Columbus, OH - HDTV - Page 20

I lost them as well. Using a HDHomeRun. The tech was clueless and no help when I talked to them through the chat. They said they don't support QAM channels and it wasn't their fault if they are no longer there. The transcript is quite funny and obvious that they were just copying and pasting answers.

I have tried multiple channel scans to see if they come back, but no luck yet...

Mine's back in Windows Media Center.

I am running in Media center, Time Warner changed their clear QAM channel lineup. I tried to pry the information out of the phone to find what they are now. Couldn't do it, their tech support is a joke. Anyway Silicondust's website to the rescue for anyone who might run into it the current Clear QAM stations for teh four networks on Time warner are.

78.1 -WSYX (ABC)
78.3 -WTTE (FOX)
98.1 -WBNSDT (CBS) formerly 84.1
99.1 -WCMHDT (NBC) formerly 93.1

It was a frustrating night of searching the internet for this information and talking to TWC tech support to try to pry this information out of them.

I have not had to change anything in my Media Center (TWC QAM in Dublin) recently. The following still show up as my channels:

4.1 WCMHDT
6.1 WSYXDT
10.1 WBNSDT
15 TWC (weather)
26 LWEAR (local radar)
28.1 WTTEDT
34.1 WOSUDT

It seems there is a trap on my line blocking the channels. I have basic cable, so this shouldn't be the case, but it is nonetheless. Evidently, NBC, CBS, PBS, and CW have been moved to channels 98 and 99, which have frequencies that are actually between cable channels 6 and 7. I am receiving channels 2-27 through basic cable, so it looks like there is a filter that is only blocking frequencies between channels 6 and 7.

Of course, trying to explain this all to tech support over the phone was like beating my head against a cement wall. I finally found a tech that at least partially understood what I was talking about and agreed to send someone out to try to fix the problem. I'm a little concerned that the person coming out won't understand the problem, though, and then I'll be stuck once again trying to find someone in tech support to explain everything to.

Does anyone have a good contact (an engineer, perhaps?) at Time Warner that can help out in these matters? I'd love to talk to someone that actually understood what my problem was.

1) For something like a trap, that's something which should be obvious to even the most inexperienced technician. Point out which specific channels you're not receiving, and they should be able to setup their tester to see what's coming down the line. When they see those frequencies aren't passing through, that should raise their eyebrows.

2) If that tech can't fix the problem, consider subscribing, temporarily (cancel within a week, saying it's not to your liking), to full digital cable. That way, they'll *need* to fix the problem to get you the service you ordered. I know this isn't ideal, but ClearQAM is effectively ignored by cable operators, and you'll be banging your head against a wall trying to get them to fix it when they give responses such as "we can't guarantee your TV is compatible with the QAM signals", etc.

3) One more thing: Go to the top. Find out who the management is for the Columbus TWC area and start with their office. Call the TWC switchboard and ask for the VP of local operations. That will give you much more attention than customer service is able to give you. But I always start with customer service and give them a chance to fix things before bugging the execs.

Good luck!

Thanks so much for the suggestions. The tech is coming out on Wednesday, so I'll see what happens and then pursue it further if necessary.

Thanks!

All, I wanted to take a moment to re-post my availability for Columbus area calibrations. The link below provides the details. As you'll see, I have VERY reasonable rates for professional level services. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

http://www.hdcolumbus.net/vb-hdtv/showthread.php?t=3768

Well, I got a voicemail yesterday from "Jim from Time Warner Validation" saying that the channels had been reclamated and, therefore, I could only receive them OTA with an antenna. He canceled my service call and said my problems didn't warrant a tech being sent out.

Here's a link to a Twitter chat I had with @TWCableHelp last night. Very frustrating!
http://www.hdcolumbus.net/vb-hdtv/sh...0&postcount=48

I'm in Pickerington OH and currently have the Insight whole house DVR. U-verse is coming around trying to get me to switch to their product.

If any of you have had both products, how to they compare?

Also, how do they compare to WOW who is also coming into our area?

I've had the parade of salespeople to my house lately. How many of you have switched from Insight to U-verse or WOW? Have you liked it? Have you switched back?

It depends largely on your usage. Uverse has a strict limit on channels that can be simultaneously watched in the house regardless of how many boxes you have. If your line is perfect, I believe it is 4 HD channels. Offerings from TWC, Insight, and WOW from what I have vaguely read is 4 tuners on the DVR plus 1? tuner per attached STB to watch live tv. Picture quality is also a little less on Uverse though not annoyingly so. Unless you are anal about your PQ, it won't be an issue. Your internet speed also shares the same line with the TV and vice-a-versa. If you go for the highest internet package which I think is 10mbit, having all 4 HD streams active will drop your internet speed down to 6mbit or so.

