[larrs]

It's not too often that you have a good customer service story, but I have to share that the customer service from Humax was great today. I just purchased another Humax DRT800 Saturday from Best Buy (open box- couldn't pass it up for $99). When I got it home, the remote commands seemed VERY slow and erratic. I tried new batteries and then tried the remote from my other Humax to see if it was the remote- same result. I called Humax and within 5 minutes I have a replacement unit on its way. Definitely not the horror story you usually hear.

 

[ExcelGal]

I have to second this. I recently purchased one of the refurbished T800s. It worked fine for a couple weeks. Then it began to stutter with the harddrive making a ticking noise (hd failure) and occasionally a spontaneous reboot. I called Humax support, got to talk to a live person almost immediately and within 2 minutes she had arranged to send me a replacement unit.

HUMAX :up: :up: :up:

 

[Gai-jin]

Unfortunately, my experience was not so great. My mother has had the worst luck with tivos... she thinks she's cursed not to have one.

Years ago I bought a 14 hour unit on clearance at Circuit city for her, when the $99 we paid was a GREAT price. it died within a month. Unfortunately, my mother has always had a thing about returning stuff, even if it's not working, and at the time lived two states away from me. I couldn't get the unit from her until after the 90 day warranty was up.

More recently, I bought her a HUMAX T800 in april of this year. Immediately she noticed problems with audio cutting in and out, but we thought it might be her receiver since she hadn't been using it before. When I was next at her house, I connected the tivo direct to the tv to find the problem indeed with the tivo. We called for a replacement, and shipped the old unit back at her expense. Humax lost the unit, and it took a month and a half and many phone calls to get them to ship another one out to her, a refurbished t800.

When she connected this unit and ran guided set up, it got stuck during the cleanup phase of the initial call, and wouldn't go any further. It was also making loud noises, indicating a bad drive. I called humax, and this time they did an advance exchange because of our previous bad experience. However, it didn't seem like this rep really knew what he was doing... he asked several questions more than once, and didn't find her info in the computer, and had to call us back 3 times for more information.

A few days later, she received her new tivo, and to our surprise it was a DRT800, not a T800. I expect this was a mistake on their part, but perhaps it was a gesture to apologize for all the trouble... who knows. She's glad to have the upgrade though.

The problem now is that even this DRT800 isn't working correctly for her. We have it hooked up, and functional at the moment, but the RF output doesn't work. I hate to call and get it exchanged again after all the trouble we've been thru so far, but I also don't want to keep a defective tivo... who knows, some day she may need to use the RF output. And, if the rf out is bad, it's hard to say whether anything else might be wrong with the unit that we haven't found yet...

Overall, it's been a frustrating experience with HUMAX support. It seems as though they have very poor quality control on refurbished units. Almost as though they plug in the defective units, and if they power up okay, they mark them No fault found and ship them out to some other poor customer...

Gai-jin

 

[petew]

The problem now is that even this DRT800 isn't working correctly for her. We have it hooked up, and functional at the moment, but the RF output doesn't work.

RF OUT on the DRT-800 is RF pass through only. There is no Tivo output to RF OUT. This is by design and is I think common to all units that include a DVD drive.

 

[larrs]

Unfortunately, my experience was not so great. My mother has had the worst luck with tivos... she thinks she's cursed not to have one.

Years ago I bought a 14 hour unit on clearance at Circuit city for her, when the $99 we paid was a GREAT price. it died within a month. Unfortunately, my mother has always had a thing about returning stuff, even if it's not working, and at the time lived two states away from me. I couldn't get the unit from her until after the 90 day warranty was up.

More recently, I bought her a HUMAX T800 in april of this year. Immediately she noticed problems with audio cutting in and out, but we thought it might be her receiver since she hadn't been using it before. When I was next at her house, I connected the tivo direct to the tv to find the problem indeed with the tivo. We called for a replacement, and shipped the old unit back at her expense. Humax lost the unit, and it took a month and a half and many phone calls to get them to ship another one out to her, a refurbished t800.

