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Television Media

Time Warner Cable Runs Out of HD DVRs 208

Posted by CowboyNeal from the selling-like-hotcakes dept.
jalvear writes "According to TV NewsChannel 9 in Syracuse, NY, Time Warner Cable said that they have run out of HD digital video recorder (DVR) boxes. Apparently, there's a shortage of HD DVRs because the company that makes the boxes have been 'overwhelmed by requests for them.' Seems like almost everyone has bought an HDTV during the holidays and wants to watch the Super Bowl in HD format."
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Time Warner Cable Runs Out of HD DVRs More

Time Warner Cable Runs Out of HD DVRs

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  • cabele companies (Score:5, Funny)

    by thebear05 ( 916315 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @05:43AM (#17766230)
    Wow cable companies doing a piss poor job of taking care of consumer needs. I'm Shocked

  • Not a problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Keeper ( 56691 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @05:49AM (#17766258)
    Fortunately it's possible to receive HD cable programming without one of their HD boxes ... Oh, wait, you can't...

    • Fortunately it's possible to receive HD cable programming without one of their HD boxes ... Oh, wait, you can't...
      Why not? I've seen friends that have Cox Cable and they don't need a digital cable box to receive the HD channels... at least not for the broadcast stuff from ABC/NBC/CBS... but what else is there to watch in HD? Discovery Channel? HDTV is the most overrated technology I've ever seen. It looks beautiful, but the content is still crap.
      • I've got Discovery HD.. Still waiting for Sci-Fi HD, though. Can't wait to watch Mansquito in HD!

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by thebdj ( 768618 )
        DiscoveryHD (which is worth it), TNT-HD, ESPN HD, ESPN2 HD, Comcast SportsNet HD, INHD (which shows VS. NHL games), the OTA stuff (which living as far away from the transmitters as I do, it is a good thing to have cable). There is also Universal HD (I don't get it, but I know it exist.), HBO HD, Showtime HD, Starz HD, Cinemax HD (I think), and HD On-Demand.

        There is tons of content, and it isn't all crap. If you watches Sports then ESPN and ESPN2 in HD are both well worth it. If you like the movie chann

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Shads ( 4567 )
          You know, anyone I hear someone say they don't care for a product why does someone come along and say "you don't like [insert technology here] because you can't afford it." or roughly insinuate the same. It's a real nice backhanded argumentum ad hominem for when people really don't have much of a case to debate with the person but don't like what the person said. Cute.

          You can get HDTV for an extremely low cost these days, gone are the days when you couldn't buy anything with HD in the name unless you paid

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by thebdj ( 768618 )

            You know, anyone I hear someone say they don't care for a product why does someone come along and say "you don't like [insert technology here] because you can't afford it." or roughly insinuate the same. It's a real nice backhanded argumentum ad hominem for when people really don't have much of a case to debate with the person but don't like what the person said. Cute.

            Because I can name a number of cases where this has been the case. You will find a number of people in this world who will berate things merely out of some degree of envy or jealousy. Are there people who do not want HD and could afford it? Yes, but he blatantly attacked a lack of content which is a terribly false assumption as I can list a fair number of HD channels.

            Why do you join in on the lack of content? I know a lot of adopters who are sports fans, and maybe the fact that there is a good deal of

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Shads ( 4567 )
              Lack of content IS the primary argument. I watch *ONE* channel of what is currently available that you listed or that I know of. That is NOT worth it.

              Personally, I think you're deluding yourself if you think Jealousy and Envy are the reason more than 1% debate anything and regardless, the way you used it is STILL ad hominem rather than making a valid point. Which you still haven't done in regards to the original poster.

              You are right there is a point you have to invest, the time for MOST PEOPLE isn't yet
            • "If someone wants to argue against HDTV, can you please come up with a better argument then a lack of content?"

              I find this to be the case too in many cases. I'm not a sports fan, so, that writes off a lot of the HD out there. As mentioned above, the Discovery HD channel carries different content from the normal one...if I could watch Mythbusters, etc in HD, that would be cool.

              And frankly I have a good deal of disposable income, but, with the HDCP issues....resolutions going up quickly...what will play wi

        • Do you think Cable channels have a lot of pixelation now? Well, just wait until they have to start compressing their signal even more to keep up with the HDTV expansion underway by DirecTV. I already switched and have a HDTV DVR which is just 'okay', but those of you still on Cable are going to be pissed when you see what happens to your just barely viewable picture when Cable companies are forced to push even more signal down their limited bandwidth.

