Well, their methodology using the NEW markings has made me delete 40 something unwanted recordings in the space of 6 days. Don't remember exact details, but many of them have nothing to do with conflict... oh wait, on Thursday a repeat of the previous Monday's The Closer showed up on the schedule...

I think the issue is they have taken a huge shortcut for "conflict resolution" that could have been done far better. Like I said, upping a 3090 to 320 makes the "let it record" be not near as problematic as having only the 160. Even so, saying I have to make sure I actually record and keep for a week all first run serials so I don't have to delete tons of duplicate recordings is just wrong.

I also have to wonder if the fact you are using ODN and me MDN might also be a factor?

Just to be clear, my primary box is a recently upgraded 8300HD, so I am speaking as an MDN user, not an ODN user.

-barry

All settings and series recordings were left intact... however, the recording log will be gone and you will experience some issues similar to a conversion for a few days, but they will settle out.

Wow, that seems surprising. Might mean that stuff is stored at their head end... or maybe there's some kind of EPROM onboard?

Thanks for the tips. I figured the first boot would take some time. That's good that settings and series records are maintained. I only have one show saved on the current drive, so I'll have viewed that by Thursday.

What did Amazon want for the drive? It is $48.44 where jcalabira got his.

Wow, that seems surprising. Might mean that stuff is stored at their head end... or maybe there's some kind of EPROM onboard?

I believe that schedule and settings are stored locally in non-volatile memory... but the recording log (which can get quite lengthy) is stored on the hard drive.

What did Amazon want for the drive? It is $48.44 where jcalabira got his.

$64 (and currently out of stock) athttp://rover.ebay.com/ar/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?mpt=2108128861&adtype=1&size=1x1&type=3&campid=5336055023&toolid=10001 Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FSeagate-Pipeline-Cache-Drive-ST3320310CS%2Fdp%2FB001VKYA4K%2Fref%3Dsr_1_4%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s %3Delectronics%26qid%3D1251209091%26sr%3D8-4&tag=5336055023-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325)

usually if i am watching a set up series recording live, i'll let it record in the background then just delete it when its over. no different than if i was watching it as a recording.

Yes, I am now following that "logic." No matter what anyone says, their "system" is flawed because it's based on putting incorrect data into the program descriptions. The premise that one has to actually record something you are watching, IMO, is dumb.

You don't have to keep recordings for a week. Just record them and then delete them one second after they are finished recording, if you want.

I've made that process one of the "before I shut it down" things.

Yes, I am now following that "logic." No matter what anyone says, their "system" is flawed because it's based on putting incorrect data into the program descriptions. The premise that one has to actually record something you are watching, IMO, is dumb.

When you get a moment, please explain how Passport dealt with automatically rescheduling programs missed due to conflicts. How did it know what was a suitable replacement showing?

Somehow I missed that line when reading your post the first time... NO! NO! NO! You Don't!!!:eek:

It only has to appear in the log as recorded or deleted by user. If you thought you needed to keep the recording until the premiere week was over, I can see why you were concerned over drive capacity, but that is NOT how it works.

Yes, I got that message... I'm making it a "before I go to sleep" process.

Hey, w/ODN, is there any way to have it show channel numbers when the box is on, but time when the box is off? It USED to be setting "Always Show Channel" accomplished that, but now that setting shows the time for a couple of hours (something like that, Im not about to sit there and time it!) then reverts to the channel.

Yes, I got that message... I'm making it a "before I go to sleep" process.

Hey, w/ODN, is there any way to have it show channel numbers when the box is on, but time when the box is off? It USED to be setting "Always Show Channel" accomplished that, but now that setting shows the time for a couple of hours (something like that, Im not about to sit there and time it!) then reverts to the channel.

If you have a "before I go to sleep" process for your DVR, you are DEFINITELY micro-managing it! :D

On both my 8300HDC and 3090, the "Show Channel Always" option appears to keep the time displayed perfectly when the box is off. However, I do not use that mode normally, so I cannot declare unequivocally that it NEVER screws up and displays a channel number. I do know that when set to my preferred "display time always", it does just that and I have never seen a channel number displayed under any circumstance.

I think what you are seeing is a bug in your MDN version (or specific installation), not an MDN "feature". Is it possible that the channel numbers that appear while the box is off are related to something being recorded at the time?

If you have a "before I go to sleep" process for your DVR, you are DEFINITELY micro-managing it! :D

OIh, this made me laugh! It was YOUR original suggestion to let it record shows I was watching... when do I delete them that you won't accuse me of micro-managing?

On both my 8300HDC and 3090, the "Show Channel Always" option appears to keep the time displayed perfectly when the box is off. However, I do not use that mode normally, so I cannot declare unequivocally that it NEVER screws up and displays a channel number. I do know that when set to my preferred "display time always", it does just that and I have never seen a channel number displayed under any circumstance.

I think what you are seeing is a bug in your MDN version (or specific installation), not an MDN "feature". Is it possible that the channel numbers that appear while the box is off are related to something being recorded at the time?[/QUOTE]

Thought of that... nah, not the case. It's even odder, sometimes it shows my "power-on" channel and sometimes the last channel viewed. I never even mentioned it until I saw it consistently being an issue for more than 3-4 days.

OIh, this made me laugh! It was YOUR original suggestion to let it record shows I was watching... when do I delete them that you won't accuse me of micro-managing?.

It was the having a bedtime "process" part that made me laugh. I just delete them "whenever". Hey... whatever works, lol.

What did Amazon want for the drive? It is $48.44 where jcalabira got his.

The place jcalabria got his was $55 shipped. Amazon was around $65, but with my prime account I'll have it tomorrow. Also, in case it doesn't work, I know Amazon will take it back without issues and all I'll be out is the return shipping.

OIh, this made me laugh! It was YOUR original suggestion to let it record shows I was watching... when do I delete them that you won't accuse me of micro-managing?

For me, I just multi-task the deleting. Whenever I watch a pre-recorded show, I quickly scan the recently recorded shows list, and I delete anything that is a dupe. I can still listen to, and watch in a window, the show that I'm watching. Now that the system has properly initialized itself, this is almost no shows.

-barry

Question: Has anybody out there every changed their external drive under Navigator (MDN)?

I'm going to upgrade my external drive, and I don't know what will happen. Here's my planned scenario:

1. Delete all shows on the box.
2. Turn off the box for at least 10 seconds.
3. Remove the external drive.
4. Turn the box back on.
5. Reboot the box, twice if necessary.
6. Attach the new external drive.

Any comments would be appreciated.

-barry

Dear All:

I have an 8300HD and was "pushed" the mystro MDN around a week ago. Don't like the weird, lack of channel surfing/buffering when compared with the previous Passport...but, oh well, i do not have a choice. Such is the life of living with a near monopoly, or at least an oligopoly!!

As such, i'm been thinking about my possibilities:

1) stay put, do nothing: the downside is that i'm perpetually running out of space, despite the fact that i'm a very light user and only record a relatively limited number of shows when compared with many who i see contribute here.

2) add an INTERNAL drive: risk: being sued as someone suggested. More work...etc. Note: i have taken an interest in building PC's and built my first home-built PC 2 years ago, so i do have a very limited aptitude in building PC, however klutzy i seem to be... ;)

3) add an external eSATA drive: more money, may not be transferable; other future dvr's from time warner may not support eSATA...etc. I'm NOT a heavy user and record only a small number of shows, esp when compared with many users' posts here, yet, i still run out very quickly of space.

I happen to have (and never ever used) a:

- Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (Perpendicular Recording) ST3500630AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148136


- ENERMAX JAZZ EB307ES-B 3.5" USB 2.0 & eSATA External Enclosure
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194025


May i ask if the good folks here can help guide me in how to plug it into my 8300HD in terms of a step-by-step instructions? I read a number of posts and searched around, including the Gearbits.com page and baseportal page on this topic.

My initial questions are:

- do i plug the eSATA cable in the 8300HD only with the front on/off switch of the 8300HD in the off position? Or, is it smarter/better to have the plug of the 8300HD unplugged from the power source (a power conditioner)?

- is the eSATA drive ok to be plugged into the back of the 8300HD's convenience outlet?

- I understand that one should power up the eSATA drive FIRST, then the 8300HD's front power switch. Once the front on switch of the 8300HD is on, I understand that there is a recognition on screen of an external drive plugged in and it asks (so i read) if one would like to reformat this newly found external eSATA drive. I should answer yes, right?

- what is next please?

I only managed to piece together this info as i have not yet found a comprehensive, detailed step-by-step guide. if there is one already written by a reliable source, kindly direct me to it please?

sorry to seem so detailed oriented, but i'd like to do thing correctly and not suffer consequences due to poor execution later on.

thx again in advance.

^^^
have you visited this thread
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=516559
xnappo has compiled a good list of drives and enclosures that have had the most error free success.

EDIT
never mind i just visited that thread and saw that you posted there too.

Yes, I got that message... I'm making it a "before I go to sleep" process.
...


Actually, the process of deleting shows as soon as you are done with them is very easy and intuitive, I could not think of a more intuitive way. The moment you want to stop watching the show, you hit STOP. You get a dialog, one of the options is DELETE. Select that option and the show is gone. If you watch the show all the way to the end, it will give you the same dialog automatically as it ends. Either way, you delete the show you finished watching right away, easily and (at least to me) naturally. Just remember that you are watching a recording, and that, when you are done, it seems reasonable to hit STOP.

Question: Has anybody out there every changed their external drive under Navigator (MDN)?

I'm going to upgrade my external drive, and I don't know what will happen. Here's my planned scenario:

1. Delete all shows on the box.
2. Turn off the box for at least 10 seconds.
3. Remove the external drive.
4. Turn the box back on.
5. Reboot the box, twice if necessary.
6. Attach the new external drive.

Any comments would be appreciated.

-barry
No need to reboot before you attach the new eSATA HDD.
Attach with power off and power up to reboot.
MDN will automatically find the external drive, prompt to reformat and prompt to reboot.
One or two reboots MAY be needed before it's ready....

Apricorn told me swapping between multiple eSATA HDDs works the same way
I only have one eSATA HDD, so haven't tried it....

PS: eSATA HDD works with many Passport and MDN versions.....but hardly any ODN (CableCARD) versions...

Here in Milwaukee Wisconsin,

Version 2.4.6-19 downloaded to my SA-8300HD (MDN Box) This is an upgrade from Version 2.4.4-15

Post any changes known.

Jack

It was the having a bedtime "process" part that made me laugh. I just delete them "whenever". Hey... whatever works, lol.

I'll admit I can be a creature of habit. So I consciously try and develop habits for things I should be doing on some kind of schedule.

Well, then you're going to LOVE this. Last night I sat down to watch the news... but felt the micro-managing pull. Just HAD to look at scheduled recordings. Whaddya know, it decided that 2 shows I had let it record MON need to be recorded... again. Ah-yup, my fault because a hour or so after they recorded, I deleted them. So it patiently waited until they were gone and scheduled them again. Of COURSE, the schedule also included one show that I did NOT let record, deleting the schedule because I was about to watch it.

Seriously, given that I know of at least 2 or 3 folks who are going through horrendous experiences with an hour show being recorded in 10-20 chunks, it seems the conversion of such old equipment to Craptigator is fraught will peril. If anyone at TWC had half a brain (which I doubt) one could make a case they are doing this on purpose to "convince" customers to swap their boxes... forgetting that for most folks, it means a truck roll.

So it looks like a swap out is necessary. First I have to decide if I want to watch the 5 Torchwood episodes at their real length... I suspect any further showings may be of the variety with 15 minutes cut off to produce and hour show with commercials. Besides, pretty much all the cable shows that have been giving me fits are over until next season. In the next month, most of the series are going to be network ones where they are only broadcast ONCE. AND I think someone in NYC is about to do a drive swap!

Actually, the process of deleting shows as soon as you are done with them is very easy and intuitive, I could not think of a more intuitive way. The moment you want to stop watching the show, you hit STOP. You get a dialog, one of the options is DELETE. Select that option and the show is gone. If you watch the show all the way to the end, it will give you the same dialog automatically as it ends. Either way, you delete the show you finished watching right away, easily and (at least to me) naturally. Just remember that you are watching a recording, and that, when you are done, it seems reasonable to hit STOP.

Well, it's kind of moot now because even if I watch, record and then delete, it still schedules subsequent recordings of the same show. Have concluded the 8300HD/MDN combo is just completely flawed... add my issues to several folks who are getting recordings in 10 and up chunks seems too be another issue with this combo. Add in that most of the series giving me fits have ended (I think there one more Weeds to go), I shouldn't have trouble for the next month or so.

Well, it's kind of moot now because even if I watch, record and then delete, it still schedules subsequent recordings of the same show. Have concluded the 8300HD/MDN combo is just completely flawed... add my issues to several folks who are getting recordings in 10 and up chunks seems too be another issue with this combo. Add in that most of the series giving me fits have ended (I think there one more Weeds to go), I shouldn't have trouble for the next month or so.

Then something is wrong with your particular box, and you should probably consider a swap. A lot of people here (both MDN and ODN) have never had such issues.

First I have to decide if I want to watch the 5 Torchwood episodes at their real length... I suspect any further showings may be of the variety with 15 minutes cut off to produce and hour show with commercials.

Rent the Blu-ray or dvd version of Torchwood. After seeing the first two episodes on cable I couldn't take it anymore and bought the blu-ray. In addition to looking and sounding fantastic, I believe there were some scenes on the disks that weren't in the broadcast. BTW, keep your fingers crossed on my drive swap. :D

Rent the Blu-ray or dvd version of Torchwood. After seeing the first two episodes on cable I couldn't take it anymore and bought the blu-ray. In addition to looking and sounding fantastic, I believe there were some scenes on the disks that weren't in the broadcast. BTW, keep your fingers crossed on my drive swap. :D

Trust me, I even have my eyes crossed for ya! If it works as expected, I'll be doing the same thing... the HD/MDN combo apparently is far worse for me than what others are telling me... AND I don't have the "record in multiple chunks" that seems to plague more than one other person.

Trust me, I even have my eyes crossed for ya! If it works as expected, I'll be doing the same thing... the HD/MDN combo apparently is far worse for me than what others are telling me... AND I don't have the "record in multiple chunks" that seems to plague more than one other person.

Are those "record in multiple chunks" reports all from the same area? I don't remember hearing about it before, it could easily be a signal/head end issue.

Well, then you're going to LOVE this. Last night I sat down to watch the news... but felt the micro-managing pull. Just HAD to look at scheduled recordings...

I actually do that every night when I sit down to watch, too. But its not because I don't trust Navigator... its because most nights by the time I get home from work at my brain is so fried I can't remember what day it is and what it is I watch on that night :confused: ... I need the reminder! :o

Are those "record in multiple chunks" reports all from the same area? I don't remember hearing about it before, it could easily be a signal/head end issue.

They all seem to be in the NYC area and only with programming on FoxHD, 705. I've experienced it with the 3090 and "Hell's Kitchen". Last night was rather interesting. I was watching in real time as the episode was recording. I periodically would check and there were three separate recordings (not simultaneous) for HK while the episode was running. After it ended I took a look and there were a total of 6 recordings for the ep. The odd thing was there was overlap amongst the recordings. 1 was from 8pm to around 8:45pm, another 8 to 8:20, another from 8:02 to 8:03. Since I really don't record that much on Fox (so far HK is the only show), I've just went along with this. The only problem is if you have the season pass set to keep only 7 episodes, it will start deleting segments once that point has been reached.

They all seem to be in the NYC area and only with programming on FoxHD, 705. I've experienced it with the 3090 and "Hell's Kitchen". .Yeah, it's pretty strange. I have only heard about this happening for this one specific show and only with the Sammy box.

They all seem to be in the NYC area and only with programming on FoxHD, 705. I've experienced it with the 3090 and "Hell's Kitchen". Last night was rather interesting. I was watching in real time as the episode was recording. I periodically would check and there were three separate recordings (not simultaneous) for HK while the episode was running. After it ended I took a look and there were a total of 6 recordings for the ep. The odd thing was there was overlap amongst the recordings. 1 was from 8pm to around 8:45pm, another 8 to 8:20, another from 8:02 to 8:03. Since I really don't record that much on Fox (so far HK is the only show), I've just went along with this. The only problem is if you have the season pass set to keep only 7 episodes, it will start deleting segments once that point has been reached.

Since you were watching in real-time as well, were there any obvious glitches or interruptions in the program delivery? If there is an inturruption (cable outage, power outage... even just rebooting the box), Navigator will resume an interrupted recording automatically, and it will do it as a separate recording.

I think that Navigator is probably reacting appropriately to an apparent content delivery issue. The key is finding out what in your Fox HD feed is triggering this behavior. It's obviously not a bug isolated to the MDN/8300 if its happening to your Sammy as well.

Since you were watching in real-time as well, were there any obvious glitches or interruptions in the program delivery? If there is an inturruption (cable outage, power outage... even just rebooting the box), Navigator will resume an interrupted recording automatically, and it will do it as a separate recording.

I think that Navigator is probably reacting appropriately to an apparent content delivery issue. The key is finding out what in your Fox HD feed is triggering this behavior. It's obviously not a bug isolated to the MDN/8300 if its happening to your Sammy as well.

At one point here in Orlando on Brighthouse, we were getting that sort of problem with FOX. It turned out that they were putting some signal in that the box was seeing as an end of show (or something like that). I don't remember it that was before our conversion from Passport. Complaining to Brighthouse led them to the problem. Perhaps this is something similar.

Jim

Since you were watching in real-time as well, were there any obvious glitches or interruptions in the program delivery?

None. Everything was perfect (if one can use that term in the same sentence with Hell's Kitchen). However, that was my first thought as well as I've had some issues with signal level on 705 on my bedroom set. That turned out to be a bad piece of coax and I've since checked the signal level at both cable boxes and it's excellent. Also, when I was running Passport on the SA8300HD, there was nothing happening like this either.

No need to reboot before you attach the new eSATA HDD.
Attach with power off and power up to reboot.
MDN will automatically find the external drive, prompt to reformat and prompt to reboot.
One or two reboots MAY be needed before it's ready....

Apricorn told me swapping between multiple eSATA HDDs works the same way
I only have one eSATA HDD, so haven't tried it....

PS: eSATA HDD works with many Passport and MDN versions.....but hardly any ODN (CableCARD) versions...

Thanks for the info. I have done the swap, and it seems to be working fine with the new 1TB WD My DVR Expander.

Just FYI, I have an MDN Navigator (nee: Passport) 8300HD box.

-barry

Then something is wrong with your particular box, and you should probably consider a swap. A lot of people here (both MDN and ODN) have never had such issues.

Riverside_Guy: If you do get a new box, for the first week or so, make a point of it to NEVER cancel an upcoming recording - just let it record and then delete the recording. If you get into the habit of doing things this way, I think your box will perform better in general.

By the way, I just bought a Tivo for my den TV, and it's suffering from the same problem you are: it's recording old episodes of series even though I have "First Run Only" selected. Maybe this problem is harder than it seems.

-barry

Are those "record in multiple chunks" reports all from the same area? I don't remember hearing about it before, it could easily be a signal/head end issue.

About two years ago, we got the 10 minute-20 minute chunks on two channels more than anything else. TV Land and Foof Network. They would almost always occur between 6PM-7:30PM on almost always on those channels.

When they started rolling out SDV in our area (Metro-Milwaukee, Wisconsin) we would get multiple listings in Navigator for channel numbers that didn't exist. For example, Food Network could be on 61 (SD in Milwaukee), 515-(HD in Milwaukee) 900? (Kids and Family Pack) and 1820? (SDV test channel)

If you went to an SDV test channel, sometimes you would get the station, but most times it would be:

"This channel is currently unavailable, press A to try again." As most of you know, you could press "A" all day and it won't do $hite!

Anyway, when this was happening was when we would sometimes get the break off in recordings. Food Network would record from 6PM-6:10 PM and than sometimes that would be it, or it would pick up at 6:15 PM-6:30 PM as if there was a five minute power failure when their wasn't.

From time to time, we still get bogus bonus channel number listings in guide searches. ESPN 2 for example has four! Only the obvious SD and HD channels take you to the station. There's two more that are listed like 774 and 1894 or something so I don't know WTF that's about!

We haven't gotten the time break ups for a year or more and have had the same MDN Navigator box (SA-8300 HD) for about two years with no to very minimal problems.

Suggestions for those with program breakups:

1.) Are these SDV only channels where this is occurring? If so, it is doubtful that a new box will change things. It could be a head-end issue or signal issue.

2.) When you record those channels do the time break-ups happen regardless of whether you record the shows as a series or individually?

3.) We just got a Navigator update last night. From MDN 2.4.4-15 to MDN 2.4.6-19. This version fixes several bugs and it looks like this may be the next MDN release.

4.) Can you reproduce the same time jumps on the same shows, on different boxes? On different model boxes? This was an issue with "Hells Kitchen" and "So You Think You Can Dance?" reported on the Samsungs in NYC. Is it being seen on MDN and ODN?

5.) I don't think this is a box issue, I think this is an SDV issue with these shows and times that it somehow relating to the way the converter speaks to the head-end when recording those shows, during those times.

Post what you are seeing in your division. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin we have not have the channel partial recordings for at least a year.

Jack

About two years ago, we got the 10 minute-20 minute chunks on two channels more than anything else. TV Land and Foof Network. They would almost always occur between 6PM-7:30PM on almost always on those channels.

When they started rolling out SDV in our area (Metro-Milwaukee, Wisconsin) we would get multiple listings in Navigator for channel numbers that didn't exist. For example, Food Network could be on 61 (SD in Milwaukee), 515-(HD in Milwaukee) 900? (Kids and Family Pack) and 1820? (SDV test channel)

If you went to an SDV test channel, sometimes you would get the station, but most times it would be:

"This channel is currently unavailable, press A to try again." As most of you know, you could press "A" all day and it won't do $hite!

