Note that the original Series3 (TCD648250) requires two CableCARDs – S-Cards or M-Cards. While the TiVo HD (TCD652160) can utilize a single M-Card. Depending on what your cable company charges for CableCARDs this may or may not be a factor in your decision. The original S3 has the fancy OLED front panel display and the Glo remote, while the TiVo HD has the basic LED indicator lights and a non-Glo remote.

They also have the older Series1 and Series2 units with internal analog tuners and support for external set top boxes, both single-tuner ($299.99) and dual-tuner ($349.99) models. They even have Pioneer TiVo Series2 DVD combo units ($399.99). These units are available in 40GB (single-tuner) or 80GB (dual-tuner & DVD) base models, or upgraded to 80GB ($19.00 S2), 500GB ($99.00 S2 – $149.00 DVD), or 1TB ($149.00 S2 – $199.00 DVD).

The real old-school Series1 units are available in Philips ($199.99) or Sony ($249.99) models, both with 40GB. Upgrades to 80GB ($19.00) or 120GB ($39.00) are available. While I could see some reasons to buy the Series2 units, I really can’t see why someone would want one of the Series1 units these days. Maybe someone really into TiVo hacking with the old TiVoWeb and the like, but even then I doubt it.

All of these units have been refurbished and tested by WeaKnees, and they come with a six month parts and labor warranty. Quantities are limited, so grab one now if you’re interested.

Via the WeaKnees Blog.

The Android app looks much like the most recent update of the iOS version, and includes pretty much the same functionality. The app works with TiVo Series4 (Premiere family) and Series3 (S3/HD) units, though some of the features only work with the Premiere:

• Browse the channel guide without interrupting the show you’re watching – View shows up to 14 days in advance
• Schedule TV show/movie recordings and ongoing (Season Pass®) recordings
• Browse your recorded shows list and play a show from the App
• Find exactly what you want to watch – Search across TV, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video & Blockbuster —and see integrated results on Demand to find what you are looking for
• Explore cast and crew while watching a show
• Comment about what you’re watching on Facebook or Twitter
• Use a TiVo remote control replica or our intuitive, gesture-based remote control
• Manage your ongoing (Season Pass®) recordings and your To-Do List – Delete and reprioritize recordings for your favorite shows
• Instantly schedule, search and browse for shows while you’re away from home

If you have an Android device running 2.1 Froyo or later, grab it now.

Note that this only works with TiVo Series3 (S3/HD) and Series4 (Premiere) units. It does not work with the old Series1 or Series2 units, nor any DirecTV TiVo model. The description does explicitly state that it works with RCN & Suddenlink provided TiVo units – and I’d guess it also works for Grande Communications and Charter customers, but it’d be good to have confirmation of that. Also, you must enable the Network Remote Control feature under Settings & Messages -> Settings -> Remote, CableCard, & Devices -> Network Remote Control. Or whatever the path is on your specific model and software revision – just look for it under Settings. If you don’t have it enabled, the app cannot connect to your box.

On thing I want to call out, the app description says this is for your“Android phone or 7inch tablet”. That’s oddly specific. I don’t know why I wouldn’t work on a larger tablet, even if it isn’t fully optimized for them. Just as there are different versions of the iOS app for the iPhone/iPod Touch and the iPad there is probably a tablet-optimized version of the Android app. If you have a larger tablet and you give this a try, leave a comment about how it works for you. I’d also love to hear from Virgin Media TiVo users on whether this app works for you.

Some screenshots:

EDIT: TiVo published a video overview today:

We are sorry to announce that we are in the process of phasing out our “Share to Tivo” feature.* We are including instructions on how to access your current shares.* We realize that not everyone is set up to receive internet video on their televisions, but you can continue to share your One True Media creations via our “Share to YouTube” and Facebook shares.

TiVo URL for direct type in (when user is logged in)
To manage their channel:

http://www.onetruemedia.com/otm_site/view_channel

To add a Video to their channel:

http://www.onetruemedia.com/otm_site…_id=**********

Directions to share:
1. Go to share online for the Video you want to add to your TiVo channel
2. In the URL replace /auth_share? with *channel_publish_work?
3. Make sure to keep the work_id
4. This take you to the TiVo share pages

Customer Care
One True Media, Inc.

I’ve never gotten the impression that One True Media is a very popular service among TiVo users, so I doubt there will be too many people up in arms over this. YouTube just dominates video sharing.

The other service TiVo is dropping may impact more users. TiVo models earlier than the Premiere lost Rhapsody, as reported by Zatz Not Funny. Rhapsody recently changed their API, which broke all of the existing third party apps, like TiVo. TiVo has created a new Flash-based app for the Premiere, but will not be updating the app for the earlier TiVo models. Given the popularity of other services, such as Pandora, the loss of Rhapsody probably won’t bring too many tears.

As Rhapsody explained it:

Here is some background: we contacted all our device partners several months before this necessary change to our service, providing them all the info necessary to make a successful change. The vast majority of these partners made the change on time and successfully tested their devices (as did Rhapsody) and signed-off. However, after roll-out, some partners found bugs in their systems not apparent in previous testing that they needed to address. These partners are working to correct the issues they discovered as quickly as they can. They realize you’re their customers too and want to get things working properly.

Rhapsody first revealed that TiVo had decided to drop support on the Series2 and Series3 platforms, updating only the Premiere:

Tivo has started pushing out their firmware update to their series 4 DVR systems. They say it should be out to everyone by the end of August.

As far as the series 2 and 3 devices, Tivo has chosen not to update the firmware for those devices, meaning Rhapsody will no longer be accessible on them. This was a call that Tivo made, not us, and yeah, it sucks. Wish it was better news, but that’s the news we have.

And this was later confirmed by TiVo on TiVo Community:

I can confirm that an update is rolling out to Series4 boxes which will get Rhapsody up and running again. Unfortunately, due to recent technical limitations with the Rhapsody application Series3 and Series2 users will no longer have access to Rhapsody from their TiVo DVR. We apologize for the inconvenience.

It sounds like One True Media didn’t give TiVo any choice, they’re pulling support. But with Rhapsody it sounds like they made a necessary update to their service to update an expiring cert and TiVo decided not to invest resources in updating the client on older platforms. Or perhaps they couldn’t, given the “recent technical limitations” statement, though I’d like to know what those limitations are.

So what about you? Are you upset by the loss of either of these services? Leave a comment.

Description

TiVo Commander is an open source clone of the TiVo for iPad and iPhone app for Android.
It is capable of connecting to and controlling a TiVo Premiere device.

Features:
* A full remote control, with keyboard input.
* Browse all recorded shows. Watch and delete them.
* Search for shows/movies/actors.
* See credits for shows/movies, and suggestions for similar shows/movies.
* Record individual shows and add/modify/remove season passes.

TiVo Commander is open source software. It is NOT affiliated with TiVo Inc.

Screenshots:

Note that he’s serious when he says TiVo Premiere. I tried it on my TiVo Series3 and it won’t connect. And if it can’t connect you can’t even get past the settings screen in the app. I checked my Series3 and it doesn’t respond on the port the app is using, so that’s Premiere-only for sure. If you have feedback there is a discussion thread at TiVoCommunity.

