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NYC Time-Warner customers getting DVRs

A story in today's NYT talks about the current plethora of digital cable and satellite choices for customers. It includes a note about Time-Warner's NYC customers getting DVR boxes. They are deploying Scientific American's Explorer 800, which features dual tuners and a 80Gb hard drive that records native digital signals, much like a Directivo (resulting in a much better picture free of compression artifacts). They're charging less than $10 a month for the service and the boxes are free making it much cheaper than TiVo. [via /.]

by Matt Haughey July 31, 2003 in News

Comments

Time-Warner customers in Hawaii are getting similar boxes.

Posted by: Jon Asato at Jul 31, 2003 9:07:35 PM

Comcast is testing the DVR setup in Virginia in Arlington/Alexandria areas. I think I have the same box used by the Time Warner customers. Similar pricing arrangement. If I opt out of the DVR service, they turn off the hard drive feature. Better searching capabilities for TIVO I've learned from my friends.

Posted by: Julia Linthicum at Aug 1, 2003 12:02:43 PM

This isn't really news. Time Warner's had these tivo boxes in Austin since at least Feb. They need some serious fixes too.

http://www.lerhaupt.com/foo/archives/000024.html

Posted by: Gary Lerhaupt at Aug 1, 2003 2:24:43 PM

I have used this box in Hawaii for a while. I have owned pvr's since the first replaytv came out and own several of them. The dual tuner is great, but it does not have a skip forward (only fast forward). If also does not have the same search features as a replaytv and/or tivo. I think as their software interface gets more Sophisticated tivo and replay will have problems. It's cheap cost (nothing) and small monthly fee is also going to be a problem for the other companies. However, power users will still prefer a TIVO or REPLAYTV for now.

Posted by: Jonathan Burge at Aug 1, 2003 3:57:32 PM

They introduced them to the Cincinnati area about 3 months ago. We've had one for about 4 weeks and I have no idea how we ever got along without it.

Posted by: mick at Aug 2, 2003 12:04:11 PM

They've been in Orlando for some time, too. I got one last Monday and love it.

Posted by: Lee Bennett at Aug 2, 2003 4:38:34 PM

The ONLY thing better about these than TiVo is the video quality. I've been using the Time Warner/Sci Atlanta box for about 2 months now. I used TiVo for 18 months before that. The TiVo is superior in every other way.

The worst thing about this PVR is that it has horrendous schedule/search features. The second worst is how buggy it is, crashed at least every 3 days in some new and not so entertaining way.

Posted by: Joe at Aug 2, 2003 11:24:12 PM

This is the same box that Cox is using in the Fairfax, Virginia area. We used it for a couple months and hated it. It missed scheduled recordings even when I explicitly set the recorder and if we were watching a recording while it was being recorded the machine stopped playback and started palyback over again once the show ended (this is major ploblem in my books). Anyway we returned the box and went back to DirecTivo.

Posted by: Tricia Harvey at Aug 3, 2003 5:04:24 PM

I've been using the new Time Warner NYC DVR box for a few days now, and so far, so good. It lacks the TiVo search functions, but picture quality is very good and using the TW interface makes recordings pretty simple. However, channel surfing is slower than the non DVR boxes, and programs pause when unexpected from time to time. It has recorded everything I've scheduled, but it did reset itselt during recording once (a Time Warner thing with digital boxes, I've noticed), yet it still recorded the program.

Posted by: Les Shu at Aug 5, 2003 8:22:28 AM

I'm thinking of moving to DVR with TW-NYC--what kind of files are the programs recorded as on the hard drive? With an 80GB drive, how many hours can I reasonably expect to record?

Also, the less-than-knowledgable custsvc person said it records only a minute or so of "live" TV--what does that mean? I assume this is for the live pause/rewind function, but just curious.

Posted by: B. Yoshimoto at Aug 22, 2003 9:16:21 AM

B. Yoshimoto, the files are likely MPEG2, but as far as I know there is no mechanism for hacking into the new machines and being able to get files out of them.

You can probably record about 70 hours or so of digital signal, judging by the recording capacities of similar DirecTiVo units.

The minute of live TV taped is probably the buffer, though I'm sure it's more like around 5-10 seconds. If you hit pause, it will freeze and begin recording what you are missing, allowing you to advance forward to the present.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Aug 22, 2003 9:57:41 AM

Hi , for those in NY woh ay they have it , any news if Staten island is offering it or is going to soon, i mean if brooklyn has it we should, we had digital cable before brooklyn, i hope they are , ive been meaning to try this service for a while.

Posted by: Carlos at Sep 2, 2003 12:29:55 PM

Carlos, I'm on Staten Island and I've had my box since last weekend. Bring one of your boxes down to the TW building on Richmond Blvd. and exchange it for a DVR box.

Posted by: MG at Sep 4, 2003 2:31:31 PM

Sorry, I meant Richmond Ave., not Richmond Blvd.

Posted by: MG at Sep 4, 2003 2:35:19 PM

got one in manhattan 2 weeks ago --> hard drive made a horrible loud clicking noise and wouldn't work. Had a tech come with explicit instructions from me to bring a replacement --> he didn't. Rescheduled for following day --> no show. Rescheduled for following day --> came without box again. (Getting the picture about time warner?) Tech returned later with a box.

I don't know whether the new one is defective also, but the delay to bring up the guide after pressing the remote is 15 seconds, no exaggeration! Just about every command is in slow motion. Recorded video is jerky, like you're running video on a very slow PC. There's lots more, but I won't ramble.

Does anyone else have this problem, or do I have another bad box?

Had to fight with customer service to comp a month of cable, but I won.

Posted by: frank jones at Sep 19, 2003 9:57:51 PM

I have road runner with Time warner. Am I qualify for getting DVR? I live in Manhattan and if so, what do I need to do and contact number if you have.

Posted by: Sunny at Oct 5, 2003 8:56:26 PM

Bay Area - Comcast is getting the DVR to customers in December. $9.95 a month but only $4.95 a month more if you already have the HD box. It records HD also.

Posted by: jbelkin at Nov 12, 2003 2:29:02 PM

I just had my cable upgraded to digital yesterday, as well as having the DVR installed. I already had the digital cable once before, so none of that was new... but this DVR is already acting up. I believe it is also the 8000 model from Time Warner.

Anyway, I have the same problem as MG... left the room for a few minutes this morning, came back in to find the TV blank, the DVR led display garbled, and the HD going CLICK WHIRR CLICK WHIRR CLICK WHIRR CLICK WHIRR. It was unresponsive and the only way to "fix" it was to unplug it and let it reboot.

I haven't even had it 24 hours. Can't say that I'm very impressed yet, heh.

Posted by: Rob Batina at Nov 15, 2003 7:16:40 AM

This DVR from TWC is the most horrendous piece of sh*t ever made. I upgraded to digital tv + dvr (the 8000 model) Friday, it is now Sunday and I can't wait to return this piece of crap. I haven't been able to retrieve a single show. I actually don't know if it even recorded since I can't retrieve anything to know for sure. But worst of all, the system keeps rebooting itself (for no reason at all) so I can't even just watch a television show without the fear of interrupted service.

This f**** thing is going back first thing Monday morning, and I'll look into Tivo instead.

Posted by: stsang at Nov 30, 2003 6:38:07 PM

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