are joys yet to be discovered!

The one positive: it's really easy to find out how full the disk is now.

All this so they can eventually bring me HSN-HD!

Last week, you couldn't have pried my SA8300HD out of my cold dead hands. Now, I have lost the faith, and shall be exploring my options. Archos TV+ anyone?

Why do you think that they're doing R&D on this in Colorado?Because that's what TW told the Advisory Council in Lincoln about a year ago. Michael, you were active in this thread back then, I guess you missed it.

Here are a couple of links (to refresh your memory):

Scan of document page (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=80663&d=1177642490)

Page with link to documents (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=10405489&postcount=772)

Since I last posted about having to take my 8300HD in for an 8300HDC, I haven't had any real problems. No missed recordings or anything major, it just so much slower than the older 8300HD was and frankly it sucks. We still have the 2.4.8.2 version here in Lincoln.

But as I was sitting here this morning getting all excited for some NCAA tournament action and just as Gumble says off to the first game poof a random reboot. It comes back on for a bit and I am happy again watching some basketball and about 5 minutes later another one. So I am guessing this box is fried, got it brand new from TW and it lasted all of 3 weeks. Great day for this to happen.

Because that's what TW told the Advisory Council in Lincoln about a year ago. Michael, you were active in this thread back then, I guess you missed it.

Here are a couple of links (to refresh your memory):

Scan of document page (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=80663&d=1177642490)

Page with link to documents (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=10405489&postcount=772)Thank you. Looks like those developers in Westminster would be Comcast customers :D.

In any case, that document does state that even then they had some resources devoted to it in Charlotte. They would seem to be beefing that portion of the effort up. Maybe it will help to have a larger number of developers who are TWC subs :).

Thank you. Looks like those developers in Westminster would be Comcast customers :D.

In any case, that document does state that even then they had some resources devoted to it in Charlotte. They would seem to be beefing that portion of the effort up. Maybe it will help to have a larger number of developers who are TWC subs :).As I recall (can't find the links now) that the developers in Westminister had originally been working on the original Mystro (a networked DVR project). It is likely the technical core of some outfit that TW acquired along the way. Normally, a company would treasure the development staff of an acquired company - but this looks like a big mistake! At least from the results. (Though, no doubt, there are serious management mistakes in rushing this software to release.)

Info re Mystro (MDN) development location in Jul2003 article:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0DIZ/is_27_15/ai_104666425/pg_1
PS: Mystro office is at Westminster (North Denver metro).
TWC National HQ in at Englewood (South Denver metro).
Evergreen is in ritzy foothills West of Denver.

BTW: TWC is looking for a DVR Engineering Test Intern to
work at Broomfield, CO (N of Denver, half way to Boulder)....
Anyone interested????

PS: If you search enough, you can find other, more recent names.

TWC works on OCAP (ODN) version with Vidiom, located in nearby
Boulder, CO:
http://www.eetimes.com/press_releases/bizwire/showPressRelease.jhtml?articleID=115827&CompanyId=2
http://www.vidiom.com/pdfs/Vidiom%20OCAP%20Distribution%20Deal%20PR.pdf
ADB bought Vidiom two years ago:
http://www.adbholdings.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=193256&p=irol-newsVidiomArticle&ID=1058831&highlight=

Info re Mystro (MDN) development location in Jul2003 article:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0DIZ/is_27_15/ai_104666425/pg_1
PS: Mystro office is at Westminster (North Denver metro).
TWC National HQ in at Englewood (South Denver metro).
Evergreen is in ritzy foothills West of Denver.

BTW: TWC is looking for a DVR Engineering Test Intern to
work at Broomfield, CO (N of Denver, half way to Boulder)....
Anyone interested????

PS: If you search enough, you can find other, more recent names.

TWC works on OCAP (ODN) version with Vidiom, located in nearby
Boulder, CO:
http://www.eetimes.com/press_releases/bizwire/showPressRelease.jhtml?articleID=115827&CompanyId=2
http://www.vidiom.com/pdfs/Vidiom%20OCAP%20Distribution%20Deal%20PR.pdf
ADB bought Vidiom two years ago:
http://www.adbholdings.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=193256&p=irol-newsVidiomArticle&ID=1058831&highlight=

Why oh why would they been working on this project in a Colorado lab that isn't even serviced by TWC? Colorado is Comcast. I echo the feelings of the other posters here. This makes no sense.

In its place, if TWC is so insistent on rolling out this IPG, despite its slowness and bugs, why can't they set up shop in their main offices in New York to SPECIFICALLY assign developers to debugging and concentrating on IPG speed up tests?

Equally important, how did this lab even come to exist in a non TWC location?

Jack

Nothing CWC does makes ANY sense...

RE: My inquiry to TWC Oceanic (Hawaii) about any possible changeover to Navigator.

Just got email from our TWC CSR: "From the last inquiry we made to our local management, we are being advised that no changes were being made on our system.

I consider this good news because we have an excellent functioning SARA 1.90.5.110. I hope they don't change their position. I did send them the U-Tube video to pass along to management.

This begs the question: Is TWC corporate allowing their individual service areas autonomy in deciding whether to adopt Navigator nor not?

RE: My inquiry to TWC Oceanic (Hawaii) about any possible changeover to Navigator.

Just got email from our TWC CSR: "From the last inquiry we made to our local management, we are being advised that no changes were being made on our system.

I consider this good news because we have an excellent functioning SARA 1.90.5.110. I hope they don't change their position. I did send them the U-Tube video to pass along to management.

This begs the question: Is TWC corporate allowing their individual service areas autonomy in deciding whether to adopt Navigator nor not?

Well, from a composite of what is known:

1. Passport is being replaced by Navigator on all SA boxes because TWC wants a full in-house IPG that they do not have to pay outside vendors to maintain it.

2. Navigator and SARA IPG's support Switched Digital Video (SDV capability.) Passport does not.

3.) TWC could have payed Passport the update fees for SDV functionality, but chose not to do that.

4.) Navigator has been plagued with problems in reliability, performance, and functionality. Biggest issues are recordings are often lost. Scheduled recordings do not record, the speed of the IPG is too slow. While some divisions have had little to no problems with Navigator, the overwhelming majority of subs HATE the new guide. If I was a prognosticator I would say that for every 100 people polled, you will find maybe 5 that like the change, and 4 of them are TWC employees!

5.) Motorola boxes have been spared a change to Navigator. The hardware specs in these boxes may be the reason why. It is unknown what TWC will do with these boxes.

6.) Perhaps if division heads are happy with Sara, they might leave it up to division Presidents whether or not to change to Navigator. However, with Sara, they don't need to convert.

But, my understanding is that ALL Passport Guides under TWC's jurisdiction will be changed to Navigator. On a regional level, I would anticipate a complete carry over by fall. The end of the year at the latest.

Jack

That is one of TWC ridiculous policies. They charge a "DVR Fee" for each set top, not per account. In my market they include your first set top in the price of the digital package, so in essence, my DVR Service is only costing me $8. I went to add a second DVR to my bedroom thinking I'd only have to pay the lease fee on the set top because I already have DVR service. Wrong! I then told the rep nevermind, keep the box.

What's next? Charging for each individual channel of each HBO package?

Digital Cable includes 1 digital set top box in the price. A DVR is 8.00/9.00 more.

a 2nd setop box is 7.00 more, then if you want a 2nd DVR is another 8.00/9.00

If you TV has a QAM tuner you can watch unscrambleds channels including HD without a set top box.

TW explanation is very confusing.

If I was a prognosticator I would say that for every 100 people polled, you will find maybe 5 that like the change, and 4 of them are TWC employees!

Ya...and all 4 of them would be lying thru their teeth! :D

MAN OH MAN!:)
I just found this site!
THIS IS A THREAD FOR ME!:)
22 months of TWC DVR 8300HD - 22 months of issues (mostly signal) 19 service calls. "CAT TEAM" even came out! Offered 6 weeks credit, said I deserved 18 months, but 6 weeks is all he could offer. ACCEPTED HIS OFFER! (DUH!) He also installed a second DVR (8300HDC). YUCK! FOUR more months! Five more service calls. 8300HDC is slow as sh#T!
OLD 8300 just "upgraded to TWC's IPG (Mystro/Axiom) 8300HD is MUCH faster than 8300 HDC!!! 8300HDC will NOT record 2 & playback 1 ! 8300HDC will NOT allow a"Manual" recording ! (City Council meetings are broadcast on ch17 "Public, Educational, Government", but IPG shows 4 hour blocks that only say, "Public, Educational, Government". The blocks DO NOT co-incide with broadcasts.
:confused:
Shouldn't IPG reflect actual broadcast even for Ch17"PEG"?

I'm ready to contact our Cable Commissioner. EVERYONE at their support department agrees I have major issues. CAT TEAM came out and agreed I had issues. CLAIMED they were going to "MONITOR" the box in the street (HOUSE wiring tested OK!) Intermittent signal in street box. They never monitored it.
He installed another DVR (8300HDC) while he was here. WOO HOO!:)

OOPS! I celebrated too soon...
8300HDC had been that which come out of the south end of a north bound bull!:(

In the 22 months I've had DVR service, I've had CRAPSERVICE and had to call and call and wait for repairment and wait for repairmen, and wait for repairmen! Of the ones who come out (19 TIMES!), they either tell me it is in the "street box", or, they know less about cable than I do, AND... EVERY TIME a "repair tech" comes out, they try to start at SQUARE ONE! THIS IS REALLY GETTING OLD!!! Shouldn't the repair techs get a copy of the history of an issue so they KNOW what has already been done, and what the issue is? I have spent no less then TWENTY HOURS with repair techs in my home, and on the phone with techs! I have Cable, Internet, and Telephone from these YAHOOS!!! I would LOVE if Verizon had fiberTV here - but, Palm Springs is THIRTEENTH in line - even behind a little town to our north 4 miles, so I am STUCK with TWC(Truly Worthless Crap)! I get TILING multiple times per day, often 30minutes to 1hour of BLACK screen in a recording. The whole 8300HDC FREEZES daily and requires reboot. The repair tech came out last week to fix a "popping noise" in my music channels that lasted only 1 day, but, since it was no longer "popping", he just LEFT! Then, I get a phone call from TWC yesterday, reminding me of an appointment for 12-2:30pm today. (I HAD MADE NO APPOINTMENT FOR TODAY!) I waited at home until 3:00, just in case. The, I got a call at 3:20pm (ONE WHOLE HOUR LATE! Telling me they were running behind. (DUH) I told them I was not home any longer, as their appointment window ended a whole hour ago. I asked why he did not call DURING the appointment window? He said he was "busy". So, I asked for his name and ID#. I was given a first name of "John". I repeated my request for his last name, which he RAPIDLY mumbled, thinking I would not press him? WRONG! Spell that for me please? WHAT? He asked. I repeated, "I asked you to please spell your last name for me." RAPIDLY, he mumbled that as well. "This call is going to last a very long time if you do not give me your name." Which he finally spelled normally. He asked when he could come out. "YOU cannot come to my home", I said. You CAN have your supervisor call me. WHAT?!!? Have your supervisor CALL me, please. "I cannot do that". Oh, YES, you CAN, and you WILL! If you do NOT, I WILL drive to your offices and speak with him in person. "okay, I'll have him call"... NO CALL - surprised??? Not me!

Is there ANY legal recourse??? I have paid almost TWO YEARS of 225 dollar per month fees for crap service! Can I get them to replace this 8300HDC with an 8300HD?
Are there any tricks to using an external SATA? TWC told me to just make sure it was 7200rpm or better. Is the USB port USABLE? Can the 8300HD/HDC drive be accessed through it? What is the file format of files stored on an eSATA or internally?

We've gone forward in technological ABILITY, but EXTREMELY FAR BACKWARD in customer service, customer care, and TECHNOLOGICAL IMPLEMENTATION! The CRAP software/firmware on this 8300HDC should NEVER have left development! It is not even LAB/TEST READY! And I used to develop software and firmware for TWO of our MAJOR airlines (think Atlanta and Dallas). This is nothing short of BS! And legalized THEFT!

If I pay 225 dollars a month and my service functions from 1:00a.m. to 9:00a.m. each night (while I sleep, and don't record late night "stuff"), that means I have had service for 1/3 of the time (TECHNICALLY), though I have had ZERO benefit! Does that mean that they can still charge me 225 dollars? Can they credit me for a pro-rated time, meaning they can STILL charge me 75 dollars? If I cannot rely on the service, it is absolutely worthless!

I SAY IT IS TIME FOR LEGISLATION THAT WILL REGULATE THIS MONOPOLY !!! (AND DON'T TELL ME IT IS ANYTHING BUT A MONOPOLY!)

I COULDN'T BELIEVE THE AUDACITY TWC had to tell BALD FACED LIES on their commercails (ON TWC, LOL), CLAIMING THEY "HAVE BEEN USING A FIBER OPTIC NETWORK FOR YEARS! Oh, COME ON! Just because you had THREE FEET of fiber in your network somewhere does NOT mean you can LIE to your customers, and claim that Verizon is JUST NOW implementing what you have had for a decade!
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
Is NOBODY ELSE OUTRAGED?
WHERE is the OUTRAGE!?
We are ALL getting SKRUED, and NOBODY is enjoying it except the SKRU-OR, TWC!!!

SIGH...

<puts soapbox away>

Tom in Palm Springs

If I was a prognosticator I would say that for every 100 people polled, you will find maybe 5 that like the change, and 4 of them are TWC employees!"Like the change"? I'm just glad that I don't hate it :). I don't think that this change has anything to do with making us happy. There has to be someway in which TWC plans to boost their bottom line with this. They may fail, but reducing costs or increasing profits via sales of new services is what this has to be all about.

MAN OH MAN!:)
I just found this site!
THIS IS A THREAD FOR ME!:)
22 months of TWC DVR 8300HD - 22 months of issues (mostly signal) 19 service calls. "CAT TEAM" even came out! Offered 6 weeks credit, said I deserved 18 months, but 6 weeks is all he could offer. ACCEPTED HIS OFFER! (DUH!) He also installed a second DVR (8300HDC). YUCK! FOUR more months! Five more service calls. 8300HDC is slow as sh#T!
OLD 8300 just "upgraded to TWC's IPG (Mystro/Axiom) 8300HD is MUCH faster than 8300 HDC!!! 8300HDC will NOT record 2 & playback 1 ! 8300HDC will NOT allow a"Manual" recording ! (City Council meetings are broadcast on ch17 "Public, Educational, Government", but IPG shows 4 hour blocks that only say, "Public, Educational, Government". The blocks DO NOT co-incide with broadcasts.
:confused:
Shouldn't IPG reflect actual broadcast even for Ch17"PEG"?

I'm ready to contact our Cable Commissioner. EVERYONE at their support department agrees I have major issues. CAT TEAM came out and agreed I had issues. CLAIMED they were going to "MONITOR" the box in the street (HOUSE wiring tested OK!) Intermittent signal in street box. They never monitored it.
He installed another DVR (8300HDC) while he was here. WOO HOO!:)

OOPS! I celebrated too soon...
8300HDC had been that which come out of the south end of a north bound bull!:(

In the 22 months I've had DVR service, I've had CRAPSERVICE and had to call and call and wait for repairment and wait for repairmen, and wait for repairmen! Of the ones who come out (19 TIMES!), they either tell me it is in the "street box", or, they know less about cable than I do, AND... EVERY TIME a "repair tech" comes out, they try to start at SQUARE ONE! THIS IS REALLY GETTING OLD!!! Shouldn't the repair techs get a copy of the history of an issue so they KNOW what has already been done, and what the issue is? I have spent no less then TWENTY HOURS with repair techs in my home, and on the phone with techs! I have Cable, Internet, and Telephone from these YAHOOS!!! I would LOVE if Verizon had fiberTV here - but, Palm Springs is THIRTEENTH in line - even behind a little town to our north 4 miles, so I am STUCK with TWC(Truly Worthless Crap)! I get TILING multiple times per day, often 30minutes to 1hour of BLACK screen in a recording. The whole 8300HDC FREEZES daily and requires reboot. The repair tech came out last week to fix a "popping noise" in my music channels that lasted only 1 day, but, since it was no longer "popping", he just LEFT! Then, I get a phone call from TWC yesterday, reminding me of an appointment for 12-2:30pm today. (I HAD MADE NO APPOINTMENT FOR TODAY!) I waited at home until 3:00, just in case. The, I got a call at 3:20pm (ONE WHOLE HOUR LATE! Telling me they were running behind. (DUH) I told them I was not home any longer, as their appointment window ended a whole hour ago. I asked why he did not call DURING the appointment window? He said he was "busy". So, I asked for his name and ID#. I was given a first name of "John". I repeated my request for his last name, which he RAPIDLY mumbled, thinking I would not press him? WRONG! Spell that for me please? WHAT? He asked. I repeated, "I asked you to please spell your last name for me." RAPIDLY, he mumbled that as well. "This call is going to last a very long time if you do not give me your name." Which he finally spelled normally. He asked when he could come out. "YOU cannot come to my home", I said. You CAN have your supervisor call me. WHAT?!!? Have your supervisor CALL me, please. "I cannot do that". Oh, YES, you CAN, and you WILL! If you do NOT, I WILL drive to your offices and speak with him in person. "okay, I'll have him call"... NO CALL - surprised??? Not me!

Is there ANY legal recourse??? I have paid almost TWO YEARS of 225 dollar per month fees for crap service! Can I get them to replace this 8300HDC with an 8300HD?
Are there any tricks to using an external SATA? TWC told me to just make sure it was 7200rpm or better. Is the USB port USABLE? Can the 8300HD/HDC drive be accessed through it? What is the file format of files stored on an eSATA or internally?

We've gone forward in technological ABILITY, but EXTREMELY FAR BACKWARD in customer service, customer care, and TECHNOLOGICAL IMPLEMENTATION! The CRAP software/firmware on this 8300HDC should NEVER have left development! It is not even LAB/TEST READY! And I used to develop software and firmware for TWO of our MAJOR airlines (think Atlanta and Dallas). This is nothing short of BS! And legalized THEFT!

If I pay 225 dollars a month and my service functions from 1:00a.m. to 9:00a.m. each night (while I sleep, and don't record late night "stuff"), that means I have had service for 1/3 of the time (TECHNICALLY), though I have had ZERO benefit! Does that mean that they can still charge me 225 dollars? Can they credit me for a pro-rated time, meaning they can STILL charge me 75 dollars? If I cannot rely on the service, it is absolutely worthless!

I SAY IT IS TIME FOR LEGISLATION THAT WILL REGULATE THIS MONOPOLY !!! (AND DON'T TELL ME IT IS ANYTHING BUT A MONOPOLY!)

I COULDN'T BELIEVE THE AUDACITY TWC had to tell BALD FACED LIES on their commercails (ON TWC, LOL), CLAIMING THEY "HAVE BEEN USING A FIBER OPTIC NETWORK FOR YEARS! Oh, COME ON! Just because you had THREE FEET of fiber in your network somewhere does NOT mean you can LIE to your customers, and claim that Verizon is JUST NOW implementing what you have had for a decade!
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
Is NOBODY ELSE OUTRAGED?
WHERE is the OUTRAGE!?
We are ALL getting SKRUED, and NOBODY is enjoying it except the SKRU-OR, TWC!!!

SIGH...

<puts soapbox away>

Tom in Palm Springs

Did you have Passport or SARA before the change?

Did you have Passport or SARA before the change?

Time Warner Desert Cities is (was) Passport.

Wow dude...just get Sat already, that is way too much hardache to put up with...

wow tom, that was THE WORST story I've ever heard and I've heard some pretty bad stories up here. I had a guy that was out in the rural area and had his 8300HDC swapped out 5 times and he was very angry that techs couldnt come out until 3-4 days later. I just had to do something for the guy because I really did feel sorry for him, its just a terrible box period. I say you go to your local time warner store, and demand that you get a 8240HDC, I have one of these things and it has worked perfectly, I actually requested a brand new one so that might have something to do with it. But still, its a really fast box and so far I've had no problem with recording.

MAN OH MAN!:)
I just found this site!
THIS IS A THREAD FOR ME!:)
22 months of TWC DVR 8300HD - 22 months of issues (mostly signal) 19 service calls. "CAT TEAM" even came out! Offered 6 weeks credit, said I deserved 18 months, but 6 weeks is all he could offer. ACCEPTED HIS OFFER! (DUH!) He also installed a second DVR (8300HDC). YUCK! FOUR more months! Five more service calls. 8300HDC is slow as sh#T!
OLD 8300 just "upgraded to TWC's IPG (Mystro/Axiom) 8300HD is MUCH faster than 8300 HDC!!! 8300HDC will NOT record 2 & playback 1 ! 8300HDC will NOT allow a"Manual" recording ! (City Council meetings are broadcast on ch17 "Public, Educational, Government", but IPG shows 4 hour blocks that only say, "Public, Educational, Government". The blocks DO NOT co-incide with broadcasts.
:confused:
Shouldn't IPG reflect actual broadcast even for Ch17"PEG"?

I'm ready to contact our Cable Commissioner. EVERYONE at their support department agrees I have major issues. CAT TEAM came out and agreed I had issues. CLAIMED they were going to "MONITOR" the box in the street (HOUSE wiring tested OK!) Intermittent signal in street box. They never monitored it.
He installed another DVR (8300HDC) while he was here. WOO HOO!:)

OOPS! I celebrated too soon...
8300HDC had been that which come out of the south end of a north bound bull!:(

In the 22 months I've had DVR service, I've had CRAPSERVICE and had to call and call and wait for repairmen and wait for repairmen, and wait for repairmen! Of the ones who come out (19 TIMES!), they either tell me it is in the "street box", or, they know less about cable than I do, AND... EVERY TIME a "repair tech" comes out, they try to start at SQUARE ONE! THIS IS REALLY GETTING OLD!!! Shouldn't the repair techs get a copy of the history of an issue so they KNOW what has already been done, and what the issue is? I have spent no less then TWENTY HOURS with repair techs in my home, and on the phone with techs! I have Cable, Internet, and Telephone from these YAHOOS!!! I would LOVE if Verizon had fiberTV here - but, Palm Springs is THIRTEENTH in line - even behind a little town to our north 4 miles, so I am STUCK with TWC(Truly Worthless Crap)! I get TILING multiple times per day, often 30minutes to 1hour of BLACK screen in a recording. The whole 8300HDC FREEZES daily and requires reboot. The repair tech came out last week to fix a "popping noise" in my music channels that lasted only 1 day, but, since it was no longer "popping", he just LEFT! Then, I get a phone call from TWC yesterday, reminding me of an appointment for 12-2:30pm today. (I HAD MADE NO APPOINTMENT FOR TODAY!) I waited at home until 3:00, just in case. The, I got a call at 3:20pm (ONE WHOLE HOUR LATE! Telling me they were running behind. (DUH) I told them I was not home any longer, as their appointment window ended a whole hour ago. I asked why he did not call DURING the appointment window? He said he was "busy". So, I asked for his name and ID#. I was given a first name of "John". I repeated my request for his last name, which he RAPIDLY mumbled, thinking I would not press him? WRONG! Spell that for me please? WHAT? He asked. I repeated, "I asked you to please spell your last name for me." RAPIDLY, he mumbled that as well. "This call is going to last a very long time if you do not give me your name." Which he finally spelled normally. He asked when he could come out. "YOU cannot come to my home", I said. You CAN have your supervisor call me. WHAT?!!? Have your supervisor CALL me, please. "I cannot do that". Oh, YES, you CAN, and you WILL! If you do NOT, I WILL drive to your offices and speak with him in person. "okay, I'll have him call"... NO CALL - surprised??? Not me!

Is there ANY legal recourse??? I have paid almost TWO YEARS of 225 dollar per month fees for crap service! Can I get them to replace this 8300HDC with an 8300HD?
Are there any tricks to using an external SATA? TWC told me to just make sure it was 7200rpm or better. Is the USB port USABLE? Can the 8300HD/HDC drive be accessed through it? What is the file format of files stored on an eSATA or internally?

We've gone forward in technological ABILITY, but EXTREMELY FAR BACKWARD in customer service, customer care, and TECHNOLOGICAL IMPLEMENTATION! The CRAP software/firmware on this 8300HDC should NEVER have left development! It is not even LAB/TEST READY! And I used to develop software and firmware for TWO of our MAJOR airlines (think Atlanta and Dallas). This is nothing short of BS! And legalized THEFT!

If I pay 225 dollars a month and my service functions from 1:00a.m. to 9:00a.m. each night (while I sleep, and don't record late night "stuff"), that means I have had service for 1/3 of the time (TECHNICALLY), though I have had ZERO benefit! Does that mean that they can still charge me 225 dollars? Can they credit me for a pro-rated time, meaning they can STILL charge me 75 dollars? If I cannot rely on the service, it is absolutely worthless!

