TWC gets official with Navigator rollout in Raleigh, NC: hands-on
[Thanks, krithren]
Filed under: DVRs, Set-top boxes, Cable
[Thanks, krithren]
Relevant Posts
- TWC gets official with HD expansion in the Carolinas (36 days ago - 11 Comments)
- Time Warner Cable finally recognizes Raleigh, adding 4 HD channels (41 days ago - 10 Comments)
- TWC adding 11 HD channels in Greensboro, NC, Triangle seen fuming (37 days ago - 15 Comments)
- AT&T eying December launch of U-verse in Cary, NC? (12 days ago - 6 Comments)
- MGM HD replacing MOJO HD on Time Warner Cable in Raleigh, NC (27 days ago - 6 Comments)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
kurt @ May 1st 2008 3:49PM
I've had it for over a year now. yeah it kind of sucks but you can't do anything about it so i guess i just got used to it. also if you haven't heard they will drop cable card support with in the next year, a few channels at a time. so people with tivo's or built in cable cards watch out.
Sammyfan @ May 1st 2008 3:52PM
Yup, using the new and "improved" interface is not what you'd hope for. My biggest complaint is loss of certain functionality in the name of making it more, er, "user friendly."
I wish I could have gotten my old box back but it doesn't matter now. As of May 10 I'm a U-verse subscriber (Sorry TimeWarner and, by extension, EngadgetHD). More HD content would have been nice here in SoCal.
mschlitt @ May 1st 2008 3:57PM
This UI has been on my HD box since the first week of september, and its nothing special
sepirioth @ May 1st 2008 4:08PM
A friend of mine has this interface in the lower east side in NYC...
djbarry @ May 1st 2008 4:21PM
Navigator - It has a few new nice features. But they are far out weighed by the bugs and poorly designed features.
If you go to the dvr list and select a show that is currently recording there is no play option. You have to exit the DVR list and change to the channel being recorded then go to the dvr list select show to get play option to appear.
If are on the guide and press favorite it doesn't jump to next favorite in the guide it leaves guide and jumps to next favorite channel based on tuned channel.
There is not 15 min jump option like opld navigator. Suckes when you left watching 4 hour sports event in last 45 min it takes 20 min to ff to correct spot.
3X FF is much much slower than 4X FF of old navigator!!
If you are watching previously recorded show and a new recording starts it displays the new show instead of contining with recording. (Intermitently some times works fine.)
Alerts that recording is starting in 1 min can't be tuned off.
There are many more but that is a good start of bug list.
milrtime83 @ May 1st 2008 5:46PM
For a show that is currently recording (or one that has already been recorded) you can just push the play button when you're in the menu as opposed to your round about way of doing it.
On a different note, one thing that baffles me is when you are watching something that has been recorded it sometimes shows what minute you are at (preferred), sometimes shows the word "playback" (i think thats it), and sometimes shows nothing. There doesn't seem to be any reason for when it does what that I have figured out.
djbarry @ May 1st 2008 6:39PM
For me when I press play it goes to live tv on the listed recording. Not to start of recording.
Jason Earl @ May 1st 2008 4:41PM
Anyone already had their box upgraded automatically? My biggest worry is that they say up front that there is a chance you can lose all saved settings and recordings. I can care less about the settings, but the series lists and recordings?!? Anyone have a problem with this?
Brad W. @ May 1st 2008 4:48PM
If had this same UI here in Orlando (with Brighthouse) for a couple of months and I'm already saving my pennies for a new Tivo HD, that's how bad this software is. Recording is, at best, buggy. Searching by keyword has been left out (no discoverability.) Recording a whole series without the box messing it up is impossible.
Dinesh @ May 1st 2008 4:53PM
Mystro Navigator crashes a lot and is slow. My experience has been bad, but I have no other choice to just put up with it.
