SeanTivo
09-04-2008, 11:31 AM
In my main house I have a Tivo S3 which replaced a Comcast HD DVR which had replaced a Series 1 Tivo when I got an HD TV. So I'm pretty Tivo/DVR experienced.
In my vacation home I just went with basic digital cable and no DVR since I'm not there that much. This summer I decided to give Comcast Tivo a try during my vacation so I stopped in to the local Comcast office and asked for an upgrade to Tivo service. Then the fun began:
Comcast Employee number 1 goes into the back room and comes out with a Motorola STB. She starts updating my account and asks if I want to take it with me now. Surprised, I ask her if I can just install this myself. Sure, she says. I ask her if this is the Tivo service and she says "Oh yes. I have it myself and it's great." I decide to play Joe average customer and I take her at her word.
At home after plugging in the box I find I have the Comcast DVR. Not Tivo. I know I'm being charged for Tivo since I specificall asked what the price was yet she handed me a Comcast DVR. I wonder how many others got the same "service" but don't know any better.
Back I go to the office and I get Comcast Employee number 2. I explain that I asked for Tivo service but all I got was the basic Comcast DVR. She looks annoyed but takes back the box and hands me another one. Again I ask if this one has the Tivo service on it and and she tells me to wait. She pulls up my account and after a couple of mouse clicks she tells me I'm all set. I know I'm not all set but I decide to continue playing this out to see where it leads.
I take the new box home, plug it in and of course it's just the Comcast DVR. I wait over the weekend to see if some mysterious "upgrade" would appear on my box but of course it doesn't.
Back to the office where I again get Comcast employee #1. At this point I've had enough of this so when she tries to insist that I have the Tivo service I tell her she's wrong and explain that the procedure is for a Tech to come out for the install. She gets on the phone and after a minute or so of grunt's she hangs up, takes back the STB and asks me when I want a tech to come for the install. No acknowledgement that she was totally friggin clueless about Tivo. I get the appointment a few days later and a sub-contractor shows up.
He laughs when I tell him my story and hands me the Comcast Tivo package of documentation and Comcast Tivo remote. He takes the box he has with him and starts the install. It fails a couple of times and he ends up replacing the cable from the wall to the box. On the phone with Comcast tech support, He then gets the install to work.
About 90 minutes after he shows up he's gone and I have my Comcast Tivo, release 1.04. It's pretty crappy. I won't go into the details but I wouldn't pay for it. I also noticed that the box he gave me already had recordings on it so it must have come from another "satisfied" customer.
I decide to wait for the new release before deciding whether to keep it.
A week or 2 ago I got the 1.05 upgrade. Initially it seemed much better although the feel or the operation (FF, rewind, etc) is still very choppy and VERY annoying. This past weekend during my visit I find no recordings on the box. Hmmmm. Switching between tuners during live TV leaves me with no buffered TV on one of the tuners even though the green progress bar showed plenty of buffered video. Hmmmmmmmm. I try to record something and it immediately kills the recording. Hmmmmmmmm. I check recording history and see the reason it is skipping and/or killing recordins is due to "no disk space available". Which is crap since there are zero recordings on the box. I decide to reboot the box. I go to the menu and execute the "restart dvr" option.
Game over. Endless reboots. No response to remote commands. 8888 followed by more reboots.
I call Comcast and they have me unplug the unit for 1 minute and they then send a signal to the box. No dice. Still rebooting with 8888.
End result is that a Tech has to come out again. I tell them to forget it. The next time I'm there during business hours I'm returning the box. Comcast service rep is fine with that result.
I cannot believe that this will be rolled out to all of New England, never mind nationally. And I also cannot belive how stupid the Comcast reps in the local office are. As if there isn't enough confusion about what a Tivo is versus a generic DVR, there are Comcast employees insisting their generic DVr is a Tivo.