If you have a TiVo Series3 or Tivo HD and you’re looking for an Android app, Tim Hoeck’s TiVoRemote is still in the market for $0.99. I’ve had this on my Droid pretty much since it was released.

I also just stumbled over another free TiVo remote app for Andorid, RCX for TiVo. The app is listed as ‘free – beta’, but seems to work based on user reviews.

Both of these apps are just remote control apps, they don’t have all the fancy features for the Premiere like TiVo’s official iOS apps or TiVo Commander, but they will work with the Series3 and up. Of course, if you’re a Virgin Media TiVo customer in the UK you can use their official TV Guide.

TiVo has stated they are working on an official Android app, but no word on when we might see it.

While looking in the Android Market I noticed a couple of other interesting, TiVo-related apps.
TiVo Music Server by Earl Magnus does pretty much what the name implies. It streams MP3 files from your Android device to your TiVo, just like TiVo Desktop does on your PC. It is a fairly new app and has some limitations (MP3s must be on the SD card/external storage, not internal, etc.) but it is free and seems to do what it promises. And Earl has a support thread on TiVoCommunity for feedback.

The other app is the $1.99 Zamar by JCIDSoftware.

Description

Your Media Library Wherever You Are
Take your media library with you, where you go!
•Stream your music
•View and download photos, display them through your TiVo on you TV
•Download your movies
•Remote control your TiVo

Use TiVo Desktop media server, or pyTiVo to stream your music, photos, and music. Remote control your TiVo, and auto-scan favorite channels

While it also claims to work as a TiVo remote, the really interesting thing is that it implements TiVo’s API for streaming media – but not as a server, as a TiVo does! So you can stream/copy content from TiVo Desktop or third party servers like pyTiVo/PyTiVoX (and I’m guessing Streambaby might work), which are normally used to send content to a TiVo. That’s pretty unusual, but if you have things setup for your TiVo you can take advantage of it with Zamar too.

TiVo Commander spotted via Engadget.

Joining the already available TiVo App for iPad, TiVo today released and app for iPhone and iPod Touch. The new App has full support for the TiVo Premiere, and partial support for the TiVo Series3 and TiVo HD. Additionally it seems the iPad App has also been updated with S3 & HD support.

From the press release:

Features of the TiVo App include:

• NEW! Guest Mode — Even if you don’t currently have a TiVo DVR, you can still sample the TiVo experience through the new Guest Mode. Users can browse, search and scroll through program and channel guides and experience the simplicity of the TiVo interface.
• NEW! TiVo Series3™ Support* — Now users who have TiVo Series3™, HD and HD XL DVRs can also download the app to browse, search and schedule recordings as well as make use of the reinvention of the TiVo remote.
• Gesture-based controls — Take complete control of all recordings, even move forward and backward through a show with a simple tap or swipe.
• Program Guide — Browse your full-screen TV program guide without interrupting TV viewing.
• Schedule — Schedule one-time recordings and Season Pass® recordings from the device at home or on-the-go.
• Get more from your shows and movies — Explore cast and crew and other recommendations of your favorite shows without interrupting the big screen.
• Search — Search for all of your favorite TV shows, movies, actors or directors across both broadcast and broadband from Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, and more.
• Share comments with your friends — From within the TiVo App, comment and share your thoughts on your favorite programming on Facebook or Twitter.

* TiVo Series3™, HD and HD XL DVR users will enjoy the app’s guide, scheduling, remote control, search and explore features, but these users should anticipate a smaller set of features and capabilities than TiVo Premiere users.

This feature matrix illustrates which app features are available for use with each TiVo platform:

Now, can we get some Android love? Please, Tivo?

Edited to add – TiVo also published a video demo:

But they have one more surprise up their sleeves – high-definition content! From the press release (below) it looks like they’ll be launching with some HD content available to stream to TiVo. As stated previously, the Netflix service is only available on broadband connected TiVo Series3, TiVo HD, and TiVo HD XL units. The Series2 platform unfortunately is incapable of supporting the video codec Netflix uses. Only the newer units have the required hardware, sorry, that’s just how it is. It isn’t like Series2 units don’t have options – Amazon VOD, CinemaNow/Disney, and Jaman are all available.

This is likely why the HD units started getting the new software revision last week, to prep them for the launch of Netflix.

Press release below:

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION! MOVIES AND TV EPISODES FROM NETFLIX DIRECTLY TO THE TV THROUGH TIVO DVRs AVAILABLE TODAY

Just in Time for the Holidays, Offering Brings Budget Conscious Entertainment to Consumers

ALVISO, Calif. – December 8, 2008 — After announcing a groundbreaking partnership in October with Netflix Inc., TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced that subscribers to both Netflix and TiVo® Series3, TiVo HD, or TiVo HD XL can now access thousands of movies and TV episodes instantly streamed from Netflix directly to their TVs.

The service is being offered at no additional charge to customers who subscribe to both services. This morning subscribers can browse through an expanding library of more than 12,000 movies and TV episodes at www.netflix.com, add them to their Netflix instant Queue, and then watch them on TV with just a click of the TiVo remote. The library includes titles from every genre, with a modest selection of HD content available as well. Both standard and HD titles are expected to grow in the weeks and months ahead.

“With so much talk focusing on the economy these days, this partnership makes more sense than ever because it brings people more movies at home, offering substantially more entertainment options than cable or satellite,” said Tara Maitra, GM and Vice President of Content Services at TiVo Inc. “TiVo offers consumers everything they need from just one box. Not only great content from Netflix, but also movies from The Walt Disney Studios and Amazon, music from Rhapsody, videos from YouTube and even pictures from Picasa Web Albums and Photobucket. And that’s all in addition to TiVo’s core functionality that made us a favorite in the first place. It adds up to a one-of-a-kind value.”

“Netflix offers an unbeatable combination of convenience, selection, and value, which now extends to TiVo customers,” said Netflix Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Kilgore. This partnership is a win-win-win for Netflix, TiVo, and consumers alike.”

Movies are streamed from Netflix through TiVo DVRs via wired or wireless broadband connection and a Netflix Queue-based user interface. Members visit the Netflix Web site to add movies and TV episodes to their individual instant Queues. Those choices will automatically be displayed on subscribers’ TVs and are available to watch instantly through the TiVo service. With the TiVo remote control users can browse their instant Queue, make selections right on the TV screen, as well as read synopses and rate movies. In addition, they have the option of pausing, fast-forwarding, rewinding and re-starting whenever they wish.

For more information on how to have movies instantly streamed from Netflix via your TiVo DVR visit www.tivo.com/netflix.

The version number is 11.0-01-2-648 on my S3. This update includes the changes seen in the 9.3.2 update that hit Series2 systems recently. Aside from those changes I don’t see any other differences. I looked through all the menus but nothing seemed different to me. I’m sure there are under-the-covers changes to warrant a major revision number jump. I’m guessing WMV/VC-1 decoding is in there for Netflix streaming support. And maybe some other surprises.