StealthMonkey @ May 1st 2008 5:09PM
Ok, so people have complaints with the navigator, I get it. What I am wondering is, is there anyone who has had the Scientific Atlantic 8300HD and the new Navigator? I currently have the 8300HD and am not crazy about it. I am trying to figure out if I should be jealous or glad that I don't have this. Anyone?
Jeff N. @ May 1st 2008 5:36PM
Stealth Monkey,
Yes, I had the SA 8300 and when the new Navigator guide was installed it caused all sorts of problems for me. I didn't have sound on many channels. The picture went sideways one day and had to be rebooted. Next day the screen went dark as we were watching a TV show. Again we had to reboot. We rebooted the DVR 3 times in 5 days after the install. The new guide is slow, unstable, and doesn't work well with HDMI all the time. The buffers don't work right with HDMI. No 15 minute fast forward. Before I had the new guide it rarely had problems. I have no idea why TWC has selected this new guide and software. They got some bad advice.
milrtime83 @ May 1st 2008 5:49PM
Stick with the one you have. From what I remember, it was much better than the new one though I think I've gotten used to some of the quirks with it by now.
andrew l @ May 1st 2008 5:12PM
i've been using a pioneer twc box and a series 2 tivo with ir blasters for probably 3 years now with no problems at all, until now.
with the new navigator software channel changes don't take roughly half of the time, i'm not the only one either. looking around the tivo forums its fairly common. it seems to be related to all the processing the box does at :0 and :30 to update guide info, it just can't handle that and change the channel at once...because you know, changing the channel isn't that important, its only a cable box.
its bad enough that i'm giving up, i'm ditching cable and moving to my appletv's as my sole source of programming.
great job twc!
Jeff N. @ May 1st 2008 5:17PM
I was sp called upgraded to the New Navigator a few weeks ago. It was awful. I had no sound through my HDMI. I swithed to the newest box and got no picture or sound through HDMI. TWC found me aan older SA 8300 that had the older guide and everything works fine again. But I dread the day they so call upgrade me again. I may have to drop TWC. Who ever sold them on this new software must be a great salesperson. Cause it it lousy and executives from TWC should not have picked this new guide and software. It's several steps backward.
chestnu1 @ May 1st 2008 5:19PM
Why is it that all the cable box interfaces are never in widescreen you would think that it would be the first thing that they change with an update.
Brian @ May 1st 2008 5:45PM
Jeff, FYI, this POS GUI was developed in house by TWC when they were stupid enough to stop paying Pioneer for the tried and true Passport software. I still have an 8300HD with Passport, and TWC will have to pry it from my cold dead hands..
monkeypox @ May 1st 2008 5:26PM
I hate it. it's easily 4 to 5 times slower than the previous version in switching channels, not to mention the entire interface seems sluggish at best; they've also disabled the on-the-fly aspect ratio switching, which was extremely helpful when text was being cut off and the image needed to be stretched (I usually set it to fill/zoom on SD content). instead of being able to toggle through the different options (4:3, stretch, zoom), I now have to go through the settings menu and wade through their seemingly random ordering of tabs.
dc @ May 1st 2008 5:30PM
The other morning this week all of a sudden my interface looked like this. Personally I don't really like it, I think it is uglier than the old UI. Also there is now only 3x speed on the FF/RW, it used to go to 4x. The only improvement I can see is that you can sort your saved shows by date or alphabetically. Otherwise, what's the point of the update?
Mattfu @ May 1st 2008 7:32PM
I don't like the way it jumps forward when you hit play while rewinding.
The fact that they only have one size for the picture-in-picture and it's doesn't show in the corners of an HD set
It is slow doing anything.
I also didn't like that they forced me to downgrade to it.
Mattfu @ May 1st 2008 7:40PM
I don't like how it jumps forward when you press play while rewinding.
The Picture-in-Picture is now only one size and it is not in the corners of an HD set.