I SAY IT IS TIME FOR LEGISLATION THAT WILL REGULATE THIS MONOPOLY !!! (AND DON'T TELL ME IT IS ANYTHING BUT A MONOPOLY!)

I COULDN'T BELIEVE THE AUDACITY TWC had to tell BALD FACED LIES on their commercials (ON TWC, LOL), CLAIMING THEY "HAVE BEEN USING A FIBER OPTIC NETWORK FOR YEARS! Oh, COME ON! Just because you had THREE FEET of fiber in your network somewhere does NOT mean you can LIE to your customers, and claim that Verizon is JUST NOW implementing what you have had for a decade!
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
Is NOBODY ELSE OUTRAGED?
WHERE is the OUTRAGE!?
We are ALL getting SKRUED, and NOBODY is enjoying it except the SKRU-OR, TWC!!!

SIGH...

<puts soapbox away>

Tom in Palm Springs

WOW!!!

I have heard of horror stories from TWC, but yours is a severe case. Considering what you have gone through, you should definitely consider going to Dish. You might want to also look into such options as contacting your local Better Business Bureau and your local consumer protection agency office. It is good that you are considering contacting your local cable commissioner. But, I would do all three things. Agencies such as these have great influence over licensing renewals for cable companies in your area. If you could get enough customers to complain with experiences similar to yours, it is very possible that TWC could lose their cable franchise in your area. But I would not stick with cable in your division for another day.

Regardless of whether you go to Dish or stay with TWC, (and I can't imagine why you would stay after this experience,) I would still take recourse such as the options listed above. Your division really sounds like a BS operation.

Jack

i'd just say to get a 8240HDC for christs sake, now I know why the guy was reluctant to give me a 8300HDC and so far the calls today that I've had was for 8300HDC's, these boxes are just terrible.

"Like the change"? I'm just glad that I don't hate it :). I don't think that this change has anything to do with making us happy. There has to be someway in which TWC plans to boost their bottom line with this. They may fail, but reducing costs or increasing profits via sales of new services is what this has to be all about.

Michael do you have the Lincoln features on your version of Navigator?They include time slot recording,series priority list,fuel gauge,15 minute skip and couple of others I forget.These features might make Navigator wort haveing ifit gets stable. SARA 1.89.17.1 here

From what I have read(on sara here)one thing I dislike about Navigator from what I have read is the lack of the ability to record only one show on series recordings.I have several shows I record such as news.I watch the show the next day a fresh one is there the old one deleated.If I come home from a trip I do not care to find 2 or 3 recordings of a series or newscast I only want one of How hard would it be for TWC to make such as minor change as record only one episode in series recording.Sara in earlier versions only let you record a minimum of 2 shows and I hated that.Sara changed it so why can TWC not change it.(GRRRR). SARA 1.89.1`7.1 with recording features I like

in response to michaeltscott, no what its about is laying the groundwork for the new system. I've been there for the 360 and PS3 launches (and PSP, just using these as examples) and look at the new firmwares now. It's how it is these days. They release a functioning program with a bunch of missing features and a ton of bugs but as they go on and do updates, it gets better and better until eventually the program is so good that you have to have it. Yeah us CSR's will get the brunt of the complaints and stuff but hey they don't care, they are just waiting until the program does get updated.

If on Navigator you have 2 shows scheduled say from 8:00-9:00 and one of the shows ends at 9:02 and you have a 9:00-10:00 show scheduled.Does Navigator give you a partial recording starting at 9:03 such as Passport or Tivo does or does it cancell your 10:00 show the way Sara does.I find this a useful feature.Does Navigator have this ability? SARA 1.89.17.1

I COULDN'T BELIEVE THE AUDACITY TWC had to tell BALD FACED LIES on their commercails (ON TWC, LOL), CLAIMING THEY "HAVE BEEN USING A FIBER OPTIC NETWORK FOR YEARS! Oh, COME ON! Just because you had THREE FEET of fiber in your network somewhere does NOT mean you can LIE to your customers, and claim that Verizon is JUST NOW implementing what you have had for a decade!
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:Well, it's hardly a "bald faced lie"--just kind of a "white lie". They have been using a fiber-optic backbone for years in their local networks, and they ran hundreds of miles of fiber in each of various large market systems to do it, not "three feet". They just didn't run it up to the premise, as Verizon is doing. All the television that they offer leaves their plant and makes the great majority of its journey to your community on fiber (up to 40 kilometers) and gets converted to broadband coax at a local optical node, each of which serves 25-2000 subscriber homes (typically around 500). It's been SOP on typical 750 MHz-capacity systems for over a decade (see this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_fibre-coaxial) Wikipedia article for a more thorough explanation and diagrams). Over a decade ago when they did this it it was revolutionary and it would not have been economically feasible to run fiber to everyone's doorstep. I can't imagine that to date Verizon has come near to running as much fiber for consumer broadband television service as the cable MSOs have; something approaching one hundred million homes are passed by cable HFC networks. How many homes can get Verizon FiOS nationwide? Two or three thousand, maybe :D? Actually, they acheived availability to 6 million homes and topped 1 million subscribers (http://newscenter.verizon.com/press-releases/verizon/2008/verizon-tops-1-million-fios.html) around the end of January. They still have a long way to go to be as ubiquitously available as Hybrid Fiber/Coax and begin to be truly in competition with cable and satellite. At the rate they've been moving, it'll take them more than the next decade.

If on Navigator you have 2 shows scheduled say from 8:00-9:00 and one of the shows ends at 9:02 and you have a 9:00-10:00 show scheduled.Does Navigator give you a partial recording starting at 9:03 such as Passport or Tivo does or does it cancell your 10:00 show the way Sara does.I find this a useful feature.Does Navigator have this ability? SARA 1.89.17.1

thats a good question, I'd love to try it out here, but I know that at home (SARA box) it can record 2 shows at the same time so it shouldnt matter what time either programs end/start b/c they are two different video streams. I'm gonna see if I can get it setup so I can see immediate results on our Slingbox.

edit:
back. looks like I can't set it up for now sorry.

thats a good question, I'd love to try it out here, but I know that at home (SARA box) it can record 2 shows at the same time so it shouldnt matter what time either programs end/start b/c they are two different video streams. I'm gonna see if I can get it setup so I can see immediate results on our Slingbox.

I should have said if you have 2 shows recording from 8:00-9;00 and one ends at 9:02 and you have 2 shows recording from 9:00-10:00 would Navigator give you a parial recording or cancell one show.My bad. Sara 1.89.17.1

I should have said if you have 2 shows recording from 8:00-9;00 and one ends at 9:02 and you have 2 shows recording from 9:00-10:00 would Navigator give you a parial recording or cancell one show.My bad. Sara 1.89.17.1

taken from TWC's reference guide

A viewer has scheduled two or more series recordings and the start/end time of an episode of one series overlaps with the start/end time of another series.
A conflict message alerts the viewer that one of the scheduled recordings will not occur due to an unresolved recording conflict. The message tells the viewer to the Conflicts list to resolve the conflict.

hmm, on the old SARA boxes the programs record whatever timeslot the show you scheduled to record in. Last night I recorded Smallville (7-8) and then Lost from 8-9:02 although next week I will do 7-8:05 and Lost 8:00 to 9:05 so we'll see how it works out.

edit:

OH now I get what you're saying, haha i'm sorry I'm kinda busy handling a few different things here at the same time, anyways to answer your question, it will pop up with a conflict error msg, and if you are not there to resolve it it will not record the program entirely. Now if the guide actually has it set on those timeslots (like 8-9:02,9:02-10:02) then there is no conflicts and will just record normally. You have to manually adjust the start/end time or else this error msg will come up.

i'd just say to get a 8240HDC for christs sake, now I know why the guy was reluctant to give me a 8300HDC and so far the calls today that I've had was for 8300HDC's, these boxes are just terrible.

"22 months of TWC DVR 8300HD"

Sounds like he has bigger issues than just the 'C' box. And given the time period he's talking about, I'm also guessing it's more than a Navigator issue too.

in response to michaeltscott, no what its about is laying the groundwork for the new system. I've been there for the 360 and PS3 launches (and PSP, just using these as examples) and look at the new firmwares now. It's how it is these days. They release a functioning program with a bunch of missing features and a ton of bugs but as they go on and do updates, it gets better and better until eventually the program is so good that you have to have it. Yeah us CSR's will get the brunt of the complaints and stuff but hey they don't care, they are just waiting until the program does get updated.

Good points Coffeerox,

But would you agree for the most part, that this new IPG was released much too quickly? There have certainly been improvements in the guide since the horror days of early last year in Lincoln Nebraska, which was one of Navigator's first test markets. But it is shameful that TWC, who provides a wonderful high-speed Internet service in Road Runner and Digital Phone can not put out a fully functional, reliable, and high-speed interactive IPG. In my view, it is because the programmers at TWC lack the skills and experience needed to get Navigator up to quality standards. It is obvious that some divisions are better than others, and that the type of box and where you live can make a big difference!

But I would submit to TWC, why SHOULD it make a difference? If this Navigator software had been properly tested and the engineers had experience, with effective communication from division to division in designing this thing, Navigator would be so much better than what it is. How long do customers have to wait for a guide that works, regardless of the boxes on which it is preinstalled or downloaded?

Any new software is going to have bugs. And if TWC had told subscribers this information as to what works, what doesn't and who to call for help, that would have made somewhat of a positive difference. But damn! A lot of divisions don't even have the courtesy of a phone call or mailer to tell you when the upgrade happens. You call for help and its "Reboot the box, reboot the box, reboot the box." Well, if the boxes need this type of rebooting, maybe its the software within that is causing the problem. Some divisions at TWC have their heads so far up their "you know what." with this guide and the BS lies that are being spread about how this is supposed to be an upgrade???? What defines an upgrade? Is it because more information is on the screen consolidated in the same place? It certainly can not be in terms of reliability and performance. How much longer do subs have to wait for this? Navigator has been rolled out for two years!

Right now the two biggest issues for TWC with Navigator that need to be improved are a faster scrolling guide, and more reliable stability with recordings being saved, secured, and scheduled?

Jack

But I would submit to TWC, why SHOULD it make a difference? If this Navigator software had been properly tested and the engineers had experience, with effective communication from division to division in designing this thing, Navigator would be so much better than what it is. How long do customers have to wait for a guide that works, regardless of the boxes on which it is preinstalled or downloaded?

What I've completely failed to understand is why things are so different across divisions. It's not like each division has it's own set of programmers working on it's own copy of Navigator. Why do customers in different divisions have different versions and different features? This is supposed to be corporate-wide software effort, but it sure as heck doesn't look like one. That's management and I'll fault them long before I sling arrows at the developers. Even if the developers stink, it's no excuse for management to ship out crappy code that doesn't meet basic quality standards.

Right now the two biggest issues for TWC with Navigator that need to be improved are a faster scrolling guide, and more reliable stability with recordings being saved, secured, and scheduled?

Guess this differs by division too maybe. Those two would not be my top issue, which is the raft of goofy things that happen with an HDMI connection. Stuff like getting the wrong resolution and having the picture stuck in just the upper right quadrant of the screen. And I'd imagine for others, the big issue is the SATA connection. I have had little to no problems with recordings or scheduling. The resolution and "mini-screen" really only got to be bad with this latest (2.4.9_3) version. Prior to that, I've had very little to complain about except for a desire for more feature enhancements.

As for slowness, I've found the response to the remote to be awkward when entering a channel number, but it's otherwise been very acceptable. I think the horror stories we've heard recently (like the YouTube video) are probably the result of trying to run bloated software on inadequate/older hardware.

So it showed up in the Clairemont area earlier this week, unannounced and as unwelcome as a steaming bag of poop on the doorstep. I hadn't heard of this thread herebefore and couldn't believe my eyes as I read it.

My experience:
- Half the shows in my series manager have disappeared.
- Adding shows back in while another show is recording leads to the currently watched show blacking out for upwards of 5 minutes.
- Is it my imagination, or are SD recordings of lower quality?
- The menus are so slooow and so clunky.
- One series that survived, set to record only on Thursdays has sprouted 9 different recordings throughout the coming week.
- Survivor was not recorded last night (grrr!)
- Missed a good 20 minutes off the front of Poker after Dark.
- I'm sure there are joys yet to be discovered!

The one positive: it's really easy to find out how full the disk is now.

All this so they can eventually bring me HSN-HD!

Last week, you couldn't have pried my SA8300HD out of my cold dead hands. Now, I have lost the faith, and shall be exploring my options. Archos TV+ anyone?
I think you are right about the SD quality being worse. I saw it at once but than thought it was just MY imagition.
Roy

But would you agree for the most part, that this new IPG was released much too quickly?

Yes I do. The program guide was completely hosed (1 actor/actress, barely any program info) some of the settings are gone, like the start/end time when you press record on the guide, and also some bugs like Dolby Digital 5.1 which is causing HDMI users to lose sound until we either reboot the box or the customer hard reboots and/or set to 2ch audio.

How much longer do subs have to wait for this? Navigator has been rolled out for two years!

oh wow I wasnt even aware of that one. That's just very very sad to hear. What the heck are those programmers doing over there? I thought that Navigator was just released b/c in the market I work for (WI) they had just gotten it a week or so ago.

oh wow I wasnt even aware of that one. That's just very very sad to hear. What the heck are those programmers doing over there? I thought that Navigator was just released b/c in the market I work for (WI) they had just gotten it a week or so ago.

search this thread for Chiddix.

Navigator is the bastard child of six years of development.

Yes I do. The program guide was completely hosed (1 actor/actress, barely any program info) some of the settings are gone, like the start/end time when you press record on the guide, and also some bugs like Dolby Digital 5.1 which is causing HDMI users to lose sound until we either reboot the box or the customer hard reboots and/or set to 2ch audio.



oh wow I wasnt even aware of that one. That's just very very sad to hear. What the heck are those programmers doing over there? I thought that Navigator was just released b/c in the market I work for (WI) they had just gotten it a week or so ago.

Cofeerox,

I am from Wisconsin too (near Milwaukee) with an SA8300HD DVR. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us concerning Navigator. Since you have indicated that you work in the WI division, what can you tell us about the Navigator rollout without violating confidentiality information? I have heard that our division is supposed to be changed over by the end of this month. If you would rather PM me that's cool, or if there's stuff that you can't say, that is cool too.

I also post at Milwaukee TV forums as Jack 1000, and everyone there HATES Navigator. I haven't been converted yet, and I suppose there isn't much that subs can do. I am sure things will get better with time. But I was very dismayed to hear that we subs are not getting any notification when the upgrade is scheduled. Based on what friends and forum people have told me, the change over occurs between 2-4am on the database change over day. Here is the Milwaukee forum if you're interested:

http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/forums/index.php

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Jack

Satch-Man:

No I'm actually in Mesa,AZ :)

Satch-Man:

I have the entire MDN reference guide I'd be happy to copy-paste from it I just need to know what you need. I also have access to a slingbox to try stuff out on (despite it being real slow) so I can test out stuff from either North/South Wisconsin. And no I'm actually in Mesa,AZ :)

Any idea if TWC will ask the programmers to fix the eSATA bug introduced in the latest version?

Thanks,
xnappo

Any idea if TWC will ask the programmers to fix the eSATA bug introduced in the latest version?

Thanks,
xnappo

nope, we were not supplied with that information as most people don't hook up eSATA hard drives to their boxes. In fact, people gets pissed when I tell them about it b/c they think its something else they have to buy from TWC.

Well, hard drive capacity is going to be a big time issue especially as more and more channels go HD. Also, the fact that SA/Cisco choose to stick with a paltry 160GB hard drive in the new models. That by itself is going to dictate the need for more capacity. 20 hours gets eaten up fast if you record alot of HD content.

Well, hard drive capacity is going to be a big time issue especially as more and more channels go HD. Also, the fact that SA/Cisco choose to stick with a paltry 160GB hard drive in the new models. That by itself is going to dictate the need for more capacity. 20 hours gets eaten up fast if you record alot of HD content.

yeah I hear that. Not only 2-3 days I had my 8240HDC and its already 55% full, go figure.

Satch-Man:

I have the entire MDN reference guide I'd be happy to copy-paste from it I just need to know what you need. I also have access to a slingbox to try stuff out on (despite it being real slow) so I can test out stuff from either North/South Wisconsin. And no I'm actually in Mesa,AZ :)

That is cool!!

So you can actually TEST out updates and things on Navigator before they get released to other markets with this special equipment? Hope you don't get sick of all the questions this forum might give you!! LOL!! Thanks again!

Jack

Anyone still have problems with picture freeze?

in response to michaeltscott, no what its about is laying the groundwork for the new system. I've been there for the 360 and PS3 launches (and PSP, just using these as examples) and look at the new firmwares now. It's how it is these days. They release a functioning program with a bunch of missing features and a ton of bugs but as they go on and do updates, it gets better and better until eventually the program is so good that you have to have it. Yeah us CSR's will get the brunt of the complaints and stuff but hey they don't care, they are just waiting until the program does get updated.I assume that you're responding to:"Like the change"? I'm just glad that I don't hate it :). I don't think that this change has anything to do with making us happy. There has to be someway in which TWC plans to boost their bottom line with this. They may fail, but reducing costs or increasing profits via sales of new services is what this has to be all about.If so, then "Duh." I'm sure that we all understand that they're "laying groundwork for a new system"; what I was speculating on is "why?" I too have experience the evolution of the Xbox 360 and PS3, but those systems introduced a gigantic upgrade in the capabilities of their predecessors (original Xbox and PS2). The firmware that they already had deployed on these boxes was perfectly good (or, in the case of SARA, at least workable and reliable) and perfectly adaptable to their known needs--if it were written in any properly encapsulated fashion, the addition of SDV was something that would be possible without changing a single line of code in either Passport or SARA and there is even an OCAP version of Passport (and presumably one of SARA). There has to be some reason why they're going to the incredible expense of making this change (and putting us all through the pain), and it's obviously some reason that we cannot see from where we sit.

What's with your sig? What are you--a Cox sub who works for TWC? I gather that you're a CSR of some sort--phone support or field tech?

From what I understand the 8240HDC is digital only, TWC still has analog channels so that box would not work in most TWC markets.Most TWC markets have implemented digital simulcasting: sending out SD channels on BOTH analog and digital - so the 8240 can easily be substituted. Even now, with a 8300 for example, if you tune to a "analog" channel, the cable box actually tunes the digital one. They typically put 12 SD channels on one digital QAM. Which takes the space of one SD analog channel.

Most TWC markets have implemented digital simulcasting: sending out SD channels on BOTH analog and digital - so the 8240 can easily be substituted. Even now, with a 8300 for example, if you tune to a "analog" channel, the cable box actually tunes the digital one. They typically put 12 SD channels on one digital QAM. Which takes the space of one SD analog channel.I would expect that all TWC markets where they're using the Explorer 8240 have a digital simulcast of their entire analog tier, since it's the only way that you'd be able to see the basic tier, and FCC regs require that all subs be able to see the basic tier.

Because they don't have an analog tuner or an MPEG encoder for recording analog channels, those boxes can sell for a significant drop in price; every bit helps when you buy as many of these things as the cable providers do.

From what I understand the 8240HDC is digital only, TWC still has analog channels so that box would not work in most TWC markets.

question answered in the following posts so yeah. With all cable companies, well most that I know of, have an entry in your services called [Digital Household] and what that means is that the signals coming into your house are digital, and work for all outlets, even if you don't have a cable box.

TWC may have finally gotten the conversion from Passport to MDN right, at least in keeping series settings. I will keep you updated.

Ive had some customers where their series say that its still there and sch to record but it doesnt actually record when its supposed to.

What's with your sig? What are you--a Cox sub who works for TWC? I gather that you're a CSR of some sort--phone support or field tech?

yes. Cox sub working for TWC, and yeah I said it before, i'm CSR, phone of course, field techs aren't categorized as CSR's.

what I was speculating on is "why?"

because the other platforms are old thats why. Its like saying why does the PS3/PSP have XMB when the PS2 had a regular dashboard? Wouldnt you rather have XMB? I would. At first the XMB for the PSP was real basic in functionality, but look at it now, I somehow can't imagine using a PSP w/o its current additions to the firmware.

because the other platforms are old thats why. Its like saying why does the PS3/PSP have XMB when the PS2 had a regular dashboard? Wouldnt you rather have XMB? I would. At first the XMB for the PSP was real basic in functionality, but look at it now, I somehow can't imagine using a PSP w/o its current additions to the firmware.That reasoning doesn't apply here. The Xbox 360 and PS3 are hugely more powerful pieces of hardware than the original Xbox and PS2 were, making it possible to add a plethora of new capabilities that would not have fit on those older platforms, as well as games with vastly improved graphics and gameplay that's far richer and more complex than the previous generation. Though they've both improved with firmware updates since launch, they were both a huge improvement over the previous generation systems out of the box, on their respective launch days.

In the case of this Navigator roll-out, what they've done is to put crappier software on an existing hardware platform that is not made more capable by that software. It cannot be made more capable and there are no capabilities that they can add to Navigator that Aptiv Digital would not have been perfectly happy to add to Passport Echo, since their largest customer for licenses was TWC. It is difficult to imagine why they're doing this; your comparison to next generation gaming console launches is inapplicable, since there is nothing "next generation" about Navigator, nor can it ever become any substantial improvement over Passport, since its capabilities are capped by those of the hardware platform. I'd be shocked if it ever equalled the feature set of the latest and greatest versions of Passport Echo, which were never rolled out in most TWC markets.

That reasoning doesn't apply here. The Xbox 360 and PS3 are hugely more powerful pieces of hardware than the original Xbox and PS2 were, making it possible to add a plethora of new capabilities that would not have fit on those older platforms, as well as games with vastly improved graphics and gameplay that's far richer and more complex than the previous generation. Though they've both improved with firmware updates since launch, they were both a huge improvement over the previous generation systems out of the box, on their respective launch days.

In the case of this Navigator roll-out, what they've done is to put crappier software on an existing hardware platform that is not made more capable by that software. It cannot be made more capable and there are no capabilities that they can add to Navigator that Aptiv Digital would not have been perfectly happy to add to Passport Echo, since their largest customer for licenses was TWC. It is difficult to imagine why they're doing this; your comparison to next generation gaming console launches is inapplicable, since there is nothing "next generation" about Navigator, nor can it ever become any substantial improvement over Passport, since its capabilities are capped by those of the hardware platform. I'd be shocked if it ever equalled the feature set of the latest and greatest versions of Passport Echo, which were never rolled out in most TWC markets.

hmm. Impulse Upgrades, Whole House MOD, and so on, there are some pretty big features planned with Navigator, it may not be where it should be right now, but when its updated it will be. I havent heard of ANY interface that allows you to add/remove premium channels right from the navigator instead of having to talk to a CSR. Whole House MOD is same way. What if I wanted to order Wrestlemania on all TV's and not just 1? Currently you have to call Billing in order to set this up, its been that way for a long time.

From what I have read(on sara here)one thing I dislike about Navigator from what I have read is the lack of the ability to record only one show on series recordings.I have several shows I record such as news.I watch the show the next day a fresh one is there the old one deleated.If I come home from a trip I do not care to find 2 or 3 recordings of a series or newscast I only want one of How hard would it be for TWC to make such as minor change as record only one episode in series recording.Sara in earlier versions only let you record a minimum of 2 shows and I hated that.Sara changed it so why can TWC not change it.(GRRRR). SARA 1.89.1`7.1 with recording features I like
I agree! It is just stupid design and implementation that does not allow users to record only one show. News and other similar time sensitive series are a more than sufficient reason to allow one show series recording, and given the small disks we get, there is no excuse for such a poor product.

I agree! It is just stupid design and implementation that does not allow users to record only one show. News and other similar time sensitive series are a more than sufficient reason to allow one show series recording, and given the small disks we get, there is no excuse for such a poor product.

the way that recordings work is much like VHS, they are by timeslots, the recording option doesnt go by specific episodes, it only checks to see if its new, first run, or if it's a rerun and goes to record it by whatever you selected. If you want what you are talking about it you might as well download from the internet.

hmm. Impulse Upgrades, Whole House MOD, and so on, there are some pretty big features planned with Navigator, it may not be where it should be right now, but when its updated it will be. I havent heard of ANY interface that allows you to add/remove premium channels right from the navigator instead of having to talk to a CSR. Whole House MOD is same way. What if I wanted to order Wrestlemania on all TV's and not just 1? Currently you have to call Billing in order to set this up, its been that way for a long time.Well, check out this (http://www.aptivdigital.com/presscenter/pressreleasesdetail.asp?ID=7) PR from February 2006 (click the link for a glossy description at Aptiv's site):iSubscribe (http://www.aptivdigital.com/isubscribe/isubscribe.asp) is a new impulse subscription application that enables the presentation of a library of service offerings such as VOD or premium channel packages. Customers will be able to use their remotes to view the subscription services, descriptions and pricing, and then purchase the services with the remote control.This is a feature that was added to Passport 2 years ago in release 2.7, which TWC largely simply chose not to deploy (I think that it actually was rolled out in a handful of TWC systems).

