[GoHokies!]

he never showed.

You need to do what d_anders suggested that you do. If you get the cable company on the horn, get to a supervisor and tell them to send you a senior tech - sometimes asking for an "in house" tech vice a contractor also helps you get a tech that knows what they are talking about.

The Tivo is worth the little bit of effort on the front end, and supporting cable cards isn't the herculean effort that it seems to be - the process is really easy and the cable company is REQUIRED to provide them. Don't let them off easy, as the more people that do that validate the cable companies strategy and make it harder for the rest of us.

Check out the second link in my .sig - you can use that same FCC form to complain about your cable card install. The more cable card complaints the FCC gets (hopefully) the more the FCC will push the companies to get their act together.

 

[GoHokies!]

the only thing i'm blaming tivo for is giving me a hard time when i tried to cancel, the fact remains that until my cable co decides to figure out how to get qualified installers, i'm not playing middle man in their fight.

And as long as you keep rolling over and giving the cable company money without forcing them to do their job, that's exactly what the cable company is going to do.

Thanks for making the cablecard installs that much harder for the rest of us.

 

[GoHokies!]

Is that really a fair statement? The installation process is a nightmare. I don't blame Tivo per se (at least in my case it has been all Comcast at fault), but can you really expect someone who just wants to watch TV be expected to take repeated days off of work for an entertainment device. I consider myself relatively hardcore with this stuff, but after three days, I'm getting fed up also.

I can certainly understand aphexii that he doesn't want ot be the middle man in this war. Last I checked we buy these "toys" to relax; the installation process (especially when it costs you time off from work - unpaid in many cases) is anything but relaxing for many of us.

I think it's a completely fair statement. The install process doesn't have to have a nightmare, many of us have had flawless installs so it isn't impossible. As long as consumers effectively reward the cable companies for their refusal to comply with FCC regulations and provide working cable cards by giving up like this, the cable companies will continue with their winning strategy to keep their own revenue generating boxing in your home.

Aphexii isn't the "middle man" in anything. He is the customer and the cable company is the provider. If the cable company is unable or unwilling to comply with the rules, there are levers that (s)he can use to force the cable company to do their job. Or (s)he can give up and encourage this criminal behavior on the part of the cable companies.

 

[GoHokies!]

Criminal?? I seriously doubt that. While it is unfortunate that she is having an understandably frustrating experience getting her cards activated, I don't think an incompetent installer/dispatcher is a criminal offense. The install on my S3 was almost painless. The only bit of nervousness I had was when the cablecards had to do a firmware update. This took 20 minutes per card, but everything works fine.

In the narrowest legal sense of the word, you're right. However, it's failure to comply with FCC regulations that clearly state that cablecard support is required.