What I am hoping for is that since Nextoo and I are both from Wisconsin that whenever I get Navigator I will get a smooth transition. Maybe some divisions are doing better with this IPG than others. However, the problems that people are having are major and should not be happening regardless of where you live.

A question might be, where does there seem to be such differences in Navigator's performance from state to state? Perhaps searching for a solution to this problem could begin to improve Navigator's performance overall.

Jack

What I am hoping for is that since Nextoo and I are both from Wisconsin that whenever I get Navigator I will get a smooth transition. Maybe some divisions are doing better with this IPG than others. However, the problems that people are having are major and should not be happening regardless of where you live.

A question might be, where does there seem to be such differences in Navigator's performance from state to state? Perhaps searching for a solution to this problem could begin to improve Navigator's performance overall.

Jack

We need more user experiences from SE WI. I've always said that it looks like I got a "good box". I'm sure there are "bad boxes" out here in SE WI but so far users have not posted here. Also there may be portions of the local system that may pose problems logistically.

What I find interesting is that there is no real outrage being posted in the local Milwaukee HDTV forums (so far). Similar to the outrage posted by OH and NC users seen here. Nothing similar to what was reported in the Lincoln roll out here locally - yet. Mostly just TWC complaints about a small HD channel lineup in the local forums.

Satchman, here's a nice flash demo of the FIOS guide...makes me cry actually..

http://promo.verizon.com/img/

WOW! I almost crapped myself!!! Now that is what an interactive guide should be!!! The only problem is that I've looked into FiOS for TV and where I am it just ain't gonna happen anytime soon. We are years away from seeing that (we don't even have DSL!:eek:) Therein lies the problem. Time Warner knows a majority of people don't have alternatives, so I feel they really don't care. As I mentioned in a prior post, my only other option is satellite and it's far more expensive than what I get from TWC now. The plus side is that we don't have Navigator yet.

TivoHD may be an option. There are those that report that the break even point when considering the up front costs is not that bad.

TivoHD may be an option. There are those that report that the break even point when considering the up front costs is not that bad.

Until Tivo can handle SDV it really won't be a solution. Here is where TWC totally misses the boat. They should have pursued a Tivo option. I would have easily paid an extra $5 a month for a rock solid guide/DVR that incorporated the Tivo features.

Navigator Week 6.5

Well, I guess I've got a date with a pig.

I sat down, turned on cable and the phone rang. Whaddya know, the phone number showed up on screen. I thought, well, that had to have been a new download, wonder what else they fixed. Here's what I've noticed so far:
-Menu guide speed is now fast...as fast as Passport, perfectly acceptable.
-List guide speed is now fast...deleting program is vastly improved (always used to hang).
-Sound has been fixed, I was able to select "Normal" without drastic reduction in volume.

I'll play with the HDMI output this weekend and see how the reboots/freezes go.

I must say I'm pleased. Obviously they have different builds of Navigator out in the field, this release is night/day different for me.

Navigator Week 6.5

Well, I guess I've got a date with a pig.

I sat down, turned on cable and the phone rang. Whaddya know, the phone number showed up on screen. I thought, well, that had to have been a new download, wonder what else they fixed. Here's what I've noticed so far:
-Menu guide speed is now fast...as fast as Passport, perfectly acceptable.
-List guide speed is now fast...deleting program is vastly improved (always used to hang).
-Sound has been fixed, I was able to select "Normal" without drastic reduction in volume.

I'll play with the HDMI output this weekend and see how the reboots/freezes go.

I must say I'm pleased. Obviously they have different builds of Navigator out in the field, this release is night/day different for me.

Awesome news DMC!

Tell us what version you have please!

Jack

How do I get to diag screen to look up version?

Also, is there any way I can try tunning between digital and analog on some of the basic cable channels? Are they sending those digital yet?

Comedy channel has always looked like crap through set top box but looks great plugged directly into cable ready TV.

How do I get to diag screen to look up version?

On my 8300HDC you press the Select button on your remote until the envelope blinks on the box. Then release the Select button and press the down key underneath it.

I'm on version 2.4.5_4 dated 8/29/2007. It's my third box since replacing my 8300 to go to HD. This one reboots at least once daily also.

TWC, Cary, NC

Interesting.

It says last reboot was 10/11, so there was no reboot today like I would have expected with new load. Software shows as 2.4.5_4 just like yours. Says my SDV server IP is not available...so I tuned to TBSHD to make sure its not dynamically assigned when needed...still says not available. However SDV Server Reistation says "State Pending". SDV carousel Status: Initializing Switched Digital Video.

Profile version is 339 (whatever that means).

Last page indicates there were a2 "Profile catalog updates" during course of today, starting at 6am, ending just before I got home.

So I'm guessing there's functionality in the Profile catalog updates? Something changed for the better.

On my 8300HDC you press the Select button on your remote until the envelope blinks on the box. Then release the Select button and press the down key underneath it.

I'm on version 2.4.5_4 dated 8/29/2007. It's my third box since replacing my 8300 to go to HD. This one reboots at least once daily also.

TWC, Cary, NC

Jim,

Replace your box yet again. I'm in Cary as well, and my first box was a headache, the second one is (so far) generally OK. Just call them and tell them you tried reboots and it does not help. You got nothing to lose (except the existing recordings). By the way, my version is 2.4.5_4 as well.

Pedja

Interesting.

It says last reboot was 10/11, so there was no reboot today like I would have expected with new load. Software shows as 2.4.5_4 just like yours.

Very interesting. Maybe all along people have been looking at different versions of the software and the 2.4.5_4 is some sort of base software. Is there anything else in the diags screens that looks like a version or build date?

xnappo

As I mentioned, the differences appear to be in components called "Profile Catalogs", there were 2 updates to my box yesterday involving the profile catalog. Profile version 339 is my current. Maybe someone else can post more info.

We watched 3-4 shows last night, no problems. It was like a completely new box. There are some interesting screens in those diagnostics pages. I noted that there was an entry for "Out of Memory Errors" for which I'd had 2, I assume this corresponds with my lockup issues.

I rather liked the caller ID feature.

I'm so used to customer no-service with TWC, I'm kind of shocked. Hopefully this is all not some software fluke and it goes back to being crappy after next reboot. I am cautiously optimistic.

As I mentioned, the differences appear to be in components called "Profile Catalogs", there were 2 updates to my box yesterday involving the profile catalog. Profile version 339 is my current. Maybe someone else can post more info.

Take note of this everybody if you have a buggy Navigator box. Let TWC know your Profile Version catagory number. Wouldn't it be something if this profile data was the crux of most of the problems that people were having because they had an older profile version? Has anyone with Profile version 339 (or higher) done any Series Recording tests?

Jack

My Profile Version says 1269. Also says Last Profile was 2 days ago. Probably because I haven't turned it off since then. BTW, Service Table Version is 323.

My recording reliability has been very good for almost a week now. Before, I was often getting "channel not available" in recording log. I also have none of the slowness problems reported by others.

Satchman

I think its premature to conclude the Profile version level indicates change level. The TWC CSRS I've spoken with didn't even know what Navigator was.

I think TWC is rather like the Wizard of Oz. There are these happy, smiling people out front who are absolutely in the dark about what's really going on. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, there's a lonely old guy shuffling firmware fixes into the head end and crossing his fingers.

Satchman

I think its premature to conclude the Profile version level indicates change level. The TWC CSRS I've spoken with didn't even know what Navigator was.

I think TWC is rather like the Wizard of Oz. There are these happy, smiling people out front who are absolutely in the dark about what's really going on. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, there's a lonely old guy shuffling firmware fixes into the head end and crossing his fingers.

I concur!

And the program code for Navigator is designed by two little guys from Pakistan so when something does go wrong, TWC just notifies them by Pony Express to work out another fix. They have maybe 10 ponys to transport messages back and forth from Pakistan to the United States. If the pony is sick, they have to go by the remaining nine and they keep rotating them. If you get one good pony and rider to convey the needed fix information between parties, you eventually get a decent version of Navigator. But if anything goes wrong with the remaining ride with the other nine ponys, the customer is stuck with crappy Navigator until the one good pony and rider can make a successful round.

The analogy is that its really a crapshoot with regard to how information is conveyed within this company.

Jack

Caller ID arrived last week but have no On Demand. Switched from HDMI to component. SD picture quality is much better with component.

For those that are having serious problems I would cancel service. Speak with my wallet. DVR service is not included in the Bill of Rights. If you are using a service that does not meet your needs either look for a better service or cancel. It's pretty simple actually. Cancellations will speak louder to a cableco than any other alternative.

Interesting report... it almost makes me ever so slightly hopeful! I very much depend on a LOT of series recordings, so the issues some are having make me nervous. Not so good to hear about issues with external drives, I REALLY would like to use one, but the Passport bug affects me more than most (I end up doing a LOT of pausing, then running and skipping commercials).

Still, whole I do use the "pay with your wallet" approach to the HD DVD war (advising others to do the same, don't buy until one format) the issue of general service is far more complex than what you say. I have all sorts of issues with TWC, BUT can I simply tell them to take a hike? Well, I actually NEED real broadband because it's a big part of my work. So my only "choice" is to pay $60 bucks/ month (up from 45) for 10M/412k RoadRunner and ONLY watch DVDs on my HD display. I have NO OTA available and am not even sure I COULD get Direct (far as I can tell I have a problematic line of sight AND I have no idea is my co-op board will even allow a dish, nobody else in the building has one). So it's not so easy to just drop them, they really truly have a total monopoly (one of the benchmarks for monopoly is that they can do things that an open competitive market may preclude; in my city, TWC gives 6 additional HD channels AND discounts their rates by 10% to the one area where FIOS MAY be closer to going live, this easily meets that part of the criteria for a monopoly... as in breaking the law).

TivoHD may be an option. There are those that report that the break even point when considering the up front costs is not that bad.

Well, it's more complicated than that! First, if one does DVR service, one gets a break on HDNet's/Mojo. So for me, it's 4 bucks more per month for going TiVo as far as TWC billing goes. Most don't really account for the up front costs, but I analyze them as any business would... i.e. I depreciate the cost over 3 years.

PLUS, to get the 9/month TiVo charge, one must subscribe to a deal that carries a $200 cancellation cost. Hard to figure in "operating expense," but one should monetize risk. But even ignoring it altogether, in year three of TiVo, one's monthly costs would be very close to what I pay right now to TWC for DVR.

STILL, far as I know, if I have any hardware issues with the TiVo, can I immediately get a replacement? AND after the warranty period, would they actually fix them (not as silly a question as it may appear, there are a lot of CE product companies that will no longer actually repair anything, or make it so expensive one has to re-buy the equipment). If they do repair them, I'd bet you there would be at least 100 bucks just to have them look at it, plus more if it needs repair.

Awesome news DMC!

Tell us what version you have please!

Jack

I suspect the exact box and system are just as important as the software version. I have yet to see ANYONE who had 8300HDC's in TWC-NYC say anything like this... and I am VERY much looking for someone here to say that!

Even so, in a general sense, this is good news.

Very interesting. Maybe all along people have been looking at different versions of the software and the 2.4.5_4 is some sort of base software. Is there anything else in the diags screens that looks like a version or build date?

xnappo

From what I can tell, TWC is slip streaming, a software "practice" that I find 100% god awful. Then again, because they 100% control it, there is no need for them to expose any version information, it's not like customers may have differing versions... there have been more than one "fix" since the last Passport update with no corresponding version change.

PLUS we KNOW the same hardware/software can be very different in different locations; it wouldn't surprise me if the same version in another location may not be what is being reported from Ohio.

Navigator is designed by two little guys from Pakistan so when something does go wrong, TWC just notifies them by Pony Express to work out another fix.

Jack

Didn't I say somewhere the guy writing Nagivator was a non-english speaking guy who only knew Basic (and a smattering of COBOL & FORTRAN) and worked out of one of the 'stans AND had personal hygiene issues? I thought it was WORKCHEAPASTAN rather than Pakistan...

Actually guys, in all fairness, this is pretty cutting edge stuff. They just screwed up the initial implementation. (though I'm not absolving them because my box all of a sudden became acceptable).

Read this news article for flavor:
http://developers.sun.com/mobility/ocap/articles/intro/

"oday's OCAP efforts center on porting into an OCAP format existing set-top applications, like the electronic program guide and navigation system, and the video-on-demand ordering system. The effort required is one reason why OCAP is sometimes perceived as less interesting than other interactive TV varietals: Because OCAP is a full platform, it must support the services already in use by paying customers.

Last August, Comcast and Time Warner Cable formed a joint venture around OCAP, calling it OCAP Development LLC. The intent is to develop an OCAP stack that both operators can deploy. The venture's first step was to engage Colorado-based Vidiom Systems to help write the stack. "

Once they get SDV worked out and the application fine tuned, they'll probably start working on customer service portals where you can access your account through the box, pay bills, yada, yada...but if you read further in that article you'll see that some European nations are much farther along.

So yes I have hope that TWC will get it right. I'd still prefer option of paying extra for Tivo...or better a JV between Tivo and TWC for standard offering. As previous poster mentioned, no contract, basically lifetime/on-demand replacement are strong selling points.

Just swapped my 8300hd box with passport for a 8300hdc box that booted up with Navigator, so wish me luck, wanted to see what all this is about...

On a side note, do you guys know who builds Verizons FIOS TV guides? I was at a buddies that just had it installed, and was blown away by the look and performance of the guide which is running on a MOTO box, it seriously makes Passfart and Navicraper look like a freaking fat zit faced teen in his parents basement...glasslike, fast, beautiful, and its a damn shame I'm in an AT&T service area, I would drop TWC like a hot rock...

Unless you Passport was broken, you made a BIG trade down. I had a 8300SD with Passport and it was fantastic. The only reason I switched was to get HD. In my area, for HD they use SA8000HDs, those are really bad. I had two 8000HDs, one did not even boot and the other worked for about an hour and it fried itself. That's how I got the OCAP box. Now, I would definately keep the OCAP box, since it has more RAM. When TW decides to go live with Navigator on all of their boxes, the old one most likely will have problems, especially the 8000s.

I don't think they can deploy Navigator on 8000s, its not recommended. Those use slower CPU and typically won't have the RAM needed....heck my temporary 8000 didn't even run Passport well, it would choke for sure on OCAP.

Now, I should mention that I had a few bugs on my Passport box too. There were missing episodes of Mad Men on the HD On Demand that showed up when I switched to the HDC box. I know it sounds petty but man we love that show, so it was definite plus to get it fixed.

Also, my Passport box wouldn't output 480i over HDMI. I haven't confirmed whether this is fixed yet on the HDC box, maybe this weekend.

As I mentioned, the differences appear to be in components called "Profile Catalogs", there were 2 updates to my box yesterday involving the profile catalog. Profile version 339 is my current. Maybe someone else can post more info.


My profile number is 645. Last reboot 11:37 this morning...

Jim,

Replace your box yet again. I'm in Cary as well, and my first box was a headache, the second one is (so far) generally OK. Just call them and tell them you tried reboots and it does not help. You got nothing to lose (except the existing recordings). By the way, my version is 2.4.5_4 as well.

Pedja

I'm debating that, however, except for the reboots the box is performing well. This one seems much faster. Response to keying channel numbers into the remote is much better, it used to take several tries to get a 3 digit channel number entered correctly. -Jim

My profile number is 645. Last reboot 11:37 this morning...

There are not any other versions or build dates in other pages of the diags? Just curious because with SARA there are lots of different components of the software, all with their own versions and build dates.

xnappo

There are not any other versions or build dates in other pages of the diags? Just curious because with SARA there are lots of different components of the software, all with their own versions and build dates.

xnappo

That's all I can find. -- Jim

150,000 open cable boxes deployed by TWC:

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6492390.html

150,000 open cable boxes deployed by TWC:

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6492390.html

Exactly how big is their overall base? My wild ass guess is in the range of 4-6 million. 150k ain't a whole lot compared to that.

Even more curious is the 50,000 in NY. In a little over 8 weeks they have gained that many new subscribers (except for some unknown amount of box swaps, this means those to that in new subs... still seems more than logical might say)?

Then there's the boxen issue, SA or Samsung. They are very vague about that, anecdotally in my market I don't hear of many Sammies getting picked up. All my local guys who are suffering with Nagivator seems to have SA's and not Sammies.

The GOOD news is that it seems folks who got Nagivatored are actually seeing things getting ever so slightly better as time rolls on.

The GOOD news is that it seems folks who got Nagivatored are actually seeing things getting ever so slightly better as time rolls on.

But this fiasco should be a blueprint to ALL providers on how NOT to deploy an "upgrade". Anyone can expect some bugs in a new piece of software, but one reasonably expects those problems to be resolve in short order. Navigator is going into year two in some markets and should be running better than SARA or Passport did (especially on OCAP boxes). It should at least be to the same level of reliability and function by now! It is good to hear users reporting improvement and I can only hope that by the time we get it everything is worked out.

I appreciate Navigator users reporting their results here to keep us updated on the evolution of it.

The original roll out here in SE WI was supposed to take place beginning in Jan/Feb of this year (if I recall correctly). The roll out was delayed. It now seems to be limited to new HDC boxes that are being deployed. So in my opinion, at least here in SE WI, nothing was really rushed to market. Yet.

But I do sense local pressure to bring up more HD channels and based on bandwidth it looks like SDV is the only viable approach. Meaning all HD boxes have to be running Navigator for all subs to have access to all HD channels. I think this is the conundrum. Balancing the introduction of Navigator with its SDV capabilities and responding to the increasing demand for HD channels.

Does the Navigator box I have perform flawlessly? Not really. But I do recall the first few months with Passport. All was not perfect. If I had a choice right now to use Navigator with more HD channels or continue to use Passport with a limited HD channel lineup I'd choose the Navigator box.

I still have both Passport and Navigator boxes. For an extra $7.95 per month extra box rental I thought I'd give Navigator a try (first 3 months of DVR service is free). Passport is a nice product. But time marches on. For 8 bucks I thought Navigator deserved at least a one month look.

For those of the non Navigator users who post and monitor this thread. Does it make sense to perhaps rent and additional Navigator box and test it ( if available in your market)? There are no long term commitments with TWC. Rent one for a month. Keep your Passport box as I did. It surely would not be a prohibitive expense. Then perhaps the contributions to the thread would be more meaningful. Just skip a few Happy Meals and it would be a break even.

The reason I'm monitoring is twofold. First, I'm watching Navigator grow up to gain perspective on what flavor we might get. Second is the fact that SARA CAN DO SDV right now, but it seems that TWC is waiting for a full blown Navigator rollout nationwide to launch a bevy of HD channels they are negotiating for. Perfect example is the recent addition to some markets of TBS HD for the MLB playoffs. They cried bandwidth issues here, but could have carried it. I concur with nextoo in regards to Navigator being an SDV fix all for every TWC market. However, it seems like the SARA software does everything Navigator can do and would only need minor tweaking to add a few features. Time will tell and I did just have an 8300HDC box here, but no Navigator yet so I returned it as the problem I was having ended up not being my box. I would gladly run an STB with each version to compare the two if we were given that option.

I'm in a Passport market. So SDV is not an option at the moment. One would hope that in the SARA markets a Navigator roll out would not be required to add SDV channels. At least hopefully. But you never know.

It seems like TWC is organized into seperate kingdoms. With the local president being reponsible for things as an independent business unit. This may be helpful for the SARA markets with a local decision being all that si necessry for SARA SDV deployment. Just a guess though.

Navigator Week 6.75

Ok, sat down last night for day 2 of the "New Improved Navigator". Out of the gate the audio was horrible and then I looked in my list for "House" which wasn't there. For a minute I was angry then I remembered the baseball playoffs and sure enough, no House this week. As for the audio, when the commercial was over, it went back to normal..so some kind of broadcast glitch.

So back to surfing the channels, menu speed was great, shows in list were recorded on schedule, no problems noticed.

So things are looking up this week. I can live with it like this, thats for sure.

So things are looking up this week. I can live with it like this, thats for sure.

Very interesting! I wonder how far away we are from this post:

----
I am so pissed at TWC. I just called them and asked when they were going to push out Navigator here and they said they were still 'testing' it! What do they need to test? It has been successfully rolled out in Dayton for months! I really want Sci-fi HD but they say they don't have the bandwidth until they can do SDV... Plus the lack of 'trick play' with my external drive is getting on my nerves...
AVSguy
----
:D
xnappo

I am so pissed at TWC. I just called them and asked when they were going to push out Navigator here and they said they were still 'testing' it! What do they need to test? It has been successfully rolled out in Dayton for months! I really want Sci-fi HD but they say they don't have the bandwidth until they can do SDV... Plus the lack of 'trick play' with my external drive is getting on my nerves...
AVSguy

XNA,

I can understand that those with HD sets want the SDV and the increased bandwidth capability, BUT one thing you don't want is a crappy Navigator. Although it looks like there have been gradual improvements, if they are still testing in your area, take that as a positive sign.