Although I bet doing things this way cuts down on service calls. Charge them extra for a Tivo but give them the generic DVR they can install themselves. It's not great but it's adequate and they won't be calling back with 8888 issues.
In my vacation home I just went with basic digital cable and no DVR since I'm not there that much. This summer I decided to give Comcast Tivo a try during my vacation so I stopped in to the local Comcast office and asked for an upgrade to Tivo service. Then the fun began:
Comcast Employee number 1 goes into the back room and comes out with a Motorola STB. She starts updating my account and asks if I want to take it with me now. Surprised, I ask her if I can just install this myself. Sure, she says. I ask her if this is the Tivo service and she says "Oh yes. I have it myself and it's great." I decide to play Joe average customer and I take her at her word.
At home after plugging in the box I find I have the Comcast DVR. Not Tivo. I know I'm being charged for Tivo since I specificall asked what the price was yet she handed me a Comcast DVR. I wonder how many others got the same "service" but don't know any better.
Back I go to the office and I get Comcast Employee number 2. I explain that I asked for Tivo service but all I got was the basic Comcast DVR. She looks annoyed but takes back the box and hands me another one. Again I ask if this one has the Tivo service on it and and she tells me to wait. She pulls up my account and after a couple of mouse clicks she tells me I'm all set. I know I'm not all set but I decide to continue playing this out to see where it leads.
I take the new box home, plug it in and of course it's just the Comcast DVR. I wait over the weekend to see if some mysterious "upgrade" would appear on my box but of course it doesn't.
Back to the office where I again get Comcast employee #1. At this point I've had enough of this so when she tries to insist that I have the Tivo service I tell her she's wrong and explain that the procedure is for a Tech to come out for the install. She gets on the phone and after a minute or so of grunt's she hangs up, takes back the STB and asks me when I want a tech to come for the install. No acknowledgement that she was totally friggin clueless about Tivo. I get the appointment a few days later and a sub-contractor shows up.
He laughs when I tell him my story and hands me the Comcast Tivo package of documentation and Comcast Tivo remote. He takes the box he has with him and starts the install. It fails a couple of times and he ends up replacing the cable from the wall to the box. On the phone with Comcast tech support, He then gets the install to work.
About 90 minutes after he shows up he's gone and I have my Comcast Tivo, release 1.04. It's pretty crappy. I won't go into the details but I wouldn't pay for it. I also noticed that the box he gave me already had recordings on it so it must have come from another "satisfied" customer.
I decide to wait for the new release before deciding whether to keep it.
A week or 2 ago I got the 1.05 upgrade. Initially it seemed much better although the feel or the operation (FF, rewind, etc) is still very choppy and VERY annoying. This past weekend during my visit I find no recordings on the box. Hmmmm. Switching between tuners during live TV leaves me with no buffered TV on one of the tuners even though the green progress bar showed plenty of buffered video. Hmmmmmmmm. I try to record something and it immediately kills the recording. Hmmmmmmmm. I check recording history and see the reason it is skipping and/or killing recordins is due to "no disk space available". Which is crap since there are zero recordings on the box. I decide to reboot the box. I go to the menu and execute the "restart dvr" option.
Game over. Endless reboots. No response to remote commands. 8888 followed by more reboots.
I call Comcast and they have me unplug the unit for 1 minute and they then send a signal to the box. No dice. Still rebooting with 8888.
End result is that a Tech has to come out again. I tell them to forget it. The next time I'm there during business hours I'm returning the box. Comcast service rep is fine with that result.
I cannot believe that this will be rolled out to all of New England, never mind nationally. And I also cannot belive how stupid the Comcast reps in the local office are. As if there isn't enough confusion about what a Tivo is versus a generic DVR, there are Comcast employees insisting their generic DVr is a Tivo.
Although I bet doing things this way cuts down on service calls. Charge them extra for a Tivo but give them the generic DVR they can install themselves. It's not great but it's adequate and they won't be calling back with 8888 issues.