I want my Passport back
Sean @ May 1st 2008 8:46PM
I have two different boxes (8300hd and 8300hdc) and each seems to have a mind of its own. I have the 8300HD hooked up to a Sammy HL-S5088W 50" 1080p DLP--via HDMI..love it no problems. The 8300HDC "C" is on our 42 inch Magnavox 1080p LCD and it is horrible. When looking at the guide or some other menu feature that puts the image up in the right hand corner and then exiting the menu the picture stays up in the right hand corner everything is dark. Have to try all kinds of things to fix it from rebooting the box to turning on PIP, swapping it, changing channels multiple times, etc. What a pain in the you know what. My brother has the same issue on his brand new 50 inch Panasonic Plasma. If you have these problems open trouble tickets with Time Warner and ask them to provide trouble ticket numbers and specifics on the case they have opened with Scientific Atlanta, and keep escalating and checking with them until it's resolved. If more people who experience issues open trackable reports with them the quicker is will likely get fixed. My $.02 anyway.
TexRob @ May 1st 2008 9:15PM
I don't mind it, but I am SO angry that we have not gotten any HDs while most of the US has gotten 8-20 HD channels since we last got some. We all know that they have the bandwidth, they showed all the NCAA games in HD. At the very least, we should get 4 more HD channels, but we should get a lot more.
Tamir Cassel @ May 2nd 2008 1:46AM
The new navigator is making me switch to Direct TV. Does anybody have the problem when you select your recorded program the picture does not go into the full screen, it just stays in a 3x5 square in the upper right corner???
superklye @ May 2nd 2008 10:18AM
Yay for 30 Rock!
Lee @ May 2nd 2008 1:36PM
I have had it since Nov, here in NYC. Sucked at first but with the recent upgrades, there are much fewer problems now. Same as Passport pretty much, passport had issues too. Occasionally the screen gets stuck being small after going into the guide but that is about the only thing that bothers me. I would go get yourself an 8300HDC since I hear the old 8300HD does not really have enough memory for navigator probably why it seems slow.
kurtr @ May 2nd 2008 1:57PM
just hold down on the fast forward button for a few seconds and it will fast forward in 15 min increments. they did this instead of the pressing the over arrow
Michael Gates @ May 2nd 2008 6:32PM
My TWC boxes were upgraded "automagically" a few months ago. Here are my observations:
There is no longer a display of time place in recordings (an exact time place number that is)
No favorites button in guide (Just changes the channel now. Sort by Favorites first is useless, since I like using Favorites to jump to sections of channels... put one HBO channel in Favs to get to all HBO channels)
No record based on keyword or discovery (if it's not in the guide buffer already, it doesn't exist)
Frequent skipping in recordings (this has gotten better. used to be gaps of 5-20 seconds every 10 minutes, now just three or so audio blips per hour... still annoying though)
More frequent crashing (5 since update)
No hash marks to see 15-min skip aheads places (can't see how close the next 15 mark is you'll be jumping to) (hold FF to do skips)
Changing channels for recordings when only one recording is happening (watching a live channel, DVR Begins recording and changes the active tuner channel to the channel to be recorded, even if 2nd tuner is available)
slower fast forwards (1x FF is worthless, 3x isn't fast enough)
more button presses required to do simple tasks (turning on sleep used to be 3 button presses, now it is 6)
Can not record series of some sports events (like MLS Soccer). They appear in the guide as one offs
Limited series recording options for repeats vs new. It would work fine if the guide was accurate, but it never is. In Passport, you could tell it to record the named show on a specified channel at a specified time. That is no longer an option. It's either all or nothing now.
Cancelling individual shows that "Scheduled to Record" doesn't actually cancel them (not cancelling series, but shows out of a series because of the problem above).
All in all... I'm totally not happy with it. It is the straw that is breaking the camel's back. Higher cost (just went up $10/month for no reason for me), bad UI, and lack of HD channels has me switching to Satellite.
