I recently reached my frustration limit with how TWC has brain damaged its DVRs, so I ordered a TIVO premiere back in late September. I have been trying ever since to get it installed and I am now back where I started with no TIVO and their DVR.
I called TWC aned asked for an installation. They gave me a date a week out. On that day, the installer called and said they didn't have cable cards and he would reschedule for the following week. I waited all evening and no show.
I called TWC the next day and asked for an appointment. The person told me that the problem was not the cablecard, but rather that the TIVO box needed a tuning adapter in order to receive the switched video channels that they were no starting to use. OK. However, the tuning adapter had not been released yet and it would be two weeks. I set up an appointment for two weeks out.
Three days later the tuning adapter and a cablecard arrived in the mail. Great, I thought, and proceeded to do the hardware install myself. I then called TWC hoping to get the card authorized. Turns out that their tier 3 people had not been trained yet on the tuning adapter and they couldn't make it work. They promised that they would send out someone with experience with this in 10 days.
The appointment day (last Friday) arrived and the installer showed up, took one look and said "What is all this stuff?" He had never even heard of a tuning adapter. To be fair, he dug in and we spent 4 hours trying to get the system functioning. Multiple resets of the TIVO and tuning adapter finally got the two to recognize each other. Multiple hits from the front office finally got us exactly 3 HD channels, and all of the analog and most of the SD stuff.
The installer finally gave up and set up another appointment for the next day with a level 3 tech who is supposed to know this stuff. Guy shows up and says "What's this stuff?" Go through the whole thing again, but this time we get a level 3 tech on the phone who knows his stuff, and we manage to get all but 6 channels working. At this point, I am convinced that this is a weak signal issue, as we had been seeing a fair amount of macroblocking on the old system. I ask for a signal check, but it turns out that the guy is a plain installer and doesn't have an analyzer. We set up a third appointment for Sunday.
Last night the troubleshooter shows up and says (you guessed it) "What is this stuff?" I explain that I believe it is all working, and that the missing channels are a signal strength issue. He isn't buying any of it and spends the next ten minutes saying that TWC isn't ready to support this stuff, and that it shouldn't have been released. He rips it out of the wall and proceeds to install another HD-DVR. Lo and behold the missing channels appear, but with serious macroblocking. At this point, he finally pulls out his analyzer and notes that the signals on these channels is running -30 dB. Tells me I need an amplifier and installs one. Channels are now only -6 dB. I ask to have the tuning adapter and cablecard re-installed and he smiles and tells me that he doesn't have another cablecard and that I will need to schedule another appointment.
That's where I stand right now. Now that I am done ranting, I will post something on actual performance in a different thread.
I called TWC aned asked for an installation. They gave me a date a week out. On that day, the installer called and said they didn't have cable cards and he would reschedule for the following week. I waited all evening and no show.
I called TWC the next day and asked for an appointment. The person told me that the problem was not the cablecard, but rather that the TIVO box needed a tuning adapter in order to receive the switched video channels that they were no starting to use. OK. However, the tuning adapter had not been released yet and it would be two weeks. I set up an appointment for two weeks out.
Three days later the tuning adapter and a cablecard arrived in the mail. Great, I thought, and proceeded to do the hardware install myself. I then called TWC hoping to get the card authorized. Turns out that their tier 3 people had not been trained yet on the tuning adapter and they couldn't make it work. They promised that they would send out someone with experience with this in 10 days.
The appointment day (last Friday) arrived and the installer showed up, took one look and said "What is all this stuff?" He had never even heard of a tuning adapter. To be fair, he dug in and we spent 4 hours trying to get the system functioning. Multiple resets of the TIVO and tuning adapter finally got the two to recognize each other. Multiple hits from the front office finally got us exactly 3 HD channels, and all of the analog and most of the SD stuff.
The installer finally gave up and set up another appointment for the next day with a level 3 tech who is supposed to know this stuff. Guy shows up and says "What's this stuff?" Go through the whole thing again, but this time we get a level 3 tech on the phone who knows his stuff, and we manage to get all but 6 channels working. At this point, I am convinced that this is a weak signal issue, as we had been seeing a fair amount of macroblocking on the old system. I ask for a signal check, but it turns out that the guy is a plain installer and doesn't have an analyzer. We set up a third appointment for Sunday.
Last night the troubleshooter shows up and says (you guessed it) "What is this stuff?" I explain that I believe it is all working, and that the missing channels are a signal strength issue. He isn't buying any of it and spends the next ten minutes saying that TWC isn't ready to support this stuff, and that it shouldn't have been released. He rips it out of the wall and proceeds to install another HD-DVR. Lo and behold the missing channels appear, but with serious macroblocking. At this point, he finally pulls out his analyzer and notes that the signals on these channels is running -30 dB. Tells me I need an amplifier and installs one. Channels are now only -6 dB. I ask to have the tuning adapter and cablecard re-installed and he smiles and tells me that he doesn't have another cablecard and that I will need to schedule another appointment.
That's where I stand right now. Now that I am done ranting, I will post something on actual performance in a different thread.