There've been a ton of interesting new features added to Passport in the pass 2.5 years or so since the rev 2.6 release that most TWC systems are using, which is when TWC simply stopped rolling out updates. Why? Your guess is as good as mine, but their long range plans to replace Passport and SARA with Navigator were probably a big part of their reason. Many of the newer features are things which people in these forums have long wished for, like on-screen Caller-ID and a DVR storage idiot-meter.

You can see a full list of features that they displayed in their latest version at a product show last May (including their OCAP version) in this (http://www.aptivdigital.com/presscenter/pressreleasesdetail.asp?ID=9) PR. I don't know about "whole house MOD" (except that it sounds like something that a few customers might use once or twice a year at best, with 99% of subs never having a use for it), but as I previously stated, TWC was their largest customer, into them for many millions of IPG licenses--I'm sure that they would have added anything to the IPG that they wanted. They would have performed perverse sexual favors to keep that account :D.

EDIT: What does "MOD" stand for, anyway? I've seen it in the diags for these cable boxes.

the way that recordings work is much like VHS, they are by timeslots, the recording option doesnt go by specific episodes, it only checks to see if its new, first run, or if it's a rerun and goes to record it by whatever you selected. If you want what you are talking about it you might as well download from the internet.What they're talking about is an option on Series Recording entries to limit the number of recordings retained. With either Passport, SARA or TiVo, you can say "Only keep 1 (or 2 or 3 or 4, etc) recording of this series", and once it has that many it deletes the the oldest one prior to making a new one. This is a very reasonable and useful feature.

DVRs should aspire to be much more flexible than a VHS deck.

ah ok I see. Now an even better question is, why are we Cox users in Phoenix still stuck with the old SARA when other Cox markets are using Passport Echo? Why dont I get passport echo? Why am I paying 23 dollars for the HDDVR box and access but have a decades old interface?

Fol. old TWC interview implies nearly ALL systems are now running Digital Simulcast:
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6297547.html

Digital Simulcast is only pre-requisite for running All Digital STB/DVRs, such as SA4250HD.

The system itself need not be "All Digital"....

What they're talking about is an option on Series Recording entries to limit the number of recordings retained. With either Passport, SARA or TiVo, you can say "Only keep 1 (or 2 or 3 or 4, etc) recording of this series", and once it has that many it deletes the the oldest one prior to making a new one. This is a very reasonable and useful feature.

DVRs should aspire to be much more flexible than a VHS deck.
Mike
Am I missing something here or what? Navagator lets you say 1-3-5-7 or all to keep.

Roy

the way that recordings work is much like VHS, they are by timeslots, the recording option doesnt go by specific episodes, it only checks to see if its new, first run, or if it's a rerun and goes to record it by whatever you selected. If you want what you are talking about it you might as well download from the internet.

On SARA 1.89.17.1 I have the option of recording only one show in a series of first run such as news.Also have time slot recording ability to each day or only a certain day.Also have manual recording.Navigator has NONE of these if I am correct.

Mike
Am I missing something here or what? Navagator lets you say 1-3-5-7 or all to keep.

RoyOkay--I was making assumptions (bad habit :D) and apparently don't know what feature omission people are complaining about. Sorry.

Mike
Am I missing something here or what? Navagator lets you say 1-3-5-7 or all to keep.

Roy

If Navigator lets you record one new series recording thats a vast improvement.Earlier versions made you record either two or three.Hope you were correct and I am wrong. SARA 1.89.17.1 here

ah ok I see. Now an even better question is, why are we Cox users in Phoenix still stuck with the old SARA when other Cox markets are using Passport Echo? Why dont I get passport echo? Why am I paying 23 dollars for the HDDVR box and access but have a decades old interface?Cox just made the deal for Passport Echo with Gemstar in December (and, apparently since then, Macrovision acquired Gemstar (http://www.smartbrief.com/news/ctam/storyDetails.jsp?issueid=3AC0D5AA-7464-42E7-AB1E-1BE62A2DBCDB&copyid=4F212DD9-2B04-47C2-9C38-D4B8388E0F38&lmcid=296640)--big fish ears little fish, then gets eaten by bigger fish :rolleyes:). In any case, I don't think that it's been deployed nationwide yet. I know that Cox San Diego hasn't rolled it out yet either, so don't feel so all alone :).

If Navigator lets you record one new series recording thats a vast improvement.Earlier versions made you record either two or three.Hope you were correct and I am wrong. SARA 1.89.17.1 hereI checked and that's what it it does in whatever version of MDN we have--1, 3, 5, 7 or all. The recording log is full of notations that episodes of various things were deleted to make room for new ones under this policy.

I checked and that's what it it does in whatever version of MDN we have--1, 3, 5, 7 or all. The recording log is full of notations that episodes of various things were deleted to make room for new ones under this policy.

As I understand it, the default for # of Series to Save in Navigator is preset to 3 episodes per show title. People a lot of times assumed that Navigator was erasing shows after the 4th episode of a series. Well, I heard that it will do that unless you change the default under Record Series With Options from 3, to how ever many episodes you want to save. Now if this was changed in some newer versions, I am not sure.

Jack

As I understand it, the default for # of Series to Save in Navigator is preset to 3 episodes per show title. People a lot of times assumed that Navigator was erasing shows after the 4th episode of a series. Well, I heard that it will do that unless you change the default under Record Series With Options from 3, to how ever many episodes you want to save. Now if this was changed in some newer versions, I am not sure.

JackWhat--are you saying that it will actually keep 4 by default when the default setting is 3? Or are you saying that when the 4th episode airs (assuming that it recorded the first 3 and that you didn't delete any of them) it will delete the eldest of the three that it already has before recording the new episode?

The default has to be set to something and 3 seems reasonable. What was it on Passport?

On SARA 1.89.17.1 I have the option of recording only one show in a series of first run such as news.Also have time slot recording ability to each day or only a certain day.Also have manual recording.Navigator has NONE of these if I am correct.
It will let you choose the # of shows to save and it will also let you choose the time slot such as a program that is at 5-6 daily and repeats every 3 hrs. Nav will let you go to the 5:00 slot and choose to record it and go to options to decide to have new or new and repeats --also you can choose the 5:00 slot or all showings. also edit start and end times.
Roy

It will let you choose the # of shows to save and it will also let you choose the time slot such as a program that is at 5-6 daily and repeats every 3 hrs. Nav will let you go to the 5:00 slot and choose to record it and go to options to decide to have new or new and repeats --also you can choose the 5:00 slot or all showings. also edit start and end times.
Roy

I know that time slot recording has been advertised on the Nebraska site, but I'm on version 2.4.9_3 and still don't have time slot recording. What version do you have that includes this feature?

ETA: And for me under recording a series, the save at most options are 3, 5, 7 or all (1 is not an option) and the default is 7.

I know that time slot recording has been advertised on the Nebraska site, but I'm on version 2.4.9_3 and still don't have time slot recording. What version do you have that includes this feature?

ETA: And for me under recording a series, the save at most options are 3, 5, 7 or all (1 is not an option) and the default is 7.
my version is 2.4.1-92
it has 1 as an option
when I go to a program such as one a 5:00 and press sel and than go to record series with options it gives me in this order
1. save at most ---with 5 as a default and choice 1-3-5-7-all
2. record--either-- new and repeats or new
3. adj start time
4. adj end time
5. air time---and since I was recording a 5:00 show it gives me the choice of 5:00 or all showings

Roy

my version is 2.4.1-92
it has 1 as an option
when I go to a program such as one a 5:00 and press sel and than go to record series with options it gives me in this order
1. save at most ---with 5 as a default and choice 1-3-5-7-all
2. record--either-- new and repeats or new
3. adj start time
4. adj end time
5. air time---and since I was recording a 5:00 show it gives me the choice of 5:00 or all showings

Roy

These options are close to what we have on sara.A couple options such as every day or just this day ever week and manual recording still missing.However it seems all Navigator versions do not have the same options.HOW RETARTED is that for a NATIONAL PLATFORM.(GRRR) Sara 1.89.17.1

I know that time slot recording has been advertised on the Nebraska site, but I'm on version 2.4.9_3 and still don't have time slot recording. What version do you have that includes this feature?

ETA: And for me under recording a series, the save at most options are 3, 5, 7 or all (1 is not an option) and the default is 7.I and RDO CA are running MDN and you are running ODN. Yet another strange and stupid difference between the two, probably unintentional (transcription error as whoever re-wrote the C language version into Java). You'd think such things would be immediately caught in regression testing :rolleyes:.

What--are you saying that it will actually keep 4 by default when the default setting is 3? Or are you saying that when the 4th episode airs (assuming that it recorded the first 3 and that you didn't delete any of them) it will delete the eldest of the three that it already has before recording the new episode?

The default has to be set to something and 3 seems reasonable. What was it on Passport?

I think the second thing is correct, after the first three episodes are recorded, it will auto erase the 4th episode of the same show. (Unless you have selected a higher number to keep than 3, or KEEP ALL under Record Series With Otions.) Navigator goes by whatever shows are the MOST RECENT get highest priority in the series manager. If there is a recording conflict I think the conflict is resolved the importance of type of program:

1.) If the conflict involves a PPV program and is unresolved, the PPV program gets highest priority over the other program.

2.) If it's a MOD that gets second priority in conflict resolution. (PPV 1st.)

3.) If it's a series over a one time program, the episode that is part of a series gets top priority (I think)

4.) If it's two programs in the same time slot and the conflict is not dealt with, the DVR records the MOST RECENT ENTERED PROGRAM

I am not sure about #3. But I have been told that if you REALLY want a program to record, but you set it up say a week ago, and your not sure where it is in terms of series or program priority, go to that program before the start time and DELETE IT. Than after doing that, set that SAME EPISODE to record again. This will automatically put it back at the top of the priority list, and if there is no conflict in 1-4 of the above, the show SHOULD (knock on wood) record because you have given the show (with the deletion and re-entering,) top recording priority.

I actually have not used Series Manager. But for Passport, the set up was very different. For Passport, when you want to record, the default was/is RECORD ENTIRE SERIES. This meant that every episode would be recorded by default. To change this, you would go to any recorded episode in the series and press Select. Than under Recording Options select Episodes to Keep and choose how many to save. If you said 4 episodes, it would keep 4 episodes of the show. On the 5th episode, it would erase starting from and removing episode 1. So the order would be in this example keep 1-4 episodes, on the 5th showing, ERASE episode 1. This process stays like this until you change recording options in the series manager, OR delete the series in the series manager.

The difference is:

a.) Navigator saves 3 episodes of a series by default unless parameters for that series are changed or deleted.

b.) Passport saves ALL episodes of a series until parameters are changed or deleted.

Jack

Anyone still have problems with picture freeze?
Mine was doing thatthis morning.

I think the second thing is correct, after the first three episodes are recorded, it will auto erase the 4th episode of the same show. (Unless you have selected a higher number to keep than 3, or KEEP ALL under Record Series With Otions.) Navigator goes by whatever shows are the MOST RECENT get highest priority in the series manager. If their is a recording conflict I think the conflict is resolved the importance of type of program:

1.) If the conflict involves a PPV program and is unresolved, the PPV program gets highest priority over the other program.

2.) If it's a MOD that gets second priority in conflict resolution. (PPV 1st.)

3.) If it's a series over a one time program, the episode that is part of a series gets top priority (I think)

4.) If it's two programs in the same time slot and the conflict is not dealt with, the DVR records the MOST RECENT ENTERED PROGRAM

I am not sure about #3. But I have been told that if you REALLY want a program to record, but you set it up say a week ago, and your not sure where it is in terms of series or program priority, go to that program before the start time and DELETE IT. Than after doing that, set that SAME EPISODE to record again. This will automatically put it back at the top of the priority list, and if there is no conflict in 1-4 of the above, the show SHOULD (knock on wood) record because you have given the show (with the deletion and re-entering,) top recording priority.

I actually have not used Series Manager. But for Passport, the set up was very different. For Passport, when you want to record, the default was/is RECORD ENTIRE SERIES. This meant that every episode would be recorded by default. To change this, you would go to any recorded episode in the series and press Select. Than under Recording Options select Episodes to Keep and choose how many to save. If you said 4 episodes, it would keep 4 episodes of the show. On the 5th episode, it would erase starting from and removing episode 1. So the order would be in this example keep 1-4 episodes, on the 5th showing, ERASE episode 1. This process stays like this until you change recording options in the series manager, OR delete the series in the series manager.

The difference is:

a.) Navigator saves 3 episodes of a series by default unless parameters for that series are changed or deleted.

b.) Passport saves ALL episodes of a series until parameters are changed or deleted.

Jack
My version 2.4.1-92 defaults to saving 5 episodes and you can go in and set the priority by moving the one you want to have the highest priority to the top and next on down. You can delete and put back in and it will go to the top but you dont have to do it just move it up.

Roy

Mine was doing thatthis morning.

Mine sticks to the corner at least once a day since I got 2.4.9_3. Never happened with 2.4.5_4.

My version 2.4.1-92 defaults to saving 5 episodes and you can go in and set the priority by moving the one you want to have the highest priority to the top and next on down. You can delete and put back in and it will go to the top but you dont have to do it just move it up.

Roy

Yup, that's a different hardware platform, and thus software too, than what I have. It was suggested to me when I first started on this board to include the hardware and software version in your location or signature so we all have a better idea of what folks have when they describe their features or problems.

michaeltscott has it right. Once again we see differences in TWC's so-called corporate-wide consolidation. Whether it's a different version of the same software by different divisions or different levels of feature/function based on whether it's OCAP or not, it's perplexing.

Mine sticks to the corner at least once a day since I got 2.4.9_3. Never happened with 2.4.5_4.

Ditto. No problems with freezing whatsoever (that sounds more like a signal strength issue to me). Aside from the corner sticking, the switching back down to 480i for HD channels when connected via HDMI are my only two real issues. That's a stability statement, usability is another matter altogether.

Ditto. No problems with freezing whatsoever (that sounds more like a signal strength issue to me). Aside from the corner sticking, the switching back down to 480i for HD channels when connected via HDMI are my only two real issues. That's a stability statement, usability is another matter altogether.
Normally I would agree with you, but it's suspicious when the freezing occurs without digital tiling or sound dropouts. Could just be a fluke though. Signal problems have been an issue in my area in the past.

As for usability, another problem mine has regulary (but not frequently) is with the "live" video stream, ex. I hit pause, it won't pause, I hit rewind, the screen goes black until I hit "Live". It is as if the DVR is not capturing the video stream I am watching. This happens even when the DVR is not recording anything on the other tuner.

-Marty

I have heard the ODN "OCAP" does not have the option to change priority but MDN does. Can anyone comment on this?

I know that with my MDN 8300HD I can move the series recordings up and down in the list just like we could with Passport. You had better be ready to spend some time doing this as the speed of this feature is really slow. I thought the box was locked up, but it is just really slow at making the schedule changes. But was is fast when MDN compared to Passport.

ODN versions I had/have (2.4.5_4 and 2.4.9_3 ) do not have that feature. The only way to change priority is to delete and recreate, which puts the series on the top of priority list.
I can understand that feature being slow, as it, in effect, must recreate the Scheduled Recordings list.

As for usability, another problem mine has regulary (but not frequently) is with the "live" video stream, ex. I hit pause, it won't pause, I hit rewind, the screen goes black until I hit "Live". It is as if the DVR is not capturing the video stream I am watching. This happens even when the DVR is not recording anything on the other tuner.

Well, not what I meant by usability (that still sounds like stability to me), but I've seen something very similar. It seems the DVR box becomes totally unresponsive. The tell-tale sign is that the yellow bar when you press info is not present at all no matter how long you've been watching a channel. This has always required a reboot to resolve. But I can't recall if I've seen this problem since being updated to 2.4.9_3.

As for usability, I'm referring to things like time slot recording, searching for additional air times for the show I'm currently looking at in the guide, a keyboard search where the arrow keys wrap or I can optionally exclude premium and PPV channels I don't have, etc. 2.4.9_3 did fix one usability issue for me and that was the previously weak jumpback when fast-forwarding.

Normally I would agree with you, but it's suspicious when the freezing occurs without digital tiling or sound dropouts. Could just be a fluke though. Signal problems have been an issue in my area in the past.

As for usability, another problem mine has regulary (but not frequently) is with the "live" video stream, ex. I hit pause, it won't pause, I hit rewind, the screen goes black until I hit "Live". It is as if the DVR is not capturing the video stream I am watching. This happens even when the DVR is not recording anything on the other tuner.

-Marty

Unfortunately, seems like this is "normal" for this box (or its software) ... apparently the 8300HDC goes into a "sleep mode" after some period of inactivity (switching channels seems to wake it up). I haven't been able to determine how long that period of inactivity is ... can anyone elaborate?

Before TW downloaded the most recent software, I swapped my box out for another one, hoping the problem was with the box. Didn't help!

The tell-tale sign is that the yellow bar when you press info is not present at all no matter how long you've been watching a channel. This has always required a reboot to resolve. But I can't recall if I've seen this problem since being updated to 2.4.9_3.

This was definitely a problem with the earlier software!

And you shouldn't need to re-boot the box to wake up the box ... just change channels ... then go back to the one you were watching and the yellow bar will begin to appear. Unfortunately, this "feature" prevents you from either backing up the currently-watched channel program, or recording the currently-watched channel program in its entirety.:mad:

This was definitely a problem with the earlier software!

And you shouldn't need to re-boot the box to wake up the box ... just change channels ... then go back to the one you were watching and the yellow bar will begin to appear. Unfortunately, this "feature" prevents you from either backing up the currently-watched channel program, or recording the currently-watched channel program in its entirety.:mad:

The problem when I saw it had nothing to do with sleep mode. Changing channels did not affect this at all. Once it started, you couldn't pause or rewind what you were watching nor could you record. The only "sleep mode" issue I've ever heard of relates to the external drive. Nonetheless, the only way I was able to resolve the situation when it would happen was to pull the plug. But I'd say this only happened to us maybe once a week at the most. If anything, it acted more like a memory leak that would reach a point where memory allocation request would fail and prevent functions from working any further.

Unfortunately, this "feature" prevents you from either backing up the currently-watched channel program, or recording the currently-watched channel program in its entirety.:mad:

I believe this is the 'feature' that you can complain about and that, if resolved, will also fix the eSATA issue! If everyone complains about it through these lines, maybe eSATA will get fixed...

xnappo

I believe this is the 'feature' that you can complain about and that, if resolved, will also fix the eSATA issue! If everyone complains about it through these lines, maybe eSATA will get fixed...

xnappo

Ok, I'm getting confused. Is the claim that when the yellow bar stops working, it's an indication that the internal drive has gone into sleep mode? I have/had this problem and have never connected an external drive, hence I never associated it with the "sleep mode" problem. Besides, I thought the external drive had been working in earlier versions and broke recently which seems to be the reverse case with the yellow bar problem (used to exist, but seems to be resolved in the most recent version).

Ok, I'm getting confused. Is the claim that when the yellow bar stops working, it's an indication that the internal drive has gone into sleep mode? I have/had this problem and have never connected an external drive, hence I never associated it with the "sleep mode" problem. Besides, I thought the external drive had been working in earlier versions and broke recently which seems to be the reverse case with the yellow bar problem (used to exist, but seems to be resolved in the most recent version).

I've never had an external drive connected either.

I used the term "sleep mode" because that's a term I'd seen referred to before, and it made sense that this was what the box was doing ... going to sleep (no longer recording the currently-watched channel) ... is there a documented "sleep mode" problem that only effects eSATA connected drives?

So, I helped my sister get a new HDTV (Sony KDS55A3000) and set it up at her home in Huntington Beach, CA. She's had TWC and RoadRunner for many years now. We took her existing box (SA 82XX, forgot the exact model. It's bigger and darker in color than the 8300) to the local TWC store and asked for a new box with HDMI. (I knew I should have checked here first.) We got a 8300HDC. I asked for an HDMI cable, they said they don't provide those. (Cheap SOB's) I think I know why now. Went to get an HDMI cable locally to use until I could order her one from monoprice. Cheapest HDMI cable at circuit city was $59! That's going back now that we received the monoprice cable.

Get home and set it up, and first problem is whenever viewing a 720p channel, the entire image would blink off and on. Plugged the HDMI cable into a different port on the TV, didn't do it any more. Switched back to the first HDMI port, no longer flashing. Start reading this thread to learn how to set the box to output 1080i only. Great, can't be done over HDMI.

Just left it that way for the week. Went back over there this weekend, installed the monoprice HDMI cable. Got the image stuck in upper right corner a few times, rebooting appeared to be the only way to fix that. Then got the 480i mode on 1080i HD channels problem. Switching to a 720p channel like FOX or ABC then back seems to reset that issue. Ended up connecting the TV via component cables until/if TW can fix this POS box. I wish we would have just kept the box she had. I told her we should go back to the store and try to get a 8300HD box instead of the HDC, but we didn't have time.

Never realized how good I had it with my Moto 6416 box in Cox territory. (Who does provide an HDMI cable for free on request)

She lives in an area where she can currently get FIOS internet & TV, and if it wasn't for her losing her email address, we might have done it right then. (After I go look at the verizon threads to see how things are on that side.) TW is going to lose customers to FIOS if they give out these POS boxes in her area. I did access the diag screens, but forgot the software version number. It was dated 11/2007, though.

I had to switch to a SA8300HDC when 1 of my 3 SA8300hd boxes (on Passport) started giving problems and what a bunch of problems that started. It would have to be rebooted once a week as it would not refresh the guide. It did not have a way to time slot record. It had handshake problems with HDMI that were not there with the other box. It froze on a reg basis and had to be rebooted. They would not change with me and give me a HD box until I found a service tech out to address another problem had one on his truck and switched with me. Magicly all of my problems dissapeared instantly. The new Nav. softwear seems to be working ok so far with the SA8300HD boxes so I think the HDC box is the source of many of the problems.

Nav. 2.4.1-92

Roy

has anyone heard of or seen a mailer saying that the 8300hd boxes will be switching to the new mdn navigator? i was told that when they switch, all saved show will be lost. Anyone heard or possibly know anything about this?

I've never had an external drive connected either.

I used the term "sleep mode" because that's a term I'd seen referred to before, and it made sense that this was what the box was doing ... going to sleep (no longer recording the currently-watched channel) ... is there a documented "sleep mode" problem that only effects eSATA connected drives?

Yes. The problem with external drives is that after a certain amount of inactivity (3 hours?), the drive powers down (enters sleep mode) and the DVR never re-awakens the drive, thus nothing gets recorded to it anymore. Might not be the most accurate technical explanation, but that's the gist of it.

People are attempting to get around this problem by keeping the DVR active by having it continuously record something (typically some news type show that repeats in 3-4 hour blocks).

Yes. The problem with external drives is that after a certain amount of inactivity (3 hours?), the drive powers down (enters sleep mode) and the DVR never re-awakens the drive, thus nothing gets recorded to it anymore. Might not be the most accurate technical explanation, but that's the gist of it.

People are attempting to get around this problem by keeping the DVR active by having it continuously record something (typically some news type show that repeats in 3-4 hour blocks).

Perhaps the eSATA drive is powering down because the drive in the 8300HDC is being put in a "sleep mode" ... and therefore it powers down also ... just a guess!

has anyone heard of or seen a mailer saying that the 8300hd boxes will be switching to the new mdn navigator? i was told that when they switch, all saved show will be lost. Anyone heard or possibly know anything about this?

It's already been rolling out in some areas. I recall someone mentioned a mailer indicating some shows could get lost, but I've not seen a report of it actually happening. I believe the feeling was that if the drive was close to full, the upgrade process might have to delete some stuff in order to make space in order to download the upgrade.

Perhaps the eSATA drive is powering down because the drive in the 8300HDC is being put in a "sleep mode" ... and therefore it powers down also ... just a guess!

Maybe, but all the reports I've seen here are that people with this problem no longer have issues once they either use the work-around or simply remove the external drive. That's why I said i was confused. I had not previously heard anyone indicate that the internal drive was powering down. Obviously another work-around would be to have an external drive which allowed you to use a setting or jumper to prevent the drive from entering sleep mode, but apparently most don't seem to support that (probably a "green" thing ;)).