Netflix streaming is coming to TiVo – very soon. It is great news, but it isn’t too surprising. TiVo and Netflix first talked about partnering over four years ago, though that initial deal seemed to fizzle when Netflix had trouble getting content rights.

In the meantime the market has completely changed. Netflix has rolled out their streaming service and TiVo has added streaming support to their platform for YouTube. And, of course, movie downloads from Amazon and Jaman, with CinemaNow/Disney expected any day now. Content providers are much more open to digital distribution than they were four years ago, and the technology has improved as well. A lot of us have been expecting TiVo and Netflix to bring streaming to TiVo. Especially after Netflix made deals with LG and Samsung to stream to some their Blu-ray players.

This now gives TiVo content from four major services – Amazon, Jaman, CinemaNow (soon), and Netflix. The only major service left that I can think of is Blockbuster/Movielink. And, honestly, they’re not exactly the market leader. I suppose TiVo could work with VUDU to build a VUDU client into TiVo, but with all the other content I don’t know that it would be worth it for TiVo. More benefit for VUDU I’d think. The only thing left to make TiVo *the* platform for movies is HD content, and I’m sure that’s coming.

As Amazon VOD also offers streaming, I expect TiVo to bring that to their platform in addition to the downloads available today. And we’re all just waiting for HD content. There have been repeated hints and mentions of work toward bringing HD content downloads from Amazon to TiVo, and more recently Jaman and Cinema now. And just today Netflix announced they’ll be streaming in HD to Xbox 360. So maybe we’ll see Netflix in HD on TiVo as well.

What’s next for TiVo and broadband content? I think we’ll see them making deals with more content portal sites and networks, like Hulu.com and CBS.com. It is just logical, and TiVo already has the infrastructure to support such streaming sites. I think TiVo is making the right moves.

The Netflix streaming, like YouTube, will be coming to the TiVo Series3, TiVo HD, and TiVo HD XL. It isn’t clear if they’ll be using H.264, like YouTube, or if the streams will be using VC-1 – which Netflix uses for their PC and Mac streaming. The TiVo hardware is capable of supporting both codecs, but VC-1 hasn’t been used to date. Why no Series2 support? As with YouTube, the hardware doesn’t support the newer codecs.

Picked up from Zatz Not Funny.

The press release:

TIVO AND NETFLIX ANNOUNCE PARTNERSHIP TO INSTANTLY STREAM MOVIES AND TV EPISODES FROM NETFLIX DIRECTLY TO THE TV THROUGH TIVO DVRs

Deal Provides Netflix with New Content Distribution Channel, Solidifies TiVo’s Leading Position as One-Box Solution for Simple Navigation and Delivery Of the Best Entertainment Content to the TV

ALVISO, Calif. and LOS GATOS, Calif., October 30, 2008 — TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs) and Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), the world’s largest online movie rental service, today announced that they are teaming up to provide Netflix and TiVo® Series3, TiVo HD, and TiVo HD XL subscribers with the ability to have thousands of movies and TV episodes instantly streamed from Netflix directly to their TVs.

The two companies said they are initiating a test of the new capability today in several thousand U.S. households and expect it to be broadly available in early December, in time for the holidays. The ability to instantly watch content from Netflix on the TV via TiVo DVRs will be offered at no additional charge to customers who subscribe to both services.

The agreement provides Netflix with an important new technology partner to instantly stream a growing library of more than 12,000 choices of movies and TV episodes directly from Netflix to the TV. It also solidifies TiVo’s leading position for simple navigation and delivery of the best entertainment content to the TV.

“For Netflix and TiVo subscribers, this collaboration offers a fabulously easy way to enhance the enjoyment of watching movies in the comfort of their living rooms,” said Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO of Netflix. “Subscribers to Netflix and TiVo are avid movie watchers and this combination gives them immediate access to all of the great content available through TiVo and the thousands of additional choices available to be streamed instantly from Netflix.”

“Joining forces with Netflix creates the ultimate video on demand service and solidifies TiVo’s leading position as the one-box solution for aggregating, searching, and delivering the best content available anywhere right to the TV,” said Tom Rogers, president and CEO of TiVo Inc. “Adding Netflix to our already vast library of content differentiates TiVo even further from any other offering in the market today.”

Integrating the Netflix streaming functionality into the TiVo experience will result in quick and easy access to a growing list of movies and TV episodes that can be watched instantly at Netflix. Movies streamed from Netflix via specified TiVo DVRs is done through a wired or wireless broadband connection and a Netflix Queue-based user interface. Members visit the Netflix Web site to add movies and TV episodes to their individual instant Queues. Those choices will automatically be displayed on subscribers’ TVs and available to watch instantly through the TiVo service. With the TiVo remote control, users will be able to browse their instant Queue, make selections right on the TV screen, and also have the ability to read synopses and rate movies. In addition, they will have the option of pausing, fast-forwarding, rewinding and re-starting whenever they wish.

For more information on how to have movies instantly streamed from Netflix via your TiVo DVR visit www.tivo.com/netflix.

Is anyone else seeing Time Warner offer Tuning Adapter pre-orders in their area?

TiVo has updated their Web Specials and they’re now offering a factory-renewed TiVo Series3 for $349.99, considering the value of the ‘Glo’ remote, the added capacity, and the few features the S3 has over the TiVo HD, that’s not a bad value when compared to a new TiVo HD.

However, factory-renewed TiVo HD units are also Web Specials, just $179.99. I don’t think the Series3 is $170 better than a TiVo HD, nearly double the price. So, personally, if I were buying a factory-renewed TiVo, I’d probably take the TiVo HD. (You can also get a factory-renewed Series2DT for just $49.99, but I couldn’t recommend that for most users.)

However, either way, the TiVo Web Specials are good deals. You have the same 30-day return window and the same product warranty as new units. So there is little risk, and you save a good deal of money.

And the developer community did not disappoint, they’ve figured out how to support video playback in HME applications. It is early days and people are still sorting it out, but it is possible to stream MPEG-2 and MPEG-4/H.264 video to a TiVo Series3 or TiVo HD with the 9.4 software. That means it is possible to implement a generic video playback application via HME to stream any MPEG-2 or H.264 video to the S3/HD – or any video as long as the application can transcode them. That’s fantastic news!

And the fact that MPEG-2 works for streaming implies that it may be possible for TiVo to add the streaming support to the Series2 for just MPEG-2, since the hardware can’t decode H.264. That hasn’t been any indication that TiVo will do so, but it would certainly be nice if they did as it would then be possible to produce a generic player application that transcoded to MPEG-2 for the S2 and MPEG-2 or H.264 for the S3/HD.

Of course, this is all reverse engineered by the developer community and it is possible TiVo could change something to disable this, but I would certainly hope that they don’t. In fact, I still feel quite strongly that TiVo should embrace HME and support 3rd party developers, and I would love to see TiVo issue an update to the public HME SDK which included official video support (and official HD support, as it is only in the beta SDK today – still).

