Our division has the popups even on HD channels.

We have no HD channels that are start over enabled. The only HD channels with popups are the premiums... the popups there list all the HBO (for instance) multicast channels available. THAT is more annoying than the start over popups... they serve no useful purpose whatsoever, other than to remind me that all of those other multicast channels are not HD, lol.

Passport has a similar convoluted way to get to it's diagnostics. However it DOES have a simple channel selection (996 in my market) that gives you a single screen that list the IPG software and version.

So does my ODN box... the diagnostics channel in Charlotte is 1611. Doesn't tell much, though.

The fastest way to find any hidden channels like that (with an ODN box, anyway) is to look through the Favorites Setup pages... any hidden test or diagnostic channels are always listed there, even if you cannot access them by a normal channel up/dn scan. If you add them to your favorites, they WILL appear in a favorites scan, though.

My division-Metro Milwaukee Wisconsin has a little tip on what channels are coming soon:

Punch in 1810 on the remote and it will go to one of the Adult Movie Channels, than after being on that channel, use the Channel Up button. You will see a list of test channels that may not be activated yet. "____________ is not available, try again later." Pressing A to try again won't do anything.

HOWEVER, if using this method you find a station that is nowhere else on the system, and it comes in, it is a new. (totally new) channel being tested. Such a station will appear about 3-5 days before launch in the IPG grid. Here are provisions of new "test channels:"

1.) They appear about a week before launch in the grid. Both the channel number, and the ability to tune to the channel will be shown in Category and Keyboard Searching, but NOT in the guide grid.

2.) Any channel planning to be a part of a scrambled part of channels will be unscrambled during this test phase. This way all digital cable subs will be able to view a free preview of the station.

3.) The test channels WILL NOT show up when browsing in the Time Grid.

4.) The test channels (to my knowledge) can NOT be directly accessed by going to the test channel number. (However, I am not sure about this.) I have been going to the channel just below the test station that is available and hitting the channel up button.)

For example, suppose NFL Network launches within 5 days of notice before showing up in the guide. Using my example in the Milwaukee area, I go to 1810 "Adult on Demand. Than after hitting the channel up arrow, it might say, 1830 NFL Network in the channel banner. If that happens, I know that NFL Network is coming soon. Suppose they launch Spike TV-HD at the same time. A scroll up from say 1830 NFL Network's test channel, might say 1834, Spike TV-HD. This means that within 5 days, the channel will become official in the grid.

5.) You CAN record Test Channels by doing Searches by Keyboard Title or Category. The station itself does not become official until a new channel number is shown in the time grid.

6.) Because it is a test station, The DVR recording of any channel in test mode may or may not work.

7.) When channels are moved to the grid, they are given new channel numbers, at that time, the test station numbers with the test channels are removed.

Jack

So does my ODN box... the diagnostics channel in Charlotte is 1611. Doesn't tell much, though.

The fastest way to find any hidden channels like that (with an ODN box, anyway) is to look through the Favorites Setup pages... any hidden test or diagnostic channels are always listed there, even if you cannot access them by a normal channel up/dn scan. If you add them to your favorites, they WILL appear in a favorites scan, though.

ours in milwaukee is 0611 to access the diagnostics channel.

My division-Metro Milwaukee Wisconsin has a little tip on what channels are coming soon:

Punch in 1810 on the remote and it will go to one of the Adult Movie Channels, than after being on that channel, use the Channel Up button. You will see a list of test channels that may not be activated yet. "____________ is not available, try again later." Pressing A to try again won't do anything.

HOWEVER, if using this method you find a station that is nowhere else on the system, and it comes in, it is a new. (totally new) channel being tested. Such a station will appear about 3-5 days before launch in the IPG grid. Here are provisions of new "test channels:"

1.) They appear about a week before launch in the grid. Both the channel number, and the ability to tune to the channel will be shown in Category and Keyboard Searching, but NOT in the guide grid.

2.) Any channel planning to be a part of a scrambled part of channels will be unscrambled during this test phase. This way all digital cable subs will be able to view a free preview of the station.

3.) The test channels WILL NOT show up when browsing in the Time Grid.

4.) The test channels (to my knowledge) can NOT be directly accessed by going to the test channel number. (However, I am not sure about this.) I have been going to the channel just below the test station that is available and hitting the channel up button.)

For example, suppose NFL Network launches within 5 days of notice before showing up in the guide. Using my example in the Milwaukee area, I go to 1810 "Adult on Demand. Than after hitting the channel up arrow, it might say, 1830 NFL Network in the channel banner. If that happens, I know that NFL Network is coming soon. Suppose they launch Spike TV-HD at the same time. A scroll up from say 1830 NFL Network's test channel, might say 1834, Spike TV-HD. This means that within 5 days, the channel will become official in the grid.

5.) You CAN record Test Channels by doing Searches by Keyboard Title or Category. The station itself does not become official until a new channel number is shown in the time grid.

6.) Because it is a test station, The DVR recording of any channel in test mode may or may not work.

7.) When channels are moved to the grid, they are given new channel numbers, at that time, the test station numbers with the test channels are removed.

Jack

yeah im always on it as far as when new channels are added. lol. Sometimes they have channels that are already in the guide on those test channels...not exactly sure why though....it was actually kinda kool when they added Smithsonian HD and Mav Tv and we still had access to the HDnet channels.lol made me think we were actually getting more HD channels....and then it was gone the following day.

Those messages have nothing to do with the timer recordings the kids have set up. They are the interface to TWC's "Start Over" service, which acts as a sort of remote DVR. If you press the [Select] button, it will start playback (from the beginning) at the headend of an On-Demand copy of the show you joined in progress... allowing you to see the show from the beginning. TWC has setup Start Over on several networks in most systems, and the popup will appear any time you tune to a channel for which Start Over has been enabled.

There is a setting in the box menus that would appear to disable pop-up messages such as those, but so far has been reported as ineffective. The pop-up will automatically go away a few seconds after it appears with no user intervention required.

It has also been noted that the ability to turn off the Start Over prompts (when it works) is only available in ODN (C-boxes.) The MDN (non-C boxes) do not have the ability to disable the pop-up menus such as Start Over at this time.

Jack

i have to jump on the band wagon with the guys who prefer MDN to ODN. while i never had an HDC, i did play with one at a friends. that was quite awhile ago and it was very buggy. so i cant really judge ODN by how it runs on an HDC box.
however i can judge it by how it runs on my 3090 vs MDN on my 8300HD. i positively prefer the MDN on my 8300HD.
On my MDN box the guide, setup menus, and search are faster. the ODN seems to be just as fast on some days and very slow on others. its slow more often than not.
When i tap play during a FF MDN actually plays like it should, no need to hold the play button as with ODN because ODN works off the release of the button unlike any other piece of electronics i've ever seen. not a huge problem but it requires some relearning to get the timing down because ODN on the sammy seems to use a different frame advance rate.
On ODN if im watching a recording in progress and push LiveTV it actually leaves the recording channel and tunes another station. on my MDN box pressing LiveTV it tunes to the end of what it has recorded and resumes live play, as it should.
I've never missed any recordings on MDN and i can only recall a few spontaneous reboots on my MDN box right after getting hit with navigator and of course reboots from version updates. Cant say the same about the sammy with ODN.

On ODN if im watching a recording in progress and push LiveTV it actually leaves the recording channel and tunes another station. on my MDN box pressing LiveTV it tunes to the end of what it has recorded and resumes live play, as it should.
I've never missed any recordings on MDN and i can only recall a few spontaneous reboots on my MDN box right after getting hit with navigator and of course reboots from version updates. Cant say the same about the sammy with ODN.

My previous 8300HDC and current 3090 both behave as you describe your MDN's behavior.

The missed recordings are not ODN specific but more from a premature marriage of ODN and the Samsung. I never missed a recording on the HDC.

I have never had a spontaneous reboot on either ODN box... ever. However, my previous Pioneer box did that with both Passport and MDN.

My distaste for MDN is admittedly tainted by how absolutely miserable it was running on that Pioneer... and also not caring for even the latest color/graphics scheme on my friends 8300HD. It just has a "cheap" look to it.

Got my bill today with a Navigator flyer. The really significant quotes are:

"Over the next few weeks, you will begin to notice the new Navigator
when you turn on your television.

The change will occur in waves on select HD cable boxes."

Far as I know, every 8300HDC has it, all 2 Samsung 3090s have it, the ONLY boxes that do NOT have it are our 8300HDs. So it sure SOUNDS like the MDN rollout is going to happen in the June/July time frame.

This being TWC, it could not happen until the end of the year, but this info is public, so it could very well happen as they say.

Of course, they COULD be a lot more forthcoming, especially in specifying which boxes this will happen to. Not only that, but god forbid they should tell us to make a careful note of all you series recordings TODAY as this will wipe them out.

My distaste for MDN is admittedly tainted by how absolutely miserable it was running on that Pioneer... and also not caring for even the latest color/graphics scheme on my friends 8300HD. It just has a "cheap" look to it.

But I would have to blame that problem more on the very low Memory of the Pioneer box hardware, than Navigator. The Pioneer boxes and any SA model boxes 2000 series and below, do not have the memory resources needed to run Navigator well.

What TWC was stupid in not doing, was failing to truck roll everyone by community with box swipes when Navigator came to their division's node. FYI: Node refers to your specific neighborhood where your signals are transmitted and received to and from the head-end.

For Navigator to run well, the minimum requirements are:

1.) An SA box model above 2500+ or equivalent newer models

2.) Proper inside/outside wiring and strong signal strength.

3.) Regularly updated head-end connections.

Jack

ours in milwaukee is 0611 to access the diagnostics channel.

Is the diagnositics channel the same as the diagnostics screen with the 14+ pages of info? If not, what is different between the two?

Jack

But I would have to blame that problem more on the very low Memory of the Pioneer box hardware, than Navigator.

Oh...of course. Navigator does not play well with any single tuner non-DVR box, either. But I still don't like it on the newer boxes, either.

Its OK to like MDN if you do... I'm not trying to convice anybody. I just prefer ODN. (I also never had any 2.x version of ODN to taint my experience either.)

Is the diagnositics channel the same as the diagnostics screen with the 14+ pages of info? If not, what is different between the two?

Jack

Its just a single page with a minimal amount of information.

Its just a single page with a minimal amount of information.

Our division has 998 and it has 6 pages.

Is the diagnositics channel the same as the diagnostics screen with the 14+ pages of info? If not, what is different between the two?

Jack


its has about 6 pages...less info.

and also not caring for even the latest color/graphics scheme on my friends 8300HD. It just has a "cheap" look to it.

please help me understand "cheap" latest color/graphics scheme.
the color/graphics scheme on my MDN version is the same as on my ODN version. except ODN is stretched.
what version does your friend have?

but either way,,,,we all like what we like,,,doesnt make anybody wrong

please help me understand "cheap" latest color/graphics scheme.
the color/graphics scheme on my MDN version is the same as on my ODN version. except ODN is stretched.
what version does your friend have?

but either way,,,,we all like what we like,,,doesnt make anybody wrong

My friend you must have never seen SARA graphics>We have SARA in Greensboro and Navigator at a small beach home we have. Compared to SARA Navigator is a Rembrant.

My previous 8300HDC and current 3090 both behave as you describe your MDN's behavior.

must just be my sammy box then . its done it from day one.

The missed recordings are not ODN specific but more from a premature marriage of ODN and the Samsung.
agreed:D

please help me understand "cheap" latest color/graphics scheme.
the color/graphics scheme on my MDN version is the same as on my ODN version. except ODN is stretched.
what version does your friend have?

but either way,,,,we all like what we like,,,doesnt make anybody wrong

The MDN boxes in Charlotte are all shades of light blue with yellow highlights... no dark gray/silver/dark blue like ODN. Also, the edge details of the banners are not as smooth and 3-D like. I tried to find the version number but couldn't find it in the diagnostics pages.

ODN does not stretch the graphics... Samsung does. They would not be stretched on an HDC.

Never said anybody was wrong to like one or the other, but sometimes opinions seem to be based old versions (as mine may be on MDN) and descriptions of behaviors are no longer correct with later versions.

My friend you must have never seen SARA graphics>We have SARA in Greensboro and Navigator at a small beach home we have. Compared to SARA Navigator is a Rembrant.

My friend i have had both SARA and Passport. I never said Navigator looked bad:confused:

The MDN boxes in Charlotte are all shades of light blue with yellow highlights... no gray/silver/dark blue like ODN.

yeh, thats not the latest version of MDN. that might also explain any other dislikes you have with MDN. you should drive up and check out v2.4.4-14 (also not the latest but works great)

i'm feeling deja vu............have you and i had this discussion before?

I've learned from a tech at my local TWC office that new cable boxes are coming VERY soon for my area. I was told on another thread that this will probably also be an upgrade to Navigator. I know Navigator had a ton of early problems, but how stable is it at this point? I have SARA and it is very stable, but it is a boring guide with very few guide searching features. The features listed for Navigator look GREAT, but the question is, do they work and is it stable?

I've learned from a tech at my local TWC office that new cable boxes are coming VERY soon for my area. I was told on another thread that this will probably also be an upgrade to Navigator. I know Navigator had a ton of early problems, but how stable is it at this point? I have SARA and it is very stable, but it is a boring guide with very few guide searching features. The features listed for Navigator look GREAT, but the question is, do they work and is it stable?

sounds like you may be getting samsung boxes. if its the 3090, down here they seem to be sorta flaky with the version of navigator we have. other areas that have them dont seem to be having any problems with a newer version.

the newest version of navigator on the 8300HDC's seems to be stable from what i've read

Passport has a similar convoluted way to get to it's diagnostics. However it DOES have a simple channel selection (996 in my market) that gives you a single screen that list the IPG software and version.

the 8300HDC also has 996 channel but it gives you 6 pages of info:)

I know what you mean dack i don't think navigator and the sammies are far off...just our division talking about navigator to me is a good sign ...i think! :rolleyes:;)

I know what you mean dack i don't think navigator and the sammies are far off...just our division talking about navigator to me is a good sign ...i think! :rolleyes:;)

I did a little more searching and my question is this:

Could we possibly be getting the newest Samsung 3270 with a 320GB HDD? That would be great!

extra space would be great ...but i would be tickled pink to not bask my eyes on sara for one more day!

Don't know if CNY will deploy that but even the 320 GB 3090 would be just as great. Our division is having some major issues with the 3270.

MDN works better with E-SATA drive support and is consistently stable. I have not missed a recording in AT LEAST 6 months and the guide speed is very good. Sometimes there might be a half a second delay while loading data into like the 5th day, but you can hardly notice this. We have learned that MDN will still be supported for several years from the poster above who gave us some helpful information. If your box and model works well. Keep it and take care of it really well, because you don't know how well the next one may be, especially in the midst of the new buggy Samsungs.


My MDN SA8300HD box with Rosewill eSATA enclosure with 750GB Seagate drive was solid for over 1 year. Then about 2 months it started to disconnect the eSATA drive. I had to program ESPN News to constantly record (only keeping 1 episode) to stop this from happening. Also, the GUI crawls very frequently since 2 weeks ago. I might try the eSATA drive on my SA8300HDC box to see what happens. But I might just get rid of TWC too.

My friend i have had both SARA and Passport. I never said Navigator looked bad:confused:

I understand was just saying in my opinion looks wise SARA is the uglyest one. I to have had all 3 guides.

yeh, thats not the latest version of MDN. that might also explain any other dislikes you have with MDN. you should drive up and check out v2.4.4-14 (also not the latest but works great)

It works, but using the word "great" is going too far. :p

New annoyance found this week. Previously I had Burn Notice as a series recording set to only record at 10pm to avoid recording repeats marked as "new" in the guide.

When I noticed it was only recording the 11pm Sunday airing instead of 9pm Thursday I went into the SR options to change the time to 9pm and found that I couldn't. It only gave me the choice of the previously set 10pm or anytime.

If the box is smart enough to figure out that 11pm is close to 10pm and record that, then why not have all hours available in the options and it can just record the closest (or in this case the actual) broadcast time?

It works, but using the word "great" is going too far. :p

New annoyance found this week. Previously I had Burn Notice as a series recording set to only record at 10pm to avoid recording repeats marked as "new" in the guide.

When I noticed it was only recording the 11pm Sunday airing instead of 9pm Thursday I went into the SR options to change the time to 9pm and found that I couldn't. It only gave me the choice of the previously set 10pm or anytime.

If the box is smart enough to figure out that 11pm is close to 10pm and record that, then why not have all hours available in the options and it can just record the closest (or in this case the actual) broadcast time?

I don't know about MDN, but ODN will not record a second showing of the same episode marked as "New" (as same-week repeats of cable shows such as Burn Notice, IPS, etc. are labelled), so there is no need to select specific show times for recording "New" episodes.

Coupled with the Series Priority setting, this works out great. If you set those cable shows that repeat "New" episodes with a low priority, if there is a conflict with a broadcast show that does not repeat, it will automatically resolve the conflict by postponing Burn Notice, for instance, to the second showing. If there is NOT a conflict on the first "New" showing, it will record it but it will NOT record the second showing.

Very handy and flexible features in the ODN Series Manager. If MDN does not behave that way, that would be a show-stopper for me to EVER accept an MDN box.

Some helpful information from me in the TWC-HD thread for a customer who asked about the new Samsung boxes and Navigator. (The OP did not post to the Navigator thread.) I talked about the differences between MDN/OCAP and if you are interested can direct your attention to this thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=652328&page=193

Jack

I don't know about MDN, but ODN will not record a second showing of the same episode marked as "New" (as same-week repeats of cable shows such as Burn Notice, IPS, etc. are labeled), so there is no need to select specific show times for recording "New" episodes.

Coupled with the Series Priority setting, this works out great. If you set those cable shows that repeat "New" episodes with a low priority, if there is a conflict with a broadcast show that does not repeat, it will automatically resolve the conflict by postponing Burn Notice, for instance, to the second showing. If there is NOT a conflict on the first "New" showing, it will record it but it will NOT record the second showing.

Very handy and flexible features in the ODN Series Manager. If MDN does not behave that way, that would be a show-stopper for me to EVER accept an MDN box.

Even though I don't have an external storage drive, the issue of these drives not working with OCAP boxes would break the deal for me. If I had an external drive, spending $150-$200 for it, and it works great on MDN, and my MDN box goes bad, or I swap it out for ODN and my external drive no longer works, thats $200 down the crapper. Can anyone dispute this? That is the biggest feather in the cap of MDN. Until we get consistent reports of positive behavior with OCAP/ODN and external drives, the behavior of the problems with OCAP and external drives is a very justified criticism.

Jack

Even though I don't have an external storage drive, the issue of these drives not working with OCAP boxes would break the deal for me. If I had an external drive, spending $150-$200 for it, and it works great on MDN, and my MDN box goes bad, or I swap it out for ODN and my external drive no longer works, thats $200 down the crapper. Can anyone dispute this?The only thing I can dispute is the cost. Unless you're reaching for a terabyte, it kinda hard to spend more than $100 for an external drive. In fact, my last terabyte drive cost about that.

The only thing I can dispute is the cost. Unless you're reaching for a terabyte, it kinda hard to spend more than $100 for an external drive. In fact, my last terabyte drive cost about that.

That, and you can always use it for something else - so it isn't really down the crapper.

xnappo

Until TWC explicitly supports the external drive capability of one or more of the DVRs that they lease, to my mind it's irrelevant whether it works or not with MDN. At any time they could push a bug-fixing release of MDN which breaks the external drive "feature" and the people using it will have no standing for complaint, since they were never told that attaching such drives would do anything useful with any version of Navigator. (I believe that that's exactly what happened with ODN, wasn't it? Some earlier versions used attached external drives and current versions don't).