          And then, when consumers complain, Cable companies will

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Mean Variance ( 913229 )

            And then, when consumers complain, Cable companies will then have to switch out all that MPEG2 hardware for MPEG4, just like the Satellite companies did, and its just going to be bloody hell on you folks.

            Yes, pure hell. I'll just kill myself now. I have Comcast HD with the HD DVR. The DVR is flaky at times, but the HD channels rarely pixelate. For $10 extra per month for both the DVR and HD, I'll live with it. If this calamatous world view you predict pans out, well, I think my life will get along just fine nonetheless.

            Bloody hell? Uh, not really.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jedidiah ( 1196 )
              I dunno, I recently had a chance to check out both Cinemax-HD and TNT-HD on a properly setup configuration. (This is important as a badly setup config will ruin the experience. Most consumers have no idea how to do this or to ensure that an expert has done it correctly). The movie on TNT-HD looked like a step up from SD, the movie on Cinemax-HD did not. It looked worse than a DVD actually.

              There's no simple answer to any of this. HDTV aint exactly an IS0-9000 sort of thing.
      • The content is catching up.
        Pretty much any sport you watch is in HD. I know a lot of the slashdot crowd isn't in to sports, but for those of us who are, HD Football looks so much better.
        Almost any new show is in HD as well.
        I get the movie network in hd, and now we don't rent movies any more, because that looks better then DVD...it just means we have to wait a few months more to watch the movies.
        The only show that I would really like to see an HD version of is Deal or No Deal...maybe not though...HD really
      • List of HD Channels [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by CheSera ( 176903 )
      This is pleasantly untrue. If you have a TV with a QAM tuner, or any device with a QAM tuner, you would be able to pick up the HD signals for the local broadcasters just fine. Also, since we're talking about local broadcast here, you could go one step further and pick up an OTA and HD tuner and not have to have cable at all. Not to mention what has been already said, that you could still pick up a non-dvr hd box. So you can still get your hd without one of their boxes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      Actually you can. In comcast land many of the HD OTA channels are tunable by any Decent HD-TV set. If your set can it's either really old, or one of the crappy ones without a ATSC/QAM tuner.

      The fun part is that if you get a A180 ATSC tuner card and install it under linux, you can not only tune the entire QAM constellation but you can also watch the on-demand feeds your neighbors are watching as they are unscrambled.

      We were watching someone that was in the neighborhood of the office that was getting some o

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mzs ( 595629 )

        The fun part is that if you get a A180 ATSC tuner card and install it under linux, you can not only tune the entire QAM constellation but you can also watch the on-demand feeds your neighbors are watching as they are unscrambled.

        Two to three years ago I was able to do it with my TV QAM tuner. At first I thought it was some new kids channel. Then one time it paused and that threw me. Then later they started changing channels. Finally one night it was soft core porn and I figured it out. It was fun channel hopping. The channel would work for a few minutes then you would have to tune to another channel to find it again. After a while it stopped working.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by aboyko ( 16319 )

      Fortunately it's possible to receive HD cable programming without one of their HD boxes ... Oh, wait, you can't...

      Sure you can. Most cable companies don't encrypt the digital QAM feed for at least the local broadcast channels (and sometimes quite a few more channels), so a QAM tuner (built into many HD TVs, or available as an set top box or as a computer peripheral) will let you get HD content to do with as you will. I get something like 8 HD channels unencrypted. plus a few dozen SD digital channels, as a regular analog customer with no cable company-provided box.

      • The important part is "without a box" you can't use your old cable box and see the "in the clear" QAM channels. You need the HD box or NO box to see the HD channels included with your basic cable subscription.

        I never knew about any of this until I bought an HD set to replace my old SD set. I was not planning on having any HD content, but when I plugged in my cable, there it was. Would not have seen it if I had a cable box in the way.

        As a side note, I do not allow the cable companies to put their box in
    • this is the only option short of buying a new set many users have. Over the air ? How many people do you know who actually do that and have HDTVs? I can't recall the last time I saw one let alone met anyone using over the air TV.

      The Satellite service I have offers a DVR with HD Ability for a rate far cheaper than anything I can get from TIVO and if it breaks they will replace it. Also, since my TV isn't capable of receiving/interpeting HD on its own this single device covers both my needs (that and it ca

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gatzke ( 2977 )

      You are totally wrong.

      You can receive HD programming without a HD box.