I have an SA 8300 DVR. Here in Wisconsin, Nextoo seems to be right. A January/February rollout was planned of Navigator on the existing boxes in the field. (A blanket roll out of ALL makes and models of, DVR and non-DVR.) When they showed Navigator on TV and DVR advertisements back than, they were showing DVR WITH Navigator screens.

The started download rollouts to legacy non-DVR boxes were SA models early this year. The initial rollout was bad for most everyone so they stopped. The initial plan for Navigator's download in my area if I remember correctly, (and Nextoo, correct me if I am wrong here.) was:

Downloads of Navigator to:

SA non-DVR boxes (The most of the brands on the field)
SA DVR's
Pace Boxes
Pioneer Boxes

I don't know how far they got with the SA DVR's on the initial rollout, which was to be a 2am-6am download when the software was ready. Some of the DVR's have Navigator and some don't. (The download to the 8000-8300 boxes.) But I think around April, they stopped the Navigator downloads when they saw all the problems that other cities and states were having.) This left about a 50/50 split with those that have Navigator here in Milwaukee and those who have Passport. (We don't have the Sara IPG here in our area.)

For now, I think that ONLY the new HDC boxes are being deployed with Navigator already on them. I haven't heard of any Navigator downloads to preexisting boxes in Milwaukee for some time. I don't know what non-DVR box TWC is using now because before we switched to our current DVR service (With Passport), we had a Pioneer box for 6 years. My guess is they are non DVR SA's, but I don't know if they have Navigator on them. My cable tech persons says that they have had better success with Navigator on non-DVR boxes than on DVR boxes.

We got TV caller ID on the Passport boxes recently as Digital Phone subscribers. I don't know if Navigator already had that or not. Since March or so, TWC's deployment of Navigator seems to be slow but progressive. As of July, others have said that they haven't had the Navigator problems here in Wisconsin when compared to other divisions.

Jack

XNA,

I can understand that those with HD sets want the SDV and the increased bandwidth capability, BUT one thing you don't want is a crappy Navigator. Although it looks like there have been gradual improvements, if they are still testing in your area, take that as a positive sign.

I tried to make it VERY clear I was poking fun at ourselves, but apparently somehow I failed.

When you quoted me you deliberately deleted two of the most important parts of my post:

Very interesting! I wonder how far away we are from this post:
and
:D

xnappo

I tried to make it VERY clear I was poking fun at ourselves, but apparently somehow I failed.

When you quoted me you deliberately deleted two of the most important parts of my post:

Very interesting! I wonder how far away we are from this post:
and
:D

xnappo

LOL!! I get it now. Thank you!

Jack

LOL!! I get it now. Thank you!

Jack

At least now you have your reply ready when someone really does post something like that :)

xnappo

I got a 2nd DVR for my home nearly 2 weeks ago. I was leery on getting an 8300HDC with Mystro/Navigator, but since it was going in my workout room and would not be my primary STB, I thought I'd go ahead and give it a try to test it out. So far, it's performed better than expected, but I expected the worst.

It's overall performance is slower than Passport. There's a 1-second delay to nearly every input from the remote control. FF & RW is about half the speed of Passport, and it takes 1-2 seconds to resume Play after FF or RW. I haven't yet had any scheduled recordings fail to record. This box is on a standard old tube TV, so I don't have any feedback on HD performance. It's not as terrible as I expected, but it's certainly a big step backward from Passport.

There are still several functional deficiencies that I'm really not happy with, such as the lack of buffering live programs when viewing recorded programming; no swapping channels without first opening PIP window; no buffering of the alternate channel (and loss of buffered program when switching to and back-from the alternate channel); and no option to choose specific air times and days for series recordings.

Thankfully, for now anyway, I still have a 8300HD with Passport that performs well on my main TV. I sure hope Mystro is significantly improved before they load it on the older non-OCAP boxes.


:( EDIT 8:00pm 10/18: So, I spoke too soon. Days 11-12 with Mystro: When I got home from work and went to workout, I found that several series recordings failed to record last night and today:
11:00pm The Daily Show - It appears in Recordings, but is blank.
11:30pm The Colbert Report - Not Recorded - Scheduling Conflict
11:00am The View - Not Recorded - Channel Not Available
4:00pm - Ellen - Not Recorded - Channel Not Available
6:30pm - ABC News - Not Recorded - Channel Not Available
6:30pm - CBS News - Not Recorded - Channel Not Available
And, finally, while watching a previously recorded program, The Wheel Of Fortune failed to record at 7:30pm (Channel Not Available). I just did a hard reboot (unplugged for 30 seconds). I'll keep you posted as to whether the series recording problems continue.


:confused: ** On a side note, I also had a CableCard installed in my bedroom TV (a Philips LCD). I don't watch that one much and hated paying $8/mos for a box. The TV has the NTSC/QAM tuners, and I first tried just installing the channels directly from the cable, but ended up with hundreds of mostly blank channels (ie: 108.23, 108.27, 109.15, etc.), and the lower channels (2-99) were not clear at all and none were identified with station ID's.

Not surprisingly, the installer had never installed a CableCard before. We both had about the same level of expertise. For some reason, we could not get the card to install properly. We tried two different cards. The TV would say the card was recognized, but wouldn't allow channel installation. After reading all the literature for the card and the TV and rebooting the TV a few times, we left it alone and I planned to contact Philips during the next business day. Well, later that same day, I turned the TV on, and all the TWC channels had loaded - at least the channel number and ID's loaded anyway. I was able to view channels 2-99, 101, 137, and the HD Local stations. None of the other digital variety, premium, or HD variety/premium channels would tune in (just black screen). I called TWC and they sent some signals to the card, but no luck. Sometimes when I turn the TV off and on, I can get a channel like 700 (HBO HD) to tune in for a few seconds, but then the channel freezes up (the image freezes, but I can still change channels but will once again just get blank screens on the above noted channels).

TWC is coming out with some more cards this weekend. Anyone have any CableCard experience? When I called Philips, they had no knowledge of this sort of problem.

Exactly how big is their overall base? My wild ass guess is in the range of 4-6 million. 150k ain't a whole lot compared to that.

TWC is the 2nd largest cable provider - somewhere around 20 million customers

TWC is the 2nd largest cable provider - somewhere around 20 million customers

At last report, Time Warner had 13 million customers and just lost about 50,000 in the third quarter alone. According to this Reuters article (http://www.reuters.com/article/gc03/idUSN1537679320071015), cable is losing subs.

The article states "Time Warner Cable's share price has fallen more than 21 percent since hitting a year high on July 23. Over the same period, Comcast stock has fallen more than 17 percent."

I wonder how much of this is due to Navigator?

With only 150,000 deployments probably very little. Especially since Comcast is not in the Navigator game.

My guess is that the cable cos missed the importance of HD. At this time last year they were all saying that they were taking the go slow approach with HD. And then Direct came out with the 100 HD channels by the end of the year claim. Which the cable cos responded to with laughter. Big mistake. If I ever make a shift to satellite it will be because of HD and not a DVR.

Also, I think if one looks at the announcements about the TWC churn much of it is due to acquisition consolidation. I've been through acquisitions in other industries and if the due diligence is not there you often wind up buying ghost subscribers. Which result in churn once you clean things up with improved back office accounting systems. But no senior manager on a 10Q conference call will ever admit to doing poor due diligence.

Mine seems to be doing much better lately, too.

I'm now on 2.4.6_1 and profile 482 (the profile appears to have just updated yesterday).

Navigator Week 7:
Box froze last night, then came back. Then every premium channel I selected would play for a minute then flash a blue screen saying to call the cable operator.

Reboot cleared it up but there was 1 show recording which lost 5 minutes due to reboot.

Other than that its been fairly normal operation. I can quibble all day long about how dorky the UI is but at least its dorky and fast now.

Anyone figure out what the "Profiles" are? Doesn't look like there's rhyme or reason to the naming.

Can anyone using Navigator confirm if they are adding any features they said they would? Mainly the guide customization because satellite has had this feature for 10 years! They need to allow customers to add and delete channels from the guide. I mean, remapping would be ideal, but might not be possible or practical. A perfect example is why do I need 3 or 4 of the SAME channel in the guide!!! My guide numbers into the 1200's now and it could be narrowed down to about 500. Why can't I remove an analog channel when I'm getting the same digital channel in the 800's? Why can't I remove the porn from the guide? This was a feature TWC said they were going to have with Navigator, but no one has mentioned it yet.

The only customization option I've noticed and used is ability to make favorites display sequentially in the guide. This block of favorites shows at the beggining of the channel guide but you can't block the others that I've been able to figure out. I suppose if your favorites list was big enough it would give appearance of custom guide..but not really what you're talking about.

I wondered about all those pay per view adult channels...also there's HBO/Cinemax adult content thats On Demand. There should be a way to block content for children but its not a concern at our house (all kids are grown).

I'm sure Tivo has a brilliant way to do all of this...still daydreaming about getting Tivo when the get all the SDV issues worked out.

The only customization option I've noticed and used is ability to make favorites display sequentially in the guide. This block of favorites shows at the beggining of the channel guide but you can't block the others that I've been able to figure out. I suppose if your favorites list was big enough it would give appearance of custom guide..but not really what you're talking about.

Not the best - but certainly a feature I am looking forward to!

xnappo

I'm in central Ohio and have had Navigator on 8300HDC for about 3 weeks now. I can't confirm any of the slowness others have reported. I can easily navigate through the guide and various lists with no delay. Functionality is not as nice as my old Instant Replay DVR, but I can live with it.

My biggest problem has been with unreliable recording of scheduled programs. The system will refuse to record because "channel not available". I emailed TWC about this problem asking what this means. They responded 2 days later asking for more detail. I gave them every detail of what recordings worked and didn't work on two consecutive days. After 4 days, no response. I resent the message explaining that I hadn't heard from them. After 3 days, no response. I sent it again asking for some confirmation that they were working on my questions. It's been several days now without response. Next week, when I've mustered some extra patience, I'm going to call and raise hell about my emails being ignored. Bet that'll be a fulfilling experience.:rolleyes:

In the meantime, all my scheduled recordings (and they're plentiful) have worked. The difference: I've left the DVR on and tuned to an SD channel. Don't know if that's significant or not, but it's worked for a week now.

Last night, I noticed that there are no scheduled recordings. I found that the reason is that there was only one day left in the schedule. A look at the diag screens confirmed that nothing (schedule, profile, etc.) had updated for about a week. Before panicking, I turned the DVR off for about 15 hours thinking that it might not update when left on. It didn't help. Today, I rebooted. I now have a week's worth of schedule, all update dates are current, and the profile expiration date shows tomorrow around 9AM.

Now I'm starting to worry that my recordings might start failing again. I'm going to start experimenting with turning off the DVR (and leaving it on) and watch the update results and recording reliability. I'm sure not counting on hearing from TWC service.

About a week so far with the box and hit the first major snag so far today. Turned it on to watch the SC football game, and had black on every channel I tried to tune to. The banner popped up as I inputted the channel, but nothing, just black. I had to pull the power to reboot...needless to say this thing is probably going back to TWC on Monday, my wife and I can't stand the slowness of the guide and the 1-2 second delay for everything you do...I need to move into a Verizon territory.:(

I get that black screen sometimes too and I'm not even running Navigator! A few weeks back it was A&E HD that was out. Today ESPN2 HD was out. I wish we had FiOS here because TWC would lose all my business to them. Unfortunately, DirecTV is still way too expensive an option to replace my current cable setup with.

In a somewhat related issue, our guide data is not loading information and I think it may play hell with my series recordings if they don't fix it this week. I still have a gut feeling alot of the DVR related problems I've been seeing, coupled with the spontaneous late night reboots are due to the impending Navigator rollout. One would think TWC would be a little more public about it, but I can almost guarantee that Navigator will be deployed without warning in our market.

The only customization option I've noticed and used is ability to make favorites display sequentially in the guide. This block of favorites shows at the beggining of the channel guide but you can't block the others that I've been able to figure out. I suppose if your favorites list was big enough it would give appearance of custom guide..but not really what you're talking about.

I wondered about all those pay per view adult channels...also there's HBO/Cinemax adult content thats On Demand. There should be a way to block content for children but its not a concern at our house (all kids are grown).

I'm sure Tivo has a brilliant way to do all of this...still daydreaming about getting Tivo when the get all the SDV issues worked out.

I'd be surprised if Tivo does not have a way to remove channels from the channel guide. My almost 10 yr old ReplayTV does it quite nicely.

I'm in central Ohio and have had Navigator on 8300HDC for about 3 weeks now. I can't confirm any of the slowness others have reported. I can easily navigate through the guide and various lists with no delay. Functionality is not as nice as my old Instant Replay DVR, but I can live with it.

My biggest problem has been with unreliable recording of scheduled programs. The system will refuse to record because "channel not available". I emailed TWC about this problem asking what this means. They responded 2 days later asking for more detail. I gave them every detail of what recordings worked and didn't work on two consecutive days. After 4 days, no response. I resent the message explaining that I hadn't heard from them. After 3 days, no response. I sent it again asking for some confirmation that they were working on my questions. It's been several days now without response. Next week, when I've mustered some extra patience, I'm going to call and raise hell about my emails being ignored. Bet that'll be a fulfilling experience.:rolleyes:

In the meantime, all my scheduled recordings (and they're plentiful) have worked. The difference: I've left the DVR on and tuned to an SD channel. Don't know if that's significant or not, but it's worked for a week now.

Last night, I noticed that there are no scheduled recordings. I found that the reason is that there was only one day left in the schedule. A look at the diag screens confirmed that nothing (schedule, profile, etc.) had updated for about a week. Before panicking, I turned the DVR off for about 15 hours thinking that it might not update when left on. It didn't help. Today, I rebooted. I now have a week's worth of schedule, all update dates are current, and the profile expiration date shows tomorrow around 9AM.

Now I'm starting to worry that my recordings might start failing again. I'm going to start experimenting with turning off the DVR (and leaving it on) and watch the update results and recording reliability. I'm sure not counting on hearing from TWC service.

"channel not available" is a well-known bug. For some people, reboots help (worked for a friend of mine, but did not work for me). Replacing the box is likely a good idea (worked for me).

I'd be surprised if Tivo does not have a way to remove channels from the channel guide. My almost 10 yr old ReplayTV does it quite nicely.

TiVo does have an option to remove channels from the guide. Directv does also. My guess on why Time Warner does not have an option like this is marketing reasons. If people see channels they don't get and what's on, they might subscribe. And don't forget that Time Warner never likes to make things easy for their customers.

"channel not available" is a well-known bug. For some people, reboots help (worked for a friend of mine, but did not work for me). Replacing the box is likely a good idea (worked for me).

From what I have heard and read the "channel not available" seems to be a bug more associated with HD channels than SD channels. I wonder if this relates to how the Navigator IPG is handling the signal, in terms of decoding it from the head-end?

I think this may be more of a software issue than a box issue. My TWC tech contact says that this "channel Not available" has been one of the biggest bugs that they are trying to fix.

It does seem that Navigator is SLOWLY getting better. The problem is that it is going to take a long time to be at the reliability rate of Passport and Sara. There is a double-edged sword with this system:

1.) On one end, you have an open-sourced software platform with Navigator under TWC's total jurisdiction for updates and fixes making them easier to be applied.

2.) On the other end, they are fixing bugs that are so long overdue for fixing and should have been fixed in quality-control labs before mainstream rollouts that point#1 becomes moot. If you don't have a reasonable stable platform in the first place and have to release 5 patches through a download to fix a basic assumed operation, (i.e like reliable recording on your DVR), this may force customers to choose other options such as Dish, or the new Integrated Phone and cable service. (AT&T is starting this in some areas) But these options are not available to all and many have no choice but to keep TWC.

What TWC cable really needs to fix Navigator's problems is direct competition from another cable company in the same area that have their own in-house guide that works reliably.

Jack

I wondered about all those pay per view adult channels...also there's HBO/Cinemax adult content thats On Demand. There should be a way to block content for children but its not a concern at our house (all kids are grown).



I think you can limit access by setting viewing ratings levels. Anything over PG-13 for example (if chosen) requires a pin number. But this still will not remove the titles of the adult content which in themselves can be offensive.

Edit - actually (at leat in Passport) you have the options to block channels, ratings, time and titles. I haven't looked in navigator yet.

From what I have heard and read the "channel not available" seems to be a bug more associated with HD channels than SD channels.

Satch - See my post above from 10/18... I had a whole day's worth of series programs fail and they were all on standard channels. I don't even have this box hooked up to an HD TV.

Not sure if this helps, but there was a sequence of events: 1st there was a recorded program that had no content, 2nd there was a program that followed the first one that had a 'schedule conflict', and 3rd there were several programs that failed due to the 'channel not available' (details in original post above). I did a hard reboot, and the programs started recording again - so far anyway.

My guess on why Time Warner does not have an option like this is marketing reasons. If people see channels they don't get and what's on, they might subscribe. And don't forget that Time Warner never likes to make things easy for their customers.

I for one would be LESS likely to sub to the premium channels from seeing the same crap appear over and over again! That premise is foolish to us, but I'm sure it make perfect sense to TWC!

My biggest gripe is the shear size of the guide data and the fact that the same channels appear OVER and OVER! The tiers are sorted like crap. It just makes sense that if you have a digital HD version, then why would you want the SD version showing up at all?!?!? This happened today: People came over to watch a game on ESPN. They go in and are watching it wondering why it looks so bad, so I go in to check it out and subsequently flip it to the HD channel. Everybody is in awe of the difference and one person said, "Why do you get both?" Another situation that happens readily is, I'll tell my wife to record a show and she'll set the DVR up and record the crappy SD version. If the channel appeared ONCE this could be avoided. I don't know why TWC can't do this when the satco's have been doing it for years! Personally, I am looking forward to if and when FiOS ever becomes available!

I for one would be LESS likely to sub to the premium channels from seeing the same crap appear over and over again! That premise is foolish to us, but I'm sure it make perfect sense to TWC!

My biggest gripe is the shear size of the guide data and the fact that the same channels appear OVER and OVER! The tiers are sorted like crap. It just makes sense that if you have a digital HD version, then why would you want the SD version showing up at all?!?!? This happened today: People came over to watch a game on ESPN. They go in and are watching it wondering why it looks so bad, so I go in to check it out and subsequently flip it to the HD channel. Everybody is in awe of the difference and one person said, "Why do you get both?" Another situation that happens readily is, I'll tell my wife to record a show and she'll set the DVR up and record the crappy SD version. If the channel appeared ONCE this could be avoided. I don't know why TWC can't do this when the satco's have been doing it for years! Personally, I am looking forward to if and when FiOS ever becomes available!

Ben,

I think that TWC should just go to an All Digital Format. I understand that Cox is now all-digital, just like the Dish companies. This along with the SDV options will (or should give TWC) the additional bandwidth for more HD channels. One of the main reason why we don't have a HD TV yet is because TWC doesn't offer enough channels in HD. Dish offers more HD programing, but is more expensive upfront and is not an option for everyone because so many are looked into "TWC All in One Packages." In addition to people who's neighborhoods are surrounded by trees.

Since TWC doesn't want to pay outside venders for IPG program guide updates it looks like they are going to HAVE to get Navigator working properly to go to the SDV formats. This is what I am predicting for the new year: (What do you all think of this projected "Timeline?")

1.) Because of the need for SDV and the demand for increased HD services on TWC, Navigator will be be downloaded or preinstalled on most boxes by the second quarter of next year. The Sara upgrades will either be on-going or near complete by that time. At this point, the OCAP boxes should have the bugs worked out. The legacy boxes and DVR's that can handle the needed memory of the upgrade for divisions that are currently deploying Navigator will most likely have it by March 2008.

2.) TWC serviced states that don't have a Navigator deployment yet will probably wait until April 2008 and do the roll-out to their OCAP boxes slowly, starting with preinstalled Navigator and than a download of Navigator. I would expect this to go from April to June 2008.

3.) From July to September 2008, if all goes well, they might start doing updates to the guides in terms of high res graphics and fonts. In addition to on-line games and polling. But NOT until the platform is stable.

4.) From October to December 2008 it's uncertain. TWC either builds a new Navigator for the old Pioneer, Pace, and SA boxes that can't handle the new features, which is doubtful, or just waits for any boxes that still have the legacy Passport or Sara software to die out.

By next years' end. Navigator is stable and successfully deployed in all markets. But I don't think those customers who are unhappy with Navigator are going to wait that long for a functioning guide.

