Time Warner Cable Navigator - Page 33

Yes, the unit was being turned "on" via the remote. The unit is in standby all the time, to capture programs for viewing later. On this occasion a show had started recording at, say, 8:00, and we waited until 8:20 (or maybe 8:40 for a two-hour show?) to start watching it so we could skip thru commercials.

No question of bad batteries or extra rebooting; the users just accepted these delays as a quirk they could live with.

Well your friends and RiverSideGuy are both experiencing this start up quirk and you (your friends and RG) are in the same neighborhood give or take a couple of miles. It's not the first time something different happened in that area.

Well,

I don't have a DVR, but I was told you can leave the box on all the time by several techs. One tech said he has done that with his own DVR for several years and never had a problem. I leave my box turned on, it's 5 years old, and works great.

How old are the DVR's experiencing these "warm up" issues? A good friend of mine, who is into DVR/Tivo devices says that the hard drives last about 5-6 years, if you are dealing with a receiver that lasts about as long as can be expected.

Jack

I didn't specifically note this at the time, but now that you mention it, that lag was some of why I found Passport to be less than I expected. Still not sure why it would take a few minutes to warm up from Standby mode though, but maybe something needs to be initialized and loaded to RAM first. Perhaps Passport loads modules as needed or something like that.

Odd that they do not have anything on the Customer Support page about Navigator for Raleigh yet.

Ted

Hey, is there any indication you got a unit with a drive larger than 160GB? I would not need eSATA if the internal drive were 400GB instead of 160.

Thanks,
Ted

The SA8300HDCs are still 160GB.

Specs are same as SA8300HD for dual 250 MIPS processors and (optional) 128 MB RAM.
Hopefully the next software update will fix the external HDD FF/RW bug...

It apparently has DSG (DOCSIS Gateway)...Q: both uplink and downlink????

But no MPEG4 via IPTV......so it's days may be numbered....

I have my Passport 8300HD set to shut down completely when turned off (a menu option). I do not have buffer, etc. when turned off, so it is really shutting down. It does record when needed and does come back to the channel it was left on, so maybe just not writing to disk unless recording to save wear and tear??? I keep forgetting to listen to really hear whether the HD is spinning down.

Do the 10 minute wait people have LCD TVs? I saw people with one of the satellite TV company remotes having problems with the remote getting swamped by IR from the TV (happened to be Sharp Aquos) while the TV warms up and won't allow the remote to work for 5-10 minutes. I remember tape over a sensor was involved. I think it was put on the remote's IR LEDs, but doesn't make sense right now to me so would have to find the info.

Dan

Even from a cold boot, my 8300HD w/Passport only takes about 3-4 minutes to reach a usable state. My DirecTiVO took about 7 minutes to boot, and most of that was acquiring guide info. 10 minutes seems outrageous for anything made since the 80s to completely boot.

Ted

I'm sure I posted about this issue abnout a year ago. The "warmed up" was NOT a scientific observation, but the box 100% took a good 10 minutes before signals from the remote worked. Way dofferent from my 8000DVR.

Very much I am NOT talking about cold booting the box! Hell, that process actually seems to take a lot longer now than 6 months ago... but is not the issue. Y'all should know I'm a bit more savvy than that!

I'm Manhattan North, the pal I referred to was Manhattan South. Two different head ends. HE notices it more NOW because he just got a HD display and is watching a lot more than prior.

Yes I considered this... but I suspect it draws more power when "on" than in standby (my electric rates are going through the roof and I'm on a campaign to keep them in check as much as I can). PLUS, the way I have it set, it shows clock when in standby and channel when "on."

I wasn't referring to your friends, I was referring to you and Ron-on-Mrng-Vsta's (post 1065) friends who live on the West Side and 183rd.
Regardless, I don't recall ever hearing about a start up delay.

Hi Guys,

So I was wondering and willing to share with all of the fine experts on the board, what do YOU think will happen with the future of Navigator within the next 6 months?

Also, do you know if there are any plans for new channels on the horizon? (I know this isn't the thread to discuss new channels, but the TWC Customer thread is dead, and I thought more people would see this question if posted here.) Thanks! I am interested in getting Chiller TV added to my TWC line-up. It's a great channel, and right now it is only offered on dish, Direct TV.

Regards,

Jack

Could be something like that.

I checked with my NYC contact, and he says: "Yeah, it's still doing it. It does it every time you leave it for a long period of time. It's definitely not 'asleep' like a hard drive off - since it never affects the actual operation of the unit, just how it responds to user input.

I usually just hit the 'list' and 'guide' buttons until they both work properly. (One of them starts working more quickly than the other). I don't think I'd say that it's 10 minutes, more like 2 or 3.

I'm not an expert, but my own personal opinion is that we won't see much in the way of new features in the next 6 months to a year. I think TWC will spend that time honing the existing features and getting them to work right and consistently.

As to new channels, TWC seems to decide this on a system by system basis. Look for an AVS forum that covers your local system (Milwaukee?) and see what's being said there. Also, keep your eyes on the "What's New" section of your cable bill; they usually announce new channels there.

-barry

And if you see that TWC is announcing new channels, look for a concurrent increase in your subscription rate. Or is Lincoln the only market where improved channel lineups seem to signal rate increases?