Just left it that way for the week. Went back over there this weekend, installed the monoprice HDMI cable. Got the image stuck in upper right corner a few times, rebooting appeared to be the only way to fix that. Then got the 480i mode on 1080i HD channels problem. Switching to a 720p channel like FOX or ABC then back seems to reset that issue. Ended up connecting the TV via component cables until/if TW can fix this POS box.

Clearly TWC currently has some issues supporting HDMI for whatever reason. Hell, someone reported that when they called TWC, they were informed HDMI isn't even officially supported! Might explain why they don't give out the cable.

In any case, why not just leave it setup with component cables? Unless I've misunderstood, it's just as good as an HDMI connection except it doesn't handle 1080p, and since no one broadcasts in 1080p, that's a non-issue. Then you can set the box to always output 1080i. I don't know what problems that would still leave you with (ie, stuck in the right corner) since I am using the HDMI connection. Maybe someone using component cables can list which issues they still have even without an HDMI connection.

It's already been rolling out in some areas. I recall someone mentioned a mailer indicating some shows could get lost, but I've not seen a report of it actually happening. I believe the feeling was that if the drive was close to full, the upgrade process might have to delete some stuff in order to make space in order to download the upgrade.We received such a mailer a couple weeks ago but it did not go into specifics on dates, times, model numbers, etc, just that they're sending out some great new software and it may cause you to lose preciously recorded shows. They are now running a commercial in our area directing us to mytwcnavigator.com.

-Marty

The problem when I saw it had nothing to do with sleep mode. Changing channels did not affect this at all. Once it started, you couldn't pause or rewind what you were watching nor could you record. The only "sleep mode" issue I've ever heard of relates to the external drive. Nonetheless, the only way I was able to resolve the situation when it would happen was to pull the plug. But I'd say this only happened to us maybe once a week at the most. If anything, it acted more like a memory leak that would reach a point where memory allocation request would fail and prevent functions from working any further.
This has been true in my case as well, except perhaps a couple times a week (hard to tell because I usually end up rebooting for other reasons like at night when all the channels crap out). I can't swear to it but I think that in some cases I've been able to remedy this by a normal power off/on (without full reboot).

-Marty

This has been true in my case as well, except perhaps a couple times a week (hard to tell because I usually end up rebooting for other reasons like at night when all the channels crap out). I can't swear to it but I think that in some cases I've been able to remedy this by a normal power off/on (without full reboot).

-Marty

Next time you discover that the box is not recording your currently-watched program, try just changing channels ... and see if that re-starts the recording.

Next time you discover that the box is not recording your currently-watched program, try just changing channels ... and see if that re-starts the recording.
I have tried that thoroughly because I thought it might have had something to do with the box losing my authorizations for premium channels or something like that, so I went all over the dial looking for channels that might record. Changing the channels didn't help mine out of this problem.

-Marty

Clearly TWC currently has some issues supporting HDMI for whatever reason. Hell, someone reported that when they called TWC, they were informed HDMI isn't even officially supported! Might explain why they don't give out the cable.

In any case, why not just leave it setup with component cables? Unless I've misunderstood, it's just as good as an HDMI connection except it doesn't handle 1080p, and since no one broadcasts in 1080p, that's a non-issue. Then you can set the box to always output 1080i. I don't know what problems that would still leave you with (ie, stuck in the right corner) since I am using the HDMI connection. Maybe someone using component cables can list which issues they still have even without an HDMI connection.

I've said the same thing. Since HDMI is such a beast with Navigator, why use it? That doesn't mean it will never be supported. But I would submit, let's wait till Navigator gets up to decent standards where 90/100 people don't hate it. The same applies with the external drive support. It's just more headache adding extra things, when this POS guide doesn't even work right a lot of times with a conventional cable hook up. When you start adding other things, it just makes more mess of a mess.

Is there really THAT big a difference with HDMI at 1080p output? Is it worth it going through more box freezes and hang-ups just for a slight improvement in picture quality? I mean, if you are in a good Navigator division, ok. But if you are having problems in your division, disconnect any extra stuff until a consensus is reached that this software is up to decent standards.

That's perfectly understandable and respectable that many techno-geeks like experimenting with the new technology. But if the architectural design or Operating System of a project is sub-par initially, adding more things just causes more frustration for you and this already flimsy software. Why put yourselves through that stress? It's not worth the time or trouble.

Jack

Clearly TWC currently has some issues supporting HDMI for whatever reason. Hell, someone reported that when they called TWC, they were informed HDMI isn't even officially supported! Might explain why they don't give out the cable.

In any case, why not just leave it setup with component cables? Unless I've misunderstood, it's just as good as an HDMI connection except it doesn't handle 1080p, and since no one broadcasts in 1080p, that's a non-issue. Then you can set the box to always output 1080i. I don't know what problems that would still leave you with (ie, stuck in the right corner) since I am using the HDMI connection. Maybe someone using component cables can list which issues they still have even without an HDMI connection.

Like most newer TV's, the A3000 is a digital set. While it may be minimal, having the cable box convert the signal to analog to go out the component inputs, then have the TV convert the signal back to digital has to have some effect on the image quality. For the kind of money TW is charging each month, it's not too unreasonable to expect them to properly support the HDMI output on their box, especially since they are required to by the FCC. Next time I go to my sisters house, I'll be taking the HDC box back to the TW store and requesting a non-C box, unless her box gets a firmware update by then, and HDMI starts to work properly. If they can't provide a working HDMI box, then I'll look into the possibility of getting TV through Verizon FIOS, and keeping roadrunner for internet for now.


I long ago suggested my sister move away from using the roadrunner email address in case there was a good reason to drop them someday; she didn't listen. I almost never use my Cox email address for that reason.

I can confirm that WI's MDN does not have adj Air time as part of "Record Series w/ Options".

Clearly TWC currently has some issues supporting HDMI for whatever reason. Hell, someone reported that when they called TWC, they were informed HDMI isn't even officially supported! Might explain why they don't give out the cable.

In any case, why not just leave it setup with component cables? Unless I've misunderstood, it's just as good as an HDMI connection except it doesn't handle 1080p, and since no one broadcasts in 1080p, that's a non-issue. Then you can set the box to always output 1080i. I don't know what problems that would still leave you with (ie, stuck in the right corner) since I am using the HDMI connection. Maybe someone using component cables can list which issues they still have even without an HDMI connection.

Well, w/ HDMI cables, I dont know why you were given information that TWC doesn't support HDMI, its just that cable wise, they don't supply HDMI cables, so when customers ask for them, they will not give them to you free like they do component. As a matter of fact, Component DOES support 1080p, you just have to have a TV that supports it. Most don't though. About HDMI, there are two issues that I hear of. One, blank screen. Two, picture, but no sound (but was working fine a day or so ago). The first one is usually HDCP issue, although customers refuse to believe its their TV's b/c of how much money they spend on it. Next, is the no sound issue. That's because only because of the update but you can always change the setting to get audio and for the customers that actually get me on the phone, always gets that problem resolved. Other than that, no other HDMI issues I've ran into. One more thing about the 1080p, if you have a TV, such as the Bravia XBR2's and higher, having it set to 1080i, your TV will actually convert the signal into progressive, so it really is 1920x1080 progressive, an actual jump in quality. You will want your box set in Fixed Mode in 1080i only in that case.

I have tried that thoroughly because I thought it might have had something to do with the box losing my authorizations for premium channels or something like that, so I went all over the dial looking for channels that might record. Changing the channels didn't help mine out of this problem.

pretty common issue I run into daily and I usually see 8300's associated with it. Seems to happen at random but a hit/refresh/reboot and a Refresh Current will solve the problem, youll have to call video support for that though.

Get home and set it up, and first problem is whenever viewing a 720p channel, the entire image would blink off and on. Plugged the HDMI cable into a different port on the TV, didn't do it any more. Switched back to the first HDMI port, no longer flashing. Start reading this thread to learn how to set the box to output 1080i only. Great, can't be done over HDMI.

Oh yes it can. Hold Select button until the 'envelope' light blinks, then press Volume - and HDSR will appear on your box, then press Volume + to set it to 1080i only. Once your box boots and displays picture, then you can go do your settings or whatever. If it couldnt be done over HDMI I wouldnt be watching TV right now as for some odd reason, box cannot display 480p on my LCD yet the PS3 can display 480p just fine.

I can confirm that WI's MDN does not have adj Air time as part of "Record Series w/ Options".



About HDMI, there are two issues that I hear of. One, blank screen. Two, picture, but no sound (but was working fine a day or so ago). The first one is usually HDCP issue, although customers refuse to believe its their TV's b/c of how much money they spend on it. Next, is the no sound issue. That's because only because of the update but you can always change the setting to get audio and for the customers that actually get me on the phone, always gets that problem resolved. Other than that, no other HDMI issues I've ran into. One more thing about the 1080p, if you have a TV, such as the Bravia XBR2's and higher, having it set to 1080i, your TV will actually convert the signal into progressive, so it really is 1920x1080 progressive, an actual jump in quality. You will want your box set in Fixed Mode in 1080i only in that case.
.


Uh, might want to add one more HDMI problem, and the one that I read the most about and experience myself. When using HDMI the output resolution reverts to the 480i default whenever you turn the TV off or sometimes even just switch to a non HD channel. To get the HD channel to output in either 720p or 1080i you have to switch back and forth, back and forth, back and forth (get the pic) between channels until it finally locks in. Contrary to your statement that this is probably a TV issue, I would say NOT. I previoulsy had a an 8300 that worked like a jewel. From there I had a DISH 622DVR...worked like a jewel. Now the 8300HDC....works like a dull rock. Same TV in all scenarios. If I am wrong in my synopsis of the HDMI issue stated here, someone please feel free to correct me.
Edited this to say, that I know my tone sounds a bit harsh. But it is not intened to coffeerox. It's just I keep reading where people talk about HDMI as being a "new" thing. Hogwash! If you pronounce yourself as being the best in the business as TWC does, then you should at least provide the mechanisms for folks to make that determination. Hollow soundings as far as I'm concerned. Too bad my apartment complex made me take down my dish.

As far as I am concerned the time slot recordings are vital to Navigator since it lacks manual recording.Will Navigator let you set up more than one time slot of same show?Why different areas have different Navigator versions makes you wonder why they got rid of Passport and soon Sara. GRRRR. Sara 1.89.17.1

What is dis-heartening is the continual problems and glitches. Just when you think they fixed a problem, they cause another one. I find it completely ridiculous that people paying upwards of $150 a month still have to resort to workarounds and such just to use the product. The only way to change this would be to instigate a mass cancellation of services. If people could come together, they could easily dictate prices and conditions. However, very few are willing to sacrifice for the greater good so things will remain on an individual basis.

Navigator is akin to the Windows Vista debacle which is arguably the worst OS since Me, but at least I was able to format it and re-install XP. Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of choosing the software on our set top boxes!

Like most newer TV's, the A3000 is a digital set. While it may be minimal, having the cable box convert the signal to analog to go out the component inputs, then have the TV convert the signal back to digital has to have some effect on the image quality. For the kind of money TW is charging each month, it's not too unreasonable to expect them to properly support the HDMI output on their box, especially since they are required to by the FCC. Next time I go to my sisters house, I'll be taking the HDC box back to the TW store and requesting a non-C box, unless her box gets a firmware update by then, and HDMI starts to work properly. If they can't provide a working HDMI box, then I'll look into the possibility of getting TV through Verizon FIOS, and keeping roadrunner for internet for now.


I long ago suggested my sister move away from using the roadrunner email address in case there was a good reason to drop them someday; she didn't listen. I almost never use my Cox email address for that reason.

I run component from my box to my A3000 and have found that compared side by side at 1080i the component looked better. Why...well I believe that is something with the box. The component actually looked sharper and the colors better. The only reason I went to component in the first place was that I wanted dedicated 1080i output. When the box has to switch through different resolutions it takes too long. San Diego must not have the most recent software because I tried HDMI again and it still won't let me choose a single output resolution. I am using Monster M1000 components (that support up to 1080p)...and the A3000 supposedly also supports 1080p through component so you never know. All my other equipment is hooked up by HDMI though.

It isn't that people aren't willing...it is that there aren't many other options. For me Time Warner is my only option. My apartment doesn't face the right direction or I would've had DirecTV a long time ago. My only other option is AT&T U-verse but I keep reading horror stories on their service as well. If Cox owned equipment in my area I would switch to them (they are the other provider in San Diego)...but no such luck.

Uh, might want to add one more HDMI problem, and the one that I read the most about and experience myself. When using HDMI the output resolution reverts to the 480i default whenever you turn the TV off or sometimes even just switch to a non HD channel. To get the HD channel to output in either 720p or 1080i you have to switch back and forth, back and forth, back and forth (get the pic) between channels until it finally locks in. Contrary to your statement that this is probably a TV issue, I would say NOT. I previoulsy had a an 8300 that worked like a jewel. From there I had a DISH 622DVR...worked like a jewel. Now the 8300HDC....works like a dull rock. Same TV in all scenarios. If I am wrong in my synopsis of the HDMI issue stated here, someone please feel free to correct me.

Again, problems that I *hear of* on a daily basis. Doesnt mean that there arent other issues to speak of. So first, lets start with what IPG you are using. Is it Navigator, Passport Echo or SARA? If SARA, you need to put it on Fixed mode @ 720p/1080i, and it will use ONLY that setting. Navigator is similar, you go to Settings > Display > Output Resolution and then choose 720p or 1080i. You need to make sure that it doesn't say AUTO on the front of the box or else its trying to switch to the best resolution for that channel. Even if it doesnt, it doesnt hurt to use the manual settings method to get it into fixed mode along with the Navigator settings. At this time I'm not aware of any auto-resolution switching option but I have a feeling that its one of those things that they left in there when they migrated to Navigator.

BTW, I never said they were TV issues.

I long ago suggested my sister move away from using the roadrunner email address in case there was a good reason to drop them someday; she didn't listen. I almost never use my Cox email address for that reason.

Not just that. My parents had RoadRunner and then the cable franchise was switched over to Cox and thus their email address had to change.

Again, problems that I *hear of* on a daily basis. Doesnt mean that there arent other issues to speak of. So first, lets start with what IPG you are using. Is it Navigator, Passport Echo or SARA? If SARA, you need to put it on Fixed mode @ 720p/1080i, and it will use ONLY that setting. Navigator is similar, you go to Settings > Display > Output Resolution and then choose 720p or 1080i. You need to make sure that it doesn't say AUTO on the front of the box or else its trying to switch to the best resolution for that channel. Even if it doesnt, it doesnt hurt to use the manual settings method to get it into fixed mode along with the Navigator settings. At this time I'm not aware of any auto-resolution switching option but I have a feeling that its one of those things that they left in there when they migrated to Navigator.

BTW, I never said they were TV issues.

The problem is you can't make general statements like these because TWC has different versions deployed all over the country. I recently was upgraded to 2.4.9_3 and can now set the output resolution with an HDMI connection. But before that, you could not. So if someone is still on the older version, they can't do this. In addition, the trick of using the magic button combination on the box's panel didn't work either. People would try to set it while connected via component cables, but it went right out the window the second you re-powered the box with an HDMI connection. And even with the new option to set the output resolution, I've still had the stuck in 480i mode problem. Figure that one out.

As for auto-resolution switching, as far as I know, it only applies to an HDMI connection where it attempts to handshake with the TV whenever you change channels. This is what causes the delay in switching and where things occasionally go awry and you find yourself stuck in 480i mode. Note that I never had that problem until the upgrade to 2.4.9_3.

In addition, the trick of using the magic button combination on the box's panel didn't work either. People would try to set it while connected via component cables, but it went right out the window the second you re-powered the box with an HDMI connection. And even with the new option to set the output resolution, I've still had the stuck in 480i mode problem. Figure that one out.

Well with any HD SA box you ARE supposed to leave your TV/Monitor off while your are setting your box resolution manually. It does say that in the documentation. Also, setting it via Component then switching to HDMI doesnt make any sense because the box treats Component and HDMI/DVI connections differently. Even says so in the manual as on HDMI/DVI it will try to "auto" set the resolution before the user even has any chance to set the input manually.

Again, problems that I *hear of* on a daily basis. Doesnt mean that there arent other issues to speak of. So first, lets start with what IPG you are using. Is it Navigator, Passport Echo or SARA? If SARA, you need to put it on Fixed mode @ 720p/1080i, and it will use ONLY that setting. Navigator is similar, you go to Settings > Display > Output Resolution and then choose 720p or 1080i. You need to make sure that it doesn't say AUTO on the front of the box or else its trying to switch to the best resolution for that channel. Even if it doesnt, it doesnt hurt to use the manual settings method to get it into fixed mode along with the Navigator settings. At this time I'm not aware of any auto-resolution switching option but I have a feeling that its one of those things that they left in there when they migrated to Navigator.

BTW, I never said they were TV issues.


I have gone into the Navigator 2.4.9_3 output resolution settings menu. You can select an individual output resolution, multiple resolutions or auto select. So yes, with HDMI you can select auto resolution. However, it doesn't make a hill of beans what you select. As soon as you turn the television off it defaults back to 480i as soon as you turn it back on. It doesn't matter if you only have 1080i selected......no go. And, if you read through this forum you will see that my situation is being repeated on a regular basis. What's so frustrating is you call TWC in Charlotte and they "pretend" they've never heard of this issue.
And, there is no magic trick to force 1080i resolution as you described. So, I agree, there are different situations for different areas of the country.

"Mystro" Digital Navigator is pure TWC c%@p!!!! I've never EVER had such problems with a box then this one... the other day I hit guide and the picture got stuck in the smaller corner view even after leaving the guide until I switched out of an HD channel...

I turned on the box a dozen times and find just a black screen... after changing channels it would then start to show a channel... Now I get a call from my wife that its just suck on blackness... (GREAT!!!!!) I still have my old DVRs and I'm starting to Think twice before turning those guys back in!!!! I'm super unhappy with this new OS (and how hard would it be to license TIVO like comcast did!!!!!)

Is there a way to find out what areas have what software versions. As I mentioned before I'm in San Diego and when I hold down Select and go into the diagnostic menu I see like 2 or three different versions under different headings. None of them is "2.4.9_3" They are all in the 2.4.6.X range but not the same. Am I looking at the wrong diagnostic screen or is San Diego just behind everyone else right now?

"Mystro" Digital Navigator is pure TWC c%@p!!!! I've never EVER had such problems with a box then this one... the other day I hit guide and the picture got stuck in the smaller corner view even after leaving the guide until I switched out of an HD channel...

I turned on the box a dozen times and find just a black screen... after changing channels it would then start to show a channel... Now I get a call from my wife that its just suck on blackness... (GREAT!!!!!) I still have my old DVRs and I'm starting to Think twice before turning those guys back in!!!! I'm super unhappy with this new OS (and how hard would it be to license TIVO like comcast did!!!!!)

Hi Klingger,

You should put your location or closest city to your location in your profile, so that the board can assist with diagnostics. Some general questions:

1.) What type of box do you have? Is it a Non DVR or DVR box? Model number?

2.) Do you have the C box or a non-C box?

3.) Did you get Navigator preinstalled on it? Or did it come through a download? Actually, all the C boxes have Navigator on them preinstalled if they are TWC.

Jack

I run component from my box to my A3000 and have found that compared side by side at 1080i the component looked better. Why...well I believe that is something with the box. The component actually looked sharper and the colors better.I have my A3000 hooked up to my SA8300HD (with SARA software) on BOTH component & HDMI (I unplug the HDMI to compare) and find that the images are almost identical with those inputs properly calibrated. The sharpness & color are identical. If you are seeing differences it is because you do not have the user settings calibrated the same (does not mean identical numbers).

It isn't that people aren't willing...it is that there aren't many other options. For me Time Warner is my only option. My apartment doesn't face the right direction or I would've had DirecTV a long time ago. My only other option is AT&T U-verse but I keep reading horror stories on their service as well. If Cox owned equipment in my area I would switch to them (they are the other provider in San Diego)...but no such luck.

Exactly what I stated. People aren't willing to sacrifice it and go without.

whether you HDMI or component: attach & leave a composite (single yellow RCA) connection. It is alway active. If you are having problems, change TV input to composite (usually something like AV), straighten things out, then change TV back to component or HDMI.

TW provides component cables for 2 reasons:

1. minor reson: cost less than HDMI
2. major reason: lowest common denominator - older HDTVs had DVI input, some of the 1st ones didn't have any digital connections - only component for high def

To be honest, I am just thinking of sh%t canning non-OTA tv. Although there are a handful of shows I like to watch, given the monthly price and constant tech head aches I think I am just saying no more. I will use OTA-HD and try to find the programs I like on the Internet in the binary groups.

Well with any HD SA box you ARE supposed to leave your TV/Monitor off while your are setting your box resolution manually. It does say that in the documentation. Also, setting it via Component then switching to HDMI doesnt make any sense because the box treats Component and HDMI/DVI connections differently. Even says so in the manual as on HDMI/DVI it will try to "auto" set the resolution before the user even has any chance to set the input manually.

Right, but I was responding to the last part in your post (#3984) where it seemed to be indicating that the person using an HDMI connection could use the button combination to force 1080i mode. But you can't because as you say above, it will try to "auto" set the resolution regardless.

Next time you discover that the box is not recording your currently-watched program, try just changing channels ... and see if that re-starts the recording.
Monday at 5PM my box rebooted. Because it was at exactly 5, I think it was due to a signal from the office (as opposed to the spontaneous reboots that some people report).

After it came back up, as I watched, it had the yellow bar (when you hit Info) for the currently-viewed program but if I paused or rewound, the video was missing as if it hadn't been recorded. I tried changing to different channels but the problem persisted. I tried power off/on as well. Another reboot was required to restore the missing functionality.

It was a surprise to me that it started off bad right after the 5 o'clock reboot. I would expect things to start off good right after a reboot.

-Marty

p.s. I should have pointed out that sometimes when the DVR screws up it doesn't have the yellow bar at all for the currently-viewed channel, neither sound nor video are recorded and pause/rewind do not function at all.

After a few weeks with 2.4.9_3, my experience can be summed up as:

the good:
- watching while both tuners recording works properly now; it did not in 2.4.5_4
- (not sure about this one): I used to get momentary audio dropouts here and there on some recordings; haven't had any in a while, so maybe they fixed it
- the amount of auto jump back after fast forwarding increased significantly (not sure if everybody would like this one; would be nice if it were user-settable)

the bad:
- the output resolution thing that used to work (though only in pass-through mode) is now broken, causing "stuck in 480i" and "stuck in right upper corner" issues (sometimes simultaneously); both dissapear (at least in my case) by switching to watching an SD channel or recording, or if that does not work, turning 480i off and back on in the settings
- the recording of only New episodes (and each only once) is broken (it will randomly record too many); it used to work flawlessly

the ugly:
- external drive only works if using "box must not be idle" workaround; works OK then, though

Curious if there are any other issues/good things I missed, and if they really fixed audio dropouts or if it is just wishful thinking.

I agree with your overall assessment of 2.4.9_3 with a couple of observations:

- Yes, I've had no further issues when both tuners are recording.
- I did have audio and video dropout of a recording over the weekend. Just a couple of seconds and I guess I have no way of really knowing whether the recording was at fault or the dropout was really a signal problem.
- The jump back is much better but agree a setting would be nice. It jumps back a bit farther than I'd like, but that's much better than not far enough. However, rewind is annoying because it also jumps in a forward direction. So when I resume playing after seeing where I wanted to resume, it actually jumps forward and I end up missing a bit. Really annoyed me the other night when I tried 3 times to rewind to a spot and kept getting moved forward. Personally I think no jump is necessary when rewinding and I don't recall Passport doing it.

- The output resolution and stuck in the right corner is by far the biggest annoyance with the current release. Hopefully they get this resolved soon.
- I don't think I've observed any New Only issues, but I'll have to go back and check how some of my series recordings are set up.

As for usability, would someone please tell them to support wrapping when using the arrow keys in the guide! That omission is just so brain dead.

Is there a way to find out what areas have what software versions? As I mentioned before I'm in San Diego and when I hold down Select and go into the diagnostic menu I see like 2 or three different versions under different headings. None of them is "2.4.9_3" They are all in the 2.4.6.X range but not the same. Am I looking at the wrong diagnostic screen or is San Diego just behind everyone else right now. What screen and heading do I look at to determine what software version everyone is talking about is the most current?