Anyway, when this was happening was when we would sometimes get the break off in recordings. Food Network would record from 6PM-6:10 PM and than sometimes that would be it, or it would pick up at 6:15 PM-6:30 PM as if there was a five minute power failure when their wasn't.

From time to time, we still get bogus bonus channel number listings in guide searches. ESPN 2 for example has four! Only the obvious SD and HD channels take you to the station. There's two more that are listed like 774 and 1894 or something so I don't know WTF that's about!

We haven't gotten the time break ups for a year or more and have had the same MDN Navigator box (SA-8300 HD) for about two years with no to very minimal problems.

Suggestions for those with program breakups:

1.) Are these SDV only channels where this is occurring? If so, it is doubtful that a new box will change things. It could be a head-end issue or signal issue.

2.) When you record those channels do the time break-ups happen regardless of whether you record the shows as a series or individually?

3.) We just got a Navigator update last night. From MDN 2.4.4-15 to MDN 2.4.6-19. This version fixes several bugs and it looks like this may be the next MDN release.

4.) Can you reproduce the same time jumps on the same shows, on different boxes? On different model boxes? This was an issue with "Hells Kitchen" and "So You Think You Can Dance?" reported on the Samsungs in NYC. Is it being seen on MDN and ODN?

5.) I don't think this is a box issue, I think this is an SDV issue with these shows and times that it somehow relating to the way the converter speaks to the head-end when recording those shows, during those times.

Post what you are seeing in your division. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin we have not have the channel partial recordings for at least a year.

Jack

NYC is not running SDV, and the Fox HD broadcast feed would likely not be SDV anywhere, but I agree that there is something unusual about the feed, even if its not SDV. There's at least post here about the problem on an ODN Sammie 3090 as well.

There's at least post here about the problem on an ODN Sammie 3090 as well.

I believe there's several more over on the twcnyc thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=297592&page=701) as well.

Since you were watching in real-time as well, were there any obvious glitches or interruptions in the program delivery? If there is an inturruption (cable outage, power outage... even just rebooting the box), Navigator will resume an interrupted recording automatically, and it will do it as a separate recording.

I think that Navigator is probably reacting appropriately to an apparent content delivery issue. The key is finding out what in your Fox HD feed is triggering this behavior. It's obviously not a bug isolated to the MDN/8300 if its happening to your Sammy as well.

I routinely had this issue here in Dayton with last season's American Idol. My SD8300HD with Navigator would record the first 50 minutes of the show as one recording and would record the last 10 minutes as another. I have not seen this error since AI finished its season.

When you get a moment, please explain how Passport dealt with automatically rescheduling programs missed due to conflicts. How did it know what was a suitable replacement showing?It didn't. /Dan

San Diego just got ODN v3.1.3_2 dated 4.26.2009. My Samsung box was updated to v4.2.2.2. I guess the 3270 is now closer to reality.

OIh, this made me laugh! It was YOUR original suggestion to let it record shows I was watching... when do I delete them that you won't accuse me of micro-managing?



I think what you are seeing is a bug in your MDN version (or specific installation), not an MDN "feature". Is it possible that the channel numbers that appear while the box is off are related to something being recorded at the time?

Thought of that... nah, not the case. It's even odder, sometimes it shows my "power-on" channel and sometimes the last channel viewed. I never even mentioned it until I saw it consistently being an issue for more than 3-4 days.I get the same in SoCal. Shows the time normally when off, but sometimes a channel is there. Thought related to a recording, but could be random last channel. Is weird since makes you think the DVR is on when it is off. /Dan

Well, it's kind of moot now because even if I watch, record and then delete, it still schedules subsequent recordings of the same show. Have concluded the 8300HD/MDN combo is just completely flawed... And I assume you gave it time to remove future shows from "to be recorded". As in, did it actually record them or just say it was going to right after you deleted the first showing recording but might have not recorded it later? I seem to have the same "time display" issue, but have never had multiple recordings of same series show. /Dan

ODN is now at v3.1.3_2. San Diego is the first to get this release. The Samsung 32xx boxes have been updated to v4.2.2.2. This release is dated 04/23/2009 while my 3260 is dated 06/26/09/. The 3270 is probably ready to be deployed.

San Diego just got ODN v3.1.3_2 dated 4.26.2009. My Samsung box was updated to v4.2.2.2. I guess the 3270 is now closer to reality.

Anything new... or just bug fixes? Meanwhile, Charlotte and NYC now become TWO releases old!

Anything new... or just bug fixes?

I think it's just another bug fix release. Didn't see anything related to keyword search. I think they timed it for the new Samsung DVR thats coming to San Diego. The 3270 and 3260 boxes all got new a new Firmware release. This means the 3270 is coming out sooner rather than later. It also now lists Surround Sound in the IPG. Only on certain channels like HBO. Some guide data changes but thats about it.

It didn't. /Dan

That's sorta the answer I expected. ;)

San Diego just got ODN v3.1.3_2 dated 4.26.2009. My Samsung box was updated to v4.2.2.2. I guess the 3270 is now closer to reality.

Got ODN 3.1.3_2 loaded on my 8300HDC from Brighthouse Central FL Monday night. eSATA support still seems to be broken.

2.) When you record those channels do the time break-ups happen regardless of whether you record the shows as a series or individually?

Just tried a test tonight and set a manual record for Bones on 705 from 8-9 ET. So far I'm seeing 3 recordings. Since this is the same time slot as Hell's Kitchen, I'll also try recording from 9-10 and see if the behavior continues.

TWC San Diego is going to deploy the Samsung SMT-H3270 HD-DVR this week and quantities are going to be limited. If they run out it won't be until November.

Just tried a test tonight and set a manual record for Bones on 705 from 8-9 ET. So far I'm seeing 3 recordings. Since this is the same time slot as Hell's Kitchen, I'll also try recording from 9-10 and see if the behavior continues.

Well the 9-10 slot recorded without incident. So, at least for me,it would seem this is only happening in the 8-9 time slot. Time to put up a post in the nyc forum and see if that's the case with everyone else.

Yeah, it's pretty strange. I have only heard about this happening for this one specific show and only with the Sammy box.

Damn I'm getting old... could have sworn it was more than one person and somehow I got it in my head it was an issue with 'gatored 8300HDs.

Since you were watching in real-time as well, were there any obvious glitches or interruptions in the program delivery? If there is an inturruption (cable outage, power outage... even just rebooting the box), Navigator will resume an interrupted recording automatically, and it will do it as a separate recording.

I think that Navigator is probably reacting appropriately to an apparent content delivery issue. The key is finding out what in your Fox HD feed is triggering this behavior. It's obviously not a bug isolated to the MDN/8300 if its happening to your Sammy as well.

I just happened to be watching 705 during that hour... there was a video only outage for about 15 minutes.

Figured you would get a kick out of my experience...

My cable box (8300HDC) has been spontaneously rebooting itself for about a week. Also, I don't get the upper HD channels like SCI HD and others. I think the ones that are piped on demand...

Yesterday I take the box back and get a refurb one.

Still no luck...

Call Time Warner last night and schedule an appt for 10-12am this morning. stay home from work this morning to wait for them. I get a cell phone message at 10:33 that was left at 10:32 telling me to call them that they are trying to get in contact with me. Call them at 10:34 and they've cancelled. Tell me they have an appt from 3-5pm and that the technician has already moved on from my area. Nothing i can do to change it. Talk to a manager. nothing. Not a Damn thing. they give me a 20 dollar consolation credit. gee thanks. already missed half day of work and about to miss another 1/2.

I asked what if I hadn't given you my cellphone number? "We would have called your house." Well, why didn't you.

Me no likey you anymore.

I just happened to be watching 705 during that hour... there was a video only outage for about 15 minutes.

That still wouldn't explain the multiple segments (2 or 3 yes). I'll test it again tonight.

Riverside_Guy: If you do get a new box, for the first week or so, make a point of it to NEVER cancel an upcoming recording - just let it record and then delete the recording. If you get into the habit of doing things this way, I think your box will perform better in general.

By the way, I just bought a Tivo for my den TV, and it's suffering from the same problem you are: it's recording old episodes of series even though I have "First Run Only" selected. Maybe this problem is harder than it seems.

-barry

I try and deal with life's little mundane things by consciously starting a "habit." Like NEVER losing sight of the kitchen sink's bottom! As the "let it record then delete" doesn't work as it seems for others, I have little choice. I already started going through my 58 minute versions of the Torchwood series; when I finish, I'm off to get a 3090. Assuming one guy in NYC DOES have success swapping out the 160 for a 320!

But first I'd like to have some idea of the responsiveness of the UI of ODN/3090 vs. MDN/8300HD. I'd rate the MDN/8300HJD as almost as responsive as Passport with only one slow-down, but to a function not used THAT frequently (the day by day buttons in the guide are substantially slower than Passport).

I try and deal with life's little mundane things by consciously starting a "habit." Like NEVER losing sight of the kitchen sink's bottom! As the "let it record then delete" doesn't work as it seems for others, I have little choice. I already started going through my 58 minute versions of the Torchwood series; when I finish, I'm off to get a 3090. Assuming one guy in NYC DOES have success swapping out the 160 for a 320!

But first I'd like to have some idea of the responsiveness of the UI of ODN/3090 vs. MDN/8300HD. I'd rate the MDN/8300HJD as almost as responsive as Passport with only one slow-down, but to a function not used THAT frequently (the day by day buttons in the guide are substantially slower than Passport).

Never a delay or hesitation at all running the ODN GUI on my 3090.

I'm almost afraid to ask... have you read the Samsung 3090 thread? It's not without its QUIRKS (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16580693#post16580693) (mostly tied to ODN 3.1.0_11 used in Charlotte & NYC... and soon to be updated to 3.1.3_2 per hdtvfan2005). Even with the quirks, I wouldn't want an 8300HD or HDC back in its place, though.

BTW... in Navigator you do not need to scroll day-day in the guide... if you want to jump ahead 6 days, just enter [6] then [right]... a very handy shortcut!

One unimportant (to me) difference between MDN and ODN is that ODN does not have the video fade-out/in on channel changes or the menu fades and transparency that MDN does. I actually slightly prefer it without that fluff... but no biggie one way or the other.

Hey Riverside Guy, time to order that larger hard drive. :D Did the swap this am and all appears to be working well. Diagnostics report Total Size = 292.94GB, AVFS Available = 241.26GB and SD Hours Available at 93. JCalabria, thanks for the swap tips! BTW, although I'm sure TWC doesn't want this to become a common practice, I had to break no seals, etc... on the 3090 to do the swap. So when it comes time to return the box, the 160GB drive will go back in and all will be as it was.

Never a delay or hesitation at all running the ODN GUI on my 3090.

I'm almost afraid to ask... have you read the Samsung 3090 thread? It's not without its QUIRKS (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16580693#post16580693) (mostly tied to ODN 3.1.0_11 used in Charlotte & NYC... and soon to be updated to 3.1.3_2 per hdtvfan2005). Even with the quirks, I wouldn't want an 8300HD or HDC back in its place, though.

BTW... in Navigator you do not need to scroll day-day in the guide... if you want to jump ahead 6 days, just enter [6] then [right]... a very handy shortcut!

One unimportant (to me) difference between MDN and ODN is that ODN does not have the video fade-out/in on channel changes or the menu fades and transparency that MDN does. I actually slightly prefer it without that fluff... but no biggie one way or the other.

I agree almost entirely. The 3090 box is very responsive. My general impression is that it is quicker than any of the other boxes, including the Passport 8300HD.

However, for me more storage is important, and I'm not willing to replace the internal drive. So, the 8300HD with an external drive is my only choice. That being said, I'm quite happy with the 8300HD and Navigator-MDN. Luckily, I don't seem to be afflicted with Riverside's problems with duplicate "New" shows.

-barry

1.) Are these SDV only channels where this is occurring? If so, it is doubtful that a new box will change things. It could be a head-end issue or signal issue.

2.) When you record those channels do the time break-ups happen regardless of whether you record the shows as a series or individually?

3.) We just got a Navigator update last night. From MDN 2.4.4-15 to MDN 2.4.6-19. This version fixes several bugs and it looks like this may be the next MDN release.

4.) Can you reproduce the same time jumps on the same shows, on different boxes? On different model boxes? This was an issue with "Hells Kitchen" and "So You Think You Can Dance?" reported on the Samsungs in NYC. Is it being seen on MDN and ODN?

5.) I don't think this is a box issue, I think this is an SDV issue with these shows and times that it somehow relating to the way the converter speaks to the head-end when recording those shows, during those times.

Post what you are seeing in your division. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin we have not have the channel partial recordings for at least a year.

Jack

For a long time, 703/TNT has constantly had this issue for me. As did 716/USA, 717/SyFy, 718/Bravo just not as bad. 705/Fox comes and goes. BUT for the past month or two, I'm seeing this "glitchage" happening on all channels. Nothing changed in the forcing of MDN to my STB. In all likelihood I'll be going ODN/3090 and will see what happens to this issue... I seem to have anecdotes from other NYC guys it isn't as bad for them... so maybe moast of it will be gone (cross fingers).

Damn I'm getting old... could have sworn it was more than one person and somehow I got it in my head it was an issue with 'gatored 8300HDs.We’re all getting old (fortunately;) ). I could be wrong but as I recall, in our local TWNY thread, it has happened to more than one and it’s only been with the Sammy box.

Another anomaly, which is STB brand related, is the stuttering center field camera effect. This is noticeable on SA boxes but not on the Sammys. Very strange.

Here’s a link mid- thread covering this quirky annoying thing:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=17045260#post17045260

And I assume you gave it time to remove future shows from "to be recorded". As in, did it actually record them or just say it was going to right after you deleted the first showing recording but might have not recorded it later? I seem to have the same "time display" issue, but have never had multiple recordings of same series show. /Dan

No, it added them to the schedule the next day after I recorded it, saw it, then deleted it.

hdtvfan, any news on any other areas deploying the 3270??

Never a delay or hesitation at all running the ODN GUI on my 3090.

I'm almost afraid to ask... have you read the Samsung 3090 thread? It's not without its QUIRKS (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16580693#post16580693) (mostly tied to ODN 3.1.0_11 used in Charlotte & NYC... and soon to be updated to 3.1.3_2 per hdtvfan2005). Even with the quirks, I wouldn't want an 8300HD or HDC back in its place, though.

BTW... in Navigator you do not need to scroll day-day in the guide... if you want to jump ahead 6 days, just enter [6] then [right]... a very handy shortcut!

One unimportant (to me) difference between MDN and ODN is that ODN does not have the video fade-out/in on channel changes or the menu fades and transparency that MDN does. I actually slightly prefer it without that fluff... but no biggie one way or the other.

Ah, that's great!

Uh, yes I have read that thread... yes I was/am hesitant. If I didn't have issues others don't seem to have over the series recording, I'd probably stick w/my MDN HD. So, for series recordings to work more like they seem to do in ODN AND an ability to get a larger drive, it's probably time to move on.

Ah, thanks for the day to day tip!

Hey Riverside Guy, time to order that larger hard drive. :D Did the swap this am and all appears to be working well. Diagnostics report Total Size = 292.94GB, AVFS Available = 241.26GB and SD Hours Available at 93. JCalabria, thanks for the swap tips! BTW, although I'm sure TWC doesn't want this to become a common practice, I had to break no seals, etc... on the 3090 to do the swap. So when it comes time to return the box, the 160GB drive will go back in and all will be as it was.

100% fabulous! Nice the Sammie lists G sizes, my MDN/8300HD lists "clusters" for drive space!

Want to go through my remaining "58 minute" Torchwoods first though. Plus I gotta get to a hardware store that has security T-10 Torx sockets! (Oh, were those Torx fasteners deep in the box, so you needed an extension to the Torx sockets?).

100% fabulous! Nice the Sammie lists G sizes, my MDN/8300HD lists "clusters" for drive space!

Want to go through my remaining "58 minute" Torchwoods first though. Plus I gotta get to a hardware store that has security T-10 Torx sockets! (Oh, were those Torx fasteners deep in the box, so you needed an extension to the Torx sockets?).

The five Torx screws are easily accessible on the outside of the case.

Just a #2 phillips driver needed inside - 4 screws to release the carrier tray from the chassis and 4 more to pull the drive from the tray.

The five Torx screws are easily accessible on the outside of the case.

Just a #2 phillips driver needed inside - 4 screws to release the carrier tray from the chassis and 4 more to pull the drive from the tray.

Excellent, for some reason I haven't used a socket in years... I'd probably have to dig around to find an extension.

Of course, there's always the .05% chance I'd get a 320 Sammie from TWC... I think one or two guys in NYC got such items. Everyone got excited when we heard that TWC's NYC folks did NOT say "we don't carry 320G models" but "we only got a few today, may get more next week" or words to that effect. Have to first work my way through 4 more 58 minute Torchwood episodes as I doubt any re-broadcasts will be full length.

hdtvfan, any news on any other areas deploying the 3270??

Desert Cities will also get it which is also run by TWC San Diego.

Perhaps one of you experts can help a guy on the UES of Manhattan who just got MDN’d by TWC and discovered this BB looking for help. I’ve read thru the last week of posts and noted several comments about the “inability” to do manual timer recordings.

That's exactly my problem. I have an Explorer 3250 cable box and I do only manual timed VCR recording - two series (Charlie Rose and the PBS News Hour) and the remaining 6 former Passport slots filled with spot timed shows.

Now I can’t seem to set anything. I go to “Reminder" and enter the channel, date and “On’ time. There is no “Off” option and I don’t know what “Tune” means; but neither On or Off seems to make any difference since the box doesn’t come on - and, if left on, the channel does not change to that I have set.

Any help you can give this newbie will be greatly appreciated.

Figured you would get a kick out of my experience...

My cable box (8300HDC) has been spontaneously rebooting itself for about a week. Also, I don't get the upper HD channels like SCI HD and others. I think the ones that are piped on demand...

Yesterday I take the box back and get a refurb one.

Still no luck...

Call Time Warner last night and schedule an appt for 10-12am this morning. stay home from work this morning to wait for them. I get a cell phone message at 10:33 that was left at 10:32 telling me to call them that they are trying to get in contact with me. Call them at 10:34 and they've canceled. Tell me they have an appt from 3-5pm and that the technician has already moved on from my area. Nothing i can do to change it. Talk to a manager. nothing. Not a Damn thing. they give me a 20 dollar consolation credit. gee thanks. already missed half day of work and about to miss another 1/2.

I asked what if I hadn't given you my cellphone number? "We would have called your house." Well, why didn't you.

Me no likely you anymore.

WOW!!!

That sucks! You should call back and ask to speak to a supervisor and when you do, tell them this story. I'd be wanting more than a $20 credit! You should see if they can do more for you. It's hard to be nice and polite to them, I understand, but if you do that with an higher level supervisor manager, you might get some help.

I would ask the supervisor specifically to request an In-House Technician, (NOT an independent contractor) to come to your house to check wiring and signal strength for your boxes' rebooting problem. Get the supervisor's name and ID# and establish how you can get in contact with him/her to make sure the problem has been resolved after this next in house-tech leaves your house. Request that a specific case number be assigned to your issue, and get that case number from the supervisor and any other pertinent contact information you may need to get this issue resolved.

If you are not happy with the attitude of the supervisor, call back and get someone else until your issue is resolved. They can't just "cancel" like that!

Jack

WOW!!!

That sucks! You should call back and ask to speak to a supervisor and when you do, tell them this story. I'd be wanting more than a $20 credit! You should see if they can do more for you. It's hard to be nice and polite to them, I understand, but if you do that with an higher level supervisor manager, you might get some help.

I would ask the supervisor specifically to request an In-House Technician, (NOT an independent contractor) to come to your house to check wiring and signal strength for your boxes' rebooting problem. Get the supervisor's name and ID# and establish how you can get in contact with him/her to make sure the problem has been resolved after this next in house-tech leaves your house. Request that a specific case number be assigned to your issue, and get that case number from the supervisor and any other pertinent contact information you may need to get this issue resolved.

If you are not happy with the attitude of the supervisor, call back and get someone else until your issue is resolved. They can't just "cancel" like that!

Jack

I did that just the other day !!!!!! :) It's good to keep those higher ups on there toes !

Hey Riverside Guy, time to order that larger hard drive. :D Did the swap this am and all appears to be working well. Diagnostics report Total Size = 292.94GB, AVFS Available = 241.26GB and SD Hours Available at 93. JCalabria, thanks for the swap tips! BTW, although I'm sure TWC doesn't want this to become a common practice, I had to break no seals, etc... on the 3090 to do the swap. So when it comes time to return the box, the 160GB drive will go back in and all will be as it was.

Glad to hear that its working. Let us know how it continues to go.

Mine is still working fine in regard to the 320GB swap. The other night I stuffed the OE 160GB drive into an eSATA housing I had and plugged it into the eSATA port (unplugged box, connected drive, rebooted box). The low level operating system of the box recognizes that the drive is connected (the model number shows up in the eSATA diagnostics)... but the drive statistics (tracks/sectors, etc) are all filled with "Will Be" instead of actual drive data. Navigator also does not seem to know that the drive exists. Further investigation to follow this weekend.

I'm turning in a perfectly good 8300hd today if anyone in the area is interested.