Until TWC explicitly supports the external drive capability of one or more of the DVRs that they lease, to my mind it's irrelevant whether it works or not with MDN. At any time they could push a bug-fixing release of MDN which breaks the external drive "feature" and the people using it will have no standing for complaint, since they were never told that attaching such drives would do anything useful with any version of Navigator. (I believe that that's exactly what happened with ODN, wasn't it? Some earlier versions used attached external drives and current versions don't).

I agree and have mentioned before... the very ones that are screaming for continuing updates for MDN are the ones who will be hurt the most when that next update they wanted disables their eSATA.

The MDN boxes in Charlotte are all shades of light blue with yellow highlights... no dark gray/silver/dark blue like ODN. Also, the edge details of the banners are not as smooth and 3-D like. I tried to find the version number but couldn't find it in the diagnostics pages.

Are you sure your friend has an 8300HD? When our Passport Echo box was converted to Navigator last spring it had the blue on blue color scheme, but it was changed after just a few months.

Both of our 8300HD boxes have had the same color scheme since at least September as your screen shots a few weeks ago.

The only difference I noticed between my MDN and your screenshots of ODN you posted is that ODN had longer, non-truncated, program descriptions.

I have attached a photo of the MDN I have been using for at least 9 months.

I bet that will most likely happen with MDN.

Are you sure your friend has an 8300HD? When our Passport Echo box was converted to Navigator last spring it had the blue on blue color scheme, but it was changed after just a few months.

Both of our 8300HD boxes have had the same color scheme since at least September as your screen shots a few weeks ago.

The only difference I noticed between my MDN and your screenshots of ODN you posted is that ODN had longer, non-truncated, program descriptions.

I have attached a photo of the MDN I have been using for at least 9 months.

Yep... Its an 8300HD... it did change color schemes a while back but it doesn't look like ODN like your pic does.

Quick question that I don't think anyone has given an answer to yet. Though this probably is more specific to certain box models. But on the 8300HDC for example under the 'Devices' screen on the 'Audio:Range' option. What would be the option that leaves the original dynamic range of the Dolby stream untouched? Wide? Normal? I'd assume wide, but not completely sure.

Until TWC explicitly supports the external drive capability of one or more of the DVRs that they lease, to my mind it's irrelevant whether it works or not with MDN.

Well, TWC doesn't explicitely support routers, and I bet that everyone here is using one.

TWC is obviously writing code to support eSATA - it is in the menus and the box tries to format it etc.

I think the software team is working on getting it working. I do not think they are breaking it intentionally. TWC customer support will likely NEVER help to debug eSATA.

It is a risk, yes, but I think long term it will work (at least on the Samsung boxes).

xnappo

Quick question that I don't think anyone has given an answer to yet. Though this probably is more specific to certain box models. But on the 8300HDC for example under the 'Devices' screen on the 'Audio:Range' option. What would be the option that leaves the original dynamic range of the Dolby stream untouched? Wide? Normal? I'd assume wide, but not completely sure.

I have wondered about this, too. Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt it has any dynamic range expansion capabilities. If so, the labeling is misleading... "Wide" should be "Normal", with two levels of "Narrow" compression.

In any case, I really haven't been able to detect much difference, if any, between Normal and Wide. I'm not even 100% sure if the control effects all source formats and all outputs.

The Samsung has the same options, BTW.

Quick question that I don't think anyone has given an answer to yet. Though this probably is more specific to certain box models. But on the 8300HDC for example under the 'Devices' screen on the 'Audio:Range' option. What would be the option that leaves the original dynamic range of the Dolby stream untouched? Wide? Normal? I'd assume wide, but not completely sure.This has been discussed a time or two before (search thread for "dynamic" and "narrow"). It's not obvious from the name, but I believe narrow is desired. One of the posts is below.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12035865#post12035865

This has been discussed a time or two before (search thread for "dynamic" and "narrow"). It's not obvious from the name, but I believe narrow is desired. One of the posts is below.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12035865#post12035865


Well, according to that my doubts of having expansion capabilities were unfounded, and the labelling IS correct. However, the recommendation from that post would seem to be that "Normal" should be used unless RF output is utilized (hope nobody on this forum is doing that, lol). The Samsungs don't even have an RF out.


So, to summarize:

Narrow - Required if using RF out. Optional for baseband out, as a pseudo night-mode or to avoid variations across variety of channels/content.
Normal - The normal mode for baseband analog & digital connections... preserves original dynamic range of source.
Wide - Expands dynamic range - louds are louder... softs are softer (shades of my old dbx 118 dynamic range expander!). I would think this should be avoided for wide range digital sources but might be useful for dynamically compressed analog NTSC channels to restore dynamics or and/or lower noise floor.

Well, TWC doesn't explicitely support routers, and I bet that everyone here is using one.

TWC is obviously writing code to support eSATA - it is in the menus and the box tries to format it etc.

I think the software team is working on getting it working. I do not think they are breaking it intentionally. TWC customer support will likely NEVER help to debug eSATA.

It is a risk, yes, but I think long term it will work (at least on the Samsung boxes).They may well be planning to support external SATA drives at some point--my point is that they do not do it yet, and claiming that MDN is superior because it "works" in some versions of it is wrong, since it very well may not work in the next. I'm sure that they didn't mean to break it in ODN when they did, but having broken it didn't stop them from pushing the new release (and, I think, further ones in which it remains broken).

They cannot tell you that the box will do something and not provide technical support for it. Well, I suppose that they could, but the drive becomes such an integral part of the DVR while attached that they almost have to support it. Almost any observed bug could be caused, in part, by the fact that a drive is attached.

Support for routers isn't the same--that's more akin to them not providing support for your television, when it's necessary that you connect one to get much use out of any of their leased STBs (and it's not necessary for you to connect a router to use a cable modem). Locally, they do support routers if they provide them; if you call for service and you're using one that they didn't provide, they'll have you disconnect it before attempting to diagnose the problem (I've been through that pain :rolleyes:).

:mad: After two years of recording problems, frozen channels and a horrible new guide i finally got the new samsung 3090 yesterday. Big deal... I change channels and get a black screen. Hit last and black screen. So what's the big deal. Nothing. How can TWC raise their prices yet give us junk?

So, to summarize:

Narrow - Required if using RF out. Optional for baseband out, as a pseudo night-mode or to avoid variations across variety of channels/content.
Normal - The normal mode for baseband analog & digital connections... preserves original dynamic range of source.
Wide - Expands dynamic range - louds are louder... softs are softer (shades of my old dbx 118 dynamic range expander!). I would think this should be avoided for wide range digital sources but might be useful for dynamically compressed analog NTSC channels to restore dynamics or and/or lower noise floor.


i recall when i was having some audio issues. (recorded program audio level was lower than live programing on the 8300) some one suggested i set the audio to narrow. so when i got the samsung i just set it it to narrow too. Acording to that info i should have it set to normal. i have noticed variations in audio levels , seems like some commercials are a lot louder. this is with the narrow setting. according to that description of what narrow setting is i shouldn't be hearing that difference.
just now toggling them on the sammy i can detect no audible difference between narrow and normal but wide is noticeably quieter.

:mad: After two years of recording problems, frozen channels and a horrible new guide i finally got the new samsung 3090 yesterday. Big deal... I change channels and get a black screen. Hit last and black screen. So what's the big deal. Nothing. How can TWC raise their prices yet give us junk?

have you had you signal levels checked? you could have a bad splitter or coax line or need an amp. could also be a SDV (switched digital video) problem. occasionally but rarely i get a black screen , a quick channel change fixes it. its always on a SDV channel.
but i agree with you concerning prices and the quality of software and customer service.

i recall when i was having some audio issues. (recorded program audio level was lower than live programing on the 8300) some one suggested i set the audio to narrow. so when i got the samsung i just set it it to narrow too. Acording to that info i should have it set to normal. i have noticed variations in audio levels , seems like some commercials are a lot louder. this is with the narrow setting. according to that description of what narrow setting is i shouldn't be hearing that difference.
just now toggling them on the sammy i can detect no audible difference between narrow and normal but wide is noticeably quieter.

The degree that these modes effect the perceived audio levels depends greatly on where the content's average program level falls relative to the unity gain point on the compression (or expansion) curve. If the average level falls very close to the unity gain point, then the percieved effect will be small, if any.

It works, but using the word "great" is going too far. :p

New annoyance found this week. Previously I had Burn Notice as a series recording set to only record at 10pm to avoid recording repeats marked as "new" in the guide.

When I noticed it was only recording the 11pm Sunday airing instead of 9pm Thursday I went into the SR options to change the time to 9pm and found that I couldn't. It only gave me the choice of the previously set 10pm or anytime.

If the box is smart enough to figure out that 11pm is close to 10pm and record that, then why not have all hours available in the options and it can just record the closest (or in this case the actual) broadcast time?

To get the corect time you want to record just go to the next time it is playing the hr you want and set the recording options. It will then put the time in you are trying to record as a selection. It only puts in (all showings )and the time you used to set the recording as a choice.

have you had you signal levels checked? you could have a bad splitter or coax line or need an amp. could also be a SDV (switched digital video) problem. occasionally but rarely i get a black screen , a quick channel change fixes it. its always on a SDV channel.
but i agree with you concerning prices and the quality of software and customer service.

I have brand new cables from the street to the pole then underground to my home. All cables into the home were replaced and I have brand new tv's and HDMI cables.

For a time I had an amp but recently the techs now say it was the problem so they removed it. I still have HD channels freeze and rebooting will not help. Video on demand never works on the weekends. And yes they check everything everytime they come.

It's such a long story but TWC kept telling me I was the only one with problems after they changed software. LIARS!!!!!

I am waiting on my refund for paying for hd-dvr box that didn't work. They also found my internet cable was installed wrong. It will never get better and will never end because all TWC wants is our money.

Spoke to a CSR (fingers crossed) here in Greensboro today. He could not give me any exact information on Navigator but he did say after the Digital switch here in Greensboro and the Triad a lot of BIG CHANGES were due in July and August. He said he was not able to provide more details as of now. I guess it has to be Navigator. He also said 10 new HD channels would be launched in July and August which leads me to belive Navigator is the BIG CHANGES that are comeing here.

Spoke to a CSR (fingers crossed) here in Greensboro today. He could not give me any exact information on Navigator but he did say after the Digital switch here in Greensboro and the Triad a lot of BIG CHANGES were due in July and August. He said he was not able to provide more details as of now. I guess it has to be Navigator. He also said 10 new HD channels would be launched in July and August which leads me to belive Navigator is the BIG CHANGES that are comeing here.

I'd be pretty sure it's Navigator that's the big change as a lot of NYC areas are being converted in the coming weeks. Do you want to venture what 10 new HD channels you might be getting?

Jack

Spoke to a CSR (fingers crossed) here in Greensboro today. He could not give me any exact information on Navigator but he did say after the Digital switch here in Greensboro and the Triad a lot of BIG CHANGES were due in July and August. He said he was not able to provide more details as of now. I guess it has to be Navigator. He also said 10 new HD channels would be launched in July and August which leads me to belive Navigator is the BIG CHANGES that are comeing here.

Good luck... we all look forward to Woody no longer pining for Navigator!:p

Since TW seems to be trying hard to keep the HD channels consistent across all NC divisions (recent HD channel additions have been identical in Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh & Wilmington Divisions), I can hope with you for those 10 new channels!

I'd be pretty sure it's Navigator that's the big change as a lot of NYC areas are being converted in the coming weeks. Do you want to venture what 10 new HD channels you might be getting?

Jack

The CSR had not seen the list of new HD channels yet. But I did inquire.If I hear more i will post it for sure.

Good luck... we all look forward to Woody no longer pining for Navigator!:p

Since TW seems to be trying hard to keep the HD channels consistent across all NC divisions (recent HD channel additions have been identical in Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh & Wilmington Divisions), I can hope with you for those 10 new channels!

As long as I get a version of Navigator that works I'll welcome it with open arms.We have a 8300hd in the den and wife and I have a 8240c in bedroom so I guess I can compare ODN and MSD when they arrive. Will let all know my opinion compared to each other and to SARA.

Time Warner Cable Hits 100 HD Channels In Central New York
Operator Offers Expanded Lineup to Syracuse-Area Customers
Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 6/1/2009 12:26:19 PM MT

Time Warner Cable's Central New York Division began offering its customers in the Syracuse-area the ability to watch up to 100 high-definition channels as of May 31.

In addition, Time Warner Cable said in late June it will begin delivering its own locally produced, exclusive programming -- its 24-hour local news channel News 10 Now and Time Warner Cable Sports network -- in the high-definition format.

The company said it will offer 100 HD channels everywhere in its Central New York Division, including the southern tier, the Utica/Rome area and northern New York systems, with the addition of more HD channels later in June.

The operator freed up capacity to offer 100 HDs by using technologies including switched digital video, which delivers programming only when it's requested by a subscriber.

The 100-HD channel count includes all available networks, including optional "premium" networks like HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and Starz for which a subscription is required. An HD-capable converter is required to receive HD programming available, at the same rate as a non-HD converter.

In New York City, Time Warner Cable passed the 100-HD mark in February.


i was told directly that navigator is very extremely close to being unleashed in our division in central ny.

He told me the navigator we would be getting would be the one that you type in three letter keys to search for programming what version is that?

Don't know. Maybe it could be a newer version. You should get ODN on the HDC boxes and MDN for all the legacy ones. The Samsung boxes will also get ODN.

Is the diagnositics channel the same as the diagnostics screen with the 14+ pages of info? If not, what is different between the two?

Jack

Channel 611 is a truncated version of DIAG info.

Until TWC explicitly supports the external drive capability of one or more of the DVRs that they lease, to my mind it's irrelevant whether it works or not with MDN. At any time they could push a bug-fixing release of MDN which breaks the external drive "feature" and the people using it will have no standing for complaint, since they were never told that attaching such drives would do anything useful with any version of Navigator. (I believe that that's exactly what happened with ODN, wasn't it? Some earlier versions used attached external drives and current versions don't).

Many already have problems with MDN and eSATA after a year or more of it working solidly. Alas, I am one of those.

Quick question that I don't think anyone has given an answer to yet. Though this probably is more specific to certain box models. But on the 8300HDC for example under the 'Devices' screen on the 'Audio:Range' option. What would be the option that leaves the original dynamic range of the Dolby stream untouched? Wide? Normal? I'd assume wide, but not completely sure.

I had to switch from HDMI to Component to stop the HDC from switching my HDC Audio from Narrow to Fixed, after a software "update"!

I had to switch from HDMI to Component to stop the HDC from switching my HDC Audio from Narrow to Fixed, after a software "update"!

On my MDN box's Audio Settings:

"Narrow" is the default. Useful for consistent volume levels when changing channels or going to commercials. This setting has worked well for me. Others report differently.

"Normal". A full dynamic volume range, BUT you may get louder than you want advertising, soft voices, and loud music drowning out voices.

"Wide": Not sure on this setting. Is this useful for surround sound systems? Users report that the use of this setting makes volume levels quieter.

Fixed: Used to control volume range through your box.

Variable: Used for audio range through a sound system. (Is this where the "Wide" setting is useful?)

Your TV may also have similar settings, so if Navigator doesn't do an audio setting well, try your TV equivalent, sometimes that can "boost" what you want.

Jack

He told me the navigator we would be getting would be the one that you type in three letter keys to search for programming what version is that?

Have not heard of this feature, so it could be a new version of Navigator. Right now, Navigator offers Category Search. (Pretty extensive) and Keyboard Title Search. You enter each letter of the show you are looking for and corresponding titles appear. If a show usually begins with the letter "A" or "The," it is the beginning of the second word in the title that you key in the search.

What users have been craving for is the ability to do Keyboard searching by Keywords. That is, typing a word or category will bring up any shows, movies, specials, or actors associated with that keyword. Supposedly Keyword Search is on tap as a high-priority Navigator update. Other features coming are longer program information descriptions and remote DVR management!

TWC is working to try to make Navigator at least equal to or better than Passport and SARA. We'll see. I think it's getting there!

Jack

I think it's going to get better. I saw a 8300HD running MDN at the local TWC center. It wasn't your ordinary 8300HD. It was the 8300HD with Multi room capabilities. TWC never did deploy the 8300HD's multi room feature. Supposedly it had too many issues.

He told me the navigator we would be getting would be the one that you type in three letter keys to search for programming what version is that?

My guess would be both MDN and ODN. I was idly turning over the notice I got indicating that MDN is very close to deployment and caught the phrase "keyboard search" in several places.

Fixed: Used to control volume range through your box.

Variable: Used for audio range through a sound system. (Is this where the "Wide" setting is useful?)

Your TV may also have similar settings, so if Navigator doesn't do an audio setting well, try your TV equivalent, sometimes that can "boost" what you want.

Jack

Actually, I think "variable" is what allows the audio level to be controlled by the STB, while fixed normally means the STB sends one level only and volume is controlled by a secondary device (TV, AVR, etc.). However, at least with my stuff, going optical for audio negates any possibility of taking advantage of this.

Yes I know one can rig the remote to control audio level in an outboard AVR, but that doesn't work for me as I have a really beefy Carver AVR (200-400 watts per channel, 5.1).

I suspect Keyword Search is close to being deployed on the new verion that is upcomeing on Navigator. Hopefuuly anyway since we in Greensboro shoul;d get Navigator in next couple months.

What users have been craving for is the ability to do Keyboard searching by Keywords. That is, typing a word or category will bring up any shows, movies, specials, or actors associated with that keyword. Supposedly Keyword Search is on tap as a high-priority Navigator update. Other features coming are longer program information descriptions and remote DVR management!

TWC is working to try to make Navigator at least equal to or better than Passport and SARA. We'll see. I think it's getting there!

Jack

Keyword search is a HUGE deal. It's actually a way to almost equal one of the big selling points of TiVO... in that one can set up a favorite actor, director, musician etc. and have anything they appear in get automatically set to record. And I have had that functionality for years and years already... so when I get MDN'd I'm not going to be very happy.

The pisser is that TWC is touting "keyboard search" in Navigator... a clever way of sounding like you'll get it.

My guess would be both MDN and ODN. I was idly turning over the notice I got indicating that MDN is very close to deployment and caught the phrase "keyboard search" in several places.

"KeyBOARD" search is implemented now in Navigator. "KeyWORD" search is what people are looking to be added. If it said "KeyBOARD" search in the notice I wouldn't get too excited just yet.

Actually, I think "variable" is what allows the audio level to be controlled by the STB, while fixed normally means the STB sends one level only and volume is controlled by a secondary device (TV, AVR, etc.). However, at least with my stuff, going optical for audio negates any possibility of taking advantage of this.

Yes I know one can rig the remote to control audio level in an outboard AVR, but that doesn't work for me as I have a really beefy Carver AVR (200-400 watts per channel, 5.1).

How does your AVR being "beefy" affect where you control the audio levels? For some time I ran a Carver CT-17 5.1 preamp with multiple TFM-25 (225W/Ch) power amps, and currently run an Onkyo 876 AVR with one TFM running the fronts... I have no issues setting the box at fixed and controlling volume for all sources at the AVR (or Carver preamp in the past).

Also, if you control the audio level at the box, matrix surround decoding of two channel sources by PLII (or similar) processes can be effected by the changing of volume level at the source. Setting the box to a fixed output and controlling volume at the AVR eliminates that problem.

Well thanks guys for elaborating on what csr might have meant all i know was he said that i will love it and that it would "KNOCK MY SOCKS OFF" ! He was very adamant that it has been testing for well over two months now (NAVIGATOR) . When i asked about the samsung 3090 ...he to said they were testing a model not sure on model series though ...He told me i should keep calling back so i can get put on a list for the model there testing . He said the only thing holding back the new guide and receivers were, as he put it " Alot of red tape ":cool:

On my MDN box's Audio Settings:

"Narrow" is the default. Useful for consistent volume levels when changing channels or going to commercials. This setting has worked well for me. Others report differently.

"Normal". A full dynamic volume range, BUT you may get louder than you want advertising, soft voices, and loud music drowning out voices.