Is there a way to find out what areas have what software versions? As I mentioned before I'm in San Diego and when I hold down Select and go into the diagnostic menu I see like 2 or three different versions under different headings. None of them is "2.4.9_3" They are all in the 2.4.6.X range but not the same. Am I looking at the wrong diagnostic screen or is San Diego just behind everyone else right now. What screen and heading do I look at to determine what software version everyone is talking about is the most current?There are two different versions, depending upon what box you're using. The new SA STBs whose model designations end in "C" (8300C, 8300HDC, 8240C, 8240HDC, 4250C, 4250HDC) are all running the OCAP Digital Navigator (ODN) and the older, "legacy" boxes (8300, 8300HD, 3250, 3250HD and maybe 8000 and 800HD if any are still out there) are running Mystro Digital Navigator (MDN--note that you'll see "Mystro" mentioned in the start-up screens of ODN as well). MDN is the original version, written in the computer language "C"; ODN is MDN rewritten in Java to run on the OpenCable Applications Platform (OCAP). The current version of ODN is 2.4.9_3 and the current version of MDN is 2.4.1-92.

The OCAP platform will be integrated into a set of new products scheduled for release this year (televisions and STB); presumably these will be able to have Navigator (ODN) downloaded into them and run, giving access to the guide, Impulse Pay Per View and Video On Demand programming without a box. TWC and Samsung has demonstrated Navigator running on a prototype Samsung television at product shows over the past couple of years. The necessary combination of the OCAP platform, bidirectional CableCARD host interface and Multi-Stream CableCARD has been collectively labelled "<tru2way>"--products supporting that combination of technologies will be branded with that logo (which includes the "angle-brackets").

The two versions should operate identically, but they exhibit some differences in the some of the options offered and even differ in how they respond to some remote commands. The diagnostics are different--the "Hold SEL on the remote until the mail icon lights up then hit down-arrow" thing works on both, but yields a smaller set of pages for ODN, which has an additional set of "hardware diags" which are invoked with a key sequence on the front panel (which I forget).

Is there a way to find out what areas have what software versions? As I mentioned before I'm in San Diego and when I hold down Select and go into the diagnostic menu I see like 2 or three different versions under different headings. None of them is "2.4.9_3" They are all in the 2.4.6.X range but not the same. Am I looking at the wrong diagnostic screen or is San Diego just behind everyone else right now. What screen and heading do I look at to determine what software version everyone is talking about is the most current?

Not that I know of, which is why several of us include that information in our signature and/or location. So you can see from my post that I'm in the Raleigh/Durham area and have an SA8300HDC box running Navigator version 2.4.9_3.

It's important to note the box you have since they require different software. The SA8300HD for example is an MDN box while the SA8300HDC is an ODN box and thus will have different software running on them.

which has an additional set of "hardware diags" which are invoked with a key sequence on the front panel (which I forget).

Hold the Vol + and Vol - buttons down until the mail icon flashes and then press the Ch + button.

The basic diag screen on our system that gives softwear version is ch. 888 but I think some systems use anothet ch.
Roy

SA8300HD --Nav 2.4.1-92---In SoCal --Desert Cities TWC

To be honest, I am just thinking of sh%t canning non-OTA tv. Although there are a handful of shows I like to watch, given the monthly price and constant tech head aches I think I am just saying no more. I will use OTA-HD and try to find the programs I like on the Internet in the binary groups.

Many feel your frustration. There is simply too much ineptness or incompetence at TWC. While some of the field techs that we had were good, you wonder about the skills of the others. For all the time and money that TWC Wisconsin spends on education and diversity programs within the community, they could use those resources to better train their CSR'S/field techs, and work out the new Navigator Guide's bugs.

Jack

Many feel your frustration. There is simply too much ineptness or incompetence at TWC. While some of the field techs that we had were good, you wonder about the skills of the others. For all the time and money that TWC Wisconsin spends on education and diversity programs within the community, they could use those resources to better train their CSR'S/field techs, and work out the new Navigator Guide's bugs.

Jack
TWC has not found out that it costs much less to keep a customer than to get a new one. They spend alot of cash to advertise their wares but when an existing customer has a problem and a tech visit is sched. (usually a 2 hr window with a $20 guarentee.)
They don't seem to care if the tech is on time or not. If the tech is running late and does not call the customer and give them the choice to wait or resched they should be fired. This has happened to me 3 times and I call a supervisor and they get defensive but you can tell they dont care. If upper Mgt lets this happen and the tech is not disiplined he will keep doing it.

They think they can get a way with this when they have no competition.
Roy

The basic diag screen on our system that gives softwear version is ch. 888 but I think some systems use anothet ch.
Roy

SA8300HD --Nav 2.4.1-92---In SoCal --Desert Cities TWCThe channel for the abbreviated one page diags is something that the cable provider sets; the number varies wildly from system to system. Here in San Diego it's 998.

On the "legacy" 8300HD this page pops up instantly when "tuned" and the line giving the version is labelled "Resapp OS Version" and refers to it as being Atlas 2.4.1-92. The 4250HDC in my housemate's bedroom takes something in excess of 25 seconds to generate the page, and has a line labelled "ODN Version", which gives the number as 2.4.8_2, which isn't quite the latest and greatest.

The tell-tale sign is that the yellow bar when you press info is not present at all no matter how long you've been watching a channel. This has always required a reboot to resolve. But I can't recall if I've seen this problem since being updated to 2.4.9_3.

The problem when I saw it had nothing to do with sleep mode. Changing channels did not affect this at all. Once it started, you couldn't pause or rewind what you were watching nor could you record.

This happened to me one time that I recall in December with 2.4.5_4 right after I got my 8300HDC. It did not involve sleep mode or an external hard drive. You could not do any DVR-like functions involving the hard drive (pause live TV, or FF/RW). In addition, nothing would record. Programs that had already been scheduled to record showed up in the Recording Log with an error. I have since forgotten the exact error message, but it was something like Channel not available or Program could not be recorded due to unresolved conflict (when there was clearly no conflict). Nothing I did would fix it, except a reboot. It was like the OS lost the handle to the internal hard drive and couldn't get it back. I have not seen it happen again.

whats up guys. Just a heads up, wanna say that I got fired by TWC Corporate by the VP of TW himself. Yeah its that bad. I was told by my operations manager of why I got let go, they even printed out what I said (even though they were helpful/informational posts and what not. What was really ****ed up was that they dug up derogatory comments from when I was banned from ANOTHER videogame board that happened years ago. That to me really got me steamed b/c they use that as a stepping stool, kind of "reinforcing" that they were in the right for firing me. She told me that they wouldnt even let them walk out the door with a paper bearing "Time Warner" on it regardless of how basic or public knowledge it is. I told her everything I posted here was public knowledge and widely available and posted by TWC themselves. I made sure, for a fact, that this info was widely available and that I could access it as a regular person before I released anything. That wasn't enough for them I guess. To put it simply, (and I confirmed it with my OP.MGR) I got let go for letting you guys know who I worked for. It's as simple as that. Also you know what's dumb is that these Cable companies usually do contract other call centers instead of hiring people from their own state and yeah it makes sense but hey, that's not public knowledge and they don't want the public to know it.

TWC has not found out that it costs much less to keep a customer than to get a new one. They spend alot of cash to advertise their wares but when an existing customer has a problem and a tech visit is sched. (usually a 2 hr window with a $20 guarentee.)
They don't seem to care if the tech is on time or not. If the tech is running late and does not call the customer and give them the choice to wait or resched they should be fired. This has happened to me 3 times and I call a supervisor and they get defensive but you can tell they dont care. If upper Mgt lets this happen and the tech is not disiplined he will keep doing it.

They think they can get a way with this when they have no competition.
Roy

and get this. A large portion of techs aren't even working directly under TWC. TWC contracts techs thats worked under other services (such as Geek Squad) so the majority of them don't know squat. Not only do you have to fight to get to Escalation desk (what you call supervisor,and no they are not supervisors) but you also got to fight against bad Techs to actually get to a Tech Supervisor to recieve any real help. This is why they have customers that have repeat visits, they have to go through a certain process to determine what the real problem is and get a tech that actually knows how to diagnose and fix the problem.

Hi. I've just upgraded to a SA8300HDC with Navigator version 2.4.8_2. This version does not have the ability to re-arrange the series recording priority like was on our previous TWC DVR with Passport.

How are people coping with this? Has anyone discovered a back-door to this function or a technique for rearranging the list as efficiently as possible? I know I can delete the entry and add it again, but that gets really cumbersome if you have to delete 20 or so entries and add them back again multiple times a week.

I keep about 50 or so shows in the series record and I prioritize them constantly. Top priority goes to series that only play once a week. Second priority goes to shows that show multiple times a week and repeat the same show in different time slots. Third priority goes to children's programming. Last night, I got bit by the prioritization where I lost "Dancing with the Stars" due to a stupid sitcom rerun on a cable network. That same exact episode is playing at least once each day this week! Clearly, I get get the one that played several hours later!

whats up guys. Just a heads up, wanna say that I got fired by TWC Corporate by the VP of TW himself. Yeah its that bad. I was told by my operations manager of why I got let go, they even printed out what I said (even though they were helpful/informational posts and what not. Sorry to hear that. You simply confirm what I've always understood - TW is much more interested in growing mushrooms (keeping their customers in the dark) then honestly communicating with their customers. Here in Rochester, we have seen false advertising, and outright lying. TW used to have an executive who was active in the AVS, but has gone silent about half a year ago.

I'd call it a bunker mentality.

I experienced a really weird problem Sunday evening ... wondering if anyone else has ever seen it?

My 8300HDC box was scheduled to record Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on ABC at 9:00pm, followed by Opra's Big Give at 10:00pm (please, no comments on the choice of shows!).

I was watching another program that I had recorded earlier, and when it was over (about 9:45pm), I decided to watch the in-progress Extreme Makeover episode ... so I went to my playlist, selected the show, then Play.

Everything was fine until about 7 minutes before the recording was finished playing, when the video and audio started breaking up so bad it was unwatchable. I tried rewinding and re-playing ... no difference ... unwatchable. So I gave up and DELETED the episode from my playlist.

I surfed around the dial ... and some time after 11:00pm I decided to watch the recording of Opra's Big Give (completed by now). Now here's the really freaky part ... when I tried to play the episode, what appeared on the screen was partly audio and video from the episode of Extreme Makeover that I had previously deleted ... and partly audio and video from the Opra episode! I fast forwarded the show and stopped at various times over the 1-hour length ... same garbled mess. Needless to say, the entire episode was unwatchable.

I did not delete this show ... because I want to call TW and have a tech come out and explain to me how this sort of thing could possibly have happened. Nothing like this ever happened on my Scientific Atlanta DVR I had in Florida before I moved back to NC.

Any thoughts?

OK Navigator experts, I got uploaded last night and it's only taken 24 hours for me to hate it.

Sorry if this has been addressed, feel free to link me to answers but I can't go through 134 pages of posts.

Since the update many of the shows that are set to record new shows only are recording every instance. Whatsmore, I keep deleting upcoming recording events and they keep coming back.

Is this a common complaint or am I missing something?

One more, seems they've deleted the ability to prioritize recorded shows in order so that you can control what gets deleted first in the event you need more drive space?

Sheesh, I'll give this some time time but I may just give them their box back and go to Tivo.

OK Navigator experts, I got uploaded last night and it's only taken 24 hours for me to hate it.

Sorry if this has been addressed, feel free to link me to answers but I can't go through 134 pages of posts.

Since the update many of the shows that are set to record new shows only are recording every instance. Whatsmore, I keep deleting upcoming recording events and they keep coming back.

Is this a common complaint or am I missing something?

One more, seems they've deleted the ability to prioritize recorded shows in order so that you can control what gets deleted first in the event you need more drive space?

Sheesh, I'll give this some time time but I may just give them their box back and go to Tivo.

Silly question, but what set-top box do you have? The newer 8300HDC or the legacy 8300HD? Or do you have something completely different?

Silly question, but what set-top box do you have? The newer 8300HDC or the legacy 8300HD? Or do you have something completely different?

Probably not a dumb question, I'm not up on all the current variables that make a difference in diagnosing these.

I've been keeping my head buried in the sand pretending like it would never happen to me :rolleyes:

I have an 8300HD. I just went through all the channels twice looking for the diagnostics but couldn't find the channel on the new software that gives me version info. I'm TWC in Kansas City, MO.

Does anyone know if Diana Smith who works for or did work for TWC is still with them?She used to be very active on the forums but went strangely quite 6 months ago.Wonder if she is busy,got gagged or left TWC?

CoffeeRox... I'm really sorry to hear that you got fired. That Sux.

I'm curious if you were posting on here from home or work. If from home, how did they figure out who you were? If from work, then nothing's private and they could can you simply for using the net for personal use, let alone breaking any policies about discussing company issues with the public. (Still sux, tho)

We'll miss your info. I hope you still have a few moles who can feed you info that you can anonymously pass on to us...

Just shows how far that criminal organization will go to keep their customers in the dark and protect their garbage products.

After a week of MDN 2.4(finally found that version # out of 26 pages of diagnostics) my verdict is: "Send it on a hunting trip with Dick Cheney"!

Sorry to hear that. You simply confirm what I've always understood - TW is much more interested in growing mushrooms (keeping their customers in the dark) then honestly communicating with their customers. Here in Rochester, we have seen false advertising, and outright lying. TW used to have an executive who was active in the AVS, but has gone silent about half a year ago.

I'd call it a bunker mentality.

I'd say that Exec was fired for the same reason I was. I think that to them, this kinda stuff is very sensitive and with the already bad press that they get they don't want this info going out to their customer, especially me, who was on their frontlines relaying everything I could to them. I understand why they did it, even when I don't agree with it.

CoffeeRox... I'm really sorry to hear that you got fired. That Sux.

I'm curious if you were posting on here from home or work. If from home, how did they figure out who you were? If from work, then nothing's private and they could can you simply for using the net for personal use, let alone breaking any policies about discussing company issues with the public. (Still sux, tho)

Both, but again, the stuff I posted was widely common knowledge and available for viewing on their own websites and from Scientific Atlanta themselves. I was careful about that stuff but I guess they don't want their reps posting ANYTHING, regardless of if I'm just saying "im a rep" or not.

Now since I'm already gone, I'll say that where I slipped up (I was already on thin ice even BEING here, even on my OFF TIME) was that

1. I said what market I worked for,
2. That they had a slingbox that operated a box remotely and
3. I was offering the MDN ref guide freely to anybody that asked for it. (even though there is a consumer version of the guide, where that is, I forgot, but there is)

If I had not have tripped up like that I would probably have my job today. If I outright lied and said no, coffeerox isnt me, then I would probably have a fighting chance at keeping my job, but they bluffed me and me being an honest person, said yeah that's me.

We'll miss your info. I hope you still have a few moles who can feed you info that you can anonymously pass on to us...

Actually I do. Since they are now monitoring our forum I won't divulge that little detail but lets just say if I wanted to know anything about it, I'd get that info easily.

Just shows how far that criminal organization will go to keep their customers in the dark and protect their garbage products.

Yeah. I was telling my friends brother that now I know why corporations are considered evil and are hated by people. Those guys at the top dont give a damn about the consumer and all they worry about is a good idea and whether or not a cosnumer would pick it up, then, they worry about being able to get it to the consumer as cheaply as possible so itll make the most profit. They dont give a damn if its quality or not (well Sony does) they just want to make more money.

That Vice president of TWC, his fatass sat there on his computer, reading what I was posting, knowing that I'm only here because I'm a techie at heart, and that I was out to better my services as a rep, had the f***in gall to lookup my username, pull up crap from years ago and use that as "derogatory comments" as part of my termination. Who the **** is he to make that judgement call? I just think that these corporate guys think they can play god with our lives and you know what's scary is that they could and theres not a damn thing we could do about it but put up with it or leave. But where else are you guys going to go to? Cox? Usually these cable companies have a monopoly on neighborhoods, its either TWC or Cox for internet or you're screwed with slow dialup and/or DSL thats not even in your area.

Well since I'm just divulging whatever I can since TWC screwed me, here is how their customer service works.

Home TWC Market <
Outsourced call center <

If the queue times are really bad, like mostly noon to around 5-6, your call will actually get bounced to the outsourced call center and from there, youll get a CSR. Now many cable companies are different, but also very similar. Like with us and Cox Phoenix, our outsourced CSR's are in NY and with them, if you worked in Video Services, thats all you did. With our department, we did Billing, Payment Arrangements, Video Troubleshooting. An interesting fact I learned last night, while on the phone with our cable company, is that we all use ICOMs, which handles every department depending on your login and how they set you up. If you're TWC Video, then they are gonna give you the login that has access to the video troubleshooting side of the system (box hits/refresh/reboot/parental reset and so on) and equipment lists and all that.

Now if you ask to speak to a supervisor, who youll get is NOT a supervisor, what they are doing is transferring you to Escalations. Escalations are supposedly "veteran" reps whose been there and knows more than the other reps on the floor. Does this mean they have more technical answers available to you? No, it just means their customer service skills are better than everyone elses. If your call is even more complex and unique, then you might get to speak to a real supervisor but other than that, you never will reach an actual supervisor. In actuality the supervisor we normally had on the floor was lazy as hell and all he would do is tell you 8630, 8630, thats what they are there for is help desk. But the problem is that the problem you bring to them is beyond Escalations and you really needed his help with something. Thats why I never call Escalations or talk to the sup. 10 times out of 10, I've diagnosed the problem to the furthest extent and I'll have an answer available for you in less than 6 minutes into the call.

Okay, now onto more juicy bits, you wanna know how their reps resolve customer issues? They have a local intranet network called "T.O.S.T" which has a workflow chart for each department. They take the most common issues, put that into a flowchart such as "Is this so and so problem? If so, go to 1, if not, go to 2" kinda deal. Now when a rep runs out of things to ask you from that website, they are just gonna either give you false info (which includes sending you to the wrong department or telling you to do something which doesnt help you) or most likely they are gonna pull the "schedule a tech" card and we all know how reliable those techs are.

It's very uncommon to find a rep, such as myself, that would actually take their job and go the extra mile and learn the system and the job that it was meant to be learned. Like if you had an on-demand problem and you got another CSR? You would be screwed two-thousand miles to Texas. But if you got me? I'd have that problem diagnosed so quickly that 8 times out of 10 youll have your On Demand working that very same day because I actually knew that there are more things that could affect recieving on-demand programming than simply attempting to do a box reboot hoping itll fix all problems. They were so quick to fire me, and lose a valuable asset, so that just begs the question, what DO they want from a rep? Like any company, they just want the best slave they can possibly get. Better slave you are, better slave perks youll have.

Is there a way to find out what areas have what software versions? As I mentioned before I'm in San Diego and when I hold down Select and go into the diagnostic menu I see like 2 or three different versions under different headings. None of them is "2.4.9_3" They are all in the 2.4.6.X range but not the same. Am I looking at the wrong diagnostic screen or is San Diego just behind everyone else right now. What screen and heading do I look at to determine what software version everyone is talking about is the most current?

The easy way to see the version number is just select Channel 998, you don't need to go into the diagnostic menus at all. It provides a summary of some info including ResApp OS software version.

OK, I just got updated to Navigator yesterday, and while it's not great, it's better than I was expecting from the comments I'd seen here.

Does anyone know why I can't set a season pass for the Royals games (no sarcastic comments, please!)

When I find the game on the guide, it just says MLB Baseball in the list, but when I try to record it, I don't have the option to Record Show, but not Record Series. Is this because the title is so generic? I have the option to Record Series when I pick something else, but not baseball, for some reason.

Any thoughts?

Like Jayhawk, I also almost live in Leawood (my back property line) and I was also changed over from Passport to Navigator yesterday when I turned on the TV. I had no lost shows, all my scheduled recordings were transferred correctly, and my same PIN number still worked. I did have to change a couple of settings in the SETUP menu, like the start-up channel and a couple of other items.

The only think I think I have to do is reprogram a couple of buttons on my universal remote to match a couple of the new functions of Navigator.

Maybe we are the first ones in the service area to have it work correctly, or maybe some of the bugs are getting worked out.

The other thing I noticed, but was not expecting, was that, like Passport, when fast-forwarding through a show the software does automatically set back a few seconds when I hit play - I thought that functionality was gone in Navigator? Maybe they got enough complaints that it was added to the most recent version.

Mike

I have gone into the Navigator 2.4.9_3 output resolution settings menu. You can select an individual output resolution, multiple resolutions or auto select. So yes, with HDMI you can select auto resolution. However, it doesn't make a hill of beans what you select. As soon as you turn the television off it defaults back to 480i as soon as you turn it back on. It doesn't matter if you only have 1080i selected......no go. And, if you read through this forum you will see that my situation is being repeated on a regular basis. What's so frustrating is you call TWC in Charlotte and they "pretend" they've never heard of this issue.
And, there is no magic trick to force 1080i resolution as you described. So, I agree, there are different situations for different areas of the country.

Sadly, I have to agree with you regarding TWC's unwillingness to admit that there is a problem. I am having the same issue with 480i and all TWC does is tell me to contact Samsung because it is OBVIOUSLY a problem with my television and not their cable box. I had hoped that the Navigator software would address this problem, but obviously that is not the case. I contacted Scientific Atlanta directly and their tech support replied saying that my box probably needed a "firmware" upgrade and that I should contact TWC. Wish me luck with that.

When I find the game on the guide, it just says MLB Baseball in the list, but when I try to record it, I don't have the option to Record Show, but not Record Series. Is this because the title is so generic? I have the option to Record Series when I pick something else, but not baseball, for some reason.

either 1) you already have it in your series manager or 2) the program guide doesnt have it categorized as a series

I have just replaced my TWC SD DVR with a TWC HD DVR SA8300HDC with Navigator 2.4.8_2. I've just spent the last hour or so putting in about half of my series recordings... another hour or so to go on this. (I've got about 50 series recordings I do... about two thirds of which is either children's programming or syndicated cable network shows that happen daily multiple times with repeats of the same episode... which is why ordering this list is so important.)

Lack of an easy way to re-order the priority on series recordings (like my old Passport DVR had) is just awful. Has anyone found anything to make manually reordering the list easier? It seems rediculous that I have to enter my series list into an Excel spreadsheet to order my entries, delete them all from the box, and then re-enter them all to get the order right so as not to have two shows shown multiple times a day take both tuners in a timeslot preventing a show that is shown only one time a day from recording. I've been using this recording priority to manage the "three shows needing to use two tuners at the same time" problem successfully for several years now since DVRs aren't smart enough to say to themselves "Hey, that show is only on once a day and I've already recorded those other two shows three times today and they were all the same copy of the same episodes anyway, so I'll just skip recording them for the fourth time and give one of the tuners to record that other show that only plays in this timeslot once."

Anyway, by trial and error so far, I have figured out that you cannot add an existing entry (without deleting) and have it pop to the top of the list. It takes an eternity to manually delete each show and then use the keyboard controls to manually search for the show one at a time and add them... Is there any better way or technique that would make this faster?

I realize that I could use conflict resolution for this and not worry about the order... but that would require me to have to manually scan the list about twice a week to ensure my "top priority" shows don't get lost. I'd have a hard time keeping up with this and if I go out of town, I certainly can't be there to do it.

The easy way to see the version number is just select Channel 998, you don't need to go into the diagnostic menus at all. It provides a summary of some info including ResApp OS software version.This channel is not universal; it seems to vary by region. In the Columbus area we've yet to find the magic channel to get the release number.

Does anyone know if Diana Smith who works for or did work for TWC is still with them?She used to be very active on the forums but went strangely quite 6 months ago.Wonder if she is busy,got gagged or left TWC?Diana Smith was Division Director of Marketing for TWC in the South Carolina. She changed jobs to Director of Video Product Management and moved to Connecticut--TWC corporate headquarters are in Stamford, so maybe the job is there. Since she left marketing, direct dealing with customers is no longer in her purview, which probably explains why she stopped posting here. (There's a page with a little C.V. for her at LinkedIn.com, here (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/4/349/400)).

Lots of companies are highly compartmentalized and don't want random employees representing them in a public stage like this. At TiVo, for instance, there's one guy, a marketing manager named Robert Poniatowski (aka "TiVoPony"), who has permission to freely speak in TiVo Community Forums, but helping to develop what they say to the public is his job (like DianaTWCSC when she was Marketing Director); he spends a lot of time at product shows and is frequently quoted in the industry press. Others do make comments there, but only as requested by management. They are all encouraged to read the forums, though.

I've also got some less important questions about my new SA8300HDC with Navigator 2.4.8_2... and how it compares to my old Passport DVR... Anybody know anything about these?

