emember a post that I put up three days ago which talked about how TWC was giving one of their customers hell? Well, the individual (John) who was having a tough time with TWC sent me another email letting me know that TWC did stop by and that his Series 3 TiVo is now up and running. What follows is the email that John sent me detailing what the experience was like.
Hi Alex,
It was a very trying experience… but the CableCARDS are installed (Saturday) and (as of 1:30pm Sunday) working! The installer (to TW’s credit) showed up on time, but seemed quite confused by the Tivo. I left the instruction sheet out for him, but he didn’t read it. He also didn’t read the big letters “use lower cablecard slot first” written both onscreen and on the back of the Tivo – although it didn’t seem to matter. After popping the cards in (in the wrong order), he seemed very confused about what to do next, so I sat down and read the instructions to him. After he was satisfied that we *really* didn’t need to sit through the guided setup together, he tried to call in the CableCARD info…
I live in an area with poor cellphone reception and the installer was insistent on trying to use a push to talk phone. It didn’t work. He tried over and over to call in the CableCARD ID and Host ID. They couldn’t hear him. I offered to let him use the phone, he said no. So, my fiance and I sat there while he fought with his phone for 30-40 minutes. After he *thought* he had closed out the job, he left. Then we actually tried to use the box and, sadly, none of our subscription channels were available. We called in to TW but there was a big local outage and gave up waiting after spending 30 minutes in the queue.
Today I called TW and got through. They reprovisioned the cards on their end, and within 5 minutes, everything was showing up, just lovely. So… it is possible to get this working through TW, but just be aware that they will have no experience with the unit and seem to have a general dislike for dealing with CableCARDs at all.
One note that *may* help people – During the process of him trying to get these things activated, he went through the same “what kind of TV is it” problem with the people he was trying to get to activate the card. When they asked the question, he looked at the front of the TV and said “Samsung”… (not realizing they really meant what kind of DEVICE are the cards being installed in). They accepted that and moved on… So, if TW gives anyone a problem, I’d say just tell them the kind of TV the Tivo is connected to and feign ignorance when the installer arrives.
Best wishes,
— John
I really hope TWC and the rest of the cable industry learns that a CableCARD capable Series 3 TiVo is available and that some consumers are willing to pay the $800 price tag to get a far superior product (I only wish I had $800 right now).
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