Jack

I've said all along they should look at an all digital option. In fact, there are companies now making digital to analog converts for whole house applications to support legacy devices. It is a "box" that installs at your POE and converts the digital signal to analog for distribution to NTSC sets and passes the digital signal through to set top boxes. That would free up so much bandwidth that SDV wouldn't even be needed! They could then dedicate efforts to a kick butt guide like FiOS has. Sort of like a Navigator 2.0

I concur with your timeline and thesis that TWC here, in our SARA division, will begin deployment of Navigator via pre-installation in new boxes and then if that goes to task they will rollout a systemwide download. I have also decided once my DVR is clear and I catch up with my programming that I'm going to turn my 8300HD for an 8300HDC OCAP box just so I'll be ready.

I can't find any option to skip channels with Navigator. This was a very handy feature with Passport, as you could set up a list of channels you never wanted to watch, and then when you scrolled though all the channels you never saw the ones on the list. Has TW in all their infinite wisdom eliminated this feature with Navigator? I know you can set up a Favorites list, but that is doing things backwards and you can only scroll up with the Favorites button, not down also.

Well, with our SARA guide there is ZERO customization. I mean you can add favorites and hitting a button will scan through them, but it's really quite useless. Our guide has channels into the 1900's now and there are some tiers (IE the 900's) that are just ALL duplicates of analog channels, but you can't view them. The same channels appears three or four times in the guide. I would like to see a way for users to streamline the guide. This should have been a no brainer for Navigator!

Since TWC doesn't want to pay outside venders for IPG program guide updates it looks like they are going to HAVE to get Navigator working properly to go to the SDV formats.Jack, you might want to amend that statement to apply only to Passport systems. SARA is capable of SDV NOW, and they don't need to move to Navigator in SARA systems for SDV.

In fact, there are companies now making digital to analog converts for whole house applications to support legacy devices. It is a "box" that installs at your POE and converts the digital signal to analog for distribution to NTSC sets and passes the digital signal through to set top boxesBen, I assume that you are referring to the BroadLogic TeraPIX. They are not yet making these, and are not planning for commercial introduction until late 2008. I suspect that we won't see a massive move to all digital cable till this device (I haven't heard of any equivalent device in the works) is available in large quantities.

Ben, I assume that you are referring to the BroadLogic TeraPIX. They are not yet making these, and are not planning for commercial introduction until late 2008. I suspect that we won't see a massive move to all digital cable till this device (I haven't heard of any equivalent device in the works) is available in large quantities.

You are correct. I'm saying they should be widely available after the 2009 deadline. I know they are in pre-production and design at this time. I would think most cable companies would have a demand for this technology just to eliminate bandwidth hogging analog signals.

I am in SE Wisconsin with an 8300HDC and have had good luck with Navigator... until last night that is. That's when I started getting the "channel not available" errors in the recording log, along with a few I hadn't seen before like "set-top box cannot record."

The diagnostics screen indicates the latest software level that has been discussed in this post previously. But there may have been some other minor revision (profile?) that was pushed out yesterday, who knows. In any event, both a soft and hard reboot have had no effect on my situation.

I am in SE Wisconsin with an 8300HDC and have had good luck with Navigator... until last night that is. That's when I started getting the "channel not available" errors in the recording log, along with a few I hadn't seen before like "set-top box cannot record."

The diagnostics screen indicates the latest software level that has been discussed in this post previously. But there may have been some other minor revision (profile?) that was pushed out yesterday, who knows. In any event, both a soft and hard reboot have had no effect on my situation.

You might want to try another hard reboot. But this time, unplug the box for about 10 minutes to really clear it out. Than plug it back in and see what happens. If this doesn't work, call cable. How long have you had Navigator before this issue occurred?

Jack

I am in SE Wisconsin with an 8300HDC and have had good luck with Navigator... until last night that is. That's when I started getting the "channel not available" errors in the recording log, along with a few I hadn't seen before like "set-top box cannot record."

The diagnostics screen indicates the latest software level that has been discussed in this post previously. But there may have been some other minor revision (profile?) that was pushed out yesterday, who knows. In any event, both a soft and hard reboot have had no effect on my situation.

What I *think* may have fixed that for me was to go into Series Manager and for each series select Record Series Options and then select Save without changing anything.

You are correct. I'm saying they should be widely available after the 2009 deadline. I know they are in pre-production and design at this time. I would think most cable companies would have a demand for this technology just to eliminate bandwidth hogging analog signals.OK, I just wondered if there was something else out there as you did say
In fact, there are companies now making digital to analog converts for whole house applications to support legacy devices.as if TW could drop analog NOW (as in 10/21/07).

OK, I just wondered if there was something else out there as you did say
as if TW could drop analog NOW (as in 10/21/07).

Yes, I should have worded it better. They are now making them as in working on them, but are not being mass produced to be applicable as of yet. However, I think TWC is going to stay with analog for the simple fact of not bucking the system and needing massive service calls to deploy them. They are going to SDV because it will be easier now for widespread deployment. Once Navigator is deployed, they can move to an SDV system and all this can be done from the headend and certain switching nodes. As analog fades into oblivion, you might see them move to an all digital system.

I understand this happens everytime TWC upgrades anything at headend. The solution with MDN in these cases was you had to delete all series and add them back, something gets out of sync. You probably notice that the show is listed in the schedule recordings, but doesn't record when it is time to record. Look in your "Recording Log" and I bet you have a message that the show didn't record because "Unable to tune" Reboot sometimes fixes but usually you have to delete the series and recreate it.

I have also heard that a quick fix is to add another serires or edit and existing one, this somehow updates the rest of them. You might try this before recreating them all.I don't believe my problems were the same as you describe. First, programs that failed to record 2 weeks ago, succeeded last week without recreating anything. Second, there are no errors in the recording log other than "channel not available".

As I said before, the one thing I did differently between the week of failures and the week of success is that I left the DVR on and tuned to an SD channel when not in use. No reboots, no editting, no sprinkle dust. And how this might tie into the fact that I received no schedule or profile updates during the successful week is anybodies guess. It may all be coincidence. Just throwing it into the pot to see if it tastes good to anyone. Hell, maybe the dang thing just needed breaking in.

It's still got a long ways to go before it regains my trust. Anything that is important to me, I still record on my old reliable Instant Replay.

I don't believe my problems were the same as you describe. First, programs that failed to record 2 weeks ago, succeeded last week without recreating anything. Second, there are no errors in the recording log other than "channel not available".

As I said before, the one thing I did differently between the week of failures and the week of success is that I left the DVR on and tuned to an SD channel when not in use. No reboots, no editting, no sprinkle dust. And how this might tie into the fact that I received no schedule or profile updates during the successful week is anybodies guess. It may all be coincidence. Just throwing it into the pot to see if it tastes good to anyone. Hell, maybe the dang thing just needed breaking in.

It's still got a long ways to go before it regains my trust. Anything that is important to me, I still record on my old reliable Instant Replay.



I had talked with a Time Warner Supervisor about the Channel Not Available a few weeks back. He admitted that they did not about the problem and were working on a fix. I wonder how long that will be since he said it should be fixed in about two weeks and that was over two week ago.
Anyway he suggested turning the box on in a specific order. I am using hdmi, so I turn on the tv first and then the box. Turning off, the order is tv first and the box last. So far (knock on fake wood) I haven't seen an issue with 'Channel not Available' . Coincidence, possibly.

My thinking is something happens to one of the tuners. Next time it does happen, I'm going to hit the PIP to see if the other tuner is indeed not available. Again this is all theory and might be total smoke :D

Anyway he suggested turning the box on in a specific order. I am using hdmi, so I turn on the tv first and then the box. Turning off, the order is tv first and the box last. So far (knock on fake wood) I haven't seen an issue with 'Channel not Available' . Coincidence, possibly.Reasonable theory but, FWIW, I'm not using hdmi and I still had the "channel not available" issue.

It would sure be helpful if we could get a straight answer from TW explaining what "channel not available" was really intended to mean. I've asked that specific question and they've refused to respond.

Would a few of you mind checking your HD On Demand channel (1199 in Dayton) to see if you show an episode #13 of Mad Men?

Its missing from our selection but websites say it should be available. This happened on my Passport box a few weeks before we went to new navigator box. Wondering if its a problem at the head end.

It's there on my SA8300HDC in Cincinnati.

Would a few of you mind checking your HD On Demand channel (1199 in Dayton) to see if you show an episode #13 of Mad Men?

Its missing from our selection but websites say it should be available. This happened on my Passport box a few weeks before we went to new navigator box. Wondering if its a problem at the head end.

Long time reader, first time poster. About 3 weeks ago I got my first DVR, an SA 8300HDC with OCAP/Navigator from Brighthouse in Central Florida.

Generally it records programs as set, but it has become inconsistent lately.

When a recording fails, I have seen the aforementioned "Not Available" message in the record log. The newest log message from the recording log is that the channel is "Not Authorized". I called customer service and the CSR had not heard of that one before so they scheduled an appointment to change out the box. Of course, if it is a Navigator problem instead of a hardware problem that will not help me. I am also seeing several partial recordings (for example, first 48 minutes of a 120 minute show). This has occurred both when I was watching other shows on the second tuner and also during the middle of the night with the box turned off.

Just noticed yesterday the caller ID function is working on the screen. This was the first time this has happened. I have no idea if an update was pushed out or not.

I understand this happens everytime TWC upgrades anything at headend. The solution with MDN in these cases was you had to delete all series and add them back, something gets out of sync. You probably notice that the show is listed in the schedule recordings, but doesn't record when it is time to record. Look in your "Recording Log" and I bet you have a message that the show didn't record because "Unable to tune" Reboot sometimes fixes but usually you have to delete the series and recreate it.

I have also heard that a quick fix is to add another serires or edit and existing one, this somehow updates the rest of them. You might try this before recreating them all.

One issue with "deleting them all and re-doing" is that a LOT of my series recordings point to shows that aren't "in season" now so there's no listing to select for series recording.

Still, it sounds like a smart idea to write out a list of everything I now have as they haven't yet screwed me by going Nagivator on my 8300HD box, although it WILL happen when I least expect it (in true TWC fashion, we'll get NO warning at all).

heldmacm

Thanks. Well, I guess we can add "Missing MadMen" to the list of complaints...in this case I've had it happen on both Passport and Navigator.

heldmacm

Thanks. Well, I guess we can add "Missing MadMen" to the list of complaints...in this case I've had it happen on both Passport and Navigator.I don't see how this particular problem relates to the particular navigator software (Navigator, Passport, or SARA) that is in use. I've had similar problems here at times, and it is simply due to something like the originating network not downloading the latest programs into the local servers.

What I am interested in knowing is,

Has anyone gotten Navigator through a box download within the last 6 months? I assume that they have stopped that at least for the duration of the year until the OCAP boxes with Navigator preinstalled can get the bugs worked out?

Jack

davehancock,

I proved (to my satisfaction anyway) several months back that its software related, not missing file on the server. I had both a Passport box and a Navigator box hooked up for a week. Some OD shows that were missing on Passport box were available on the Navigator box.

Now whether its a problem at the software at the head end or on the box itself I can't say.

Regardless, I have to tell my wife that a TWC glitch is preventing her from watching Season Finale of her favorite show. If this keeps up, I'll get blessing to get any D*mn box I want:)

Deal is, it just has to reliably work:(

davehancock,

I proved (to my satisfaction anyway) several months back that its software related, not missing file on the server. I had both a Passport box and a Navigator box hooked up for a week. Some OD shows that were missing on Passport box were available on the Navigator box.

Now whether its a problem at the software at the head end or on the box itself I can't say.

Regardless, I have to tell my wife that a TWC glitch is preventing her from watching Season Finale of her favorite show. If this keeps up, I'll get blessing to get any D*mn box I want:)

Deal is, it just has to reliably work:(So if the problem has happened on Passport boxes, how can you blame it on Navigator?

SA8300HDC
Not sure which of the versions I am supposed to post.
Seems like all the versions I'm showing except for bootstrapper is
2.4.4_2 bootstrapper is 2.4.4_3

I record shows daily. Haven't tried series recording option. This is my first DVR, so I'm not sure about comparing speeds, but seems plenty fast to me, quick to the guide, selections, etc.

I'm guessing that since this is my first DVR, and hasn't missed a recording, I don't have much to complain about. Although it does seem to me that the PQ is *slightly* worse, that may just be in my head too. (Pio 5070 via hdmi)

I've got concerns about connecting this thing using optical to a H/K receiver, but time will tell.

Thanks for all of the info.

Skid
Kansas City

Does anyone else with navigator show programs for this upcoming Sunday and Monday as if daylight savings time was ending? Everything is showing up in my guide an hour early and DST doesn't end for another week. Did they not figure in the change to this or is it simply a problem of whoever they download the guide from?

I am guessing if it isn't fixed people should probably check their guide and change it accordingly as to not miss shows. Maybe it is just a Lincoln problem though.

Navigator Week (8)
Well after a manual reboot, my analog thru receiver sound problems are back. Volume is again reduced by @30%. Menu speed remains fast. We had a lockup last night that eventually recovered without reboot. Haven't noticed any others though. This sound issue is beyond annoying.

Do you guys think TW will publicly test Navigator for OCAP Moto STB'S or realse it all at once?

Do you guys think TW will publicly test Navigator for OCAP Moto STB'S or release it all at once?

My guess would be that they will do a test run with it preinstalled on the Moto boxes first. (Probably by 1st quarter next year.) Than, if reasonably successful, they will deploy it as a download to the other boxes in each division by 2nd quarter of next year.

They still have to work out some problems with Audio levels on HD channels especially, and the problems with unreliable series recordings on the SA DVR's. This seems to be where these issues are most problematic. I don't think they should work on the Moto boxes until next quarter.

I wonder if Navigator is going to need a Daylight Savings Time patch.

Jack

Navigator Week (8)
Well after a manual reboot, my analog thru receiver sound problems are back. Volume is again reduced by @30%. Menu speed remains fast. We had a lockup last night that eventually recovered without reboot. Haven't noticed any others though. This sound issue is beyond annoying.

One thing to check that might be easily forgotten: Have you checked the volume control on the front of the box? It is easily forgotten because most people have the remotes set up for the television to regulate the volume. It is possible that someone or something may have accidentally pushed on the volume down button on the front of the cable box.

...
They still have to work out some problems with Audio levels on HD channels especially
...
Jack

Some channels have highly compressed audio (local CBS seem to be a the worst), making them a lot louder than uncompressed, or less compressed channels (HDNet sound seems to be totally uncompressed). I frequently have to fiddle with the volume on my receiver when I switch channels. May or may not be related to that issue.

That was a good thought to double check the volume, unfortunately that wasn't it. There is wide variation in volume levels across all the channels, its very annoying. The problem definitely went away for at least a week, so its got to be software related or broadcast issue from TWC.

I finally got through to a "supervisor". Very smooth, very company line, absolutely no commitment to fixing anything. He did agree that they've had more problems than they expected with Navigator but they're working daily to fix, bla, ,bla,bla.

My 1199 HD On Demand Channel finally showed the Mad Men Episode #13 last night but when you select it, it only plays sound, not picture. Other episodes play normally.

Box also froze, again, last night requiring reboot.

The analog sound is awful, just awful.

Some channels have highly compressed audio (local CBS seem to be a the worst), making them a lot louder than uncompressed, or less compressed channels (HDNet sound seems to be totally uncompressed). I frequently have to fiddle with the volume on my receiver when I switch channels. May or may not be related to that issue.

Compression has nothing to do with volume! Varying audio volume is an age old issue, in the past it was pretty clear that commercials were always sent at a considerably higher volume... to catch you attention. Now there CAN be another factor, the show encoded in AC/3 (Dolby Digital 5.1), the commercial in PCM (Dolby Pro Logic). But still, it's in THEIR interest to pump up the volume on commercials.

Can anything be done about it? 100 absolutely yes, the cable outfit totally COULD fix the issue. BUT only if they had massive amounts of people canceling... as long as that does NOT happen, they have no "incentive" to actually provide any more than the most basic service to their customers. THAT is exactly how those CEO types running the cable outfits quality for multimillion dollar bonuses, maximize profits by never spending a dime on the expense side UNLESS they lose substantial amount of subs.

Not only that, but I'm beginning to feel like their 100% anti-customer policies are turning me into a "more bitter" person that I normally am!

Compression has nothing to do with volume! Varying audio volume is an age old issue, in the past it was pretty clear that commercials were always sent at a considerably higher volume... to catch you attention. Now there CAN be another factor, the show encoded in AC/3 (Dolby Digital 5.1), the commercial in PCM (Dolby Pro Logic). But still, it's in THEIR interest to pump up the volume on commercials.

Can anything be done about it? 100 absolutely yes, the cable outfit totally COULD fix the issue. BUT only if they had massive amounts of people canceling... as long as that does NOT happen, they have no "incentive" to actually provide any more than the most basic service to their customers. THAT is exactly how those CEO types running the cable outfits quality for multimillion dollar bonuses, maximize profits by never spending a dime on the expense side UNLESS they lose substantial amount of subs.

Not only that, but I'm beginning to feel like their 100% anti-customer policies are turning me into a "more bitter" person that I normally am!

I don't know Riverside Guy,

We have had cable since 1985. Have had maybe 7 techs come out in all that time. Maybe 2 were inept, but the other 5 were very helpful. We have had issues with two buggy boxes, but our last Passport box before we updated to "All the Best" was a 5 year old Pioneer and it ran like a champ.

So in 20 years, that's a pretty good record. However, I agree that there is much less testing for bugs in electronics and computers than there used to be today, and there is less competence. Maybe I have just been lucky with cable.

But than it raises a question that if we are to assume that cable companies are such a pile of crap, why is it that Road Runner (at least in my division) has won #1 best awards for best ISP for the last 5 years? We really love digital phone service as well and our DVR, which is still Passport.

If cable was SOOOOOOO God-awful as some of the comments on the board had mentioned, Time Warner wouldn't have a business. No business wants to lose its subscription base. This is not to suggest that there are NOT problems, especially some of the issues with Navigator's bugs, which after a year in the field, I find to be reprehensible. But, I think much of this is still contingent on your local TWC division and the quality of their office management. If every division didn't care and service went out all over the country, you couldn't even get through to the call centers, or web-sites to get help with anything. That just hasn't been the case. (at least in my community)

So I guess, why does the level of service seem to vary so much from division to division? What does one division of TWC have that the other doesn't allowing for better customer service and equipment performance than others? Maybe the solution is for more local division heads to talk to each other consistently, to establish a better quality service overall, throughout the United States. That's what solutions need to be found.

Jack

Compression has nothing to do with volume! Varying audio volume is an age old issue, in the past it was pretty clear that commercials were always sent at a considerably higher volume... to catch you attention. Now there CAN be another factor, the show encoded in AC/3 (Dolby Digital 5.1), the commercial in PCM (Dolby Pro Logic). But still, it's in THEIR interest to pump up the volume on commercials.

Can anything be done about it? 100 absolutely yes, the cable outfit totally COULD fix the issue. BUT only if they had massive amounts of people canceling... as long as that does NOT happen, they have no "incentive" to actually provide any more than the most basic service to their customers. THAT is exactly how those CEO types running the cable outfits quality for multimillion dollar bonuses, maximize profits by never spending a dime on the expense side UNLESS they lose substantial amount of subs.

Not only that, but I'm beginning to feel like their 100% anti-customer policies are turning me into a "more bitter" person that I normally am!

By "compressed audio" I mean "audio signal whose dynamic range has been compressed", which is a standard way to pump up the valume. See the last paragraph of http://www.hd.net/tech_dd51.html
for some info from a broadcaster. What happens is that the volume of the softest parts is increased a lot, the loudest parts are set to or near the max, and the in-between parts are redistributed so that they fit between softest and loudest with their relative order intact. The end result of a lot of compression is that the whole thing sounds a lot louder, but the problem is that a whisper is not that much softer than a gun shot. Some of the "night listening" options on certain TVs probably do compression as well, but with the whole range not near max, but lower. Navigator also offers some compression (Audio range: Wide/Normal/Narrow); you can tell that on certain channels, Narrow will make the sound a lot louder, but on some it makes little difference. Also, a lot of CD authoring software have options to compress audio range to increase loudness level, so that you can even out the volume level of tracks that come from different sources. Mine calls it "Compressor", others may call it something else; I got used to thinking the word "compressed audio" that way, so I mistakenly thought that it was a common meaning of the term.
Of course, this kind of compression is not related at all to file compression (to get smaller file size), nor to signal compression that typically degrades picture a little to take less of a bandwidth, which is probably what you were referring to.

Can anything be done about it? 100 absolutely yes, the cable outfit totally COULD fix the issue.This is not a cable issue. Cable is only passing on what his local CBS station is sending them. It would not be cables place (I suspect that it would be illegal) for them to modify the audio levels.