Michael Gates @ May 2nd 2008 6:35PM
Oh yeah, and the information bar doesn't go away when doing Slow Motion viewing! And it's huge!
litlchamp @ May 2nd 2008 9:39PM
i have the old box and a new one with the new UI. it's slow and clunky. looks good but works like crap. it has less options and messes up all the time. I have lost a lot of shows from software malfunctions. I'm tired of time warner. As soon as FIOS hits my area i am switching over.
jmac6363 @ May 4th 2008 10:05PM
I absolutely hate this new piece of CRAP! I have been forced to use it in the Charlotte area for about the last 4 months. I have 2 HD DVR boxes and the old one IS WONDERFUL compared to the new one! The new one:
1st: Takes 15 min. to boot up after power failure or FREEZING!
2nd: Takes up to 30 sec. just to load the list menu, as compared to 2 sec on the old one.
3rd: the record options are awkwardly placed within the menu.
4th: You can't tell series recordings to "save until manually erased" you have to go within each episode AFTER it records to change that setting.
5th: ALL ACTIONS were a change is made or "letter" (A B C) button is pressed takes FOREVER!!!
OVERALL This single event has made me seriously consider getting a dish!!! I can live with this 'NEW" box in the bedroom, But if I wake up one morning and my old box in the Family Room has changed and updated to the new UI This will be the day I cancel my service, and Call Direct TV!
krithren @ May 6th 2008 12:22PM
Just an update - My 8300HD was force-upgraded last night. I spent 15 minutes or so taking a look around.
All content and settings transferred fine.
Responsiveness is much better than the newer 8300HDC boxes with Nav.
No option to turn the display off - even when the box is off!
No option to turn the hard drive off when the box is off!
The single feature that I like is the % left on the HD.
Sunny @ May 6th 2008 2:33PM
I woke up this morning to these changes, too. (I'm in Raleigh.) I noticed the record light was on at around 7:45 & I hadn't programmed anything to record. I turned on the TV & thought "uh-oh". I discovered it was recording "On the Fly" and had been recording it each time it aired...which is on the hour, every hour since about 1 am. I had programmed it to record the 6 am showing only. Reading the comments it's obvious folks here have a lot more technical knowledge than I do, so maybe someone can help me out! It looked like you could no longer shift the order in which you wanted to save shows. For example, I have a game saved from January 18th that I didn't want to "use up" one of my "save until manually erased" options on so I just kept bumping it to the top of my saved shows list. Are you still able to do that? It looked like you had no choice but to leave them in the order in which they were recorded. I didn't have very much time to explore this morning, so I could be wrong. Any insight is much appreciated.
Matt @ May 7th 2008 11:08AM
I just got the new UI on my box here in Raleigh last night, and I must say it is a downgrade to say the least. The old UI was very responsive, but now there is a 3-4 second black screen between changing channels where were was no black screen or delay before. When you go into the program menu and hit favorites, the old UI would go through your favorites on the menu, which was great, but now hitting favorite from the menu changes the channel and closes the menu! It has crashed on me once already and there is a new animation when to does this -_--, --_-, ---_, _--- which is nice, but I would rather not have it reboot on me. The caller id thing is nice, but not worth the hassle of the change. I am thinking more and more about getting a cable card and a TivoHD, damn subscription is the only thing holding me back...
Chase @ May 9th 2008 10:40AM
My navigator updated, in the early hours this morning. I am actually surprised with it. My standard navvy updated weeks ago, My HD/DVR today. The ONdemands are a lot smooth and a lot easier to read and seem to move a lot faster. The colors are brighter and look a little more flashy. I was never impressed with the old navigator. This new one looks to be a little better. And its the first step towards it looks like a lot of interesting things. LIKE STARTOVER, which is really cool. I also read something about CATCHUP. But I would say its an improvment overall.
Dave @ May 15th 2008 8:28PM
thanks to kurtr for the FF tip for skipping ahead. I was really missing that feature...(and nobody at TW could tell me how to do it)
I've had it a few weeks now and guess I'm used to it...if it means more HD channels...I'll deal.