Just as a point of fairness, when TWC Austin added ESPN2, my cable bill dropped by $8. They removed the charge for HBO in-demand, lowered the cost of the pay HD tier, and moved some channels from the pay HD tier into the no-charge HD tier.

xnappo

Well up here we had 2 HD channels removed from a HD only pay tier with no price decrease (5 channels to three and they added a few SD channels to this HD speciality iter to justify the 40% drop in available HD channels we are still paying for), yes we got ESPN2 HD (ah, but only on the more expensive of the 2 "normal" digital tiers), but three months earlier we did see a rate increase of a couple of bucks per month, yes we get 4 less HD channel than SI while we pay the same overall rate. Or how about right outside the city line, RR for a good year was TWICE as fast as what we got for the same price... and now is running 70% of "their" speed.

I have no issue with paying for what I get, but we're talking major inequities here. If they give SI more service, either they should pay more or we should pay less. It's the inequity that really burns my britches.

Oh, one more thing. Can't 100% attest it's the cause, but I and many others seem to be noticing a HUGE increase in the frequency of audio dropouts and other glitches that seemed to start when they added ESPN2 HD. From at least 4 separate head ends, meaning system-wide. Can't guarentee you one caused the other, but one sure started with the introduction of that other...

I wonder if they moved some of their bandwidth to high-ingress channels (channels on the same frequency as local broadcast stations).

Here in Austin we have SDV - and ESPN2 was added as an SDV channel. It is strange that the policies are so different. Of course as you have mentioned before you are a more captive audience since satellite is not an option for you, while in Austin almost everyone could switch to satellite if they wanted to.

xnappo

That could be. Could also be just moving to a higher frequency which is more susceptible to attenuation.

There is NOTHING fair about cable bills or the inequity between systems and markets on the same system. It is simply supply & demand and we continue to pay the bill, so we have little to complain about. I would love to pay less that $25/mo for my DVR as Cox customers do in other markets, but since I live here, I put up or switch. If I moved to San Diego, my cable bill would be the least of my financial woes.

Yes, there is some equalization in the world after all.

Why bother then? I mean, if all they are doing is adding the cablecard slot and not changing any other specs or advancing the product, then to me it's a wasted effort. These units should be coming with a 500GB hard drive. They have become significantly cheaper and would add serious capacity. I called TW asking about adding an external SATA drive and they didn't know ANYTHING about the hardware. Instead, they wanted to know WHY I needed more drive space. I explained that I record alot because of my work schedule and much of what I record is HD. The box only holds about 20 hours of HD. They wanted me to bring the box back and exchange it stating something must be wrong because it should hold more than 20 hours. I referred them to the spec sheet and found myself educating them about THEIR product!!! I guess my point is that if you are going to overhaul the box then why the hell not IMPROVE IT!

What is most significant regarding this mandate is cable TV operators are no longer permitted to distribute new STBs with integrated and proprietary security. Requiring STBs to use an OCAP authorization mechanism with a CableCARD hopefully will spur digital A/V equipment manufactures to provide consumers with additional choices beyond the aging SA8300.

Big whoop. With OCAP the only competition will come in the choice of hard drive size and I guess color of the box. The software, interface, and features will still be controlled by the cable cartel. I'm not even sure I see a business reason to get into the cut-throat, race to the bottom-price market for hardware. It's so low margin it's not worth it.

That is your opinion, but OCAP certainly opens the door for more options even if they are offered/controlled by the cableco. No longer does stuff have to work strickly on SA/Moto/whatever headends and the door will open to multiple options, like Tivo, depending on what you want to pay. If you want a basic IPG, it may be included. If you want something more robust, it may be an added cost option. Also, with continued integration of the internet, what keeps someone from offering an OCAP-capable box that gets it's guide data via the internet and takes cable out as the middle man? I don't think we'll see much, if anything, though until DCAS. I still see the CC-enable units as an interim and why should retailers dive in before they know exactly what the future holds?

I'm sure that this has been pointed out before but the TRUTH is that there has been NO REQUIREMENT that OCAP be used after 7/1/07.

While it is TRUE that the broad objective of the FCC is to enable Consumer Owned Navigation Devices has lead industry to develop the Open Cable Application Platform, no government agency has mandated it's use.

The FCC has also not directly mandated the use of CableCards either. They have only mandated that NEW cable company supplied STBs NOT have integrated (built-in) security. While industry has developed a downloadable security solution (DCAS - Downloadable Conditional Access Security), it is not yet ready for deployment. Because the FCC is unwilling to delay further delay in action the only solution for cable is to temporarily use boxes with CableCards, until DCAS is ready for deployment.

BTW: The CableCards that most of the cable boxes will use are different than the old ones. These are know as "Type M", meaning Multi-Stream. They can handle multiple (up to 6) programing streams.

These new boxes are capable of using OCAP - but then, many of the old boxes are also supposedly capable of OCAP too.

One reason that we aren't seeing greater changes in the cable boxes now is that major changes are in the not too distant future (DCAS, MPEG-4, etc.) and they are waiting for those (particularly DCAS) before the next major retooling.

Besides: What is the market for these cable supplied STBs if consumers will be able to purchase their own navigation devices, or have them built into the TV?

But the bottom line here: OCAP is NOT mandated by the FCC by 7/1/07.