BUT only if they had massive amounts of people canceling... as long as that does NOT happen, they have no "incentive" to actually provide any more than the most basic service to their customers. THAT is exactly how those CEO types running the cable outfits quality for multimillion dollar bonuses, maximize profits by never spending a dime on the expense side UNLESS they lose substantial amount of subs.

Not only that, but I'm beginning to feel like their 100% anti-customer policies are turning me into a "more bitter" person that I normally am!You may be justified in some of your positions about TW and cable - but do you need to seize every problem as something else to damn cable for? :eek:

But you did touch on what is likely the real issue hereNow there CAN be another factor, the show encoded in AC/3 (Dolby Digital 5.1), the commercial in PCM (Dolby Pro Logic).There are two issues related to this:
1) There are inharent "loudness perception" issues when switching between 5.1 and 2.0. Dolby has been promoting equipment to equalize this level issue, but the station (not cable) needs to implement that.
2) If the viewer is experiencing this with a separate surround sound receiver there can be additional issues on how that receiver handles the two.

Also, is the station switching from 5.1 to 2.0? I've seen where some stations keep the 5.1 flag turned on even though they are feeding only the LF and RF channels. That can sound like ****, depending on how ones surround parameters are set up.

I can't find any option to skip channels with Navigator. This was a very handy feature with Passport, as you could set up a list of channels you never wanted to watch, and then when you scrolled though all the channels you never saw the ones on the list. Has TW in all their infinite wisdom eliminated this feature with Navigator? I know you can set up a Favorites list, but that is doing things backwards and you can only scroll up with the Favorites button, not down also.


i still have passport. how do you do this?

Since I'm the one complaining about audio, I'll be more specific to clear up confusion.

I'm running L/R Analog audio out from the Navigator SA8300HDC box into the TV L/R Analog inputs on my Denon Pro-Logic receiver which does not have optical inputs. The problem I'm experiencing is that on some channels, I need to turn the volume up from my normal -12db listening range to -04db on the receiver to get equivalent, listenable volum. Further, I have to set the 8300 to "Narrow" so that sound is listenable. Set to Wide or Normal, the sound is unfocused and voices do not seem to come from front.

My Passport box was perfect, no problems, audio levels were constant. With 8300HDC, it was bad from the start, was fixed last Monday and worked fine for a week then went back to crappy this week. I've checked all the wires,inputs and other sources, etc.

Normally my receiver would pickup and properly decode Dolby Pro-Logic (not 5.1) and I got decent surround out of most broadcasts. Now the sound is just coming mainly from front speaker.

I appreciate any suggestions. Going to have to try swapping to another box, yet again.

Since I'm the one complaining about audio, I'll be more specific to clear up confusion.

I'm running L/R Analog audio out from the Navigator SA8300HDC box into the TV L/R Analog inputs on my Denon Pro-Logic receiver which does not have optical inputs. The problem I'm experiencing is that on some channels, I need to turn the volume up from my normal -12db listening range to -04db on the receiver to get equivalent, listenable volume. Further, I have to set the 8300 to "Narrow" so that sound is listenable. Set to Wide or Normal, the sound is unfocused and voices do not seem to come from front.

My Passport box was perfect, no problems, audio levels were constant. With 8300HDC, it was bad from the start, was fixed last Monday and worked fine for a week then went back to crappy this week. I've checked all the wires,inputs and other sources, etc.

Normally my receiver would pickup and properly decode Dolby Pro-Logic (not 5.1) and I got decent surround out of most broadcasts. Now the sound is just coming mainly from front speaker.

I appreciate any suggestions. Going to have to try swapping to another box, yet again.

Obviously,

Since this appears to be a Navigator problem and not a "box" problem, I would call TWC and tell them that you want to speak to a supervisor for a problem that is unresolved. Let them know the number of box swaps that you have had. If they give you a hard time, threaten to cancel your service. But make sure that you speak to a supervisor.

When speaking to the supervisor, arrange an appointment so that he can come out, look and listen to your sound system's configuration, and than he can log this information. These box swaps with Navigator are really intruding on your time. These boxes should be lasting for a year, two years, many years. (I had my Pioneer for five years.) They keep swapping the box when it's the software loaded on the box that is the problem. But the level 1 CSR reps are clueless. Get a top supervisor, like a level 3 guy or higher to come out to your house and tell him EVERYTHING about your Navigator problems and just say replacing the boxes at best gives me a three week temporary fix and than I'm back to square one. The supervisor should log all of this information and maybe work with his team on issues that might be residing at the head-end. Don't just get another box without getting a supervisor at your home to look at how and why your having audio signal problems.

Jack

By "compressed audio" I mean "audio signal whose dynamic range has been compressed", which is a standard way to pump up the valume. See the last paragraph of http://www.hd.net/tech_dd51.html
for some info from a broadcaster. What happens is that the volume of the softest parts is increased a lot, the loudest parts are set to or near the max, and the in-between parts are redistributed so that they fit between softest and loudest with their relative order intact. The end result of a lot of compression is that the whole thing sounds a lot louder, but the problem is that a whisper is not that much softer than a gun shot. Some of the "night listening" options on certain TVs probably do compression as well, but with the whole range not near max, but lower. Navigator also offers some compression (Audio range: Wide/Normal/Narrow); you can tell that on certain channels, Narrow will make the sound a lot louder, but on some it makes little difference. Also, a lot of CD authoring software have options to compress audio range to increase loudness level, so that you can even out the volume level of tracks that come from different sources. Mine calls it "Compressor", others may call it something else; I got used to thinking the word "compressed audio" that way, so I mistakenly thought that it was a common meaning of the term.
Of course, this kind of compression is not related at all to file compression (to get smaller file size), nor to signal compression that typically degrades picture a little to take less of a bandwidth, which is probably what you were referring to.

Ah, now i see what you were getting at. I was talking (and did mention) the encoding schemes which compress the data rate, not the volume. That's what I meant about "already compressed."

I actually do have a large amount of experience back from my radio days. But the intent of the kind of compression you talk about was never related to "making things louder" it was all about making the overall level "evener." In that deliver, it was at least partially about how we drove the transmitter. Large dynamic range is a very real issue for lots of folks, by the time they set the volume for the quiet moments, they get knocked out of their chairs by the loud parts. In radio, this means driving the transmitter into a kind of distortion.

This is not a cable issue. Cable is only passing on what his local CBS station is sending them. It would not be cables place (I suspect that it would be illegal) for them to modify the audio levels.

Beg to slightly differ... what I said was that it was an issue they COULD address, not that they CAUSED the issue. No way evening out the volume is "illegal," most all TV sets built in audio makes an attempt at this.

You may be justified in some of your positions about TW and cable - but do you need to seize every problem as something else to damn cable for? :eek:

Can't see that I am damning all of cable, I take great pain to try and be very specific about what upsets me AND exactly where I think the fault lies, including the phrase "in my market." The very fact I use that phrase so frequently should be clear I am not inditing the whole industry!

But you did touch on what is likely the real issue hereThere are two issues related to this:
1) There are inharent "loudness perception" issues when switching between 5.1 and 2.0. Dolby has been promoting equipment to equalize this level issue, but the station (not cable) needs to implement that.
2) If the viewer is experiencing this with a separate surround sound receiver there can be additional issues on how that receiver handles the two.

Think I said it MIGHT be the switch between AC/3 and Pro Logic. Some times "perceived" stays the same, some times it drastically changes. But you are correct to suggest it isn't due to any limitations of either format, if I implied otherwise i was in error.

Still, I am very much of the opinion the cable guys CAN ameliorate the issue. Yes I would agree that the source SHOULD be the ones to do it, all I'm saying is that the cable guys CAN but don't. We pay them to deliver the content, I do NOT find it out of bounds that they "should" deliver them in the best possible way, and that WOULD include NOT forcing us to keep our fingers squarely planted on the volume control.

Also, is the station switching from 5.1 to 2.0? I've seen where some stations keep the 5.1 flag turned on even though they are feeding only the LF and RF channels. That can sound like ****, depending on how ones surround parameters are set up.

Here's an interesting point... I was arranging a friends documentary onto DVD. It had essentially 2 track audio. I mirrored and crossed the two channels to the rear surrounds and combined them into the center channel. I actually LIKED the resultant playing so I left it that way, hokey as some may find. It WAS mostly voice over soft music and I got the distinct feeling the person was right in the middle of the room rather than poised in the front. I'm SURE some would not like the effect as much as I did, but I also know that 98% of the folks who got copies only had 2 channel equipment.

I've said my peace with L3, supervisors etc. My next move is to try a new receiver which I've been planning to purchase...hopefully optical out might not experience the problem. If that doesn't work, its either Tivo if they get the SDV issue worked out or DirectTV

My Denon's been rock solid for 10 years, this is first component that didn't play nice with it.

By "compressed audio" I mean "audio signal whose dynamic range has been compressed", which is a standard way to pump up the valume. See the last paragraph of http://www.hd.net/tech_dd51.html
for some info from a broadcaster. What happens is that the volume of the softest parts is increased a lot, the loudest parts are set to or near the max, and the in-between parts are redistributed so that they fit between softest and loudest with their relative order intact. The end result of a lot of compression is that the whole thing sounds a lot louder, but the problem is that a whisper is not that much softer than a gun shot. Some of the "night listening" options on certain TVs probably do compression as well, but with the whole range not near max, but lower. Navigator also offers some compression (Audio range: Wide/Normal/Narrow); you can tell that on certain channels, Narrow will make the sound a lot louder, but on some it makes little difference. Also, a lot of CD authoring software have options to compress audio range to increase loudness level, so that you can even out the volume level of tracks that come from different sources. Mine calls it "Compressor", others may call it something else; I got used to thinking the word "compressed audio" that way, so I mistakenly thought that it was a common meaning of the term.
Of course, this kind of compression is not related at all to file compression (to get smaller file size), nor to signal compression that typically degrades picture a little to take less of a bandwidth, which is probably what you were referring to.
I am sorry that I had to edit the post above, but due to the antispam rule requiring three posts before posting a URL, I had to remove the URL tags.

Could you please explain the audio range option? What does wide, normal, and narrow mean? I do not have Navigator (I have Passport), but this looks like the option that might solve dmcdayton's audio problems.

There is an option in Settings to skip individual channels with Passport. This feature is missing in Navigator.

There is an option in Settings to skip individual channels with Passport. This feature is missing in Navigator.

Nothing like taking a step backwards!

Obviously, TWC doesn't think like we think!?!?!?

There is an option in Settings to skip individual channels with Passport. This feature is missing in Navigator.

While that could be true in some locations, in TWC-NYC, such an option does not exist (unless there is some totally non-obvioius way to do it, it 100% is NOT something in the user interface).

I've said my peace with L3, supervisors etc. My next move is to try a new receiver which I've been planning to purchase...hopefully optical out might not experience the problem. If that doesn't work, its either Tivo if they get the SDV issue worked out or DirectTV

My Denon's been rock solid for 10 years, this is first component that didn't play nice with it.

Upgrading receiver will most likely help. I also have a 10 year old Denon, but with an optical input, and have no issues with the sound (other than the difference in sound level on different channels, which I guess can not be helped). At least in my case, there is a *very* noticable difference between the digital sound and analog surround sound. I had a direct comparison, as my TV, for some reason, downconverts digital sound from HDMI inputs to 2 channel stereo (it even says so in the manual), but keeps digital sound from coaxial input; I had TV connected to receiver through optical, and the sound when watching straight "from the wall to TV to receiver" was *a lot* better than "wall to DVR to TV to receiver". Once I connected DVR to receiver with optical and TV to receiver analog, the thing reversed, so you can not blame the issue on the DVR messing with sound, it is just that analog encoding is way inferior than true digital. For me, analog sends almost everything to the center speaker, and you've noticed the same thing.

By the way, I checked today and noticed that the Narrow setting apparently does not do anything any more, which may explain the return of some of your issues. It used to compress audio range noticeably, making it much louder on some channels; today I could hear no difference between Normal (or Wide) and Narrow. Strange.

Jim,

Replace your box yet again. I'm in Cary as well, and my first box was a headache, the second one is (so far) generally OK. Just call them and tell them you tried reboots and it does not help. You got nothing to lose (except the existing recordings). By the way, my version is 2.4.5_4 as well.

Pedja

Replaced the box again today, making it my 4th in 2 months. The first convenience center I went to had a sign on the door saying they were out of HD DVR's so I went to a second location where they had 2 or 3 left. Let's see how # 4 does for me.

I am sorry that I had to edit the post above, but due to the antispam rule requiring three posts before posting a URL, I had to remove the URL tags.

Could you please explain the audio range option? What does wide, normal, and narrow mean? I do not have Navigator (I have Passport), but this looks like the option that might solve dmcdayton's audio problems.


I am not sure how much explanation is necessary, so I'll err on the side of over explaining; forgive me for sometimes stating the obvious. Also, note that the numbers used below are just for illustration, I did not measure anything.
First some general stuff about audio range. The volume control on your equipment generally sets how loud to play back the maximal (i.e. loudest) signal coming. Different sounds generally come as % of loudest. The signal with totally uncompressed range may have any value from 1% to 100% of maximal (say 1% may be a barely audible whisper, 100% may be an explosion). In some cases, it is preferable to have such a wide range - it is more life-like; you set your volume so you can hear the soft parts, but then you get startled by how loud the explosion is. That's the point - explosion is not a normal thing, you are supposed to be startled. That's why channels like HDNet Movies do not compress their dynamic range. Of course, that is a double-edged sword - maybe you do not like to be startled, and definitely your sleeping family members do not want to get startled. That's when compression of range comes in play - they map, say, 1-100 range to, say, 30-60. Now the softest stuff is only twice softer than loudest. You lose some richness, but gain a lot of predictability. So, you can use this to even things out, and also to keep stuff from being right at 100% (being too close to 100% in some cases could have undesirable consequences). The other way to use compression (and the one commonly used among broadcasters) is to make their channel sound louder - think compressing to the range of 85-100. Then, your whisper is louder than somebody screaming their head off on an uncompressed channel; your normal talking level is about 90% while somebody else’s is about 25%; CBS (channel 255) seem to be doing this a lot. It is also frequently done just for commercials, to make them louder than regular programming.
Ideally, no channel would do any compression, and your equipment (DVR or receiver or TV) would allow you to choose how much compression you want. However, with vast differences among channels, it is not easy.
Navigator’s audio range appears to be trying just that – it appeared to be basically their own audio range compressor. You set it to Narrow, and it will compress the range. Normal and Wide, I am not sure, maybe Normal was compressing a little bit and Wide not at all – I could never hear much difference between them. But, with Narrow on, some channels (like HDNet) used to become noticeably louder, and some (like CBS) would not, indicating compression (and the name is an indicator as well). However, when I tried it today, it did not make any difference; it is probably busted for some reason – maybe that’s why some of dmcdayton’s problems are back again (the others may be due to analog vs digital).
Hope this explains it.

Re: The issue of loudness: This article from Sep 06 in Broadcast Engineering (http://broadcastengineering.com/audio/broadcasting_digital_loudness_matching/index.html) may help explain the problem and give insight to the Wide/Normal/Narrow setting.

Re: The issue of loudness: This article from Sep 06 in Broadcast Engineering (http://broadcastengineering.com/audio/broadcasting_digital_loudness_matching/index.html) may help explain the problem and give insight to the Wide/Normal/Narrow setting.

jnv11, read this article; my amateur guess on Wide/Normal/Narrow was not on the mark (to put it mildly).

Re: The issue of loudness: This article from Sep 06 in Broadcast Engineering may help explain the problem and give insight to the Wide/Normal/Narrow setting.

I am sorry for editing the quote, but I cannot post URLs until I have at least three posts. That post has a URL.

Therefore, dmcdayton should set the audio range to "Narrow", assuming that the mapping from the SARA audio dynamic range to Navigator audio range is intact. Knowing that the audio dynamic range software is broken will make it easier for the customer service representative taking the support call to file an appropriate bug report so that the programmers will be able to narrow down which change they did might have broken the audio range compression functionality. Please be specific as possible on the dates the changes were made to make the audio range compression task work and what change made it not work. Therefore the programmers can possibly deduce what they did right and what they did wrong. They might not know what they did because not many people understand what audio dynamic range is.

Here is what I can summarize from the article that impacts me as a user:
The narrow mode puts the Dolby Digital AC-3 decoder in the RF mode, which emulates NTSC's inability to handle quiet sounds and boosts quiet sounds up to a level that NTSC receivers will be able to decode, simulating analog. I think that this is just another reason NTSC needs replacement. However, this should even up the volume levels between channels.

The normal mode means that the cable box should pass the full AC-3 dynamic range to the television by putting the AC-3 decoder in the line mode. This is fine if you are using RCA, S/PDIF, TOSLINK, or HDMI, but will cause someone using an analog F connector (the conventional 75 ohm coaxial cable with that copper cable in the center being used in the center being used as an electrical connection pin) connection to lose the ability to receive very soft sounds because they are too soft to be encoded to NTSC. The problem with this mode is because no dynamic range compression is applied, channels can vary wildly between each other in loudness.

The wide mode apparently applies an inverse audio range compression on the audio. According to the "SA 8300 HD Tips & Tricks -- SARA" AVS Forum thread I found by searching for "SARA audio range setting" at Google (which I cannot yet link to due to antispam controls creating collateral damage), this mode makes loud noises louder, and soft noises softer. The article linked to in davehancock's post stated that this mode "is being deprecated and must not be used under any circumstance." This is the best I can find about this mode. Knowing this, this mode should not be used at all because it damages audio in the way opposite of the damage inflicted by NTSC and narrow mode. Since it damages the audio and does not make the channel volumes any more even, this mode has no redeeming qualities in my mind. I would recommend against using it myself.

Click on the SARA link in my signature to go to the "SA 8300 HD Tips & Tricks -- SARA" AVS Forum thread first post that is discussed in the previous post. Look for the "Audio Range Settings" section.

I am in SE Wisconsin with an 8300HDC and have had good luck with Navigator... until last night that is. That's when I started getting the "channel not available" errors in the recording log, along with a few I hadn't seen before like "set-top box cannot record."

The diagnostics screen indicates the latest software level that has been discussed in this post previously. But there may have been some other minor revision (profile?) that was pushed out yesterday, who knows. In any event, both a soft and hard reboot have had no effect on my situation.

Like clockwork my 8300HDC started showing "channel not available" errors again Sunday morning after having no problems all week since I did the hard reboot. It really does seem like TW here in SE Wisc pushes out updates over Saturday night which lately have been breaking my box.

Russb

I read the explanations of Narrow, Normal and Wide. In my case, using analog stereo output, the volume level of Normal or Wide is insufficient even for the loudest audio passage, let alone quietest.

Is Normal the pass through setting?

Like clockwork my 8300HDC started showing "channel not available" errors again Sunday morning after having no problems all week since I did the hard reboot. It really does seem like TW here in SE Wisc pushes out updates over Saturday night which lately have been breaking my box.

We have heard so much about the problems with the "Channel Not Available" bug, it seems like something is going back to its original setting that shouldn't be "defaulting." when the updates are applied.

Jack

We have heard so much about the problems with the "Channel Not Available" bug, it seems like something is going back to its original setting that shouldn't be "defaulting." when the updates are applied.I'm starting to question if a "bug" per se is really the problem.

My first week with Navigator exihibited many "not available" occurrences. At that time I started watching the information on the diag screens very closely while waiting for responses from TW about the problem (which never arrived). In the meantime, my problem has gone away. I've now gone two weeks without failure and I can see no evidence that my DVR software has changed. I only had to reboot once when I noticed I hadn't gotten a schedule update for almost a week.

I'm starting to wonder if maybe the source of the problem is with flaws in the downloaded program guide. Perhaps, when a scheduled recording tries to match up with the program guide, it sometimes doesn't make the link. It might explain why some people have reported having better luck when they remove and reestablish their scheduled recordings and/or avoid series recording. (BTW: I've done neither.)

I'm now at the point where I'm actually trying to recreate the problem in hopes that the exercise will help others avoid it. If TW would just explain what the error message really means (or what it was intended to mean), maybe we could collectively evolve a work-around until the problem is fixed.

I agree.

I have said that there is more than meets the eye with the Navigator deployment. And all problems reported may not be the result of Navigator.

For example some of the improvements that users experience may be the result the local cableco tweaking the performance of the cable cards in the HDC boxes. In this case improvement would not involve a new version of Navigator. You just have to look at the discussions in the Tivo threads to see that cable cards are part of the equation.

You also have the added impact of OCAP on the HDC boxes. Again tweaking may not involve an updated version of Navigator.

I believe trying to distill everything down to simply Navigator may not be the most intelligent approach.

I continue to have very few problems. But again this may not be the result of the version of Navigator my box happens to be running. Head end tweaks, cable card tweaks, OCAP tweaks and yes even Navigator tweaks are probably all involved.