When she connected this unit and ran guided set up, it got stuck during the cleanup phase of the initial call, and wouldn't go any further. It was also making loud noises, indicating a bad drive. I called humax, and this time they did an advance exchange because of our previous bad experience. However, it didn't seem like this rep really knew what he was doing... he asked several questions more than once, and didn't find her info in the computer, and had to call us back 3 times for more information.

A few days later, she received her new tivo, and to our surprise it was a DRT800, not a T800. I expect this was a mistake on their part, but perhaps it was a gesture to apologize for all the trouble... who knows. She's glad to have the upgrade though.

The problem now is that even this DRT800 isn't working correctly for her. We have it hooked up, and functional at the moment, but the RF output doesn't work. I hate to call and get it exchanged again after all the trouble we've been thru so far, but I also don't want to keep a defective tivo... who knows, some day she may need to use the RF output. And, if the rf out is bad, it's hard to say whether anything else might be wrong with the unit that we haven't found yet...

Overall, it's been a frustrating experience with HUMAX support. It seems as though they have very poor quality control on refurbished units. Almost as though they plug in the defective units, and if they power up okay, they mark them No fault found and ship them out to some other poor customer...

Gai-jin

Gai,
I understand your frustraton, but this doesn't seem to be a problem with customer support. It is, instead, a problem with Humax's manufacturing, etc. It may be a poorly made product, but it seems their customer support is good. After all, they (even if by accident) did even go so far as to upgrade your unit.

 

[larrs]

RF OUT on the DRT-800 is RF pass through only. There is no Tivo output to RF OUT. This is by design and is I think common to all units that include a DVD drive.

Does this mean you can watch one program while recording another by using the DRT in the same manner as a "splitter"?

 

[petew]

Does this mean you can watch one program while recording another by using the DRT in the same manner as a "splitter"?

Yes

 

[larrs]

Yes

Cool- didn't know that.

 

[Gai-jin]

PETEW -- Really? I have this same model, but I guess I had never tried to hook it up via RF out, so I didn't realize it didn't work...

Why on earth would they not support RF out from the tivo and dvd player?

Gai-jin

 

[Gai-jin]

Okay, but I'm used to the way tivo's normally work. When the tivo is on, all the outputs (RF, RCA, etc) send out the same signal. When the tivo is off, they're all dark, except the RF out which acts as a passthrough.

Why the change?

 

[petew]

How often have you seen a DVD player with RF out? I'm guessing that since 99% of customers wiare going to use AV OUT , RF out is omitted as a cost saving measure.

 

[Gai-jin]

Some dvd players do have RF out. DVD-VCR combos often do. I should think the dvd-tivo combo would as well.

 

[rh0926]

I had to post my Humax experience in case anybody is deciding to buy:

I purchased one of these Refurb t800 from Amazon on October 21st. Shortly after receiving the unit, it started locking up. The only recourse was pulling the power cable. After some basic diagnostics, Humax customer service advised unit had bad hard drive and to send it back for replacement. That's when the fun began.

11/8 Original Call to Humax

11/11 Called to initiate advanced replacement

11/12 Called to get shipment info. They didn't have it, call back.

11/14 Called to get shipment info. They didn't have it, call back. Advised rep that I had called several times, she said she would get info and call me back.

11/16 Called to get shipment info. They didn't have it, call back. Advised Betty that previous rep was going to call. She said that calling customers directly is against their rules and it would NEVER be done. Call back for tracking info.

11/18 Called to get shipment info. They didn't have it, call back.

11/18 11:30pm Found Tivo on front porch of my house. I had it shipped to my place of employment but somebody screwed up my work address (even after 3 times verifying the address on the 11/11 phone call) and Humax had it sent to my house instead. Nice, but nobody notified me. The kicker--it arrived on the 15th. It sat on my porch for 3 days in sub-freezing weather.

11/19 Went to setup replacement t800. Guess what, it's defective and cannot even get through setup routine without rebooting.

11/19 Called Humax. Will ship third unit. Very apologetic, but could not do anything other than apologize. Spoke to manager, he agreed to ask their distribution site to expedite the shipment. He asked me to call on 11/21 to get tracking info and verify unit will be shipped overnight.