"Wide": Not sure on this setting. Is this useful for surround sound systems? Users report that the use of this setting makes volume levels quieter.

Fixed: Used to control volume range through your box.

Variable: Used for audio range through a sound system. (Is this where the "Wide" setting is useful?)

Your TV may also have similar settings, so if Navigator doesn't do an audio setting well, try your TV equivalent, sometimes that can "boost" what you want.

Jack

I forgot to note that I split off audio at STB to amplified speakers so audio doesn't go through the TV. When the update last hit, STB would switch Audio setting to Fixed on power cycle until I connected video to TV with component.

"KeyBOARD" search is implemented now in Navigator. "KeyWORD" search is what people are looking to be added. If it said "KeyBOARD" search in the notice I wouldn't get too excited just yet.

Good luck finding a sports program with its Keyboard Search. Nothing close to what Passport had.

Good luck finding a sports program with its Keyboard Search. Nothing close to what Passport had.

Agreed,

The tiered search system works better for definitive titles such as movies or series. But on Navigator, if you want to search in sports for Football, you have to press Select to expand the listings of the games that are available.

However, the Keyboard (not word) search goes by Title, so in this case, you would have to type in the TYPE of Football you want. For example, pressing "N-Than F-Than L for NFL Football.

The work around is to do a Category Search: Press (B) Find Shows, Scroll to Sports, Press Select, than find Football. ***Generally the FIRST listings are the most recent, so that is where you should begin searching/selecting what games are on or to watch.***

When KeyWORD search comes out, you hopefully will be able to just start typing the name of the football team playing, or anything associated with the game, and it will come up.

Jack

Agreed,

The tiered search system works better for definitive titles such as movies or series. But on Navigator, if you want to search in sports for Football, you have to press Select to expand the listings of the games that are available.

However, the Keyboard (not word) search goes by Title, so in this case, you would have to type in the TYPE of Football you want. For example, pressing "N-Than F-Than L for NFL Football.

The work around is to do a Category Search: Press (B) Find Shows, Scroll to Sports, Press Select, than find Football. ***Generally the FIRST listings are the most recent, so that is where you should begin searching/selecting what games are on or to watch.***

When KeyWORD search comes out, you hopefully will be able to just start typing the name of the football team playing, or anything associated with the game, and it will come up.

Jack

I know Navigator keyword will not be as good as Tivo. I just hope it equals or surpasses Passport. But it being Time Warner it scares me.

I hope we do get Keyword Search. That would be nice.

Check out the Samsung 3090/3270 thread for my postings on the 3260. It's a nice box but I think there are minor issues though those can be fixed.

I don't know about MDN, but ODN will not record a second showing of the same episode marked as "New" (as same-week repeats of cable shows such as Burn Notice, IPS, etc. are labelled), so there is no need to select specific show times for recording "New" episodes.

It depends. This week alone the box has tried to record the same episode of In Plain Sight three times because I canceled the original Sunday air time recording. Every time I cancel each scheduled event it just decides to record the next "New" episode.

It appears that unless it has some drive evidence that the show was recorded it will just keep trying until the week is over.

To get the corect time you want to record just go to the next time it is playing the hr you want and set the recording options. It will then put the time in you are trying to record as a selection. It only puts in (all showings )and the time you used to set the recording as a choice.

Which is what I had to do. The fact it needed me to go guide hunting is more work than it should be as it is. If you are over a week away from the first airing you can't even do that.

The whole point of series recording is that it's supposed to be a "set it and forget it" system - the box finds and records your show without you having to remember when it's going to be on. If you have to find and navigate to a new time slot in the guide yourself just to make an adjustment it defeats the point.

It depends. This week alone the box has tried to record the same episode of In Plain Sight three times because I canceled the original Sunday air time recording. Every time I cancel each scheduled event it just decides to record the next "New" episode.

It appears that unless it has some drive evidence that the show was recorded it will just keep trying until the week is over.

I've noticed that. It's a nice feature when there's a recording conflict and you have to cancel a show on cable that usually airs multiple times.

STEPS TO PREPARE FOR THE MDN NAVIGATOR DOWNLOAD-What to Expect

With the announcement of several cities in New York and future Passport/SARA systems potentially converted to Navigator in the coming months, I thought I would share with you what to expect, because not all TWC locations are equal in how they prepare you for the transition:

1.) If you are in their mailing list system, you are supposed to get a flier and/or phone call announcing Navigator, but the exact dates and times are very vague. In fact, our mails were so slow that we got a flier about Navigator coming AFTER it had already been on our box for about three days! LOL!

2.) The first thing you need to do is watch anything that you value on your DVR, or at least burn the programs to some other medium, DVR-R, computer, even copy on old VCR tape. Although the latest versions of Navigator HAVE been very good at preserving your recordings, and it is likely a 75% or better chance that recordings will carry over, you should start watching and/or making copies of stuff NOW, just in case your on that 25% or lower population that might have problems. Start viewing and/or transferring big deal programs now. Don't wait!

3.) When you get that notice, e-mail, or phone call about "One or more of your boxes will be updated" treat that as within 2-7 days. In January of 2007, I actually got a notice that my old Pioneer box, which I no longer have was supposed to be updated but never was. A good thing, because the Pioneer boxes are horrible with Navigator because of their age and memory restrictions. (See #3 below)

3.) Be aware of the age of your box and the model of the box. When is the last time your inside and outside wiring was checked as well as signal strength? If it has been a long time, or you have never done it, see if you can schedule a service call to have your signal strength and lines checked out. Good Navigator performance demands good signal and line quality and a reasonably modern box. Also, if your box has not been rebooted for a long time, do a cold reboot. (Unplug for 30 seconds than plug back in) shortly after you get notice of Navigator coming in the mail or that phone call. This will "clean up" any old data that might interfere with the download.

4.) A modern box for the MDN Navigator download should be the following:

a.) For non-DVR units: An SA box model number 3000 or higher. It has been reported by TWC that code was changed to make those old Pioneer 1000-2000 and SA 1000-2000 more compliant with Navigator, but that hasn't helped all that much. Make sure you have an SA-3000 or higher series box.

b.) For DVR users: You should be ABOVE the SA-8000 for best Navigator performance. The SA-8300 works very well on Navigator provided that the above wiring and signal strength are good.

This is not to suggest that Navigator won't work on the older SA-8000 DVR's or Pioneer 1000-2000, or SA 1000-2000 boxes, but it will likely be very slow and sluggish. If you want the faster speeds for Navigator, you will need a newer box.

5.) Most MDN Navigator download transfers will happen within 3-5 days of notice. MDN is going by box type. Generally, at least in my division, (Milwaukee, WI) the DVR boxes were the LAST to update. Your division may also go by community or node as well as box type. The whole process generally takes 3-5 months to get an entire community converted.

6.) Some divisions did the updates twice a week box by box and node by node, on a schedule of Tuesday and Thursday nights. From what I remember, we got notice of the first boxes/communities being done in the first quarter of 2008. (I think it was January-February) and they said that their goal was to have all of Southern Wisconsin converted to Navigator by the end of second quarter 2008. In my area, the DVR boxes were last to upgrade. In January-June 2008, our DVR box was converted around April 15, 2008.

7.) However, if you are getting notices, expect Navigator within 3-5 DAYS of that notice, it may take about 14 days. But once it is general public information here is what will happen:

NAVIGATOR'S DOWNLOAD:

TWC will most likely download the Navigator update to the boxes they are working on that night between 2am-5am. However, any time they consider fair game. But expect it to be at night between those times.

1.) You will not be able to prevent or stop the download by unplugging the box or anything like that. When the signal from the head-end begins, the software will download.

2.) If you are browsing in the guide or are on any screens, the box will freeze for about a minute or two and than go into a boot mode. But this boot mode will be different because on the front of the box, you won't see those little dashes ----- where the clock is. You'll see a bunch of symbols with something like LOAD or F-1 or F-100. The numbers will begin to countdown or count up in sequence. (They MAY do this more than once.) You probably won't see anything on the screen or even be able to turn the box on. If fact, DON'T turn the box on. This is a big software change-over and for best results should be left untouched.

3.) The download of MDN Navigator should only take about 20-30 minutes. Leave your box off until the time appears on the display. You can than press the power button on the box OR the CBL button on your remote. There may be a slight delay but you should see the Navigator Guide on your screen. The box may do a second normal boot with a blue screen that says Mystro on it, or something similar. Watch the little dots turn white. Wait until the screen goes black and than press CBL to turn the box on a second time.

4.) Move around in the guide and see what is different. Check your settings. Under Display, is it set to 16:9 if you have an HD TV for your Aspect Ratio? Check your Output resolution and make sure that your settings match up to what you had on Passport or SARA. For me, everything, recordings, and settings, carried over successfully except Banner Duration, which I had to change from Slow, back to Medium.

5.) Press List and see if you can still play recordings that transferred. SUPPOSEDLY, old series recordings will carry over, IF an episode has not been recorded yet, AND Navigator can successfully FIND an instance of your series in the new interface. Unfortunately, a final series episode for which Navigator can not find a newer time to match, might be wiped out. You may want to reprogram ANY series that carried over from the old guide to Navigator if it is of high priority to you. Just delete the instance of the old guide listing before the Navigator transfer and find the series in the guide, (or use category, and/or keyboard search) than select "Record Series With Options" selecting what most closely matches your needs.

Users, if you have other tips to add, please post. I hope this helps and that you all have a good Navigator transition!

Regards,

Jack

Nice write-up, Jack.

STEPS TO PREPARE FOR THE MDN NAVIGATOR DOWNLOAD-What to Expect

With the announcement of several cities in New York and future SARA systems potentially converted to Navigator in the coming months, I thought I would share with you what to expect, because not all TWC locations are equal in how they prepare you for the transition:

1.) If you are in their mailing list system, you are supposed to get a flier and/or phone call announcing Navigator, but the exact dates and times are very vague. In fact, our mails were so slow that we got a flier about Navigator coming AFTER it had already been on our box for about three days! LOL!

2.) The first thing you need to do is watch anything that you value on your DVR, or at least burn the programs to some other medium, DVR-R, computer, even copy on old VCR tape. Although the latest versions of Navigator HAVE been very good at preserving your recordings, and it is likely a 75% or better chance that recordings will carry over, you should start watching and/or making copies of stuff NOW, just in case your on that 25% or lower population that might have problems. Start viewing and/or transferring big deal programs now. Don't wait!

3.) When you get that notice, e-mail, or phone call about "One or more of your boxes will be updated" treat that as within 2-7 days. In January of 2007, I actually got a notice that my old Pioneer box, which I no longer have was supposed to be updated but never was. A good thing, because the Pioneer boxes are horrible with Navigator because of their age and memory restrictions. (See #3 below)

3.) Be aware of the age of your box and the model of the box. When is the last time your inside and outside wiring was checked as well as signal strength? If it has been a long time, or you have never done it, see if you can schedule a service call to have your signal strength and lines checked out. Good Navigator performance demands good signal and line quality and a reasonably modern box. Also, if your box has not been rebooted for a long time, do a cold reboot. (Unplug for 30 seconds than plug back in) shortly after you get notice of Navigator coming in the mail or that phone call. This will "clean up" any old data that might interfere with the download.

4.) A modern box for the MDN Navigator download should be the following:

a.) For non-DVR units: An SA box model number 3000 or higher. It has been reported by TWC that code was changed to make those old Pioneer 1000-2000 and SA 1000-2000 more compliant with Navigator, but that hasn't helped all that much. Make sure you have an SA-3000 or higher series box.

b.) For DVR users: You should be ABOVE the SA-8000 for best Navigator performance. The SA-8300 works very well on Navigator provided that the above wiring and signal strength are good.

This is not to suggest that Navigator won't work on the older SA-8000 DVR's or Pioneer 1000-2000, or SA 1000-2000 boxes, but it will likely be very slow and sluggish. If you want the faster speeds for Navigator, you will need a newer box.

5.) Most MDN Navigator download transfers will happen within 3-5 days of notice. MDN is going by box type. Generally, at least in my division, (Milwaukee, WI) the DVR boxes were the LAST to update. Your division may also go by community or node as well as box type. The whole process generally takes 3-5 months to get an entire community converted.

6.) Some divisions did the updates twice a week box by box and node by node, on a schedule of Tuesday and Thursday nights. From what I remember, we got notice of the first boxes/communities being done in the first quarter of 2008. (I think it was January-February) and they said that their goal was to have all of Southern Wisconsin converted to Navigator by the end of second quarter 2008. In my area, the DVR boxes were last to upgrade. In January-June 2008, our DVR box was converted around April 15, 2008.

7.) However, if you are getting notices, expect Navigator within 3-5 DAYS of that notice, it may take about 14 days. But once it is general public information here is what will happen:

NAVIGATOR'S DOWNLOAD:

TWC will most likely download the Navigator update to the boxes they are working on that night between 2am-5am. However, any time they consider fair game. But expect it to be at night between those times.

1.) You will not be able to prevent or stop the download by unplugging the box or anything like that. When the signal from the head-end begins, the software will download.

2.) If you are browsing in the guide or are on any screens, the box will freeze for about a minute or two and than go into a boot mode. But this boot mode will be different because on the front of the box, you won't see those little dashes ----- where the clock is. You'll see a bunch of symbols with something like LOAD or F-1 or F-100. The numbers will begin to countdown or count up in sequence. (They MAY do this more than once.) You probably won't see anything on the screen or even be able to turn the box on. If fact, DON'T turn the box on. This is a big software change-over and for best results should be left untouched.

3.) The download of MDN Navigator should only take about 20-30 minutes. Leave your box off until the time appears on the display. You can than press the power button on the box OR the CBL button on your remote. There may be a slight delay but you should see the Navigator Guide on your screen. The box may do a second normal boot with a blue screen that says Mystro on it, or something similar. Watch the little dots turn white. Wait until the screen goes black and than press CBL to turn the box on a second time.

4.) Move around in the guide and see what is different. Check your settings. Under Display, is it set to 16:9 if you have an HD TV for your Aspect Ratio? Check your Output resolution and make sure that your settings match up to what you had on Passport or SARA. For me, everything, recordings, and settings, carried over successfully except Banner Duration, which I had to change from Slow, back to Medium.

5.) Press List and see if you can still play recordings that transferred. SUPPOSEDLY, old series recordings will carry over, IF an episode has not been recorded yet, AND Navigator can successfully FIND an instance of your series in the new interface. Unfortunately, a final series episode for which Navigator can not find a newer time to match, might be wiped out. You may want to reprogram ANY series that carried over from the old guide to Navigator if it is of high priority to you. Just delete the instance of the old guide listing before the Navigator transfer and find the series in the guide, (or use category, and/or keyboard search) than select "Record Series With Options" selecting what most closely matches your needs.

Users, if you have other tips to add, please post. I hope this helps and that you all have a good Navigator transition!

Regards,

Jack

Well put. MDN v2.4.1-92 on a Pioneer BD-V1100 is just terrible in every way, shape, or form. Slower than molasses and looks like DOS on the Navigator background. I hear some changes were made in "certain areas" in MDN to make it better in the low memory boxes. The SA 3100HD is probably just as bad though the 3250HD with MDN was pretty decent. The changes they did for the legacy boxes was in the "bfs". This supposedly makes them more responsive. Hope this helps.

I got this info from another forum tech. Some guy who works as a tech for TWC NYC was the one that revealed this info. No idea what the BFS is? Here's to a sucessful Navigator transition for the SARA and the few remaining passport areas.

I've noticed that. It's a nice feature when there's a recording conflict and you have to cancel a show on cable that usually airs multiple times.

Yeah it's great if you don't want to miss something, not so much if you voluntarily don't want to watch that particular episode. Which is why I use the time slot lock.

2.) The first thing you need to do is watch anything that you value on your DVR, or at least burn the programs to some other medium, DVR-R, computer, even copy on old VCR tape. Although the latest versions of Navigator HAVE been very good at preserving your recordings, and it is likely a 75% or better chance that recordings will carry over, you should start watching and/or making copies of stuff NOW, just in case your on that 25% or lower population that might have problems. Start viewing and/or transferring big deal programs now. Don't wait!

Can't reiterate that enough. In fact that's something that can be applied to every update but you don't get advanced warning of those most of the time.

In addition to losing recordings I've also had old deleted recordings come back in an unplayable state.

@SatchMan, they called before the transition? All I had was a letter a few weeks before it happened. No call, no email.

Also, here's Uncle Nickdawg's advice regarding older boxes:

If you have ANY Pioneer box or a SA 8000--SD or HD:

1. Wait until Navigator is downloaded in your ares.
2. Once it is downloaded, observe how slow the UI is.
3. Take that box to the nearest TWC office and turn it in. Ask for a new box and be sure you report the reason why: IT IS A SLOW PIECE OF CRAP!!! Maybe if enough people complain, something will finally change.

Seriously, there is no reason why those almost 10 year old Pioneers and the almost 7 year old SA 8000s should still be in the field. This is not like the old days when technology lasted forever, with computers stuff is constantly becoming outdated.

I feel the same way about MDN, but it is acceptable on modern boxes and there's a reason: buying new boxes.

@SatchMan, they called before the transition? All I had was a letter a few weeks before it happened. No call, no email.

They didn't call for me either, but some divisions will leave an automated message about 2-5 days before the download. They did leave an automated call about 2 days before we got Caller ID on TV. (That was back when we still had Passport.)

Jack

@SatchMan, they called before the transition? All I had was a letter a few weeks before it happened. No call, no email.

Also, here's Uncle Nickdawg's advice regarding older boxes:

If you have ANY Pioneer box or a SA 8000--SD or HD:

1. Wait until Navigator is downloaded in your ares.
2. Once it is downloaded, observe how slow the UI is.
3. Take that box to the nearest TWC office and turn it in. Ask for a new box and be sure you report the reason why: IT IS A SLOW PIECE OF CRAP!!! Maybe if enough people complain, something will finally change.

Seriously, there is no reason why those almost 10 year old Pioneers and the almost 7 year old SA 8000s should still be in the field. This is not like the old days when technology lasted forever, with computers stuff is constantly becoming outdated.

I feel the same way about MDN, but it is acceptable on modern boxes and there's a reason: buying new boxes.

You know that's good advice. Then again TWC tried to make those old Pioneers run better by cleaning up some areas of MDN. Still think people should just let go of their old Pioneer box or SA box thats several years old.

You know that's good advice. Then again TWC tried to make those old Pioneers run better by cleaning up some areas of MDN. Still think people should just let go of their old Pioneer box or SA box thats several years old.

Was the clean up on the MDN version with the news colors(2.4.4-16)? I've never had a chance to see MDN on a Pioneer box after we were updated. My Pioneer was long gone by the time 2.4.4-16 came. Still, I doubt it did much to help, as my BD-V1000 sometimes straight up refused to work at all and needed reboots every few days. The guide/banner always said Loading.

My 4250HDC is a bit slow(for my taste), but it is worlds ahead of the Pioneer boxes. I'd still like to see a version of ODN that is capable of stylin and profilin like Passport and SARA can. ;)

Was the clean up on the MDN version with the news colors(2.4.4-16)? I've never had a chance to see MDN on a Pioneer box after we were updated. My Pioneer was long gone by the time 2.4.4-16 came. Still, I doubt it did much to help, as my BD-V1000 sometimes straight up refused to work at all and needed reboots every few days. The guide/banner always said Loading.

My 4250HDC is a bit slow(for my taste), but it is worlds ahead of the Pioneer boxes. I'd still like to see a version of ODN that is capable of stylin and profilin like Passport and SARA can. ;)

Check out my sig and the 3090/3270 thread. I no longer have my BD-V1100 or my 3250HD. The changes that were made were actual source code changes. It's just some optimization tricks they discovered to ensure that it can run on all boxes :). Yes my new box has the stretch-o-vision guide. I don't know which MDN version has this change so who knows. Again the Pioneers and the 8000 boxes do suck. The 3100HD and Voyager 3510HD also suck just as bad. The 3100HD doesn't even have a DVI/HDMI out. That box is about 7 years old. Our TWC division used this as the box to rollout HD services. Now according to my TWC source they're using them for UDCP TV customers without all the interactive digital cable features. They do SDV and HD but none of the other features. This is only in my division though.