I don't know. After reading the linked article, it sounds like Narrow is the recommended setting and Wide should not be used at all. Normal Dynamic Range basically splits the difference between Narrow and Wide Dynamic Range according to the SARA Tips thread. If anyone else can provide an answer please do so.
Russb

I read the explanations of Narrow, Normal and Wide. In my case, using analog stereo output, the volume level of Normal or Wide is insufficient even for the loudest audio passage, let alone quietest.

Is Normal the pass through setting?

I don't know. After reading the linked article, it sounds like Narrow is the recommended setting and Wide should not be used at all. Normal Dynamic Range basically splits the difference between Narrow and Wide Dynamic Range according to the SARA Tips thread. If anyone else can provide an answer please do so.

According to the article davehancock linked to (http://broadcastengineering.com/audio/broadcasting_digital_loudness_matching/index.html) in an earlier post, "Normal" is supposed to be the pass through mode. "Narrow" is the mode where soft sounds are bumped up in volume to match the amount NTSC broadcasters must do if they want soft noises to be transmittable, which also evens out the volume between channels. "Wide" is a mode you should not use because it quiets down soft noises and makes loud noises louder.

According to the article davehancock linked to (http://broadcastengineering.com/audio/broadcasting_digital_loudness_matching/index.html) in an earlier post, "Normal" is supposed to be the pass through mode.

This article is absolutely great. I used to be a projectionist at a movie theatre, and the issue with the feature being in full surround vs. the previews in stereo caused a similar issue. If we weren't sure to manually turn the volume down/up we got some very unhappy customers. Dolby power levels going to only stereo speakers is very loud!

xnappo

Just to quick add my experience with Navigator on TWC in Cary, NC:

Got the box (8300HDC) a few weeks ago. In the last 2 weeks, I've had to hard reboot it (pull the power plug) 3 times to get it working again. First time was the "Channel Not Available" on all recordings. Last two times were a black screen. I could bring up the guide and all menus worked, but no video, no recordings, etc.

Meanwhile my 8300HD box using Passport has been going strong the whole time.

If this doesn't get fixed soon, it will drive me back to DirecTV fairly quickly. I pay for TV to watch shows, and if it keeps missing recordings, I can't watch the shows I want to. I like some of the new features such as not recording episodes it already has (although I miss the Passport-style keyboard for searching), but it has GOT to get more stable fast or I'm done with it.

Just to quick add my experience with Navigator on TWC in Cary, NC:

Got the box (8300HDC) a few weeks ago. In the last 2 weeks, I've had to hard reboot it (pull the power plug) 3 times to get it working again. First time was the "Channel Not Available" on all recordings. Last two times were a black screen. I could bring up the guide and all menus worked, but no video, no recordings, etc.

Meanwhile my 8300HD box using Passport has been going strong the whole time.

If this doesn't get fixed soon, it will drive me back to DirecTV fairly quickly. I pay for TV to watch shows, and if it keeps missing recordings, I can't watch the shows I want to. I like some of the new features such as not recording episodes it already has (although I miss the Passport-style keyboard for searching), but it has GOT to get more stable fast or I'm done with it.
I'm on the TWC Chapel Hill system and have been having the same problems since they replaced my 8300HD a month or two ago. I've lost track of the programs I've missed due to the channel not available problem. I had to reboot 3 times last week. A week or two ago I went to channel 291 to watch the Canes and the screen was blank. TWC service told me to reboot to get it back. After waiting 4-5 minutes for the pig to reboot, I finally had a picture. Same problem last night. This has gotten old.

Directv is offering me a really good deal to return to them, still trying to figure out why I went to cable in the first place, and I am pretty close to accepting their offer. Even after having to fork up $199 for the Directv HD DVR, I'll be saving money over what I'm spending with TWC.

Directv is offering me a really good deal to return to them, still trying to figure out why I went to cable in the first place, and I am pretty close to accepting their offer. Even after having to fork up $199 for the Directv HD DVR, I'll be saving money over what I'm spending with TWC.

I don't know what they are offering you, but DirecTV was far from a value when I called about switching. Don't get me wrong, the extra HD would be nice, but at a cost of almost $40 extra per month coupled with the additional start up cost of an HD DVR at $199 and whatever I'd have to spend to put up a quality aerial for my OTA channels... it just isn't feasible. Of course, I'm not suffering with Navigator just yet, so I understand your pain. Time Warner better do something FAST because I think more and more people will jump ship if they have experiences like you guys.

On a side note, I have six extra outlets. If I had just the one then DirecTV would cost about the same (per month) as what I pay TWC.

I agree.

I have said that there is more than meets the eye with the Navigator deployment. And all problems reported may not be the result of Navigator.

For example some of the improvements that users experience may be the result the local cableco tweaking the performance of the cable cards in the HDC boxes. In this case improvement would not involve a new version of Navigator. You just have to look at the discussions in the Tivo threads to see that cable cards are part of the equation.

You also have the added impact of OCAP on the HDC boxes. Again tweaking may not involve an updated version of Navigator.

I believe trying to distill everything down to simply Navigator may not be the most intelligent approach.

I continue to have very few problems. But again this may not be the result of the version of Navigator my box happens to be running. Head end tweaks, cable card tweaks, OCAP tweaks and yes even Navigator tweaks are probably all involved.

Very interesting!

Yes, there does seem to be more than meets the eye with Navigator. I wonder how many people are returning boxes with Navigator on them when it is really NOT a box problem, but an issue with the head-end that sends the signals to ALL the boxes?

The question that I would have to ask the tech guys here is, what component or configuration needs to be fixed at the head-end across all state enabled TWC Navigator systems to get it to work properly in all areas? What is causing service fluctuation at the head-ends to cause these "Channel Not Available" bugs? Than the issue is, what needs to be done to fix the problem?

Do you guys believe that the head-end could be strained with subscribers that are running different versions of the software? (i.e Passport, Navigator) Is Navigator updated "differently" than Passport that when on the same server could be causing these issues for some and not for others?

Perhaps the issue is trying to fix a problem when it is not known what is causing the problem in the first place? I agree that some of it could be Navigator, but just as much could be how the head-end signals are DEALING with Navigator.

Jack

I don't know what they are offering you, but DirecTV was far from a value when I called about switching. Don't get me wrong, the extra HD would be nice, but at a cost of almost $40 extra per month coupled with the additional start up cost of an HD DVR at $199 and whatever I'd have to spend to put up a quality aerial for my OTA channels... it just isn't feasible. Of course, I'm not suffering with Navigator just yet, so I understand your pain. Time Warner better do something FAST because I think more and more people will jump ship if they have experiences like you guys.

On a side note, I have six extra outlets. If I had just the one then DirecTV would cost about the same (per month) as what I pay TWC.

With TWC I have 1 HD DVR, 1 HD box, their DP1500 package, the HD suite, and perhaps a couple other small charges.

The Directv offer I got in the mail was $20 off most of their packages for 10 months plus 3 months free HBO, Starz, and Showtime. I rarely watch HBO, but my wife does. I'd drop Starz and Showtime at the end of 3 months.

When I laid out the costs to get an HD DVR and a similar level of service, but more HD channels, I would save $35 for months 1-3, $20 for months 4-10 and $4 after this. The savings in months 1-10 would more than cover the $199 cost of the DVR. Also, I would also be able to reduce my monthly bill in the summer since one of the packages I want is for one channel that carries the Hurricanes games.

Also, I still have my old receivers, I had Directv before they went to the leasing only plan, so I could also hook them up. The rest of the TVs in the house aren't HD capable, except one that we don't use much anymore, so I don't need additional HD receivers from Directv right now.

I don't know what they are offering you, but DirecTV was far from a value when I called about switching. Don't get me wrong, the extra HD would be nice, but at a cost of almost $40 extra per month coupled with the additional start up cost of an HD DVR at $199 and whatever I'd have to spend to put up a quality aerial for my OTA channels... it just isn't feasible. Of course, I'm not suffering with Navigator just yet, so I understand your pain. Time Warner better do something FAST because I think more and more people will jump ship if they have experiences like you guys.

On a side note, I have six extra outlets. If I had just the one then DirecTV would cost about the same (per month) as what I pay TWC.

You obviously don't have a cable box on every TV, or the price difference would be much closer. Check into DishNetwork. The HD-DVR upgrade is free (rather than the $199 with DirecTV) and you could get away with having to pay for only 3 boxes instead of 6 (their boxes each work two TV's). With their DVR Advantage package, I think you could get 3 DVR's (one being the HD model), and have DVR in all 6 rooms with only one $5.95 DVR fee.

Dish doesn't offer Local HD yet here in Columbus, so they are off the radar for me for now. Direct doesn't offer the local CW channel in HD here either, and I've got to get my Smallville and Supernatural in HD! So, I'm sticking with TWC for now. One of the CSR's told me last week that there was a pretty big upgrade to Navigator coming in a few weeks which would hopefully fix the 'failure to record' issues. I've still got a Passport box on my main TV, but I have a Navigator box in my exercise room. So even though it's had its share of problems, it hasn't affected me too much since it's a secondary TV and all the series recordings are duplicated on the old-faithful Passport box.

Not sure if this is the right thread but.. I have a 8300 HDC box hooked up via HDMI to a Samsung5271f. I also have the optical audio hooked up to a receiver (Kenwood VR 407). I cannot figure out how to get surround sound through the receiver.

I go to audio options and the only option is digital - then english or spanish . But I only get stereo sound through the receiver.

Has anyone gotten surround sound through the optical port? Are any channels on TWC (South Manhattan) in 5.1?

Thanks.

I've had something happen 2 weeks in a row now that seems to smack of a reproducible issue in the Navigator software. To recap, I have an 8300HDC on TWC in Cary, NC.

For the second week in a row, the recorder cut off in the middle of Survivor. When I come by about an hour later to watch the show, it still shows "Recording" in the status LED panel, but is not actually recording anything, and Survivor is cut off at the 40 or so minute mark (last week it was right before the final tribal council). A show that should have recorded later had 2 separate error messages, the first for an unresolved conflict, the second for channel not available.

In both cases the recorder was also listed as being 100% full. It's looking like it is not doing a good job of cleaning up old shows that are marked as "save until space needed". I've got 29 Dora episodes, 19 Little Einsteins episodes, etc, as you never know which one the kids will want to watch. All of them marked as "save until space needed", but it did not seem to decide to clean them up.

I've now reset all of them to keep "Last 5 episodes" and manually deleted a few. We'll see if this helps the stability. But cleaning up old shows to make room for new ones is a pretty fundamental DVR function.

Not sure if this is the right thread but.. I have a 8300 HDC box hooked up via HDMI to a Samsung5271f. I also have the optical audio hooked up to a receiver (Kenwood VR 407). I cannot figure out how to get surround sound through the receiver.

I go to audio options and the only option is digital - then english or spanish . But I only get stereo sound through the receiver.

Has anyone gotten surround sound through the optical port? Are any channels on TWC (South Manhattan) in 5.1?

Thanks.

Actually, there is a lot of DD 5.1 on TWC-NYC (LONG before HD I was getting it on the premium channels, my 5.1 receiver is over 6+ years old and I wouldn't have bought it if I got 2 channel all the time). On all of the few HD channels we get, they are mostly encoded in AC/3 (this is what allows multichannel audio 5.1). BUT don't confuse it with actually having audio in all 5 channels. There is a LOT of content that while encoded in DD 5.1... AC/3 simply has little of no content on anything other than the 2 front channels.

Much as I dislike TWC, fair is fair. If th signal they send you IS encoded in AC/3, they HAVE done their jobs. It's up to the source to properly use the technology. As such, if you hook an optical cable from the 8300HDC to your receiver and it does NOT recognize AC/3, DD 5.1, then that IS TWC responsibility. Sounds like ANOTHER in a long list of major bugs in Nagivator.

Actually, there is a lot of DD 5.1 on TWC-NYC (LONG before HD I was getting it on the premium channels, my 5.1 receiver is over 6+ years old and I wouldn't have bought it if I got 2 channel all the time). On all of the few HD channels we get, they are mostly encoded in AC/3 (this is what allows multichannel audio 5.1). BUT don't confuse it with actually having audio in all 5 channels. There is a LOT of content that while encoded in DD 5.1... AC/3 simply has little of no content on anything other than the 2 front channels.

Much as I dislike TWC, fair is fair. If th signal they send you IS encoded in AC/3, they HAVE done their jobs. It's up to the source to properly use the technology. As such, if you hook an optical cable from the 8300HDC to your receiver and it does NOT recognize AC/3, DD 5.1, then that IS TWC responsibility. Sounds like ANOTHER in a long list of major bugs in Nagivator.

I will test tonight and see if it has to do with using the HDMI cable. Perhaps that is the problem, which would be annoying.

Not sure if this is the right thread but.. I have a 8300 HDC box hooked up via HDMI to a Samsung5271f. I also have the optical audio hooked up to a receiver (Kenwood VR 407). I cannot figure out how to get surround sound through the receiver.

I go to audio options and the only option is digital - then english or spanish . But I only get stereo sound through the receiver.

Has anyone gotten surround sound through the optical port? Are any channels on TWC (South Manhattan) in 5.1?

Thanks.

If your television can not receive AC-3, then it will tell the cable box that it cannot handle AC-3 via the Display Data Channel bidirectional bus in the HDMI port, forcing the cable box to convert the AC-3 to decompressed 2-channel PCM audio to the HDMI port, optical out/TOSLINK port, and the S/PDIF RCA audio out port. This is a flaw in all 8300HD and 8300HDC boxes caused by Scientific Atlanta's desire to save money, and not a Navigator nor Time Warner Cable flaw. You can force AC-3 out in Passport (and maybe Navigator, but I don't know), causing your TV to go silent or output garbage audio because it cannot handle AC-3, but causing your surround system to get 5.1 audio which it can decode. If your TV puts garbage on the speakers, mute it. I suggest that you poke around the settings menus to find an option to force AC-3/Dolby Digital out.

By the way, my family has an analog HDTV monitor (it is an early rear projection CRT whose only HD input is component video which can only accept 1080i, 480p, and 480i + two RCA audio inputs), and our cable box uses Passport, so I am no authoritative source. We have gotten 5.1 out of the S/PDIF out from the cable box to our surround sound system, but since our HD monitor is an analog only monitor, it can't tell the cable box that it cannot handle AC-3, allowing the cable box to output AC-3 to the TOSLINK and S/PDIF RCA out ports.

You obviously don't have a cable box on every TV, or the price difference would be much closer. Check into DishNetwork. The HD-DVR upgrade is free (rather than the $199 with DirecTV) and you could get away with having to pay for only 3 boxes instead of 6 (their boxes each work two TV's). With their DVR Advantage package, I think you could get 3 DVR's (one being the HD model), and have DVR in all 6 rooms with only one $5.95 DVR fee.


No, I only have an HD DVR on my primary set as I don't need any other boxes. I get everything via the analog feed that I need. I looked into the multiroom options with Dish, but I don't want all those extra holes in my floor to hook them up. I like my one wire solution from TWC. Plus Dish wants an extra 20 a month for HD. If I were to go with a satellite provider, I would probably go with DirecTV for the expanded HD offerings and the fact that I could use the existing wiring via a distribution multiswitch. I'm not really pushing the issue yet, because we don't have Navigator and I'm satisfied overall with what I'm getting from Time Warner ... for now. What I don't get is why the satco don't put ATSC tuners in ALL the boxes! It just makes sense. The DirecTV rep I talked to couldn't comprehend that question when I posed it to her. She just kept claiming the I would get my locals via satellite. I explained that I couldn't get HD locals from them and that if I had to put up an antenna anyway to get them, then why should I pay extra for the same SD ones! Plus the fact that we have a wealth of OTA content that I'd miss out on. That's another reason I'm sticking with TWC for now, I get all that content and HD locals. I guess I have to wait and see how Navigator pans out for us here.

I just got an 8300HDC box from Time Warner Cable Manhattan. I believe it is running the Navigator software and it's driving me a little nuts. I can't get it to do what my old passport box would do. I have a few questions:

1. Is there any way to prioritize the shows in the series manager so it resolves conflicts automatically, the way I want them to be resolved?

2. Is there a way to prioritize my saved shows so it will delete certain shows before others? All I've figured out how to do is save a show until I manually delete it. On my old box, I could put the shows in the order I wanted and determine which ones would be deleted first.

3. When I'm fast-forwarding and then hit play, the display doesn't jump back enough so I have to always rewind. This is very annoying. Is there any way to solve this? I tried pressing the replay button, but it wouldn't work from fast-forward or pause.

4. How do I enable the auto-erase mode?

Thanks!

1. Is there any way to prioritize the shows in the series manager so it resolves conflicts automatically, the way I want them to be resolved?

In the series manager (hit the "List" button, then the right button to step through the tabs to get to it), scroll to the show whose priority you want to change and press the select button. You can now use the arrows to move it up and down the list.

Not sure on your other questions. I too hate the behavior of the play button when fast-forwarding, I'm always having to back up a bit when skipping commercials.

Thanks, Greg, but there aren't any arrows or any option to change the priority in series manager. That was an option on my old non-HD dvr, but not on the new one.

Daylight Savings Time Ends Soon,

It will be interesting to see how Navigator deals with the time change. As a Passport user, what I have noticed is that every once in a while, when I go to the Movies category and select All Movies that sometimes some of the movies are "missing." This is quickly solved by a warm or cold reboot. I bring this up as an example of how the head-end may sometimes confuse information and how a reboot can synchronize this information. Let's see how the boxes respond to this.

Jack

Thanks, Greg, but there aren't any arrows or any option to change the priority in series manager. That was an option on my old non-HD dvr, but not on the new one.

You are correct, I must have been thinking about my 8300HD. Just tried it a bit ago myself and couldn't change priority either. Sigh.

I got the new 8300HDc box yesterday and I hate it already. It is slower and less responsive than the 8300HD, and the fact that you can't set it to record a first run on a specific channel at a specific time is unbelievable. It is constantly either missing a recording or recording the same program several times because of this terrible interface! What the hell were they thinking?

I got the new 8300HDc box yesterday and I hate it already. It is slower and less responsive than the 8300HD, and the fact that you can't set it to record a first run on a specific channel at a specific time is unbelievable. It is constantly either missing a recording or recording the same program several times because of this terrible interface! What the hell were they thinking?

Welcome Stin!

If you would, post your location in your profile so that we can better evaluate issues with Navigator as they relate to your specific area. Thanks.

Jack

Time Warner Northeast Ohio.

Does anyone know if Time Warner Manhattan will let you trade a Navigator box for a Passport box? Or are they working to solve these software issues? Or am I just going to have to live with this sucky box forever?

Does anyone know if Time Warner Manhattan will let you trade a Navigator box for a Passport box? Or are they working to solve these software issues? Or am I just going to have to live with this sucky box forever?

If your TWC division is still supporting the Passport Program Guide, you should be able to swap the box. The problem is, sometimes you don't know if it is a Navigator or Passport box or not. You might want to call your local office and see if they still have Passport boxes in stock, indicating your problems with the new Navigator. Ask if they have a used (refurbished) box. The new boxes with OCAP technology on them, indicated by a "C" in the model number of the box or DVR will most likely have Navigator. So you'd want a box that DOESN'T have a C in the model number located on the front of the box or DVR.

But you'd better do it soon if you want to swap. If your division has begun the rollout through the new OCAP boxes or a software download you are more likely to be stuck the longer you wait. The bugs won't go on forever, but unfortunately, you might have to get into the first quarter of next year before they are REALLY worked out. This new guide was marketed much too fast, without question. My advice to you is to get a Passport box, hold onto it for as long as you can, and HOPEFULLY by next year Navigator's bugs will be worked out. At least most divisions, if not all,have stopped the download of the new guide to the legacy boxes until the bugs can be worked out. (Haven't heard of any Navigator downloads since March or April.) Good luck!

Jack

If your TWC division is still supporting the Passport Program Guide, you should be able to swap the box. The problem is, sometimes you don't know if it is a Navigator or Passport box or not. You might want to call your local office and see if they still have Passport boxes in stock, indicating your problems with the new Navigator. Ask if they have a used (refurbished) box. The new boxes with OCAP technology on them, indicated by a "C" in the model number of the box or DVR will most likely have Navigator. So you'd want a box that DOESN'T have a C in the model number located on the front of the box or DVR.

But you'd better do it soon if you want to swap. If your division has begun the rollout through the new OCAP boxes or a software download you are more likely to be stuck the longer you wait. The bugs won't go on forever, but unfortunately, you might have to get into the first quarter of next year before they are REALLY worked out. This new guide was marketed much too fast, without question. My advice to you is to get a Passport box, hold onto it for as long as you can, and HOPEFULLY by next year Navigator's bugs will be worked out. At least most divisions, if not all,have stopped the download of the new guide to the legacy boxes until the bugs can be worked out. (Haven't heard of any Navigator downloads since March or April.) Good luck!