11/21 Called Humax to get tracking info. There is nothing noted on the account. Very apologetic, but call back for tracking info. Oh, and this time, Betty told me she would get the info and call me back. I told her that calling me back was against her rules (see 11/16 call) and she said she had WAYS to get around the rules!!! I won't expect a call.

I've spoken to Betty now about 8 times. She is useless and can provide no information. She had the gall to tell me it will get delivered correctly this time because 'I did it right this time.' What? She's the only rep there that can do the work right? Talk about full of herself!!!!

My suggestion is to stay as far away from this company and refurb units as you can. Once I get a good unit, I'll probably love it. But dealing with Humax Customer Support had been a nightmare.

And if you do purchase one and have problems, tell Betty that Rob from Ohio says hi and I'll be calling her later today!

 

[ExcelGal]

I had to post my Humax experience in case anybody is deciding to buy:

I purchased one of these Refurb t800 from Amazon on October 21st. Shortly after receiving the unit, it started locking up. The only recourse was pulling the power cable. After some basic diagnostics, Humax customer service advised unit had bad hard drive and to send it back for replacement.

...

11/19 Went to setup replacement t800. Guess what, it's defective and cannot even get through setup routine without rebooting.

Oh Oh. This is like deja vu all over again... While my dealings with HUMAX customer support have been excellent, I am now concerned that there are any good refurbished units out there. I also had problems with the hard drive on the first one. I also had the eternal reboot cycle on the replacement. I'm currently waiting for the second replacement... I will keep my fingers crossed!

 

[lajohn27]

I guess after three go-rounds.. I'd give up and replace the HD myself.. but I'm a DIY kinda guy anyway.. (This is not a serious suggestion for anyone to do that.. I'm just sayin I'm weird like that)

 

[ExcelGal]

I've replaced the harddrive in my other TiVo myself, but this one was less than month old when the problems started. No way I'm footing the bill to get it back to good.

 

[Gai-jin]

I think they get the defective units in, turn 'em on, and if they seem like they power on, they ship 'em back out, assuming the guy who sent it in must not have hooked it up right, caus if it turns on, there must not be anything wrong....

 

[rh0926]

I'm with ExcelGal. I'm not footing the bill on something that should have workied in the first place.

Latest update---I called on the 21st to verify the unit was shipped out by FedEx overnight (Like the supervisor and I agreed on the 19th). The rep (Betty again) told me it was sent out but wouldn't verify any info.

I called on the 22nd, Jocelyn told me they were sure it was sent out (still not able to give any tracking info) and I should have it by Friday!!!! On the 19th when I called, they said they would definitely overnight the unit.

Again, it's being shipped to a place I'm NOT! I'm off work for the Holiday until Monday and have to ask somebody to look out for the package for me. Talk about a pain!

I seriously think they must be the most incompetent people I've ever dealt with.

If anybody from Humax monitors these boards and wants to try and defend or explain??????? Their reps are useless. They keep apologizing and empathizing (there's nothing that gets me agrier than to hear the rep say 'I can understand why you are upset' and then turn around and compound the issue by making the problem worse!)

I had about three other people watching to see how my experience turned out because they were interested in purchasing, but they've since changed their minds.

 

[mattack]

Why on earth would they not support RF out from the tivo and dvd player?

It's not just the Tivo/DVD recorder that lacks this.. As someone else mentioned, most regular DVD players don't have RF out.

But the RF out on my (non-Tivo) hard drive/DVD recorder is pass through too.
I think that's mostly a very good thing. I actually *am* using RF out for my two tivos to get video into another room -- but would gladly figure out some other way to get the video there if the coax outs were just pass through.

I wish all equipment had this pass through capability -- it would make cabling MUCH simpler. It was only in the past year or two that I realized that at least one of my Mitsubishi VCRs had this capability - you can set it to A/V only, so it doesn't put any output on the coax.

 

[rh0926]

WOW! I finally got the 2nd replacement unit today from Humax. They promised overnight shipping to go out on the 21st.

We'll see if sitting in UPS's warehouse for the past 5 days affected the operation of the unit.