Time Warner Cable Navigator - Page 473

Seems okay, check you grabbed all of the ID code.

Ben!!!!!

LOL!!!!! I LOVE IT!!!!!!! LMFAO!!!!!!! Yup, one of TWC's top secret future projects!!! Sheeeeeee don't tell anybody!!! I can see it when I go to the link. I don't see the little video in the preview square on this page though. But it works fine when I go to You Tube.

Jack

PS. TWC Presents QUBE!!! "The future of Navigator. The power of YOU in QUBE!!!!!"

on the HDMI output of the box so terrible ?

sounds like a bad FM station.

SA 8300 SD

any other TWC boxes better ?

There's nothing horrible about the sound on the HDMI output unless your signal sources is transmitting a poor-quality signal.

well guys just left, (two trucks showed up) they replaced a splitter outside, put new fittings in the tap in the pedestal outside to clear up some signal issues, but they had no cisco8640hdc's to swap out mine only sa8300hdcs
didn't want the 8300 because of the smaller drive and because it negates the whole trouble shooting premise by not using the same box with the same software to establish whether or not the problem was in the hardware, or the firmware...
they're putting in a work order for someone to bring me an 8640 but they said chances of that happening are slim so i'll have to take my box to the syracuse hub office to swap it out myself

with an advanced issue like this, why would they let the truck roll without the right hardware?
and why do i have to do the legwork? my exasperation with TWC is reaching record levels...

Has there been any improvements in services since they left?

Jack

I hear that. Time Warner won't even give you a local office number so you can call and see if they have the box on hand! It's like they want you driving all over for the fun of it.

Jack, I got your email and will send you that info. Thanks

not really, haven't used any 'start over' or on demand features yet that might have been affected by the signal levels


yeah exactly, the tech said he didn't think the syr hub office would have them either since apparently there is a backlog from cisco...

My 8640HDC consistently fails to display a picture when either turning the DVR box on or when switching inputs from my PS3 back to the DVR. It started happening after 4.0.2 ODN. As I stated previously I still get audio but no picture and I have to power the DVR on and off 4-5 times to get it to send the picture to the TV. Any fix coming for this?

I understand that this ODN update is gonna be around for awhile. (Version 4.0.24) I would NOT wait for a fix. This qualifies as a major issue. Have them send a tech out.

Jack

Well, more Navigator fun tonight. My 4640 was refusing to handshake and telling me my display was not compatible. A hard reboot fixed it, but it's getting old having to work around Navigator glitches everytime I want to watch TV.

Until it is fixed you can switch to component cables

You can check to verify your audio settings match up with your HDMI cable. If nothing changes, try another HDMI cable, if nothing changes after that, switch to component cables. Still no change? Maybe you could hook up the box to an audio system for better quality. The last option would be to swap out the box.

Jack

I've got to agree with you there - but something is odd here: 8300SD (Standard Definition) box connected via HDMI? enf1945, sure that isn't a typo? According to SA/Cisco the 8300 SD did not have HDMI out.


I'd like to know a little more about enf1945's set-up. Is he connecting the HDMI direct from the cable box to his TV? If so, it could be the TV (what brand/model is it?). It could be that his TV is just not handling the multichannel bit stream properly. If he is connected to the TV through a AV receiver (what make/model?) it could be settings in that. If he is using an AV receiver, then what happens when he uses the 8300's digital audio out to the receiver (that would be my first troubleshooting step)?

Basically, the TW box should have no negative impact on the audio bit stream. It could be that the box is "broken", but another model of cable box won't give any "better" sound (same with HDMI cables, despite what Monster wants you to believe).

I'd also ask, when did this problem start: from the time he started using a HDMI connection; a recent software upgrade; or some other change?

Good point, something is wrong here. You obviously can't do HD/HDMI cable through an SD box. Agree, would need to know more about user's equipment setup.

Jack

Hey, more Navigator fun tonight!

Trying to set up a series recording for the premiere of Men of a Certain Age and the box will just not take it. I've tried 5-6 times and finally gave up... I'm about to give up on Time Warner!

Is anyone else having this issue? I know at least one other person in my division who has the same exact issue with his 8640. I got to a point where I can now see the series in the series manager, but it says there are no scheduled recordings for that show. When I go to it in the guide, it is not highlighted (red with series rec icon) so now, once again I have to babysit the DVR to make sure this series records. If it misses another recording, I'm going to get "verbal" on the phone about some DVR credit or something.

Maybe suffering through tuning adapter issues is in my future. Thing I don't get is why do we even need tuning adapters on DVR's with Etheret ports? Why can't we use an IP based system to call for the channel???