But even without official support this has great potential. The ability to stream video from an HME application means that 3rd parties could bring video to the S3/HD directly. Sites like Revision3, Veoh, Break.com, Heavy,com, etc could host their own HME front end to allow streaming of any of their videos directly to TiVo. Of course, the elephant in the room is adult content, which TiVo seems loathe to officially acknowledge. But with the ability to stream right to the TiVo via HME, and bypass TiVo (the corporation), it is certainly possible. In general the ability to stream video is something that has been requested since the first days of HME, so now that it is here it may generate some new interest from developers who had moved away from HME. It would be especially useful if TiVo would bring the streaming support to Series2 units as it would create a much larger potential market, but even just the Series3 and TiVo HD are significant as it is a growing market with the HD being TiVo’s primary platform now.

I’m looking forward to seeing what people come up with, and when and if any video streaming sites embrace this.

Thanks to reader Kevin Moye for the tip.

EDIT: Reader Mike Turpin points out that you can get the same deal through Amazon.com from the seller BuyNow Incorporated (see the ‘More Buying Choices’ on the right) and avoid the sales tax Buy.com charges in several states. BuyNow Incorporated is really Buy.com, so it is the same deal, without tax for those who would be charged from Buy.com. Thanks Mike!

TiVo has said that they’d be focusing further development on the TiVo HD platform architecture, so this comes as little surprise. In fact, we’ve talked about it here before. It’s a shame, though, for those looking for the premium experience offered only by the Series3, with its THX certification, fancier remote, and front-panel OLED display, not to mention larger hard drive.

Before long, we’d hope to see the stock TiVo HD kicked up a notch with its own larger hard drive; as more and more of what people watch shifts to HD channels, a twenty-hour capacity for HD recordings will seem stingier and stingier. Western Digital’s My DVR Expander external hard drive helps, and expansion kits and services from third parties like DVRUpgrade and WeaKnees are great for those who don’t mind modified hardware, but simply put, the average consumer wants to buy a standard product that’s all he or she needs.

So, as we wistfully recall the dear, departed TiVo Series3 (and as aficionados scramble to find remaining stock on store shelves or from DVRUpgrade and other online vendors with small stocks), we look forward to future configurations of the new flagship product, the TiVo HD.

She highlights the features of TiVo that have made her, as a non-geek user, a TiVo convert, such as the Season Pass, the advanced search capabilities of WishLists, the Thumb Ratings and TiVo Suggestions. All of the features usually touted as making a TiVo more than just a standard DVR. She also highlights the more advanced features added by connecting the TiVo to a network, but also prosaic things like being able to undelete a program, which while simple is something most DVRs don’t provide.

It is nice to see a blog from a non-geek user about that features they really use, and why they love their TiVo. It is a chance of pace from the usual parade of geeks – myself included.

9.4 enables native H.264 decoding on the S3 & HD, required for YouTube support. What is not known is if there decoding support has been extended to other areas as well, such as video podcasts. If so, it could eliminate transcoding on a PC via TiVo Web Video, at least for video podcasts in H.264 – which is many, if not most, of them. I’m hoping the H.264 support does apply to other video sources, it would make life much easier. TiVo Web Video is OK, but not ideal.

Speaking of, allow me a small digression…

I realize I never did pull together a review of TiVo Desktop 2.6 as I’d said I would. I’ve been pretty busy and it got away from me. And, honestly, I’ve had so many problems with it that each time I think about writing it up I just get upset again. I recently had TiVo Web Video forget all of the podcasts I’d subscribed to, twice in two days! I noticed it wasn’t transferring anything after a couple of days, and when I checked the config file it was back to default – all the subscriptions gone. So I restored them and it started transferring again, so I went to bed. The next day it had stopped, and the file was wiped out, again! I wiped everything and started from scratch and it has been working for over a week now. And this isn’t the first time this happened, early on it lost all the subscriptions too. Of course, since TiVo Web Video, unlike TiVoCast, doesn’t just start with the most recent recording and move forward, but insists on downloading and transcoding back episodes as well (default is 5), it would re-download and re-transfer everything. It literally takes a few days for my PC to suck down all the backlog (I subscribe to a number of podcasts) and transfer it. So when this happens it is a major pain in the posterior.

And it doesn’t clean up after itself, I found over ten gigabytes of abandoned downloaded recordings sitting the the Downloads directory. Recordings it should’ve deleted after transferring to the TiVo. It just slowly uses up the drive. The leaking seems to vary – right now there are two files from back on 7/8 totally about 50MB. But all it takes is a few long-form HD podcasts to be missed and it adds up fast. Those are just a couple of the problems with it. Don’t get me wrong, having it is better than not having it at all, but it is far from a stable solution, let alone ideal. But I digress, I really should make myself write up all the issues and such.

Back to the topic at hand..,

So anyway, I would really love to see TiVo allow the S3/HD to download H.264 podcasts directly, bypassing the PC. Heck, as an interim even if they downloaded to the PC but skipped transcoding and just transferred to the TiVo as-is it would speed things up a great deal. Transcoding really slows things down.

Dave got a look at what is apparently a pre-release version of the software, so the final release could vary, but probably won’t. YouTube is added as another option under the TiVo Central -> Find Programs & Downloads -> Download TV, Movies, & Web Video menu item. It looks like the screen has been retitled from ‘Video Downloads’ to ‘Broadband Video’, which may be a reflection of the fact that TiVo is now streaming video and not just downloading it. The ‘Movies & TiVo from Amazon Unbox’ link has been changed to ‘Amazon Unbox TV & Movies’, which I think sounds better. And just below that, slotting in above ‘Brows Other Videos’ is a new link entitled, simply, ‘YouTube’.

The only sub-option at this time is ‘Watch YouTube Videos’, and once you select that you get into the YouTube HME application interface proper. The color scheme reminds me of the current Music Choice application. Within the application you can select Featured Videos, Most Recent, Search, Top Favorites, Most Viewed, or Top Rated. Each selection then has sub-selections. The interface looks pretty good, and you can even rate the videos 1-5 stars, just as you can online.

From Dave’s video I don’t see a way to link this application with your YouTube account, which would be nice. I’d like to be able to pull up the subscriptions I have on YouTube from my TiVo. And to have ratings from one location be reflected in the other. Being able to subscribe or favorite a video on the TiVo and having it show up online would be nice. But this is the first release, and from what I can see it looks good. This could always be a future enhancement.

UPDATE: Shortly after I posted this I was looking over some other blogs and over at Gizmodo I saw that TiVo will indeed be adding the ability to login to your YouTube account, in an update due eight weeks out.

Dave also tacked a quick look at the Tuning Adapter and Network Remote Control screens at the end of the video. He says we can expect the official press release later today, and the application may start showing up on TiVos with 9.4 as early as today (Thursday) as well. TiVo has a new page on their site as well: http://www.tivo.com/youtube

Now that TiVo has support for H.264 and streaming video, I’m hopeful we’ll see more features using them. Aside from the aforementioned video podcast support, TiVo could support Amazon’s upcoming video streaming service, HD video downloads (most HD downloads use H.264), perhaps even streaming video between TiVo units, or from a PC to a TiVo.

I’m still waiting to receive 9.4 myself, can’t wait to play with this.

