Time Warner Cable Navigator - Page 589

To add to that,

Only competent professional software developers can save Navigator at this point! Going to cloud with the same bunch of Syracuse inmates running the aslylum isn't going to change anything. (i.e independent contractors will just mess it up again!) They should totally give up the guide to quality developers. WTF are they waiting for? Even get the Passport guys back. Just give us a guide that works across the board!

Jack

Unless I missed something, it's "just" six channels being dropped in Charlotte on 12/12 (on top of the four they had previously dropped). According to the letter I received, these are the channels leaving analog :

Won't miss a single one of them... they could drop the digital versions as well and I probably would never even notice.

Even with a very heavy recording schedule, Navigator is still not really giving me any headaches. However, over the last month or so the number of random video freeze-ups (along with no audio) has increased dramatically. I see this on all of my boxes as well as the WMC/HDHR setup, so it's not a Navigator issue. Any show... any channel... any time... two or three times an hour the picture will just freeze for about five seconds with no audio, then just resume with just a bit of pixelation. When this happens there is always good signal level and S/N... and absolutely no indication of stream errors (either corrected or uncorrected) in the Navigator diagnostics.

The other day 8742 was off (in standby ... and not recording) but I happen to notice it was counting-down ? What was it doing?

 

It was showing the time for 1 second, then a 2 letter code and a high number like 35 ... I forget the letters ... lets say CD ... so it displayed CD-35, the time, CD-34, the time, etc.

 

Anyone know what it was doing? It was in the middle of the day. It wasn't rebooting (that I know of)... maybe it was? I have it connected to a APC-UPS.

Fixed that for you.

Speaking for everyone's preferences is always a bit tricky.

Here in Wisconsin,

We got a letter that a bunch of analog stations only are going to require a converter box and will no longer have the "in the clear" capability. About 10-15 channels added to Digital Variety and Sports Pass Packages between now and on or after December 12th.

We got a patch update to Navigator last week. Still on ODN 5.2.09. My prediction for Navigator is that TWC will deploy another set of clowns to work on the cloud based services and the "new guide" will just be an extension of the new advanced search filters and VOD menus to more of the legacy boxes. TWC won't swap out the existing boxes. They will just ram the updates down the pipeline and if the boxes take them OK, next task. If they don't, customer just goes through the typical truck roll process with the chance of getting another banged up box.

IT'S NOT THE BOXES FOR THE MOST PART THAT ARE THE PROBLEM, IT IS THE SOFTWARE ON THEM! HOWEVER, FOR TWC MANAGEMENT, THAT IS A FACT THAT HAS NEVER BEEN COMPREHENDED!

TWC won't hire quality program developers, or upgrade 20 million boxes to the latest and greatest to make Navigator decent. That makes too much sense, and it would cost too much out-of pocket money to hire outside guys who know what they are doing. TWC hasn't made Navigator reliable across the board for six years, so why start now?

JC and I are just fortunate to be in a Navigator area with much fewer issues than other divisions. However, that does not justify Navigator's overall mediocre performance nationwide. I just want a guide, any guide to be usable for everybody paying between $150-$300 a month. My confidence in TWC's ability to do the right things with their on-screen guide is down to about minus three.

And practically everyone on the forum knows this.

Jack
Edited by Satch Man - 11/30/12 at 12:10pm

Never implied that I was speaking for anyone but myself... no "fixing" required.

I received the newest Navigator update the other night ODN 5.2.0.9 on my Cisco 8742. The only thing that is not working correctly so far is that the percentage of disk space used by programs recorded is much too low. It was at over 60% before the upgrade but now it shows 42%. I tried the soft reboot fix but it still is the same. Is there any way to fix this annoyance? Thanks.

I received the newest Navigator update the other night ODN 5.2.0.9 on my Cisco 8742. The only thing that is not working correctly so far is that the percentage of disk space used by programs recorded is much too low. It was at over 60% before the upgrade but now it shows 42%. I tried the soft reboot fix but it still is the same. Is there any way to fix this annoyance? Thanks.

JC from what I am being told from reliable sources, every month will have a drop in the analog until a life line is established in the analog. Starz-Encore outage yesterday was bad timing for me in the free preview give away. Stop by one day on your travels and visit, I will show you what un-compressed video looks like....