First, thanks for reminding me of Men of a Certain Age ...it's one of 2 or 3 series of mine that hasn't been on since I got the 8640.

After reading your post I immediately scheduled it with no issues. It looks like you have ANOTHER local/divisional issue, not an inherent 8640 or ODN 4.0 problem.

ben i have had teh same exact issue, new episode, go thru all the steps, and it doesn't take the recording, or takes the recording and says there's no eps
usually i've been able to hard reboot the box and get it to work

You CNY guys could make a killing selling Moxis door-to-door up there!

I think this is why I believe the DVR is missing recordings. It's because I assumed they were scheduled to begin with and they never were! So, now I will have to try daily to monitor the situation and see if it sets up the recoding on its own. I'm just getting really sick of the baby sitting aspect of having the DVR now. It's like I've gotten to a point where I can accept the little bugs (like the Guide Stretch) because it doesn't really hinder operation and is just an annoyance. I even grown to tolerate the slowness of it, but once I lose the core function of the DVR which is to record shows, then I start to get genuinely aggravated!

I used to bash SARA because it was antiquated, but one thing about it that I can say good was that it was a rock solid DVR. Only 2 missed recordings in 3 years and one was while I was out of town, so there may have been a power outage or something. Navigator in the less than year I've had it has already missed 4 scheduled series!


I have started telling friends and people I install for that they are alternatives to the Time Warner guide. However, I am truthful about it and explain the loss of VOD and the potential for tuning adapter problems. If Moxi lowers the price, I may definitely trial one for the 30 days. My concern is more the tuning adapter than the loss of VOD.

That's exactly what the FCC is asking with the AllVid proposal! But that's just a proposal right now: it will be quite some time before it is actually a legal requirement.

It's getting to be that I have to reboot almost daily now! Maybe TWC could add that as a feature - set a timer for reboot!

I have had this problem for about a year now.

What I have found that works is, go to series manager--record series option's--air time, I usually find that it has reset to all recordings, I go to correct record time and lock it in and it's good for a few days to several weeks. I'm always checking for problems with recording and at least once a week I find that it's screwed up one of my scheduled recordings.

I have had the clowns out several times and they always act like I'm the only one with this problem and they will check into it and get back to me...never happens.

HH

go back in this thread a couple days and you can see i've had the same experience, changes recording times itself despite what i set
and the engineers insist its my box, not their precious infallible software

Yea, it's like I find a daily glitch, bug or issue with Navigator. I never know if it's going to record my shows or not. Sometimes it just decides to stop recording a series altogether. For Example, I have The Factor set to record every night at 11pm and one week I went to catch up on it and it had missed EVERY showing that week. So, I went and checked for conflicts, none - then I went and checked the Series Manager and it was still there showing no recorded episodes and no scheduled episodes. What really bothers more is that other areas are having excellent performance with this release. jcalabria has been relatively silent because he is having none of the issues we are having in this division.

yup, the other night (not sure if i mentioned this part specifically) it showed in the recordings list that it was actively recording stargate universe and dirty jobs
go back later to watch them, and SGU is gone
i feel you with what you said before about having to babysit these POS's the whole point of the dvr is to not have to worry about it, kind of defeats the utility...
well i'm takin my box up to the syracuse hub office right off the thruway to try to swap it out
i'm wondering if maybe the software isn't the same as jcal's despite matching firmware numbers, perhaps the engineers locally have fiddled with it for one reason or another there by giving us our various random issues
at least thats what i was starting to think till the good sir from nebraska said a bit ago he's having on of the exact same issues as i am.

i posited this to the support person i talked to, that maybe it takes a certain combination of factors for the conflict issues to not be flagged, or its more prone to failure with heavy users (i have in the neighborhood of 2 dozen scheduled recordings at least half of which are active at any give time during season) rather than joe schlub who only maybe records americas funniest home videos and survivor

I actually had composed a post last night that I ended up deleting without posting because I didn't want to minimize/trivialize the problems you guys are having or sound like a fanboy. Yes... recording is essentially 100% reliable here, conflict resolution works exactly as expected (with no babysitting) and my recording log is full of nothing but "Deleted by User" and a few Unresolved Conflicts that there truly was no solution to (Monday nights have simultaneous non-repeating shows on FOX, CBS and NBC). I have very heavy series schedule (53 series scheduled and most nights both tuners are busy recording all night (I rarely watch anything "live" anymore).