Just food for thought. It is all situational and based on personal usage. Uverse as a whole isn't a bad service.

No Insight experience, but Uverse vs TWC:

TWC video quality is wayyyy better. it was very noticeable.

TWC DVR responds much better (and its not exactly a speed demon)

Uverse Interface is much better

Uverse box was having a ton if IR issues with my plasma, tried every trick in the book (tape, angle, IR repeaters, etc), just pointless to pursue it further.. i got rid of it

Uverse wouldnt record shows i set to DVR... even with no conflicts. just randomly skipped recordings.


That was the 2nd time i tried uverse- about a year apart. nothing had improved so i have just stuck with TWC.

I did get about $450 in free gift crds tho

Curious about something: We are about to switch over to Insight sometime soon and I have a few ClearQAM tuners on PC's in the house I'd like to use. Does Insight offer any substantial ClearQAM beyond just locals? I've tried searching on it but the vague response seems to be that WOW is the only one who really has a lot with the whole basic SD lineup in ClearQAM but other providers (TWC, Insight) are a crapshoot.

Media Center scan is finding only WSYX and WTTE digital channels. The other digital and analog channels have disappeared.

Anyone else seeing this?

From what I understand the new WOW UltraTV uses the Arris/Moxi system. Am I correct? Should I switch from my current Insight whole house DVR with the Pace system to WOW Ultra TV with the Arris?

We tried Insight's whole home DVR here recently coming from Uverse (and went back) and I have investigated WOW's UltraTV system and from a personal standpoint I would say RUN to WOW's offering. But that largely depends on how you like Insight's setup. All whole home DVR setups I have basically surmised a central box that does all the heavy lifting with multiple tuners to record and the 'client' boxes throughout the house either have one tuner simply for live tv or no tuners and pull the feed from a tuner on the central box. And as part of that, each client box can see and modify what is going to be recorded or actively recording regardless of what client initiated it. This is how WOW's is set up. 6 tuners on the main box and each client uses one of those tuners for live tv if one is free.

Insight's has it arse-backwards imho. Each 'client' box is still just your average solo DVR you'd get in a non-WH system. 2 tuners for that box which is strictly for that box. If you have recordings set there, they will record there and will even conflict if more than 2 are on at a time. They do not transfer to other boxes if there are open tuners. Likewise, you cannot view scheduled recordings from other boxes. You must look them up on the box they were initiated. It is more or less individual DVR's in the house with the mild benefit that they share DVR storage so once a show is actually recorded, then every box in the house can view it. Beyond that it is no different than having individual standard DVR's at every TV.

Just food for thought. We started on Uverse which more or less runs as I noted above: One central box which is the DVR and can record up to 4 HD shows at once. Each 'client' box views the identical data as the main DVR can; Upcoming scheduled recordings, series recordings, storage space left, etc.. If a show was set to record on the main DVR box I can go to any other box in the house and go in and cancel or modify it. We were trying to do some cost cutting and decided to try Insight's system and siwtched back to Uverse inside a month for this reason. Had WOW's system been around we might have checked them out. But FWIW, Uverse is solid if you don't mind minor HD PQ degradation.

Thanks for the reply. You're right about Insight's operational choices. When I hit the "My DVR" button I see anything that has been recorded. If I go into the DVR menu I only see the recordings originally set up from that client box. I've recorded the same show at least twice on multiple occasions. Confusing to say the least.

I'll probably switch to WOW in the next week or so. The thought of notifying my multitude of contacts and changing my e-mail address everywhere (including this forum) is not for the faint of heart.

Hey folks, I'll be moving to Columbus this summer (from the Bay Area -- we'll have to pick up some snow shovels!). What are my choices with respect to cable companies? Comcast? Verizon (FIOS)? These are the providers we've had in the past and I'm pretty familar with them. Are there other providers in the Columbus area? Better or worse than Comcast/Verizon?

Thanks for your thoughts!

Neither one is available. What's available depends on the area. There is AT&T UVerse, Insight, Time Warner, and WOW.

Time Warner is probably has the largest base for CATV in the area, but WOW is an alternative (they run parallel to TWC in many areas). Insight was bought by TWC last year, but I don't think they've been merged physically, yet.

AT&T is the local telco in most of Central Ohio, and they've deployed U-Verse fairly widely around the area. I'm guessing it's similar to Verizon's FIOS, in that it's IP-based (it's over copper where I am, don't know about other communities).