Edit: It's a Samsung SMT-H3260.

Was the clean up on the MDN version with the news colors(2.4.4-16)? I've never had a chance to see MDN on a Pioneer box after we were updated. My Pioneer was long gone by the time 2.4.4-16 came. Still, I doubt it did much to help, as my BD-V1000 sometimes straight up refused to work at all and needed reboots every few days. The guide/banner always said Loading.

If I recall correctly, we only had one or two at most people (on the forum) with Navigator on Pioneer boxes who did NOT have speed or reliability problems, so maybe those are the boxes that TWC modified. But, I can tell you that there are probably 100's of reports with people who had Pioneer boxes, swapped them out for newer models and were SHOCKED at the speed and reliability improvements!

Back in its day the Pioneer box with Passport worked well. But Navigator was structured to support higher level memory and interactive functions of the new STB's. The Pioneer STB's and the very old SA 1000, and 2000 models were not built for expandability. In contrast, with the expanded memory of the newer boxes, the better the software is able to run.

Jack

"KeyBOARD" search is implemented now in Navigator. "KeyWORD" search is what people are looking to be added. If it said "KeyBOARD" search in the notice I wouldn't get too excited just yet.

I was trying to point out how deceptive they were being. KeyBOARD is totally meaningless, but on a quick reading one would THNK one could search by words.

How does your AVR being "beefy" affect where you control the audio levels? For some time I ran a Carver CT-17 5.1 preamp with multiple TFM-25 (225W/Ch) power amps, and currently run an Onkyo 876 AVR with one TFM running the fronts... I have no issues setting the box at fixed and controlling volume for all sources at the AVR (or Carver preamp in the past).

Also, if you control the audio level at the box, matrix surround decoding of two channel sources by PLII (or similar) processes can be effected by the changing of volume level at the source. Setting the box to a fixed output and controlling volume at the AVR eliminates that problem.

Cool... was trying to leave an impression that I'd stick with a AVR because it was "beefy" over not being able to control it's volume with the STB remote. My choice would be to set variable so I COULD control w/the STB remote, BUT I can't do that because it doesn't work with my C-1000 (FWIW, it's a signed one with his signature on the front).

I was trying to point out how deceptive they were being.

Not TWC! :rolleyes:

Perish the thought!:D

Not TWC! :rolleyes:

Let's all hope Navigator gets real keyword search to go along with keyboard search. Just hopeing TWC does not screw this up. Fingers crossed.

I was trying to point out how deceptive they were being.

Not TWC! :rolleyes:

Perish the thought!:D

Yeah, well... 14 years ago they lied to me about something way more important than Keyword Search... bastards! :mad:

Pressing the Guide button on the Samsung cable box or the remote changes the opacity of the Diag screens. This is on my SMT-H3260 with software v4.2.2.1. Might be different on your 3090 running v2.4.9.2.

Let's just say that Passport will go bye bye in NYC. It will be deployed very soon.

Let's just say that Passport will go bye bye in NYC. It will be deployed very soon.

Still think this is a bit of a shame. Like Passport much better than my new ODN. I like the smarter DVR recording (i.e. taping later new episodes in case of conflicts) but that's all that I can find that's an improvement right now.

In particular, I'm still peeved about the neutered "swap" command for switching tuners. I (sort of) understand that SDV makes it hard to keep both tuners active but that still doesn't explain why I can't switch tuners unless I have PIP up.

In particular, I'm still peeved about the neutered "swap" command for switching tuners. I (sort of) understand that SDV makes it hard to keep both tuners active but that still doesn't explain why I can't switch tuners unless I have PIP up.

Uh, you must mean on your ODN box because this works just fine on my box. I'm not all that sure we have any SDV channels, although it's possible the 2 OnDemand channels (699/700 on NYC) use it as only ODN boxes are able to receive them (and I assume the Passport boxes that will get MDNed soon).

Still think this is a bit of a shame. Like Passport much better than my new ODN. I like the smarter DVR recording (i.e. taping later new episodes in case of conflicts) but that's all that I can find that's an improvement right now.

In particular, I'm still peeved about the neutered "swap" command for switching tuners. I (sort of) understand that SDV makes it hard to keep both tuners active but that still doesn't explain why I can't switch tuners unless I have PIP up.

As I mentioned before, if you want to keep buffering both channels and swap between them, just hit REC for each one, then just use the [LAST] button to swap. No need to use the PIP.

The functionality is still there... you just have to make the positive affirmation that you want to keep buffering by hitting the [REC] button, which prevents unnecessary waste of SDV resources for the majority of the time when you are just casually channel surfing and have no intention of going back to the earlier channel.

I am new to this thread. I read the first 10 pages and the last 15 pages to try to get up to speed. This is from the very first post on 9/14/06:

From what I understand, this is going to replace SARA and Passport on the TWC boxes over the next 8 months. I do not have a confirmation on timetables or whether this will be a definite for everyone or dependent on individual franchise adoption.


I know we are dealing with TWC here and I should not be amazed....but that fact that 2 and 3/4 years later, even though MDN has had it's own upgrade to ODN, that there are still areas with Passport and SARA, is unbelievable.:rolleyes:

I am in Pittsboro, NC part of the Raleigh, NC TWC system. I have a 8300HD and MDN. I have a few questions if some one can help me out.

I got into the diag menu with the "Select", "Down Arrow" trick. On page 14 of 28 :eek: I have the following info:

PTV: v6.14.94.1sp. Thu May 22 2008 4:04:38 PM PDT
Apps...
Pfit: Vnot found. not found
Res: 2.4.4-15-pts(Pyramid Peak) Nov 11 2008, 15:49:12
DAM: 0.9e Nov 11 2008, 15:48:12
PE: 3.9d32 (MDN 2.4.1) May 28 2008, 15:00:59
Host: 1.38 MDN 2.4 Nov 11 2008, 15:49:54

1. I take it this means I have version 2.4.4-15 of MDN?

2. I recall someone saying they have version 2.4.4-92???? Are we that far behind everyone else in updates?

3. What does the other info mean? IE Host 1.38 MDN 2.4 etc?

4. Was the world created on Nov 11 2008, at 15:00 hrs?:D seriously, what happened then?

5. Is there any ODN in the Raleigh, NC system? The reason I ask is that I recently upgraded to this box. Maybe a month or so ago. I had an CRT SD TV and upgraded to a HDTV so I upgraded from a SD DVR to the 8300HD. All they had at the office I visited, (Chapel Hill, NC) was SA8300HDs. No HDCs in sight.

6. I understand that there is SDV on the Raleigh system. Is that correct? How do I tell what channels are on SDV? I am curious about the occasional recording error that I see.

7. Is the following true? A 8300HD could be running SARA, Passport, or MDN. A 8300HDC will be running only ODN.

8. Are there any other menu tricks like "Select", "Down Arrow" ?

9. What is the mail icon used for?

TIA

I am new to this thread. I read the first 10 pages and the last 15 pages to try to get up to speed. This is from the very first post on 9/14/06:



I know we are dealing with TWC here and I should not be amazed....but that fact that 2 and 3/4 years later, even though MDN has had it's own upgrade to ODN, that there are still areas with Passport and SARA, is unbelievable.:rolleyes:

I am in Pittsboro, NC part of the Raleigh, NC TWC system. I have a 8300HD and MDN. I have a few questions if some one can help me out.

I got into the diag menu with the "Select", "Down Arrow" trick. On page 14 of 28 :eek: I have the following info:

PTV: v6.14.94.1sp. Thu May 22 2008 4:04:38 PM PDT
Apps...
Pfit: Vnot found. not found
Res: 2.4.4-15-pts(Pyramid Peak) Nov 11 2008, 15:49:12
DAM: 0.9e Nov 11 2008, 15:48:12
PE: 3.9d32 (MDN 2.4.1) May 28 2008, 15:00:59
Host: 1.38 MDN 2.4 Nov 11 2008, 15:49:54

1. I take it this means I have version 2.4.4-15 of MDN?

2. I recall someone saying they have version 2.4.4-92???? Are we that far behind everyone else in updates?

3. What does the other info mean? IE Host 1.38 MDN 2.4 etc?

4. Was the world created on Nov 11 2008, at 15:00 hrs?:D seriously, what happened then?

5. Is there any ODN in the Raleigh, NC system? The reason I ask is that I recently upgraded to this box. Maybe a month or so ago. I had an CRT SD TV and upgraded to a HDTV so I upgraded from a SD DVR to the 8300HD. All they had at the office I visited, (Chapel Hill, NC) was SA8300HDs. No HDCs in sight.

6. I understand that there is SDV on the Raleigh system. Is that correct? How do I tell what channels are on SDV? I am curious about the occasional recording error that I see.

7. Is the following true? A 8300HD could be running SARA, Passport, or MDN. A 8300HDC will be running only ODN.

8. Are there any other menu tricks like "Select", "Down Arrow" ?

9. What is the mail icon used for?

TIA

I am in Greensboro. I have a 8240hdc running SARA and a 8300hd running SARA. I belive 8300hdc runs only ODN NAVIGATOR or PASSPORT OR SARA. 8300hd runs MDN NAVIGATOR OR PASSPORT OR SARA. SARA can run on all boxes not sure about PASSPORT.

...

5. Is there any ODN in the Raleigh, NC system? The reason I ask is that I recently upgraded to this box. Maybe a month or so ago. I had an CRT SD TV and upgraded to a HDTV so I upgraded from a SD DVR to the 8300HD. All they had at the office I visited, (Chapel Hill, NC) was SA8300HDs. No HDCs in sight.

6. I understand that there is SDV on the Raleigh system. Is that correct? How do I tell what channels are on SDV? I am curious about the occasional recording error that I see.

...

5. I have had 8300HDC with ODN since 9/2007. Every time I looked in the nearby mall kiosk, that was the only box they were giving out.

6. Same diagnostics you've already tried have SDV page (at least on ODN they do). Tune into a channel in question, and see if it says "SDV" or "non SDV".

One thing I wish they'd add in if they can is to shut off all the video outputs when the box is 'turned off' (or standby mode as the case may be).

Came home from being out of town for 3 days and found the tv was left on the whole time but the box was off. Normally if there is no signal it says something, but the box still outputs a signal but a blank screen and it's indistinguishable from when the tv is off and the only other indicator is the tiny red power light in the corner which, unfortunately, seems to be easily missed by other parties in this household.

Came home from being out of town for 3 days and found the TV was left on the whole time but the box was off. Normally if there is no signal it says something, but the box still outputs a signal but a blank screen and it's indistinguishable from when the TV is off and the only other indicator is the tiny red power light in the corner which, unfortunately, seems to be easily missed by other parties in this household.

Same here, you are not alone. An "Off" cable box, looks identical to the TV being off, especially if the TV is HD and you don't have those little lines and things like you do on an SD set turned on with no picture. My new Samsung HD TV has a Standby light that turns on when the TV is off. (That took awhile for some parties in this house to get.) So I just said when you turn the box off, what a few seconds for the light on the right side of the TV to turn on for standby. If the light does not turn on, press the TV button to turn the Standby light on.

With regards to this box issue, I assume it is the same behavior on all versions

Jack

Anyone else have this problem?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1103685

Partial recordings. I've noticed it exclusively happens on SDV channels when I record back to back. One recording is fine, the second one is 1 minute of 15 minutes. Just like the eSATA problem, I get the feeling this is an ODN issue.

Some other observations: does Navigator have some kind of a "timeout" feature on SDV? I had my TV on CNNHD all day today without pressing any buttons or using the guide. First the DVR Sleep Mode banner came on. But about four hours later, I see a message that says: "To continue watching this channel, press any button". That message just stayed on screen.

With the recording issue I mentioned above, I am ready to start that Petition to DUMP Navigator and Use SARA again! :p :D:D:D

Some other observations: does Navigator have some kind of a "timeout" feature on SDV? I had my TV on CNNHD all day today without pressing any buttons or using the guide. First the DVR Sleep Mode banner came on. But about four hours later, I see a message that says: "To continue watching this channel, press any button". That message just stayed on screen.Yes, all STBs are supposed to timeout SDV channel use, using, I believe, algorithms of the IPG vendor's choice. SDV channels are broadcast in bandwidth which is a shared resource, and an effort is made to make sure that those channels are actually being used, in an effort to prevent that resource from becoming tapped out (at which point people trying to tune SDV channels are sent a message asking them to try again later :rolleyes:). When an STB asks to use an SDV channel, it declares what it wants it for (live viewing, recording, etc). It's supposed send messages to update that usage as it changes, to stuff like "tuned but not viewed".

If you don't respond to that query with a certain period of time, it will go ahead and decrement the user count for that cheannel; once that count reaches zero, the bandwidth can be reclaimed.

I'm hating SDV more and more each day. I have to wonder what would possess TWC to put USAHD on SDV? Two weeks in a row, my viewing of Monday Night RAW has been f---ed up. Last week when I was recording it, it stopped at 10:28. I did not know that until later when my recording just stopped. Tonight at 10:41, the channel is "Unavailable". "A Try Again" does nothing. I press "A" until I punch the button through the back of the remote and it does nothing.

And what else is embarrassing about TWC is their HD picture quality. The SD channel of USA has better picture than USA HD. There's nowhere near as much macroblocking as on USA HD.

And what else is embarrassing about TWC is their HD picture quality. The SD channel of USA has better picture than USA HD. There's nowhere near as much macroblocking as on USA HD.

Either your area's SDV is hosed, or you have an upstream signal problem. We have had SDV in Austin for a couple of years now, and we do not have 'channel not available' issues often at all.

How well does 'InDemand' work for you? Do you get errors when you try to play stuff?

xnappo

Either your area's SDV is hosed, or you have an upstream signal problem. We have had SDV in Austin for a couple of years now, and we do not have 'channel not available' issues often at all.

How well does 'InDemand' work for you? Do you get errors when you try to play stuff?

xnappo

On Demand usually works. I've been using it more than ever in the last 6-7 months and I've only had one or two issues out of the many times I've used it.

I know something is wrong with SDV in my area. I've had three service calls and a rewiring, only to find out the problem is farther upstream. It didn't work from the beginning and then it was fixed for awhile. I;ve recorded RAW on USAHD every Monday in may with no problem(5 weeks). Last week the recording cut off, this week watching live it went blank.

There's problems all over NE Ohio(huge system). Some areas work perfectly, others have problems, others don't have SDV at all. Obviously they're pretty deep in the hole, as they are just STARTING SDV in 2009!!:eek::eek::eek: They must have cut corners to catch up.

I guess the keyword there is "a few years". I know Austin is supposed to be one of the first areas to have it. I hope the issues are worked out sooner instead of later. Or move channels. No reason why HGTV HD is on regular and USA HD is on SDV. That's effed up!!!

Or move channels. No reason why HGTV HD is on regular and USA HD is on SDV. That's effed up!!!

I don't see SDV problems here, but I have wondered the same thing. A little common sense rearrangement of SDV vs broadcast based on viewership seems in order. I can't believe that, outside of overnight infomercial time, that there is ever nobody watching USA... meaning it becomes a defacto broadcast channel but hogs up SDV resources.

Anyone else have this problem?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1103685

Partial recordings. I've noticed it exclusively happens on SDV channels when I record back to back. One recording is fine, the second one is 1 minute of 15 minutes. Just like the eSATA problem, I get the feeling this is an ODN issue.

Some other observations: does Navigator have some kind of a "timeout" feature on SDV? I had my TV on CNNHD all day today without pressing any buttons or using the guide. First the DVR Sleep Mode banner came on. But about four hours later, I see a message that says: "To continue watching this channel, press any button". That message just stayed on screen.

With the recording issue I mentioned above, I am ready to start that Petition to DUMP Navigator and Use SARA again! :p :D:D:D

Nick, (and everyone else with incomplete recording issues on their DVR's)

I responded in the link above. This is a head-end node issue related to the SDV roll-out. I had this problem 6 months ago in my division when SDV was first implemented in Milwaukee Wisconsin. It has since been resolved. Users in divisions with incomplete recordings should call their cable companies "in bunches" to report this incomplete DVR recording problem, or e-mail your cable company, specifically requesting that the incomplete recording issue be forwarded to TWC's engineering department for your division. This is an SDV problem, not a box problem. The more that report this issue, the quicker a fix can be implemented.

Jack

I don't see SDV problems here, but I have wondered the same thing. A little common sense rearrangement of SDV vs broadcast based on viewership seems in order. I can't believe that, outside of overnight infomercial time, that there is ever nobody watching USA... meaning it becomes a defacto broadcast channel but hogs up SDV resources.

What's unfair is existing channels like TNT and TBS get to stay off SDV. I'll bet outside of NBA or MLB, USA gets far more viewers than TNT or TBS. USA is cable's number one network. WWE doesn't matter to TWC? I'd hate to see a node/head end where every TV connected is a HDTV and they all try to tune the same channel at the same time! :eek: I've been waiting for USA HD for a year and a half for the WWE and longer for original shows. The reason why I am so pissed is leading up to SDV I heard nothing of the problems. I couldn;t foresee these problems. And then it turns out all my favorite shows, favorite channels: USA, CNN, F/X and any new ones added in the future are on SDV. And SDV is a giant turd dragon that hasn't worked since the beginning. It was fixed, then it became unfixed, although not as bad.

I'd hate to see a node/head end where every TV connected is a HDTV and they all try to tune the same channel at the same time! :eek:

This is not an issue with SDV... once an RF channel is allocated for a particular network (when the first person in a node tunes that channel), then anybody else in that node watches the same RF channel. So if 50 people in a node are all watching USA, they are all watching the same channel, not 50 copies of the same network. That is why I called USA a defacto broadcast channel... the likelihood of that channel carrying USA programming ever being released back into the pool are slim.

Having a highly viewed network as an SDV is not a disaster... but if its that highly viewed, it might as well be a broadcast channel.

Users in divisions with incomplete recordings should call their cable companies "in bunches" to report this incomplete DVR recording problem, or e-mail your cable company, specifically requesting that the incomplete recording issue be forwarded to TWC's engineering department for your division. This is an SDV problem, not a box problem. The more that report this issue, the quicker a fix can be implemented.

Jack

I'd suggest they all file complaints with the local franchising authority. If the division functions vaguely like my market, those will go to another department, not the CSRs (in my case, it's PR). PR is generally a lot more responsive than CSRs, tech support, or even billing.

Last time I had a problem, the PR guy hooked me up with one of THE best CSRs I have ever dealt with... he "knew" who would hook me up right (that CSR covered a very different part of the city, normally I'd never even have a chance of getting to her).

Of course, YMMV.

What's unfair is existing channels like TNT and TBS get to stay off SDV. I'll bet outside of NBA or MLB, USA gets far more viewers than TNT or TBS. USA is cable's number one network.

Indeed, USA seems to do a way better job at HD than TNT/TBS. Thoise stretch-o-vision channels do nothing but waste bandwidth, TNT is running Bones in syndication in stretch-o-vision SD, inexcusable.

Anyone else have this problem?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1103685

Partial recordings. I've noticed it exclusively happens on SDV channels when I record back to back. One recording is fine, the second one is 1 minute of 15 minutes. Just like the eSATA problem, I get the feeling this is an ODN issue.



i noticed this for the first time this week. i was set up to record Bob Marley, Ozzy and Motley Crue on the Bio channel back to back. it recorded the first one fine but the following 2 programs only recorded about a minute of each.
i went back into the guide and set it up to get the other 2 shows that were airing again but with another program separating them and they recorded fine.

i noticed this for the first time this week. i was set up to record Bob Marley, Ozzy and Motley Crue on the Bio channel back to back. it recorded the first one fine but the following 2 programs only recorded about a minute of each.
i went back into the guide and set it up to get the other 2 shows that were airing again but with another program separating them and they recorded fine.