      Typically, on regular cable a lot of channels will not be encrypted and all you need is a QAM tuner.

      Generally, the good stuff is encrypted, so all you can get is local and educational channels without a box. No espn or discovery...

    • Re:Not a problem (Score:5, Informative)

      by jeaton ( 44965 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @10:34AM (#17769112)

      Fortunately it's possible to receive HD cable programming without one of their HD boxes ... Oh, wait, you can't...
      Sure there is: Cable cards.

    • Fortunately it's possible to receive HD cable programming without one of their HD boxes ... Oh, wait, you can't...

      They probably have a surplus of the non-DVR HD boxes. They had HD for a long time before they got the DVRs, and a lot of folks returned the former to get the latter.

      I've got two of their DVRs myself, and a non-DVR HD box. But I didn't wait until the last minute.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by powerlord ( 28156 )
      Sure you can. Cable-Cards into a TV of Series3 TiVo.

      Mine is working just fine without any need for an HD-DVR from TimeWarner.

      In fact, since they have a shortage, I feel altruistic for helping lower the demand for their crappy HD-DVRs. :)

  • Watch superbowl? (Score:4, Funny)

    by ForestGrump ( 644805 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @05:52AM (#17766278) Homepage Journal
    Why! why for the love of HDTV?

    Just go download the commercials on your fav torrent site or youtube. Don't waste your life watching the filler.

    Grump

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by DingerX ( 847589 )
      Dude. It's all about the live experience. With an HD DVR, you can start the party, then have everyone sit down two hours after kickoff and watch the commercials without sports interruption. And yeah, you can also avoid the halftime show with "Hooray for Everything" (shudder), without missing the eventual nipple.
      • If you think waiting to hours to see his nipple [wikipedia.org] is well worth it, you have some deeper issues than watching HD-TV.

        Besides, for the first time, my wife gonna watch some football, just to see the halftime show. You should have seen her eyes when she eard the news! (Prince in HD!?!?! hummmmmm) It will be the best night of my life for sure. I am gonna get it that night, and not because those man will wear tights!
      • The now defunct ReplayTV had a bug in the commercial skip software, that could make it get confused as to whether it was on a commercial, or on content. This lead the the unofficial 'Content Advance' feature. For many of us that still have Replays, it is very popular during the Superbowl.

  • Is that real? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WinKing ( 1043446 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @05:54AM (#17766284) Journal
    It might be, but I think most of these type of stories are created for publicity or an advertising stunt. Will like to read others comments.
    • Surely the last thing a company sitting on a pile of hot products would do is tell its customer base that there's none left. How many people thinking of getting a box will now read this and think "forget it"?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Dunbal ( 464142 )
        Surely the last thing a company sitting on a pile of hot products would do is tell its customer base that there's none left.

              What, like Sony and the PS3 you mean?
    • It might be, but I think most of these type of stories are created for publicity or an advertising stunt. Will like to read others comments.

      It's the same story in Raleigh, NC. 11,000 orders for HD service since December 1st. In a market of 500,000.Time Warner rushes HD boxes [newsobserver.com]

      The geek who thinks that HD is going nowhere had better look again. The train has left the station.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Debunking (Score:5, Insightful)

    by robbiedo ( 553308 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @06:03AM (#17766320)
    A considerable amount of commentary concerning the format war between Blue Ray and HD-DVD is based on the notion that standard definition is "good enough," for most owners of HDTV's, thus neither format will achieve deep penetration in the short term. However, this run on HD-DVR shows a clear demand for HD content. Comcast offers rental for their HD-DVR for a modest price, and no contract, and customers are snapping these units up. ON DEMAND had HD movies that can be viewed at the customers leisure, much of this content is at no additional charge. It has been posited that the format war is irrelevant due to people downloading HD content over the intertubes; however, the cable companies may make this argument irrelevant with the ON DEMAND feature, and the growing HD content. People want HD content, but are not willing to get hosed in the process by greedy corporations trying to win an unnecessary format war.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Xugumad ( 39311 )
      I don't know what broadcast TV in the US is like, but here in the UK SD broadcast TV isn't even close to DVD quality, while the HD broadcast is generally around HD-DVD/BluRay quality, meaning there's a much bigger improvement visible.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by mikael ( 484 )
        The best example of poor quality is watching one of those orange fireball explosions. Then the JPEG compression blocks are clearly visible.
    • Also, another claim often made was that nobody actually has an HDTV, which, judging by demand of the DVRs, is not true. I don't think HDDVD+Bluray is going to outsell regular DVDs any time soon, but statements like "This format is dead because nobody has an HDTV to watch it on" are just FUD.
      • Like the guy below you pointed out, how many people who have HD-DVRs actually have an HD TV? It's a valid question. There's probably quite a few people who opted for the HD-DVR because it gets better quality than the standard DVR, even with a regular TV. Maybe they got the HD receiver because all the stuff in standard res is overcompressed crap with tons of artifacts. Then again, maybe the HD stuff is too. I don't have HD tv, but the standard digital cable is often worse than the analog signal that run