Welcome to Cbus!

Thanks for the information. FIOS is better than UVerse (I've had FIOS and while I don't have UVerse out here, I have friends that do and have been able to compare). I'll have to investigage TW, WOW, and Insight -- I guess it will also depend on where in the area I end up living. While lots of people complain about Comcast, it has gotten much better in recent years -- especially its internet capabilities. We've been happy with it in SF, except for their crappy DVRs.

For TV, go with Directv. You'll be disappointed by everything else.

FWIW, U-Verse is pretty great around here. DVR is well done and responsive with plenty of recording-based features to keep you happy. Service as a whole is really reliable. The only downside is PQ and that largely depends on your and your household as to how it'd affect you. We have a large 52" 1080p plasma set here in our main living room and while the PQ degradation is visible, it hasn't been enough to turn us off of the service.

At this point the only way I would venture with the cableco's (Insight, TW, WOW) is if you were able to BYO-DVR ie: A good Windows Media Center box with cablecard tuners. Insight's is garbage, TWC's at last recall with Navigator was Fisher-Price-esque with not too many expected features on a modern DVR. WOW with the new Ultra TV DVR is pretty good being based on Moxi's well developed and modern DVR software and hardware.

Then throw in Dish and DirecTV which both have great hardware, software, and UI's in comparison so the determination here is channel packages and cost. PQ on both is pretty good.

And as noted already, it really depends on which specific part of Columbus you are in as to what choices you have. We're in the Minerva Park area and have WOW, Insight, and Uverse. Friends across town I believe have Uverse and TWC.

In the Pickerington area we have Insight, Uverse and recently WOW. Insight is now a part of Time Warner and I have no clue what changes that might bring. Can anybody compare the services qualitatively?

Here's my cbus hdtv experience.

Moved here in 2003 (Upper arlington area), started with time warner. Hated them. Customer service was aweful, took forever to get fox and abc in hd (that was a long time ago).

Moved to westerville/worthington area 2006. neighborhood only had 2 options for cable. Insight and WOW (no problem since I didn't have a great experience with TW). Ended up going with WOW. Great service. Hardly ever had any service issues with TV or Internet. However, as cable companies tend to do, my bill rose and rose to over 150/month for 2 hd dvr boxes and 12 meg internet. Then one day Insight knocked on the door and offered me the exact same thing I had with WOW for 80/month. Couldn't say no to that. Things were pretty much fine, however I started noticing my internet signal wasn't very good. Was paying for 15 meg with insight and most of the time when I tested on speedtest.net I would only get 3 or 4. They sent a tech out and fixed and it was fine for awhile but then started getting bad again. I think the main reason was the neighborhood was a very heave Insight neighborhood. One nice thing I found out about insight was they you can many free hd channels from straight cable out of the wall with no box. I've heard you can't do that with WOW. That was a nice surprise for our 3rd tv.

2 weeks ago ATT knocked on the door and finally sold me on their Uverse. At the time my Insight bill had crept up to just over 100/mo in only a year from the above mentioned 80. The att guy offered by 3 hd boxes (2 wired and 1 wireless) and 12 meg internet for 107... however when the tech showed up to install the first thing he asked me was why I didn't order HD. I was like are you kidding me, I Did! He said nope. So I got scammed by the salesman. HD service was another 10 a month so that took me to 117 plus tax (I called and complained but got nowhere). I did get $250 in gift cards.

Impressions on ATT Uverse so far...

Internet is very good and reliable for me. (Paying for 12 MEG and usually always get 11 when I test). I was worried about dropping from 15 with insight to 12 with ATT, but getting a consistent 11 is much better than getting 6 sometimes and 15 sometimes with insight. The whole house dvr is very nice, plus 150 hours of hd recording is way better than WOW and Insight. User Interface is lights year better than the arcaic onscreen menus of WOW and Insight. I also really like the apps you can download to your phone or ipad to run the boxes in your house, plus record things while away.

My one complaint (as many on various forums have pointed out) is that the HD picture quality is noticably inferior to cable. It's not terrible, but somewhat grainy and pixalated. I'm hoping to get used to it, but right now I'm haivng a hard time with it. I'm doing a great deal of research online. They used the existing copper coax in my house to hook everything up, and some seem to say running cat5 improves PQ, other say they just compress the hd signal too much. Regardless, it's a bit annoying, but apparently I'm in a 2 year contract (salesman failed to mention that) so I guess I'm going to deal with it. Overall I'm happy, just wish the PQ was better.