Max @ May 20th 2008 2:28AM
I got the new bad program about a week ago and my 8300HD (using HDMI) just continued to reboot as it pleased after the upgrade. I had TW of Raleigh come out and they replaced the DVR with the new improved 8300HDC, this is the worst upgrade I have ever seen. If they keep improving it...we will not be able to use it at all!!! Having just read all the above comments, I have experienced most of the problems plus some new ones. TW called today to see how everything was working, I told them either come fix this or get it out of the house!!! I can not believe that some of the execs at TW did not use this stupid software before send it out to the customers. It is the most un-user friendly piece of programing I have ever used. If I have no luck later today when the tech comes by, I will switch to sat. real quick. I am paying more to TW for my services than my electric, water, and garbage bills all together total each month and they all seem to work fine!
ncmacasl @ May 20th 2008 4:53PM
I just got it last night on my DVR, but got it on my plain Cable box a few weeks ago.
The biggest improvement is Caller ID on TV. This is wonderful. works great!! (plain and DVR)
Also a big add is Closed Captioning (my wife is hard of hearing) and we now can get captioning on our old set that does not have a built-in recorder. How they do this with a softwae upgrade, i don't know but they do. (only noticed it on DVR box)
TMC-On Demand is now FREE!! (don't know why - but not asking questions) (plain and DVR)
You can now set the program guide to show all of the favorite channels 1st, then all the non-favorites. This is EXCELLENT!!! Makes so much more sense
Now the noticable problems: (all DVR Only)
with the old system, you could search for a word from a title or a description and get a list of prgotrams AND could record and subscribe from this search. for Example: record everything with "Star Trek" in the title would result in subscriptions to all Star Trek series on any channel and any star trek movies; or record anything with "Bill Cosby" in the description which will get all Bill Cosby movies and TV shows.
This feature is no longer available!!
Multi-Channel subscriptions.(where you can record all episodes of "Friends" repeats regardless of what channel they are shown on)
You have to now program each channel separately!
this leads to another problem: When u end up with multiple copies of a program (each with a different channel) the list can't distinguish between the 2 and when you move prioirty order of 1, it moves the priority of whatever was entered first!!
mzg @ Jun 2nd 2008 2:14PM
I had enough with this thing. It totally stinks. They completely eliminated soccer as a sport category while searching. I'm getting dish network.
KK @ Jun 18th 2008 7:06AM
I detest the new navigator!! We used to talk about our digital cable and DVR like they were a member of the family - now at least once a night I comment how much I hate the new navigator. We lost all our series recordings with the switch. Sometimes our HD channels have a narrowed and stretched screen. If we look at the guide and turn it off half the time the picture stays miniture in the top right corner. The screen blinks black occasionally for now reason. Sometimes the box will not respond to the remote at all - this never happened with the old navigator. This is only a short list of the LOOOOOONG list of complaints I have about the change but I won't bore you with any more. I can't figure out why TWC changed to this navigator - we are considering changing to satellite.
Rich @ Jun 18th 2008 5:03PM
I have the same issue with the guide screen getting stuck and the rest of the screen being black. I have to go and choose 480p from the menu and click "c" on the remote to flip it back to 1080i resolution. I have also noticed the screen being streached as well. I thought it was just my cheap westinghouse!
I will call TWC tonight to see if they have any answers.
Rich @ Jun 19th 2008 7:07PM
Nope
They told me to bring the box it their "signal update" did not resolve the issue.
doug @ Jun 25th 2008 1:00PM
Came home from work one day and the software was changed. I live in Raleigh. It is HORRIBLE! No easy solutions for recording, very very slow, system freezes and it takes 5-10 minutes to come back up. People at TWC cannot even figure it out. Had to play with it for an hour or so to figure out how to tape. Still not reliable! Bring back the PASSPORT software. I am already looking into DirectTV.