(out of work inlaw finally moved out. got tired of me giving him hell for being a pig, wasting electricity and spending what little money he had on xbox games. found some girl to put up with his childish crap)

oh happy day:D:D

My brother-in-law had the same thing happen to him he fought with his dad as expected got kicked out thought he was coming to live with us ....not going to happen i told him.... i nipped it right in the bud !!!! It was good for him he now is in the Air force making a good life for himself. Hate to trail off subject but i do know how you feel. FREEDOM !!!!!!!!!!!:)

as i was in line taking the box back. there was a guy exchanging his box. didnt see what he was turning in, but they gave him an 8300hd. apparently he called and requested one. over heard him say the other box was missing back to back recordings on certain channels. (i've had that a couple times on SDV). he ask if that "box had navigator on it or passport. cause he knew the HD's and HDC's had different software". the CSR was stumped. she said "this is a passport box. all i know is OCAP, and thats it as far as software goes" then he said something about reading on the internet about missed recordings and navigator thats why he was exchanging his box.
i have a feeling this guy lurked around here a little bit.
i was gonna stop him and explain that the HD he just got had MDN navigator. and that it probably wouldnt solve his problem. (unless he was exchanging a samsung that was missing recordings on fox and cbs. but he did say back to back recordings.) but he seemed in a hurry.

on a side note. turning my box in made her have to change me over to the TW pricing structure. basically that means that i get to pay double for sho/tmc. i was getting both for $7 and now they are $7 each. same story i got when i went to drop the hdnet package. by dropping a $5 package my bill was going to go up $8. yet when i added a box a few months ago they didnt have to change me over to the new pricing system.
so i turned in the box, dropped the hdnet package and the tmc package. saving $35 on my bill acording to her.

SD and HD channels are now pixellating in San Diego.

I did that just the other day !!!!!! :) It's good to keep those higher ups on there toes !

Hey Abyss,

What's up!? I hope you are still harassing your TWC division about Navigator! hahahaha. Have they narrowed it down yet to sometime within the next year? UGGHHHHH!

You can still get good help from higher ups, you may just have to jump through about five hoops to get it!

Jack

Has anyone had this intermittent Navigator bug?

SA-8300HD box (MDN) Version 2.4.6-19 (Latest MDN build.)

NORMALLY: When you add time to an individual recording, (ie. Record Show With Options) and you modify the Start Time or End Time to a Show, and you save your changes you get something like:

"Updating recordings scheduled, press A to continue watching watching TV. Check Record List for possible conflicts."

SOMETIMES: You make the changes and you don't get the updating notice and the time of the recording when you check the Show List never changes.

In my case, I have had to cancel the recording and redo it using Record Show With Options when the DVR is first programmed to make it work. (I do not Record Series, therefore I do not use the Series Manager.)

Has anyone had my experience where you modify time recordings and they don't take in the DVR show list? (ie. It just keeps the original time.) If this happened to you did it record with the original time you selected, or the updated time?

I have had this intermittent problem for a couple years. A workaround the always works is to change the Start/End Times for a recording when you first schedule it.

Jack

Just turned n my old MOXI - it was really messing up alot and HOT! They gave me a Motorolla DCX3400 with the same old Universal Electronics ATLAS OCAP remote.

Seems nice so far and has the same guide as before but I lost the macro I'd put in to do the 30-second skip. Anyone got a link to how to do that again?

A user in the San Diego HDTV forum just picked up a Samsung SMT-H3270 HD-DVR. More info on that later. I should get one quickly or else I won't be able to get one until Nov :(.

Hey All,

Please feel free to respond to this thread for reference. For those of you who have had service calls to replace boxes and if the box was replaced, what make and model did the tech bring? Are they bringing the Samsungs or do you have to specifically request them?

The other question is? Are they bringing out HD boxes only? (Which I believe they should.)

In some areas of the country, the old, horrible Pioneer boxes are being given out! UGGHHH. No reason for that! I also want to make sure that the SA-8000 DVR (both SD/HD) is defunct, as well as the non-DVR boxes such as all Pioneer models and non-DVR boxes below 3000 should no longer be administered.

Jack

One of there top tech's was out here the other day ....as my 57 inch does not like splitters for some reason...so now i have a seperate cable line to it and believe it or not it has better picture quality...Was getting great signal strength on a standalone channel but then when you went to turn the channels horrible signals...go figure !!! As for the navigator roll out was told directly it is performing well it countless test in our division.... My wife not beating around the bush say's to him when will we be seeing it.... he say's with uncertainty early part of next year and i was like yep he doesn't know for sure. Not to mention it's testing well ...i still have faith by the end of the year. TW just added driver's village tv channel and that came true by the end of summer . I just have been kind of learing hoping that one of you kind gents has some info about are area getting gatored !!! How you been satch ? :D

Well, I'm ready for it so long as it doesn't brick my eSATA drive. I have the whole season of Rescue Me in HD on it and haven't watched much of it yet.

Hey ben ! " The central ny gator squad is here "

Hey All,

Please feel free to respond to this thread for reference. For those of you who have had service calls to replace boxes and if the box was replaced, what make and model did the tech bring? Are they bringing the Samsungs or do you have to specifically request them?

The other question is? Are they bringing out HD boxes only? (Which I believe they should.)

In some areas of the country, the old, horrible Pioneer boxes are being given out! UGGHHH. No reason for that! I also want to make sure that the SA-8000 DVR (both SD/HD) is defunct, as well as the non-DVR boxes such as all Pioneer models and non-DVR boxes below 3000 should no longer be administered.

Jack They should get rid of the old boxs. Even in new york city some one was given a old Pioneer box.:( Not good

I agree they can have my two dvr's and the 4250 i'll gladly take the sammies !:cool:

FYI, the Time Warner in San Diego Clairemont has the samsung 3270's in stock. I only got it an hour ago, so here are my initial impressions.

Currently have : SA 8300HDC and Samsung 3270
Used to have: Motorola 3416 with comcast

The guide looks stretched to fit 16x9, but still only shows 1.5 hours worth of programming (thought it may fit more hours because of the extra space, but just stretched wide). It's running OCAP Mystro version 4.2.2.2. It definitely responds a lot faster than the 8300 with button responses and also "handshaking" when changing resolutions (I have it outputting everything at 1080i so it won't have to handshake).
Just so people are aware, the 3270 has fewer outputs (also it's black, but that matches the rest of my equipment). There is no RF out (useless nowadays), no S-video out, and also no coaxial digital audio out (orange cable). This sucks for me because that's what my slingplayer uses, so now I have to fall back on analog RCA outs. There is now an ethernet slot and a USB slot. The HDMI and component are still NOT both active at the same time. This sucks the most since my HD slingplayer can only use RCA outs which defeats the purpose of HD.
The Motorola was the best box in my opinion since it had the most connections and they were all active at the same time.
If anyone knows how to access the user settings on this box, please let me know and I'll give you guys info on what I see. 320 HDD.

To get to settings, hold down Select for 10 seconds and then press down.
ODN version 3.1.3.2
93 hours SD available (242 GB usable)
To get Diagnostics, hold Volume + and Info for ~10 seconds and release

...also no coaxial digital audio out (orange cable). This sucks for me because that's what my slingplayer uses, so now I have to fall back on analog RCA outs.You can get an optical-to-coax digital audio converter for about $10 e-tail, delivered (see this (http://www.google.com/products?q=optical+to+coax+converter&hl=en&aq=f), enter your zip and pull down the sort-by-price-low-to-high option).

One of there top tech's was out here the other day ....as my 57 inch does not like splitters for some reason...so now i have a separate cable line to it and believe it or not it has better picture quality...Was getting great signal strength on a standalone channel but then when you went to turn the channels horrible signals...go figure !!! As for the navigator roll out was told directly it is performing well it countless test in our division.... My wife not beating around the bush say's to him when will we be seeing it.... he say's with uncertainty early part of next year and i was like yep he doesn't know for sure. Not to mention it's testing well ...i still have faith by the end of the year. TW just added driver's village tv channel and that came true by the end of summer . I just have been kind of leering hoping that one of you kind gents has some info about are area getting gatored !!! How you been satch ? :D

I'm doing good Abyss!

It's good that they are testing the behavior of your Gators! hahaha. We just got the latest version of Gator (MDN) on our Wisconsin boxes (MDN 2.4.6-19) No new major features, but you can now use the Favorites Key in the IPG to go through the channel listings. (They removed the Sort By Favorites option, not sure why.) There is now Frame-by-Frame Advance, which is cool, and for On-Demand, the info bar tells you how long you have to view a show. I'm also seeing less rebooting.

The big news is that TWC is changing their line-up where all the digital channels will now be organized by THEME. ( A lot of Ohio has it already, Wisconsin is getting it like second week of October.) Everything above channel 100, (which is where our Digital tier begins) will be arranged by category, So Sports, Movies, Premium Channels, On Demand, and HD will have their channel numbers properly organized. And all the HD channels will be in the 1000's. BUT if the corresponding SD channel has an HD counterpart to it, you just add a 1 to the first number. So if Food Network was on 162 in SD, its HD channel becomes 1162! Finally it makes sense!

I don't know when other divisions are getting the new Theme line-up, but if it is coming soon, my guess is that they would want to have Navigator installed before changing the line-up on the old SARA/Passport systems!

This may be related to Navigator in sort of an indirect way.

This is what our Wisconsin division is promoting. If you click on the page, there is a PDF file that shows the new line up. Right now, I have only seen this for the Wisconsin and Ohio divisions. Post if any other divisions are getting this new line-up. As it is Navigator areas that are affected for now in most of TWC-Ohio and soon in TWC-Wisconsin, this will be very interesting!

http://www.wi.rr.com/production/newlineups/index.html

Nick, you are in Ohio, do you have this new line-up yet?

Jack

No new major features, but you can now use the Favorites Key in the IPG to go through the channel listings. (They removed the Sort By Favorites option, not sure why.)

That's strange that they removed the sort-by-favs when they added the scroll-by-favs in the guide... ODN, at least through my ancient 3.1.0_11, does both.

The big news is that TWC is changing their line-up where all the digital channels will now be organized by THEME. ( A lot of Ohio has it already, Wisconsin is getting it like second week of October.) Everything above channel 100, (which is where our Digital tier begins) will be arranged by category, So Sports, Movies, Premium Channels, On Demand, and HD will have their channel numbers properly organized. And all the HD channels will be in the 1000's. BUT if the corresponding SD channel has an HD counterpart to it, you just add a 1 to the first number. So if Food Network was on 162 in SD, its HD channel becomes 1162! Finally it makes sense!

I don't know when other divisions are getting the new Theme line-up, but if it is coming soon, my guess is that they would want to have Navigator installed before changing the line-up on the old SARA/Passport systems!

This may be related to Navigator in sort of an indirect way.

This is what our Wisconsin division is promoting. If you click on the page, there is a PDF file that shows the new line up. Right now, I have only seen this for the Wisconsin and Ohio divisions. Post if any other divisions are getting this new line-up. As it is Navigator areas that are affected for now in most of TWC-Ohio and soon in TWC-Wisconsin, this will be very interesting!

http://www.wi.rr.com/production/newlineups/index.html

Nick, you are in Ohio, do you have this new line-up yet?

Jack

That is AWESOME! That is EXACTLY what I suggested to our division rep! Are they aligning channels numbers so analogs match up with digitals and HD's? I personally talked with Jeff Unaitis here and suggested that because our channel line up while robust, is a freakin' mess. I was told that NO changes to our lineup were going being made because the headend serves too many markets. To which I replied: Then Navigator needs to have a way to edit the channel list! No response to that one...

Anyway, I'm glad to see you division is progressing. How much HD do you have at this time? We are Over 100 here.

FYI, the Time Warner in San Diego Clairemont has the samsung 3270's in stock. I only got it an hour ago, so here are my initial impressions.

Currently have : SA 8300HDC and Samsung 3270
Used to have: Motorola 3416 with comcast

The guide looks stretched to fit 16x9, but still only shows 1.5 hours worth of programming (thought it may fit more hours because of the extra space, but just stretched wide). It's running OCAP Mystro version 4.2.2.2. It definitely responds a lot faster than the 8300 with button responses and also "handshaking" when changing resolutions (I have it outputting everything at 1080i so it won't have to handshake).
Just so people are aware, the 3270 has fewer outputs (also it's black, but that matches the rest of my equipment). There is no RF out (useless nowadays), no S-video out, and also no coaxial digital audio out (orange cable). This sucks for me because that's what my slingplayer uses, so now I have to fall back on analog RCA outs. There is now an ethernet slot and a USB slot. The HDMI and component are still NOT both active at the same time. This sucks the most since my HD slingplayer can only use RCA outs which defeats the purpose of HD.
The Motorola was the best box in my opinion since it had the most connections and they were all active at the same time.
If anyone knows how to access the user settings on this box, please let me know and I'll give you guys info on what I see. 320 HDD.

Also press Vol+ and Info on the box if you want to access various settings. You could go into the diag and select AC3 over HDMI. If not try the HDMI settings. My 3260 has this menu and the 3270 should also have it.

Also press Vol+ and Info on the box if you want to access various settings. You could go into the diag and select AC3 over HDMI. If not try the HDMI settings. My 3260 has this menu and the 3270 should also have it.

Yup, did see that other thread about that. Unfortunately, the Diagnostics screen only had 11 options and AC3 over HDMI was not one of them. My receiver has been showing PCM 48 over HDMI audio.

My 11 options are in case anyone knows what they do:

01 Check N/W Connection Will Be
02 Discard XAIT Test Disabled
03 CD Test-1 (Clear & DLND) Disabled
04 SNMP CD Test Disabled
05 Discard CD Test Disabled
06 Set LOG Control Will Be
07 Demo Native MMI
08 FACTORY Default Reset
09 FACTORY Test Mode Enable
10 Image Update Using USB
11 Erase FFS

Also, not sure if it's the new box or Time Warner San Diego, but I have not been able to access On Demand at all today (about 8 hours now). I did reboot the STB to no avail.

10 Image Update Using USB

Hmmm....Anyone well versed in Java wanna try some hacking? ;)

Hmmm....Anyone well versed in Java wanna try some hacking? ;)

If someone is able to make all outputs active, that would be awesome!

Also to update, the On Demand symptom is definitely the box. I get an error, "Attention The network is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later."

On Demand does work with my 8300HDC box. I talked to customer service and she did see everything working at their end. A technician is coming on Tuesday, but I have low expectations.

The RTOS is Linux and it uses a mixture of GNU and proprietary components. Try the HDMI settings option in the diag screen.

That is AWESOME! That is EXACTLY what I suggested to our division rep! Are they aligning channels numbers so analogs match up with digitals and HD's? I personally talked with Jeff Unaitis here and suggested that because our channel line up while robust, is a freakin' mess. I was told that NO changes to our lineup were going being made because the headend serves too many markets. To which I replied: Then Navigator needs to have a way to edit the channel list! No response to that one...

Anyway, I'm glad to see you division is progressing. How much HD do you have at this time? We are Over 100 here.

Ben,

That's where you guys rule for TWC in HD content! You have about 100 HD channels. We have about 50, which is the industry average for TWC. However, with all those channels do you have bandwidth problems and pixiation? We don't here that. I know in some areas of New York, this was an issue.

The thing is, I don't know what other big deal channels I would want on HD. I would not want picture quality compromised just to add more HD channels. Right now, we pretty much get the Digital Sports package just for the Tennis Channel and my Mom would for sure like that channel in HD. Sports are great in HD! The big stations that I want in HD are Spike TV, Chiller, and Comedy Central!

Jack

PS. I don't know enough about the analog lineup to know how that will match. I don't watch a lot of analog stuff (below 100.) But I do know that they are moving some channels to digital, while analog only subs can still get them. For example, ESPN will still be on analog here, BUT it will also be lined up with all the other digital sports channel numbers on the sports stations in the Digital Sports tier. My understanding is that if a channel is duplicated on both analog and digital, it will be available to everyone who gets standard cable. But if a sports channel is ONLY listed one time in the Digital Sports listings, it's a part of the Digital Sports Package, which is the optional $5.00 charge.

NFL Network and TWC are talking so it's gonna be interesting if that channel comes where it's gonna go! We are getting about 6-8 new channels, no new HD yet. But now they can just add the channel to the category tier where it's supposed to go!!! I am looking forward to this change!!!

There are only small changes to the analog 2-99 line up. They said that there is more FCC restriction on analog line-ups, so TWC can't organize analog stations like they can digital. Some analog stations are unique to certain markets. For example, we have our local network SD stations in Milwaukee and other Wisconsin Divisions like Green Bay have a different network affiliate. For some reason as I understand it, for analog to be totally synchronized, the call letters for each local division would have to be the same or something like that. Urban politics doesn't allow that because one local market thinks there division is better than the other.

However, since digital cable (100 and above in our division) is more nationally structured the cable companies have more freedom to set up the channels how they want. So this is probably the best they can do under the circumstances. Until about maybe 2012-2014, when it is believed that all analog will go to digital tiers, and everyone with cable will probably need a digital box.


Jack

To get to settings, hold down Select for 10 seconds and then press down.
ODN version 3.1.3.2
93 hours SD available (242 GB usable)
To get Diagnostics, hold Volume + and Info for ~10 seconds and release

This is the second time I've heard someone quote ~90 SD hours on a 320G drive... I wonder exactly how you are coming up with that figure? The 160G drive is said to be able to hold 90 hours of SD... which seems to be correct; after the MDN conversion I had about 8 or so hours of SD (plus 3/4 hours of HD) and it said I was using 13% of the capacity.

This is the second time I've heard someone quote ~90 SD hours on a 320G drive... I wonder exactly how you are coming up with that figure?

We're not coming up with it. 93 SD hours is what the diagnostic screen is reporting. In cuongism's case it's from a stock 320gb drive, in mine it's from the 320 I installed in place of a 160.

So if a 320G drive can only hold 93 hours of SD, I wonder how my 160G drive can hold 90?

So if a 320G drive can only hold 93 hours of SD, I wonder how my 160G drive can hold 90?93 hours of content in 320GB comes out to 7.64 Mbps, way the hell higher than most any standard definition content that I've measured on digital cable. It's higher than most downloadable HD content, being almost twice the rate of Vudu's standard HD (they offer 10 Mbps "HQX" encodes as well) and its even higher than HD downloads from the Xbox Live Video Store and Amazon VOD which run about 6.5 Mbps. Of course, just about all of that is encoded in H.264/AVC or VC-1, while digital cable is encoded in much less efficient MPEG-2.

The two cable systems here in San Diego stack 10 standard-def digital channels per 256 QAM carrier, averaging about 3.4 Mbps each for 1.53GB/hour. 320GB should hold 210 hours of that.

So if a 320G drive can only hold 93 hours of SD, I wonder how my 160G drive can hold 90?

I have no intention of ever recording more than an hour or two of SD programming here and there, so I'm not volunteering to "test fill" my 320GB 3090 with 180-200 hours SD programming. However, I can verify that the 160GB version topped out in the low 20's of HD recording, and I have had as much as 44 hours of HD on the 320GB version.

The two cable systems here in San Diego stack 10 standard-def digital channels per 256 QAM carrier, averaging about 3.4 Mbps each for 1.53GB/hour. 320GB should hold 210 hours of that.

We've got 12:1 SD QAMs here. :eek:

I have no intention of ever recording more than an hour or two of SD programming here and there, so I'm not volunteering to "test fill" my 320GB 3090 with 180-200 hours SD programming. However, I can verify that the 160GB version topped out in the low 20's of HD recording, and I have had as much as 44 hours of HD on the 320GB version.

No need! Actually, when we got BBC-A HD, the last of the SD stuff pretty much ended for me. Oh wait, IFC seems to do this disgusting non-linear stretch from a 4:3 SD source for their HD channel... so I couldn't even force it into viewable 4:3, so the best bet would be their SD channel.

2 guys who have 3090s with 320G drives are claiming they get 93 hours of SD listed in their diagnostics... either they are seeing space remaining and have 20 hours of HD already recorded, or that's an odd bug to have in diagnostics...

BTW, I'm progressing to go through all my recorded stuff so next week I can try and get a 3090. The problem is there seems to be no real way to tell if 23rd street has some units... I have tired and other have as well, but nobody seems to have a phone number of that facility. I'd rather not bundle up my 8300, subway down there for $4.50 only to find they only have HDCs.

No need! Actually, when we got BBC-A HD, the last of the SD stuff pretty much ended for me. Oh wait, IFC seems to do this disgusting non-linear stretch from a 4:3 SD source for their HD channel... so I couldn't even force it into viewable 4:3, so the best bet would be their SD channel.

2 guys who have 3090s with 320G drives are claiming they get 93 hours of SD listed in their diagnostics... either they are seeing space remaining and have 20 hours of HD already recorded, or that's an odd bug to have in diagnostics...

BTW, I'm progressing to go through all my recorded stuff so next week I can try and get a 3090. The problem is there seems to be no real way to tell if 23rd street has some units... I have tired and other have as well, but nobody seems to have a phone number of that facility. I'd rather not bundle up my 8300, subway down there for $4.50 only to find they only have HDCs.

Ashes to Ashes on BBC-A was the last SD program I recorded.

When I got my first 3090 (with the OE 320 drive) back when they were first released here in the Spring, I had to drive almost 25 miles each way to go to the mall kiosk that was open on Sunday. I did that not knowing for sure if they actually had any, so I know how you feel. There are a bunch of more convenient TW offices in the area here, but the malls are the only locations open on Sundays.

No need! Actually, when we got BBC-A HD, the last of the SD stuff pretty much ended for me. Oh wait, IFC seems to do this disgusting non-linear stretch from a 4:3 SD source for their HD channel... so I couldn't even force it into viewable 4:3, so the best bet would be their SD channel.
...


Just out of curiosity (I don't get IFC HD), what % of their stuff is real HD?