Haven't seen that yet... but the new 3090 missed recording Bones last night... same circumstances as before: FOX / no conflicts / "channel not available" error message.

Haven't seen that yet... but the new 3090 missed recording Bones last night... same circumstances as before: FOX / no conflicts / "channel not available" error message.

There does seem to be funky things with FOX HD from the network head end. In my market, we've had an issue with audio skipping going back months and months. At times so bad it's 100% unwatchable. Seems to be "fixed" for a week or two, only to come back. "It's you box. it's your software, it's you signal strength" everything under the sun was getting blamed. Just about ZERO info from TWC... until someone was talking to a CSR who acknowledged the problem and said they were having troubles from the FOX head end.

Tired to watch a House repeat the other day, recorded in the past 10 days. Lots of freezing, press any button except stop and it loops back to the beginning. Even a cold boot didn't clear it up, so I deleted it. Another FOX recording was OK.

but the new 3090 missed recording Bones last night... same circumstances as before: FOX / no conflicts / "channel not available" error message.

yep, i had set up a series to record fox news Charlotte everyday this week because Paul Stanley was going to be there showing some of his paintings and i didnt want to miss it..........i think i missed it.... same channel not available crap.

Haven't seen that yet... but the new 3090 missed recording Bones last night... same circumstances as before: FOX / no conflicts / "channel not available" error message.

I've noticed on my 3090 that if I watch a program on one of TWC's free on demand channels, even if I watch to the very end of the credits before exiting the progrm, and then later that day have two programs set to record at the same time, only 1 will record and the program log will state that the channel for the unrecorded program was "not available".

Really annoying.

I've noticed on my 3090 that if I watch a program on one of TWC's free on demand channels, even if I watch to the very end of the credits before exiting the progrm, and then later that day have two programs set to record at the same time, only 1 will record and the program log will state that the channel for the unrecorded program was "not available".

Really annoying.

Interesting... but its been a while since I've used on-demand. Must have multiple failure modes. :rolleyes:

But once again its seems to be a Charlotte issue. :confused:

i noticed this for the first time this week. i was set up to record Bob Marley, Ozzy and Motley Crue on the Bio channel back to back. it recorded the first one fine but the following 2 programs only recorded about a minute of each.
i went back into the guide and set it up to get the other 2 shows that were airing again but with another program separating them and they recorded fine.

It's very annoying that you cannot record back to back. One way around this is to extend end time on the first recording. If I'm recording two half hour shows, I extend the end time of the first show by 30 minutes, to make an hour long block. But it still sucks majorly as many of the SDV channels are HD versions of my heavily viewed channels.

Indeed, USA seems to do a way better job at HD than TNT/TBS. Thoise stretch-o-vision channels do nothing but waste bandwidth, TNT is running Bones in syndication in stretch-o-vision SD, inexcusable.

That's what pissed me off. I could watch "My Name is Earl" in stretchovision(even though the entire series was HD!) or I could watch TNT's AWFUL original drama "The Closer", but I couldn't watch WWE RAW after 10:40 pm. And my recording messed up the previous week. USAHD is one of the channels I have been waiting for since this time IN 2006!! I've been waiting for the WWE in HD for years and last night I had to watch one of the most exciting endings in a while(it went 10 minutes over) in analog SD! :mad:

But HGTV, FOOD, A&E, History all work fine since they are not on SDV. I hope they start putting existing channels on SDV soon.

Guys we seem to be veering off topic. Should we not have a seperate SDV thread and get back to NAVIGATOR on this one. Just a question friends not trying to start anything.

Guys we seem to be veering off topic. Should we not have a separate SDV thread and get back to NAVIGATOR on this one. Just a question friends not trying to start anything.

I agree CW,

But when New York areas, which are soon to get Navigator get it, OH MAN! will this thread ever be back on topic!!! Did anyone get anymore fliers, calls or e-mails about the coming download? Are you watching your programs to clear stuff off your DVR's?

Jack

personally i don't think our cny division will tell us till after the fact ....just based on past politics!:rolleyes: our navigator should be called "presto" when or if we get it ....we'll wake up in the morning and "PRESTO " ur gatored!

They have been handing out ODN HDC's sine 7/1/07, so it seems it's fairly well represented. It's us Passporters who are about to get MDNed that could spark additional discussions!

My plan is to live with it for a while, then decide if I want to go ODN w/ a Samsung 3090. Then I expect by years end to have FIOS in the nabe, so more decisions!

If fios came available here in my area ...:i'm with you on that riverside!:)

I would have thought time warner would have taken advantage of the 10 th mountain division's impact in growth in our area for rolling out navigator in the central ny area.That alone should have some type of faster decision making about navigator.Fort drum is the most deployed base in the us. Not to get off topic but for military spouses that pretty much is all there is for them is cable and satellite in our hick area::(

They have been handing out ODN HDC's sine 7/1/07, so it seems it's fairly well represented. It's us Passporters who are about to get MDNed that could spark additional discussions!

My plan is to live with it for a while, then decide if I want to go ODN w/ a Samsung 3090. Then I expect by years end to have FIOS in the nabe, so more decisions!

I agree with RG's plan,

You can try the MDN version downloaded to your box for like 30 days and if you are having problems that don't clear up after that time, do a box swap for an ODN version. The MDN version of Navigator that I had is pretty stable. Personal story:

I had this Public Access channel that for years, would have nothing on the screen, and the box would freeze for about 3-5 seconds when it would go to that channel. (This was on my SA-8300 HD with Passport.) After I was changed over to Navigator (MDN download) the channel no longer froze and the picture quality was actually BETTER than what I had with Passport! (on all channels.)

Jack

personally i don't think our cny division will tell us till after the fact ....just based on past politics!:rolleyes: our navigator should be called "presto" when or if we get it ....we'll wake up in the morning and "PRESTO " ur gatored!

Your TWC Division sounds like mine. BOOM we cut on the TV and have something new for breakfast without any warning. I belive NAVIGATOR will arrive the same way.

Yea maybe our divisions are in one of the same.You never know . I am in the same division as ben so you know what were up against here in central ny! Hopefully they pick up there act in your division as well. Fingers crossed ! Last night i was talking to a technical support telemarketer and she told me that the receivers that are testing right now have 320 gb hard drives. Wondering what model that would be ? Personally she had seen navigator herself and said there were some things she liked about navigator and some things she liked about sara better . Me i would like to form my own opinion because to me sara's day's are numbered !

Yea maybe our divisions are in one of the same.You never know . I am in the same division as ben so you know what were up against here in central ny! Hopefully they pick up there act in your division as well. Fingers crossed ! Last night i was talking to a technical support telemarketer and she told me that the receivers that are testing right now have 320 gb hard drives. Wondering what model that would be ? Personally she had seen navigator herself and said there were some things she liked about navigator and some things she liked about sara better . Me i would like to form my own opinion because to me sara's day's are numbered !

The things that seem better on SARA are more recording options and manual recording otherwise I like Navigator better.

Just got back from the mailbox ....got excited when i seen a time warner envelope... i'm thinking navigator flyer opened it and the it hit me the wife ask them to resend a service bill because we moved ...first bill got lost or something! God the insanity ! :eek:

Then I expect by years end to have FIOS in the nabe, so more decisions!

I don't know if that even qualifies as a decision !

xnappo

Anyone want to bet when the first Navigator downloads will hit for New York and vicinity areas? I am just going on a guess, but I am going to say within two weeks. I think by July 1st, downloads will start picking up in more of a full swing. Full deployment takes about 3-5 months. Beginning of months is generally when companies like this tend to push out new stuff.

Jack

Anyone want to bet when the first Navigator downloads will hit for New York and vicinity areas? I am just going on a guess, but I am going to say within two weeks. I think by July 1st, downloads will start picking up in more of a full swing. Full deployment takes about 3-5 months. Beginning of months is generally when companies like this tend to push out new stuff.

Jack

Down here in Greensboro a CSR told me nothing will happen until 2 to 3 weeks after the digital transition. They want to make sure everythings fine with that. The Navigator and more HD will begin flowing then.They did say in 60 to 90 days all here will have all the new stuff. Woody

Down here in Greensboro a CSR told me nothing will happen until 2 to 3 weeks after the digital transition. They want to make sure everythings fine with that. The Navigator and more HD will begin flowing then.They did say in 60 to 90 days all here will have all the new stuff. Woody

Cool, I live in Charlotte and since we're all in TWC-Carolinas (I think its called) any news of more HD is good news.

Cool, I live in Charlotte and since we're all in TWC-Carolinas (I think its called) any news of more HD is good news.

I know... all the HD additions this year have been in unison across the whole state.

Cool, I live in Charlotte and since we're all in TWC-Carolinas (I think its called) any news of more HD is good news.

That's great! It sounds like they want to make sure that everything is right before they roll it out. Good! That way, Navigator won't be rushed like Milwaukee and Nebraska's trial cities three years ago.

Jack

Cool, I live in Charlotte and since we're all in TWC-Carolinas (I think its called) any news of more HD is good news.

And once we in the triad get NAVIGATOR we will all be on the same guide new features new problems and all lol.

That's great! It sounds like they want to make sure that everything is right before they roll it out. Good! That way, Navigator won't be rushed like Milwaukee and Nebraska's trial cities three years ago.

Jack

Your correct Jack. It seems Time Warner has learned a bit of a lesson. The CSR did tell me 10 new HD channels are on the launch pad for us here. I assume everyone else will get them also. Fox News HD , Fox Business Channel HD, Cartoon Network HD and the Weather Channel HD are the ones I remember. Oh yes E Entertainment HD was on the list. Do not know in what order they will launch but they are comeing.Time Warner here usually launches 3 or 4 at a time. Woody

Your correct Jack. It seems Time Warner has learned a bit of a lesson. The CSR did tell me 10 new HD channels are on the launch pad for us here. I assume everyone else will get them also. Fox News HD , Fox Business Channel HD, Cartoon Network HD and the Weather Channel HD are the ones I remember. Oh yes E Entertainment HD was on the list. Do not know in what order they will launch but they are coming.Time Warner here usually launches 3 or 4 at a time. Woody

Here in Milwaukee, we have had Fox News HD for awhile. Weather Channel is up for contract renewal in our market, but the info on our site is about a month old or more, so they must have made a deal. They talk about channels that you can't get with a cable card and from what I remember Weather Channel HD was one of them. They also had listed Planet Green HD, and ESPNU HD as channels that you can't get with a cable card, but they have not added those channels in HD yet.

They are negotiating for Game HD, Team HD, Inspiration Life (SD only at this time) Ovation (SD only at this time) and Nick Too (SD only at this time.)

Were Spike TV HD, and Comedy Central HD on that list? That's what I am waiting for here in Milwaukee!

Jack

spike hd is #2 on my list for new hd right behind monsters hd! Doubt monsters hd will ever happen but it is the best horror channel out there.:cool:

Here in Milwaukee, we have had Fox News HD for awhile. Weather Channel is up for contract renewal in our market, but the info on our site is about a month old or more, so they must have made a deal. They talk about channels that you can't get with a cable card and from what I remember Weather Channel HD was one of them. They also had listed Planet Green HD, and ESPNU HD as channels that you can't get with a cable card, but they have not added those channels in HD yet.

They are negotiating for Game HD, Team HD, Inspiration Life (SD only at this time) Ovation (SD only at this time) and Nick Too (SD only at this time.)

Were Spike TV HD, and Comedy Central HD on that list? That's what I am waiting for here in Milwaukee!

Jack

I may be wrong but I do not think either of those were on the list.

I may be wrong but I do not think either of those were on the list.

I was gonna say...I don't think I have seen either one of those offered on any TWC system ever. I'd be very pleased though if they got a deal for Weather Channel HD and immediately started rolling it out in their regions.

Here in Milwaukee, we have had Fox News HD for awhile. Weather Channel is up for contract renewal in our market, but the info on our site is about a month old or more, so they must have made a deal. They talk about channels that you can't get with a cable card and from what I remember Weather Channel HD was one of them. They also had listed Planet Green HD, and ESPNU HD as channels that you can't get with a cable card, but they have not added those channels in HD yet.

They are negotiating for Game HD, Team HD, Inspiration Life (SD only at this time) Ovation (SD only at this time) and Nick Too (SD only at this time.)

Were Spike TV HD, and Comedy Central HD on that list? That's what I am waiting for here in Milwaukee!

Jack

Strange as it may seem Planet Green HD and ESPNU HD have been here quite a while but do not have any FOX NEWS IN HD here yet. WOODY

Personally guys, you should get most of these in the coming weeks ....jeez even our division has lot of those channels already and our division are about as sharp as a bunch of rubber balls ! The hd that was added here is terribly compressed though.I think except for a few odds and ends were good right now for hd.I simply want to be "gatored".:cool:

As strange as it seems I have watched all of our journey on this thread. Two years ago all hated Navigator and were running from it. However over time it has improved and evolved to a fairly stable guide. With a couple more updates it will be the equal of Passport.It has far surpassed SARA. Just wondering just how much better it will be in two more years. I live in both SARA and Navigator worlds. SARA at our main home in Greensboro and Navigator at our beach house at the coast. All I can say now is I'm ready for Greensboro to be gatored! BRING IT! WOODY

My question is will we ever see the day this software happens (MOXI) ?


http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/8428/comcastdvr1yu3.jpg ......that is a sweet looking guide too!;)

I think a lot of divisions are waiting for all or any digital transition issues to be worked out, which is sort of a moot point because if you have cable, you are already "converted." I expect a lot of new content for Navigator with some channels added and updates going through the summer.

Jack

Personally guys, you should get most of these in the coming weeks ....jeez even our division has lot of those channels already and our division are about as sharp as a bunch of rubber balls ! The hd that was added here is terribly compressed though.I think except for a few odds and ends were good right now for hd.I simply want to be "gatored".:cool:

Yea,

Who would have thought that in 2-3 years time this board would go from "Hating Gator" to "Loving Gator" and WANTING "GATOR!" LOL!!!

It's like all of us now work for TWC or something!!! hahahaha. But seriously, the guide has gotten SOOOOOOO much better than those early days. And if Keyword Search and Manual Recording get added, I think it will be BETTER than Passport!

Jack

I think it will be BETTER than Passport!How so? It's still "slower than molasses in the winter time" on the five or six boxes I've seen it run on locally and the only things that I can think of that it does that Passport didn't is caller-ID on screen and a free-disk-space idiot meter, both of which Passport incorporated in versions that had been released for a couple of years before the last one that TWC chose to deploy.

Navigator is and was a boondoggle, pure and simple, a corporate mistake that they're too embarrassed to admit. Nothing that they want now or in the future couldn't have been obtained for less than they're spending on Navigator. As far as I can see, no other cable or satellite service provider has choosen to go the insane route of developing an IPG in an internal division, with good reason. Some have decided to have a custom guide developed, but they wisely contracted NDS to do it, a company with broad experience in the technology.

IMHO, someone in charge should not have been just dismissed, but strung up and slowly flogged to death for putting millions of innocent subscribers through this useless pain.

I think a lot of divisions are waiting for all or any digital transition issues to be worked out, which is sort of a moot point because if you have cable, you are already "converted." I expect a lot of new content for Navigator with some channels added and updates going through the summer.

Jack

Well, it's not a completely moot point when talking from TWC's point of view when some divisions are still pulling in the OTA analog broadcasts for the analog/SD feeds. I know here in NEO this is still being done for some channels and headends. They'll have to make a scramble to set their equipment up to pull in the DTV channels and either centercut or letterbox for the SD channels.

Even at that, those that are already pulling in the DTV broadcasts need to babysit things over the next while as stations change their channel locations, TX power, tower locations, etc..

But yeah, otherwise it is pretty much a moot point. ;)

How so? It's still "slower than molasses in the winter time" on the five or six boxes I've seen it run on locally and the only things that I can think of that it does that Passport didn't is caller-ID on screen and a free-disk-space idiot meter, both of which Passport incorporated in versions that had been released for a couple of years before the last one that TWC chose to deploy.

Navigator is and was a boondoogle, pure and simple, a corporate mistake that they're too embarrassed to admit. Nothing that they want now or in the future couldn't have been obtained for less than they're spending on Navigator. As far as I can see, no other cable or satellite service provider has choosen to go the insane route of developing an IPG in an internal division, with good reason. Some have decided to have a custom guide developed, but they wisely contracted NDS to do it, a company with broad experience in the technology.

IMHO, someone in charge should not have been just dismissed, but strung up and slowly flogged to death for putting millions of innocent subscribers through this useless pain.

Mike you are correct on the old Navigator. However the new version we just got at the coast is as fast or faster than SARA. Sorry I do not have the version but will get it my next time down to the coast. I'm not kidding the new version is day and night better than the one we had before the last update. If that one is the version we get in Greensboro and it works on my boxs here as it does the coast I will be very very happy. But as I and you say we all have our own experience in this long Navigator journey.
Thankfully mine so far has been a pleasant experience. WOODY

To be honest, I would have to agree that we would be MUCH better off with Passport as it was without going to Navigator. I mean, the new OCAP Passport with a 16:9 guide is GORGEOUS.

Sadly we are stuck with TWC's hare-brained decision. But on the plus side, development and improvements are looking up.

Another thing that should be realised though is that the current OCAP boxes are terribly underpowered especially in the memory department considering it is Java based. That complaint should fall on SciAtl for putting out such a crippled box in the first place and is probably why nobody has really released any OCAP software yet other than TWC with Navigator.

It's like all of us now work for TWC or something!!! hahahaha. But seriously, the guide has gotten SOOOOOOO much better than those early days. And if Keyword Search and Manual Recording get added, I think it will be BETTER than Passport!

Better than what? The Passport guide from three years ago that we used to have or the new version of Passport that we'll never have?

Navigator will always be a step behind until they completely revamp the UI and all the box hardware is replaced. Changing the colors of the guide doesn't offset the fact it looks like crap in comparison to a lot of UI being developed and released now. The graphics, icons, fonts, text quality on Navigator are all as basic as you can get.

Moxi as mentioned above is another example. The box may have it's issues but the UI look and feel is so far away from Navigator it's not even funny.

where did you get the samsung 3090 from. Did a twc tech person drop it off or did you pick it up at the 23rd street store. If it is the second one, do they have more in stock.

How do you think the 3090 is so far compared to the 8300. Any problems that you notice already.

I just went to 23rd st. today to turn in my 8300HD and there were piles of the Sammy 3090. Mine is indeed the 160 gig 2.4.9.2 version. I have only had it a few hours so I don't know what I think of it yet.

Slightly OT, but as this Navigator thread gets tons of activity, I want to ask this question, because I think many people may be affected:

TWC: Shimmering of Picture, Especially With On-Screen Crawlers

My picture is clear and sharp, but today I notice a lot of shimmering on BOTH SD/HD stations with "crawler information" at the bottom of the screen. Moving words, containing sports or news information will shimmer across the screen. On stations without news or information crawlers the problem is less frequent. However, there was occasional shimmering of the picture during an episode of Friends on both TBS and TBS HD. This may relate to the digital transition. Anybody else have this issue? Either with or without TWC?

Jack

Better than what? The Passport guide from three years ago that we used to have or the new version of Passport that we'll never have?

I can only relate current Navigator to the older versions of Passport and not to the newer versions of Passport, because TWC stopped updating Passport long before the newest versions came out.

What cable systems are now using the newest possible Passport?

Jack

Navigator will always be a step behind until they completely revamp the UI and all the box hardware is replaced. Changing the colors of the guide doesn't offset the fact it looks like crap in comparison to a lot of UI being developed and released now. The graphics, icons, fonts, text quality on Navigator are all as basic as you can get.