I fixed mine by doing a hard drive reformat. I was only able to record about 10 hrs. and the HDD would show full. After the reformat - 8%. Bad thing is that you'll lose all your recordings and all the shows you have tagged to record in the future.

I also just scheduled Directv to come and replace TWC. Even though the 8742 is working OK, I've got an older SA box in the living room that takes 5 minutes to respond to remote button pushes and I've had it. I am done waiting for fixes to Navigator that are not ever going to materialize.
I am sooo looking forward to the day nest week that I load up their overpriced DVR's, take them to the TWC office and tell the CSR at the counter to deliver a message to her manager about where they can shove these useless pieces of ....

Actually,

There was a software update patch that fixes the percent of DVR space used. Before the update, it was showing high percentage used on some boxes. My question is, if your box showed the drop from over 60% to 42% it is now likely correct, so why mess with it?

Jack

And whos to say its fixed anyway. My 8742 has drifted like that since I got it. The % is just not accurate so I dont really pay it any attention. I used to unplug it once a month or so to reset it but it became a pain. I just keep it below 80%. I long ago gave up trying to keep it higher and expect it to record something.

Good point!

Who knows what those Navigator updates fix? Since TWC never publishes release notes, we customers never know what gets fixed and what new features are coming.

Jack

I doubt those patches fix anything. It's probably vaporware that the software idiots use to show management that they are diligently working on making the Navigator experience more fulfilling to the customer when in reality the net effect to the consumer is null.

Sure. Why not?

And the CEO's who don't know a thing about writing and testing programing code are conned into thinking that the independent contractor team is doing something useful. They don't even know the differences in the boxes hardware and software. MDN vs. ODN could be A-B-C vs. 1-2-3. The only thing that can be done is for TWC to completely get out of the set-top box and software design business. Everything associated with the guide needs to go to a professional software company. Tivo, Arris, Moxi, Passport, even Apple despite its critics would be better than trying to "fix" Navigator with a bunch of independent contractors who have not one clue of how to write and test program code. The only thing that TWC should be doing with those boxes is providing the channels on them. They provide the service, but leave the development to the pros who's heart and soul is in set-top box development.

TWC has had SIX YEARS to get Navigator right! Cloud services? HA! They can't even get reliable HDMI output to some of the boxes in several divisions. And I am sure the independent contractors are nice people and all that, but they are "clowns" in terms of producing reliable results. The independent contractors, masquerading as software developers, don't know how to write, test, and debug programing code. This is why the Navigator software is a "Joke." However, people aren't laughing, they are leaving TWC TV services, due to the poor performance of the Navigator Guide. More and more people by the day are moving to a more reliable, and modern guide in provides such as Direct TV, or Dish Network. The competition, such as the satellite companies and AT&T U-Verse, can code their set-top box software correctly, after at most one update. When it takes TWC SIX YEARS to barely get a program guide to a tolerable level, one has to ask, how much longer is TWC going to keep going with inexperienced independent contractors for the Navigator software?

Jack
Edited by Satch Man - 12/1/12 at 11:33am

I am also in San Diego with the Ciaco 8640HDC and I see -1 in the listings too for one of my scheduled programs on PBS. In the Guide, the program doesn't show in red, and if I select it, it acts like I selected a different program. It's highly likely this program won't get recorded at all.

I think I made a mistake of leaving a previous recording on pause too long last night. Some of the shows didn't record while others showed they did. Then today the same thing. Some things said they recorded while others didn't. So, I restarted and now it shows that nothing recorded Friday and Saturday and the last 4 things I watched and deleted were back in the list. Deleting them again didn't reduce my percentage used (although they may have not been taking up space in the first place. Maybe I need to restart again.

Thank You Navigator. I don't know what I would find to occupy my time without these lovely things.

Well, I'm in the midst of another 2 hour plus update. Started at 5AM and it's now 7AM and only at 83%. This new update procedure takes forever. The old one was far faster. The first time I saw this taking so long I was excited thinking "Maybe they are deploying a completely new update". Then after it was done, no changes and only more issues. Waiting to see what's in this and what version it is. I'll report back, but it likely won't be any big news.

Funny, I thought they were already there.