JackJust a refresher on what REALLY is going on here:
1) FCC Rulings as of 7/1/07 effectively prohibited most cable companies from deploying NEW cable boxes with "Integrated Security". Therefore any NEW cable boxes had to use CableCards (that's the "C" in the model number that you referred to).
1a) These rulings do allow cable companies to "recycle" used boxes (one's without CableCards) - but these are usually in short supply, and often have problems (because someone else exchanged it because of a problem).
2) The CableCard boxes require (minor) changes in the operating software (Passport).
3) TW did not want to pay Aptiv for the updated (Passport) software needed and because these new ("C") boxes were more capable of running TW's own Navigator, they decided to use that on these new boxes. NOTE: These boxes are often referred to as OCAP boxes. They ARE NOT inherently OCAP - they have more memory and are certified to RUN OCAP, as well as legacy applications (compatible versions of Passport & SARA).

Subtle points, perhaps, but the bottom line is the same: Hang onto your Passport box until TW gets this thing ready for "prime time" (heaven knows that they have had enough time). :cool:

Does anyone know if Time Warner Manhattan will let you trade a Navigator box for a Passport box? Or are they working to solve these software issues? Or am I just going to have to live with this sucky box forever?I hope I answered this in my last post. The odds are that you will have a hard time getting an old (non CableCard) box that works reliably (because many that they have on hand may have been exchanged by other customers because of problems that may not be fixed). Off hand (but I am not familiar with your local situation) your best odds of getting a "Passport" box would be to schedule a service call - the tech may have an old box in his truck. Locals will have a better handle on this though.

Russb

I read the explanations of Narrow, Normal and Wide. In my case, using analog stereo output, the volume level of Normal or Wide is insufficient even for the loudest audio passage, let alone quietest.

Is Normal the pass through setting?

I must be losing it.
I don't even see the Narrow/Normal//Wide option in my settings for my 8300HD. Is it only available in certain modes?

I must be losing it.
I don't even see the Narrow/Normal//Wide option in my settings for my 8300HD. Is it only available in certain modes?It's in Settings/Devices/Audio:Range

I must be losing it.
I don't even see the Narrow/Normal//Wide option in my settings for my 8300HD. Is it only available in certain modes?I recall from some earlier discussions (around a year ago) that these settings were enabled on a local basis. I just checked - we don't have them in Rochester.

Weird, we have them in Central New York. Rome/Syracuse/Utica.

I recall from some earlier discussions (around a year ago) that these settings were enabled on a local basis. I just checked - we don't have them in Rochester.This is a Navigator feature and your signiture shows you have SARA.

Hi,

I'm in TWC Manhattan with a Explorer 8300HDC. I've tried 4 cold reboots tonight, and my Guide is showing "Data Not Available" for all the channels. This is screwing around with the DVR recordings I have scheduled tonight so I am manually recording.

I've searched through these posts and understand this cable box is a work in process. I've experienced all the other issues, such as the black screens, the freezes, etc, but those are usually remedied with a reboot. This is not going away, has anyone else in the NYC area experienced this? This is starting to get on my nerves.

Thanks for your help

This is a Navigator feature and your signiture shows you have SARA.You have a point (this is a Navigator thread) and I'll admit that I lost track of which thread I was on. However, this has been a long standing feature of SARA on many systems (perhaps on Passport too). It's just that it is there on some systems, and not on others (even those with the same version number).

Hi,

I'm in TWC Manhattan with a Explorer 8300HDC. I've tried 4 cold reboots tonight, and my Guide is showing "Data Not Available" for all the channels. This is screwing around with the DVR recordings I have scheduled tonight so I am manually recording.

I've searched through these posts and understand this cable box is a work in process. I've experienced all the other issues, such as the black screens, the freezes, etc, but those are usually remedied with a reboot. This is not going away, has anyone else in the NYC area experienced this? This is starting to get on my nerves.

Thanks for your help

I have the same problem here. I tried dialing TWC but got a busy signal.

Hi,

I'm in TWC Manhattan with a Explorer 8300HDC. I've tried 4 cold reboots tonight, and my Guide is showing "Data Not Available" for all the channels. This is screwing around with the DVR recordings I have scheduled tonight so I am manually recording.

I've searched through these posts and understand this cable box is a work in process. I've experienced all the other issues, such as the black screens, the freezes, etc, but those are usually remedied with a reboot. This is not going away, has anyone else in the NYC area experienced this? This is starting to get on my nerves.

Thanks for your help

you should head to your local HD thread.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=45

On Passport the other night,

I was having "No Data" issues between 11pm-12:00am despite a reboot. I wonder if their head-end got messed up with the end of Daylight Savings Time. Today, things seem to be back to normal. Maybe this is more of a head-end signal issue than a Navigator or in my case Passport issue?

Jack

I'm also having the no data available problem. I called Time Warner Manhattan. Apparently it's an issue coming out of the office that is affecting a lot of people. I was told they are trying to fix it. They would not give an estimate as to when it would be fixed.

I also tried manually recording my programs tonight, but could only record in four hour (7-11pm) blocks. Have you figured out how to manually record for shorter periods of time?

I'm also having the no data available problem. I called Time Warner Manhattan. Apparently it's an issue coming out of the office that is affecting a lot of people. I was told they are trying to fix it. They would not give an estimate as to when it would be fixed.

I also tried manually recording my programs tonight, but could only record in four hour (7-11pm) blocks. Have you figured out how to manually record for shorter periods of time?

Unfortunately I ran into the same limitation.

Hmmmm, we had a guide problem on SARA similar to that. For a few days I would get "No Information Available" and when I called about it, TWC was already aware of it and had a pre-recorded message acknowledging it. It was fixed a day later, but when I went to my father's house a town over, he was still having the same problem. This was said to be a headend problem where the guide data would not load into the boxes. I don't know if it's the same issue there, but we are on SARA here. I know it's easy to place the blame on Navigator, but this may not be a Navigator issue.

Sorry to deviate from the thread,

But what are the main differences and similarities between doing a manual recording and a time recording from the IPG?

Jack

PS. I have never used or needed to use manual recording.

I have SARA and I have the option to select Normal, Narrow, or Wide for the Audio: Range, so you are correct.
You have a point (this is a Navigator thread) and I'll admit that I lost track of which thread I was on. However, this has been a long standing feature of SARA on many systems (perhaps on Passport too). It's just that it is there on some systems, and not on others (even those with the same version number).

$%$^%@$^@*$^% Navigator!

Drive at 64% full; two recordings scheduled simultaneously - one one hour, one two hour. Watched one of the channels while it was recording (red light indicator was on the whole time).

Neither show actually recorded - logs for both show "disk full".

Nothing new here, I know - just need to vent. I know that Navigator (for whatever silly reason) needs twice as much space as the actual recording (3 hrs x 2 = 6 hrs), but 64% should yield 6 hrs, no? And besides - let's say it could not do them both.... why the *#$&*#$^@ could it not record at least one of them? Or, banish the thought - record as much as it could and drop the rest (like it does with other normal recordings with plenty of space when it just feels like acting out).

I'm typically of the "I can live with it" camp, but one of these days that box is going to take a trip through my window.

Sorry to deviate from the thread,

But what are the main differences and similarities between doing a manual recording and a time recording from the IPG?

Jack

PS. I have never used or needed to use manual recording.
I use a manual recording when football games screw up the schedule on Sundays. This week I set one up to record from 9:00PM to 12:00AM to get all of Cold Case and Shark. I've also used it the last couple of weeks because of Grey's Anatomy being extended for 7 extra minutes.

I got the new 8300HDc box yesterday and I hate it already. It is slower and less responsive than the 8300HD, and the fact that you can't set it to record a first run on a specific channel at a specific time is unbelievable. It is constantly either missing a recording or recording the same program several times because of this terrible interface! What the hell were they thinking?

I could swear I read that Nagivator will NOT record a show if it (same episode) already existed on the DVR... like it had some intelligence to know what episode had been recorded. I took that to be a great feature...

I hope I answered this in my last post. The odds are that you will have a hard time getting an old (non CableCard) box that works reliably (because many that they have on hand may have been exchanged by other customers because of problems that may not be fixed). Off hand (but I am not familiar with your local situation) your best odds of getting a "Passport" box would be to schedule a service call - the tech may have an old box in his truck. Locals will have a better handle on this though.

Far as I can tell, on 7/2/07, TWC-NY would ONLY hand out HDC boxes. As you said, they COULD have handed out refurb Passport boxes (when I got my 8300HD, it sure as hell LOOKED like a refurb, it did NOT come in a box AND had black smudges making it look "used." I "objected" but they said I either take it or bring the non HD DVR back home. That leads me to suspect it was policy to no longer provide "Passport" boxes and I HATE to say it, but from it makes sense from THEIR perspective.

I've got every finger and toe crossed in the hope that my 8300HD keeps on working... until they force Nagivator on IT!

Even the process in "fixing" the problem isn't really fixing at all,

When people schedule a service call and have been Navigated, as you know, the first thing they do is replace the box. But, I'll bet the most of the time it's not a box issue, but the buggy Navigator software on it and/or how the local head-end is interpreting the signals. These missed recording issues really remain a mystery as to why they are occurring so often.

Jack

But, I'll bet the most of the time it's not a box issue, but the buggy Navigator software on it and/or how the local head-end is interpreting the signals. These missed recording issues really remain a mystery as to why they are occurring so often.

Jack

Agreed. Matter of fact, I doubt the issue is EVER a fault of the hardware (with the exception of the distribution wiring and it's associated hardware).

Has anyone who has SARA received or been told when they will receive NAVIGATOR? SARA 1.89.17.1 Greensboro NC here.

Has anyone who has SARA received or been told when they will receive NAVIGATOR? SARA 1.89.17.1 Greensboro NC here.Woody, chill................You can't trust ANYTHING that TW says (cause they try not to say anything).

All we have been told is 1st quarter of 2008 for the switch from SARA to Navigator.

I asked TW Manhattan about switching to a Passport box. It is not an option.

I had something weird happen to my audio during the playback of some shows that I recorded in HD last night. Half way through Monday's recorded episode of Heroes, the sound went out. The background music could still be heard, but the voices went out. I had to turn on closed captioning to be able to view the rest of th episode. Why could I hear the music, but not the dialog? It was the same with Journeyman. I recorded other HD shows the same night (Weeds) but it was fine. Only the NBC shows. Any clues?

Could have been an encoding problem with the Dolby Digital. Maybe the center channel was missing? I watched Heroes last night and mine was ok. I'll try to watch Journeyman tonight and see if it had any problems. Could have been an issue on the local level.

I had something weird happen to my audio during the playback of some shows that I recorded in HD last night. Half way through Monday's recorded episode of Heroes, the sound went out. The background music could still be heard, but the voices went out. I had to turn on closed captioning to be able to view the rest of th episode. Why could I hear the music, but not the dialog? It was the same with Journeyman. I recorded other HD shows the same night (Weeds) but it was fine. Only the NBC shows. Any clues?

Only that I have also experienced this... but it was a week or two ago. I suspect it was a center channel that didn't function. Surprising as that is something that typically is done long before broadcast. My experience was that it lasted about 12 minutes or so.

Tough to know for sure who frakked up, the source or the distribution (in my case TWC-NYC, Passport). This is why we ask folks to have the courtesy of listing their information (system, box, software, location).

Only that I have also experienced this... but it was a week or two ago. I suspect it was a center channel that didn't function. Surprising as that is something that typically is done long before broadcast. My experience was that it lasted about 12 minutes or so.I've seen (well heard) this issue before. It is usually due to some screw up at the local station (or even the network). Nothing to do with cable (or the software that cable is using).

I had something weird happen to my audio during the playback of some shows that I recorded in HD last night. Half way through Monday's recorded episode of Heroes, the sound went out. The background music could still be heard, but the voices went out. I had to turn on closed captioning to be able to view the rest of th episode. Why could I hear the music, but not the dialog? It was the same with Journeyman. I recorded other HD shows the same night (Weeds) but it was fine. Only the NBC shows. Any clues?

Turns out it wasn't just me. Several people I know had the same problem that night. Only the NBC HD channel. Must have been a TWC issue. :confused:

Turns out it wasn't just me. Several people I know had the same problem that night. Only the NBC HD channel. Must have been a TWC issue. :confused:Tell me: how on earth could the center channel missing on the 5.1 bitstream be a TWC issue? Cable does NOTHING with the audio bitstream.

Tough to know for sure who frakked up, the source or the distribution (in my case TWC-NYC, Passport). This is why we ask folks to have the courtesy of listing their information (system, box, software, location).

Info below.

Tell me: how on earth could the center channel missing on the 5.1 bitstream be a TWC issue? Cable does NOTHING with the audio bitstream.

Ease up. Don't get your panties in a wad.:p I'm not an expert on this. Hence posting on these boards. I have no CLUE what a 5.1 bitstream is or if it is or isn't a TWC issue or not. We're not all expert techs here. Just trying to figure what the problem could possibly be.

Ease up. Don't get your panties in a wad.:p I'm not an expert on this. Hence posting on these boards. I have no CLUE what a 5.1 bitstream is or if it is or isn't a TWC issue or not. We're not all expert techs here. Just trying to figure what the problem could possibly be.I'll tell you what gets my "panties in a wad" here: the automatic blaming of ANY problem on TWC ("Must have been a TWC issue.") . Granted, there are so many problems with Navigator, it is not surprising folks blame EVERYTHING on TW. Yes, not everyone is a technical expert - but I did post the following 5 hours earlier:
I've seen (well heard) this issue before. It is usually due to some screw up at the local station (or even the network). Nothing to do with cable (or the software that cable is using).But you still conclude that:Must have been a TWC issue.
So if you came to the conclusion that it was a TWC issue, I asked for an explanation of how it could happen. Folks should be prepared to back up their conclusions.

I'll tell you what gets my "panties in a wad" here: the automatic blaming of ANY problem on TWC ("Must have been a TWC issue.") . Granted, there are so many problems with Navigator, it is not surprising folks blame EVERYTHING on TW. Yes, not everyone is a technical expert - but I did post the following 5 hours earlier:
But you still conclude that:
So if you came to the conclusion that it was a TWC issue, I asked for an explanation of how it could happen. Folks should be prepared to back up their conclusions.

I hadn't seen your post when I made my "assumption" so forgive me for my grievous mistake. And even if I had If I don't know anything about 5.1 bitstreams, then how am I supposed to know what is and isn't a cable problem? Several people that I work with had the SAME PROBLEM and we ALL have TWC cable HD DVRs. So yes, the first assumption is that it is the cable signal. And I just explained in my last post that I'm not a technical expert. All I'm saying is there are others on here that obviously don't have the technical knowledge to know whether or not an issue is Cable related. That's why I posted in the first place, to try and get some answers. I didn't know that there was a knowledge level requirement to post here.

Which is exactly why I made the comment about system and location. While the likelihood is low TWC is at fault, I wouldn't be so quick forcefully state the issue is NOT theirs until I heard more data. Which is exactly why I mentioned knowing a posters system, STB software location etc.

Like I said, I HAVE experienced this issue. But NOT for the shows mentioned... which I did watch. So it would seem not to be a network issue. The fact we both are in TWC is irrelevant, TWC is all about local systems. Given limited data, the possibilities for fault are local stations and TWC.

BTW, the "bitstream" referred to is essentially the signal that you receive.

I hadn't seen your post when I made my "assumption" so forgive me for my grievous mistake. And even if I had If I don't know anything about 5.1 bitstreams, then how am I supposed to know what is and isn't a cable problem? Several people that I work with had the SAME PROBLEM and we ALL have TWC cable HD DVRs. So yes, the first assumption is that it is the cable signal. And I just explained in my last post that I'm not a technical expert. All I'm saying is there are others on here that obviously don't have the technical knowledge to know whether or not an issue is Cable related. That's why I posted in the first place, to try and get some answers. I didn't know that there was a knowledge level requirement to post here.OK, it's not that there is any knowledge level required to post, but gee-couldn't you just look at the last few posts to see if there was an answer (there was)?

There is a mixture of folks posting here, and some good, interesting technical dialog often takes place (and we all learn things). Most of the more technical folks are happy to reduce it down to terms that all can understand, but we don't need to be accused of getting our "panites in a wad" in the process.

Peace (just ease up on the "blame TWC" trigger).

we have recently in Columbus, Ohio been having similar issues with audio on NBC, we have also had the HD signal break up to a point where it is unwatchable. I originally thought TWC was having a problem, but when I went to the Antenna and watched the OTA signal it was doing the same thing. Apparently a lot of NBC affiliates have been having problems with their Digital Streams from NBC Corp. Considering TWC gets their feed of NBC via fiber from the local NBC affiliate it is safe to say that the affiliate is having the problems.


TWC Mid-Ohio - Passport 2.6.002

Considering TWC gets their feed of NBC via fiber from the local NBC affiliate it is safe to say that the affiliate is having the problems.How TW (or any cable company) gets their local feeds vary from market to market. As often as not, they get it OTA. In Rochester, for example, two stations (ABC & PBS) feed via fiber, the remainder are OTA.

OK, it's not that there is any knowledge level required to post, but gee-couldn't you just look at the last few posts to see if there was an answer (there was)?

There is a mixture of folks posting here, and some good, interesting technical dialog often takes place (and we all learn things). Most of the more technical folks are happy to reduce it down to terms that all can understand, but we don't need to be accused of getting our "panites in a wad" in the process.

Peace (just ease up on the "blame TWC" trigger).

So, I guess world hunger and the drought aren't TWC's fault either :). Thanks for the feedback, and I shouldn't have read too much tone in your reply, but it felt a little condescending. And actually I did read the last posts, but again, there were several options put out there and as a non-techie, I wouldn't know which one would be correct or not. It's kind of like explaining color to a blind man :cool: I will be more careful with my beration of TWC in the future. At the very least, I'll save it until I get pushed Navigator;)

I am using the explorer 8300 hdc. I am on box #3. I am having the problem of the box stop recording scheduled shows and eventually not allowing me to rewind a show. I have read enough of this thread to realize (correct me if I'm wrong) that this is a problem that hasn't been resolved yet. The only solution I have found is a reboot.

So here is what I am going to do, I am plugging this DVR into a timer and have the timer turn off in the wee hours of the morning and come back on a few minutes later to force a reboot every night, maybe then this will be a usable DVR.

What do you guys think?

BTW I am on TWC in Raleigh NC, I wish I had a good shot to the sky, this has been enough frustration to make me want to switch to a dish,

Thanks for your time

MAC

Has anyone who has SARA received or been told when they will receive NAVIGATOR? SARA 1.89.17.1 Greensboro NC here.

Speaking of this, does anyone else have a channel on digital cable called "Navigator Information"? On Time Warner, NE Ohio, we've had a channel 01 since March that shows the different menus of Navigator on a loop.

Question to anyone in an area that already rolled out Navigator:

What happened before the switch?

Is this channel a sign of something to come soon?

bakeman123

I don't know if you're in IT or not but this is a very, very good idea. I've implemented that same type of forced daily reboot in several systems I've consulted. On the assumption that there are memory leaks in the application or OCAP layers (which fits with the kind of flaky behavior we experience), a forced reboot is easiest,fastest way to temporarily resolve.

I've been unplugging mine 1-2x week for a while now, it will definitely help.

Maybe thats why I haven't had *any* scheduling problems. So far, in about 10 weeks, I haven't missed a show. I've had other problems but not that.

bakeman123

I don't know if you're in IT or not but this is a very, very good idea. I've implemented that same type of forced daily reboot in several systems I've consulted. On the assumption that there are memory leaks in the application or OCAP layers (which fits with the kind of flaky behavior we experience), a forced reboot is easiest,fastest way to temporarily resolve.

I've been unplugging mine 1-2x week for a while now, it will definitely help.

Maybe thats why I haven't had *any* scheduling problems. So far, in about 10 weeks, I haven't missed a show. I've had other problems but not that.

I've also tried to reboot about once a week or so because of shows not recorded and audio dropout on HD channels(the worst is usually FOX). With a weekly reboot, the box has been recording OK(knock on wood) and I haven't had too many problems. I've actually warmed up to Navigator now. At first I HATED it, after learning the "tricks" to it, it's not too bad. Still does need work, though.

bakeman123

I don't know if you're in IT or not but this is a very, very good idea. I've implemented that same type of forced daily reboot in several systems I've consulted. On the assumption that there are memory leaks in the application or OCAP layers (which fits with the kind of flaky behavior we experience), a forced reboot is easiest,fastest way to temporarily resolve.

I've been unplugging mine 1-2x week for a while now, it will definitely help.