If I had suggestions that I thought would help you guys, I would make them, but I have none so I don't. Similar situation with SDV here. TW Charlotte recently reconfigured so that more channels are SDV... 80 of 83 non-broadcast HD channels are now SDV here (ESPN1, HBO-E and SHO-E are the only linear HD left here). I NEVER see any "Channel not Available" messages... yet NYC has but a handful of SDV channels but the NYC thread is full of posts about SDV issues. I've given up on posting about SDV there because it doesn't matter to them that it works here... and there's nothing I can suggest for them to do about it.

The Charlotte TWC thread is a fairly quiet (and happy) place. What's in there is mostly discussion about DOCSIS3 RoadRunner (issues with the wireless router built into the D3 modem), the ever popular "ESPN is over-compressed" topic, the long running "Why no Viacom HDs", or "how do I program my remote" type questions. I don't think ODN 4.0 has been discussed outside of it being a requirement for SigHome. I guess we're just lucky here.

UPDATE: Something I did just think of... both BenJF3 and hihouka have noted recently about setting particular time slots for recording. Why do you do that? The only time that it should be necessary is for a repeating non-episodic news/sports show such as SportsCenter or NFL Live. There is no reason I have found to ever use specific time slots for episodic shows. The shows that you are manually moving to an alternate time slot should just be moved to a lower priority than shows that normally premier in the same time slot. The Priority List should be the ONLY means used to manipulate conflicts so they work out the way you want them to.

Every one of my 53 series (except NFL Live) is set up the same way... Keep All Showings, Record All Showings, New episodes Only (occasionally I change this to New & Repeats if it's a show I'm trying to catch up on), Original Start Time, Original End Time. If, at initial setup, a new series causes conflicts to be flagged, I just IGNORE it. After adding the series, I then go into the priority setup and adjust the priority of the new show to wherever it belongs to get the result I want. If I have a complaint, it's that the Remote DVR Manager has no facilities to manage the all important series priorities... you always have to go to the box GUI to do that (and note that series added via the box GUI default to the highest possible priority, while those added via the web GUI default to the lowest possble priority).

My main point is... try to not use specific time slots at all and see what happens.

Ditto, central Ohio.

Questions on series recording-Since I do very little of it, but on this forum, many do tons of it:

What is Navigator's preferred ordering for Series Scheduling and Conflict Resolution? Is it:

1.) PPV
2.) VOD
3.) Scheduled Series
4.) Individual Show?

Note, that in this example, nothing is prioritized by the user.

Now, say that a user has for a series the following set up:

Record New Episodes Only
Keep at Most (1) Episode. (i.e watching it within the week so that DVR space is conserved.)
Record All Air-times
Record Any Channel

Let's say..........."OOPS, someone has purchased and set to record a PPV during my series." Would Navigator be smart enough to record my series at a different time and on a different channel where the PPV conflict would be resolved before their would be notice of the conflict.?

Is the above behavior different in version builds, like from MDN to ODN?

I don't try to second guess what Navigator is going to do after I set up a series or show. I wait until an issue is shown and than work to solve it. But, I have had very few conflicts. Maybe it is because I record so few series. I am kind of in JC's boat here, hahaha.

But HOW Navigator deals with Conflict Resolution should be improved. The STB right now only tells you generic things like: "The set-top was unable to record the program." But it does not say why! That is an issue that needs improvement.

Jack

Unless I'm missing your question, AFAIK recording of VOD or PPV is not allowed, so they would have no place in the priority chain... and if you were just watching VOD or PPV and a scheduled recording came due that required the use of the tuner, it would pop up a message asking you to decide whether to honor the recording or keep watching.

Also... where did you see a "Record All Channels" option???

Honestly, I'm probably the polar opposite of you... I almost never record individual shows... usually limited to NFL games on Sunday afternoons, so I do not have a ton of experience with single show recording. That said, I don't think that single show recordings ever enter into Navigator's automatic conflict resolution process. It cannot and will not resolve conflicts between single show recordings that you have manually scheduled... those conflicts are immediately handled by you via the pop-up menus at the time you scheduled the conflict. What it will do relative to single show recordings is... if you manually choose to bump a series recording when presented with one of the conflict popups, it will seek additional showings of the series recording and automatically schedule those if they exist.

Going back to your question about scheduling a single PPV recording (if you were allowed to do it, it really would be no different than any other single recording). When you schedule the single recording, if it conflicts with your series it will immediately pop up a window notifying you of the conflict. If you choose to cancel the series recording at that point then, yes, Navigator will automatically reschedule the series recording IF another showing exists (on the same channel... i.e., it will only look for a bumped episode of Dexter on SHO-E, not on SHO-W... unless there really is a "Record All Channels" option that I've somehow missed.) However, if you tell it to bump another single show recording, it will not seek a secondary showing of the bumped single show.