BenJF3;
Ok, how does one know when these boxes are updating?

Isn't their entire system using the same firmware for these boxes? It seems every local system seems to different.

Apparantly, it takes a while to download a new batch of bugs.

The update process is entirely different here now. You get a dialog box with a progress bar and the front display shows the progress as well. Used to be it would act like a reboot and show some indication on the front panel which didn't take that long. The last two updates took over two hours each.

ADD ON: The update took me to ODN 6.0.0_19

Initial Differences: Add "Subscribed" Option to the "Guide Filter" and speed enhancements. Have to use it more to see if it addresses the audio stutter and reliability.
Edited by BenJF3 - 12/4/12 at 6:18am

Quick question for a new TW subscriber. I have the whole house DVR and I have HBO, but HBO only shows up on the main tv with the DVR, not on any tvs with a dummy box. Is this the way it is suppose to work? I called Customer service and they said that was normal. I find it hard to believe I pay for HBO and can only get it on one tv in the house.

I came from Direct TV and I am shocked at how bad the Navigator interface is. Serious regrets, although I love how much faster roadrunner is then zoomtown.

Ben ...i noticed that very obscure update while i was up watching a dvr'ed episode of American horror story some type of update happened around 2 am only to have some update pushed to it around 2:30 and the update still was going on til at least 4:30 am i got very sick of waiting for it's completion so i went to bed. I wake up this morning and i turn on the tv and instantly it was very odd for an update because on channels i couldn't click there info or access the guide but prior to that it look like my box had the CW 6 HD along with My network i think it may have have been WNYS ...didn't really notice any other channel additions but the channels were very crisp and looked high resolution.So i preceded further up the channel list in to the HD tier only to find i couldn't access them so i rebooted the box and when it was fully rebooted and the clock returned everything was prior was gone .... very odd i was so ticked when i no longer had the CW in HD an no MYnetwork . Whatever the update was supposed to have patched made my box enter the twilight zone !!! Also added note i noticed those networks were aligned with other network's as well (CW,CBS,ABC,MYNETWORK,NBC) CW for the update is way down on channel 14 before update. Seemed cool to see CW in HD and see it between ABC and CBS.

dantethedog,

That is not correct. Please call back and tell them to check HBO on balancing screen. HBO service should be on all boxes.

Jim

Got Dish installed today. Using the Dish software really illustrates to me just how far behind TWC is. They should really give up on Navigator and go back to Passport or switch to TiVo software.

But that will cost them money. Corporate profits are all about minimizing costs and maximizing revenues (as in charging for modems that already have been included in the price of Internet)

A source at TWC told me that one of the ways that Navigator could be so much improved is if there were only two boxes to choose from. For example, one for DVR, one for non-DVR. There are too many TWC boxes for which specified code has to be written and applied. I think one of the reasons why Direct TV, Dish Network, and U-Verse are so far ahead of Navigator is because they stick with modern hardware, and don't have to do backwards compatability for some old Pioneer or SA-1000, 2000 box that is sitting in the field.

He thinks Navigator is trying to be too much for boxes that can't or have a hard time supporting it. He also thinks that TWC will not start over with Navigator because according to him, they have invested too much money into it. He says company feedback says that customers are more interested in a reliable, basic, easy-to-use guide, over fancy features.

TWC may have won some battles with the competition over better HD channel selection, more VOD, more local programing, and better retention deals. But its the competition that long ago have and has the better guides, Whom to go with, I think depends a lot on personal experiences with the companies.

Jack

The only changes I'm seeing for the 2 hour update here in CNY is the option to have yellow menu bars and a few tweaks to the UI when recording or deleting a program.

Yellow menu bars? How do you get them?

On the Subscribed Channels filter, if you Select Subscribed Channels, do PPV/VOD channels show in the guide?

Jack

The new color palette is really just the old one. You can change the guide to a blue background with yellow highlighting in the Display Menu. The background remains black, but the rest is yellow with blue.


UPDATE: The audio dropouts are now the worst they have ever been. Can't watch even a half hour straight without audio stutter or complete loss of sound. This has to be a known HDMI issue because the "techs" solution is to "just use component cables".
Edited by BenJF3 - 12/7/12 at 4:36am