It's not just that the UI looks like crap compared to other systems out there. As far as I am concerned the MDN I am running is a beta product at best. And it's not just keyword searches and manual recording either. Here is a basic example. With all the networks out there, they will never be in sync on the clock. So the start and end of each show will be slightly off. I often miss the very end of shows that have no credits or keep showing content during the credits and run to the end of the hour. Mythbusters is a good example. So the solution is to add 30 sec to each end of the show. (Except that the minimum increment is 1 minute, thats another issue) Do this to two back to back shows on one channel and you tie up two tuners. IF you don't add the extra time you lose part of the shows, even if they start and end on time, because of lag in switching from one recording to another. It should be a basic software solution to have the tuner keep running and write overlapping info to two different recordings for 30 sec to one minute. I could come up with a whole list of issues like that. The only redeeming factor about MDN is the fact that you can run an ext drive. The loss of this on ODN is ridiculous. 20 hrs of HD.... are you kidding me?

Better than what? The Passport guide from three years ago that we used to have or the new version of Passport that we'll never have?

Navigator will always be a step behind until they completely revamp the UI and all the box hardware is replaced. Changing the colors of the guide doesn't offset the fact it looks like crap in comparison to a lot of UI being developed and released now. The graphics, icons, fonts, text quality on Navigator are all as basic as you can get.

Moxi as mentioned above is another example. The box may have it's issues but the UI look and feel is so far away from Navigator it's not even funny.

You should take a look at the SARA guide we have in the Triad. Now thats crap. To us Navigator will be a great leap forward. Yes I have used Passport and Navigator also.Both make SARA suck. Any change SARA users get will be an improvement. It's all in how you look at it. To us SARA users Navigator will be beautiful. It's all in the eye of the beholder. WOODY

Slightly OT, but as this Navigator thread gets tons of activity, I want to ask this question, because I think many people may be affected:

TWC: Shimmering of Picture, Especially With On-Screen Crawlers

My picture is clear and sharp, but today I notice a lot of shimmering on BOTH SD/HD stations with "crawler information" at the bottom of the screen. Moving words, containing sports or news information will shimmer across the screen. On stations without news or information crawlers the problem is less frequent. However, there was occasional shimmering of the picture during an episode of Friends on both TBS and TBS HD. This may relate to the digital transition. Anybody else have this issue? Either with or without TWC?

Jack

Problem was solved with a box reboot. Some data may have been sent to it during the all DTV transition update, and the box needed to refresh itself to synchronize the scrolling with the picture.

Jack

Yea,

Who would have thought that in 2-3 years time this board would go from "Hating Gator" to "Loving Gator" and WANTING "GATOR!" LOL!!!

It's like all of us now work for TWC or something!!! hahahaha. But seriously, the guide has gotten SOOOOOOO much better than those early days. And if Keyword Search and Manual Recording get added, I think it will be BETTER than Passport!

Jack

Could it be that we are part of that is because we are getting frustrated by the fact we are using a guide that was frozen in place 3 years ago, while with most software, things advance? Throw in that easily fixable bugs have also never been addressed...

How so? It's still "slower than molasses in the winter time" on the five or six boxes I've seen it run on locally and the only things that I can think of that it does that Passport didn't is caller-ID on screen and a free-disk-space idiot meter, both of which Passport incorporated in versions that had been released for a couple of years before the last one that TWC chose to deploy.

In my market it also means 2 VOD channels that MDN/ODN boxes get that Passport doesn't...

Slightly OT, but as this Navigator thread gets tons of activity, I want to ask this question, because I think many people may be affected:

TWC: Shimmering of Picture, Especially With On-Screen Crawlers

My picture is clear and sharp, but today I notice a lot of shimmering on BOTH SD/HD stations with "crawler information" at the bottom of the screen. Moving words, containing sports or news information will shimmer across the screen. On stations without news or information crawlers the problem is less frequent. However, there was occasional shimmering of the picture during an episode of Friends on both TBS and TBS HD. This may relate to the digital transition. Anybody else have this issue? Either with or without TWC?

Jack

Interesting you should bring that up... yes I have seen it. ALSO, we've all been plagued by varying amounts of audio drop-outs; my experience is that I can go a whole show w/o any drop-outs, but maybe 70% of the time, I get them during those crawls. It's almost like the end crawls are 2 video signals overlaid during broadcast, something I find hard to believe!

You should take a look at the SARA guide we have in the Triad. Now thats crap. To us Navigator will be a great leap forward.No one's contesting that it's not already far superior to SARA, GUI speed problems aside :D. Three weeks of using SARA on Cox while living in Oceanside nearly drove me to suicide after the previous couple of years of using Passport on TWC and several years of using my original analog TiVo before that. Certainly, the emergent hypertension I suffered continuously while I used it have shortened my life significantly. The availability of TiVo Series3 saved me and I cheerfully put down $900 for one with a 3-year service contract. I wasn't even considering HD TiVo when I'd had Passport.

The claim being refuted was that the addition of a couple of features that a nearly 4-year-old version of Passport had that Navigator currently lacks might make it somehow "better" than that obsolete version of Passport :rolleyes:.

How so? It's still "slower than molasses in the winter time" on the five or six boxes I've seen it run on locally and the only things that I can think of that it does that Passport didn't is caller-ID on screen and a free-disk-space idiot meter, both of which Passport incorporated in versions that had been released for a couple of years before the last one that TWC chose to deploy.

Navigator is and was a boondoggle, pure and simple, a corporate mistake that they're too embarrassed to admit. Nothing that they want now or in the future couldn't have been obtained for less than they're spending on Navigator. As far as I can see, no other cable or satellite service provider has choosen to go the insane route of developing an IPG in an internal division, with good reason. Some have decided to have a custom guide developed, but they wisely contracted NDS to do it, a company with broad experience in the technology.

IMHO, someone in charge should not have been just dismissed, but strung up and slowly flogged to death for putting millions of innocent subscribers through this useless pain.
Although TWC-HQ bears the overall responsibility, only the (not-tooooo-bad) MDN part
was developed internally...Vidiom/ADB developed the (way-tooooo-slow) ODN part:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13429419
Plus Cisco/SciAtl for BOTH for all of the underlying PowerTV OS modifications:
http://www.sciatl.com/developers/devoverview.htm

I still think they have most of their best programmers working on NEW features
and only have a couple new trainees flailing around trying to work on bug fixes....

Although TWC-HQ bears the overall responsibility, only the (not-tooooo-bad) MDN part
was developed internally...Vidiom/ADB developed the (way-tooooo-slow) ODN part:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13429419
Plus Cisco/SciAtl for BOTH for all of the underlying PowerTV OS modifications:
http://www.sciatl.com/developers/devoverview.htm

I still think they have most of their best programmers working on NEW features
and only have a couple new trainees flailing around trying to work on bug fixes....I'm not so sure. Whereas the slowness of ODN may be entirely due to the slowness of the underlying OCAP, there's no indication in what you quoted that they were involved in porting the proprietary IPG code to Java, other than in an advisory capacity--the inefficiencies could well be located there. It'll be hard to judge by its performance on other OCAP platforms, since they'll all have much faster processor.

I still think that contracting an experienced IPG development specialist (like NDS) would have gotten the job done faster and better for less money. I'm also sure that Aptiv would have bent over backwards to deliver whatever functionality they wanted, to keep their business.

I still think that contracting an experienced IPG development specialist (like NDS) would have gotten the job done faster and better for less money. I'm also sure that Aptiv would have bent over backwards to deliver whatever functionality they wanted, to keep their business.

I do agree that TWC should have kept outside programing designers with more experience on the job for Navigator. What is strange is that I read somewhere that they now WANT third-party developers to implement new applications for Navigator. I don't know if they would bring in this help for bug fixes or not. Are most of these smaller areas actually "bugs," or just overlooked dotting of the "I's" and crossing of the "T's" that TWC forgot to do? In the last year with Navigator, I have not found very many defects in performance. It is pretty stable, (I have MDN.) However, I have found little things, very subtle things, stupid little things, that I have noticed where I don't see these improvements in features coming as fast from TWC as I would like.

The software stability is good and overall my experience with Navigator has been very good. However, I do have to agree with Navigator's critics that if TWC would have brought in more experienced programmers to assist them with Navigator's creation, we would be looking at a real cool 2010 and beyond program guide, comparable to a TIVO, DIRECT TV, or those screen shots from that Moxi IPG, which I think came from Comcast.

Oh and speaking of Comcast, their integrated Tivo guide is LOADED WITH BUGS and is very unreliable, (Like Navigator's first year.) Customers should just get the regular non-Tivo guide and wait a year or more for the integrated Comcast guide's bugs to be worked out.

But anyway, like I said, if TWC had hired outside help for Navigator from the get-go, I do agree that we would be looking at an awesome guide, instead of just a good IPG with the potential to be great guide. TWC's engineers don't have the experience in developing IPG's like third party vendors do, and have done for years. Passport/Aptiv TV goes through a decade of design and implementation, and supposedly has a great IPG with the newest version. TWC took three years, just to get proficient with programing skills to create an above average guide. Now they want outside help for applet enhancements. This is understandable TWC, but it should have been thought about five years ago when Navigator was still in your development labs. As of consequence, Navigator. what could have been GREAT, is now just GOOD.

Jack

My cousin who now lives in California and used to have Navigator ( they moved to a new job from from Raleigh NC a early Navigator area) and had the Comcast/Tivo said the same thing.The Comcast/Tivo is like Navigators first couple years. They long for the Tivo interface but without the Navigator like bugs.After two months my cousin told me it was to much like early Navigator and they went back to the regular Comcast DVR that is thankfully still offered. She said her and her husband would try the Comcast/TIVo again in a year to see if it had been debugged.As it stands now it's a cluster fu@@ just like early Navigator. And yes the Tivo people are suspose to be the best programmers.I just wonder if TWC had went the Tivo route that at this point we would have been a lot better off. I love Tivo and concede its the better of the guides.But if we had the same problems now we could only look forward to future Tivo as we look forward to a more feature rich Navigator. TWC should have switched all to Passport and hopefully avoided all problems.Unless a bunch of them poped up switching 75% of their base from SARA to PASSPORT so who knows.When a cable company messes with its guide it's frought with danger.To ger back to Navigato when all TWC customers get NAVIGATOR we can all experience the same joy and moaning. Sorry I was so long winded. WOODY

A close friend who works at TiVo (we shared an office at Kyocera Wireless for two years) has been working furiously (16 hour days and weekend) and under a great deal of pressure on bug fixes and performance improvement in that Comcast TiVo IPG. There seemed to be some very hard deadline for a new release that they were trying to hit. Maybe Comcast is playing hardball with them.

You should take a look at the SARA guide we have in the Triad. Now thats crap. To us Navigator will be a great leap forward. Yes I have used Passport and Navigator also.Both make SARA suck. Any change SARA users get will be an improvement. It's all in how you look at it. To us SARA users Navigator will be beautiful. It's all in the eye of the beholder. WOODY

I hope you're going after our funny bones with that comment. Trust me, you won't love Navigator as much as you think. It's just trading one set of problems for another. I'd be happy with an IPG that looks like a computer running DOS just to have reliable recording, reliable recording on SDV channels and more recording options(manual recording times).

I don't go by looks. If you judge software by looks, you should go Tivo. That seems to be the 'best' looking. And functionality to go along with it. Navigator may 'look' nice (gag!) but it doesn't have the functionality.

A close friend who works at TiVo (we shared an office at Kyocera Wireless for two years) has been working furiously (16 hour days and weekend) and under a great deal of pressure on bug fixes and performance improvement in that Comcast TiVo IPG. There seemed to be some very hard deadline for a new release that they were trying to hit. Maybe Comcast is playing hardball with them.

Mike I mean no offence but I heard same thing out of Time Warner about Navigator 2 years ago.

You should take a look at the SARA guide we have in the Triad. Now thats crap.

That's not relevant. Regardless of what SARA is still like (and it hasn't been developed in years) we are talking about Navigator's position in the DVR world. That has been updated and TWC think it can stand next to every other system on the market that's being released or developed and still compete as a current and future design. It can't.

If SARA had received the same upgrades as Navigator over the past 3 years to "bring it up to date" then it would be on the same playing field.

That's not relevant. Regardless of what SARA is still like (and it hasn't been developed in years) we are talking about Navigator's position in the DVR world. That has been updated and TWC think it can stand next to every other system on the market that's being released or developed and still compete as a current and future design. It can't.

If SARA had received the same upgrades as Navigator over the past 3 years to "bring it up to date" then it would be on the same playing field.

But SARA did not get the upgrades. Most SARA users have never seen or used PASSPORT. To those folk the Navigator upgrade will be like mana from heaven. Remember we on SARA are 5 to 6 years behind everyone else.Yes we got SDV first and more HD but the interface sucks to high heaven. You may miss Passport but we SARA users never got anything to miss.

Mike I mean no offence but I heard same thing out of Time Warner about Navigator 2 years ago.No offense taken, but on one side we're talking about TWC, DVR development neophyte, and on the other side, TiVo, arguably the inventor of the DVR as we know it (some think that Replay made it to market first, but they're wrong :rolleyes:). I know that what my friend says is true (that TiVo's working on a new release and that he's burning the candle at both ends to meet his deadlines for it).

TiVo has more expertise in DVR development than any other company, and the bugs in their early release of the Comcast GUI can be attributed to the difficulty of cramming their tech into the Moto DCT platform under a lot of time pressure from the client. They're not just doing this for Comcast's sake, it's a future product that they'll offer to other cable providers (with possible cosmetic modifications and new features added). It's also related to their tru2way GUI on which the company's future depends. They will get it right and much sooner than the team at TWC can significantly improve Navigator.

I think you need to quit complaining. Forget about all the fancy features, you have the only feature I want: a stable, reliable DVR. I used to almost have that, until they threw SDV into the mix. Yet the SARA areas have had SDV for years and reliable recording for years. As far as I'm concerned, out of Passport, SARA and navigator; Navigator will always be the worst because it is in a constant "beta test" stage. Some versions fix some problems, then other versions fix other problems and cause new problems. If TWC used either the current version of SARA or Passport, I'd be willing to bet these eSATA issues, Samsung box issues and my SDV recording issue would be nonexistent.

My point: If you have something that works, be happy with it. Quit complaining about the product that works and wishing for something that in reality is worse.

I think you need to quit complaining. Forget about all the fancy features, you have the only feature I want: a stable, reliable DVR. I used to almost have that, until they threw SDV into the mix. Yet the SARA areas have had SDV for years and reliable recording for years. As far as I'm concerned, out of Passport, SARA and navigator; Navigator will always be the worst because it is in a constant "beta test" stage. Some versions fix some problems, then other versions fix other problems and cause new problems. If TWC used either the current version of SARA or Passport, I'd be willing to bet these eSATA issues, Samsung box issues and my SDV recording issue would be nonexistent.

My point: If you have something that works, be happy with it. Quit complaining about the product that works and wishing for something that in reality is worse.

I love this discussion. It represents trying to strike a balance of stability and reliability along with the new features of the IPG's. Is it known what cable system has updated SARA software, and any divisions that said, "OK, we are going to keep the SARA platform because it is reliable?" For newbies or the uninformed who may be reading this thread, SARA is and was the ORIGINAL IPG that comes on the boxes before the cable company, (if they use another IPG) reformats the hard drive and puts their IPG on it.

Good points about TIVO's DVR experience and Navigator always been "if flux." The other thing is that I'll bet that Direct TV and Dish Network have better guides than cable. They seem to have used the two-way interactive platform very well.

Jack

PS. Actually just doing an image search, what I saw for Direct TV and Dish Network IPG images just looked like a regular guide to me.

Stability & Reliability > Features & Appearance

I'd be willing to have a program more feature-stripped than SARA, if it were stable and reliable. I don't care about the other crap. I use my TV box for two reasons: watching TV and recording shows. That's it. That's all is needs to do. I don't need a DVR that manages my pictures, plays music files, connects to the computer/internet, searches for crap online, waters the plants, walks the dog, washes the dishes, turns on the lights when I come home, mows the lawn and whatever other absurd feature Tivo has.

If you want those features, that's cool. Go buy a Tivo. That's why they make them(and sell so many too!).

Stability & Reliability > Features & Appearance

I'd be willing to have a program more feature-stripped than SARA, if it were stable and reliable. I don't care about the other crap. I use my TV box for two reasons: watching TV and recording shows. That's it. That's all is needs to do. I don't need a DVR that manages my pictures, plays music files, connects to the computer/internet, searches for crap online, waters the plants, walks the dog, washes the dishes, turns on the lights when I come home, mows the lawn and whatever other absurd feature Tivo has.

If you want those features, that's cool. Go buy a Tivo. That's why they make them(and sell so many too!).Though I understand your point, whether you like or not and however much railing against it that you do, everyone but everyone is going to be putting more and more of this stuff into their DVR, whether it be for lease by the cable providers or for purchase by you. It's not like you Luddites who want an old-fashioned black box DVR with no shiny parts are going to stop buying cable because they heap excess features on, and possibly there are folks who will be drawn to cable service by something that they add which you think is useless.

One of the points of the whole tru2way morass is to allow them to offer little side-feature applications, which you'll be able to download when you need them. Whether this allows IPG developers to concentrate on stability and reliability of core DVR functionality is yet to be seen.

Though I understand your point, whether you like or not and however much railing against it that you do, everyone but everyone is going to be putting more and more of this stuff into their DVR, whether it be for lease by the cable providers or for purchase by you. It's not like you Luddites who want an old-fashioned black box DVR with no shiny parts are going to stop buying cable because they heap excess features on, and possibly there are folks who will be drawn to cable service by something that they add which you think is useless.

One of the points of the whole tru2way morass is to allow them to offer little side-feature applications, which you'll be able to download when you need them. Whether this allows IPG developers to concentrate on stability and reliability of core DVR functionality is yet to be seen.

Excellent point Mike
WOODY

But SARA did not get the upgrades. Most SARA users have never seen or used PASSPORT. To those folk the Navigator upgrade will be like mana from heaven. Remember we on SARA are 5 to 6 years behind everyone else..

Which is exactly what I've been saying and why SARA is not relevant to the discussion about how Navigator is competing with modern and new UI on competing DVR platforms.

Just because you've been stuck using an ancient design doesn't make Navigator any more advanced than it actually is. You can't say that Windows 98 is equally competing with the rest of the computer universe just because you've finally upgraded from Windows 95. For you it might be a massive upgrade but to the rest of the world it's still behind.

Navigator has to be compared to everything that is being developed right now. You don't compare it to SARA or Passport from 4 years ago which was the last release from TWC, you compare it to Passport 2009 on other cablecos, you compare it to Moxi, you compare it to Comcast Tivo, DirecTV EPG, Dish, Fios etc. etc.

Those are the systems it's trying compete with for design and features.

...

Navigator has to be compared to everything that is being developed right now. You don't compare it to SARA or Passport from 4 years ago which was the last release from TWC, you compare it to Passport 2009 on other cablecos, you compare it to Moxi, you compare it to Comcast Tivo, DirecTV EPG, Dish, Fios etc. etc.

Those are the systems it's trying compete with for design and features.

The problem is that, from TWC perspective, it only has to be good enough to not drive you away to the likes of Dish or DirectTV. That's it. It can be a lot worse than them, that's fine, as long there is not something that bugs you to the point of leaving (that's why I think it is stupid of TW to break eSATA support, as that is one of those things that can make you leave). They couldn't care less how it compares to Comcast DVR. They (somewhat eagerly, actually) concede that they have no plans of competing with stand-alone DVR makers (Tivo, Moxi). They would lose a bit of revenue if you buy a stand-alone DVR, but those DVRs do not work with satelite, so that would somewhat lock you to cable (I know you can sell your DVR, but that would be for a loss, and is a bit of hassle). So, expecting Navigator ever to be real good is unrealistic. Count how many new features you got in the last 2 years (and it is not like it was full-featured to start with). Not to mention that some of the features that every stand-alone DVR has (30 second skip, ability to remove channels) will never be added due to political reasons. The best you can hope for is for it to be reasonably bug free and to add a couple of features like keyword search that people have been requesting for years.

