[Satch Man]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NAVIGATOR'S DOWNLOAD:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regards,

Jack