(And no Dave, you’re not the only one still waiting for Tekzilla. )

This looks like a great update, and it brings a number of features to the TiVo – some of which have been requested for years. According to LoREvanescence at TiVoCommunity, the updates notice is as follows:

Subject: You have a new service update!
From: The TiVo Team
Date: Tue 7/15

Congrats! You’ve just received the Summer 2008 TiVo Service Update for TiVo HD and Series 3 DVRs, including these new enhancements to your TiVo Experience:

*Play or Delete a Folder
Play or delete an entire folder of programs with a single button press (including kids shows, music videos ext). Highlight a folder and press PLAY to play all the shows in sequence. Pres CLEAR to delete the entire folder.

*Browse the Guide Any Time
Press the GUIDE button to display the program guide over what you’re watching: live TV, a previously recorded program, or even a video download.

*Jump Forward in the Guide
When the Guide is on-screen, press the ADVANCE to jump 24 hours ahead. Press INSTANT REPLAY to go back 24 hours.

*Find a Station in the Guide
Now you can search for a station “call sign” within the Guide, e.g. KQED, WPIX, MSNBC. When viewing the program guide, press ENTER to bring up Guide Options, then SELECT Find by call sign.

*Toggle Closed Captioning On and Off
The Closed Captioning icon in the Channel Banner now toggles closed captioning on and off.

*Review Thumb Ratings
To display a list of all programs that you have rated, select Find Programs, then TiVo Suggestions. Press ENTER to bring up the Review Thumbs screen

Enjoy!

-The TiVo Team

Playing or deleting an entire folder has been requested since the first day folders were introduced – probably before that during the beta for that matter. Being able to view the guide without jumping to Live TV is something that has probably been requested since the earliest days of TiVo. I know people have been asking for it since I first starting using TiVo in 2002. Being able to jump forward and back in the guide is something we just heard about as coming for the Comcast TiVo software, and in that post I said I hoped TiVo would add that to the standalone boxes too – and here it is.

Being able to find channels by call sign is interesting too, I’d never thought of that, but it sounds neat. Controlling Closed Captions from the channel banner, without having to go down in menus, has been requested since the S3 first shipped. So it is nice to see it added.

Reviewing the Thumb Ratings reminds me of the old hidden feature, Teach TiVo. Most of you probably don’t remember it, since it was a hidden feature and pretty much went away with the release of 3.2. But in the early days of TiVo there used to be backdoor features that could be enabled by entering the right phrase on the right screen. These were generally incomplete features that TiVo was working on developing but were not yet ready for release. So they’d still be in the code, just disabled by default. If you knew the right codes you could enable these features, at your own risk of course, and play with them. After 3.2 you could still access some of them for a while by hacking the software, but eventually most of them seem to have been completely removed, or well hidden. IIRC, Teach TiVo went away completely with 4.0.

So what was Teach TiVo? Well, early on TiVo wasn’t really sure how people would use TiVo. One of the concepts they had, to help with Suggestions, was to provide an interface in which users could edit their thumb ratings for not just programs, but actors, directors, etc. Basically it exposed the underlying thumb rating data system – when you rate a program you’re also influencing the ratings for any associated actors, directories, etc. Teach TiVo gave power users a way to fine tune their ratings. Say you hated a program, but happened to like one actor in it. You could rate the show down, but go in an adjust the actor’s rating up. Or vice-versa. But it did make for a bit of a complex interface and since it didn’t fit with TiVo’s philosophy of keeping the UI simple it was never completed and released.

So, anyway, this new ability to see your program thumb ratings and edit them sounds like a new, simplified approach to at least a subset of what Teach TiVo provided.

But that’s not all, exploring the menus has revealed some additional features. First and foremost, support for the Switched Digital Video (SDV) Tuning Adapter is here! Both Motorola and Cisco/Scientific Atlanta has their TAs scheduled for certification testing by CableLabs at the end of June. So if they passed testing we could see cable MSOs making them available soon, and it looks like TiVo users will be ready with 9.4.

And remember when the network remote control functionality was discovered in May? Since it is always on and has no security at all, at the time I said TiVo should really do something to protect that before someone writes malware designed to probe networks for a TiVo and send random commands to it. Well, it looks like TiVo has taken a step in that direction with 9.4 There is now a menu item for Network Remote Control and it is disabled by default:

“The network remote control feature allows your TiVo Digital Media Recorder to be integrated with home automation and entertainment control devices on your network. These device include touch panel remotes and other devices that are configured to work with TiVo’s network based remote control protocol. This setting will be enabled by your home entertainment or home automation installer.”

That’s certainly safer for the majority of users who will never use this feature, and the power users who will can easily enable it. It sounds like it is just an on/off toggle currently. I’d still like to see TiVo make it on/off/secure, with the secure option forcing some kind of authentication. But just being able to turn it off is a big step in the right direction and I’m glad TiVo did it. I just wish they’d officially publish the network remote protocol.

There is also a report that the Live TV buffer has been extended from 30 minutes to one hour. Looks like this was a false alarm, unfortunately.

Note that 9.4 is only for S3 & HD users, but I suspect there will be a 9.4.1 for S2 units to follow. We saw that with the last updates, with 9.3 for the S3 & HD, and then 9.3.1 for the S2. Since the TiVo HD is the current flagship and the focus for TiVo it isn’t surprising they’re now getting the updates first. Staggering the S3/HD and the S2 helps avoid overloading the engineering and beta teams by trying to do it all at once.

No word if this release includes updates under the covers to support H.264 decoding to handle the forthcoming YouTube support, or if that will be delivered in yet another update. I’d say it is a toss up. TiVo has certainly done that before, slipping features in an update deactivated and only enabling them later when the new feature launches.

The priority page hasn’t been updated yet for 9.4, but it probably will be soon.

Thanks to Dave Zatz of Zatz Not Funny for the heads up.

The rebate brings the Series3 down to $392.45 through Amazon (and as low as $381.97 through their 3rd party sellers), and the Series2DT down to $65.99 through Amazon.

Personally I wouldn’t go with either of those, but rather the TiVo HD at $249.40, especially if you’re considering the Series3. Get the TiVo HD and pick up the Glo remote separately and save some money. If you plan to use any of these units with WiFi, remember to pick up a TiVo USB WiFi Adapter.

You can also pick up a factory-renewed TiVo HD for $199.99.

Via TiVo Blog.

Notice to TiVo Series 3 and TiVo HD owners: Cox, along with others in the cable industry, has worked with TiVo lnc to develop an external device called a Tuning Adapter that will allow TiVo Series 3 and TiVo HD devices using CableCARDs to access channels delivered via SDV. Availability of the Tuning Adapter is expected later this year. At that time additional information will be sent to you. The Tuning Adapter will be provided by Cox at no charge. In the interim, continued access to channels delivered via SDV is available with a Cox digital set top receiver.

I have to say that Cox’s letter is very clear overall and explains the issues around SDV clearly and without unnecessary drama, and other cable MSOs could take a lesson from this. There is no FUD, no attempt to spook customers into jumping onto a Cox STB – quite the opposite really. I think the letter is clear and concise, I wish more companies communicated in this fashion.