  • uh, no... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26, 2007 @06:12AM (#17766362)
    Many people (including me) got an HD-DVR not because they have an HD TV set at home (I don't). The disk in those HD-DVRs are the largest ones (160 or 120GB) and they work just fine on standard definition TV sets. The disk space is the only reason why I and many others went with an HD-DVR. I was about to replace my other old Explorer 8000 with an 8300HD this weekend. I sure hope I will be able to get one.
    • Is that really all the disk space you get? An HD-DVD movie can be 25 GB. The one they posted on Pirate bay last week was 19 GB I think. That's only 8 movies on 160 GB. Or maybe they just over compress everything they record. You'd be much better off getting a TV tuner and a 500 GB disk, and recording everything in standard definition at 12 Mb/S
    • One good thing about Time Warners HD PVR (8300) is that it has a eSATA connector on the back. I just hooked up a 400GB external HD. It went from 38% full with only 8 shows recorded (mix of SD & HD) to 11%. You just have to power cycle the PVR a couple of time to get it to format and use the new external drive. Now if only trying to schedule future programs to record didn't suck compaired to MythTV or MCE.

      Time Warner told me that the eSATA wasn't active and couldn't be used but I decided to try it any wa

  • hddvr, not hd boxes, are out. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    is everyone but me ignorant? this says they are out of DVR boxes. DVR > but not = HD Box.

    Just because they are out of DVR's does not mean they dont have Non-DVR HD boxes.
    • In Time Warner Rochester, HDBox = HD DVR. We have no non-dvr HD boxes.

      TWC get $10 a pop with the HDDVR, they aren't going to lose that by offering a $5 box and not get the ability to do interactive upsells like onDemand.

      • TWC get $10 a pop with the HDDVR, they aren't going to lose that by offering a $5 box and not get the ability to do interactive upsells like onDemand.

        The box doesn't need to be a DVR to do On Demand. My SD set top box isn't a DVR but can pause/ff/rew on-demand movies, just not regular TV. (I presume it's streaming video from the cable company so it doesn't need a hard drive)

  • I guess people want them in hi-def this year.
  • They priced HDTVs under [variety.com] their market price:

    The fiercely competitive pricing came at a cost. Best Buy and Circuit City, the nation's two largest electronics retailers, both missed analyst expectations in their third-quarter earnings, reported in mid-December. Circuit City posted a sharp loss for the three months ending in November, which the retailer blamed on low HDTV pricing. Even so, the retailer said it had no plans to back off as it tried to gain market share.

    • Well, then, boo-hoo to the retailers (and manufacturers?), but they're still too expensive for many people. I make above-median income in a median cost-of-living area, and I can't see paying four figures on a tv just to pay three figures for digital cable (etc) service ... notably when I'm still *more* than happy with a three figure tv and two figure analog cable service.
  • So it's a toss up between craven theft and indifference, and their general inability to figure out what the fuck they are doing on any given day. As a TW customer in NC I can attest that there are two divisions inside TW that fight neck and neck for supremacy in the company. One is the We Don't Give a Shit division and the other is the We Don't Have a Fucking Clue division.
    • Just like verizon.. they must use the same management training seminars..

      I hate ALL cable companies, I have had to deal with 3 in my 10 years in the DC area, Adelphia, TW (I actually worked at Roadrunner for a short while) and Comcast.. I despise them all, I also hate verizon, but I hate them slightly less then I hate the cable companies. I am happy with my SDTV directv, customer service is good, and I like my directivo :) The fact that they no longer use said boxes is dissapointing. Whats even more diss
  • It doesn't sound like people want to watch football. If they company is having a shortage of HD PVRs, it's because the people with HD sets want to record their shows in HD, or skip commercials. If you just want to watch HD source material, just get an HD cable box. It sounds like they have those available.
  • the box TO AVOID is the infamous hr20.

    its a truly crappy piece of engineering (often called a POS or POC on the dbstalk forums...).