Unfortunately this is a compression thing and not likely to change anytime soon. It could be running over coax, telephone line, or even fiber and the quality will not change. Digital signals are digital signals. The issue though is the pipe leading into your house is limited at best around 32mbps. This has to be shared between TV, phone, and internet. With TV, HD channels run around 6.5mbps each and you have up to 4 channels at once so you have around 26mbps of that line used when it is loaded down. Leaving 6mbps left for HSI and phone. So right off the bat the system is limited.

Personally we have it in our house not because of picture quality but because the system as a whole is more stable than Insight or WOW's. The DVR and STB's, aside from the occasional slowness, are greatly reliable in comparison.

I would recommend checking out WOW again. They've released a new whole house DVR with a new guide that is very similar to AT&T. Your picture quality will be a lot better! I'll disclaim by saying I used to work for WOW. I currently have Insight and ATT where I live and do not have the option of WOW. The way that cable companies work is they bump up the price every 12 months, except WOW which is 1.5 to 2 years depending when the 2nd January comes up. You just have to jump from company to company to get the lowest rate. If a Salesman comes to your door, keep their number and try to call them to get the best price and generally they can get you free install.

Another option and way to get around most if not all the cable box fees, which would only work with cable companies... I don't believe AT&T use m-cards.... would be to setup your own whole home DVR system using a HTPC with Windows Media Center. AT&T's guide is based off of Windows Media Center and I love it. That way when you switch between cable companies you don't lose all your recordings. Here is how it works, hook up the HTPC at any TV or heck you don't have to have it hooked up to a TV as long as it's on your network. You then have an Xbox 360 at all your TVs as extenders or Ceton just released the Echo for $175 (Ceton is coming out with the Q which will take the place of the HTPC) that uses less power and has no fan sound as a dedicated WMC extender. That's not all you need though. Two companies to look at for tuners for your HTPC are Silicondust or Ceton. Each has their pros and cons. WOW's Basic lineup is completely digital so SiliconDust's HDHomeRun Dual Tuner will pick all those channels up without any equipment fees. Downside is only the locals will be in HD. As for Insight which I have, I can get most of the channels but not as many through the tuners. Insight rep told me they were going digital by March. Ok so to fix the HD problem. SiliconDust makes a 3 tuner box that accepts cable company's M-cards. It's called the HDHomerun Prime and Ceton makes some 4 tuner boxes as well... one that goes inside the pc and one that hooks up via usb. SiliconDust's tuners are Ethernet and hook up straight to your router. Anyways, they allow you to get all the premiums and HD channels. I know with Wow they give you your first M-card included with the Basic w/ Digital and Signature w/ Digital... so there again no equipment fees. A nice thing about this setup is you can scale up the amount of Channels you can record at once... just get another Tuner. I'm not sure about the limit of ATT on how many HD at once you can record, but when I had it... it was 2. WOW's system can do 6 HD at once.

You can even buy your own Cable modem... which will probably be better... make sure it's Docsis 3 though and then you can kiss cable modem fees goodbye too. They may even have phone cable modems out now that you can buy and use. That would be the only reason not to buy your own cable modem is if you have your home phone through your cable company. Also, as of internet speed WOW is the only provider that lets you use ESPN 3 LIVE on the Xbox 360 and they have the fastest speed at 50Mbps... I think ATT goes up to 24Mbps... and Insight and TW suck with RoadRunner whom they get their HSD through at 15Mbps.

A side note, check out some apps from both SiliconDust and Ceton which came out with phone apps where you can watch TV on your device.... haven't used them yet, but Ceton's app also lets you setup recordings away from home and you can use your phone/tablet as a remote to control the TV you are watching..... So yeah wishing WOW would come to my area and 2 will never ever ever ever ever use a cable company’s equipment again. Downside is the upfront cost. Best of luck!
Edited by nate358 - 1/16/13 at 2:07pm

I noticed last night that my DTVPAL's TVGOS listings end at 3 AM on Tuesday. And I was afraid they were ending April 5th. Early surprise.

hdcolumbus.net disappeared a few months ago. I know the owner had been talking about discontinuing it for a long time but I was still surprised when it was no longer there. Thought the members might get an email first but he probably did not want to hear from people trying to talk him out of it. A lot of history gone.

KC

I have had TW for 14 years now. Other than the high cost, have been very happy. Quality is generally exellent. A few stations, like AMC, for somw reason are a little washed out and not as sharp as the rest. But most look great with no pixelization. As far as RR, I pay for 10MB, the lowest one, but consistantly get 25MB. No complaints.