1. There doesn't appear to be a way to set a series recording to a specific time. You seem to get every time a particular show is shown no matter what time of day it is. Even if the same episode is always played multiple times that day on that channel. So if I set the DVR to record up to three episodes of a show, and each day that same episode is shown three times, each day I'll get three new copies of the same episode as opposed to three different episodes recorded across three different days... And this means every day I need to go in and manually delete the extra recordings so I don't loose yesterday's copy of the show. OR I change the recording to keep all shows and I'm filling up the DVR unnecessarily with extra copies of the show that I then need to delete. Is that right?

2. There doesn't appear to be a way to set a series recording to record a show on any channel. If a show appears on multiple channels, you have to make a separate series recording for each channel instead of one recording that goes across channels. Is that right?

3. There doesn't appear to be a way to automatically set every episode of a particular series recording to "delete manually" instead of "save until space is needed". This means that I have to manually go in every week and mark something like "Survivor" to be "delete manually" so I don't accidentally loose it due to too many other shows being recorded. Is that right?

4. There doesn't appear to be a way to set a manual recording. This means that if I see a commercial advertising a new show coming up in three weeks, I need to go to my calendar and write down an entry the week before the show to set up a series recording... instead of setting up a manual recording for that timeslot right then. Is that right?

5. In the list of recorded shows to play, there is no display of the recording duration. So I have to start playing the show to see how long it is... So if I only have half an hour to watch a show before going to bed, I could use up the entire time looking for a half hour show I want to watch... Or I have to remember what shows are half hour and what shows are one hour and what shows are two hours. Is that right?

6. Pressing the FAV button while in the channel guide doesn't change the channel selected in the guide, it actually changes the channel making the guide go away. So, I have to memorize the channel numbers for my favorite channels since it can take forever to scroll through the list of channels from 6 to my local ABC HD feed on channel 40... no wait, channel 100, no wait... channel 600, no, what darn channel was that ABC feed on again... 1002... no 1500... <sigh>... Is this right?

And lastly... Is there any way to change the guide so it doesn't show you channels to which you are not subscribed? Has anyone tried setting every channel you have subscribed to as a "favorite" and then used the new "sort favorites to the top of the list" feature to pull out all those guide entires that you can't see anyway?

1. There doesn't appear to be a way to set a series recording to a specific time. You seem to get every time a particular show is shown no matter what time of day it is.This is a series recording options in MDN 2.4.1-92. Strange that they aren't making the two versions functionally identical. This has to be particularly confusing for people who have multiple boxes in their homes, some newer "C" models running ODN and some legacy ones running MDN.
5. In the list of recorded shows to play, there is no display of the recording duration. So I have to start playing the show to see how long it is...TiVo doesn't show the duration of the shows at the top of the list either. The nice thing about Passport Echo was that it revealed expanded information for each entry as you scrolled through the list, giving the start and end time of the recording. (Actually, Navigator does this too--it just stupidly omits the end time, though there's plenty of space for it; TiVo doesn't expand the entry at all as you scroll through).

In Navigator (MDN, at least) you don't have to play the show to see how long it is; if you select an entry with the SEL key it will show you the start and end time of the recording. (You essentially have to do the same thing in TiVo, though its expanded info cites the duration so you don't have to calculate it). So basically to glance at this information for each show you'd press SEL, check duration, C, DOWN-ARROW repeatedly (in TiVo it'd be RIGHT-ARROW, check duration, LEFT-ARROW, DOWN-ARROW). It's not as fast or handy as Passport, but faster than starting to play each one and it doesn't affect the playback bookmarks.

Diana Smith was Division Director of Marketing for TWC in the South Carolina. She changed jobs to Director of Video Product Management and moved to Connecticut--TWC corporate headquarters are in Stamford, so maybe the job is there. Since she left marketing, direct dealing with customers is no longer in her purview, which probably explains why she stopped posting here. (There's a page with a little C.V. for her at LinkedIn.com, here (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/4/349/400)).Thats who I was referring to when I mentioned:TW used to have an executive who was active in the AVS, but has gone silent about half a year ago.
Actually, she went silent over a year ago.

Diana had started this (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=733414) thread in order to get some specific input. Ultimately she got the input she was looking for, summarized it, and disappeared as the thread deteriorated (as these threads so often do). Prior to that, she had been very active, as you pointed out Michael, actually trying to represent TW in SC. I found her input consistently HONEST and FORTHRIGHT, but she eventually had to drop out as the forums got more negative and became a dumping ground for endless rants. I, for one, learned a lot from her. I think that she learned how to deal with these forums, and put the posting here into perspective. I'll bet that she still is around lurking under a different name. But I'll bet that she no longer allows herself to be drawn into the trap of the endless rants that are so common on these forums.

either 1) you already have it in your series manager or 2) the program guide doesnt have it categorized as a series

Cofferox,
I don't have it setup in the series manager, so that shouldn't be the problem.

I didn't know that something had to be categorized as a series in order to be able to record all showings. Is there any workaround to this?

Thats who I was referring to when I mentioned:Actually, she went silent over a year ago.

Diana had started this (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=733414) thread in order to get some specific input. Ultimately she got the input she was looking for, summarized it, and disappeared as the thread deteriorated (as these threads so often do). Prior to that, she had been very active, as you pointed out Michael, actually trying to represent TW in SC. I found her input consistently HONEST and FORTHRIGHT, but she eventually had to drop out as the forums got more negative and became a dumping ground for endless rants. I, for one, learned a lot from her. I think that she learned how to deal with these forums, and put the posting here into perspective. I'll bet that she still is around lurking under a different name. But I'll bet that she no longer allows herself to be drawn into the trap of the endless rants that are so common on these forums.(You know, looking around for traces of her I found that thread and never thought to look at the top post :rolleyes:). So she started her posting here as an actual part of her job, collecting data for marketing purposes and in exchange giving out a little information to clear up people's misconceptions, but with a clear set of limits as to things she would not talk about. I wouldn't doubt she had full buy-in from her own supervision, but as executive management in a state division I'm sure that she had a lot of leeway for creative thinking, and using this forum was a good idea which benefited us as well. A shame that she's withdrawn (though I'm sure that she's keeping an eye on this thread, since she's part of the group managing devleopment of MDN and ODN among other new technologies).

so could it be that, because this forum is so famous w/ execs at TW (meaning everyone knows about it) and that they had caught me checking it out (and me idiotically admitting I was coffee) that the VP himself had to send down an email telling my OpMgr to terminate me? When she called me down there she and the guy that works under her, did not even KNOW I was even visiting this website. Seems to me that they DO monitor these boards quite frequently.

I think that as a message board we are more important than it may seem. There's nothing more dangerous than customers that actually know wtf is up. A company would much rather have good cust- I mean slaves than have people who do know whats going on and would tell everyone and their mama not to go with TWC.

so could it be that, because this forum is so famous w/ execs at TW (meaning everyone knows about it) and that they had caught me checking it out (and me idiotically admitting I was coffee) that the VP himself had to send down an email telling my OpMgr to terminate me? When she called me down there she and the guy that works under her, did not even KNOW I was even visiting this website. Seems to me that they DO monitor these boards quite frequently.

I think that as a message board we are more important than it may seem. There's nothing more dangerous than customers that actually know wtf is up. A company would much rather have good cust- I mean slaves than have people who do know whats going on and would tell everyone and their mama not to go with TWC.From what I've seen of Diana (and I'm sure that Michael will agree), that is NOT something Diana would do. She, like you, has always tried to be helpful and clarify things. But these threads do get out of hand, and "exposing" yourself as a TW employee can bring about a lot of s@#t.

From what you've said, I'll bet that your problem is local (encouraged of course by the apparent TW mentality of growing mushrooms). You likely told someone of these forums and encouraged them to "take a look" at what is being said. They did, and didn't like it. They didn't like it because they have a Public Relations person responsible for public communications and EVERYTHING must go THROUGH that "mouthpiece" (for the right "spin"). Your termination simply proves that "Navigator" is a sensitive subject and that they do not want to admit, in any way, that there are problems.

Wish Diana would come back with TWC blessing to just give us some answers and information.I think most of us are smart enought to ask intelligent questions and be respectiful without going on a rant.A "BLESSED" by coporate employee would be greately appreciated here.TWC give us a try we will be respectiful.We are after all Time Warner customers here and just would like a little information.If you are here TWC please help us.

Again, I doubt that Diana will come back to these forums because she's not in the marketing business anymore. Whether they want to have an actual representative in these forums any more is questionable. They have other online support services and its questionable what good it does them.

Wish Diana would come back with TWC blessing to just give us some answers and information.I think most of us are smart enought to ask intelligent questions and be respectiful without going on a rant.A "BLESSED" by coporate employee would be greately appreciated here.TWC give us a try we will be respectiful.We are after all Time Warner customers here and just would like a little information.If you are here TWC please help us.

That would go a long way with me and probably everyone else. The number one complaint I hear on most forums and from most people is lack of information. A TWC rep here that had permission would actually show that they care. The fact is that most people don't think they care. I'm one of them. Unless something is hurting the bottom line, they are not going to care too much about it. I mean, they FIRED an employee for basically helping people here! That speaks volumes about the company.

Wish Diana would come back with TWC blessing to just give us some answers and information.I think most of us are smart enought to ask intelligent questions and be respectiful without going on a rant.A "BLESSED" by coporate employee would be greately appreciated here.TWC give us a try we will be respectiful.We are after all Time Warner customers here and just would like a little information.If you are here TWC please help us.I too have lobbied for knowledgable feedback here from TWC. Unfortunately, because of all the hysterics (and trolls) that get posted here, they're probably reluctant. On the other hand, maybe if we could get more useful information, there would be less rants. I know I would be more patient if I knew my problems with the system were being listened to and worked on.

I mean, they FIRED an employee for basically helping people here! That speaks volumes about the company.They fired an employee for representing them in a public space without permission; many companies would. Things that you say as an announced employee of a company which are taken the wrong way can expose them to suit.

In many forums I've said things like "I work for a cell phone manufacturer" but I would never have revealed which one.

The one thing Time Warner would gain is respect.That would go a long way in keeping good paying customers.If nothing else they could use this board to announce when something such as deployment or upgrade is up comeing.

You likely told someone of these forums and encouraged them to "take a look" at what is being said. They did, and didn't like it. They didn't like it because they have a Public Relations person responsible for public communications and EVERYTHING must go THROUGH that "mouthpiece" (for the right "spin").

I told nobody. I either got ratted out by the IT guy (he can check URLs under anybody's login), or somebody at Corporate monitored my URLs and noticed that I was visiting AVSforums at work so they put two and two together and bluffed me into admitting I was Coffee.

They fired an employee for representing them in a public space without permission; many companies would. Things that you say as an announced employee of a company which are taken the wrong way can expose them to suit.


right. As consumers we look at it a different way. To us whats the harm? All of this was publicly available information and it was just harmless discussion of their IPG and Cable boxes that any cable company has access too (such as the 8300's) but if you look at it from a Corp standpoint, hey this guy is a loose cannon and if he's unhappy enough he'll start giving out even more confidential information, so they took the 1st step and got rid of me before I did. Now would I have? No. Hell no. I would never divulge specific customer info that would otherwise violate another's privacy. The only reason why I posted some of our operations is because I'm a jilted former employee. Anybody would do that. Now would I have done that if they hadn't fired me? No, I wouldnt. I'd have kept it to normal discussion as if I were just another consumer.

I told nobody. I either got ratted out by the IT guy (he can check URLs under anybody's login), or somebody at Corporate monitored my URLs and noticed that I was visiting AVSforums at work so they put two and two together and bluffed me into admitting I was Coffee.


I think there are just TWC employees monitoring this forum and one of them ratted you out.

HEY YOU - YEAH YOU! FIX eSATA! :D

xnappo

It's very uncommon to find a rep, such as myself, that would actually take their job and go the extra mile and learn the system and the job that it was meant to be learned

google "peter principle" and take the Wikipedia link - it explains all

I've also got some less important questions about my new SA8300HDC with Navigator 2.4.8_2... and how it compares to my old Passport DVR... Anybody know anything about these?

1. There doesn't appear to be a way to set a series recording to a specific time. You seem to get every time a particular show is shown no matter what time of day it is. Even if the same episode is always played multiple times that day on that channel. So if I set the DVR to record up to three episodes of a show, and each day that same episode is shown three times, each day I'll get three new copies of the same episode as opposed to three different episodes recorded across three different days... And this means every day I need to go in and manually delete the extra recordings so I don't loose yesterday's copy of the show. OR I change the recording to keep all shows and I'm filling up the DVR unnecessarily with extra copies of the show that I then need to delete. Is that right?

2. There doesn't appear to be a way to set a series recording to record a show on any channel. If a show appears on multiple channels, you have to make a separate series recording for each channel instead of one recording that goes across channels. Is that right?

3. There doesn't appear to be a way to automatically set every episode of a particular series recording to "delete manually" instead of "save until space is needed". This means that I have to manually go in every week and mark something like "Survivor" to be "delete manually" so I don't accidentally loose it due to too many other shows being recorded. Is that right?

4. There doesn't appear to be a way to set a manual recording. This means that if I see a commercial advertising a new show coming up in three weeks, I need to go to my calendar and write down an entry the week before the show to set up a series recording... instead of setting up a manual recording for that timeslot right then. Is that right?

5. In the list of recorded shows to play, there is no display of the recording duration. So I have to start playing the show to see how long it is... So if I only have half an hour to watch a show before going to bed, I could use up the entire time looking for a half hour show I want to watch... Or I have to remember what shows are half hour and what shows are one hour and what shows are two hours. Is that right?

6. Pressing the FAV button while in the channel guide doesn't change the channel selected in the guide, it actually changes the channel making the guide go away. So, I have to memorize the channel numbers for my favorite channels since it can take forever to scroll through the list of channels from 6 to my local ABC HD feed on channel 40... no wait, channel 100, no wait... channel 600, no, what darn channel was that ABC feed on again... 1002... no 1500... <sigh>... Is this right?

And lastly... Is there any way to change the guide so it doesn't show you channels to which you are not subscribed? Has anyone tried setting every channel you have subscribed to as a "favorite" and then used the new "sort favorites to the top of the list" feature to pull out all those guide entires that you can't see anyway?

1. True. Used to work in 2.4.5_4 (would record only one, even schedule which one in a way that avoids conflicts); it is hit and miss now.

2. Yes.

3. Yes (used to absolutely hate that one; easier to tolerate with external drive).

4. Yes.

5. Finally, something that does work: hit Info while the show is selected in recorded list; this takes you to the screen wih detailed info, including two times: how long the show was supposed to last (from the guide), as well as how long the actual recording is (maybe you padded it, so it is longer, or it got interrupted and is shorter); hit Info again to go back to the list.

6. In better DVRs, you pick which channels are shown; not here. Not that much of an issue with me, as I sort by favorites, mark all 20 or so channels that I ever consider looking at as favorites, so I never look passed those (except that one time when I was looking for a recurring show to record all the time to keep my box from falling asleep). You can probably have a reasonable compromise by enlarging your favorites with the channels you sometimes watch, and ignore the stuff you never look at; do you really need to see every channel you can get?
What bugs me more than having unsubscribed channels in the guide is having shows from them in search lists. Would be quite nice if Find Shows could be restricted to stuff showing on favorite channels only.

I know it says that deleted shows stay in your Recorded Log for 14 days, is there anyway to delete your log before 14 days? Thanks!

I know it says that deleted shows stay in your Recorded Log for 14 days, is there anyway to delete your log before 14 days? Thanks!Why would you want to? Eliminating incriminating evidence :D?

I just got off the phone with TWC (again) about corrupted recordings, prime-time & non prime-time reboots, audio drop-outs, etc., etc.

** Kansas City Time Warner/SA8300HDC/Navigator (haven't checked which version I'm on in a while)**

I don't believe I spoke to a CSR from our area this time. But I'm glad I did get to speak to this CSR. My TWC / Navigator experience will get turned around. I'm extremely happy with this new revelation-technology.

Brief background
I've had the 8300HDC for about 6-7 months. Constantly having issues with audio dropouts (using a Onkyo 705 w/optical), corrupted recordings (about 35% fail-rate), between 4 & 6 reboots per week (on it's own, this number doesn't not count the myriad of soft & cold reboots I have done), and losing channels (which of course requires a reboot)

I'm a patient fella and have jumped through the hoops like a good little doggie. My expectations are low/non-existent so maybe that's why I don't get royally pissed.

Anyway, long enough of a post by now.
Things are all fixed!! The CSR patiently listened to the issues I've had with the box/software/twc itself and told me that she just finished sending a ..... wait for it......
"Special Signal"
to my box. All I have to do is go home, do another soft reboot then I'll be good to go.

Finally a fix is here!

I'm not sure what will happen first, another reboot or the billing department calling back.

I'll lay 125 to 1 on the former.

Take care all, thanks for the useful info. Just wanted to share the good news. Hopefully they will be able to replicate this special signal for all markets who have been Navigatored.

Skid :D

A "special signal"? ROTFLMAO! That's a good one. Now, I'll eat my words if you get home and everything is fixed, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that.

A "special signal"? ROTFLMAO! That's a good one. Now, I'll eat my words if you get home and everything is fixed, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that.

Yeah Ben,
Hindsight being 20/20 I should have asked if the special signal was going to be delivered by the Death Star. ;)

Skid

Hey! Why can't I have the "special signal" ?!?!?

ahahaha roflmao special signal thats a new one. I know that CSR's put spin on things to make customers feel better (like they are the ones controlling the strings on your box) but that ones just insane haha. Well a few things about Box Hits. Box hits send a signal to your box and all it does is clear up "interference" that could cause problems with your cable. It ensures that signals travel upstream/downstream properly. Usually this works great on bad lines/outlets but otherwise its not that great. Box hits also enables channels that have the "Not Authorized" screen, like when you first get the box and the Box Activation number won't do it and/or you call Customer Service first. This is what they do to actually authorize your box. If it doesnt work outright all they do is reboot your box after a box hit/refresh.

Another thing about Box Hits is that too many of them (like spammed a lot) will actually FRY your box. I've heard a story where this customer kept calling customer care and they kept sending a hit (because he wanted the signal thinking it will solve the problem) and the thing is none of these CSR's notate the account that they hit the box, they just notate that they called in for so an so reason. Keep in mind that Box Hits can take up to 45 minutes, so if you don't see an instant result its okay.

A "special signal"? ROTFLMAO! That's a good one. Now, I'll eat my words if you get home and everything is fixed, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that.

LMFAO!!!!!! A SPECIAL SIGNAL??????!!

If you aren't nice to TWC, you just get the regular signal, but if you call and praise the company and "wonderful" Navigator, you get............."THE SPECIAL SIGNAL!!!" DAMN!!! Why can't we all get "Special Signals?" I WANT A SPECIAL SIGNAL!!!!! :D

Agree with the issues above. This signal just sends hits to the box, nothing more and nothing less. The only difference is in doing it from a cold or warm boot, but even that is nothing major. Don't be fooled by the CSR's.

I want a SPECIAL SIGNAL that stops the download of Navigator to the box! LOL!

However, it is true that changes of service after signals are sent to the box, can not only take minutes, but several hours to activate. This happened when I got Premium on Demand service. I don't know why there is this time delay on occasion. I just know that it exists.

HAVE YOU GOTTEN YOUR "SPECIAL SIGNAL!!??" Actually, this is hilarious because I remember talking to a CSR at one time and before she rebooted me from the office, she said I was getting "The Special Signal!"

Jack

However, it is true that changes of service after signals are sent to the box, can not only take minutes, but several hours to activate. This happened when I got Premium on Demand service. I don't know why there is this time delay on occasion. I just know that it exists.

I was told that it gets sent to a main server and then gets routed to your box. The reason why it could take so long is because theres hundereds of thousands of hits performed nationwide

ahahaha roflmao special signal thats a new one. I know that CSR's put spin on things to make customers feel better (like they are the ones controlling the strings on your box) but that ones just insane haha. Well a few things about Box Hits. Box hits send a signal to your box and all it does is clear up "interference" that could cause problems with your cable. It ensures that signals travel upstream/downstream properly. Usually this works great on bad lines/outlets but otherwise its not that great. Box hits also enables channels that have the "Not Authorized" screen, like when you first get the box and the Box Activation number won't do it and/or you call Customer Service first. This is what they do to actually authorize your box. If it doesnt work outright all they do is reboot your box after a box hit/refresh.

Another thing about Box Hits is that too many of them (like spammed a lot) will actually FRY your box. I've heard a story where this customer kept calling customer care and they kept sending a hit (because he wanted the signal thinking it will solve the problem) and the thing is none of these CSR's notate the account that they hit the box, they just notate that they called in for so an so reason. Keep in mind that Box Hits can take up to 45 minutes, so if you don't see an instant result its okay.
When you say "box hit", is that a specific thing or a generic term for a whole class of things? i.e. I assume because my STB (SA8300HDC) is a computer within a hierarchical network of many computers, that it is possible to send many different commands down to my STB. So when you say "box hit", is that a term for any command or a specific command or perhaps even something completely different than a "command" (when you say too many box hits can fry the box, it gives me the impression that a "box hit" is some kind of brute force electrical pulse as opposed to a digital command). When they initiate a reboot of my STB from the home office, is that a "box hit"? Are there other kinds of "box hits"?

Sorry if these questions are elementary. I'm just trying to learn a little more about this stuff, not that I particularly want to know, but when the service is screwed up all the time one can't help but be curious as to how it is supposed to work and why it doesn't.

I appreciate the information you've given this community and sorry you lost your job over it. It is a shame the way corporations operate, having to eliminate an employee who is sincerely trying to serve their customers because of the potential liability of telling the truth, while know-nothing slugs and Yes men remain secure in their jobs, rising through the ranks to be in a position to cultivate more of the same. In the modern corporate world of Sarbanes-Oxley, some paper-pusher is going to lose his job if the paper-pusher below him doesn't do his job, which is to protect the company by firing technically superior and sincerely customer-focused employees like YOU.

Who needs 'em anyway? ;)

Best of luck.

-Marty

p.s. If you have some time to kill between jobs, check out the book "the Corporation - The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power" by Joel Bakan.

When you say "box hit", is that a specific thing or a generic term for a whole class of things? i.e. I assume because my STB (SA8300HDC) is a computer within a hierarchical network of many computers, that it is possible to send many different commands down to my STB. So when you say "box hit", is that a term for any command or a specific command or perhaps even something completely different than a "command" (when you say too many box hits can fry the box, it gives me the impression that a "box hit" is some kind of brute force electrical pulse as opposed to a digital command). When they initiate a reboot of my STB from the home office, is that a "box hit"? Are there other kinds of "box hits"?

It's a command in Icoms system that actually says BOX HIT, on some older boxes and a select number of new ones, itll say Addressable Box Hit and the Reboot command will say Initialize instead of BOX REBOOT. I think you hit the bullseye on that one, because Box Hits takes up to 45mins to 1hr to actually work, as opposed to Reboot and Refresh commands that work almost instantaneously.

Sorry if these questions are elementary. I'm just trying to learn a little more about this stuff, not that I particularly want to know, but when the service is screwed up all the time one can't help but be curious as to how it is supposed to work and why it doesn't.

I appreciate the information you've given this community and sorry you lost your job over it. It is a shame the way corporations operate, having to eliminate an employee who is sincerely trying to serve their customers because of the potential liability of telling the truth, while know-nothing slugs and Yes men remain secure in their jobs, rising through the ranks to be in a position to cultivate more of the same. In the modern corporate world of Sarbanes-Oxley, some paper-pusher is going to lose his job if the paper-pusher below him doesn't do his job, which is to protect the company by firing technically superior and sincerely customer-focused employees like YOU.

Thanks man. Yeah another member mentioned the Peter principle and explained what you said exactly. Theyll hire incompetents, and then eventually the incompetents that overpower the competents and the whole structure just falls apart. Seems like they can't get a handle on hiring people that actually know what they are doing b/c they don't want to pay any more than what they are paying now. My god, none of my supervisors knew ANYTHING real about what we are dealing with, and that I had to research what they really meant in order to understand what the boxes were doing (such as the AIT message or the NO STRNG message).

A couple weeks ago, we actually had a team of IT personnel that came from Wisconsin and they actually knew wtf they were doing as they were former Techs and Agents themselves, unfortunately most people didnt utilize their knowledge and the department still ended up brainless.

p.s. If you have some time to kill between jobs, check out the book "the Corporation - The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power" by Joel Bakan.

I definitely will thanks a lot.

Has anyone received Navigator on their old SA 8300HD in the Raleigh NC Area yet?