Which is exactly what I've been saying and why SARA is not relevant to the discussion about how Navigator is competing with modern and new UI on competing DVR platforms.

Just because you've been stuck using an ancient design doesn't make Navigator any more advanced than it actually is. You can't say that Windows 98 is equally competing with the rest of the computer universe just because you've finally upgraded from Windows 95. For you it might be a massive upgrade but to the rest of the world it's still behind.

Navigator has to be compared to everything that is being developed right now. You don't compare it to SARA or Passport from 4 years ago which was the last release from TWC, you compare it to Passport 2009 on other cablecos, you compare it to Moxi, you compare it to Comcast Tivo, DirecTV EPG, Dish, Fios etc. etc.

Those are the systems it's trying compete with for design and features.

SARA is so out of date some systems have yet to receive the first run option.We got it here 3 years ago.It was our last SARA update.

there should be no delay in channel changes with the remote.
no excuse for it.

The problem is that, from TWC perspective, it only has to be good enough to not drive you away to the likes of Dish or DirectTV. That's it. It can be a lot worse than them, that's fine, as long there is not something that bugs you to the point of leaving (that's why I think it is stupid of TW to break eSATA support, as that is one of those things that can make you leave). They couldn't care less how it compares to Comcast DVR. They (somewhat eagerly, actually) concede that they have no plans of competing with stand-alone DVR makers (Tivo, Moxi). They would lose a bit of revenue if you buy a stand-alone DVR, but those DVRs do not work with satelite, so that would somewhat lock you to cable (I know you can sell your DVR, but that would be for a loss, and is a bit of hassle). So, expecting Navigator ever to be real good is unrealistic. Count how many new features you got in the last 2 years (and it is not like it was full-featured to start with). Not to mention that some of the features that every stand-alone DVR has (30 second skip, ability to remove channels) will never be added due to political reasons. The best you can hope for is for it to be reasonably bug free and to add a couple of features like keyword search that people have been requesting for years.

Good points,

If TWC has done the job of keeping subs from leaving, and if they are reasonably content with the IPG doing an adequate job, than they feel they have done their part.

TWC seems to be more concerned about a competitive best with their Road Runner and Digital Phone service. Wisley they have dropped the "Internet use capping experiment." Adding things like Power Boost for RoadRuner, and Caller ID on TV (with a sub. to Digital Cable/Digital Phone) always a nice touch.

But, getting back to Navigator, the real question is why TWC does not WANT to be competitive with third-party DVR vendors and their applets? Is it politics? Is it money, or both? Do they really think they can implement IPG technology such as Navigator on their own? Do you believe that if TWC had been developing outside help for Navigator from design to implementation that there would be no reason why they could not compete with the 2-way interactive Moxi guides and Tivo?

I think that somewhere in the last decade, TWC got lost in what represented its foundational roots, cable TV and its maintenance. They put so much time into being an Internet company, a telephone company, and emphasizing high speed data that cable TV became a flooded market. Instead of having maybe 50 good quality channels that represented value programing, we now have 300 channels, and often 250 ofter nothing to watch! This asks the question: Is more necessarily better?

I doubt that TWC has really saved any money at all by developing Navigator. Although Navigator has certainly improved over the years, if TWC would have paid Passport for the updates to enable future applets and SDV on the guide, no one would have had that two year complaining window about Navigator. Such an updated Passport system, would have allowed TWC to maintain a competitive edge, with stronger customer satisfaction, rather than spending two years to get Navigator up to a C+/B- adequate level.

Jack

...the real question is why TWC does not WANT to be competitive with third-party DVR vendors and their applets? Is it politics, is it money, or both? Do they really think they can implement IPG technology such as Navigator on their own? Do you believe that if TWC had been developing outside help for Navigator from design to implementation that there would be no reason why they could not compete with the 2-way interactive Moxi guides and Tivo?


The answer to that question is... Cable ops do not want to be in the STB/DVR business!

Supporting STB/DVR rentals is a necessary cost of business for them, not a profit center - rental rates are regulated and barely cover the huge capital investment and operational expense they represent. They need a "just good enough" DVR/IPG for those that can't be bothered with or afford one of the more sophisticated third-party tru2way devices just around the corner.

You know if TWC would spend more money on Navigator prehaps license some apps from TIVO like wishlist they would have a A graded DVR. Subs who appreciate a A ranked DVR would flood to them.Those who just want a super vcr might could have a second choice such as a stripped down Navigator close to SARA levels. The others of us would be willing to pay a bit more if features and performance were up to TIVO or new Passport levels.A two tier DVR system may just be the answer. Just as Comcast has its old dvr guide and you can upgrade to Comcast/Tivo . Why not have Navigator Reg and Navigator premium. Just my 2 cents worth. WOODY

there should be no delay in channel changes with the remote.
no excuse for it.There's about a second or so delay which seem to be inherent in playing back a digital stream when you start receiving it "in the middle". Every digital tuner that I've had, in leased cable boxes and in TiVo, have exhibited that same type of delay. TiVo seems pretty fast when tuning from flipping through analog channels, but when I have my Tuning Adapter attached I get the digital simulcast of those channels.

That's another thing--SDV will add something to tuning delay. If the channel you're trying to watch is switched, your tuner will have to ask the cable system where it is. The delay is probably neglible most of the time, but when it has to find bandwidth for the channel in your segment's SDV bandwidth pool and switch the channel into it, the delay could be noticeable.

The answer to that question is... Cable ops do not want to be in the STB/DVR business!

Supporting STB/DVR rentals is a necessary cost of business for them, not a profit center - rental rates are regulated and barely cover the huge capital investment and operational expense they represent. They need a "just good enough" DVR/IPG for those that can't be bothered with or afford one of the more sophisticated third-party tru2way devices just around the corner.

amen!

You know if TWC would spend more money on Navigator prehaps license some apps from TIVO like wishlist they would have a A graded DVR. Subs who appreciate a A ranked DVR would flood to them.Those who just want a super vcr might could have a second choice such as a stripped down Navigator close to SARA levels. The others of us would be willing to pay a bit more if features and performance were up to TIVO or new Passport levels.A two tier DVR system may just be the answer. Just as Comcast has its old dvr guide and you can upgrade to Comcast/Tivo . Why not have Navigator Reg and Navigator premium. Just my 2 cents worth. WOODY

I agree,

This would give customers choice. And that is what is important.

Jack

Sounds great to me woody ...i would pay for choices without no hesitation!:cool: How much would you charge a flat fee like with unlimited wwe 24/7 on demand l($7.99 a month)?

You know if TWC would spend more money on Navigator prehaps license some apps from TIVO like wishlist they would have a A graded DVR. Subs who appreciate a A ranked DVR would flood to them.Those who just want a super vcr might could have a second choice such as a stripped down Navigator close to SARA levels. The others of us would be willing to pay a bit more if features and performance were up to TIVO or new Passport levels.A two tier DVR system may just be the answer. Just as Comcast has its old dvr guide and you can upgrade to Comcast/Tivo . Why not have Navigator Reg and Navigator premium. Just my 2 cents worth. WOODY

You are essentially agreeing with what TWC is doing... except that TWC wants the DVR afficiandados to buy their own from 3rd party vendors (when they become available in the marketplace). Navigator as we know it just needs to be the "super VCR". Same 2-tier system you propose, except that TWC will only be providing the second tier units.

The problem at the moment is that tru2way is just at the earliest stages of rollout... I suspect it won't be long before your Tier One choices start appearing from several sources. Of course... what they charge for them may make you think the rental fee for your "Tier 2" box is a bargain.

Sounds great to me woody ...i would pay for choices without no hesitation!:cool: How much would you charge a flat fee like with unlimited wwe 24/7 on demand l($7.99 a month)?

I'm not sure what Comcast/Tivo users pay but I'm sure Premium Navigator would be in that range and a few bucks cheaper for the super vcr Navigator version. WOODY

Since it seems most SARA and the remaining PASSPORT areas are about to get NAVIGATOR I wonder if anyone in a SARA area would post when it happens. This will do two things. It will let us know when the conversion starts and also how it went. You may also post your impressions of Navigator if you care to. WOODY.

The problem is that, from TWC perspective, it only has to be good enough to not drive you away to the likes of Dish or DirectTV. That's it. It can be a lot worse than them, that's fine, as long there is not something that bugs you to the point of leaving (that's why I think it is stupid of TW to break eSATA support, as that is one of those things that can make you leave). They couldn't care less how it compares to Comcast DVR. They (somewhat eagerly, actually) concede that they have no plans of competing with stand-alone DVR makers (Tivo, Moxi).

But they do care how it stacks up. They just don't care if the public gets it. They only care if they can show signs of progress to shareholders. Shareholders can leave. Not all TWC customers can.

If you look at areas like TWC Oceanic and the like you'll see a plethora of features and online widgets that have never seen life in many other places. And they just signed a 5-year deal with BIAP to allow boxes to run more interactive applications on TV. Applications most of us will probably never see because rolling them out in more than a handful of markets will cut into their bottom line (and probably technical proficiency too).

How many of us will ever see things like this? When some of us still don't even have Navigator or StartOver yet?


The new service, which combines traditional video with Web-based content, features interactive games from TAG Networks, including Tetris and Sudoku; home shopping from HSN; and news, sports and children’s versions of P:Mosaic, ActiveVideo’s personalized video navigation system that allows consumers to view, customize and navigate through their favorite channels at a glance.

...


“One of cable television’s greatest strengths is its ability to serve customers with content that is important to them locally, and even personally,” said Nate Smith, president of Oceanic Time Warner Cable, in a statement. “Our launch of ActiveVideo expands our ability to deliver to our customers diversity, personalization and targeting, through a wide range of video choices.”

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/115774-Time_Warner_s_Oceanic_Gets_ActiveVideo.php

And no matter how they want to be compared, they don't have a choice. They offer a similar product to other companies so that's how they should and will be viewed. Just as those DirecTV ads have been touting their new online DVR programming which cable doesn't have. It's important enough that TWC have noticed the omission and that customers probably will too. Whether the majority of us will ever see the TWC version when it's release is another matter, but TWC are aware that they have to show proof of a competing concept somewhere.

I'm not sure if everyone has been following the Cablevision network DVR case, but it looks like Cablevision is going to win and they are going to rollout a network DVR this summer.

Basically, users record the program and it is stored on the cable co server. The advantage is that users can watch the program on any tv with a cable box. The disadvantage is that users lose control of the storage.

TWC is interested in the technology and would probably be the next to implement it because they have already gone down the path with 'Start Over'.

TWC definitely wouldn't enable e-Sata with a network DVR when you could just rent more storage from them!!

The price would of course decline as hard drive prices drop. :rolleyes:

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=177615&site=cdn&f_src=lightreading_gnews

Just thought some of you would be interested in this (so far) successful internal HDD swapout performed on a Samsung 3090, posted in the dedicated Samsung thread:

This one looks a little easier to swap drives out. Doesn't seem to have any funny "VOID" tape anywhere.

HDD transplant complete, boot now.

Fingers crossed everyone.

Well, so far so good.

Box took longer than normal to boot. Had to format the new drive. After the format it went to the Mystro count down. After a few recordings it seems to be alright. True test is after a few days.

I'm highly curious what exact drive, make, model, size was used. If it's anything like other boxes or this esata fiasco, what drives will work is going to be a bit limited.

It would certainly be nice to hear though. Should be terribly cheap to buy a 500GB+ drive standalone and drop it in. I don't think my 8240HDC has a void sticker on the drive last I checked.

Though unfortunately the way it's all set up, trying to hook the existing drive up to a PC and pulling anything off it is impossible. At least when I investigated it on my old SA8000 box the drive was encrypted and keyed to that particular box much akin to the first Xbox's scheme except I don't think you could follow the same workaround and let the box boot then swap the IDE cable without powering down first.

It would certainly be nice to hear though. Should be terribly cheap to buy a 500GB+ drive standalone and drop it in. I don't think my 8240HDC has a void sticker on the drive last I checked."Void sticker" or not, I gotta think that cracking the enclosure of and modifying a piece of equipment belonging to your cable provider without their explicit permission is a no-no. But I assume we're all grown-ups here, capable of assessing which risks we're willing to take :).

Actually when I had that old SA8000 I cracked it open to examine it a bit more and pulled out the drive and dd'd a few gigs of bits off it in linux. Wasn't too difficult to make it so it didn't look broken into. About the only thing was one of TWC's green 'YOU MUST RETURN THIS EQUIPMENT TO SO AND SO OFFICE' stickers across a seam and it was already withering off anyway just from normal handling. The drive didn't have a void sticker on it.

Why would i have gotten a firmware upgrade last night around 2:30 am ?....what is that being done for ? It said it had like 500 blocks to complete . Was hoping it might be digital navigator .Would the upgrade look like the update it was doing last night ? Is it possible they are perhaps preparing it for the navigator upgrade? Does anyone know it annoys me when i don't know what the upgrade was for ...lol!

Why would i have gotten a firmware upgrade last night around 2:30 am ?....what is that being done for ? It said it had like 500 blocks to complete . Was hoping it might be digital navigator .Would the upgrade look like the update it was doing last night ? Is it possible they are perhaps preparing it for the navigator upgrade? Does anyone know it annoys me when i don't know what the upgrade was for ...lol!

Probably a prerequisite FW upgrade for Navigator... you can hope, anyway!

Thats very true !:)isn't 500 blocks quite a sizable upgrade for firmware ?

Thats very true !:)isn't 500 blocks quite a sizable upgrade for firmware ?That would depend--what's a "block"? If we're talking 512-byte HDD blocks, that'd be 200KB, a fair-sized chunk of code, but I'd expect MDN to consume at least a couple of MB of code and data (particularly graphics assets). Could someone with a STB running MDN check memory consumption in the diags? Maybe it was 500 blocks remaining to complete or it might have been 4KB blocks :).

Why would i have gotten a firmware upgrade last night around 2:30 am ?....what is that being done for ? It said it had like 500 blocks to complete . Was hoping it might be digital navigator .Would the upgrade look like the update it was doing last night ? Is it possible they are perhaps preparing it for the navigator upgrade? Does anyone know it annoys me when i don't know what the upgrade was for ...lol!

It sounds like a Navigator box preparation update. Can you describe what was on the screen and how long did it last?

Jack

I didn't notice any type of upgrade... perhaps its internal upgrades? Is it possible it's navigator soon to be maybe ?about 10 -12 minutes to install firmware that's all i really paid mine too sorry if thats not any help.

I also got the upgrade last night in Ithaca, NY. The box said "dnld card" and the screen displayed "cablecard firmware upgrade." The downloading took about half an hour...I was also wondering if it could be related to an upcoming Navigator download

thank you ryan now that i recall that's what i remember seeing now .But what does this mean for us who got this firmware upgrade? i live near lowville by the way ryan so were really close i believe that's the central ny division upgrade at the very least !

Went to pay my cable bill today. Asked about Navigator and whoo they knew something. The CSR said the engineers had been testing it for 3 months. The TWC employees now had it for 30 days of final testing. Should start to see it in Greensboro by early to mid july. This came directly from Time Warner CSR today .

I asked a rep up here today and she said they had nothing planned for the next 2 months and have gotten no dates/notification about when the rollout will start here...but based on my experiences with them and their communication, it could download tonight ;)

That's really good news if the local office knows the heads up on navigator .Not far off now i wouldn't think . I was told last night over the phone that the samsung receivers are done beta testing and i tried calling the Rome ny office and was told to try back next week for availability! there' s no way it's going to be a couple more month's for a navigator upgrade though! Not from word of mouth that's going round.Were all thrown off balance just so we are in the dark with all the csr's being misinformed .That's time warner's policy in our division they thrive on it.

That's really good news if the local office knows the heads up on navigator .Not far off now i wouldn't think . I was told last night over the phone that the samsung receivers are done beta testing and i tried calling the Rome ny office and was told to try back next week for availability! there' s no way it's going to be a couple more month's for a navigator upgrade though! Not from word of mouth that's going round.Were all thrown off balance just so we are in the dark with all the csr's being misinformed .That's time warner's policy in our division they thrive on it.

It sounds like coming up on the first of July, could be the start of the downloads. This was also based on info that said TWC wanted to wait for about 2-3 weeks after the digital transition of June 12th, to make sure things were OK. New York divisions got billing notices around the last week of May, saying "Within the next several weeks." It sounds like SOMETHING Navigator related WILL happen on or before July 1st. If you heard from division reps that they are testing Navigator on employee boxes now, that is about an 80% certainty that in such a division, you are LESS than 30 days away from seeing the new guide on your TV screens. Keep in contact with your divisions for future information, and request to speak to supervisors if necessary. This is the best way to insure quality communication and a better chance of information accuracy.

Jack

Thanks everybody for your assistance on this matter. I really do appreciate your input and expertise on navigator itself .You don't realize how much help you all are to me ....thanks everyone!:cool:

Jack the CSR I spoke to today said the employees got Navigator 2 days after the transaction. They were told to test it for 30 days and immediately report any problems to the engineers. She said so far it was fast and smooth as butter and cramed full of new features,(Remember we are on SARA here) So it is my estimate early or mid July would be our launch time barring some massive problem. WOODY

Jack the CSR I spoke to today said the employees got Navigator 2 days after the transaction. They were told to test it for 30 days and immediately report any problems to the engineers. She said so far it was fast and smooth as butter and cramed full of new features,(Remember we are on SARA here)

You'll love all those new features!

My favorite is this one:

"Navigate through channels or use our advanced search features to find current and upcoming programs. The Navigator utilizes both the up/down and left/right buttons on your remote control to help you find the shows you want to watch. The Program Guide menu system is also updated frequently."

Yes, not only can you navigate up and down, but also left AND right! It's the power of you!

The bold is their site emphasis. I didn't point that out for sarcasm purposes, they really do think it's important enough to highlight. Or maybe they are just desperate for selling points.

The entire feature list at TWC Carolinas is hilariously empty even if you have been stuck with SARA. The entire feature set is the guide, press A for access, B to find shows and record using a DVR. You might get the features the rest of us are still waiting for. Like StartOVer and QuickClips.

You'll love all those new features!

My favorite is this one:


Yes, not only can you navigate up and down, but also left AND right! It's the power of you!

The bold is their site emphasis. I didn't point that out for sarcasm purposes, they really do think it's important enough to highlight. Or maybe they are just desperate for selling points.

The entire feature list at TWC Carolinas is hilariously empty even if you have been stuck with SARA. The entire feature set is the guide, press A for access, B to find shows and record using a DVR. You might get the features the rest of us are still waiting for. Like StartOVer and QuickClips.

Whats funny is we have had Startover and quick clips here on SARA for over a year or better.

Whats funny is we have had Startover and quick clips here on SARA for over a year or better.

Same here, but QuickClips has only shown up very occasionally on ESPN and CNN (seems more like testing than a consumer oriented feature). Both StartOver and QuickClips appear only on SD channels here as well.

Same here, but QuickClips has only shown up very occasionally on ESPN and CNN (seems more like testing than a consumer oriented feature). Both StartOver and QuickClips appear only on SD channels here as well.

I'm hoping those features never show up in my area. I have a bad feeling that their addition will somehow mess up other aspects of Navigator. Plus I find those two things(I've read about them) to be the epitome of useless features. TWC should be trying to fix the SDV recording issue, fix eSATA and the Samsung boxes. Not be adding worthless, garbage features.

Whats funny is we have had Startover and quick clips here on SARA for over a year or better.

So your "new" Navigator feature list has just shrunk again! Maybe the rep you were talking to only had basic cable and that's why she sounded impressed.