From BBC's website:
"The BBC HD channel launched in December 2007 and was the UK's first free-to-air high definition
television channel. It is currently available on satellite and cable. The channel features a broad
range of quality programmes from across the BBC channels, including spine-tingling drama,
heart-stopping nature epics, and the very best of sport, entertainment and music programming
in beautiful detail and exquisite sound. BBC HD currently broadcasts for 9 hours a day
between 4pm and 1am, with extended coverage for live events.

The channel brings all the excitement of HD to your favourite BBC programmes - from Planet Earth
to Nature's Great Events, Heroes to Hustle, Wimbledon to Six Nations, Later... with Jools Holland,
Electric Proms and Strictly Come Dancing; and for the younger generation, much-loved
programmes like In the Night Garden and MI High."

Despite "first free-to-air" claim, HD via OTA Freeview doesn't launch until December:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeview_%28UK%29
So it is likely they will continue to expand HD. Most of the "good" shows currently
on (SD) BBC America, such as "Top Gear" and "Torchwood" have been marked as being in HD,
and many are in 16:9 format within the current 4:3 SD window.

Which brings up the issue of what is "True HD"....UK adheres to 720 & 1080 being "True HD",
whereas their current OTA Digital TV service (Freeview) is NOT YET HD but IS 16:9
medium resolution format (720x576p)....among other formats:
http://www.gdbint.com.au/tech/16x9/

Formula1 on SpeedChannel-HD is currently upconverted from 720x576 for display at 1280x720p,
a huge improvement over a 16:9 postage stamp within a 4:3 frame...plus sidebars...

2 guys who have 3090s with 320G drives are claiming they get 93 hours of SD listed in their diagnostics... either they are seeing space remaining and have 20 hours of HD already recorded, or that's an odd bug to have in diagnostics...
.

Yea, that's what the brand new 3270 said in the diagnostics page.
Still can't get On Demand on the 3270. I have the 3270 and the 8300HDC both hooked up to the same receiver via HDMI and the 8300HDC does get On Demand while the 3270 does not. The 3270 did come its original cardboard box so I'm hoping it's just that the box wasn't configured properly so I don't have to go back to Time Warner to get another box.

List of HD Programs on BBCAmerica-HD:
http://www.bbcamerica.com/hd.jsp

Ashes to Ashes on BBC-A was the last SD program I recorded.

When I got my first 3090 (with the OE 320 drive) back when they were first released here in the Spring, I had to drive almost 25 miles each way to go to the mall kiosk that was open on Sunday. I did that not knowing for sure if they actually had any, so I know how you feel. There are a bunch of more convenient TW offices in the area here, but the malls are the only locations open on Sundays.

Not Torchwood or Being Human... gee, if I could drive there, I'd have less issues. I do have a problem with subway platforms during the summer... they are blast furnaces and my body has issues with too much heat! It's cooler now, but will take a week or so for the underground to get cooler... AND the end of this week would be ideal as it's in between seasons, so there's almost nothing on my schedule!

Observations so far on BBC-A HD... the major, "big" shows seem to be displayed in 16:9. But some of the shows I don't typically watch seem to be displayed with very thin side pillars. Possibly because I think they use a 1440 wide as opposed to either 1920 or 1280.

Observations so far on BBC-A HD... the major, "big" shows seem to be displayed in 16:9. But some of the shows I don't typically watch seem to be displayed with very thin side pillars. Possibly because I think they use a 1440 wide as opposed to either 1920 or 1280.

Some of the programming on the Discovery Networks channels also has the thin sidebars.

These shows may have originated as widescreen PAL EDTV and the small sidebars may come from no-stretch scaling of 576 line to 480 line.

Engineering question... in the NY thread there was discussion of signal strength... going into the diagnostics I see "Power Level" listed at -10 dBmV (checked a bunch of channels and I get -8 to -10, the -8 being TNT which has the skippage issues typically between 9 and 11 PM) and was told this is terrible, that 10 is good and 4 is bad. Isn't it a convention to list such measurements the way I'm posting... I could swear I've seen such data listed that way before? I do seem to get pretty good S/N around 35, 36.

Let's get back on topic. If you want to talk about programming, try this more appropriate thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=34

Engineering question... in the NY thread there was discussion of signal strength... going into the diagnostics I see "Power Level" listed at -10 dBmV (checked a bunch of channels and I get -8 to -10, the -8 being TNT which has the skippage issues typically between 9 and 11 PM) and was told this is terrible, that 10 is good and 4 is bad. Isn't it a convention to list such measurements the way I'm posting... I could swear I've seen such data listed that way before? I do seem to get pretty good S/N around 35, 36.

-10dBmV would be terrible for an analog channel, but it's fairly typical for a digital channel. QAM carriers are run at lower levels than NTSC carriers.

The info you received seems to be refer to analog levels, not digital. For analog channels, < 0 dBmV is "officially" (as in FCC) bad... it is the level that was long ago determined to be the level at which the "average" viewer would notice random noise in the demodulated video. More discerning viewers can typically start to see degradation when the levels go below +4 dBmV. Levels greater than +10 dBmV can overload some tuners. The "sweet spot" for analog levels into most TV's is between +4 dBmV and +8 dBmV. Of course all of this depends on the design of the TV's tuner.

-10dBmV would be terrible for an analog channel, but it's fairly typical for a digital channel. QAM carriers are run at lower levels than NTSC carriers.

The info you received seems to be refer to analog levels, not digital. For analog channels, < 0 dBmV is "officially" (as in FCC) bad... it is the level that was long ago determined to be the level at which the "average" viewer would notice random noise in the demodulated video. More discerning viewers can typically start to see degradation when the levels go below +4 dBmV. Levels greater than +10 dBmV can overload some tuners. The "sweet spot" for analog levels into most TV's is between +4 dBmV and +8 dBmV. Of course all of this depends on the design of the TV's tuner.

So then would it be fair to say a -8 dBmV is a "a stronger" signal than a -10 dBmV? Which SEEMS odd because among the channels I checked, it was the -8 dBmV channels that tended to have more glitches.

Now I'm even more confused... I scrolled around several analog channels and got everything from -12 to -6. One channel had significant video noise/breakups.. it carried a -7 power level while channels adjacent were fine PQ wise, but at -10 to -12. Of course, truth be told I THINK I was accessing analog channels, I'm pretty sure my HD has an analog tuner and these were channels 2-13. PQ went from fine to mushy, but most forget that back in the old days, it was much the same, sometimes one got a very clean and sharp image, sometimes a bunch of mush.

This all SEEMS to point to me having issues with signal levels, something makes me curious because for many years we have had what should be a much good building installation with everything run internally in conduit with large locked boxes on each floor. As opposed to many with wires flapping around in the elements before going through a window. Or with splitters completely exposed to the elements.

Maybe I should have them come and assess signal levels?

One more thing... do you think any of this may relate to a 8300HD/MDN as opposed to 3090s or HDCs which all run ODN?

Just to keep everyone updated on the 3270 and VOD, there may be some bad news. Just some general info I learned from the technician today.
The box came out last Wednesday for San Diego and they had ordered about 1000 units. The technician requested 18 boxes, but did not get any for his truck (mine was the first he's seen and he was impressed by the quick bootup, quietness, and quick button responses).. He works Sunday-Wednesday, so the warehouse had run dry by then. However, I did swap my box out in Clairemont today (and two other people got new boxes too) and the guy there said they had many left.
So far, my Samsung 3270 is not getting VOD and also not getting Start Over. Under Diagnostics page 1 of 14, it says VOD Service Group ID : Unknown or Stale ; VOD Service Group Status : SGD Paused. The Technician did the usual check of amp power, signal levels, etc. and everything was running fine (which isn't a surprise since I have a 8300HDC stacked on it that works perfectly).
He called his dispatch, other technicians, and his supervisor for anything that may help. Checking the outside box, getting a refresh, swapping out OCAP codes, etc and nothing worked. His supervisor did say this is the 6th time he's heard of this happening (and the box has only been out 5 days). They believe the cause is that the software in the Samsung is preloaded which allows it to reboot much faster. The only fix would be to flush out the old software and reinstall new software which couldn't be done remotely.
After two hours of diagnostics, no solution was found. He couldn't swap out another Samsung since no one, even his supervisor, had one. I ended up going to Clairemont to swap boxes myself. Fortunately they did have more, but the guy I talked too said I wasn't the first back with this problem and he got a Samsung himself on Saturday and his is doing the same. Sadly, my new box still has the same problem, so it looks very common. I'm surprised they didn't catch this huge glitch. I am left without VOD and I was really getting into Dexter on Showtime (great show).

Maybe I should have them come and assess signal levels?

One more thing... do you think any of this may relate to a 8300HD/MDN as opposed to 3090s or HDCs which all run ODN?

I think you probably have an ingress issue. When you have ingress, the level can look okay, but you are getting noise into the system affecting the signal to noise ratio.

Check the frequency of the channels that you are having problems with against your local broadcast stations using this:
http://www.csgnetwork.com/tvfreqtable.html

If the cable frequencies that have the worst problem line up with the broadcast frequencies in your area - you almost certainly have a bad connector or a nick in a wire somewhere (could be your wiring, or past your wiring).

xnappo

So I don't know if anyone ever found a fix for this, but I have North East Ohio Time warner cable on 8300 HDC.

My HDMI is into my TV, and my audio is through optical/coax out (can't remember whats back there). For about the the last three months, it turns on and defaults to audio over HDMI. I wish it worked how it used to and would save my settings, but now I change my settings everytime to get surround back via the coax.

It's frustrating.

Just to keep everyone updated on the 3270 and VOD, there may be some bad news. Just some general info I learned from the technician today.
The box came out last Wednesday for San Diego and they had ordered about 1000 units. The technician requested 18 boxes, but did not get any for his truck (mine was the first he's seen and he was impressed by the quick bootup, quietness, and quick button responses).. He works Sunday-Wednesday, so the warehouse had run dry by then. However, I did swap my box out in Clairemont today (and two other people got new boxes too) and the guy there said they had many left.
So far, my Samsung 3270 is not getting VOD and also not getting Start Over. Under Diagnostics page 1 of 14, it says VOD Service Group ID : Unknown or Stale ; VOD Service Group Status : SGD Paused. The Technician did the usual check of amp power, signal levels, etc. and everything was running fine (which isn't a surprise since I have a 8300HDC stacked on it that works perfectly).
He called his dispatch, other technicians, and his supervisor for anything that may help. Checking the outside box, getting a refresh, swapping out OCAP codes, etc and nothing worked. His supervisor did say this is the 6th time he's heard of this happening (and the box has only been out 5 days). They believe the cause is that the software in the Samsung is preloaded which allows it to reboot much faster. The only fix would be to flush out the old software and reinstall new software which couldn't be done remotely.
After two hours of diagnostics, no solution was found. He couldn't swap out another Samsung since no one, even his supervisor, had one. I ended up going to Clairemont to swap boxes myself. Fortunately they did have more, but the guy I talked too said I wasn't the first back with this problem and he got a Samsung himself on Saturday and his is doing the same. Sadly, my new box still has the same problem, so it looks very common. I'm surprised they didn't catch this huge glitch. I am left without VOD and I was really getting into Dexter on Showtime (grate show).

That sucks!

This may be a reason why the new Samsungs are not widespread and many divisions are still with the SA-HDC. As a sidenote, I too love watching Dexter on Showtime VOD!

Are you going to go back to an HDC, or stick it out with the Samsung until this issue is resolved? Could you get a different model Samsung that does not have the VOD bug?

Jack

Are you going to go back to an HDC, or stick it out with the Samsung until this issue is resolved? Could you get a different model Samsung that does not have the VOD bug?

Jack

Right now I still have both boxes so I am watching general TV / DVR with the Samsung since it is so much faster and it does have double the hard drive. Once I finish season 3 of Dexter with the HDC, I will return it. I am hoping the issue will be resolved by then.
The 3270 is the latest Samsung model and it's the model that will eventually replace the other models. I've gone through three 3270's and they all have the same issue so either I'm really unlucky or it's affecting all 3270's.

Right now I still have both boxes so I am watching general TV / DVR with the Samsung since it is so much faster and it does have double the hard drive. Once I finish season 3 of Dexter with the HDC, I will return it. I am hoping the issue will be resolved by then.
The 3270 is the latest Samsung model and it's the model that will eventually replace the other models. I've gone through three 3270's and they all have the same issue so either I'm really unlucky or it's affecting all 3270's.

Bob Barlow the TWC SD president told me that there are some bugs that need to be fixed that are minor. The major ones have been fixed. The next batch won't be for a while. I too am disappointed but I've had wierd bugs wtih my 3260 HD box and VOD does work on that one. That one uses the same hardware and software as the 3270 but minus the DVR.

Bob Barlow the TWC SD president told me that there are some bugs that need to be fixed that are minor. The major ones have been fixed. The next batch won't be for a while. I too am disappointed but I've had wierd bugs wtih my 3260 HD box and VOD does work on that one. That one uses the same hardware and software as the 3270 but minus the DVR.

I am still in the process of figuring out the problem. I have to say the Time Warner reps are friendly and polite and it's interesting that each one comes up with a different diagnostic. I have a few refreshes, one went into my billing equipment profile for VOD and upped the credit amount, and more refreshes. Currently one rep said that he is attempting VOD with four boxes there and none of them are getting VOD either. He said it seems to be an issue with MDN and not with ODN. Not sure if he mixed up the letters because I have ODN since i can see a cablecard inside. He's going to call be back later today to see if they resolved the issue.
Does anyone else here have the 3270? And is VOD working?

Just curious...what is the difference in the diagnostics channel 199 and the diagnostics that some get while pressing various things on the remote...a few years back when I had a tech out to the house he told me all the diagnostics are on 199...since the change over it is still there but now there are 6 pages where there was only one before...if they are one and the same then your life just got easier by going to channel 199..by the way I have SA8300HD ....it also shows up on my non-DVR HD box....

So then would it be fair to say a -8 dBmV is a "a stronger" signal than a -10 dBmV? Which SEEMS odd because among the channels I checked, it was the -8 dBmV channels that tended to have more glitches.

Now I'm even more confused... I scrolled around several analog channels and got everything from -12 to -6. One channel had significant video noise/breakups.. it carried a -7 power level while channels adjacent were fine PQ wise, but at -10 to -12. Of course, truth be told I THINK I was accessing analog channels, I'm pretty sure my HD has an analog tuner and these were channels 2-13. PQ went from fine to mushy, but most forget that back in the old days, it was much the same, sometimes one got a very clean and sharp image, sometimes a bunch of mush.

This all SEEMS to point to me having issues with signal levels, something makes me curious because for many years we have had what should be a much good building installation with everything run internally in conduit with large locked boxes on each floor. As opposed to many with wires flapping around in the elements before going through a window. Or with splitters completely exposed to the elements.

Maybe I should have them come and assess signal levels?

One more thing... do you think any of this may relate to a 8300HD/MDN as opposed to 3090s or HDCs which all run ODN?

Yes... it follows simple math rules... +10 > +8 > 0 > -8 > -10.

Signal level is a good place to start for troubleshooting, but its not the end of the line. There can be other issues... ingress, distortion, etc. If it continues, then a service call is in order.

If the channels you are having issues with ARE analog, the degredation would be soft and linear... gradually getting grainier as signal level drops... glitches in an otherwise clean picture sounds more like a digital channel.

The Vol+/Info diagnostics on the Sammie tell you whether a channel is analog or digital, what the BER is, etc. I don't know if your 8300HD offers anything similar to verify what your channel is.

Yes... it follows simple math rules... +10 > +8 > 0 > -8 > -10.

Signal level is a good place to start for troubleshooting, but its not the end of the line. There can be other issues... ingress, distortion, etc. If it continues, then a service call is in order.

If the channels you are having issues with ARE analog, the degredation would be soft and linear... gradually getting grainier as signal level drops... glitches in an otherwise clean picture sounds more like a digital channel.

The Vol+/Info diagnostics on the Sammie tell you whether a channel is analog or digital, what the BER is, etc. I don't know if your 8300HD offers anything similar to verify what your channel is.

I have a samsung 3090HD when i go in to Vol+/ Info diag. Channel info.All channels are digital Im in New york city.:cool:Every thing working like it should:)

Spec calls for higher than -12 dBmV signal level.
But C/N (aka SNR) is more important than signal level...should be 33+ and preferably 35-37 dB.
You can have good signal levels and unsat C/N due to leakage of local channels and other
interference into the cable wires.

Closed Captioning works better on this latest MDN update (MDN 2.4.6-19) (SA-8300HD) box.

The version that we had before MDN 2.4.4-15 would sometimes show CC in a different color and than the caption would freeze. This happened most often on HBO-HD, forcing a box reboot.

The caption changed color last night when I was watching a DVR playback of Shrek on HBO HD. However, it only froze for like 4-5 seconds and corrected itself right away. So I think for SOME under the hood things on the boxes, I know some customers were upset about their closed-captioning not working on MDN. However, this may be an example of improvements with closed-captioning that this latest update created.

Jack

Spec calls for higher than -12 dBmV signal level.
But C/N (aka SNR) is more important than signal level...should be 33+ and preferably 35-37 dB.
You can have good signal levels and unsat C/N due to leakage of local channels and other
interference into the cable wires.

Yes, I do typically see s/n at 35-36 while I seem to run -12 to -7. I was also curious about finding the primary HBO and MAX channels at -10, while their sub channels all seemed to be running -7. Generally I don't get glitches on those channels, while I get tons of them on, say TNT 703. AND that channel has -10 for level and around 36 for s/n. Reinforces my belief that all the skippage has more to do with sloppy handling at the head end rather than my box, or the software on my box.

I was agonizing over signal strength in that someone said it should be around +10, but anything below +4 is bad... and all mine are in negative territory. Not too mention that -10 to +10 sure seems like a VERY large gap... no? Plus I read that ODN/MDN is "fussier" about getting a good signal level.

ESPECIALLY in that it seems my MDN seems to not work like others... in that even if I let a series recording actually record (while watching it), a day later when I delete it, every other episode scheduled all week long as "NEW" gets scheduled (yeah, it's still doing that!).

Does anyone in the Raleigh area have a Samsung 3090 DVR yet?

The local TWC website now has a user manual for it, which was not the case the last time I checked several weeks ago. Just wondered if that might imply availability...

I noticed thaT too strikefast in the central ny website as well ...hopefully this means we all will be getting gatored in the coming weeks !:D Hey satch did this happen to you bud ? The samsung lowdown guide info !!!!!

I noticed thaT too strikefast in the central ny website as well ...hopefully this means we all will be getting gatored in the coming weeks !:D Hey satch did this happen to you bud ? The samsung lowdown guide info !!!!!

Hi Abyss!

Still looking for Gators? hahaha!!!! You'll get one! Just send an Everlasting Gobstopper to your division President! heheehe! Actually, I don't have the new Samsung box. Just my trusty old SA-8300HD. We did get an update to MDN last week or so, to 2.4.6-19. They removed the sort by favorites in the guide, BUT as I posted above, they are changing our whole digital line-up here in Wisconsin so that all the channels are organized by Theme around mid-October. So that may have something to do with it.

With the update, my closed-captioning works better and there is now a frame-by-frame advance for speeds, which is nice. There seems to be less rebooting, although the box may be rebooting when I am asleep! hahaha. I know NYC has MDN 2.4.4-16. We jumped from MDN 2.4.4-15 to 2.4.6-19. Oh, they did add a feature where if you bring in the guide, you can now scroll to your favorites one by one without tuning to them. The old version would tune to the favorite channels when the guide was shown. And on this version, if you order a VOD movie or watch a free On Demand, the Info bar tells you how long you can view it. The VOD menus in Navigator are really good! Even better than Passport!

Jack

PS. Abyss is gonna be like a kid in a candy store when his Gator comes!!!! "It's here!!!! It's here everybody!!!!!" I think it would be really funny if the first movie that Abyss watched when he gets his Gator was, "The Abyss!" LOL! (If it's playing, it's under B, Find Shows, Browse by Theme, Go to Movies, Go to Science Fiction.) That's how you find stuff with a Gator!

I sent Jeff Unaitis a message recently questioning why other divisions can make common sense adjustments tho the line ups, but we can't as well as asked for a Navigator update. No reply yet.

Abyss, I was wondering if you went or are going to the State Fair? If so, check the Time Warner booth/display to see if they have any new info. That would be the place to demo it since they are testing and get some new subs hooked.

That's a good idea ben about the state fair....i wish i was ...definately would be at that booth pestering any and all working the booth. I called customer service last night about the recent display of samsung's popping up on site . Csr acted like it was a mistake them being there but to me it just don't have that vibe considering the deployment is set for by the end of the year. At the end of the convo i got really ticked off when i told her i don't feel our division does enough to get the word out there about it's new products. She replies to me maybe it's cost effective to do fliers and what not ....whoa whoa whoa i thought don't cry to me about thing's costing alot we all are feeling the pinch not just in ny but everywhere... i replied no it's not about cost with time warner because sometimes a company has to spend money to make money i told her and i don't think deep down time warner really cares what the average customer wants and then i hung up.:mad:Hopefully
Jeff Unaitis gets back in touch with you ben good luck.... after all our goal is to get a gator in every pot and sammies under all of our proverbial Christmas tree's!!!!! Hey satch i just put " The Abyss " in my net-flix queue somewhere near the middle this gator thing could go into early next year with how slow there dragging there feet. For the record though i like the wrestler abyss from TNA he's crazy !!!!!!!! lol

Abyss, they can keep the Sammies. It doesn't even have an eSATA port. And chances are it's a mistake anyway. Remember, when I announced Navigator coming because the new site launched showing off all the great new stuff we were getting, only to call up and have CSR's not know a thing about it? The info was all removed shortly thereafter. I personally will keep my 8300HD until Tivo or Moxi deploys a capable box that works with all the services.