Thanks man. Yeah another member mentioned the Peter principle and explained what you said exactly. Theyll hire incompetents, and then eventually the incompetents that overpower the competents and the whole structure just falls apart. Seems like they can't get a handle on hiring people that actually know what they are doing b/c they don't want to pay any more than what they are paying now.That reminds me of my Army days (back in the 60's when they had the draft). If you had a useful skill, they would always put you someone else! The Army (as with most regimented organizations) only wanted folks to know "so much".

Has anyone received Navigator on their old SA 8300HD in the Raleigh NC Area yet?

Shush! They'll hear you.

Shush! They'll hear you.

What are they going to do “Fire Me”? Oh wait, I wouldn’t put it past them to fire a customer for leaking public information that they informed me about by certified mail!

Sorry, about what happened coffeerox. Have you found another job yet?

coffeerox

Just got caught up on the thread, sorry to hear you got run over by TWC. Truly, in the long run, you should consider it a blessing. That is the most obnoxiously run company I've ever encountered. I've never seen a company go to such lengths to insulate themselves from their customers. They've created this whole customer service infrastructure as nothing more than a complaint avoidance mechanism...as in management avoiding having to listen to anyone.

This is what monopoly power breeds.

What really burns me is how stupid management must be to let product like Navigator continue in its current form. I bet I could easily make an ROI case to spend big bucks to fix all its bugs paid for from increased revenue and customer retention.

In our market, TWC is great with internet, cable and very low incident of outages. They've got all the hard stuff figured out. The Navigator software should be the easy part....its easily tested, easy to change...just need more programmers and a better QA process. Cheap really considering what they must spend on infrastructure management.

What are they going to do “Fire Me”? Oh wait, I wouldn’t put it past them to fire a customer for leaking public information that they informed me about by certified mail!I think that he was comically suggesting that they might have somehow accidentally overlooked those boxes and that mentioning them might bring them to someone's attention, precipitating a rash of "upgrades" to MDN in that area.

What are they going to do “Fire Me”? Oh wait, I wouldn’t put it past them to fire a customer for leaking public information that they informed me about by certified mail!

Sorry, about what happened coffeerox. Have you found another job yet?

lol! nah not yet. Gonna chill for a week or so and go from there.

This is why they have customers that have repeat visits, they have to go through a certain process to determine what the real problem is and get a tech that actually knows how to diagnose and fix the problem.

8 visits from techs. then a sales rep came around pushing internet service. i told her about my cable problems and exlaimed "why would i want to get any more services from TW if they cant fix the problems i have now" next day a tech was here, on time , and seems to have solved the problem.
they must really want more of my money:D

What are they going to do “Fire Me”?

no they'll realize they haven't done it yet and then my DVR is screwed.

its easily tested, easy to change...just need more programmers and a better QA process.

I've written software for 30+ years, the worse thing you can do when you have a crisis in a software system is to throw more programmers at it. They just muddy the water

I written software for 30+ years, the worse thing you can do when you have a crisis in a software system is to throw more programmers at it. They just muddy the waterWhy is that people think it is so easy????

But, that's what got TW into this mess in the first place: apparently some "experts" telling them that it was so easy! :D

I've written software for 30+ years, the worse thing you can do when you have a crisis in a software system is to throw more programmers at it. They just muddy the water

and thus why we have World of Warcraft. Probably the only people that can ever fix Vanish is the original team that brought us the original WOW.

I've written software for 30+ years, the worse thing you can do when you have a crisis in a software system is to throw more programmers at it. They just muddy the water

How about the GNU operating system and the Linux kernel? Those have loads of programmers working at them and they are turning out some good code. What is different about those projects and commercial software development in terms of how they are developed? I have basically only done software development for school projects and one lone wolf job, so I don't know how commercial development with multiple developers really works.

I've written software for 30+ years, the worse thing you can do when you have a crisis in a software system is to throw more programmers at it. They just muddy the waterI've been through 30 years of software development as well, as both individual contributor and project manager and I know that this is a very complex topic. Whether adding people will help an ailing project depends on how many people and who they are. It will certainly slow things down while they come up to speed and the enlarged team gets organized, but if you've got 10 people working on a problem that would take them 5 times as much time as they have to complete then I don't see where you have any choice but to increase the size of the team. Probably nothing that you can do will get it done by the deadline, but adding 40 new experienced people will probably finish in half the time that the original 10 would have, and when they're done, the 50 will be about 3 times as productive as the original 10. (Or something like that--I forget the stats, but in software development there is never a linear relationship between time required to do the job and the number of people doing it and you will reach a point where adding more people won't help).

In the end, it all depends on the project, whether it's understaffed for its current goals, whether scrapping the project is a viable option (we wish :rolleyes:), etc. It's possible that nothing that you can do will fix things as quickly as you need for them to be fixed. You're right when you say that adding people will "muddy the waters", but, to belabor your analogy, the waters will eventually settle down and flow again, hopefully at a swifter pace.

In Feb 2008 I got an HD box from TWC NYC (Scientific Atlanta 3000HDC/Mystro). I can record most shows (like sitcoms) as a series. However some sporting events, like “NHL Hockey”, “NBA Basketball” or “MLB Baseball” (on MSG/27 & MSGHD/727 for example) cannot be recorded as a series. The option to record as a series simply does not appear in the list of options after pressing the “Record” button. The “record as a series” option did (and does) appear for these sporting events on SD cable boxes.

Yesterday, I spent 45 minutes with TWC tech support. We re-set my HD box and then they confirmed that the problem is inherent with the box and/or guide. I told tech support that I used to be able to do it with my SD box and they confirmed with the SD box in their office that it can be done with an SD box. I am nearly certain that my SD box had the Passport guide software.

Obviously, this is a major inconvenience because I now must schedule these recordings manually :mad:

I am contemplating writing to TWC about this. It might be helpful to be able to say the problem is nationwide (if it is). Has anyone from outside NYC experienced this? Or have a solution/work-around?


+1 in NYC. I don't understand how millions of sports fans aren't screaming about this. My primary reason for even having a TV is to watch Mets games. If this doesn't get resolved I may just cancel my cable service.

I actually called customer service after getting this new POS software (I moved) because I assumed I was doing something wrong. The old HD software did this and almost everything else much better. After two escalations I got to some sort of expert.

Expert: Is your show on once a week?

Me: Mets games. You know, the baseball team. The games are on different times depending on their schedule. They play almost every day.

Expert: So your show is on every day? Does your show come on at the same time every day?

Me: You've never heard of baseball?

Expert: Yes, of course I've heard of baseball!

I'm a programmer, so I understand that no software is perfect. What I don't understand is how it's possible that not one TWC employee thought, "hey, people might want to follow a sports team."

+1 in NYC. I don't understand how millions of sports fans aren't screaming about this. My primary reason for even having a TV is to watch Mets games. If this doesn't get resolved I may just cancel my cable service.

I actually called customer service after getting this new POS software (I moved) because I assumed I was doing something wrong. The old HD software did this and almost everything else much better. After two escalations I got to some sort of expert.

Expert: Is your show on once a week?

Me: Mets games. You know, the baseball team. The games are on different times depending on their schedule. They play almost every day.

Expert: So your show is on every day? Does your show come on at the same time every day?

Me: You've never heard of baseball?

Expert: Yes, of course I've heard of baseball!

I'm a programmer, so I understand that no software is perfect. What I don't understand is how it's possible that not one TWC employee thought, "hey, people might want to follow a sports team."

I'm having the exact same problem. We (Kansas City) just got Navigatored on Monday, and I went to setup a season pass for Royals' games, and Record Series isn't an option for me either. Someone suggested that it may be a problem with the program not being considered a "series" but I've never seen this before on Passport. This is a huge pain to deal with. I hope they get it fixed...

I've written software for 30+ years, the worse thing you can do when you have a crisis in a software system is to throw more programmers at it. They just muddy the water

Software starts with design. Bad design -> bad software. Good design -> good software. If TWC can't provide good customer service, I don't expect them to know how to design good software. BTW I got Navigatored on my Pioneer non-DVR box but not my SA8300HD a few days ago.

I believe this is the 'feature' that you can complain about and that, if resolved, will also fix the eSATA issue! If everyone complains about it through these lines, maybe eSATA will get fixed...

xnappo

What is the eSATA problem? With Passport on my SA8300HD it works fine with a Seagate eSATA 750GB drive. If Navigator is installed and eSATA does not work, goodbye TWC!

BTW Road Runner is f'ud due to a flubbed traffic management system in my area (google 'TWC Traffic Shaping Problem'). JHC, can not TWC do anything right?

What is the eSATA problem? With Passport on my SA8300HD it works fine with a Seagate eSATA 750GB drive. If Navigator is installed and eSATA does not work, goodbye TWC!

BTW Road Runner is f'ud due to a flubbed traffic management system in my area (google 'TWC Traffic Shaping Problem'). JHC, can not TWC do anything right?
danno
I think most of the eSATA problems are with the SA8300HDC and not the SA8300HD so I think you are good to go as a friend here has navagator and the 8300HD box with a WD DVR extender 500GB and it works OK.
Roy

Software starts with design. Bad design -> bad software. Good design -> good software. If TWC can't provide good customer service, I don't expect them to know how to design good software. BTW I got Navigatored on my Pioneer non-DVR box but not my SA8300HD a few days ago.

Danno,

I am from the Milwaukee area as well. I actually thought the Pioneer boxes were done a long time ago. My brother got Navigator on his non-HD DVR in early March. He hates it like most everyone else. Has anyone gotten Navigator in Milwaukee on a HD DVR yet?

Jack

I've been through 30 years of software development as well, as both individual contributor and project manager and I know that this is a very complex topic. Whether adding people will help an ailing project depends on how many people and who they are. It will certainly slow things down while they come up to speed and the enlarged team gets organized, but if you've got 10 people working on a problem that would take them 5 times as much time as they have to complete then I don't see where you have any choice but to increase the size of the team. Probably nothing that you can do will get it done by the deadline, but adding 40 new experienced people will probably finish in half the time that the original 10 would have, and when they're done, the 50 will be about 3 times as productive as the original 10. (Or something like that--I forget the stats, but in software development there is never a linear relationship between time required to do the job and the number of people doing it and you will reach a point where adding more people won't help).

In the end, it all depends on the project, whether it's understaffed for its current goals, whether scrapping the project is a viable option (we wish :rolleyes:), etc. It's possible that nothing that you can do will fix things as quickly as you need for them to be fixed. You're right when you say that adding people will "muddy the waters", but, to belabor your analogy, the waters will eventually settle down and flow again, hopefully at a swifter pace.

Very good explanation. The thing is that the project is "complete" and is in the debugging state. Adding programmers won't help because because the people TW would add would most likely be entry level "warm bodies". What they need is a manager with high technical skills in this area who can not only spot the problem areas in the code but can assemble and prioritize the problems. Of course this person would need access to reported problems which most likely isn't happening now.

Very good explanation. The thing is that the project is "complete" and is in the debugging state. Adding programmers won't help because because the people TW would add would most likely be entry level "warm bodies". What they need is a manager with high technical skills in this area who can not only spot the problem areas in the code but can assemble and prioritize the problems. Of course this person would need access to reported problems which most likely isn't happening now.This project will presumably never be completed, unless they (hope, hope :D) cancel their use of it. Do you think that TiVo is complete? They (TiVo) keep adding major features to Series2 firmware, as well as the newer Series3, and no doubt there's a ton of code dating from the original TiVo running in both products. The initial customer version of Navigator is being rolled out now, but it will be in a perpetual state of upgrades and maintenance until they replace it with something else entirely.

Adding a bunch of college hires would hardly help (except maybe as test-peons). They need to figure out what failures have resulted in the product being in this barely-tested seeming state after 2 years of beta-test. Of course, as I predicted, the OCAP version (ODN) would seem to be in far worse shape than the original C-language version (MDN); revisions of both are running on different boxes where I live and this is very evidently true, IMO. Undoubtably some of the project management needs to be replaced with more competent people in areas of both Development and Quality Assurance.

We have little to no idea what they're thinking is and who they're looking to hire. The one req that I saw online was for a 2nd or 3rd level manager with hiring responsibilities. I think that they can fix this, if they're so inclined, and that a lot of their business depends on their fixing it--I'm sure that substantial numbers of customers have jumped ship already over this issue and many more will follow if they don't do something soon.

Diana Smith, former AVS Forum member DianaTWCSC, would seem to now be in a position with some oversight on this project. She always seemed to be bright and competent; hopefully she can steer things in the right direction.

Heard from the Milwaukee HDTV forum,

I asked about Navigator and if anyone had gotten it on an HD DVR yet. A user talked to an installer who said, "Very soon." He plugged in an 8300 HD DVR with Passport, rebooted, and than it had Navigator. This user noted that the installer said that they were doing the updates Tuesday and Wednesday nights. We could get "hit" sometime next week.

Jack

Diana Smith, former AVS Forum member DianaTWCSC, would seem to now be in a position with some oversight on this project. She always seemed to be bright and competent; hopefully she can steer things in the right direction.

ROTFLMAO. Good one.

Diana is/was a TWC corporate shill. The same type of person that fired coffeerox.

As you noted, before she moved to corporate she used to work in Columbia, SC about 90 miles south of us here in Charlotte.

As you can see in the link below, I expressed my concerns about cablecard 18 months ago and she didn't even understand the technology.

You can see my post here.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7956765#post7956765

and her response here.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8154014#post8154014

Rereading my original post makes my blood boil because of TWCs total disregard for the CableCard mandate that was meant to free us from Navigator.

Here's to hoping that the "tuning resolver" / "dongle" makes it out of vaporware status.

ROTFLMAO. Good one.

Diana is/was a TWC corporate shill. The same type of person that fired coffeerox.

As you noted, before she moved to corporate she used to work in Columbia, SC about 90 miles south of us here in Charlotte.

As you can see in the link below, I expressed my concerns about cablecard 18 months ago and she didn't even understand the technology.

You can see my post here.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7956765#post7956765

and her response here.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8154014#post8154014

Rereading my original post makes my blood boil because of TWCs total disregard for the CableCard mandate that was meant to free us from Navigator.

Here's to hoping that the "tuning resolver" / "dongle" makes it out of vaporware status.
Well, Diana gave you a pretty accurate answer! Because there was not a two-way specification when the CableCARD spec was issued, it WAS obsolete from the start!

You may not like it, you may not like what she told you - but it was accurate and truthful. That neither makes her a "corporate shill" nor the "The same type of person that fired coffeerox." The truth is that she always tried to help HER (Columbia SC) customers and helped many of us understand the cable side of things.

Well, Diana gave you a pretty accurate answer! Because there was not a two-way specification when the CableCARD spec was issued, it WAS obsolete from the start!That's not entirely accurate (though I do agree with you that Diana's response accurately described the situation). The original CableCARD specification specified a bidirectional host interface standard as well as the unidirectional one, as well as a fixed API for implementing the "Holy Trinity" of interactive services (IPG, IPPV and VOD) and an ability to add new interactive services based on HTML and XML (see ANSI/SCTE 28 2007, HOST-POD Interface Standard (http://www.scte.org/documents/standards/approved/ANSISCTE282007.pdf)). With the promise of OCAP looming large, the cable industry declined to support this standard and since there was no use for a two-way interface in the absence of the interactive features (other than making CableCARD installation much simpler), no one implemented the two-way host spec. So, it's more accurate to say that the small piece of the original CableCARD spec that the industry decided to implement was obsolete from day one.

That's not entirely accurate (though I do agree with you that Diana's response accurately described the situation). The original CableCARD specification specified a bidirectional host interface standard as well as the unidirectional one, as well as a fixed API for implementing the "Holy Trinity" of interactive services (IPG, IPPV and VOD) and an ability to add new interactive services based on HTML and XML (see ANSI/SCTE 28 2007, HOST-POD Interface Standard (http://www.scte.org/documents/standards/approved/ANSISCTE282007.pdf)). With the promise of OCAP looming large, the cable industry declined to support this standard and since there was no use for a two-way interface in the absence of the interactive features (other than making CableCARD installation much simpler), no one implemented the two-way host spec. So, it's more accurate to say that the small piece of the original CableCARD spec that the industry decided to implement was obsolete from day one.Well, we've been through "who did what" on the original CableCARD implementation before. There are somewhat varying views on this. But, the bottom line, that you agree with I see, was that there was NOT ANY bidirectional implementation - and thus the CableCARD implementation then was obsolete (and Diana's response accurate).

Well, Diana gave you a pretty accurate answer! Because there was not a two-way specification when the CableCARD spec was issued, it WAS obsolete from the start!

You may not like it, you may not like what she told you - but it was accurate and truthful. That neither makes her a "corporate shill" nor the "The same type of person that fired coffeerox." The truth is that she always tried to help HER (Columbia SC) customers and helped many of us understand the cable side of things.

Dave,

Reread her post. I think you misinterpreted her. Her misconception was that there are such things as
"one way" and "two-way" CableCards. The CableCard never was and never will be "two way". It is the host device that is two way.

How does a third party get a two way device to pass CableLabs inspection process, you ask? By making it OCAP compliant and forcing the box to have Navigator downloaded to it.

In other words, you can lease a TWC box with Navigator or buy your own and have Navigator downloaded to it!!

Not exactly the "choice" the FCC had in mind was it?

If the CableCard is obsolete, then how is TWC using them in their own SA 8300HDCs!?!?

Her answer was not accurate and was not truthful. She was acting as a corporate shill by stating the CableCards are obsolete, which they aren't, and then blaming it on the spec which the cable cartel(her employer) was responsible for.

Do you have Stockholm syndrome? :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

Dave,

Reread her post. I think you misinterpreted her.No I didn't. It's just that I accepted the gist of what she was saying (that the CableCARD based devices were essentially obsolete because (the devices available then) didn't have two-way capability (her later post said: "To be clear, I think one-way cable card technology is obsolete.") You are just simply trying to "nit pick" the EXACT phrasing that she used (a good example perhaps of why TW doesn't participate more in forums where folks are trying to "pick apart" whatever they say).

Her misconception was that there are such things as
"one way" and "two-way" CableCards. The CableCard never was and never will be "two way". It is the host device that is two way.Yes a very common misconception. You apparently had the same misconception at the time, as you did not correct her at the time. :rolleyes:

BTW: She acknowledged that she didn't know everything:I say this without having an extensive knowledge base on the upcoming M Series, so it may well have some drawbacks I'm just not educated on at this time.

I belive Diana still monitors this room but stays silent.At least I hope she passes our complaints and questions to someone in coporate or uses them herself.I always found her to be a fair and honest person. SARA 1.89.17.1

It was much later we learned (from a description on OpenCable website)
that the CableCARD developers intentionally designed the card from the
gitgo to be two-way capable....but without a final implemention spec for
all the software that USED it.... and a test suite of more or less final software,
they couldn't make any claims wrt two-way.

Only after the original CableCARD had been TESTED in a two-way capable STB
(and found they didn't need to make any modifications) could they finally
come out and call it two-way capable.

And multi-stream MCARD (also two-way capable) was a separate issue....
But since OpenCable was not forthcoming on the whole story, we were
mislead into believing the new MCARD was the only two-way solution....

Here's the OpenCable explanation:
http://www.opencable.com/primer/cablecard_primer.html

It was much later we learned (from a description on OpenCable website)
that the CableCARD developers intentionally designed the card from the
gitgo to be two-way capable....but without a final implemention spec for
all the software that USED it.... and a test suite of more or less final software,
they couldn't make any claims wrt two-way.

Only after the original CableCARD had been TESTED in a two-way capable STB
(and found they didn't need to make any modifications) could they finally
come out and call it two-way capable.

And multi-stream MCARD (also two-way capable) was a separate issue....
But since OpenCable was not forthcoming on the whole story, we were
mislead into believing the new MCARD was the only two-way solution....

Here's the OpenCable explanation:
http://www.opencable.com/primer/cablecard_primer.html

Bottom line HERE is that mfogarty5 was WAY OUT OF LINE bashing Diana. Again, it is folks acting like him that makes TW all that more INSULAR and encourages policies that result in folks like coffeerox being muzzled, and terminated.

Bottom line HERE is that mfogarty5 was WAY OUT OF LINE bashing Diana. Again, it is folks acting like him that makes TW all that more INSULAR and encourages policies that result in folks like coffeerox being muzzled, and terminated.The canning of coffeerox is just SOP; many companies would have done it. Sounds like the way he got caught was that he was doing it from work; surfing the net during work hours alone will get you canned by lots of companies, depending upon the nature of your job (I've heard estimates of 40% productivity loss from non-work-related web surfing). Most of my career has been R&D software development and at every professional job I've ever held I was explicitly told during the first-day orientation session not to discuss their products and methods with anyone without permission; I was required to a sign a contract which contained the same provision. I don't know whether coffeerox had to sign such a contract as a CSR, but if he did he was in breach of it. No doubt that the company has clear written policy for employee behavior, which probably mentions it.

Corporations--large, well-heeled corporations in particular--have to be extremely careful about what they say to the public and all of them have policies restricting who can say what to who and when. I realize that coffeerox was just trying to be helpful here, and that's certainly laudable, but getting fired for talking about your company outside of work in a public forum--whether you're revealing secrets or not--is something that shouldn't take anyone by surprise.

I belive Diana still monitors this room but stays silent.

I don't believe she's been here in years... Her involvement in that thread lasted only a couple of months, if that.

I don't believe she's been here in years... Her involvement in that thread lasted only a couple of months, if that.

Actually, I was in contact with her via PM a few months back. I haven't tried contacting her i awhile though.

Bottom line HERE is that mfogarty5 was WAY OUT OF LINE bashing Diana. Again, it is folks acting like him that makes TW all that more INSULAR and encourages policies that result in folks like coffeerox being muzzled, and terminated.

LOL. Do you work for TWC? That's the only explanation I can think of that would explain a thought process whereby me calling her a corporate shill on an avsforum message board would make a multi-billion dollar corporation more insular. Are you really serious?!?

In any event, here is her quote:

"NC Guy - sorry you think TWC is intentially getting around Cable Card via SDV just to get your additional dollars each month. Not an accurate intrepretation - look at history, technology often proceeds down different paths simultaneously. Right now one-way cable cards are the Beta Machines of our decade - obsolete almost right off the shelf. Not because anyone is specifically planning to undermine one method of delivery, but because other methods provide more options and capability."

I brought up a legitimate point about the fact that TWCSC was rolling out technology(SDV) that broke the spirit of the CableCard mandate.

The problem I have is that cable companies are granted a monopoly status by local governments. In other words they use government to shield themselves from competition and then disgregard the government when it tries to create some competition by mandating CableCards.

Contrary to her post, CableCards are not obsolete. TWC uses them in their own boxes today.

Instead of acknowledging that fact and stating that SDV was the only way they could compete with DirecTV, she spread misinformation about one-way CableCards and also blamed it on the spec that her own company took part in writing and dragged their feet over a decade in implementing.

That is the very definition of a corporate shill. :rolleyes:

Unlike TWC, DirecTV actually solicits feedback from its customers over on dbstalk. What a concept!! Instead of ignoring the problems like TWC, they have gotten an enthusiatic group of people to test new releases BEFORE they are made public which has deepened the relationship with their customers.

Maybe Diana should spend some time over at dbstalk so TWC could implement something like that here at avsforum. I bet most people who read this board would jump at the opportunity to test new Navigator features.

Instead TWC treats its customers as adversaries and has you believing that's the way it should be. You think we should be bow before someone who represents a company that only exists because our local governments allow it to exist comes down from Mount Olympus to grace us with her presence. :rolleyes:

Again the conclusion you drew above about public feedback making a company more insular couldn't be more wrong.

My 8300HDC is reverting to 480i whenever you turn the box back on after having been off for a while. This happens both with Component and HDMI settings. It can be fixed (if using comp. cables) by keeping an analog (yellow) video cable hooked up, navigating the menus, un-selecting any resolution and save, then reselecting save, then switching tv back to component input. However, if you were using HDMI, the only way to get it back is to reboot the box. The reason this is troubling for me is that i have a gen 2 Samsung hln467w DLP Tv. Component 1 only does 480i/480p while comp2/3 and DVI only do 480p/720p/1080i. So when the box flips to 480i i get the "not supported mode" on the tv and have to trick the box using the methods described above. This only happens since the software upgrade a few weeks back (can't remember the number just that the date is a Jan 08 date). This sucks and trying to convince TWC in Cary, NC of a problem is impossible. I have two 8300HDC and tried switching them but still get the same issue. The other tv i have is a Samsung 1080p 120HZ LCD. The box still reverts sometimes to 480i but the tv will handle all resolutions via hdmi so switching channels a couple of times usually clears it up. Any thoughts, help, what to tell time warner would be awesome. i read a bunch of posts about the same thing but just wanted to put my two cents out there.