Maybe thats why I haven't had *any* scheduling problems. So far, in about 10 weeks, I haven't missed a show. I've had other problems but not that.

No not IT, far from it, but my mind is always working to figure out how to solve problems. I have had no help from TWC concerning this matter, and I just figured I would do a daily reboot, this solution will help keep me from forgetting. This has been a frustrating problem and since I have no choice except for TWC I gotta make it work.

MAC

The thing that makes me nervous about frequent reboots is the possible damage to the hard drive's file system. I have an external drive and its obvious that there is constant I/O even when the DVR is turned off. I would assume that if I didn't have the external drive, the same sort of I/O would be occurring on the internal drive. It always worrys me, when I reboot, that it's going to abort something that's writing something critical to the drive, leaving the file system in an inconsistant state. Maybe they have some sort of self-healing file system but, considering the quality of the rest of their software and the occasional reports of hard drives needing reformatting, I tend to doubt it.

The thing that makes me nervous about frequent reboots is the possible damage to the hard drive's file system. I have an external drive and its obvious that there is constant I/O even when the DVR is turned off. I would assume that if I didn't have the external drive, the same sort of I/O would be occurring on the internal drive. It always worry s me, when I reboot, that it's going to abort something that's writing something critical to the drive, leaving the file system in an inconsistent state. Maybe they have some sort of self-healing file system but, considering the quality of the rest of their software and the occasional reports of hard drives needing reformatting, I tend to doubt it.

I don't think that the occasional reboot will hurt anything, especially if you have problems. I still have Passport and get stuck with an end of Daylight Savings Time issue, where the guide displayed "No Data" between 11pm-12am. After a reboot (maybe two, but one for sure) I found out that this wasn't a converter issue, but a signal head-end issue. Whether you had/have Passport, Sara, or Navigator, if it's a head-end issue, it becomes a moot point.

I would suggest to TWC in the interim as they research this "Channel Not Available" bug, particularly with series recordings to activate the head-end with some sort of automatic reboot process once a week sometime between 4am-6am (or whenever viewership is lowest.) At least the head-end data could be refreshed regularly and people who's TV outlets/surge protectors might be in awkward positions don't have to go through the crap of unplugging the converter every week.

Another tip for Navigator users would be to do what I do on Passport. I don't use the Series Manager because I don't trust it, and I don't want to clutter up the hard drive with episodes I don't like. So what I do is the following:

1.) Set each show to record individually. In other words, I don't treat a series as a series, but I go through and based on the IPG description, I can tell the DVR exactly what I want and I know that what I DON'T want, won't be recording.

2.) If you have a show that you value, DON'T set something else to record at the same time slot. (Especially with Navigator) We know that the Recording Log Conflict Manager for Navigator is not reliable. So try to program your shows so that Navigator only has one thing to do at a time. If you REALLY have a show that is critical, pop a VCR tape in or if you have a DVD burner, do that. Than, you will have a backup IF Navigator craps out in the middle of a recording.

3.) If you have episodes of a series that didn't record, or you are concerned about them, the best workaround is to delete each show in the series manager and schedule the programs individually. Elaborating on suggestion #1, the reasoning for this is two-fold:

a.) Navigator often does not know how to deal with "New" series recordings, because there is some issues as to what (for Navigator) makes something a "new recording." If the "New recording" information is coming from the head-end and the head end is being updated once a week, for some reason, it is not known if the IPG for Navigator says:

"OK was this new at the time it was programed by the user?" OR

b.) Is this no longer "new" because the head-end data has been updated?" Translation: "Channel Not Available" happens due to the signal head-end information and Navigator are not synchronizing with each other?

Now if the above is happening to you with a series in the Series Manager, and you get the "Channel Not Available" bug, you are going to have.........a mess. At least by INDIVIDUALLY selecting episodes, you would have less of a chance of seeing the "Channel Not Available" bug because the newest shows are supposed to be recorded as first priority. By individually selecting shows, Navigator "thinks" that they are not part of a "series" and using this method MIGHT cause more reliable box behavior.

This sounds more and more with how the Navigator software deals with head-end signals, and may have nothing to do with the box hardware itself.

Jack

The thing that makes me nervous about frequent reboots is the possible damage to the hard drive's file system. I have an external drive and its obvious that there is constant I/O even when the DVR is turned off. I would assume that if I didn't have the external drive, the same sort of I/O would be occurring on the internal drive. It always worrys me, when I reboot, that it's going to abort something that's writing something critical to the drive, leaving the file system in an inconsistant state. Maybe they have some sort of self-healing file system but, considering the quality of the rest of their software and the occasional reports of hard drives needing reformatting, I tend to doubt it.

Does anyone know how to reboot the 8300HDC from the front panel or remote? I'd like to reboot it now and then when there's not a problem but hate pulling the plug.

Does anyone know how to reboot the 8300HDC from the front panel or remote? I'd like to reboot it now and then when there's not a problem but hate pulling the plug.

On the front panel-
Press vol- and vol+ at the same time
While these buttons are pressed, also press the info button on the left side.

Voila!

Good luck

Skid

I use the series recording manager for all my recording, some twice at once. I haven't had any misses. I have had some trouble with the box locking up if 2 recordings start and I'm watching a 3rd. Sometimes I'll get a conflict message pop up asking me to change something...2-3 times its just locked up requiring reboot.

So the only thing I'm careful to do is make sure I'm watching one of the channels when 1 of the recordings start.

No way would I have patience to reschedule everything once per week.

Speaking of this, does anyone else have a channel on digital cable called "Navigator Information"? On Time Warner, NE Ohio, we've had a channel 01 since March that shows the different menus of Navigator on a loop.

Question to anyone in an area that already rolled out Navigator:

What happened before the switch?

Is this channel a sign of something to come soon?

We are still Passport here and our Channel 1 is a mixture of Answers on Demand tutorials that include such things as:

How to use Parental Control.

How to set up PPV and VOD purchase pins and blocking pins

How to use DVR features.

It's also used for community based programing and TWC promotions.

And than if you want or need to view tutorials at any time 24x7 you go to the Answers on Demand Channel. (In Milwaukee, it's channel 1999) to get the instructional videos that you can watch, stop, RR, and FF, at any time. They cover the basics, but are very helpful, especially for new users of DVR's.

I think you guys with Navigator can go to your AOD channel by pressing Help on your remote or just going to the AOD channel in your Program Guide.

Jack

For all you folks going through the Navigator 'upgrade' you are in for a long frustrating experience. That said, if you can wait it out, it's not bad. We actually put a 'press on' thumb switch on the power cord of our 8300HD so we could power the unit off/on without unplugging.

Don

I use the series recording manager for all my recording, some twice at once. I haven't had any misses. I have had some trouble with the box locking up if 2 recordings start and I'm watching a 3rd. Sometimes I'll get a conflict message pop up asking me to change something...2-3 times its just locked up requiring reboot.

So the only thing I'm careful to do is make sure I'm watching one of the channels when 1 of the recordings start.

No way would I have patience to reschedule everything once per week.Me neither. Besides, I travel enough to make that totally unworkable. I'd be better off using my Instant Replay (which is rock solid reliable) and settle for SD.

After several lost recording problems in the DVR's first week of usage, I too have had no problems with the series manager. Like you, I've had other annoying situations that required rebooting, but series recording seems to be more reliable. Unlike you, I don't need to avoid watching a recording when another is scheduled to begin. In fact, that's my normal pattern: While the DVR records tonight's material, I'm watching stuff I recorded last week, sans commercials.

I haven't had a lockup, just the occasional (every 10-12 days) blank screen when I switch back to live TV. The menus still work; just no program material.

Last night I was watching football in HD on the local NBC channel when I noticed the picture quality wasn't HD. Graphics in particular has rough edges on them like the picture had be down-res'ed a bit. I switched to OTA and all was good there. I checked other cable HD channels and all had the same problem. Finally I cold booted the 8300HDC and all was well again. I've scanned this forum but didn't notice a similar problem.

After the game was over, I left the room but left the TV and box on. About 30 minutes later I noticed no sound and went back to check on it. The box had spontaneously re-booted. Does Time Warner do updates without warning including a re-boot?

I'm new to this and just learning about all the Navigator glitches. How do you check the version info?

I upgraded to Navigator over the weekend and connected 500GB external drive via SATA. I received the prompt to format the drive etc. Now I want to go into diag to confirm the hard drive is recognized. Any suggestions? There are 16 pages on the diag and I cannot field the appropriate field. Passport was much easier to verify.

There's nothing in my diag pages that has anything to do with either drive; wish they did. Your only indication acknowledging the new drive is the percent on the List page.

Are you sure about 16 pages? My diag report only has 9.

After the game was over, I left the room but left the TV and box on. About 30 minutes later I noticed no sound and went back to check on it. The box had spontaneously re-booted. Does Time Warner do updates without warning including a re-boot?

The only time I know for sure TW did an update here was at about midnight, you probably are just seeing what I see - spontaneous reboots. I'm on my 4th HD box since September - the first one was an 8300HD and died after a couple of days, the second and third boxes (HDC's) rebooted pretty much daily. The 4th HDC only reboots every 3 to 5 days.


I'm new to this and just learning about all the Navigator glitches. How do you check the version info?

On the remote press the select key until the mail icon shows on the front panel and then press the down button underneath it. The version numbers are on the first page, mine is 2.4.5_4.

Jim

Just for info, my parents just got a new non-HD DVR and it has Passport (SA-8000). This would be TW-Orange County-Huntington Beach (Los Angeles). I was assuming they would get Navigator and I went to check it out.
Dan

Dan, has Time Warner deployed Navigator in that market already? If they have, I don't why they would go back to Passport unless they realize what a disaster Navigator is. From the reports coming in here, Navigator is still nowhere close to even being at a stage where they should continue with a rollout. I'm hoping we keep our SARA software until at least a time when Navigator get a significant upgrade. The daily/spontaneous reboots are absurd.

Dan, has Time Warner deployed Navigator in that market already? If they have, I don't why they would go back to Passport unless they realize what a disaster Navigator is. From the reports coming in here, Navigator is still nowhere close to even being at a stage where they should continue with a rollout. I'm hoping we keep our SARA software until at least a time when Navigator get a significant upgrade. The daily/spontaneous reboots are absurd.
I may have missed the obvious, thanks. Maybe no Navigator being deployed yet. We were supposed to start last spring per their mailings, and I thought after July 1 they were trying not to issue Passport units everywhere, only cablecard units with Navigator. I will need to keep my ears open for someone else getting a new HD DVR. /Dan

An 8000? I'm surprised they are still giving those out, especially with Navigator coming in the near future. From what I've heard, it seems the whole 8000 series of DVRs was bad. I had the 8000HD with Passport and it didn't work well. I can't imagine Navigator running on an older box like an 8000 or some of the Pioneer SD boxes. You think they would start giving 8300HDCs with Navigator to everyone by now.

An 8000? I'm surprised they are still giving those out, especially with Navigator coming in the near future. From what I've heard, it seems the whole 8000 series of DVRs was bad. I had the 8000HD with Passport and it didn't work well. I can't imagine Navigator running on an older box like an 8000 or some of the Pioneer SD boxes. You think they would start giving 8300HDCs with Navigator to everyone by now.

They weren't all bad, but they did have more quality issues. By the time I gave mine up for an 8300HD, the firmware was fine and the 8000HD was quite stable and reliable. The only reason I gave it up was for the eSATA port on the 8300HD. That said - no way would I want one with Navigator on it!

xnappo

When adding an eSata drive to the 8300HDC, does it preserve existing recordings when you format the disk? Or will it wipe everything on both the external drive and on the DVR itself?

An 8000? I'm surprised they are still giving those out, especially with Navigator coming in the near future. From what I've heard, it seems the whole 8000 series of DVRs was bad. I had the 8000HD with Passport and it didn't work well. I can't imagine Navigator running on an older box like an 8000 or some of the Pioneer SD boxes. You think they would start giving 8300HDCs with Navigator to everyone by now.

I don't think that the 8000 series was bad. But it was/is an older model. Dan may have seen a refurbished box with Passport on it. There are thousands out there. A poster here (from Ohio I think) commented that they recalled a bunch of OCAP boxes (8300C DVR's) because they all had buggy new Navigator on them and the techs were giving out 8000 DVR's with Passport.

But what I heard was that if you are going to new TWC offices in markets with Navigator, all of the new boxes are now "C" (cable card boxes) with Navigator. You almost have to call if you are having problems with your new Navigator box, set up a service appointment, and REQUEST in the call that the tech bring out a non-OCAP box. (i.e any box or DVR that doesn't have a "C" in the model number.) That's the best way out of a Navigator debacle if you are having problems. But it is not guaranteed because some markets MAY HAVE downloaded Navigator to some of the used boxes back in January-April (meaning non C boxes.) But soon, (until the downloads start on the legacy boxes and DVR's) the ONLY way you will have a chance at a non-Navigator unit is to try to get a non-C box.

There are three questions here:

1.) Has ANYONE received Navigator on their existing boxes or DVR's since April 2007? (I am trying to figure out of TWC is only doing Navigator on factory installed OCAP boxes at this time.) The MORE likely that this answer is NO, the more likely you are able to get a used box with Passport/Sara on it. (Depending on what your division uses.)

2.) When is Navigator going to start to be downloaded to legacy boxes? Everyone should call, write, or e-mail their local TWC office for information and please post the findings here!

3.) Have any TWC divisions (and what divisions?) studied the problems with Navigator and said, "We are not going to roll out this Guide to anyone?" Could Brighthouse Cable in Florida, which is independent from TWC, or any local TWC division who doesn't want Navigator say, "We are just going to pay Passport/Sara for the updates" and go with that? Such updates would allow for things like SDV and more HD channels, games, and polling, without going to Navigator.

Thanks to those who told me that Sara can run SDV now. Please post your thoughts and findings here:

Jack

PS. I have also read some bad news for TWC from several sources: As a sidenote, of their approximately 1.6 million subscribers, over the last several months, they lost 83,000. The reasoning has been that customers were not happy with the service, and the lack of HD offerings compared to Direct TV and Dish Network. Here in Wisconsin, there is a lot of outrage over TWC and Charter Cable not being able to carry The Big Ten Network, whereas dish can provide it. The owners of the network want it on standard service at $1.10/per month for each subscriber in the Big Ten states and .10 more per month for non Big Ten states. Time Warner wants the channel on the optional Digital Sports Package so that those who don't want it, don't have to pay for it. For the record, most of the subscriber loses came from LA and cities in Texas. (Some areas of these states HAVE been "Navigated." )

However, it should be noted that, the New Navigator Guide was never given as a reason for the subscriber loss. But I wonder if it has something to do with it.

When adding an eSata drive to the 8300HDC, does it preserve existing recordings when you format the disk? Or will it wipe everything on both the external drive and on the DVR itself?

It kept existing recordings on the internal drive in the DVR. It's only formatting the new "drive" it discovers.

3.) Have any TWC divisions (and what divisions?) studied the problems with Navigator and said, "We are not going to roll out this Guide to anyone?" Could Brighthouse Cable in Florida, which is independent from TWC, or any local TWC division who doesn't want Navigator say, "We are just going to pay Passport/Sara for the updates" and go with that? Such updates would allow for things like SDV and more HD channels, games, and polling, without going to Navigator.I can confirm the Brighthouse-Indiana (which is the same company as BHN-FL) is rolling out 8300HDC's with Navigator. I have one. :( When I took my HDC back and tried to get an HD w/ Sara (non C older box) - the lady behind the counter said that they were out of them - even though they had one on display in the waiting area. I even tried to talk her into trading that one to me - no dice.

Dan, has Time Warner deployed Navigator in that market already? If they have, I don't why they would go back to Passport unless they realize what a disaster Navigator is. From the reports coming in here, Navigator is still nowhere close to even being at a stage where they should continue with a rollout. I'm hoping we keep our SARA software until at least a time when Navigator get a significant upgrade. The daily/spontaneous reboots are absurd.

I have an 8300HDC with Navigator (Brighthouse-Indiana), and other than the differences between Sara and Navigator - mine's been rock solid. (For the record, I had an SA8000 with Sara for YEARS) I've had the new 8300HDC for 2 weeks now and after the first day of messing with it and getting an eSata drive connected I've not had any lock up or spontaneous reboot issues at all. As far as reliability is concerned - I'm pretty happy with it, I've not had ANY of the issues I've read about here.

I am, however, not pleased with Navigator itself - but that's just because it's different from the Sara software... Heck, I even tried to get a Sara unit (as posted above) - but mostly because I was more used to Sara. Without debating the differences in features I just want to say that imho different doesn't mean better or worse, it's just different. I'll get used to it someday. Who knows, maybe they'll even add some usefull features. ;)

I have an 8300HDC with Navigator (Brighthouse-Indiana), and other than the differences between Sara and Navigator - mine's been rock solid. (For the record, I had an SA8000 with Sara for YEARS) I've had the new 8300HDC for 2 weeks now and after the first day of messing with it and getting an eSata drive connected I've not had any lock up or spontaneous reboot issues at all. As far as reliability is concerned - I'm pretty happy with it, I've not had ANY of the issues I've read about here.

I am, however, not pleased with Navigator itself - but that's just because it's different from the Sara software... Heck, I even tried to get a Sara unit (as posted above) - but mostly because I was more used to Sara. Without debating the differences in features I just want to say that imho different doesn't mean better or worse, it's just different. I'll get used to it someday. Who knows, maybe they'll even add some usefull features. ;)

Wow. That's good to hear Indy. Can you post your software version as well, so other Navigator users can compare to what they are running? That is the first mention of anyone claiming Navigator to be "rock solid". Maybe TWC is working out the bugs. (and hopefully we get a version that is as reliable as the SARA box)

Wow. That's good to hear Indy. Can you post your software version as well, so other Navigator users can compare to what they are running? That is the first mention of anyone claiming Navigator to be "rock solid". Maybe TWC is working out the bugs. (and hopefully we get a version that is as reliable as the SARA box)
Yea, my 8300HDC has 2.4.5_4, which looks to be the same that TWC is using.

Yea, my 8300HDC has 2.4.5_4, which looks to be the same that TWC is using.

TWC owns Brighthouse right?

xnappo

TWC owns Brighthouse right?

According to wikipedia, (and I really don't know how current or correct this information is) ... "Bright House Networks is a cable television company owned by Advance/Newhouse, headquartered in Syracuse, New York. [...] Time Warner still owns a stake in Bright House Networks even though Advance/Newhouse runs the day to day operation of the company."

We use road runner and have the same equipment - they seem closely tied together.

I just exchanged my previous 8300HDC here in SE Wisc due to continuing problems with recording, etc.

I've noticed that on this new 8300HDC there is no Recording Log tab in the List function. This is the area where all the "channel not available" and other errors would show up. Otherwise the interface is identical to the other box as far as I can tell.

If the box stops recording as the others have done it's not clear where to check for errors, etc. Does TWC no longer want users to be able to identify specific errors, I wonder?

FWIW, starting on 7/1, the ONLY box TWC will give out (NYC area) is the Nagivator equipped 8300HDC. NOBODY has been successful in getting a 8300HD w/Passport, even though TWC COULD give such boxes out (they are "used" and the order applies only to "new" boxes). I figure they are stretching the law in so many ways that in for this one, they are bending over backwards to meet the intent of the regulation.

The REALLY BIG THING we are waiting to hear about is that second version of Nagivator that is intended for 8300HD boxes. We'd expect a few more thousand bugs to appear on top of the 100,001 current ones!

The REALLY BIG THING we are waiting to hear about is that second version of Navigator that is intended for 8300HD boxes. We'd expect a few more thousand bugs to appear on top of the 100,001 current ones!

Let's hope the bugs have been worked out for the non C-box versions and DVR's in circulation. Remember these were the downloaded versions from earlier this year that thousands of people had trouble with, so AFAIK, the downloads were abandoned.

It sounds like there have been improvements to Navigator from the disasters of earlier this year, so the major problems (knock on wood) should be resolved by the time the non-OCAP (no C boxes) downloads begin. The C model cable card boxes seem to be more of a hardware issue rather than a software issue. TWC might be using the C-model boxes as a work in progress model to enhance the development of Navigator, which is open-sourced software. Once they get the head-end compatibility issues worked out with the sporadic reboots and the "channel not available" bugs, they should have at least an "above average" program guide.

However, It may be another year before Navigator gets up to Passport or Sara standards if that. But TWC needs a reliable guide on the OCAP boxes before they can do the non-OCAP downloads.

I think if you have a box with enough memory like a DVR or a newer (3 years or less) non-DVR box, you should be fine. a 5 year old box? debatable. If your box is more than 5 years old, (an old Pace or Pioneer, that doesn't have enough memory to run Navigator in any form, the question is, what will Time Warner do? Leave the 5+ year boxes alone? Do a blanket download of all boxes by community? Or go by make and model of each box? This is also what we need to find out. My cable tech guy has said that the new non-DVR OCAP boxes, seem to do BETTER with Navigator than the DVR OCAP boxes. There are still issues with Navigator, but it is getting better.