Will you be able to get navigator without the samsung's though? because the only way to get navigator is through samsung's at least that's the feeling i'm getting with the so many employees at time warner.... i could be wrong. Do you think they will push updates on to the SA boxes ? I think maybe there thinking is less work for them in the long run just to deploy boxes no need for pushing updates as sammies i believe already have navigator ...right ?

Will you be able to get navigator without the samsung's though? because the only way to get navigator is through samsung's at least that's the feeling i'm getting with the so many employees at time warner.... i could be wrong. Do you think they will push updates on to the SA boxes ?

No, when the time comes they will download it to existing boxes. Generally, they will deploy it from the headend in the overnight hours to specific models. It should come preinstalled from local offices. The Sammy isn't going to cut it unless I can add hard drive space. These boxes should be coming with a minimum of 500GB drives. How can TWC even think othewise? They offer over 100 HD channels and only allow for 20 hours of HD storage? It could be the final nail in the coffin for TWC. I would simply return my DVR and add the replacement box to my bedroom, then move to a Tivo or Moxi. I honestly think we are a ways off from getting Nav anyway.

If time warner wait's past december for navigator i'm gone anyway to DIRECTV. This is ridiculous the unnecessary waiting .If i were to go with a current tivo would i have to have the sara guide or would it be tivo oriented ? Not familiar with tivo setup only by the brand name .

A Tivo Series 3 would give you all Tivo software, but you'll lose access to all the VOD and PPV. That's the trade off. Plus, you'll need a tuning resolver for all the SDV channels.

Sounds expensive ....Direct in january looks better everyday now if no navigator by then.

Well, Time Warner will provide the tuning resolver for free. You'd have to buy all the Tivo hardware. DirecTV is just too expensive for my setup by the time I add receivers.

Direct can't give you a multi room setup for your house for a cheaper rate?:confused: My other option is go back to dish network to i only owe them like 60 dollars wouldn't be a problem to go back to them technically. My new landlord will be more of an obstacle!!!!

Not even close. Once you add the DVR fee, the additional outlet fees, the HD fee it's way more. I currently have a great rate locked in with TW. Sure the initial deal from D* might be good, but once everything defaults it skyrockets. It ends up being $20-30 more per month. Also I lose my phone and internet discount raising my overall monthly bill. I've never really paid full price to TW since I've had them. When a promotional rate expires I call and drop some services and ask if they are running any specials. I usually get some type of discount applied. In fact, had I know a year ago that they would deliver on the HD, I would have signed up for the two year deal with commitment. At the time, I would lock into a contract because they were so vague as to what the future was.

Anyway, back on topic: Navigator will come in time, but I really wish they would be more forthcoming. I'd be happy to beta a Navigator box for real world power user feedback and told Jeff Unaitis such. They won't allow it and won't give any info as to how testing is going. My guess is they have to make sure SDV will work stable because a huge amount of channells are delivered that way. I was hoping Tivo would announce a Series 4 in time for the holidays, but that isn't even on the radar. I'm certain we will see Navigator before Tivo deploys a next gen box.

I think they have gotten ample time for the transition to navigator 5+ months going on a 6th ....it's now or never in my book.;) By the time we do get the upgrade we will be way behind in the latest version so much so ...we'll never catch up.

I think they have gotten ample time for the transition to navigator 5+ months going on a 6th ....it's now or never in my book.;) By the time we do get the upgrade we will be way behind in the latest version so much so ...we'll never catch up.

I agree. Still waiting here in Greensboro with no new word from TWC. It's getting stupid. WOODY

Anyway, back on topic: Navigator will come in time, but I really wish they would be more forthcoming. I'd be happy to beta a Navigator box for real world power user feedback and told Jeff Unaitis such. They won't allow it and won't give any info as to how testing is going. My guess is they have to make sure SDV will work stable because a huge amount of channels are delivered that way. I was hoping Tivo would announce a Series 4 in time for the holidays, but that isn't even on the radar. I'm certain we will see Navigator before Tivo deploys a next gen box.

Thanks Ben, Abyss, and everyone for the updates!

It is good to have a goal for when to expect Navigator in your area, and than if you don't get it by that time frame, move on to another provider if you can. I would say, if you don't have it by December 31, 2009, it is time to ring in the new year with a new provider.

Slightly OT, but when I had a problem with my TWC digital phone, it only took about three hours to get someone out here, check the line, replace what was wrong, and a few days later, we had another tech out to check signals just to make sure they were right. They did a great job! I did get an E-Mail survey to provide feedback about Digital Phone, but could not send it out because the last page didn't process right with IE 8 or something.

The point is, TWC seems to do so much better with upfront communication on Digital Phone and Road Runner, that you would sometimes think it was a different company! Why can't they provide the same information feedback and responses for Navigator? Why are updates kept so secret to customers? I remember talking to a cool CSR and he said, "I too wish there was a way for us to talk to the techs about updates to the guide, and what has changed, and what is different. They only tell us these things about a week before the update changes are made."

Ben, I am sure you have relayed this information to Jeff about these and similar issues. Sometimes channels get added, moved, and occasionally dropped or replaced with warning. The only thing that TWC seems to be good at are putting rate increases on bills! And they don't even tell you when your contract is up! I think that's B.S.

What used to be cool was most TWC websites had a good feedback form that you could fill out about Navigator. What happened to that? This was a good idea! Or do the three people that they have working in shifts on answering e-mail just too tired to answer questions?

Jack

A Tivo Series 3 would give you all Tivo software, but you'll lose access to all the VOD and PPV. That's the trade off. Plus, you'll need a tuning resolver for all the SDV channels.

You lose TWC VOD, however TiVO has multiple VOD options of its own...

xnappo

By the time we do get the upgrade we will be way behind in the latest version so much so ...we'll never catch up.

TWC were going to use that as their latest catchphrase instead of "The Power of You" but it wouldn't fit on a business card.

You lose TWC VOD, however TiVO has multiple VOD options of its own...

xnappo

I'm aware of that, but we have things like HBO On Demand and may be slated for some HD VOD versions of channels. My thing is having a box that does PPV's. TWC has channels which use menus to buy movies and events. I know Tivo has great add ons like Netflix, I just wish we could see the VOD/PPV support. I'd be all over that.

TWC were going to use that as their latest catchphrase instead of "The Power of You" but it wouldn't fit on a business card.

What you all should do, in a nice way if you talk to a higher up and you are waiting for Navigator, being promised its deployment since what was it April? Just say that you feel that while you appreciate them talking the time to test the software, that the lack of constructive communication about the delays in Navigator's deployment is troubling, and if there is not a deployment by January 1, 2010, you (I) may be required to choose another TV provider such as Dish or U-Verse.

I feel sorry for you SARA subs!

Jack

I think they have gotten ample time for the transition to navigator 5+ months going on a 6th ....it's now or never in my book.;) By the time we do get the upgrade we will be way behind in the latest version so much so ...we'll never catch up.

Actually Abyss,

WHEN it is pushed out, I feel very confident that you will get the latest stable release. That would be MDN 2.4.6-19, downloaded to our boxes in Wisconsin last week. (or higher if a new release comes out.) I just hope they don't say, "Oh, well, we should wait for MDN 3.0" That's ridiculous! (And would be a good incentive to go to another provider.) You SARA subs have waited too long! They should be pushing this thing out, NOW!

Jack

I actually called to ask about Samsung 3090 availability in my area. Spoke to a nice CSR who, being at a remote location, was having trouble getting into immediate touch with the folks at my local offices to ask directly. Offered to call me back later, but so far no luck. The nearest TWC office for me is 20 minutes one-way, so I don't feel like disconnecting one of my boxes and trekking down there without some expectation that they might actually have Samsungs in stock.

Actually Abyss,

WHEN it is pushed out, I feel very confident that you will get the latest stable release. That would be MDN 2.4.6-19, downloaded to our boxes in Wisconsin last week. (or higher if a new release comes out.) I just hope they don't say, "Oh, well, we should wait for MDN 3.0" That's ridiculous! (And would be a good incentive to go to another provider.) You SARA subs have waited too long! They should be pushing this thing out, NOW!

Jack

Well, we just got 'gatored and it was 2.4.4.16... AND it seems to have serious and major bugs IF one depends on series recordings; it also has a ton of minor-ish issues that are annoying, but not near the kind of deal-breaker the series stuff is (for me).

The 3050 is the box that shows up on our local time warner site ....who really knows what's going on.:mad: I did make our local csr's aware that what's the point of displaying the boxes if there not yet available . I think there is more to this then meets the eye.There's something that there not telling us. I do believe it is possible they are on the verge of being rolled out. Alot of us are wise to there games so it's like a wait and see scenario.;) I know what you mean strikefast that's how i feel about the boxes as well who want's to trek 30 miles out of there way in less you know for certain there are indeed boxes available... not me. I made a particular CSr see my point a view. She agreed . It's just lack of proper training that exist among the so many divisions. In some ways time warner should run a communist company where every one get's an equal playing field with the many innovations ...there wouldn't be all this mass confusion. I know i'm ranting ridiculously but they should run a tighter ship....Why make it this outlandish.

San Diego still has the 3050 but they deployed the 3260 instead. The 3270 manual isn't available yet. They did have the 3090 manual but it's not there.

I had a Csr tell me one time that the syracuse area was a top test market for the latest supermarket "new on the block items " (JUNK) . I was like that figures we can be a test market for top selling garbage ....leaving us all fat.... what a worthy trade off versus being a top market for time warner's latest creations. What's wrong with this picture ? Maybe opening a Willie Wonka factory would be just what the area need's with all that sugar!!!! ....nod towards satch.

That brighthouse(spin off time warner) to has offices located in syracuse ny but serves a good portion of florida customers. WHAT ? I would be interested to know what time warner features in florida they receive... my guess is about the same as in central ny except there they see alot of supermarket banner ads for all those " junk items " during commercial breaks.:D No wonder the country is in the shape it is. Later, i'll be in the cereal aisle looking for the latest flavor of fruity pebbles.

That brighthouse(spin off time warner) to has offices located in syracuse ny but serves a good portion of florida customers. WHAT ? I would be interested to know what time warner features in florida they receive... my guess is about the same as in central ny except there they see alot of supermarket banner ads for all those " junk items " during commercial breaks.:D No wonder the country is in the shape it is. Later, i'll be in the cereal aisle looking for the latest flavor of fruity pebbles.

The Brighthouse properties are not really a "spinoff" of Time Warner... it is the same company, Advance-Newhouse, that formerly operated cable systems under the NewChannels (Upstate NY & AL), VisionCable (NJ, NC, SC, FL & LA) and Metrovision (MI & TX) names in the '70s, '80s and early '90s.

In response to the Al Gore initiative to encourage the telcos to put the cable operators out of business back in the '90s, Time Warner Entertainment and Advance-Newhouse formed a joint venture (TWE/AN) that included areas where their systems were near to one another, creating larger, more contiguous clusters of systems that would be better suited to providing services such as internet access and digital phone services to compete with the telcos.

After several years in an unhappy relationship between the very private Newhouse group and the very public TW, Newhouse opted out of the joint venture and the existing joint venture systems were split in proportion to the original investments - but not necessarily the original cable systems, so that the strategic clusters would not be pulled apart. The Advance-Newhouse (Brighthouse) offices have always been located in Syracuse, dating back to when that was the the NewChannels flagship system. All of the NY and NJ systems remained TW systems after the split, leaving the Brighthouse HQ nowhere near their systems.

Although the full TWE/AN partnership no longer exists, there is still a strategic partnership in place that pools their combined negotiating power with programming and technology vendors, and Brighthouse still offers TW branded services such as RoadRunner.

Thanks for some insight on that situation...i was just trying to make some levity of it all. :) This is where i got many of my ideals from for my rant and rave debate. It later says they are programming partners much like a spinoff or sister tv station by comparison .



Bright House Networks is a cable television company and the sixth largest multiple system operator[4] in the United States owned by Advance/Newhouse, headquartered in Syracuse, New York. The company provides service to cities including Indianapolis, Central Florida (Orlando / Daytona Beach areas), Tampa Bay area, Lakeland, Birmingham-Hoover area, west suburban Detroit and Bakersfield. Most of its business is concentrated in Central Florida, where Bright House is the dominant cable system in the Tampa and Orlando TV markets.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 History
* 2 Naming rights
* 3 Carriage controversies
* 4 See also
* 5 References
* 6 External links

[edit] History

Prior to 1994, some of the systems were fully owned by A/N under the names Vision Cable and Cable Vision (no relation to Cablevision Systems), while in other areas, Bright House is the successor to Teleprompter Cable TV, Group W Cable, Strategic Cable, Paragon Cable and the Tampa Bay / Orlando Time Warner Cable systems in Florida.

All of the systems now owned by Brighthouse were owned by the Time Warner Entertainment - Advance/Newhouse Partnership but, under a deal struck in 2003, Advance/Newhouse took direct management and operational responsibility for portion of the partnership cable systems roughly equal to their equity. Ostensibly, this was due to A/N's dissatisfaction with Time Warner Cable's strategic direction. Time Warner still owns a stake in Bright House Networks even though Advance/Newhouse runs the day to day operation of the company. Bright House networks provides customers in Central Florida, Tampa Bay and Alabama with Digital Services.

Bright House Networks currently offers TV Service (analog, digital and HD), high speed internet, wireless home networking, and digital phone in most areas. In addition, Bright House operates two regional local news channels -- Bay News 9 in the Tampa Bay market, and Central Florida News 13 in the Orlando market.

[edit] Naming rights

Bright House Networks owns the naming rights to the University of Central Florida's Bright House Networks Stadium in Orlando, Florida, Bright House Field in Clearwater, Florida, the spring training home of the Philadelphia Phillies, and the Bright House Networks Amphitheatre in Bakersfield, California. There is also a sporting event, the Bright House Networks Open golf tournament, held in Lakeland, Florida.

[edit] Carriage controversies

* On September 15, 2008 Bright House temporarily dropped stations owned by the LIN TV Corporation on its Pensacola, DeFuniak Springs and Indiana systems. Affected stations were WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama, WISH-TV/WNDY-TV/WIIH-CA in Indianapolis and WANE-TV in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Even though the controversy was focused on Time Warner Cable systems, Bright House was included in the dispute, in areas where they were formerly owned by Time Warner. With both companies factored in, a total of 15 markets were affected. [5].
* On December 31, 2008, Time Warner Cable and Viacom's MTV Networks had not agreed to renew any Viacom channel beyond the end of year. Therefore, Time Warner and Bright House Networks would have lost all 19 Viacom channels (including Comedy Central and Nickelodeon) starting on January 1, 2009.[6][7] As with the LIN dispute above, the dispute is focused on Time Warner Cable, with Bright House included, due to Time Warner being its programming partner. This blackout was narrowly avoided when a zero-hour deal was reached shortly after 12 Midnight ET on January 1, 2009. [8]

I didn't have to look it up on Wikipedia, though.:p

I lived through it... my 18 year career with Newhouse (Vision Cable) was destroyed in '95 because of the TWE/AN joint venture.:mad: I try very hard here to NOT be anti-TW and sometimes it comes off as being pro-TW... when nothing could be further from the truth.

Thanks for some insight on that situation...i was just trying to make some levity of it all. :) This is where i got many of my ideals from for my rant and rave debate.

Bright House Networks is a cable television company and the sixth largest multiple system operator[4] in the United States owned by Advance/Newhouse, headquartered in Syracuse, New York. The company provides service to cities including Indianapolis, Central Florida (Orlando / Daytona Beach areas), Tampa Bay area, Lakeland, Birmingham-Hoover area, west suburban Detroit and Bakersfield. Most of its business is concentrated in Central Florida, where Bright House is the dominant cable system in the Tampa and Orlando TV markets.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 History
* 2 Naming rights
* 3 Carriage controversies
* 4 See also
* 5 References
* 6 External links

[edit] History

Prior to 1994, some of the systems were fully owned by A/N under the names Vision Cable and Cable Vision (no relation to Cablevision Systems), while in other areas, Bright House is the successor to Teleprompter Cable TV, Group W Cable, Strategic Cable, Paragon Cable and the Tampa Bay / Orlando Time Warner Cable systems in Florida.

All of the systems now owned by Brighthouse were owned by the Time Warner Entertainment - Advance/Newhouse Partnership but, under a deal struck in 2003, Advance/Newhouse took direct management and operational responsibility for portion of the partnership cable systems roughly equal to their equity. Ostensibly, this was due to A/N's dissatisfaction with Time Warner Cable's strategic direction. Time Warner still owns a stake in Bright House Networks even though Advance/Newhouse runs the day to day operation of the company. Bright House networks provides customers in Central Florida, Tampa Bay and Alabama with Digital Services.

Bright House Networks currently offers TV Service (analog, digital and HD), high speed internet, wireless home networking, and digital phone in most areas. In addition, Bright House operates two regional local news channels -- Bay News 9 in the Tampa Bay market, and Central Florida News 13 in the Orlando market.

[edit] Naming rights

Bright House Networks owns the naming rights to the University of Central Florida's Bright House Networks Stadium in Orlando, Florida, Bright House Field in Clearwater, Florida, the spring training home of the Philadelphia Phillies, and the Bright House Networks Amphitheatre in Bakersfield, California. There is also a sporting event, the Bright House Networks Open golf tournament, held in Lakeland, Florida.

[edit] Carriage controversies

* On September 15, 2008 Bright House temporarily dropped stations owned by the LIN TV Corporation on its Pensacola, DeFuniak Springs and Indiana systems. Affected stations were WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama, WISH-TV/WNDY-TV/WIIH-CA in Indianapolis and WANE-TV in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Even though the controversy was focused on Time Warner Cable systems, Bright House was included in the dispute, in areas where they were formerly owned by Time Warner. With both companies factored in, a total of 15 markets were affected. [5].
* On December 31, 2008, Time Warner Cable and Viacom's MTV Networks had not agreed to renew any Viacom channel beyond the end of year. Therefore, Time Warner and Bright House Networks would have lost all 19 Viacom channels (including Comedy Central and Nickelodeon) starting on January 1, 2009.[6][7] As with the LIN dispute above, the dispute is focused on Time Warner Cable, with Bright House included, due to Time Warner being its programming partner. This blackout was narrowly avoided when a zero-hour deal was reached shortly after 12 Midnight ET on January 1, 2009. [8]

I feel for you though ....right now central ny is in that current stalemate so i can kind of taste what it's like.:(

The Samsung boxes in San Diego are being put on hold due to a bug in the VOD. The 3270 has VOD issues but TWC is working to fix them. Once it's fixed then it can be deployed again.

Bob Barlow says its a temporary issue. He isn't telling me whats causing it though. That means another ODN and SW release.

HERE are the top 100 cable providers

Source: Multichannel News research, published March 17, 2008. For more information, click here.

Rank System Basic Subscribers
1 Cablevision Greater New York 3,123,000
2 Comcast Greater Chicago Region 2,200,000
3 Comcast San Francisco Bay 1,700,000
3 Time Warner Cable Los Angeles 1,700,000
5 Comcast New Jersey 1,400,000
5 Time Warner Cable of N.Y. and N.J. 1,400,000
7 Comcast Michigan Region 1,300,000
8 Bright House Tampa Bay 1,108,000*
9 Comcast Maryland/Delaware/Richmond 1,100,000
9 Comcast Philadelphia Metro 1,100,000
9 Comcast Potomac 1,100,000
9 Comcast Washington State 1,100,000
13 Comcast Mid-South Region 1,030,779
14 Cox Arizona 954,762
15 Time Warner, Northeast Ohio 947,000
16 Bright House Central Florida Division 938,000*
17 Comcast Atlanta 925,000
18 Comcast Three Rivers Region 850,000
19 Comcast Colorado 820,000
20 Comcast South Florida 753,813
21 Comcast Central Calif. 750,000
22 Comcast Central Pennsylvania 730,000
22 Comcast Houston Region 730,000
24 Time Warner Cable Eastern Carolina 727,000
25 Comcast Connecticut-West Region 705,000
26 Comcast Indianapolis Region 700,000
27 Comcast Northern New England Region 700,000
28 Time Warner Cable Southwest Ohio 643,000
29 Comcast Metro Boston Region 640,000
30 Time Warner Cable Central New York 622,000
31 Comcast-West Palm Region 620,000
32 Comcast Gulf Coast 600,000
32 Time Warner Cable Mid-Ohio 600,000
34 Comcast Oregon./SW Washington 595,000
35 Comcast Southeastern Massachusetts Region 580,000
36 Time Warner Cable Southeast Wisconsin 577,000
37 Comcast Delta Region 560,703
38 Charter Central States 560,200
39 Comcast Twin Cities Region 553,683
40 Cox San Diego 534,985
41 Charter South Carolina 530,900
42 Time Warner Cable Southwest Texas 518,000
43 Charter Wisconsin 514,700
44 Time Warner Cable North Texas 479,000
45 Mediacom Iowa 450,000
46 Cox Kansas & Arkansas 447,800
47 Cox New England 441,059
48 Time Warner Cable Central Texas 440,000
49 Cox Oklahoma 436,646
50 Cox Las Vegas 432,991
51 Time Warner Cable Charlotte 431,000
52 Time Warner Cable San Diego 423,000
53 Charter Tennessee 411,500
54 Oceanic Time Warner Cable Hawaii 411,000
55 Time Warner Cable South Carolina 405,000
56 Cox Hampton Roads 397,362
57 Time Warner Cable Albany 393,000
58 Charter Southern California 390,400
59 Time Warner Cable San Antonio 365,000
60 Time Warner Cable Greensboro 363,000
61 Charter New England 352,400
62 Time Warner Cable New England 346,000
63 Charter Minn./Neb. 334,800
64 Time Warner Cable Rochester 334,000
65 Charter Alabama 332,900
66 Comcast Southwest Area 305,000
66 Time Warner Cable Western New York 305,000
66 Insight Louisville 302,806
69 Time Warner Cable Kansas City 302,000
70 Cox Greater Louisiana 297,523
71 Charter North Central California/Nevada 292,300
72 Charter Georgia 288,800
73 Comcast Jacksonville 280,000
74 Cox Orange County/Palos Verdes 277,599
75 Comcast Utah 256,567
76 Charter Northwest 255,600
77 Cox Northern Virginia 240,082
78 Cox Omaha/Sun Valley, Idaho 222,487
79 WOW! Michigan 204,000**
80 Suddenlink Charleston/Beckley/Parkersburg/Logan, W.V 202,000
81 Charter East Michigan 201,200
82 Charter North Michigan 199,900
83 Charter West Michigan 196,000
84 Cox New Orleans 189,419
85 Blue Ridge Communications 170,000
86 Cox Gulf Coast 166,685
87 Charter Fort Worth 163,000
88 Charter Louisiana 157,200
89 Mediacom Georgia 130,000
90 Toledo Buckeye CableSystem 127,880
91 Mediacom Florida 127,000
92 Mediacom Illinois-Indiana 126,000
93 RCN Pennsylvania 120,100**
94 Bright House Bakersfield 119,000*
94 Bright House Indianapolis Division 119,000*
96 Mediacom Minnesota 115,000
97 Bright House Birmingham Division 112,000*
98 Cox Central Florida 105,135
99 Service Electric Cable TV 101,175
100 Insight Columbus 100,092

So you would think with us in at # 30 " navigator " would have been issued in place awhile ago !!!!