So, it sounds like there will be a period of time between July 1, 2008, when Cox begins using SDV, and a point later in the year when they begin offering the Tuning Adapter, where users may lose access to some of their channels, unless they get a Cox STB for the interim. Since the Tuning Adapters are scheduled to be certified by CableLabs at the end of June, hopefully the gap will be a short one. But in any case it is nice to know they’ll be offering the TA for free. Hopefully this will be across all of Cox’s systems and not limited to Phoenix.

How about you? How would your top ten list compare to theirs?

Since this is long, I’ll cut it.

On Saturday around 14:00 I got a call from Charter’s automated system asking me to confirm my appointment and, once I had, informing me that the technician’s expected time of arrival would be between 14:30 and 15:30. The window was 13:00 to 15:00. Not bad at all for a cable appointment, IMHO. The tech showed up around 15:00.

She was a little nervous once I filled her in, because she apparently had never worked with CableCARD and wasn’t sure about them. As I’ve repeatedly said, cable MSOs need to train their field techs better. She was polite and professional, which I will say just about all the Charter techs I’ve worked with have been, and determined to figure things out. As it turned out, she had her work cut out for her.

After my original post I had a brainwave and used the TiVo’s internal diagnostics to check on the signal strength. I probably would’ve thought of that earlier if I hadn’t been running on three hours sleep since Thursday. (I’m crazy/stupid like that – I ended up staying up after my nap Friday afternoon until about 05:30 – Sunday. Including going out to the bar Saturday night. I have no body clock.) Sure enough, all of my channels were showing a low strength. Where I used to get 80s and 90s – and even 98-100 on some channels – I was getting mid-50s, some 60s. And 0 on the three channels that were out. Which, interestingly enough, were all on the same frequency, 735000KHz. Which is interesting because Charter runs a 750MHz system in my area, which means that’s one of the highest frequencies, and if the high end was being attenuated it would be one of the first to go. In fact, I believe it is the highest frequency used on the channels I receive, so it’d be the first to go for me. And the CableCARD diagnostics showed no channel or frequency lock, and the modulation kept flipping between QAM64 and QAM256 – when it should be QAM256 – which basically meant the signal was too weak for it to lock on and tell.

So when the tech arrived I already suspected that it had nothing to do with the CableCARDs and everything to do with the signal. Well, I was pretty much sure of it, I’d suspected it all along since I’ve had my cards get de-paired before and the symptoms were different.

She checked my signal – and sure enough, it was way low. First she checked it off the 4-way splitter I have feeding the TiVo (TiVo Series3, Pioneer DVR-810H (TiVo Series2), TV, and Slingbox PRO) and thought maybe the splitter was bad. But she checked from the wall and it was low there. Still, she replaced the RCA splitter I had with one from Charter to be sure. And she replaced the pass-through on the wall plate. But it didn’t bring it up by much really, certainly not enough.

So then it was outside, where she re-did the splitter in the drop-box. My house has been remodeled a few times, and was even a day care center for five years or so, so there are unused drops, old wires, etc. I’m only using two drops now, living room and bedroom, so she cleaned up the distribution. But even then the signal was low. And she determined that it was low coming off the pole.

So up the pole she went. Turns out the drop from the pole to my house was bad. The insulation had been worn, or maybe chewed, off in places and water had gotten into the line. So she ran a new drop from the pole into the box. Signal strengths on most channels went from mid-50s to high 60s, and that fixed the pixelation issues. But the three HD channels were still dead. She felt the signal strength was low, but within acceptable ranges. So she suspected something with the cards was not right, that maybe they weren’t mapping the channel to the right frequency or something. And she turned the issue over to the head end CableCARD guy. She took my card info – serial, host ID, etc, and called it in. And the head end said it would take a half an hour or so to check on things and they’d call me. So she left, thinking that was it.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t. The office did call me back as promised, but the problem wasn’t resolved. So they booked a second visit for Sunday morning, between 08:00 and 12:00. I almost missed the appointment because, as I said, I’d been awake from about 17:30 Friday until 05:30 Sunday. I thought about trying to just stay up for the appointment, but my body decided it would really like some sleep now, thank you very much. So I set my alarm for 07:30 and thought I’d take a short nap.

Around 11:00 I woke up. My alarm was still set and on, I can only believe I must’ve been pressing snooze every nine minutes in my sleep. My alarm is right under a window, which was open, so that must have been annoying/amusing to my neighbors, who were having a yard sale and were just outside all morning. I was still pretty exhausted and I ended up just laying there half asleep until someone was banging on my door, around 11:30 I think. Fortunately my neighbor is a nice guy and he knew I was home. The Charter tech, a guy this time, had knocked but I didn’t hear (I probably dozed off) and was going to leave, but my neighbor, knowing I was inside, banged on the door which roused me.

So I filled in this tech on the story so far, and he took readings, and felt the signal levels were way too low. So he went around taking more readings, and decided the cable run from the box to the set might be the issue. You couldn’t get the TV further from the box – the box is on the right-front corner of the house, the TV is in the left-rear corner. So the cable runs down the side of the house, then across the back. He replaced that entire run with new cable – and signal levels on most channels jumped to high-70s. And the three dead channels came back! Huzzah! But they have signal strength in the low-50s, like around 52, sometimes sitting right at 50. So I feel they’re borderline.

The tech feels that the signal strength is too low, even from the pole. And once you add in the long run and the splitter, it is marginal. So they’ve done everything they can in the house, and he said he’ll call it in as a line issue. Since there was water in my drop line, he feels water probably infiltrated the drop on the pole and that could be why all my signal strengths are lower. And it is spring in New England, which means rain, and a lot of it. So it makes sense that water could have infiltrated the line on the pole. At this point I don’t have to be involved, since it is a line issue they don’t need to get into the house. They can come around and check out the lines on the pole and my drop whenever they want.

The whole visit is a little hazy, I think he was gone by 14:00 and I crashed again and didn’t get up until after 22:00. I really needed that sleep.

So I have the channels back, for now at least. But my signal is definitely being attenuated right from the drop. Hopefully they’ll be able to sort that out and boost my signal strength so I have more margin before they cut out. There are other drops available on the pole, so they could switch me to another one if it comes to that.

Both techs were professional and polite, and did their best to figure out the issue. And I was surprised to get appointments so quickly, and on a holiday weekend to boot. Part of me wonders if they have me flagged in their system now after the fiasco last time. Which I didn’t blog about, BTW, because it involved the install for the TiVo HD which I had before the release to review. I didn’t want to blog about anything to do with the HD, even if I didn’t reveal it specifically, just to be safe rather than sorry with the NDA I was under.

But my experience with their online support system, detailed in the last post, and the techs themselves just reinforces the fact that Charter, and cable MSOs in general, need to train their people better with respect to CableCARD. When someone calls with a CableCARD issue you don’t ask the customer to go mess with their unrelated cable box in the other room. Asking if the channels work on the box, sure, that could make sense be cause it would help determine if it was a larger issue or not. But when the cable box is SD-only, and the problems are on HD channels, I really don’t see what playing with the box would accomplish.