I think that pretty much leaves just the "A for access" button and the color blue as things you haven't seen before. ;)

So your "new" Navigator feature list has just shrunk again! Maybe the rep you were talking to only had basic cable and that's why she sounded impressed.

I think that pretty much leaves just the "A for access" button and the color blue as things you haven't seen before. ;)

The only way anyone would be "impressed" by Navigator is if they were coming from a VHS machine before. And even then, my VHS machine gives Navigator a run for its money! :rolleyes: I'll bet I could schedule flawless back to back recordings on SDV channels with the VCR! ;)

I'm hoping those features never show up in my area. I have a bad feeling that their addition will somehow mess up other aspects of Navigator. Plus I find those two things(I've read about them) to be the epitome of useless features. TWC should be trying to fix the SDV recording issue, fix eSATA and the Samsung boxes. Not be adding worthless, garbage features.I'm not sure what QuickClips is, but StartOver will probably be a bit more useful on non-DVR STBs and tru2way televisions than on DVRs. Of course, if you really want to see a program, forgot that it was on (or just tuned into the middle of something that you didn't know about that piques your interest), and don't think that you can find another way to see it, StartOver's there. I think that it will probably be pretty useful to a significant number of people.

BTW, I really doubt that TWC has any interest in making eSATA work (at least until they can find some way to make some money from it :)). I've expressed this opinion before, but it'd be a major nightmare to provide support to people hooking arbitrary eSATA drives up to DVRs, a significant added expense without any added income.

It's a real pity that you can't dump your leased DVR for something more simple as simple and feature-free as a VCR :D.

I'm hoping those features never show up in my area. I have a bad feeling that their addition will somehow mess up other aspects of Navigator. Plus I find those two things(I've read about them) to be the epitome of useless features. TWC should be trying to fix the SDV recording issue, fix eSATA and the Samsung boxes. Not be adding worthless, garbage features.

but the good news is Start Over and QuickClips are probably as finished as much as you can expect from TWC. They've been around for years now * . Just not where we can see them.

So I don't think they are working tirelessly on adding those features instead of Navigator. I mean it will be the two year anniversary since the announcement of "Start Over - Coming soon to your area" appeared at twcnc.com in a few months and if that's an example of how fast they work to do something "soon" I would think they only work an 8 hour week on anything.

* Quick Clips was launched 2 and a half years ago!
http://www.timewarner.com/corp/newsroom/pr/0,20812,1540657,00.html

Start Over ... 5 years at the end of 2009 ... still not here ... holy crap. :rolleyes:
http://www.timewarner.com/corp/newsroom/pr/0,20812,1122634,00.html

I'm not sure what QuickClips is, but StartOver will probably be a bit more useful on non-DVR STBs and tru2way televisions than on DVRs. Of course, if you really want to see a program, forgot that it was on (or just tuned into the middle of something that you didn't know about that piques your interest), and don't think that you can find another way to see it, StartOver's there. I think that it will probably be pretty useful to a significant number of people.


That's what has me worried. Just the act of downloading MDN on Pioneer boxes or SA3100 series boxes turned them into crap. When I still had a Pioneer box, even simple features like the IPG or all of the channels did not work properly. TWC employees have admitted that the software is crap on the older boxes. And now they want to run Start Over on them? I remember having VOD problems with the old Pioneer boxes, so I have a feeling Start Over won't be that smooth. Seems like nothing ever is with TWC. (sigh) :(


I could see myself using Start Over on channels where a show starts AT TEN PM, but another show I watch on another channel runs over by a minute or two. Normally I just miss the minute or tow, but if the option to see it were available, I'd probably use it. But it's really no biggie.


It's a real pity that you can't dump your leased DVR for something more simple as simple and feature-free as a VCR :D.


Aren't you the Tivo guy? You sound like a certain man of many birds I know from the Cleveland forum! ;)


but the good news is Start Over and QuickClips are probably as finished as much as you can expect from TWC. They've been around for years now * . Just not where we can see them.

So I don't think they are working tirelessly on adding those features instead of Navigator. I mean it will be the two year anniversary since the announcement of "Start Over - Coming soon to your area" appeared at twcnc.com in a few months and if that's an example of how fast they work to do something "soon" I would think they only work an 8 hour week on anything.

* Quick Clips was launched 2 and a half years ago!
http://www.timewarner.com/corp/newsroom/pr/0,20812,1540657,00.html

Start Over ... 5 years at the end of 2009 ... still not here ... holy crap. :rolleyes:
http://www.timewarner.com/corp/newsroom/pr/0,20812,1122634,00.html

We've had advertising for Start Over and Quick Clips on TWC NE Ohio since the beginning of 2009. Also SDV. Only SDV has been implemented so far and even all areas(mostly ex Comcast) still do not have SDV. Then there's the issue of SARA vs. Navigator. I wonder if they are going to change SARA to Navigator first or try to add the new features to the areas with SARA. Whichever route they take, they have a huge mess since not all areas have Navigator. Some have SARA and some still have the iGuide from Comcast!:eek: Unless they do a complete overhaul on every system in every area, I don't think things will ever be "right" with TWC. They just keep digging themselves deeper and deeper...

That's what has me worried. Just the act of downloading MDN on Pioneer boxes or SA3100 series boxes turned them into crap. When I still had a Pioneer box, even simple features like the IPG or all of the channels did not work properly. TWC employees have admitted that the software is crap on the older boxes. And now they want to run Start Over on them? I remember having VOD problems with the old Pioneer boxes, so I have a feeling Start Over won't be that smooth. Seems like nothing ever is with TWC. (sigh) :(


I could see myself using Start Over on channels where a show starts AT TEN PM, but another show I watch on another channel runs over by a minute or two. Normally I just miss the minute or tow, but if the option to see it were available, I'd probably use it. But it's really no biggie.





Aren't you the Tivo guy? You sound like a certain man of many birds I know from the Cleveland forum! ;)




We've had advertising for Start Over and Quick Clips on TWC NE Ohio since the beginning of 2009. Also SDV. Only SDV has been implemented so far and even all areas(mostly ex Comcast) still do not have SDV. Then there's the issue of SARA vs. Navigator. I wonder if they are going to change SARA to Navigator first or try to add the new features to the areas with SARA. Whichever route they take, they have a huge mess since not all areas have Navigator. Some have SARA and some still have the iGuide from Comcast!:eek: Unless they do a complete overhaul on every system in every area, I don't think things will ever be "right" with TWC. They just keep digging themselves deeper and deeper...

Here we have Startover and Quickclips on dozens of channels..Quickclips are on Showtime. Comedy Central.Turner Classic Movies,Espn.Weather Channel and to many more to mention.I find them very entertaining. We have Startover on both SD and HD channels and I use it all the time.

And now they want to run Start Over on them?

Start Over is nothing more than VOD with a library that consists solely of the currently showing program. What runs on the boxes to support Start Over is already running on your box, and it works fine elsewhere. What's not implemented in your system is the program buffers at the headend and/or the additional channel slots to distribute it. Just like your frustration with SDV sometimes seems misdirected at Navigator, any problems you may have with Start Over will be much more likely to be local implementation issues rather than Navigator issues.

Likewise, QuickClips is VOD with a library of short features that update regularly... think Movie Trailers on Demand with current news and sports stories instead of the trailers.

All that runs in the box is the popup menu that lets you select item to watch... then its just pure VOD after that.

Even if you don't have Start Over or Quick Clips running in your system, you probably have seen the pop-up mechanism that runs in the box in those useless and annoying popups you get on HBO announcing that you have multiple HBO channels to watch.

I'm not sure what QuickClips is, but StartOver will probably be a bit more useful on non-DVR STBs and tru2way televisions than on DVRs. Of course, if you really want to see a program, forgot that it was on (or just tuned into the middle of something that you didn't know about that piques your interest), and don't think that you can find another way to see it, StartOver's there. I think that it will probably be pretty useful to a significant number of people.

BTW, I really doubt that TWC has any interest in making eSATA work (at least until they can find some way to make some money from it :)). I've expressed this opinion before, but it'd be a major nightmare to provide support to people hooking arbitrary eSATA drives up to DVRs, a significant added expense without any added income.

It's a real pity that you can't dump your leased DVR for something more simple as simple and feature-free as a VCR http://www.*****************/trafficreport/img/3721/k09f0423lglc/b.gif.

Well, it's his choice, we have nothing to do with that. But, you have a good suggestion.

Don't hold me to this but a friend who has a source in Time Warner says the keyword feature is now testing and has more features on it than the Passport keyword. (TIVO license of wishlist maybe)If this is true andI'm only repeating what I was told. This alone could put Navigator in a higher league.Maybe Time Warner finally getting serious about NAVIGATOR. WOODY

So your "new" Navigator feature list has just shrunk again! Maybe the rep you were talking to only had basic cable and that's why she sounded impressed.

I think that pretty much leaves just the "A for access" button and the color blue as things you haven't seen before. ;)

Well on SARA we have almost no search features and no series priority management. These 2 features alone make it worth haveing. Add the upcomeing Keyword search and remote programming and you leave SARA in the dust. If you don't need or want these features you should turn in your dvr and buy a vcr. Not trying to offend but that would seem to be a lot cheaper for you WOODY.

I also got the upgrade last night in Ithaca, NY. The box said "dnld card" and the screen displayed "cablecard firmware upgrade." The downloading took about half an hour...I was also wondering if it could be related to an upcoming Navigator download

If it was a cablecard firmware update, the box most probably already has ODN on it.

do you have navigator riverside ? I'm guessing you do right? did you get this firmware upgrade you sound very positive that the firmware upgrade is more then likely digitAL NAVIGATOR.... if THIS IS TRUE THEN YOUR are the man!!!!! You mean it's like on the receivers that got the update it's just kind of lingering so to speak ... till time warner flicks the switch !

If it was a cablecard firmware update, the box most probably already has ODN on it.

Why do you say that? The is an HDC version of SARA...

xnappo

Don't hold me to this but a friend who has a source in Time Warner says the keyword feature is now testing and has more features on it than the Passport keyword. (TIVO license of wishlist maybe)If this is true andI'm only repeating what I was told. This alone could put Navigator in a higher league.Maybe Time Warner finally getting serious about NAVIGATOR. WOODY

FWIW, the only thing I don't have in my Passport keyword search that would be useful is an ability to specify a channel or ranges of channels (and multiple, discontinuous ranges at that).

Why do you say that? The is an HDC version of SARA...

xnappo

How many deployed HDCs have SARA and how many have ODN? I dare say the vast majority have ODN... and I did say "most."

How many deployed HDCs have SARA and how many have ODN? I dare say the vast majority have ODN... and I did say "most."

Errr.... Nnnnooooo. I think about 1/3 or TWCs market were on Passport (that was a few years ago though). The other 2/3 are SARA, and all of them have of course had to deploy HDCs since the cable card mandate.

xnappo

I could see myself using Start Over on channels where a show starts AT TEN PM, but another show I watch on another channel runs over by a minute or two. Normally I just miss the minute or tow, but if the option to see it were available, I'd probably use it. But it's really no biggie.It's more useful for people who sit down in the middle of the hour and are flipping through channels looking for something to watch. If they tune into the middle of a program that looks good, they can use StartOver to start it from the beginning, with PAUSE and REW, but no FF (so they can't avoid playing the ad breaks).
Aren't you the Tivo guy? You sound like a certain man of many birds I know from the Cleveland forum! ;)Yes, I am a TiVo guy. I share a home and use a TiVo Series3 in my private space, but there's a panel in the family room which I also sometimes use and it has an 8240HDC running ODN. If I didn't use Navigator at all, I wouldn't participate in this discussion.

TiVo keeps heaping on features that I don't particularly care for, but I just ignore them and don't go to the TiVo thread and complain that they're there. Most recently they added a new advertising feature that pissed folks off: ads which sometimes pop up in an overlayed menu when you press PAUSE, along with a "More about <program>" button which always pops up. It goes away when you press CLEAR, so I just programmed my Harmony remote to send PAUSE+CLEAR when I press PAUSE :D.
We've had advertising for Start Over and Quick Clips on TWC NE Ohio since the beginning of 2009. Also SDV. Only SDV has been implemented so far and even all areas(mostly ex Comcast) still do not have SDV.Here, TWC bought the bankrupt Adelphia system, which was a Moto network. They still don't have SDV and consequently don't have a bunch of HD channels added to the main TWC San Diego system in the past year. (They also have the Macrovision/Gemstar iGuide IPG--there were a few Moxi boxes, but from what I understand, TWC switched them to iGuide like the rest). Some are pissed that they're not getting the same channels though they pay the same fees, but what they don't realize is that there are cable systems all over the country--TWC and others--with multiple divisions, each with different channel lineups. TWC San Diego only has the two, and are under no obligation to have the same channel lineup in both. Other than the NFL Network, TWC hasn't taken any channels away from them and have added some (which they had for several months before we got them).

Comcast predominantly used Moto networks, so that's possibly the hold-up in getting SDV in those areas. They either have to switch to a Cisco network, or implement an SDV solution that will work with the Moto stuff.

Well on SARA we have almost no search features and no series priority management. These 2 features alone make it worth haveing. Add the upcomeing Keyword search and remote programming and you leave SARA in the dust. If you don't need or want these features you should turn in your dvr and buy a vcr. Not trying to offend but that would seem to be a lot cheaper for you WOODY.

I want both of those features but history tells us that a promise from TWC means nothing to anyone outside of a test market. As shown above with Start Over. You might get keyword search. You might get remote programming. TWC SC areas will most likely get those features. TWC Raleigh most likely will not.

Do you remember Navigator's promised two week program guide? Never happened outside a test market.

And don't think Navigator search is an improvement over no search at all. It's so poorly implemented it's faster just to browse through the guide than type it in and see what random and oblique list it brings up. I don't remember the last time I used it.

Is there manual series priority management in Navigator? I haven't seen that as a feature since Passport.

...history tells us that a promise from TWC means nothing to anyone outside of a test market.

I was a senior engineer in the cable biz for 18 years - for a financially sound privately-owned top 10 MSO that actually cared about long term relationships with our customers and didn't have to worry about daily fluctuations in stock prices. One of the biggest jokes in the industry was that whenever one of the large publicly held MSOs made a big technology announcement it was always more about keeping the buzz going on Wall Street than it was about anything substantive. I used to feel sorry for the suppliers like General Instrument (now Motorola) and Scientific-Atlanta (now Cisco) because of how they would be squeezed for R&D based on promises that would never come to fruition.

Is there manual series priority management in Navigator? I haven't seen that as a feature since Passport.

Yes, works rather well most of the time. I have seen some glitches, though, were it will favor a lower priority show over a higher priority one. Changing priorities doesn't help once this happens... I have found that you need to delete the higher priority series and then re-add it to get it to function correctly.

BTW... new series are always added at priority 1... so you can't forget to go back into the priority list and move it down. It would be nice if they gave you that option at the initial series add.

How many deployed HDCs have SARA and how many have ODN? I dare say the vast majority have ODN... and I did say "most."

Well, if that's true then I'm in the minority. This is most definitely good old SARA...I am curious about how many customers still have this, however. You'd think they'd be embarrassed to have such a visually dated program (not to mention the features) representing their company. Every time I look at my guide it's a flashback to the 90s...

I want both of those features but history tells us that a promise from TWC means nothing to anyone outside of a test market. As shown above with Start Over. You might get keyword search. You might get remote programming. TWC SC areas will most likely get those features. TWC Raleigh most likely will not.

Do you remember Navigator's promised two week program guide? Never happened outside a test market.

And don't think Navigator search is an improvement over no search at all. It's so poorly implemented it's faster just to browse through the guide than type it in and see what random and oblique list it brings up. I don't remember the last time I used it.

Is there manual series priority management in Navigator? I haven't seen that as a feature since Passport.

Yes my Navigator at my beach house has the priority series management and it works great.

I want both of those features but history tells us that a promise from TWC means nothing to anyone outside of a test market. As shown above with Start Over. You might get keyword search. You might get remote programming. TWC SC areas will most likely get those features. TWC Raleigh most likely will not.

Do you remember Navigator's promised two week program guide? Never happened outside a test market.

And don't think Navigator search is an improvement over no search at all. It's so poorly implemented it's faster just to browse through the guide than type it in and see what random and oblique list it brings up. I don't remember the last time I used it.

Is there manual series priority management in Navigator? I haven't seen that as a feature since Passport.

I also have heard from other sources that TWC is indeed working on Keyword Search for Navigator. It is believed to be #1 on the working for new features list. Generally they do the MDN boxes first and than the ODN boxes for updates. Remember when they changed the guide color? They did that first on MDN, than about three months later on ODN.

San Diego often seems to be among the first roll out market to get new Navigator features, than about a month later they start other divisions. The other divisions I am sure are watching the final transition of Passport/SARA conversions to MDN Navigator very carefully, and will likely roll out these updates based on this transition.

There are confirmed reports that a big change to Navigator is coming later this year. I don't think it would make much sense to use Keyword Search in only a test market. Keyword Search is a big enough deal that would make Navigator more desirable in areas that already have it and give Navigator a strong subscriber boost.

In contrast, some projects were discussed for Navigator in its early stages that it would be interesting to note what happened to them. Early releases of Navigator promised an Interactive Games Channel, Interactive Polling, and Buy On Demand similar to E-Bay. Do any divisions currently have these applets being tested? Due to the dismal performance of Navigator's early release, it would appear these projects were shelved.

The on-tap features that some Navigator divisions are reporting:


Longer Program Descriptions-(May be a part of Keyword Search.)

Remote DVR Management-(How would this work?)

Jack

Remote DVR Management

When the latest TWC corporate website was rolled out, for a few days the Charlotte division website had information posted on use and operation of remote DVR management. Those web pages would not have been developed if the application was not forthcoming.

It appeared to use a web-based interface to remotely program the DVR. These boxes have docsis modems installed, so the communications part is already there. Question is... where does the web server app reside... on each box (you would directly access your STB) or as a TW host-based application that downloads schedule changes in bulk to the boxes. There are pros/cons either way.

There are confirmed reports that a big change to Navigator is coming later this year. I don't think it would make much sense to use Keyword Search in only a test market. Keyword Search is a big enough deal that would make Navigator more desirable in areas that already have it and give Navigator a strong subscriber boost.

In contrast, some projects were discussed for Navigator in its early stages that it would be interesting to note what happened to them. Early releases of Navigator promised an Interactive Games Channel, Interactive Polling, and Buy On Demand similar to E-Bay. Do any divisions currently have these applets being tested? Due to the dismal performance of Navigator's early release, it would appear these projects were shelved.


Those features are out there. TWC Oceanic has seen those as I mentioned earlier. They got to see some more features just last year.

"ActiveVideo and Time Warner Cable revealed the details of a new service that allows digital cable subscribers in the cable operator’s Oceanic division to view Internet-based and traditional content on their TVs.

ActiveVideo CEO Jeff Miller said Time Warner Cable rolled out the new service in Hawaii just prior to the start of the Beijing Olympics in August. The service allowed digital cable subscribers to view Web clips, mosaics of live broadcast and cable channels simultaneously, and to find out additional information about the athletes through RSS feeds.

“[Time Warner Cable] rolled it out quietly,” Miller said in an interview with CED. “The viewers ate it up and it was quite popular. Based on that success, the Oceanic team has added another wave of content to the service.”

The additional content, which was announced today, included interactive games from TAG Networks; home shopping from HSN; and news, sports and children’s versions of P:Mosaic, which is a personalized video navigation system that allows customers to pick from their favorite channels in a single glance.

With ActiveVideo, viewers can navigate an interactive environment of both linear and broadband programming, including interfaces and graphics optimized for TV and remote control navigation; social networking; personal media; niche content; and targeted, actionable advertising. ActiveVideo uses MPEG streaming to deliver the Web 2.0 experience to any digital cable set-top box or broadband-connected consumer electronics (CE) device."


Like I said, talk of "big changes" and "important new features" mean absolutely nothing in regards to a widespread rollout.