So you would think with us in at # 30 " navigator " would have been issued in place awhile ago !!!!The larger the system, the more problems in staging a migration to new software and/or hardware, so the smaller systems always go first. This is a *huge* problem with extensive staging required. No matter how much advertising they do beforehand, when they make the switch in such a large system they'll get tens of thousands of complaint calls, from confused and irate subscribers--getting prepared for that alone is major.

Also, there's the tiny little problem of SARA. All of the Passport systems migrated first, with Navigator operating on new boxes concurrently with Passport on the old until they were ready to make the switch--apparently that's not possible with SARA. (Two years ago, when they started deploying the "C" Cisco boxes here--8300HDC, 4250HDC, etc--they all came with ODN installed; it was another year, I think, before they migrated to all Navigator).

I still think though a goal before the end of this year was very attainable. Ny and New Jersey are way bigger then our division and much of there areas pretty much are updated to navigator.

I've had my 4250HDC since July of 07 and it's been interesting.

The larger the system, the more problems in staging a migration to new software and/or hardware, so the smaller systems always go first. This is a *huge* problem with extensive staging required. No matter how much advertising they do beforehand, when they make the switch in such a large system they'll get tens of thousands of complaint calls, from confused and irate subscribers--getting prepared for that alone is major.

people complain about their boring lives, but try to change anything and they complain endlessly about the smallest differences

For TWC SE WISC what is the current hd dvr and does it support esata? tia

For TWC SE WISC what is the current hd dvr and does it support esata? tia

The newest boxes are the Samsungs. I think the latest DVR Samsung model is 3270. There was a problem with this model so the divisions are holding back on them because there's a bug with VOD not working on the Samsung 3270. What is the second newest Samsung DVR before the 3270?

Most divisions seem to be giving out the SA-8300 HDC. Whether or not your box is E-SATA compatible is about an 80/20 crap-shoot with 80% not supported. This is often a very good reason to hold on to an MDN box for as long as you can, which has about a 70/30 shot with 70% affirmative for support of E-SATA.

Jack

what is the second newest samsung dvr before the 3270?
Jack

3090

FWIW, I got another MDN frak-up. Scheduled two consecutive movies on TCM Friday night, War of the Worlds and Time Machine. Was out doing a moonlight bike ride in Central Park.. so the box was 100% on it's own. Sat down to watch them the next night... hmmm, the info dialog for the WotW only showed part of the thermometer
"filled in," sure enough, at one point I get the save or delete message. Partial recording for NO REASON. Go to the Time Machine... soon as I hit play, I get the delete or save dialog.

No info in the recording log, both had a "deleted by user" message which was true.

Yeah I know MANY have suffered with this kind of crap... but for me this is the first time. There is NO FRAKKING reason for this... I used to joke about the one non-english speaking 14 year old who wrote the software, little did I know I hit the nail on the head.

The newest boxes are the Samsungs. I think the latest DVR Samsung model is 3270. There was a problem with this model so the divisions are holding back on them because there's a bug with VOD not working on the Samsung 3270. What is the second newest Samsung DVR before the 3270?

Most divisions seem to be giving out the SA-8300 HDC. Whether or not your box is E-SATA compatible is about an 80/20 crap-shoot with 80% not supported. This is often a very good reason to hold on to an MDN box for as long as you can, which has about a 70/30 shot with 70% affirmative for support of E-SATA.

Jack

I think my SA8300HD is going on the blink. It gets very slow in the GUI every once in awhile whether or not my eSATA drive is connected. And I have to record ESPNNEWS constantly to prevent the SA8300HD from disconnecting my eSATA drive (usually works). What progress!

I've been living with Navigator for the past few weeks, and I am amazed that this load of crap, which I understand has been in development for years, has been forced down the throats of TW NYC customers. It is so bad, on so many levels, that to list them would take a week, but I'm sure many of you know this already.

Passport was such a superior piece of software engineering, better than any other program guide I've ever used, it's hard to come to grips with the fact that it's gone and I have no recourse.

At the soonest possible opportunity, I plan on dumping TW for FIOS.

Went down to the Queens Mall today and turned in my old 3250 box and exchanged my SA 8300HD for a Samsung 3090. Do0n't see much of a difference between it and the SA8300HDC in the bedroom. The black finish does look better and there are better power on scheduling features like in the old Passport, but other than that - no biggies.

While I have not the horror with Navigator that other divisions had, Milwaukee was a test city for the first two years, they aborted it for a year because it was so bad and rolled it out in January 2008. Our DVR was converted around April of that year.

I was so nervous because I heard about the horror stories with the software, but my 8300 MDN box took the change over well. I was more disappointed with the loss of some of the features like Keyword Search and Manual Recording, which worked so well with the Passport software, and were completely absent from Navigator. It was certainly many steps backward from what had been a quality guide.

Note that I had heard Passport had its own horror stories when it first came out, but I could not provide such an evaluation as we did not get Digital Cable until about 2002. What I want to know is who were the brain-child "geniuses" who thought and believed Navigator was such a great product? How did this get by production standards in the first two horror years of operation for Navigator? Is it known whether or not class-action suits against TWC were filed by customers claiming deception and fraud by TWC in mass-marketing a product who's engineers did not have the training or experience in testing? Passport had about ten years of IPG Guide development and Navigator is just going on four years.

I mean who thought Navigator was a good idea in the fall of 2006? Road Runner and Digital Phone are far better than the IPG for most people with TWC. It's been four years, who and what was responsible for Navigator's deployment and where did it go wrong?

At least from my division, the guide has worked "reasonably well." About a year ago when SDV was deployed we had some issues with recordings on Food Network and TV Land stopping about 10-20 minutes in. On rare occasions, the closed-captioning would freeze requiring a box reboot. However, the stoppage of recordings has not been a problem for a year, and the latest update to my box (MDN 2.4.6-19) quickly corrected when the closed captioning froze during an HBO-HD playback of Shrek on my DVR. (It always seemed to happen, although rare on my HBO HD channel.)

Since having our line replaced and signals corrected rebooting has dramatically increased. Within two hours of a service call, we had an in-house tech here who knew exactly what to do. Than as he said, another tech came out a few days later to update the line. We have All-In-One service and it works well.

I am from Wisconsin, but I think there is such disparity from division to division, box to box, and head-end to head-end. TWC wanted to establish a uniform standard of performance with the Navigator transition and that CLEARLY DID NOT HAPPEN! It just seems that performance issues with the guide in some divisions should be 100 times better than what many of you are experiencing. Maybe I have a somewhat "luckier" division, I don't know.

It is sure obvious from a global level that TWC should have paid Aptiv TV for the updates to the Passport Service. The issues now is that Navigator will always be behind the eight ball technology wise, because the software developers and engineers at TWC do not have the experience of the Aptiv TV programmers to allow Navigator the ability to compete with Passport.

But than it raises another issue: Why has the SARA guide been so ugly-looking from day 1? I have heard that at the very least, the SARA guide is reliable. However, this may as well vary from division to division and box to box.

Jack

...Why has the SARA guide been so ugly-looking from day 1? I have heard that at the very least, the SARA guide is reliable. However, this may as well vary from division to division and box to box.

Jack

SARA was written by Scientific-Atlanta as a baseline "demo" for 3rd party programmers, illustrating how to utilize the various APIs available. It was never intended to be pretty, just a basic but functional example written by the STB developers, not professional IPG developers. The low-cost option of retaining SARA versus paying for 3rd party software was apparently very attractive to cable ops and SARA ended up running in way more boxes than S-A ever intended/expected.

I think Charlotte might end up deploying an even newer version than 3.1.3_2. 3.1.3_2 will be superseded with another version that fixes the 3270 VOD issues. Probably won't get any new features. Just another bug fix release. I think later this year they'll be an even newer version that will come out that might be major and adds features like Keyword Search and Expanded Guide listings. ODN does tag shows as having Dolby Digital but it's called Surround sound and only certain channels have it. I guess they didn't want to spend to have the guide show the DD logo.

SARA was written by Scientific-Atlanta as a baseline "demo" for 3rd party programmers, illustrating how to utilize the various APIs available. It was never intended to be pretty, just a basic but functional example written by the STB developers, not professional IPG developers. The low-cost option of retaining SARA versus paying for 3rd party software was apparently very attractive to cable ops and SARA ended up running in way more boxes than S-A ever intended/expected.I've explained this to people before--it's what we call a "reference implementation". They generally try to give examples of how to implement every advertised capability of the devices. They also serve as proof of concept--no one can claim that the device can't perform an advertised function when you've given them working code examples of how to do it. They often fully implement device features which developers of end-user software (i.e., Passport and Navigator) don't bother with, like the eSATA expansion drive capability. Developers of reference implementations do not, however, waste any time trying to make them look pretty or on designing elegant, easy to use UI. The developers of SARA didn't waste a single penny on professional fonts, line art or human factors engineering.

SARA is the first reference implementation I've ever seen deployed to customers and the cable service providers which use it have subjected millions of their subscribers to it :rolleyes:.

SARA is the first reference implementation I've ever seen deployed to customers and the cable service providers which use it have subjected millions of their subscribers to it.

Exactly,

In the divisions that have it, the GUI may look like $hite, but it is SDV compliant and is reliable in most cases.

Jack

Exactly,

In the divisions that have it, the GUI may look like $hite, but it is SDV compliant and is reliable in most cases.You're right--reliability is the main advantage of SARA for customers, and the fact that it has a working implementation of eSATA drive expansion, supported by Cisco (which does not in any way imply support by a cable provider using SARA).

Anything can be made "SDV compliant" (you mean SDV capable--"compliance" would imply some kind of standard for SDV, which does not exist). Insofar as the IPG is concerned, it should be ridiculously trivial--changing channels would almost certainly be done by invoking Cisco/SA middleware, which would be the same for all IPGs, and that's where the meat of SDV would be located. All the IPG developer has to do is build in a set of pop-up messages, like "Can't get to this channel right now--try again later".

With me i don't want navigator cause it's prettier but more like just change of pace it get's sickening looking at sara day in day out. No question it is reliable in many ways but there a many things i could pin point that i don't like about sara . Cisco knew what they were doing with sara ... but i do give time warner credit for sticking to there guns and trying to make improvements in navigator. I would simply like to take a swirl at navigator just out of lack of hands on experience.Who knows i to may hate navigator but then i'm begging for it and if turn's out to be a nightmare ....then i get what i deserve i guess. If navigator becomes to be to much a problem for me here there is always Dish network ..Direct tv...Fios when available.;)

abyss, while SARA is stable and does basic recording options, it lacks SO much in the way of features that are standard on just about all other DVR software. The Search jumps to the forefront. It has a God awful scroll to the letter, then through EVERY title with and only shows what's on for that day. If we get a solid version of Navigator (IE: the most recent) then we should be fine. I'm even willing to change out the internal hard drive if they drop eSATA support altogether, which may happen. I'm generally happy with my TW service. I get just about all the HD I want (would like to see Spike and Comedy) and the DVR is the only thing holding it back. I'm very hopeful that Navigator will be here by years end. If not, I will patiently await a Tivo Series 4 or Moxi 2 Way.

I couldn't have said it any better myself ben...My only difference from you is the supporting of external hard drives. But if you like to record alot i hope you get what you want ...seriously. Who knows extra hard drive space might come in handy for me i 'm not as busy as you with installs and what not. I have no problem with TW as a whole either just the longer then ever wait for navigator demployment. Yea i know we'll eventually get it ...lol the suspense is killing me to no end !:D i to am looking at the tivo series 3 you mentioned to me you have me hooked.My wife even said something to me about tivo she knows my discontent for sara's neon sign of a guide.

Ben did you ever get a reply back from Jeff Unaitis ? Maybe no news is good news as they say!:)

Nothing back from Jeff Unaitis and the paltry hard drive space is a big downer. I currently have about 80-90 recordings on my 8300HD and most are in HD. I like to record entire series and I have been recording all Star Trek: TOS tha's available (albeit SD) because I'm on the Production Crew of the Phase II project. If you like Star Trek, check us out at http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/. I work with Grip & Electric and am going back up in a few weeks.

Anyway, back on point: I have to have a minimum 500GB hard drive. I currently am using a 1TB setup. I can't fathom why TW did order new boxes with 500GB drives. The cost difference would have been minuscule. I would like to see a DVR designed with a removable drive slot, so you could buy the hardware without a drive and add whatever size you wanted, plus if the drive were to fail, changing it would be simple plug and play.

500 GB would be nice but Glenn Britt says the TWC CEO says that they can only afford run of the mill boxes wtih 160 and 320 GB HDD's. There are no direct to MSO boxes even though the new Cisco 8600 is supposedly available with a 500 GB HDD.

500 GB would be nice but Glenn Britt says the TWC CEO says that they can only afford run of the mill boxes with 160 and 320 GB HDD's. There are no direct to MSO boxes even though the new Cisco 8600 is supposedly available with a 500 GB HDD.

I'm aware of that. My main point is that the cost is insignificant. Just price hard drives now and you'll see what I mean. TW is a HUGE conglomerate and the second largest cable provider in the country. If they wanted 500GB boxes they could have gotten them. If they were smart, they would have contract with Moxi and let them develop the whole thing. Just my two cents...

I'm aware of that. My main point is that the cost is insignificant. Just price hard drives now and you'll see what I mean. TW is a HUGE conglomerate and the second largest cable provider in the country. If they wanted 500GB boxes they could have gotten them. If they were smart, they would have contract with Moxi and let them develop the whole thing. Just my two cents...

Great points (From Ben and Everyone)

The thing that you have to remember is that when the DVR first came out, it was never intended to be a permanent archive storage device to build up a library of shows forever and ever. You recorded the shows you wanted to see, saw them, than it was assumed that you would erase them. Therefore the 160GB DVR holding about 90 hours of SD content or 20 hours of HD content seemed fine.

Go back to the old days of VCR's and you could only get 6 hours on a standard T-120 tape! Remember that?!

The thing is that customers WANT the DVR of today to be the archive device for building up library's of shows for which archiving was not originally intended. I delete almost EVERYTHING right after I watch it. If there is something that I want as a real keepsake, I get friends to watch it and burn a copy to DVD for me. Than when the DVD comes, I erase it off the DVR. I don't do a lot of archiving of recordings.

But for those of you who do and have faced the incompatibility issues with the new C and Samsung DVR's and E-SATA Drives, how many of you have considered a DVD burner? What would the price range be for that? That way, you could build up a true archive of programs rather than buying an external drive that runs a chance of not working with your type of DVR or support being lost on an update.

Would the DVD Burner provide a better option for customers who want to do true archiving of programs?

Jack

Jack, it's not that I archive stuff. I'm just generally REALLY busy so shows have a tendency to piles up. I too, erase a show right after I watch it. However, keep in mind that some of us like to record movies too. Also, with well over 100 HD channels available here, I record everything possible in HD therefore 20 hours just doesn't cut it.

SARA is the first reference implementation I've ever seen deployed to customers and the cable service providers which use it have subjected millions of their subscribers to it :rolleyes:.

And I could guarantee you this accounted for millions in bonuses for those who decided to take such a short cut and foist this on customers who were paying and expecting far better... counting on the fact that WAY too many customers simply have no desire to keep themselves informed of what the value for the buck is.

They get away with this crap... because they can. Because in way too many markets, they simply are the ONLY choice. I'm also sure they are counting on the fact that while they SEEM to finally have some competition around these parts, they also seem to be counting on the fact it's going to be years and years Verizon actually wires enough trunks to bring FiOS to almost all the the city. When Verizon secured their franchise agreement, it was based on a pre-authorized 3 years worth of delays from the projected completion (2014 is completion with delays to 2017 already built in). Given economics, I can also guarantee you they will be back for more delays... they were supposed to be available by me last month and they don;'t even have street opening permits to pay trunk (AND I am less than a mile from one of their largest switching stations!).

500 GB would be nice but Glenn Britt says the TWC CEO says that they can only afford run of the mill boxes wtih 160 and 320 GB HDD's. There are no direct to MSO boxes even though the new Cisco 8600 is supposedly available with a 500 GB HDD.

That's a total pile of stinking manure. Anything less than 500G these days is special run stuff... and thus can actually cost MORE than typical mass purchased sizes these days. Again, TWC is counting on weak and uninformed people to sell this crap to...

Would the DVD Burner provide a better option for customers who want to do true archiving of programs?

Jack

Never happen, being able to write this stuff to a semi-permanent medium like optical would cause havoc when they go for carriage agreements. Honestly, I have no use for such. If I wanted copies of TV shows, they are available on DVD from my library (I am applying the time shifting paradigm here, there a very limited time I can have them out, so I record for my allowable single view later).

Yes, there are some who seem to be more interested in medium term archiving. BUT, like Ben said, why shouldn't someone be able to save a season of shows for watching 6 months later (hell, does anyone except 24 have a season of more than 20 shows...)?

Right now, I see this crap software not being able to only record one series show, but it wants to record every instance of the same thing for a good week. Left unchecked, the few shows I couldn't watch within 2 days could get erased. Keep in mind that on any Sunday this fall, I could need half the drive's space for the football games... and that is OINLY for my 2 home teams.

Apparently, Navigator/SA8300HDC has fragmentation issues, or something along those lines. It refused to record tennis today (granted a long show, 7 hrs HD) on the account of "Disk is full". I have only 5 hours of "Do not delete" stuff (one 3 hour and one 2 hour movie), and maybe 2 hours of "Until space needed" stuff, and the drive should be good for about 20 HD hrs (it used to gve me that when I recorded shorter stuff). 12 hrs is clearly below the total amount of disk space.
The only good part of this was that at least it did not delete all of my "Until space needed" recordings and then complain that it was not enough.
When I realized this (it was about 2 hours since tennis started), I started recording the show; it is now just short of 5 hours long and it is recording with no issues and without deleting any of the "Until space needed" shows, so it clearly indicates that it was not lack of space, but rather lack of contiguous space. I guess somebody figured out that the show should fit on the hard drive as one chunk.

This fits nicely into the whole drive size issue. Even starting with this drive totally empty, I probably can not record Sunday's tennis and the first two (1 and 4 p.m.) football games and watch them in the afternoon, never mind about saving anything to watch a week later.

And I could guarantee you this accounted for millions in bonuses for those who decided to take such a short cut and foist this on customers who were paying and expecting far better... counting on the fact that WAY too many customers simply have no desire to keep themselves informed of what the value for the buck is.

They get away with this crap... because they can. Because in way too many markets, they simply are the ONLY choice. I'm also sure they are counting on the fact that while they SEEM to finally have some competition around these parts, they also seem to be counting on the fact it's going to be years and years Verizon actually wires enough trunks to bring FiOS to almost all the the city. When Verizon secured their franchise agreement, it was based on a pre-authorized 3 years worth of delays from the projected completion (2014 is completion with delays to 2017 already built in). Given economics, I can also guarantee you they will be back for more delays... they were supposed to be available by me last month and they don;'t even have street opening permits to pay trunk (AND I am less than a mile from one of their largest switching stations!).

TIVO has filed a 300 million dollar lawsuit aganist Verizon and a 300 million dollar lawsut aganist AT&Tover patent infringiment. If they win these lawsuits like they did aganist Dish I guess all will have to either add TIVO to their dvr's alay Comcast or license the pattens alay Time Warner. This coulds set FIOS expanison back 5 years according to the news report.

I concur that TW doesn't do better because they simply don't have to.With any luck Tivo or Moxi will deploy a decent set top that is compatible with all the features I pay for...someday.

TIVO has filed a 300 million dollar lawsuit aganist Verizon and a 300 million dollar lawsut aganist AT&Tover patent infringiment. If they win these lawsuits like they did aganist Dish I guess all will have to either add TIVO to their dvr's alay Comcast or license the pattens alay Time Warner. This coulds set FIOS expanison back 5 years according to the news report.

Actually this is interesting stuff. As I understand what I've read, in the Dish case, it's about the about the most basic of basics... 2 tuners, recording and playing back simultaneously. Something that all the software seems to be able to do. I've remarked that I thought they had the hard stuff well done, but the rest was crap. Not at all surprising that they (maybe, I have no specific evidence) really DID steal this most basic code.