And they have good field techs, in my experience, but it is hard for them to do their job if they aren’t given the training to prepare them. I’m surprised, though I probably shouldn’t be, that they still have techs who have never worked on CableCARD. Which also shows that the FCC mandate for cable MSOs to use CableCARD in their own boxes isn’t really helping. The intent was to give cable MSOs more experience with the cards, and make them dependent on them and so to ensure they established a stable CableCARD infrastructure. That part seems to be working. But the other part was giving people in the field more experience with them as well. That part is not working because the MSOs pre-install the cards in the warehouse before shipping the boxes to customers. So field techs gain no experience with the cards used in the cable boxes. They’re already paired and configured, so installing the box is no difference from the old boxes with security ‘baked in’.

Anyway, I’m happy at this point. I have the channels back and the pixelation is gone, and I’m hopeful that they’ll sort out the line issue in the next week or two, bringing my signal back to where it used to be. I’ll check the TiVo’s signal strength meter periodically. The techs they have are solid, but need better training on CableCARD. And they need better scripts for the support people. They don’t seem to cover CableCARD, and you just have to get lucky and get one of the support reps who knows about them.

OK, so I turned to the web site. I normally avoid the online support because it is so much easier to explain to someone over the phone what is going on and I find it generally takes me much less time to cut to the chase and get a result on the phone. But since the phone wasn’t an option, I decided to try the online chat.

I’ll but this behind a cut since it gets long.

This is my first attempt to use the online support. It did not go well.

A representative will be with you shortly.
You have been connected to TTD Jackielou .
TTD Jackielou : Thank you for contacting Charter Communications. My name is Jackie. How may I assist you today?
Mr MegaZone: I was wondering if there is a service outage – I’ve lost most of my HD channels, and 1800GETCHARTER seems overwhelmed – fast busy when I dial.
TTD Jackielou : I’m sorry to hear that. I would be more willing to assist you with your HD channels issues. Afterwards, I will take a look at your services to make sure that Charter is meeting your needs.
TTD Jackielou : For me to assist you further, as well as for account security reasons, may I please have your complete name, the last four digits of the account holder’s Social Security Number, security code, the service address, and the telephone number on the account?
Mr MegaZone: Name: MegaZone, Last 4: xxxx, security code – I think that’s xxxx, address xxxx, and phone is xxxx I believe
TTD Jackielou : Thank you for the information. One moment please while I pull up your account.
TTD Jackielou : Thank you for patiently waiting.
Mr MegaZone: No problem
TTD Jackielou : There doesn’t seem to be any problem with your account. There is also no outage in your area.
TTD Jackielou : May I know what HD channels you are experiencing a problem?
Mr MegaZone: Well, then I suspect my CableCARDs lost auth since it is just select channels. Off hand A&EHD, HistoryHD, MOJOHD – and I believe some others, I’m going through them all now.
TTD Jackielou : Okay, let’s try to do the basic troubleshooting. Kindly unplug the power cord of the box from the power outlet, wait for 30 seconds then plug it again. Please inform me immediately if it has corrected the problem or not so I can send a signal to your box. May you also provide me with the serial number of the box? It should start with SA located at the back, bottom or side of it.
Mr MegaZone: I don’t have a cable box.
Mr MegaZone: I have CableCARD
Mr MegaZone: I have a TiVo Series3 using CableCARDs – and I did try rebooting the box, but it didn’t resolve it.
TTD Jackielou : As I checked here in your account you have a cable box.
TTD Jackielou : May I know if this problem also happening with a cable box?
Mr MegaZone: I do have an SD cable box in the bedroom – but since it is SD I can’t tune the missing channels on that box.
TTD Jackielou : Okay. Let’s try the basic trouble shooting with your cable box, please.
Mr MegaZone: Hmm, going through the channels it looks like it may actually just be those three channels – and they’re contiguous in the lineup.
Mr MegaZone: Okay, the cable box seems ro be working fine – what would you like me to do?
TTD Jackielou : Let’s try to do the basic troubleshooting. Kindly unplug the power cord of the box from the power outlet, wait for 30 seconds then plug it again. Please inform me immediately if it has corrected the problem or not so I can send a signal to your box. May you also provide me with the serial number of the box? It should start with SA located at the back, bottom or side of it.
Mr MegaZone: How is rebooting the SD cable box in the bedroom, which doesn’t have any error, going to affect the CableCARDs in the TiVo in the livingroom which are missing HD channels? I’ll go reboot the box, but I don’t see the connection. Back in a few minutes, it is on the other side of the house.
TTD Jackielou : Okay.
TTD Jackielou : Please let me know if you are still connected to the chat session at this time.
TTD Jackielou : Due to the current inactivity length, this session will be closed. If you have additional concerns or need additional assistance, please do not hesitate to initiate a new chat session.
TTD Jackielou : Thank you for choosing Charter Communications. Answers to frequently asked questions and self-help options can be found by looking in the “Customer Help” menu at www.charter.com. If you have further questions, please chat with us again. Our chat support is available from 7:00 AM through 1:30 AM central time, 365 days a year. Have yourself a great day!
If you require further assistance, go to www.charter.com/contact
Your session has ended. You may now close this window.

OK. This seems to be someone stuck in a script and unfamiliar with CableCARD. I have a problem with HD channels on my TiVo with CableCARD – and you want me to mess with the SD cable box in the other room? What will that prove? The channels that aren’t working can’t be tuned on that box, ever. I knew it was pointless, but I decided not to fight it and just humor her by doing as she requested, figuring it wouldn’t fix anything (of course) and we could just move past it and get to the real problem.

Only, after saying I’d be a few minutes, I come back to find myself disconnected! That’s a nice customer experience right there.

So then I steamed a bit, calmed down, and tried calling some more – with no luck. So I resigned myself to diving into online support once again. This time this went a bit better.