Exactly how much more improved it will be, we won't know until an estimated time ranging from before the end of the year to the end of March 2008. This was the time frame given AFTER the download abandonment earlier this year, because of the problems in Lincoln Nebraska and other communities, for TWC communities who have Navigator to begin their downloads to the legacy boxes.

Jack

I think if you have a box with enough memory like a DVR or a newer (3 years or less) non-DVR box, you should be fine. a 5 year old box? debatable. If your box is more than 5 years old, (an old Pace or Pioneer, that doesn't have enough memory to run Navigator in any form, the question is, what will Time Warner do? Leave the 5+ year boxes alone? Do a blanket download of all boxes by community? Or go by make and model of each box? This is also what we need to find out. My cable tech guy has said that the new non-DVR OCAP boxes, seem to do BETTER with Navigator than the DVR OCAP boxes. There are still issues with Navigator, but it is getting better.
I would think the cable co's will leave those old boxes out in the field for as long as possible... Why would they want to go through the expense of swapping them out for newer? Especially when they're collecting $$ every month for boxes that have long been paid for and expensed out (i.e. collecting pure profit on them now). And I forgot to mention the expense of the additional calls to customer service that might be generated from changing things up.

Until there's a major technology shift that renders them useless or non functioning I would imagine that those people are stuck (and often happy) with what they have.

Yea, my 8300HDC has 2.4.5_4, which looks to be the same that TWC is using.

I have a few questions then:

1) How big is your subscriber base?

2) Are they trying to run two software versions simultaneously? (IE: both Navigator and SARA).

3) Is your market using Switched Digital Video yet?

My theory is that if you are experiencing virtually zero software problems/glitches and some or all of the above conditions are in play, then the software is NOT the issue, the headend is! I'm thinking that there may be capacity issues in play here. The issue would be comparing his pre-installed version to a downloaded version of the same build ID.

Just a couple of thoughts to ponder.

I have a few questions then:

1) How big is your subscriber base?

2) Are they trying to run two software versions simultaneously? (IE: both Navigator and SARA).

3) Is your market using Switched Digital Video yet?

My theory is that if you are experiencing virtually zero software problems/glitches and some or all of the above conditions are in play, then the software is NOT the issue, the headend is! I'm thinking that there may be capacity issues in play here. The issue would be comparing his pre-installed version to a downloaded version of the same build ID.

Just a couple of thoughts to ponder.

1) Not sure. There are three major players here: Comcast, Insight and Brighthouse.

2) They are running two - Sara on the old HD boxes and Navigator on the HDC's. None of my friends with Sara boxes have gotten the Navigator software.

3) I don't really know much about their topology. In my diag screens all of the SDV information leads me to believe that we're not using it.

Interesting. Thanks for the info. My thoughts were the headend was overloaded, but that shoots holes in that idea. There has to be some logical explanation as to why the same build of the software(on the same piece of equipment) works there and is a total disaster elsewhere?

Interesting observations today. Went to the Navigator diag screens and noticed some differences from previous observations.

Page 1 - Summary

Out of Mem Error Count: 2
Tune Failure Count: 1
Both numbers were red.

Page 3 - Session Info

All SessionIDs are either zero or "Not Available"
All LSCP entries are either zero or "Not Available" except the LSCP Status which says "Success".
I could swear these fields are normally populated.

Figured I better reboot. After reboot everything listed above is the same except the Tune Failure Count: 0.

I don't normally use the DVR to watch live TV so it's usually off unless I'm watching something recorded. So I figured I probably should check last night's recordings to see if there were any problems. Everything appears to be there and intact. Next, I checked the Recording Log and found two entries that stated that two scheduled programs did not record because "program was not available (4)". (Don't confuse this with the infamous "channel not available" error.) The weird thing is, these two programs did record quite successfully; I check them all the way to the end.

At this time, I can't report that anything has malfunctioned; just weird.

I have a strange problem with an 8300HDC w/ Navigator. The DVR vanished! The List button on the remote and box do nothing, the progress bar on the channel banner is gone, just the start and end time like on a non-DVR box. The options to record and series record are no longer options in the program guide. I can't even get to the list of already recorded shows. I don't know if they are still there or erased. has this ever happened to anyone else?

Since putting the 8300 hdc on a timer sunday, I have had no issues with the DVR box, it cuts power at 6:45 am and comes back on at 7:00 am forcing a reboot, usually after 2-3 days it would usually stop recording and buffering, this has been the case with my last 2 boxes as well. I will leave the timer on the DVR until these issues are resolved, this option has given me a usable DVR finally.

MAC

For the record, most of the subscriber loses came from LA and cities in Texas. (Some areas of these states HAVE been "Navigated." )

However, it should be noted that, the New Navigator Guide was never given as a reason for the subscriber loss. But I wonder if it has something to do with it.
I assume you are saying Los Angeles and not Louisiana. Many areas with Verizon telephone in the L.A. area have gotten Verizon FIOS in the last year or so. I think that might be a big factor. /Dan

Hi everyone, I am an avid reader of AVS but never posted. You guys provide me with lots of helpful tips & insights into HDTV, TWC and so much more. So now I'll give back to the board by posting something I just heard about this past weekend.

I have a friend who lives in Flushing, New York. She recently upgraded to TWC's regular HD box (no DVR) with the Navigator software. She got the box installed & just like most people, she has tons of problems with it (ie: she can't watch ANY channels for more than a few minutes before catching the "please call helpcenter, you are not subcribed to this service"). So knowing what I know from reading the board, I told her it's the new Navigator software she has on the box, and that she should call for a tech to check it out and see if she could get the boxes switched back to the ones with Passport on it. Long story short, a supervisor tech AND 4 other people from Navigator support company came to her apartment on Saturday afternoon. They mentioned that she was one of the lucky ones because the Navigator people were only visiting NY this weekend, and that they were send out to find out preciously why the Navigator is having so many problems. They also mentioned that they are aware of all the problems and that they're doing their best to find out (HAH! I laughed at her story when she told me this). After about a hour of them playing around with both of the "defective" HDbox, they ended up giving her 1 HDbox with passport still on it (they told her that's probablly the last remaining box with passport they have) and 1 free month of HBO + SHO. They also mentioned before they left that they were taking the boxes back for further studies and that if she ever has any problems in the future, she could give them a call. The head guy gave her a card and said to ask for him directly when calling next time (I could get you guys the name if needed).

Anyway, I figured this was an interesting story to share with the board. And from my personal experience with TWC, I highly doubt the Navigator program will be fixed any time soon. But from this story, TWC are aware of it, and they are supposely "fixing" it. So we'll see......

In the meantime, I am happy to stick wit my HDDVR that has passport on it and I'll hold onto it for as long as they allow me to.

I bet all the Navigatored people of this thread would love that contact persons name and phone number! He'd probably be so inundated with complaints, he'd have to change it!

I have a strange problem with an 8300HDC w/ Navigator. The DVR vanished! The List button on the remote and box do nothing, the progress bar on the channel banner is gone, just the start and end time like on a non-DVR box. The options to record and series record are no longer options in the program guide. I can't even get to the list of already recorded shows. I don't know if they are still there or erased. has this ever happened to anyone else?

I fixed the problem(for now, at least). After 5 manual reboots in a half hour, the DVR functions returned and all my saved shows are still intact. After four of the reboots, the software did not load right. After the Scientific Atlanta OCAP screen, it would go to analog channel 2 and OCAP stayed on the front panel. The Mystro' screen appeared later and after the countdown, the digital channels came on sans DVR functions. Finally the fifth time, everything worked OK.

Also, when the DVR functions were inactive; on page 2 of the diagnostics screen, the "DVR Authorized" value said False, even though I have DVR service(the extra $5.95 charge). After the ;ast reboot it now says "DVR Authorized-True".

and while I'm in diagnostics:

BootStrapper Version: 2.4.3---2007/05/14
Network Version: 2.4.4_2---2007/06/26
Monitor Version: 2.4.4_2---2007/06/26
ODN Version: 2.4.4_2---2007/06/26

Considering I've heard a newer version (2.4.5_4) mentioned here, many of these problems could be associated with older versions. I hope the newer version of Navigator spreads to my area soon.

Well I'm done with this f'n navigator box, last night again, for no apparent reason, only recorded the first 3 minutes of my wives Grey's Anatomy, I can't deal with this missed recordings BS anymore, the Passport box never did this...if they can't give me one, it may be time for some dish action.....

Well I'm done with this f'n navigator box, last night again, for no apparent reason, only recorded the first 3 minutes of my wives Grey's Anatomy, I can't deal with this missed recordings BS anymore, the Passport box never did this...if they can't give me one, it may be time for some dish action.....

It's amazing how many people are still having trouble with this new guide. What I can't figure out is why is it that in some areas, like here in Milwaukee, only minor problems are being reported, but in other areas, Navigator has been an absolute nightmare. Is there something about the cable head-end technology that can vary so much from state to state? We need to figure out why there is such performance fluctuation from one area to the next!

They REALLY should abort any download plans to legacy boxes for another year and study these bugs. (At least in those jurisdictions that are having SOOO many problems!) How did this OCRAP (the code name that my cable tech friend gives to the new Navigator boxes, instead of OCAP, hahaha) guide even pass quality control testing? This is turning TWC into a joke!

Jack

Is there something about the cable head-end technology that can vary so much from state to state? We need to figure out why there is such performance fluctuation from one area to the next!The reason is that each cable system (not just head end) is different. And what works well in one region may conflict with something that is different in another region. Often the cable companies take their time rolling out updates because they really need to make sure that there are not any compatibility issues in THEIR system. But here TW was faced with an issue that they had no control over (and one that they did). The FCC forced the cable companies to use different boxes, which required updated software. Further, the FCC dragged their feet in regards to ruling on wavers for this rule and it was not till just before the July 1, 2007 implementation date till the FCC ruled on the waivers (though the cable companies certainly could see the handwriting on the wall). That was the piece beyond TW's control.

The piece within TWs control was their decision to use Navigator on these new boxes instead of paying Aptic to update Passport for the CableCard boxes. In some (apparently few) locations, this apparently has not been a problem. But in others, there have been issues.

Even the SARA folks have had some issues with the version (1.90.xx.xx) needed to work with the CableCard boxes too.

They REALLY should abort any download plans to legacy boxes for another year and study these bugs. (At least in those jurisdictions that are having SOOO many problems!) How did this OCRAP (the code name that my cable tech frined gives to the new Navigator boxes, instead of OCAP, hahaha) guide even pass quality control testing? This is turning TWC into a joke!

JackThat last part is FOR SURE!!

What they need to do is completely scrap this in house guide CRAP that they have come up with, and PAY a company to have their IPG on our boxes. It is utter garbage, performance, looks, everything.

The piece within TWs control was their decision to use Navigator on these new boxes instead of paying Aptic to update Passport for the CableCard boxes.
That last part is FOR SURE!!

Agree 100%! They should have looked into a Tivo solution. I think they underestimate the fact that people ARE willing to pay extra for a fully functional and reliable guide. Heck, even, the ugly SARA software we have right now works great and could be made better with a few tweaks and it already supports SDV. The bottom line for me is this: My work schedule basically precludes me from watching anything at it regular scheduled time. So without a reliable DVR, I might as well cancel my cable services because I'll never to get to enjoy my favorite shows in a consistent manner. Time Warner needs to get this through their head! Comcast has the right idea as seen below:

http://www.gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2007/01/Comcast-Central.jpg

You can watch a Tivo DVR Demo HERE! (http://www.pcworld.com/video/id,432-page,20-bid,0/video.html)

I would gladly pay extra for that! They are already grabbing me $8 a month. I would even be willing to pay the Tivo (regular sub charge) fee to get get all the Tivo features of a standard Tivo box. IE: online programming and such. One would think that you wouldn't even need a network connection since the STB is already on the cable network. What do you guys think? I think Time Warner should cut their loses and run with this!

I have sara 1.89.17.1 with a few tweeks it would be a great guide.If TWC could get the d*m Navigator working like sara or passport it could be a great guide from what I have seen of it.People want reliabilty first then good bells and whistles.You have have all the great features close to Tivo you want but if the navigator is still to buggy it is not worth the effort.I belive unless TWC is crazy the 75% of there customer base that has sara will not see NAVIGATOR until the 25% who ha passport are happy.If they full launch it to sara customers and its like the one launched to passport customers all hell gonna break lose. sara 1.89.17.1(its rock solid) Greensboro NC

They REALLY should abort any download plans to legacy boxes for another year and study these bugs. (At least in those jurisdictions that are having SOOO many problems!) How did this OCRAP (the code name that my cable tech frined gives to the new Navigator boxes, instead of OCAP, hahaha) guide even pass quality control testing? This is turning TWC into a joke!

Jack

I agree that it's unbelieveable that something with this many bugs even made it out on the market in the first place. I actually do hope they start downloading Navigator on all of their boxes. Time Warner doesn't care about complaints from a few people. Losing a couple thousand subcribers in a market will not put a dent in their profits. If EVERYONE in the market is forced to deal with Navigator, they will be flooded with complaints and lose MANY more customers.

Plus, all the lucky bass-turds with Passport boxes will get to have the same fun those of us with Navigator have! LOL :D

Speaking of stopping Navigator downloads, we have had a channel 1 since March called "Navigator Information" that showed how the new menus work. Today I noticed it's not called "Navigator Info" anymore and they are showing movie previews.

Maybe they are getting the hint, but I watched the Tivo demo and was impressed by the functionality. The HD "finder" was a cool option where it will check and record the same show in HD if it is available. I guess the big issue there is if SDV is supported.

Time Warner needs to get this through their head! Comcast has the right idea as seen below:You apparently have not been following that (Comcrap TiVo (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12232020#post12232020)) misadventure! It is running way late, and they are running into their own deployment problems. Software development (by anyone) for these large ungainly cable systems is just not as easy as a lot of folks that are used to a more constrained environment think. I think that they (TW) should exercise a lot more constraint than they did. At least Comcast is not being forced into hasty decisions.

I agree that it's unbelieveable that something with this many bugs even made it out on the market in the first place. I actually do hope they start downloading Navigator on all of their boxes. Time Warner doesn't care about complaints from a few people. Losing a couple thousand subcribers in a market will not put a dent in their profits. If EVERYONE in the market is forced to deal with Navigator, they will be flooded with complaints and lose MANY more customers.

Plus, all the lucky bass-turds with Passport boxes will get to have the same fun those of us with Navigator have! LOL :D

LOL!!

But Nick, I am one of the bass-turds with a Passport DVR! hahaha! I DON'T WANT TO BE PUNISHED WITH CRAPAGATOR!!!

Jack

LOL!!

But Nick, I am one of the bass-turds with a Passport DVR! hahaha! I DON'T WANT TO BE PUNISHED WITH CRAPAGATOR!!!

Jack

Ah, instead of calling it Nagivator, Craptigator! Good one, Jack!

I can see the marketing...

TWC's all NEW, singing, dancing Craptigator. Remember, it's Craptastic!

Ah, instead of calling it Nagivator, Craptigator! Good one, Jack!

I can see the marketing...

TWC's all NEW, singing, dancing Craptigator. Remember, it's Craptastic!

Hahahaha,

I actually meant to say Crapigator! hehehehe! But Craptigator sounds good as well! I mean, the OCAP boxes are even being called OCRAP by the tech people!

Jack

You apparently have not been following that (Comcrap TiVo (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12232020#post12232020)) misadventure! It is running way late, and they are running into their own deployment problems. Software development (by anyone) for these large ungainly cable systems is just not as easy as a lot of folks that are used to a more constrained environment think. I think that they (TW) should exercise a lot more constraint than they did. At least Comcast is not being forced into hasty decisions.

From what I found on the web, I saw there was a deployment issue and delay. However, I gathered that the delays were due to glitches being fixed versus TWC just dumping the software on subs and piecing it together as they go. I'll look into it more, but the Tivo guide at this time looks superior to Navigator in every way.

From what I found on the web, I saw there was a deployment issue and delay. However, I gathered that the delays were due to glitches being fixed versus TWC just dumping the software on subs and piecing it together as they go. I'll look into it more, but the Tivo guide at this time looks superior to Navigator in every way.Ben, keep in mind that TW was forced to do "something", on a schedule dictated by the FCC. Comcast has no arbitrary schedule. But the criticism of TW is what that "something" was. I tried to make that clear, and point out that there are no obvious and immediate solutions.

Ben, keep in mind that TW was forced to do "something", on a schedule dictated by the FCC. Comcast has no arbitrary schedule. But the criticism of TW is what that "something" was. I tried to make that clear, and point out that there are no obvious and immediate solutions.

Dave,

So do you think that if the FCC had not gotten involved, this mess of Navigator would not be existing today? There have been a lot of criticisms of government regulation of cable since the passage of the Cable 1992 Regulatory Act. Maybe it is time for deregulation.

The problem is that government deregulation still doesn't solve the Navigator problem, especially in the divisions that need the most help getting it to work. What options are left? Bureaucratic systems, especially in the areas of technology don't like to be embarrassed by having to admit their own mistakes. Time Warner as I see it has to do one of two things:

1) Hire an independent contract firm who SPECIALIZES in programing guide software development to assist them with Navigator fixes and updates. Obviously, many of TWC's own programmers and software developers where this system has been deployed are clueless as to how to fix the bugs.

2) Switch Navigator victims back to their old Passport or Sara software until such a time it is proven reliable. Reliability should NOT be determined by overly happy little salespeople or the CSR reps answering the phone, but by the independent Navigator development team. STOP ALL Navigator downloads to legacy boxes. (For at least a year or more.) Pay Passport for the updates, so that SDV can run on the platforms. (Do this until such time Navigator is deemed above average in quality and performance by the independent programing team.) Than, role out an updated Navigator very, very, slowly with the programing team to assist in checking for any bugs. They stay on the job until Navigator is up to Passport or Sara in performance in both appearance and functionality.

Jack

Why not just add a good search engine and pretty new skin to sara fix it to be used on old passport boxes relabel it as Navigator and have Scientific Atlanta team handle it.Launch it and problems solved. Sara 1.89.17.1 Greensboro NC

Dave,

So do you think that if the FCC had not gotten involved, this mess of Navigator would not be existing today? There have been a lot of criticisms of government regulation of cable since the passage of the Cable 1992 Regulatory Act. Maybe it is time for deregulation.

The problem is that government deregulation still doesn't solve the Navigator problem, especially in the divisions that need the most help getting it to work. What options are left? Bureaucratic systems, especially in the areas of technology don't like to be embarrassed by having to admit their own mistakes. Time Warner as I see it has to do one of two things:

1) Hire an independent contract firm who SPECIALIZES in programing guide software development to assist them with Navigator fixes and updates. Obviously, many of TWC's own programmers and software developers where this system has been deployed are clueless as to how to fix the bugs.

2) Switch Navigator victims back to their old Passport or Sara software until such a time it is proven reliable. Reliability should NOT be determined by overly happy little salespeople or the CSR reps answering the phone, but by the independent Navigator development team. STOP ALL Navigator downloads to legacy boxes. (For at least a year or more.) Pay Passport for the updates, so that SDV can run on the platforms. (Do this until such time Navigator is deemed above average in quality and performance by the independent programing team.) Than, role out an updated Navigator very, very, slowly with the programing team to assist in checking for any bugs. They stay on the job until Navigator is up to Passport or Sara in performance in both appearance and functionality.

Jack

The problem might not be as bad because less people and areas would have Navigator. Now, since the open cable ruling in July, just about every Time Warner market is using Navigator for their OCAP boxes. But, ath the same time, this could be good for Navigator. With more exposure comes more complaints and maybe Navigator will finally be fixed. Considering it was first released last year as an upgrade over Passport or SARS, it should have been fixed and in working order by now.

But th bottom line is-government regulation or not-it IS Time Warner's fault. THEY chose to go thier own way for OCAP and SDV, THEY chose not to buy the new Passport software, THEY chose not to test their new software before release.

As for the two options, I agree. I would REALLY like to see Time Warner cut thier losses and abandon Navigator, but considering how much it costs to develop software like Navigator, I really couldn't see them dropping Navigator that quickly. So if they are going to try to work out the bugs, TW SHOULD get the new version of Passport or at least use the SARA software that came with the new boxes. It couldn't be worse than Navigator.

Also, won't Time Warner have to buy Passport soon anyway? How long does their contract to use the software last and if they are no longer rolling out Navigator, won't they have to renew? It looks like they planned on having everyone on Navigator before their license to use Passport expires, but that's not going to happen.