LOL. Do you work for TWC? That's the only explanation I can think of that would explain a thought process whereby me calling her a corporate shill on an avsforum message board would make a multi-billion dollar corporation more insular. Are you really serious?!?Yes I am really serious. I do not work for TW (and am a critic about many of their policies). BUT, I, as others who have posted here, have found her candor refreshing. Further, she has always treated others with respect, even when they are trashing her. Unfortunately, others have not responded in kind, :rolleyes:

BTW: From your response, it is clear that you have not read all my, and other posts relating to her comments and what was known about CableCARDs AT THAT TIME!

My 8300HDC is reverting to 480i whenever you turn the box back on after having been off for a while. This happens both with Component and HDMI settings. It can be fixed (if using comp. cables) by keeping an analog (yellow) video cable hooked up, navigating the menus, un-selecting any resolution and save, then reselecting save, then switching tv back to component input. However, if you were using HDMI, the only way to get it back is to reboot the box. The reason this is troubling for me is that i have a gen 2 Samsung hln467w DLP Tv. Component 1 only does 480i/480p while comp2/3 and DVI only do 480p/720p/1080i. So when the box flips to 480i i get the "not supported mode" on the tv and have to trick the box using the methods described above. This only happens since the software upgrade a few weeks back (can't remember the number just that the date is a Jan 08 date). This sucks and trying to convince TWC in Cary, NC of a problem is impossible. I have two 8300HDC and tried switching them but still get the same issue. The other tv i have is a Samsung 1080p 120HZ LCD. The box still reverts sometimes to 480i but the tv will handle all resolutions via hdmi so switching channels a couple of times usually clears it up. Any thoughts, help, what to tell time warner would be awesome. i read a bunch of posts about the same thing but just wanted to put my two cents out there.

Maybe if you pester them for a while they'll realize they have a problem. Now they seem to ignore it.
You may want to "blindly" (i.e. without seeing a picture, since your TV does not support that resolution) do the workarounds. For example, you can set a macro on a universal remote control to go through the menus and do the turn on/off resolutions, or switch a few channels, etc..

Yes I am really serious. I do not work for TW (and am a critic about many of their policies). BUT, I, as others who have posted here, have found her candor refreshing. Further, she has always treated others with respect, even when they are trashing her. Unfortunately, others have not responded in kind, :rolleyes:

BTW: From your response, it is clear that you have not read all my, and other posts relating to her comments and what was known about CableCARDs AT THAT TIME!

Dave,

Again you failed to read my post to Diana in which I was quite respectful.

Here's my quote

"Diana,

Thanks for responding to my post. You and I will have to agree to disagree about CableCard being an obsolete technology. I think it does exactly what itis intended to do: enable users to watch encrypted content without using cable box. The issue a lot of people have with SDV is that the cable companies always have something on the horizon like CableCard 2.0, OCAP, DCAS etc. Why not support a technology that is here and works? There has been quite a firestorm here at AVS and at engadget about the fact that Time Warner Raleigh said they wouldn't provide CableCards for the new Tivos. They have since recanted, but Time Warner has gotten a black eye over it and fuels the speculation that Time Warner really wants people to use their box.
.....

Anyways, thanks again for taking the time to respond."

Like michaeltscott and SARA, we are going to have to agree to disagree on Diana's competence level.

Now let's get back to Navigator.

This user noted that the installer said that they were doing the updates Tuesday and Wednesday nights. We could get "hit" sometime next week.

Jack

I'm thinking something will happen tonight. First, it's a Tuesday(my Pioneer got it on a Tuesday) and it is the end of the month. If a software license would be expired, the end of the month would make sense. Also, the Navigator letter/instruction manual came last week(in NE Ohio).

The canning of coffeerox is just SOP; many companies would have done it. Sounds like the way he got caught was that he was doing it from work; surfing the net during work hours alone will get you canned by lots of companies, depending upon the nature of your job (I've heard estimates of 40% productivity loss from non-work-related web surfing). Most of my career has been R&D software development and at every professional job I've ever held I was explicitly told during the first-day orientation session not to discuss their products and methods with anyone without permission; I was required to a sign a contract which contained the same provision. I don't know whether coffeerox had to sign such a contract as a CSR, but if he did he was in breach of it. No doubt that the company has clear written policy for employee behavior, which probably mentions it.

Corporations--large, well-heeled corporations in particular--have to be extremely careful about what they say to the public and all of them have policies restricting who can say what to who and when. I realize that coffeerox was just trying to be helpful here, and that's certainly laudable, but getting fired for talking about your company outside of work in a public forum--whether you're revealing secrets or not--is something that shouldn't take anyone by surprise.

Heres the shady thing about it michael, they knew I was visiting the website, but they had no idea that I was coffee. I admitted that I was coffee and played right into their hands. True, they caught me using the internet at work, but all they can prove is that I visited avsforum and not posted on it. if I had denied it all I probably would have been on my way towards my next check by now. Everyone uses the internet at work michael, so that is why I was nonchalant about visiting AVSforum from work. What got their attention (or should I say that suck-up @$$hole IT guy) was that the website title clearly says Time Warner Cable Navigator and that was a huge red flag for him.

Regardless of what was being said (obviously talking about boxes that didnt even belong to TW, another forum completely unrelated to TWC) it said TWC on it, and I was openly telling people I was working for them and which department and market. Normally, you wouldnt get fired for that, but I did. That was the shady thing about all that. Why can't I tell people who/where I work for? Plenty of people do it. I only seem to recall discussing basic functions and not the technical detail of Navigator itself, nothing that customers dont have access to. I should not have been fired for what was public information. They fired me simply as a pre-emptive move. SHOULD I have any discontent with them I WOULD likely divulge all their secrets or steal it, that is how they think. In AZ you can be fired for anything, especially if you are under your 90 days, then they really have full control over your future with that company.

PSFERRARI, put that Starbucks mug down--you've had more than your fill of caffeine this morning :D. (EDIT: I see that you calmed down and withdrew the rant. Good).


coffeerox --

What you did was post the fact that you were a TWC employee in this thread and then joined the thread's discussion, which solely concerns a TWC product, Digital Navigator. It's easy for people to assume that you're a representative of TWC making comments on their behalf when in fact you didn't have their permission to comment on their products in this public space. I can tell you that, back when I was working for say, Xerox, if I had come into a public network discussion board and announced that I was a firmware developer at Xerox and started discussing the products that I was working on, it would have constituted a clear breach of the non-disclosure agreement that I signed when I came to work for them as well as (I'm guessing) a violation of rules detailed in their employee handbook, even if all I ever did in that forum was quote sections of manuals that shipped with the product. Most companies have clearly drawn rules in their employee handbooks against public disclosure of information by random employees and most make anyone who might be made privvy to private information about the company's methods, products and plans sign a non-disclosure agreement before they hire them. Many times, I've been made to sign an NDA before the start of an interview cycle, because they were going to walk me through a work space where I might see a bunch of stuff that wasn't public and/or overhear conversations about such; they might even discuss details of the project I'd be working on. (As I recall, Xerox had these little cutesy little "POPI" signs all over the place: "Protect Our Proprietary Information". Of course, Xerox was one of the leakiest IP-seives that I've ever worked for :)).

These non-disclosure agrements are pretty much standardized and boiler-plate and generally do not specify that you shouldn't discuss company secrets, but that you shouldn't discuss anything that you know about the company's products and methods, even if you think that it's public knowledge, with anyone outside of work. Not your best friend, not your spouse or significant other, not your brother, sister, mother, father or priest. Most companies treat violations of these policies and agreements on a "zero tolerance" basis; the employment of anyone found to have broken these rules is summarily terminated as an example to others.

Were you not required to sign an NDA? Are you certain that there is no non-disclosure rule in the employee handbook (or were you not given one when you were hired)? Are you aware of someone else who clearly spoke in a public space about TWC products without permission who was not fired? If you can say "yes" to the first two questions and/or to the third, you may have the basis for a wrongful termination suit.

PSFERRARI, put that Starbucks mug down--you've had more than your fill of caffeine this morning :D. (EDIT: I see that you calmed down and withdrew the rant. Good).The moderator must have zapped his rant. I submitted a reply where I quoted one paragraph of it and asked for some clarification, and it was deleted also. Certainly no loss.

Were you not required to sign an NDA?

I was. I just didn't know that whats at work stays at work, regardless of what it is. I didnt know that it would stretch out that far. I guess that in person, I'm able to say, I do this and this for so and so but internet is a different story, especially this situation. I've learned from it though and won't happen again.

My wife and I own a small vacation home at the coast and have TWC .Got the mail card and phone call that Navigator will be loaded in their tonight.Will be down there in a few days will keep all poasted on Navigator.

I stopped by my local Cincinnati TWC office to talk about service options today and was told during the conversation that "another major system update is going out today". Yep, got back home and my SA8300HDC was upgraded from Navigator 2.4.8_2 to Navigator 2.4.9_3.

Guys,

I had to share this with you,

A user at the TWC San Diego Forum has provided a known summary of Navigator's bugs, and a few improvements from Passport. We know that some of these issues will vary from area to area. But perhaps ADMIN might consider a subforum where this list could be maintained and updated. There are too many non- Navigator issues in this thread: Here is the list:

Things That Are Worse or Broken:

1. If the screensaver kicks in while viewing a 16:9 picture, only the center 4:3 area blacks out. The original picture remains in the side bars.

2. When a live program has been paused beyond 90 minutes, exhausting the tuner's buffer, the audio resumes playing, but the screensaver still hides the video.

3. The list of Received Calls of Caller ID is automatically erased every time the settop box reboots.

4. As mentioned previously, time is no longer displayed at the tip of the moving cursor in the timeline. When playing a recorded program, the elapsed time is still shown on an upper left tab on the banner in hh:mm format, neglecting the seconds. But when watching a live program, even when delayed, only the current time is displayed. There is no way to accurately determine the exact position of the cursor in the timeline.

5. Deletion is inconsistent. Deleting from the List Menu requires confirmation. Deleting a show while watching it (by pressing “Stop and Delete”) does not.

6. The List Menu no longer includes “Keep Longer” as a menu option.

7. The List Menu does not show the End Time of a recording until the show is selected.

8. In the List Menu, if the Start Time of a recording is late, the actual Start Time is displayed, but in white, not yellow.

9. As mentioned previously, the List Menu opens near the top of the entries, specifically the 4th entry. That makes it tedious to, say, delete several items near the bottom of the list.

10. Using Keyboard Search, if the program wanted is listed, but the Detail says, “No Scheduled Times,” it means that all show times are in the recent past. Confusing, and why is it there at all?

11. Using Keyboard Search, as typing continues, keyboard letters and program entries not matching the Search String are not grayed out on the Keyboard, nor removed from the Result List. All that happens is that the scrolling pointer is changed. Evaluating the Result List is thus made a little more difficult.

12. Using Keyboard Search, programs with multiple showtimes do not have folder icons, although when clicked the members are shown properly indented.

13. There are too many entries in the Result List, apparently keywords in addition to titles. It is impossible to scroll down the list, making Keyboard Search the only option. The keywords database should be kept invisable in the background.

14. Using Keyboard Search, there is no Wrap Around on the Keyboard, i.e. pushing the Right Arrow key (like when the letter “J” is currently highlighted) does nothing. It does not jump back to “A.”
15. Wrap Around is missing in several other menus as well.

16. As mentioned several times, the single most missed feature is the loss of pressing the “C” key in the Guide screen to quickly find all times for the highlighted program.

17. In the Navigator Guide menu, movies don't display their star ratings on the top screen. Instead, they appear in the bottom screen after pressing Info. I like to scan movies' star ratings while browsing down the menu.

18. As mentioned before, in the Navigator Guide menu, the movie pages don't have lists of actors nor directors. Nor are the exact lengths of the movies, only the rounded time slots.

19. When selecting a future show in the Navigator Guide menu, there is no menu option for “View This Channel Now.”

20. The front panel does not have a setting for “Channel Number Always On Only While Box On.”

21. Even when the settop box is Off, the resolution of the current channel (480i, 720p, or 1080i) LEDs remain lit on the front panel, as does “HDTV” On or Off.

22. Spin Up, Spin Down, Spin Up, Spin Down, Spin Up, Spin Down… What's it doing??

23. As stated before, recordings start a few seconds later than before.

24. When switching from Rewind directly to Play, the recording jumps forward a few seconds unless you go through Pause. Otherwise you have to guess how much to rewind.

25. Slow Motion mode does not have a special icon. Instead, the Right Arrow (Play) icon is reused.

26. At least twice, programs scheduled to be recorded because they were part of a series did not show Red in the Navigator Guide. When I manually set them to Record, I got two copies.

27. I also have examples of shows in a series sometimes not recording for an unknown reason.

28. Series Recording no longer has an option to “Keep All Episodes Until Manually Deleted.” The only workaround I could find was to set “Manually Delete” in the Scheduled Recordings list. Note that Series created by Passport retain that characteristic, but lose it when modified in Navigator. I'm currently investigating whether that alone breaks Passport-created Series Recording. See the previous two items.

29. The audio output volume from the S-Video jack seems to be significantly lower than before.

30. For recorded shows with a limited life span, there is no longer any estimate as to how long they will last, only an Attention icon. On the other hand, those estimates were not very accurate.

31. I simply don't like the new graphics and icons. They are very “cartoonish.” But I do acknowledge that reusing Aptiv's own would have been a copyright infringement.

32. The last AMBER Alert showed no details about the case (Who, What, Where, When, How), although it was shown while watching a recording.

33. Don't worry! I'll find more and keep this list up to date.

Things That Are New or Improved:

1. Caller ID, of course!

2. The two tuners' video buffers seem to have been increased in capacity from 60 to 90 minutes.

3. The remaining disk space percentage is prominently displayed.

4. In Passport, if you tuned to a channel that was already recording a program, Rewind would only backtrack to the beginning of that program. Now with Navigator, you can Rewind further to the beginning of the tuner's buffer.

This info was taken from:

http://hdtv.forsandiego.com/messages/2/6554.html?1207152426

Jack

1. If the screensaver kicks in while viewing a 16:9 picture, only the center 4:3 area blacks out. The original picture remains in the side bars.What screensaver?:confused:

It might help if we knew which flavor of Navigator he had; MDN or ODN.

IMHO, he missed the biggest bug: sleep mode. Stops buffering after 3 hours of uninterrupted viewing and locks up if external drive is connected.

Also, when reaching the end of a recorded program, the screen allowing the user to delete the recording flashes briefly, then disappears. To delete it, you have to go back to the list menu, scroll down to the program, select it, then select delete.

I was. I just didn't know that whats at work stays at work, regardless of what it is. I didnt know that it would stretch out that far. I guess that in person, I'm able to say, I do this and this for so and so but internet is a different story, especially this situation. I've learned from it though and won't happen again.In practice, people break their NDAs all the time. We all get excited about the stuff that we're working on and leak bits and pieces of information to friends and family. When I worked on cell phones, my job required me to carry a prototype of one of the products that I was working on around as a participant in alpha-test, and often people couldn't help but notice and ask about them. But most of the time, if what we say is to a close friend and we ask them not to spread it around, it probably won't get very far. Still, whenever you do it you take a risk. Talking about stuff in a big active online discussion like this where thousands of people are gonna read what you say is highly likely to get back to the company and will quite possibly get traced back to you. (Your specific violation wasn't leaking secrets, of course).

As you say, it's a learning experience, albeit a harsh one. I'm sure that you'll bounce back--good luck.

Jack, what's funny is that this users list of improvements are features that already exist in SARA. This is also one persons opinion as far as I'm concerned. Stating that the audio from the S-Video jack seems significantly lower???? I got news for this person... S-Video doesn't carry an audio signal.

Guys,

I had to share this with you,

A user at the TWC San Diego Forum has provided a known summary of Navigator's bugs, and a few improvements from Passport. We know that some of these issues will vary from area to area. But perhaps ADMIN might consider a subforum where this list could be maintained and updated. There are too many non- Navigator issues in this thread: Here is the list:

Things That Are Worse or Broken:

1. If the screensaver kicks in while viewing a 16:9 picture, only the center 4:3 area blacks out. The original picture remains in the side bars.

2. When a live program has been paused beyond 90 minutes, exhausting the tuner's buffer, the audio resumes playing, but the screensaver still hides the video.

3. The list of Received Calls of Caller ID is automatically erased every time the settop box reboots.

4. As mentioned previously, time is no longer displayed at the tip of the moving cursor in the timeline. When playing a recorded program, the elapsed time is still shown on an upper left tab on the banner in hh:mm format, neglecting the seconds. But when watching a live program, even when delayed, only the current time is displayed. There is no way to accurately determine the exact position of the cursor in the timeline.

5. Deletion is inconsistent. Deleting from the List Menu requires confirmation. Deleting a show while watching it (by pressing “Stop and Delete”) does not.

6. The List Menu no longer includes “Keep Longer” as a menu option.

7. The List Menu does not show the End Time of a recording until the show is selected.

8. In the List Menu, if the Start Time of a recording is late, the actual Start Time is displayed, but in white, not yellow.

9. As mentioned previously, the List Menu opens near the top of the entries, specifically the 4th entry. That makes it tedious to, say, delete several items near the bottom of the list.

10. Using Keyboard Search, if the program wanted is listed, but the Detail says, “No Scheduled Times,” it means that all show times are in the recent past. Confusing, and why is it there at all?

11. Using Keyboard Search, as typing continues, keyboard letters and program entries not matching the Search String are not grayed out on the Keyboard, nor removed from the Result List. All that happens is that the scrolling pointer is changed. Evaluating the Result List is thus made a little more difficult.

12. Using Keyboard Search, programs with multiple showtimes do not have folder icons, although when clicked the members are shown properly indented.

13. There are too many entries in the Result List, apparently keywords in addition to titles. It is impossible to scroll down the list, making Keyboard Search the only option. The keywords database should be kept invisable in the background.

14. Using Keyboard Search, there is no Wrap Around on the Keyboard, i.e. pushing the Right Arrow key (like when the letter “J” is currently highlighted) does nothing. It does not jump back to “A.”
15. Wrap Around is missing in several other menus as well.

16. As mentioned several times, the single most missed feature is the loss of pressing the “C” key in the Guide screen to quickly find all times for the highlighted program.

17. In the Navigator Guide menu, movies don't display their star ratings on the top screen. Instead, they appear in the bottom screen after pressing Info. I like to scan movies' star ratings while browsing down the menu.

18. As mentioned before, in the Navigator Guide menu, the movie pages don't have lists of actors nor directors. Nor are the exact lengths of the movies, only the rounded time slots.

19. When selecting a future show in the Navigator Guide menu, there is no menu option for “View This Channel Now.”

20. The front panel does not have a setting for “Channel Number Always On Only While Box On.”

21. Even when the settop box is Off, the resolution of the current channel (480i, 720p, or 1080i) LEDs remain lit on the front panel, as does “HDTV” On or Off.

22. Spin Up, Spin Down, Spin Up, Spin Down, Spin Up, Spin Down… What's it doing??

23. As stated before, recordings start a few seconds later than before.

24. When switching from Rewind directly to Play, the recording jumps forward a few seconds unless you go through Pause. Otherwise you have to guess how much to rewind.

25. Slow Motion mode does not have a special icon. Instead, the Right Arrow (Play) icon is reused.

26. At least twice, programs scheduled to be recorded because they were part of a series did not show Red in the Navigator Guide. When I manually set them to Record, I got two copies.

27. I also have examples of shows in a series sometimes not recording for an unknown reason.

28. Series Recording no longer has an option to “Keep All Episodes Until Manually Deleted.” The only workaround I could find was to set “Manually Delete” in the Scheduled Recordings list. Note that Series created by Passport retain that characteristic, but lose it when modified in Navigator. I'm currently investigating whether that alone breaks Passport-created Series Recording. See the previous two items.

29. The audio output volume from the S-Video jack seems to be significantly lower than before.

30. For recorded shows with a limited life span, there is no longer any estimate as to how long they will last, only an Attention icon. On the other hand, those estimates were not very accurate.

31. I simply don't like the new graphics and icons. They are very “cartoonish.” But I do acknowledge that reusing Aptiv's own would have been a copyright infringement.

32. The last AMBER Alert showed no details about the case (Who, What, Where, When, How), although it was shown while watching a recording.

33. Don't worry! I'll find more and keep this list up to date.

Things That Are New or Improved:

1. Caller ID, of course!

2. The two tuners' video buffers seem to have been increased in capacity from 60 to 90 minutes.

3. The remaining disk space percentage is prominently displayed.

4. In Passport, if you tuned to a channel that was already recording a program, Rewind would only backtrack to the beginning of that program. Now with Navigator, you can Rewind further to the beginning of the tuner's buffer.

This info was taken from:

http://hdtv.forsandiego.com/messages/2/6554.html?1207152426

Jack

I did note some corrections from above:

I think he means on the above, "If a screensaver kicks in," not when a screensaver kicks in. AFAIK, Navigator does not have a screensaver.

As already pointed out in a reply, S-video jacks have nothing to do with audio settings. Also, on Passport, my Caller ID on TV list gets erased on a reboot as well.

Otherwise, good info.

Jack

I stopped by my local Cincinnati TWC office to talk about service options today and was told during the conversation that "another major system update is going out today". Yep, got back home and my SA8300HDC was upgraded from Navigator 2.4.8_2 to Navigator 2.4.9_3.

I didn't know that. I checked mine and it was updated @ 0227 this morning. I wonder what this is supposed to fix?

I was. I just didn't know that whats at work stays at work, regardless of what it is. I didnt know that it would stretch out that far. I guess that in person, I'm able to say, I do this and this for so and so but internet is a different story, especially this situation. I've learned from it though and won't happen again.
You also might check to see if your NDA had any POST-Employment disclosure clauses...

Here's the missing intro to Rick Lee's long trouble report list:

"You will clearly see in this post that I have way too much time on my hands.
And I hope it's OK that I started a new thread. The other one was getting crowded.

As a retired commercial software designer, I've been programming since the early 1970s.
Much of my career had been as a Product Development Manager, which included
examining and critiquing others' codes and diagnosing/fixing bugs in addition to programming.

This Navigator OS version is only of “Beta Test” quality and should not have been
released yet. In an effort to help the firmware developers, I'd like to compile
a Master List that could be used both as a Bug List and a Wish List.

If any of you want to help, please add more items. In a few days, I'll find the
most relevant address to email it to TWC. Does anyone know it?

All of these observations pertain to my old SA8300HD and my older still SA8300.
Both DVRs are running Mystro/Atlas 2.4.1-92-ptv (Mt. Huron).
My [3rd] ancient Pioneer box has not been updated at all."

SO: It's re Mystro (MDN) HD-DVR and SD-DVR version.

============================
PS: In our TWC-SD (that's San Diego) Navigator version, there is a "screen saver".
It kicks in after you leave it in PAUSE for awhile...(not sure how many minutes).
"Press any key to continue" mini-menu slowly moves around the black screen....

However, since Navigator Guide only uses 4:3 center section, it leaves
frozen images in the two sidebars if you are watching an HD channel, thereby
defeating the purpose of the screen saver. [His item #1.]

PPS: Other than (still) being fussy re-recognizing the drive, I haven't seen
ANY problems re external eSATA HDD....and Passport's FF/RW bug is gone...
[Something to add to the very short list of improvements!!!!]

When Navigatored both MDN & ODN lost recordings for a minority of users.
Some series recording setups were lost....perhaps due to menu choice mismatches...

Both versions are still missing recordings from time to time....CRITICAL FAILURE...
Which may be partially related to operator confusion re new auto delete features
and there seem to be problems in the conflict detection/resolution logic....

============================================
I've always used a Trouble Report Prioritization scheme....without it everything is equally "important". Suggest using following:

Pri1: CRITICAL FAILURE. Does not perform intended primary task. No workaround.
(e.g. Lost recordings, lost series recordings).
Pri2: MAJOR FAILURE: An important feature is not working, but there may be a workaround
(e.g. Reboot to fix).
Pri3: MINOR FAILURE: A feature used on a nearly daily basis is not working
(e.g. Missing Guide data, missing Keyword search).
Pri4: IRRITATING ANNOYANCE: A feature may be unreliable or inconsistent.
Pri5: OOPS WDITA: It works, but you know it ain't right.
(e.g. illogical menu exit).

another missing feature that I remember is that you can no longer get the time to display on the front of the box. Like say you wanted the channel displayed on the front of the box at all times, but then turn off the box and use it like a clock, the time will not show up even though the old passport and sara still has this. I'm not sure if other people are experiencing it, all I can say is to try it out via the display settings.