A representative will be with you shortly.
You have been connected to TTD Sheryl .
Mr MegaZone: Hello
TTD Sheryl : Thank you for contacting Charter Communications. My name is Sheryl. How may I assist you today?
Mr MegaZone: Hello – I seem to have lost three of my HD channels – A&EHD, HistoryHD, and MOJOHD. But is seems just those three. I was talking with rep Jackielou a few minutes ago but we got disconnected.
Mr MegaZone: This is on a TiVo Series3 using CableCARD
TTD Sheryl : I do apologize for the inconvenience. May I please if Jackie had sent a signal to your cable cards?
Mr MegaZone: No, not yet.
TTD Sheryl : Okay.
TTD Sheryl : In order to assist you better, may I please have your full name, address, your phone number registered on the account, account number, the last four (4) digits of your Social Security Number, and the security code for verification purposes?
Mr MegaZone: Name: MegaZone, Last 4: xxxx, security code – I think that’s xxxx, address xxxx, and phone is xxxx I believe
TTD Sheryl : Thank you.
TTD Sheryl : May I please know if you’re not getting these channels in all of your cable cards?
Mr MegaZone: I only have two cards currently in service, both in the same TiVo – and neither tuner is receiving those channels.
Mr MegaZone: There are 4 cards on my account, but two of them aren’t currently being used – I had a second TiVo but it is not installed right now.
TTD Sheryl : I see. SinceWEre you able to view these channels previously?
TTD Sheryl : I see. WEre you able to view these channels previously?
TTD Sheryl : May I please have the channel numbers?
Mr MegaZone: I think HistoryHD was working earlier today, let me double check the last time I recording something from that.
TTD Sheryl : Sure.
Mr MegaZone: Sure – 734 (A&EHD), 735 (HistoryHD), and 742 (MOJOHD)
TTD Sheryl : Okay. Thank you.
TTD Sheryl : We will do basic troubleshooting.
TTD Sheryl : One moment please while I get the instruction from my tool.
Mr MegaZone: ok
Mr MegaZone: Hmm, the last recording I see that I know was successful was 8AM Thursday, 5/22. From 8-10AM. So I know HistoryHD was working then. Still looking to see if I had anything else record between then and now – I caught it at 10PM tonight when a scheduled recording failed due to there being no signal.
TTD Sheryl : Please try the troubleshooting steps which can be found at this link: http://www.charter.com/customers/support.aspx?supportarticleid=1868
Mr MegaZone: That looks like the last I can 100% confirm the channel was working – nothing was set to record after that until tonight.
Mr MegaZone: OK, let me bring that up.
TTD Sheryl : If it doesn’t work, we will send a signal to it.
TTD Sheryl : Thank you.
Mr MegaZone: OK, I tried a reboot earlier, but i hadn’t tried to remove, reboot, then re-seat the cards so I’ll do that. It’ll take a few minutes.
TTD Sheryl : Okay.
Mr MegaZone: okay, doing the first restart
TTD Sheryl : Okay.
Mr MegaZone: sorry, it takes a couple of minutes for it to reboot
TTD Sheryl : Sure. No problem.
TTD Sheryl : Please let me know if you are still connected to the chat session at this time.
Mr MegaZone: It’s taking longer than normal, sorry about that.
Mr MegaZone: Ah, looks like it is finishing the first restart now, let me check the channels
TTD Sheryl : Sure.
Mr MegaZone: No joy with the power cycle, moved on to restarting without the cards, then I’ll reseat them and restart with them again.
TTD Sheryl : Okay.
TTD Sheryl : Please let me know if you are still connected to the chat session at this time.
Mr MegaZone: Yep.
TTD Sheryl : Okay.
Mr MegaZone: OK, rebooted with no cards, basic services work
TTD Sheryl : Okay.
TTD Sheryl : Will I send a signal already?
TTD Sheryl : Is the cable card already in place?
Mr MegaZone: Cards back in, the unit is rebooting
TTD Sheryl : Okay. Sir, please tell me if I will have to send the signal already. Thank you.
TTD Sheryl : Okay. Sir, please tell me if I have to send the signal already. Thank you.
Mr MegaZone: I’ll let you know as soon as it is back up.
TTD Sheryl : Thank you.
Mr MegaZone: Sorry that it takes so long to complete a reboot…
TTD Sheryl : It’s alright.
TTD Sheryl : Please let me know if you are still connected to the chat session at this time.
Mr MegaZone: Yes
Mr MegaZone: And it is back up… and the channels still aren’t working. Looks like it is time for the signal.
TTD Sheryl : Okay.
TTD Sheryl : One moment please.
TTD Sheryl : I have already sent a signal to your cable card. Please allow to refresh setup completely at the maximum of 30 minutes. However, if the problem is not solved, please contact us again to set up a service call.
TTD Sheryl : Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
Mr MegaZone: So give it 30 minutes and if it isn’t working setup a call? OK. And no, that was all. Thank you.
TTD Sheryl : Yes, that is correct.
TTD Sheryl : You are very much welcome. Thank you for choosing Charter Communications. Answers to frequently asked questions and self-help options can be found by looking in the “Customer Help” menu at www.charter.com. If you have further questions, please chat with us again. Our chat support is available from 7 AM through 1:30 AM central time, 365 days a year. Have a great day!
If you require further assistance, go to www.charter.com/contact
Your session has ended. You may now close this window.

Sheryl was much more helpful and patient, and she seemed to understand CableCARD – at least she didn’t ask me anything about the cable box or send me off to do pointless things to it.

Unfortunately, here we are over and hour later and the channels still aren’t working. So I guess I’ll be setting up a service call. Here we go:

A representative will be with you shortly.
You have been connected to TTD Marifi .
TTD Marifi : Hello, my name is Marifi. Thank you for contacting Charter. How may I help you today?
Mr MegaZone: Hello – I need to setup a service call. I’ve lost three HD channels on CableCARD and I worked with a rep earlier. She told me that if they didn’t come back in 30 minutes to setup a call.
TTD Marifi : I will be happy to help you out with your concern. Afterwards, I will take a look at your services to make sure that Charter is meeting your needs. I will also inform you about the Charter bundle.
TTD Marifi : For me to assist you better, may I please have your full name, the last four digits of your Social Security Number, and the telephone number registered on the account?
Mr MegaZone: And it has been more like 90 minutes now. Sure
TTD Marifi : I am sorry about that.
Mr MegaZone: Name: MegaZone, SSN xxxx, phone xxxx
Mr MegaZone: No problem.
TTD Marifi : Thank you for the information. Please give me a moment to pull out your account. By the way, am I chatting with the account holder?
Mr MegaZone: Yes
TTD Marifi : Thank you. One moment, please.
TTD Marifi : Is the number listed on your account the number we should call you on the day of your appointment, or is there any other number we may reach you at, on the day of your appointment, as we now offer a call-ahead confirmation to ensure that we meet our scheduled appointment with you?
Mr MegaZone: xxxx would be better, that’s my cell
TTD Marifi : Thank you. One moment, please.
TTD Marifi : Thank you for waiting. The earliest possible schedule for you is on 05/24, between 1pm to 3pm. Is that okay with you?
Mr MegaZone: Tomorrow? Sure.
TTD Marifi : Please remember that an adult must be at home during the appointment and have access to all areas of the premises. Also, if you have any pets, please have them restrained. If for any reason you will not be available for your appointment, please be sure to contact us back to reschedule. Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
Mr MegaZone: No,that was all – I’ll be home tomorrow, 5/24 between 1 and 3. Thank you.
TTD Marifi : You are welcome.
TTD Marifi : Thank you for choosing Charter Communications. Answers to frequently asked questions and self-help options can be found by looking in the “Customer Help” menu at www.charter.com. If you have further questions, please chat with us again. Our chat support is available from 7 AM through 1:30 AM central time, 365 days a year. Have a great day!
If you require further assistance, go to www.charter.com/contact
Your session has ended. You may now close this window.

I’m actually stunned – tomorrow? Not a week from now? I must’ve hit the jackpot. Now I just hope they show up – the last time I needed a visit they blew me off four times before I went into the local office in person and talked to a manager. No show, no call – nothing, just failed to arrive. The explanation I finally got was a miscommunication within Charter, the server dept kept marking the ticket as completed or something like that so they never dispatched anyone from the local office.

I’m hoping it is just some kind of signal issue.