OTOH, one has to wonder where a <tru2way> device from TiVO is... would NOT surprise me that are devoting themselves to makes tons off the patent dispute before really moving forward with such a device.

OTOH, one has to wonder where a <tru2way> device from TiVO is... would NOT surprise me that are devoting themselves to makes tons off the patent dispute before really moving forward with such a device.

I made this EXACT claim earlier and someone wanted to start a flame war over. I agree that Tivo has shown zero urgency in deploying a Series 4, because is staying in the black by winning lawsuits for 100's of millions at a time!

If they were smart, they would have contract with Moxi and let them develop the whole thing. Just my two cents...

They are smart. TWC don't want to be contractually involved with anyone they don't have to be. They were fully aware of the ramifications of cutting ties with Aptiv and going in-house. TWC want control of every entertainment outlet that their customers use.

It's ironic that TWC's slogan is "the power of you" when they are intentionally forcing every single person to relinquish control and adapt to them. From watching video on your TV or your computer, TWC want to be able to control it all, and by forcing you to use their software and hardware TWC have that option.

Meanwhile their customers sit back and get taken in by the advertising and marketing spiel, not even giving a second thought to what it all adds up to.

I made this EXACT claim earlier and someone wanted to start a flame war over. I agree that Tivo has shown zero urgency in deploying a Series 4, because is staying in the black by winning lawsuits for 100's of millions at a time!

We ARE on the same page! I have mused before that I was very surprised at how the cable outfits (even though I only have first hand experience with TWC) could get the most basic of functions, recording with a 2 tuner setup with a ton of buffering going on so you can record 2 and watch a pre-recorded show at the same time) so right., while the far more minor stuff they can't find their way out of a paper bag. From a programming perspective, keyword search is child's play compared to what I detailed above.

Reading about the patent dispute in a little more detail, it seems this is the bottom line issue. TiVO is saying it's this very function (2 tuners recording, watching a third stream from the HDD) others have stolen from them. So far, they are being successful in obtaining such decision, which undoubtedly means they WILL be going after others.

I concur that TW doesn't do better because they simply don't have to.With any luck Tivo or Moxi will deploy a decent set top that is compatible with all the features I pay for...someday.

Funny, it's been YEARS since I first had the idea that TWC SHOULD be licensing TiVOs software for their DVR service.

BUT doing that means less money to be gotten from customers... so they "borrowed" the code to do the hard parts, hired their own 14 year old student to program and REALLY cleaned up financially. A very good play for them being as they have total to very near monopoly power in most locations.

Funny, it's been YEARS since I first had the idea that TWC SHOULD be licensing TiVOs software for their DVR service.

BUT doing that means less money to be gotten from customers... so they "borrowed" the code to do the hard parts, hired their own 14 year old student to program and REALLY cleaned up financially. A very good play for them being as they have total to very near monopoly power in most locations.

Right, my point that they don't do better because they don't have to is well taken. I don't have issue with TW putting out the garbage hardware/software do because for the masses it's fine. I have an issue with the cable industry as a whole making third party support so difficult. I am totally satisfied with my phone, internet, and cable package as a whole. All I want is a DVR option that is top line and gives me all the features available. All in all, this isn't a difficult task if the powers that be get together and make it happen. TWC should have a high end option for tech savvy subs who want one. Look at what DirecTV is doing. They have their basic DVR and soon will have the Tivo option available. TWC should do something similar.

Right, my point that they don't do better because they don't have to is well taken. I don't have issue with TW putting out the garbage hardware/software do because for the masses it's fine. I have an issue with the cable industry as a whole making third party support so difficult. I am totally satisfied with my phone, internet, and cable package as a whole. All I want is a DVR option that is top line and gives me all the features available. All in all, this isn't a difficult task if the powers that be get together and make it happen. TWC should have a high end option for tech savvy subs who want one. Look at what DirecTV is doing. They have their basic DVR and soon will have the Tivo option available. TWC should do something similar.

Your right. However TWC cannot even get Navigator fully deployed. If they add Tivo we might be waiting 5 years for it. WOODY

I'm not talking about them adding Tivo on their own. I'm saying let Tivo design/develop and deploy the hardware. All TWC has to do is open up the system to allow compatability. I could then get the set top right from TW or buy my own at retail. I would NOT want TW having anything to do with implementing a Tivo platform on their own.

Right, my point that they don't do better because they don't have to is well taken. I don't have issue with TW putting out the garbage hardware/software do because for the masses it's fine. I have an issue with the cable industry as a whole making third party support so difficult. I am totally satisfied with my phone, Internet, and cable package as a whole. All I want is a DVR option that is top line and gives me all the features available. All in all, this isn't a difficult task if the powers that be get together and make it happen. TWC should have a high end option for tech savvy subs who want one. Look at what DirecTV is doing. They have their basic DVR and soon will have the Tivo option available. TWC should do something similar.

Exactly Ben!

TWC could offer a third-party DVR for advanced users like most on this forum for $5 more a month or something for people who want the added features and are more into serious TV watching.

For the average Jane and Joe's Navigator is OK provided that you have a good box and signal strength. If people want to just do basic stuff, TWC could keep Navigator as an option for those who do very little DVR recording, and are just average TV viewers. To be honest, add Keyword Search and Manual Recording to Navigator and at least for my division, it will be as good as Passport. I have no need for a TIVO or other advanced box, but TWC should make third-party software more available for its systems. It would certainly improve their PR clientèle.

TWC has become the Microsoft of cable companies. They would probably love it if they could make their own DVR's, STB's, routers/cable models in-house too! Corporate management has to accept that it's not a crime to turn to outside vendors who have more experience in hardware and software development than your in-house techs. TWC sacrificed competence and efficiency, certainly on the CATV/Navigator end to save money.

Advanced users should have more third party options that TWC supports. TWC isn't about, "The Power of You." Their slogan should be, "The Control By Us!"

Jack

Never happen, being able to write this stuff to a semi-permanent medium like optical would cause havoc when they go for carriage agreements. Honestly, I have no use for such. If I wanted copies of TV shows, they are available on DVD from my library (I am applying the time shifting paradigm here, there a very limited time I can have them out, so I record for my allowable single view later).

Yes, there are some who seem to be more interested in medium term archiving. BUT, like Ben said, why shouldn't someone be able to save a season of shows for watching 6 months later (hell, does anyone except 24 have a season of more than 20 shows...)?

Right now, I see this crap software not being able to only record one series show, but it wants to record every instance of the same thing for a good week. Left unchecked, the few shows I couldn't watch within 2 days could get erased. Keep in mind that on any Sunday this fall, I could need half the drive's space for the football games... and that is ONLY for my 2 home teams.

Riverside,

When Navigator constantly records episodes of a new show if marked as a series when the show is no longer New, is the only way to stop the weekly show duplicates doing so by going into the Series Manager and actually deleting the series? I record my shows individually, but I know that this is a Navigator problem in several divisions.

To fix this, Navigator needs a FIRST RUN prompt for shows and series in a software update. Kill the NEW thing. Often times it has been shown that NEW is anything but.

Sports Categories need a LIVE prompt (instead of NEW.) Passport had this, and you could tell when a LIVE show really was live. Navigator does not seem to know when a show is NEW. But FIRST RUN would be a better option!

Than in Series Manager, "Record Series With Options" users could just select a prompt, "Record First Run Only."

Jack

TWC could offer a third-party DVR for advanced users like most on this forum for $5 more a month or something for people who want the added features and are more into serious TV watching.Comcast already does that (http://www.comcast.com/Tivo/) in some markets. TiVo developed a native Moto version of their GUI (with some notable modifications requested by Comcast, like inset video throughout). TiVo has also developed a version for Cox (http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/303), though when or if that will be deployed is unknown (by the public, at least :)).

Tru2way makes this much easier to do, since it need only be done once for every platform, lease and/or retail.

Riverside,

When Navigator constantly records episodes of a new show if marked as a series when the show is no longer New, is the only way to stop the weekly show duplicates doing so by going into the Series Manager and actually deleting the series? I record my shows individually, but I know that this is a Navigator problem in several divisions.

To fix this, Navigator needs a FIRST RUN prompt for shows and series in a software update. Kill the NEW thing. Often times it has been shown that NEW is anything but.

Sports Categories need a LIVE prompt (instead of NEW.) Passport had this, and you could tell when a LIVE show really was live. Navigator does not seem to know when a show is NEW. But FIRST RUN would be a better option!

Than in Series Manager, "Record Series With Options" users could just select a prompt, "Record First Run Only."

Jack

[Rant] ...but that would kill Navigator's great ability to automatically manage the schedule to resolve conflicts, something Passport apparently lacked and I would be beyond pissed if it was taken away from me. NEW (or "FIRST RUN", or whatever word you want to attach to it) should designate a show for exactly what it is... ALL showings of a premier episode during its premier week. I DON'T WANT to make only the very first showing eligible to be recorded. I WANT it to be able to substitute the second or third showing during premiere week in the event that the first showing was a conflict... or there was an outage... or the President was speaking at the time. As long as it does not record all of them (which Navigator DOES NOT do by design), then there is no problem. When left to its own devices, in the absence of a conflict, Navigator records ONLY the initial showing.

Whatever issues Riverside is having with multiple recordings, they are not because Navigator is designed to behave that way. It certainly doesn't behave that way for me, and others in NYC have reported proper series recording behavior with both ODN and MDN, so it would seem that his problem is an isolated/localized one, not with Navigator or even a NYC guide or headend issue (although the others reporting success in NY could be off of a different headend). And... If someone REALLY wants to limit the box to recording only the very first showing of an episode, the tool is there to do that... just tell it to record that one time slot instead of all showings.

It makes no sense to me to keep beating on this as if it was Navigator design flaw... it happens to be one of the (few?) things they got VERY right. [/Rant ;)]

Comcast already does that (http://www.comcast.com/Tivo/) in some markets. TiVo developed a native Moto version of their GUI (with some notable modifications requested by Comcast, like inset video throughout). TiVo has also developed a version for Cox (http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/303), though when or if that will be deployed is unknown (by the public, at least :)).

Tru2way makes this much easier to do, since it need only be done once for every platform, lease and/or retail.

Yes, Comcast does that and from what I've heard it's as much of a disaster as the initial Navigator launch. I speculate that it's due to hardware limitations of the set top box and thus why I stated that I believe Tivo needs to do it independent of the cable company with their own hardware.

Yes, Comcast does that and from what I've heard it's as much of a disaster as the initial Navigator launch. I speculate that it's due to hardware limitations of the set top box and thus why I stated that I believe Tivo needs to do it independent of the cable company with their own hardware.I know that it sucks at this point, but they're working on it and believe that they can resolve the problems. It's definitely not so much a limitation of hardware--Passport Echo had most of the DVR features of TiVo (as opposed to the network features) and it ran on SA8x00's with 64MB of memory and I believe that TiVo HD has less memory than that. The processors on the 8300HD are fast enough for this application.

I agree and I'm not saying that can't do it, but it's taking a LONG time to get it done. I just believe if they built their own from the ground up, it could be implemented on a widespread basis in a much shorter time.

Everyone has said how much better the OnDemand channels look and I agree ...

but yet again it's worse than the Passport version.

Trying to refresh my mind with viewings of Curb on HBO on Demand has just been a pain in the ass.

Pause an episode and a few seconds later it kicks you back out to the main menu. Finish watching an episode and you get kicked back out to the main menu. Stop an episode and you get kicked back out to the main menu.

Every single time you have to drill down from the main menu and through the categories to get back to the list of episodes to watch the next one or resume the current one.

I'm sure that when you went back to an OD channel in Passport the first menu that appeared was your recent or partially watched shows so you could go back to them quickly. When you stopped watching something it went back to the episode list that you were just looking at.

I was wondering if alot of people have this problem or if it's my STB needing checked even though it is fairly new.
Last night I noticed that one of my HD recordings didn't record due to "channel not available". I went to the channel and it still wasn't available. I checked a few more channels that also showed the problem. I then rebooted my box and when it came back up all the channels were viewable again. I'm not sure if others have the problem or if it due to a possible SDV problem or if SDV is designed that way because it was late at night and not many people would be viewing it????

Everyone has said how much better the OnDemand channels look and I agree ...

but yet again it's worse than the Passport version.

Trying to refresh my mind with viewings of Curb on HBO on Demand has just been a pain in the ass.

Pause an episode and a few seconds later it kicks you back out to the main menu. Finish watching an episode and you get kicked back out to the main menu. Stop an episode and you get kicked back out to the main menu.

Every single time you have to drill down from the main menu and through the categories to get back to the list of episodes to watch the next one or resume the current one.

I'm sure that when you went back to an OD channel in Passport the first menu that appeared was your recent or partially watched shows so you could go back to them quickly. When you stopped watching something it went back to the episode list that you were just looking at.

I agree with you that the OD sucks if you can't sit through the whole thing right then. After a pause mine goes back to main menu after about 5 minutes. What a pain because first off it goes to the previews they show on the main channel but since it's paused you get the screen saver showing with some non-sense blaring in the background, how stupid. Then as you say you're sent back to the main menu and for what? Why not have it just like recorded shows where if paused it stays paused and screen saver come on after a few minutes? The whole thing is really dumb and I can't understand the engineering behind it.

I was wondering if alot of people have this problem

Yes.

The Curse of the Vague Error Message has plagued me since I got Navigated.

Yes.

The Curse of the Vague Error Message has plagued me since I got Navigated.

It really sucks, I am thinking of just recording stuff in SD just to ensure it will record. Maybe that's what TWC wants so we will quit complaining so much about the crappy 160gb drives in our STB's not giving us enough space.

I also saw where someone posted about why can't TWC rent a box without a hard drive so you could put your own in which would be cool but also wonder why they can't just offer a dvr in 160gb, 320gb, 500gb and 1TB options and charge different prices for which ever one you rent? I'd pay extra buck or two a month for a 1TB hard drive DVR, that is if they were to fix the damn "channel not available crap" so I could get all HD recordings to watch.

I was wondering if alot of people have this problem or if it's my STB needing checked even though it is fairly new.
Last night I noticed that one of my HD recordings didn't record due to "channel not available". I went to the channel and it still wasn't available. I checked a few more channels that also showed the problem. I then rebooted my box and when it came back up all the channels were viewable again. I'm not sure if others have the problem or if it due to a possible SDV problem or if SDV is designed that way because it was late at night and not many people would be viewing it????That is a message that you'd get for an SDV channel when it's not on the wire and there's no bandwidth remaining in the SDV pool to put it there. (It's a condition which shouldn't occur when your provider has tweaked the size of the SDV pool and the set of channels which are switched). So it could well be some bug in the SDV stuff running in the cable box.

I'd agree that it's a bit vague, but making it more explicit would just confuse Joe and Jane Average. What would you say, anyway? "The channel you've requested is a Switched Digital Video service. It is not being viewed in your area, so no bandwidth is allocated to it, and there is no free bandwidth available in which to add it to the available channels. Bandwidth will be freed as other SDV services are abandoned by their viewers--please try later".

You can see some suggested messages for switched video tuners on PDF page 41 (labelled 35) of the Tuning Resolver Interface Specification (http://www.cablelabs.com/specifications/OC-SP-TRIF-I01-080130.pdf) (the document was written for tuners using Tuning Adapters, but all SDV-tuning-capable devices have to handle the same conditions).

Speaking of SDV, Charlotte is in the midst of a hub-by-hub SDV reconfiguration, shifting an additional 40+ SD channels to SDV. That will bring the SDV totals here to 177 total SDV channels... 137 SD + 40 HD.

After realignment, 11 QAMs per hub will be dedicated to the SDV pool for those channels. At our typical 12 SDs or 3 HDs per QAM, those 177 channels would occupy 28 QAMs if they were linear broadcasts. I suspect, but do not know for certain, that the SDV pool uses the same level of compression as the linear channels - the PQ is (so far) indistinguishable between SDV and linear channels. It is possible that this might change after the reconfiguration.

I still can't figure out why the hell USA HD is on SDV (c'mon... somebody just about always will be watching that), but at least it all works well (here, at least). My hub is scheduled for reconfiguration next week, so I'll see if the Charlotte division's excellent track record with SDV continues.

That is a message that you'd get for an SDV channel when it's not on the wire and there's no bandwidth remaining in the SDV pool to put it there. (It's a condition which shouldn't occur when your provider has tweaked the size of the SDV pool and the set of channels which are switched). So it could well be some bug in the SDV stuff running in the cable box.

I'd agree that it's a bit vague, but making it more explicit would just confuse Joe and Jane Average. What would you say, anyway? "The channel you've requested is a Switched Digital Video service. It is not being viewed in your area, so no bandwidth is allocated to it, and there is no free bandwidth available in which to add it to the available channels. Bandwidth will be freed as other SDV services are abandoned by their viewers--please try later".

You can see some suggested messages for switched video tuners on PDF page 41 (labelled 35) of the Tuning Resolver Interface Specification (http://www.cablelabs.com/specifications/OC-SP-TRIF-I01-080130.pdf) (the document was written for tuners using Tuning Adapters, but all SDV-tuning-capable devices have to handle the same conditions).

Thanks for the explanation. It kinda ticks me off because I pay for all the channels and if only one (me) wants to watch it then I shouldn't have a problem doing so but what can you do? It's just a minor gripe if I'm there and can tune to the SD equivalent to watch but what really burns me is when I'm not there and have a recording set and when I get home and plop down on the couch to watch it isn't there because the damn channel wasn't available at recording time. Wouldn't be a big deal also if we didn't have crap 160gb dvr's cause if it was 500gb I could set both the HD and SD to record in case the good channel won't play. I hate TWC.
I also have to wonder about being able to view the channel after a reboot. I guess I need to reboot the box manually everyday as close to recording time as possible. Did I already say I HATE TWC

That is a message that you'd get for an SDV channel when it's not on the wire and there's no bandwidth remaining in the SDV pool to put it there. (It's a condition which shouldn't occur when your provider has tweaked the size of the SDV pool and the set of channels which are switched). So it could well be some bug in the SDV stuff running in the cable box.I don't think this is the only explanation. This message used to crop up a lot, long before SDV was implimented. Some people reported that the message disappeared when their signal levels were fixed.

I don't think this is the only explanation. This message used to crop up a lot, long before SDV was implimented. Some people reported that the message disappeared when their signal levels were fixed.At this point it really shouldn't say that for anything else (at least on systems using SDV), particularly if there's a real error condition. It ought to say "Failure to tune channel" or something like that, so that people will know that there's an actual problem and call for service if it keeps cropping up.

Thanks for the explanation. It kinda ticks me off because I pay for all the channels and if only one (me) wants to watch it then I shouldn't have a problem doing so but what can you do?Understand that it's not that only you want to watch it--if there was bandwidth in the SDV pool it would allocate it just for you, even if no one else wanted to watch it while you were and it wouldn't take it away to give it to a channel that a large number of people wanted to watch. The problem is that no one was watching it, so they didn't allocate space to it and now that you want to watch it, there's no space left because other switched services are being watched (some or all of which might be being viewed by only a single person).
It's just a minor gripe if I'm there and can tune to the SD equivalent to watch but what really burns me is when I'm not there and have a recording set and when I get home and plop down on the couch to watch it isn't there because the damn channel wasn't available at recording time. Wouldn't be a big deal also if we didn't have crap 160gb dvr's cause if it was 500gb I could set both the HD and SD to record in case the good channel won't play. I hate TWC.You should report these problems to TWC. If they're caused by SDV, then they need to allocate more bandwidth to it and/or stop switching channels that are being watched at all times.
I also have to wonder about being able to view the channel after a reboot. I guess I need to reboot the box manually everyday as close to recording time as possible. Did I already say I HATE TWCHuh? What does rebooting have to do with anything? It won't deallocate the bandwidth for a switched channel just because your box rebooted--if you had it tuned for a long time and bandwidth was running out, it might ask if you're still using it, since this will happen when people leave their cable STB in the ON state all the time. But I don't think that the SDV system has any way to know that your box rebooted. If you change the channel or put the box in the "OFF" state, then the system will be told that you aren't watching that channel anymore and if no one else is and the bandwidth is needed for something else, then it may reclaim it.

Riverside,

When Navigator constantly records episodes of a new show if marked as a series when the show is no longer New, is the only way to stop the weekly show duplicates doing so by going into the Series Manager and actually deleting the series? I record my shows individually, but I know that this is a Navigator problem in several divisions.

To fix this, Navigator needs a FIRST RUN prompt for shows and series in a software update. Kill the NEW thing. Often times it has been shown that NEW is anything but.

Sports Categories need a LIVE prompt (instead of NEW.) Passport had this, and you could tell when a LIVE show really was live. Navigator does not seem to know when a show is NEW. But FIRST RUN would be a better option!

Than in Series Manager, "Record Series With Options" users could just select a prompt, "Record First Run Only."

Jack

Indeed I have an issue because I've always been heavily invested in the series recordings... AND saved keyword searches that are basically a series recording where you enter the title and which can be created without any instance of it in the schedule.

Obviously, Craptigator has killed the latter functionality, something I have been using for at least 3-4 years. Complicating matters, I have been following advice from here, to go ahead and actually record the real first instance even though I watched as as broadcast. A PIA work-around for terribly implemented software. AND that PIA move is... inconsistent. At least 3 series have actually recorded the same episode that I HAD watched and HAD recorded, then deleted.

So I'm spending the same amount of money AND TWC is delivering far less than what they had because they cut out paying any fees for the software they had licensed. And now I'm reading about TiVOs infringement case and thinking TWC most likely did just what Dish (and others) did... crib some code for the hard part, wrap it in a bunch of mostly non-functioning code and call it their "solution."

