Time Warner Was A Disaster
I don’t know how everyone else’s experience is, but my experience with Time Warner here locally has been a disaster. Several weeks ago, Time Warner ran a promotion to bundle high-speed internet, phone and digital cable in to one bill, offering to save me money each month by bundling services. So, after discussing with the Mrs., we took the plunge and gave up our satellite TV service we’ve had in our house for over 10 years with narry a problem, and gave up our local bell service.
Well, to try and keep this brief, their DVR service/digital cable service leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. They put in a couple of their Scientific Atlantic 8300 boxes, and after 3 service calls and two replacement units, it still doesn’t work right. We either had the picture, but no data (to get the name of the program or other information), or had data but no picture. Tech Support tried to “reset” the boxes several times over the course of an hour (they take forever to reboot), claimed they did an upgrade to HD boxes and sent it to the wrong boxes by mistake but shouldn’t have an impact, and weren’t able to fix it. They had to send a technician out two different times after the initial install. We were assured this wasn’t “normal”, but how can we have problems with both boxes? Are they refurbished rather than new because customers complained? Or perhaps customers ditching service and moving to satellite? Who knows.
I also noticed that trying to find programs to record is a lot harder with the TW boxes. With my TiVo Directv unit, I can put in search words or actors names, and it will find all the programs that match and record those. We love Elvis Presley movies, so we put Elvis Presley in our Favorites list, and automatically record those. I can’t do that on the TW boxes. My kids love Power Rangers, so we put Power Rangers in our Favorites list, and automatically record those. I can’t do that on the TW boxes. I have to go in and highlight each one (Power Rangers Generations, Power Rangers Mystic Force, Power Rangers S.P.D. etc.) and select it to record. TW also doesn’t group programs well. With Directv, programs are grouped much better. I know if I enter 290 (for Disney), most of the Children’s Programs will be right there around 290. With TW, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon are at 27/28, but Disney is all the way at 80, Toon Disney is at 118, Boomerang is at 143, Nick Toons is at 148, etc., etc., etc. Time Waster….rather than Time Warner.
To make matters worse, yesterday we realized that it didn’t record the season finale of a program we’ve watched all season, and weren’t available to watch it live. We tried to push the “List” button yesterday evening that should have pulled up our recorded programs, only to get a hard drive error, saying it needed to “reset”, and to press A to reset or B to try again. It also included a little note that to contact tech support if the reset didn’t fix it. Well, after the reset (that took upwards of 5 minutes watching the box “boot”), there wasn’t a single program recorded since 8/16. We lost over a weeks worth of recorded programs. All that was left was our “testing” programs to make sure the durn box worked right. That was it for me. I know what will happen. I’ll call them, they’ll once again claim its not normal, and offer to send a technician out to replace the box, but I’ll wait two days for the technician to get here just like the last two times. Some may have had a much better experience, but ours has been terrible. Has Directv spoiled me?
I’ve had Directv for over 10 years and have never had problems like this. I’ve had their TiVo units for over two years, again, without issue. I gave up. I made a phone call to Directv last night, after normal business hours (9 PM eastern), and 5 minutes later with a nice woman named Anita, the cards were reactivated, and after 2 minutes in the basement switching out the cables, I was back to my long lost love. Customer service was great, they had everything back up and running in no time. After almost a month of being in the basement, the boxes fired right up, all of our old recorded programs and favorites lists are all still there. I don’t know why I tried this. I’ll be making a phone call to Time Warner this morning telling them to come get their boxes. A few phone calls to my local bell company and hopefully will have my phone back to normal as well. Thanks but no thanks Time Warner, I’ll pay a few dollars more per month for better, more reliable service.