    I had one for 2-3 days. cancelled my DTV service when that box lost 2 shows in 2 days! come on - go back to tivo - at least they know how to make embedded software for dvrs.

    but noooooo! directtv had to go it on their own. they outsourced the development (I suspect) or even worse, they did it in-house and had insufficient talent to really pull it off. its been in 'debug mode

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Monoman ( 8745 )
      I think I am coming to the same conclusion as you. We just got a HD set a few months ago and I fear making the complete switch to HD. We have DirecTV and we have been very happy with it compared to the cable option (Adelphia).

      We have had Tivo for years and love them. Currently we have a various Tivos and can only use them for non-HD content. The only HD content we watch is the free over-the-air stuff. We watch it sometimes and sitting through commercials is very weird to us. :-)

      So now I am looking at our DV
    • never on my SD tivo box (dual tuner direct-tivo) would they be able to remotely disable the ability to view shows I already saved!

      so many things have happened that I would never have believed before (patriot act, DMCA etc)

      tivo can adjust your programming on the fly.

      if the broadcast flag every gets tossed into the FCC's ring- you can be damn sure that some content owner will sue, and force the 'flag' applied retroactively to tivo content.

      REALIZE THIS: Tivo has the ability to program wise do anything to that
    • With the most recent software update for the DirecTV HR20 HDDVR many people are seeing improvements in reliability and performance. Just for the sake of counterpoint, my HR20 has been running very well for the past 5 months.
  • If so, there's a ton of consumers out there that are going to be very frustrated. I've never dealt with a shoddier product than the Scientific Atlanta PVR that I had through Rogers Cable a couple years ago. It was a HUGE pain in the ass to use.

  • My local cable carrier can't spell HDTV (or Internet for that matter). I went with DirecTV for a couple other reasons but I haven't even subscribed to their HDTV offerings yet. One reason is they were having HD DVR shortages for a while last year.

    Follow this thread at Lumenlab [lumenlab.com] and build your own HD antenna! I live ~45 miles as the crow flies from the nearest transmitter. With an antenna I built based on some of the ideas there I can receive 3 HD channels out of 4 possible offerings. I can pick up FOX, NB

    • If you live in or near a major city, you might be able to pick up over-the-air HDTV with just a set of rabbit ears.

      However, there is one important thing that you need to know, especially if you live close to the transmitter towers: you will probably need to rotate your antenna to pick up all the available stations. But if you just want the Super Bowl, find a list of what channels your local stations broadcast their digital signal on, and work on just getting that one station.

      Digital TV with an antenna is

      • How do the rabbit ears work on an HDTV? I've been curious about the OTA signals compared to our Comcast lineup, but everything I've heard about getting an HD tuner have been expensive. Or do you still need an HD tuner, but you can just hook basic rabbit ears up to that?
    • I haven't even subscribed to their HDTV offerings yet.
      ...
      DirecTV's over compressed offerings can't come close to the visual quality of an OTA signal.

      So what are you basing this on? Wishful thinking?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 4minus0 ( 325645 )

        Sorry, I didn't elaborate.

        My father has DirecTV HD and an OTA antenna.
        HD OTA looks better with a side by side comparison of flipping between DirecTV and his antenna on the same channel.
        DirecTV HD is compressed douche, look it up.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rotor ( 82928 )
      Or, for an internal antenna (which might not work at your distance), use a simple UHF antenna. Works great for me.
  • So many people dont seem to know how good digital broadcast TV is. By law almost all the HDTVs sold nowadays have tuners built in. All they need is a cheapo antenna and they pull stunning pictures off the air. Where I live I cant get a single analog TV off the air. I just live 10 miles from the transmitters, but this place is full of hills and valleys. But with a cheapo antenna from Walmart I am getting 11 digital stations, one from some 80 miles away! I get CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, PBS, WB and one evangelical s

  • it's their pricing model. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Deathlizard ( 115856 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @08:20AM (#17767140) Homepage Journal
    I'm a recent Adelphia to TWC transfer. Adn I can tell you that it's not exactly HDTV demand that pushing these units.