And no I do NOT know this for a 100% sure fact. But nobody can deny that it's a VERY larger possibility and fits perfectly into today's idea of how to do business.

It will be hilarious if Tivo does indeed win a massive judgement agaisnt Time Warner at some point. Think about the irony there - TW says lets do the guide in house ad save buttloads of money, then WHAM! 300 million later ...

I have a distinct feeling I'm going to wind up with a Tivo at some point just from the progression of things with TWC. I just want to at least try Navigator to compare it to my current SARA guide.

It makes no sense to me to keep beating on this as if it was Navigator design flaw... it happens to be one of the (few?) things they got VERY right.

Oh I DO understand your point... but I still think it's a serious design flaw.

At best, I have always had maybe one actual conflict per week. So, once per week I had to spend 90 seconds tops to resolve it (and here, being able to immediately see all instances of any show was 300% faster than to get to the same results than with the rigamarole I have to go through now). EVEN if my situation was exactly like yours, I'd still have to spend far more time managing the situation than the 90 seconds per week I used to spend.

Indeed I had looked forward to what I kept reading about... that there was some automatic way series recording conflicts get resolved. I had actually thought it might be something that Craptigator had over Passport. And even if my scenario worked as yours does... it's still seriously flawed, IMO. I still would have to spend time remembering stuff I had already seen and delete them. Not to mention that the paltry drive space could end up having stuff I had NOT watched being deleted, especially, as I explained, during football season.

So even if/when I solve the multiple recording issue I have and you don't, I'd still find it a design flaw. I just KNOW there is a far better way... so it's in no way I'd want them to NOT provide some level of conflict resolution, but to do it in a "proper" way.

All by way of saying that I DO appreciate the time you have expended to say what you have said in trying to resolve my issues.

Sounds like your personal experience with navigator has not been everything you hoped it would be riverside...that's to bad i was hoping for good times had by all with recent deploys in the big apple. Hope this doesn't mean our division has gotten cold feet about releasing it here by the end of the year.:rolleyes:

...I still would have to spend time remembering stuff I had already seen and delete them.

Not to mention that the paltry drive space could end up having stuff I had NOT watched being deleted, especially, as I explained, during football season...


I'm still not sure that I understand either of these points. You either will delete something after you watch it or you will decide to keep it archived for whatever reason... and I know the small drives suck. I just don't understand how Passport vs. Navigator has any bearing on either of these. What am I missing? :confused:

I agree with you that the OD sucks if you can't sit through the whole thing right then. After a pause mine goes back to main menu after about 5 minutes. What a pain because first off it goes to the previews they show on the main channel but since it's paused you get the screen saver showing with some non-sense blaring in the background, how stupid. Then as you say you're sent back to the main menu and for what? Why not have it just like recorded shows where if paused it stays paused and screen saver come on after a few minutes? The whole thing is really dumb and I can't understand the engineering behind it.
I am sure it is to release the bandwidth for someone else figuring you forgot about it. In pause, on an OD show, would still use bandwidth and cable services (the unit at the head-end playing the video for you) for just you alone. Unlike SDV, no one else would be watching the same thing at the same location in the show (excluding someone QAM tuning within your neighborhood watching your show with you). /Dan

It's just a minor gripe if I'm there and can tune to the SD equivalent to watch but what really burns me is when I'm not there and have a recording set and when I get home and plop down on the couch to watch it isn't there because the damn channel wasn't available at recording time. Wouldn't be a big deal also if we didn't have crap 160gb dvr's cause if it was 500gb I could set both the HD and SD to record in case the good channel won't play. I hate TWC.

You should report these problems to TWC. If they're caused by SDV, then they need to allocate more bandwidth to it and/or stop switching channels that are being watched at all times.

There's safety in numbers. When SDV was rolled out in Wisconsin about a year ago, we would sometimes get a "Channel Not Available" message. People called and requested that reports of the "Channel Not Available" bug be reported to TWC. They did roll out a fix, and the most recent update, at least for the MDN Navigator box I have is MDN:2.4.6-19 fixes several reliability bugs and improves closed captioning reliability. We have not have the "Channel Not Available" bug or incomplete programs on SDV channels for close to a year or more.

Are these bugs happening on MDN or ODN boxes in your communities?

Jack

There's safety in numbers. When SDV was rolled out in Wisconsin about a year ago, we would sometimes get a "Channel Not Available" message. People called and requested that reports of the "Channel Not Available" bug be reported to TWC. They did roll out a fix, and the most recent update, at least for the MDN Navigator box I have is MDN:2.4.6-19 fixes several reliability bugs and improves closed captioning reliability. We have not have the "Channel Not Available" bug or incomplete programs on SDV channels for close to a year or more.

Are these bugs happening on MDN or ODN boxes in your communities?"Channel not available" might be due to a firmware bug but it's more likely that it isn't. To draw an analogy, if you have a delivery truck with a route to run everyday which keeps running out of fuel before it completes that route, you have to either give it more fuel before it starts its run or somehow make the route shorter. In a cable system with a set of switched services, "Channel not available" is caused by unbalanced resources versus demand.

I was told by a service manager that before SDV, they tried to limit the number of homes on a QAM box to 400. With SDV the limit is 200.

My thoughts:
If you get a diverse population of 200 with diverse viewing habits, you could run out of SDV "slots"
If a lot of homes have multiple TV's with digital boxes with family members with varied viewing preferences, it could also screw up the 200 limit logic

I was told by a service manager that before SDV, they tried to limit the number of homes on a QAM box to 400. With SDV the limit is 200.

My thoughts:
If you get a diverse population of 200 with diverse viewing habits, you could run out of SDV "slots"
If a lot of homes have multiple TV's with digital boxes with family members with varied viewing preferences, it could also screw up the 200 limit logic

True, but you can also get an "all circuits busy" when you dial a phone number, because telcos don't provide enough trunks for everybody to be on a call at the same time either. The trick for either is to have the knowledge and experience to provision the network so that network traffic demands are met without the "all circuits busy" (which is what the "channel not available" message means) conditions ocurring under normal circumstance. Hopefully, TW has built up some experience to be able to provision the SDV pool properly. So far it has worked rather well here.

I'm still not sure that I understand either of these points. You either will delete something after you watch it or you will decide to keep it archived for whatever reason... and I know the small drives suck. I just don't understand how Passport vs. Navigator has any bearing on either of these. What am I missing? :confused:

The very fact that on MDN, I can have several hours of recorded stuff I might not have been quick enough about deleting can cause previously recorded but not watched shows to be deleted because I'm, say, one day closer to a Sunday where I may want to record things that could take up half the drive space. Yes, I can manage this, but you have told me I am micro-managing things too closely. The fact simply seems to be that I HAVE TO micro-manage.

Here's one scenario... I watch 3 shows one night... but let it record them as you suggest. Before I can go and delete them, I get a phone call, family emergency or just a pal wanting to chat. I'm tried, I go to sleep.. having not remembered to delete those three useless hours. I'm out the next night. By the second night I realize I have to delete 3 hours I've already seen. Ooops, the box has deleted 1-3 hours of stuff I hadn't watched to make room for needing room the next day for 10+ hours of HD recording.

Maybe it's me, but I actually find it offensive that something that can be very easily managed by the software has to be so closely monitored because it does stupid things (IMO). Things I have never HAD to deal with on the old but FAR superior software.

The very fact that on MDN, I can have several hours of recorded stuff I might not have been quick enough about deleting can cause previously recorded but not watched shows to be deleted because I'm, say, one day closer to a Sunday where I may want to record things that could take up half the drive space. Yes, I can manage this, but you have told me I am micro-managing things too closely. The fact simply seems to be that I HAVE TO micro-manage.

Here's one scenario... I watch 3 shows one night... but let it record them as you suggest. Before I can go and delete them, I get a phone call, family emergency or just a pal wanting to chat. I'm tried, I go to sleep.. having not remembered to delete those three useless hours. I'm out the next night. By the second night I realize I have to delete 3 hours I've already seen. Ooops, the box has deleted 1-3 hours of stuff I hadn't watched to make room for needing room the next day for 10+ hours of HD recording.

Maybe it's me, but I actually find it offensive that something that can be very easily managed by the software has to be so closely monitored because it does stupid things (IMO). Things I have never HAD to deal with on the old but FAR superior software.

But you DID have to deal with them... you had to manually cancel the shows you watched on Passport as well. What's the big difference between cancelling the recording 30 seconds before the show starts vs. 30 seconds after?

Personally, I never cancel a show I'm watching "live"... I typically watch the recording just so that I can skip the commercials. Then, as soon as the closing credits start I hit the STOP button and up pops a menu that lets me delete the show without ever having to "manage" anything.

Personally, I never cancel a show I'm watching "live"... I typically watch the recording just so that I can skip the commercials. Then, as soon as the closing credits start I hit the STOP button and up pops a menu that lets me delete the show without ever having to "manage" anything.

Ah... good suggestion, I'll have to try that. Somehow I have/had the impression the stupid software needed it to be there for a while before it would "know" not to record it again... even though, it's still only 3 shows that have recorded subsequent shows even after I HAD recorded them and left for 24 hours before deleting.

As we head into broadcast season, this issue should lessen quite a bit as all those shows tend to have only one airing anyway.

Ah... good suggestion, I'll have to try that. Somehow I have/had the impression the stupid software needed it to be there for a while before it would "know" not to record it again... even though, it's still only 3 shows that have recorded subsequent shows even after I HAD recorded them and left for 24 hours before deleting.

As we head into broadcast season, this issue should lessen quite a bit as all those shows tend to have only one airing anyway.

Thursday and Sunday nights were good examples of this for me... Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Gene Simmons, Ice Road Truckers and In Plain Sight are all multi-showing cable series that I would usually watch "semi-live" and immediately delete. I NEVER got a single repeat recording of any of them.

The Thursday night shows were also subject to getting bumped by other single shows I might schedule or during periods when they may have overlapped with network series set up on the machine. When this happened, Navigator very nicely picked up a later showing of Burn Notice and/or Royal Pains with absolutely no intervention on my part.

Another good example was what happened when the "burn-off" episodes of some network series like Eli Stone were run during the summer. I didn't even realize that the burn-offs were being run, but Navigator picked them up and bumped the conflicting cable series recordings to an alternate time slot... I never missed anything, even though I never DID anything.

Thursday and Sunday nights were good examples of this for me... Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Gene Simmons, Ice Road Truckers and In Plain Sight are all multi-showing cable series that I would usually watch "semi-live" and immediately delete. I NEVER got a single repeat recording of any of them.

The Thursday night shows were also subject to getting bumped by other single shows I might schedule or during periods when they may have overlapped with network series set up on the machine. When this happened, Navigator very nicely picked up a later showing of Burn Notice and/or Royal Pains with absolutely no intervention on my part.

Another good example was what happened when the "burn-off" episodes of some network series like Eli Stone were run during the summer. I didn't even realize that the burn-offs were being run, but Navigator picked them up and bumped the conflicting cable series recordings to an alternate time slot... I never missed anything, even though I never DID anything.

So would the moral of the story be,

When recording a series, especially multiple episodes of a series, DON'T CANCEL A RECORDING IN PROGRESS? Let it record, watch it by selecting it from the LIST command, and than when done, treat the SAVE OR DELETE options like an individual show.

OR

Somehow, Navigator does not like series recordings stopped in progress because for whatever reason that confuses the software how to deal with future episodes of a series.

Any other tips for Navigator series recording?

Jack

So would the moral of the story be,

When recording a series, especially multiple episodes of a series, DON'T CANCEL A RECORDING IN PROGRESS? Let it record, watch it by selecting it from the LIST command, and than when done, treat the SAVE OR DELETE options like an individual show.

OR

Somehow, Navigator does not like series recordings stopped in progress because for whatever reason that confuses the software how to deal with future episodes of a series.

Any other tips for Navigator series recording?

Jack


You can cancel an individual recording that is part of a series ANYTIME you want, with two possible outcomes:

If you want to cancel and have Navigator automatically reschedule the recording (if another "NEW" showing is available), cancel before the originally scheduled recording begins.
If you want to cancel and NOT automatically reschedule, let it start recording the original showing... once it starts, if it is cancelled in progress by the user it will not automatically reschedule. You do not have to complete the recording if you do not want to, but you can if you'd like.
In short:

Cancel before it starts = Automatic reschedule
Cancel after it starts = No Automatic Reschedule
That's the very simple logic. There is no confusion.

For network shows that have no alternate showings, there is absolutely no practical difference.

You can cancel an individual recording that is part of a series ANYTIME you want, with two possible outcomes:

If you want to cancel and have Navigator automatically reschedule the recording (if another "NEW" showing is available), cancel before the originally scheduled recording begins.
If you want to cancel and NOT automatically reschedule, let it start recording the original showing... once it starts, if it is cancelled in progress by the user it will not automatically reschedule. You do not have to complete the recording if you do not want to, but you can if you'd like.

there's a third possibility.

• If you want to cancel a series recording episode before it airs, watch it live and not have it reschedule ... that's where problems begin. The only way to not have it reschedule every other instance for the week is to delete the scheduled series recording and reinstate it the following week.

Why would you want to do this? If your drive is currently full and you don't want to have sacrifice an existing recording just to give the box space to record something you are already watching live.

there's a third possibility.

• If you want to cancel a series recording episode before it airs, watch it live and not have it reschedule ... that's where problems begin. The only way to not have it reschedule every other instance for the week is to delete the scheduled series recording and reinstate it the following week.

Why would you want to do this? If your drive is currently full and you don't want to have sacrifice an existing recording just to give the box space to record something you are already watching live.

I have never deleted a series to prevent unwanted recordings. I never get unwanted recordings in the first place.

If you are there to watch it live and don't want it to record at all, just cancel it a few seconds after it begins recording. You have to manually cancel it either way... whether its before or after, Passport or Navigator. Does it really make that big a difference if you make that cancellation 30 seconds after it starts vs. 30 seconds before? Seems like a very small change to make, in return for which you get Navigator's automatic conflict resolution and rescheduling abilities.

Would it be even better if Navigator gave you a reschedule/no reschedule options when you manually canceled an individual series recording? Of course, it would. However, if the choice is between Navigator's current behavior and Passport's current behavior, I can't fathom giving up the automatic conflict rescheduling that Passport totally lacks.

True, but you can also get an "all circuits busy" when you dial a phone number, because telcos don't provide enough trunks for everybody to be on a call at the same time either. The trick for either is to have the knowledge and experience to provision the network so that network traffic demands are met without the "all circuits busy" (which is what the "channel not available" message means) conditions ocurring under normal circumstance. Hopefully, TW has built up some experience to be able to provision the SDV pool properly. So far it has worked rather well here.

I have a friend that works for AT&T in the Charlotte area. According to him, the ratio of phone numbers to circuits can be as high as 20 to 1. Just let a few snow flakes fall in our area, then try getting a dial tone:rolleyes:

You can cancel an individual recording that is part of a series ANYTIME you want, with two possible outcomes:

If you want to cancel and have Navigator automatically reschedule the recording (if another "NEW" showing is available), cancel before the originally scheduled recording begins.
If you want to cancel and NOT automatically reschedule, let it start recording the original showing... once it starts, if it is canceled in progress by the user it will not automatically reschedule. You do not have to complete the recording if you do not want to, but you can if you'd like.
In short:

Cancel before it starts = Automatic reschedule
Cancel after it starts = No Automatic Reschedule
That's the very simple logic. There is no confusion.

For network shows that have no alternate showings, there is absolutely no practical difference.

Thank you!

May I print this for reference? I have friends that get confused about this issue of series recordings.

Is the above working for everyone else?

Jack

I was told by a service manager that before SDV, they tried to limit the number of homes on a QAM box to 400. With SDV the limit is 200.

My thoughts:
If you get a diverse population of 200 with diverse viewing habits, you could run out of SDV "slots"
If a lot of homes have multiple TV's with digital boxes with family members with varied viewing preferences, it could also screw up the 200 limit logic
Which is why they have on-line statistics gathering.....and need to drop a LOT more ANALOG channels....
I've always been concerned the system will overload every half-hour (and/or hour) as users
"surf" through LOTS of (SDV) channels looking for something.....anything....

BTW: "Node Splitting" also facilitates the higher I-N data rates we are experiencing....

Which is why they have on-line statistics gathering.....and need to drop a LOT more ANALOG channels....
I've always been concerned the system will overload every half-hour (and/or hour) as users
"surf" through LOTS of (SDV) channels looking for something.....anything....

BTW: "Node Splitting" also facilitates the higher I-N data rates we are experiencing....

If they were to convert to all digital & obey the 200 limit rule, they could make almost everything SDV. I'd bet there is some FCC regulation that would force them to leave the locals non-SDV..

I plead guilty to the "surfing" through the SDV channels. In my area all the HD is in the 200-300 range, so I never venture outside that range

I'd bet there is some FCC regulation that would force them to leave the locals non-SDV.I don't think that there's any such regulation, yet, but if necessary the FCC will draft one, effective retroactively. The FCC intends that there be a set of channels, the "limited" or "lifeline" basic tier, which includes all of the local channels, which can be viewed on commonly available retail equipment without leasing anything from the cable provider. There are already a couple of regulations which require that local channels be in the basic tier, and that nothing in the basic tier can be encrypted. SDV is new, so they don't cover it in the regs, but if a cable provider should start to test them, I'm sure that they will. They really should have the foresight to draft such regulations now, but that would be asking too much of them :rolleyes:.

Television is an important part of the nation's emergency response and civil defense plans, and they want everyone to be able to receive the local channels on any television, whether they elect to spend the money to lease cable equipment or not. (In the same vein of FCC regs using commercial telecommunication to help ensure the safety of the populace, you can call 911 on any mobile phone which can reach any network, whether it has service or not--part of the FCC's e911 regs. Knowing that may actually have saved my life, but that's another story :)).

you can call 911 on any mobile phone which can reach any network, whether it has service or not--part of the FCC's e911 regs. Knowing that may actually have saved my life, but that's another story :).

I have always urged everyone I care about to keep an old (but still functional) out of service cell phone and charger in their car for a backup 911 emergency phone.

I have never deleted a series to prevent unwanted recordings. I never get unwanted recordings in the first place.

If you are there to watch it live and don't want it to record at all, just cancel it a few seconds after it begins recording. You have to manually cancel it either way... whether its before or after, Passport or Navigator.

Not that easy. If a scheduled recording is in the list Navigator will assume you are going to record the entire show and delete anything it needs to in order to accommodate future recordings down the line.

e.g. If you've reached 90% capacity (which is guaranteed to happen to me during the Fall schedule) and the box has four hour long episodes scheduled during the week, the moment you add something else to that list it will delete an existing recording to fit it in. The only way to avoid that is to remove something from the schedule list before that new event appears.

If that happens to be part of a series recording then that opens up a whole new world of problems since Nav will then attempt to record the next airing. Then you have multiple new entries appearing which could cause the box to delete other shows to make room. Even though you don't want to record them. The only way out is to delete the series recording until the next new episode appears.

You could get around it in Passport by scheduling a series recording to occur only on a specific day that the show airs.

Thank you!

May I print this for reference? I have friends that get confused about this issue of series recordings.

Is the above working for everyone else?

Jack

Part of the difficulty is that for me it's clearly intermittent (works as documented some times, doesn't other times). I guess I'll only be vindicated if it happens to someone else!

Without access to the source code, nobody (including me) can say for sure why. I suspect the issue is the "method" of falsely tagging all episodes as NEW. I haven't really documented it specifically, but in 2 weeks of MDN, my box has crashed (spontaneously re-booted) 3-4 times. It could very well be that may kill it's "conflict resolution" logic. I find this very credible because I have observed a duplicate recording scheduled at least 24-48 hours after the original event. It is highly possible that no matter what happened for the real first run, following a crash, it simply sees that incorrect NEW and goes ahead and schedules it.

Falsifying data is NEVER a good way to have software operate.

I'm pretty sure that conflict resolution is simple to implement without creating false information. If the real NEW version didn't get recorded, find the next one and schedule to record it, right at the time the real first run is not recorded. Once it's on the schedule, it's immune to a memory clearing crash.

Television is an important part of the nation's emergency response and civil defense plans, and they want everyone to be able to receive the local channels on any television, whether they elect to spend the money to lease cable equipment or not.

Funny you should mention that. I think it's supposed to be a weekly test, but I could almost swear that in the past year, I have seen that more frequently (although I probably have not)! But for sure I see that test message FAR more frequently now than, say, a year ago and prior.

I do wish, though, that they ditch the god awful audio effects they use. It sounds for all the world like your audio equipment is going into serious meltdown. Years ago, I almost put a serious hurting on myself because I was in the shower and this god awful noise came from my system, I jumped out of the shower intending to stop it before it really killed my electronics!

I have always urged everyone I care about to keep an old (but still functional) out of service cell phone and charger in their car for a backup 911 emergency phone.

And back when I had phone service from Verizon, I kept an old analog clunker phone that only needed the D?C current from their wiring. Means during a black-out, you have a phone that works. As you do, I urge friends and family to do the same.

So guess what happens to me? During the last big black-out we had, I plug in that old phone and get a dual tone. Of course, I can't reach my sister because her phone has to be A/C powered and she never followed my suggestion. BUT I know my mother has an even older rotary dial clunker. Guess what? Her substation blew a transformer or something and her nabe had NO D/C on it's lines! It was the only nabe in the city that also lost all phone service.

Of course, all of those bets are off now that I have TWC phone service... but it WAS part of the reason why I didn't want TWC phone service... BUT money talked as I went from spending 45 bucks/month for phone to 5.