    Under Adelphia, it was roughly $5 for a standard digital box, and $10 for a HD DVR. last month, I get a rate adjustment that raised the Standard box by $3 and dropped the HD DVR by $2. That's right, the HD DVR is now the same price as the cheap SD box with no DVR. So basicially, if you already had DVR service, you might as well replace all of your SD units with the HD DVR's because you're paying the same price anyway for the SD units, and you can get the free HD channels as well. (even without an HDTV, the HD local channels are much clearer than their analog equivelant)

    I'm sure I'm not the only person from the Adelphia changeover that noticed this.
  • I've got my HD DVR box from Time Warner. For one, I can never live without DVR again. The amount of TV I do watch actually has gone down, because if I feel like watching a show I just pull it up from the list.

    The HD DVR is beautiful. I've got "They Live" and a couple other movies stored in HD (nothing like a 20 minute fight scene in HD).

    There are two drawbacks, one of which is Time Warner's problem, the other isn't.

    For one, the unit freezes up about once a day. This happens quite a bit when I'm watching
  • I just returned mine 2 weeks ago, works great and all but I cancelled cable and got Netflix. Much happier too by the way. The only reason I cancelled cable was when Time Warner became the provider here in DFW instead of Comcast my internet went down for over a week, and all their support lines were busy signals. I work from home about 90% of the time and can't really live like that. And when their excuse/remedy is "Well I'm sorry" I had to get Speakeasy. Took 3 months to install speakeasy though, ugh. But t
  • Headline the week after the Super Bowl: "Time Warner Cable runs out of storage space for returned HD DVRs".

    I've been told that a surprising number of people buy a big-screen HDTV, watch the game, and return it the day after. People like them are the reason the rest of us get sacked with restocking fees.
  • Are the ads being made for HD? Because my box (from TWC) scales HD down to SD and I'd rather cap at the highest resolution available to me, keeping in mind, that's 704x470 for the regular CBS and 704x360 for the widescreen version.

    -uso.
  • This isn't news. It happens every year now at this time. It's a mix of people getting new TVs for Christmas and then those that didn't get one before the Super Bowl. Every year Time Warner here (in Raleigh, NC) is on TV saying they are out of HD boxes.
  • I watched the Bears Packer (oops SeaHawks) game at home on my 30 in or so HDTV CRT set. It was very good quality. Then I watched the Bears Saints game at a friend's house on his 50 inch DLP HD set with comcast cable and it was just terrible quality. The grass would go from muddle to perfect to shimmer even with no movement of the camera. And when there was any movement, it was all a blurred mess. At half time I left saying the snow was getting bad but really I went to my parents' where they have a 36 in LCD
  • Time Warner Cable Runs Out of crappy HD DVRs. I have tried Time Warner's DVR. I settled on Tivo. Compared to Tivo, Time Warner's DVR is a doorstop.

    My wife and I tried three different TWC DVR models. The Time Warner units would freeze up at least once per day (and usually 4 or more times per day), most of the time they would record garbage if I were foolish enough to set them to record two channels at once, and the sound would frequently be out of sync with the picture by 2 seconds or more (on a record
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Interesting. You could be right, however, my cable also provides the internet connection and the internet connection was always fine during our "try TWC DVR" period. The Tivo is on DirectTV, I've never tried Tivo via analog broadcast (when we gave up on TCW DVR, we also switched TV providers).
  • I'm sure that the fact that they break constantly can't help. I'm on number 3 in 2 years. Over 7 service calls in 3 years. 3 cable modems. If Time Warner didn't have a monopoly it would be trivial to beat them at their game. I mean just reduce your service calls per household by 1 every year and you'd probably save millions.
  • Or the simple reason I got two...

    SD DVR: 40GB
    HD DVR: 160GB with SATA connector and instructions for hooking up your own HD.

    Even if you're actually only watching SD programming on your second box, you get four times the capacity from the HD version plus the inputs to hook up your own SATA drive.

    Curiously, when I got my second box last summer, I was told that they were under orders to only give out one per household. I had to fake alarm that my [non-existant] second HD TV would be useless unless I changed to
  • Bright House Networks here in Central Florida just disabled the VCR Commander on our cable boxes in an effort to force subscribers of their Digital Cable services to upgrade to their premium DVR.

    Details here if you care: http://www.awtrey.com/brighthouse-extortion/ [awtrey.com]

    I am really, really angry about this change. I know many of you will swear by the DVR's you know and love, but I like the freedom to share VCR tapes with friends and to watch recorded shows wherever we want in the house. My wife really likes Oprah
  • This happens to Time Warner every year. It recently happened to me at Cablevision. What's the point?

    I used to have service from Time Warner Syracuse and it was a disaster getting an HD DVR anytime of year from them. Shouldn't the article be renamed: Cable Companies have shitty customer service?

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