AT&T Tech Support 360
July 31, 2006 4:00 AM PDT
Why my cable DVR stinks
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After a long week of interviews and writing stories, I was excited to hunker down in my living room one Friday night to see who had gotten booted off that week's "Project Runway." I flipped through the list of recorded programs on my digital video recorder and there was nothing.
How could this be? I knew for certain I had clicked on the "record the series" button.
Cisco Systems
I scrolled further and realized that it wasn't just "Project Runway" that was missing. That week's entire lineup of "The Daily Show," as well as the latest episode of "Entourage," were nowhere to be found.
I was upset, to say the least. This was the second DVR I had gotten from Time Warner since I signed up for the service in January. The previous box kept freezing and rebooting itself.
I looked online and discovered blogs full of complaints regarding the Scientific Atlanta 8000, the box Time Warner had given me not once, but twice. The whole debacle got me thinking about how complicated even the most basic things like watching television have gotten.
While I love how the DVR changed my life--letting me watch my favorite shows whenever I want and fast-forward through commercials--I was in love with it only when it worked. Because when it didn't work, I wanted to throw the whole thing out my window.
In a rush to give consumers more features, cable operators, satellite providers and phone companies are asking device makers to pack more complex capabilities into each box. Today, set-top boxes resemble a home PC more than they do a simple channel-changing cable box designed to do only three things: turn on, turn off, tune channels. Inevitably, these increasingly complicated devices are less reliable and harder to use than their predecessors.
"I would agree that things have gotten too complicated," said Kip Compton, director of business development for Cisco Systems, which now owns Scientific-Atlanta (in fairness, my DVR was made before Cisco bought the company). "Competition is driving operators to offer more features more quickly, and often that comes at the expense of increasing complexity. But it's a balancing act that the industry is trying to manage to keep up with the demand for more features while at the same time building simpler interfaces and reliable products."
Making networks intelligent
Some people in the industry suggest that instead of building more features into consumer devices, service providers and device makers should push more of the complexity into the network, so consumers are shielded from it.
The traditional telephone network is a good example of such a network. Circuit-switched telephony is by no means simple, but to the end user, picking up a phone and getting a dial tone is as simple as simple gets. And it's extremely reliable. Phone networks are designed to guarantee the network will be down no more than five minutes per year.
Some television providers have already begun exploring this concept. In March, Cablevision announced plans to test a new digital video recording service that allowed users to record and manage content through their existing set-top boxes, which would access a network-based DVR housed miles away in a Cablevision office.
The network-based DVR could save Cablevision tons of money, because company won't have to deploy and manage sophisticated devices in every subscriber's home. And subscribers wouldn't have to deal with the headache of boxes that reboot or fail altogether. But content owners quickly responded with threats of legal action, citing concerns over protecting copyright material. As a result, Cablevision put its test on hold until the digital rights management issues can be worked out, the company said.
In stark contrast to Cablevision's approach, Microsoft is selling its Media Center software that turns PCs into central repositories for all digital photos, music and video. Once hooked up to a TV, the software allows users to use their PC as a DVR to record, store and search content on their hard drives.
See more CNET content tagged:
DVR,
Cablevision Systems Corp.,
Cisco Systems Inc.,
Scientific-Atlanta Inc.,
set-top box
Yeeeeeaaaahhhhh.....Cause I want a Verizon Tech snooping around my home network or on my PC.
Thanks but no thanks. I just hope they don't come to me one day and say you must use Router X or Y because they conform to our "remote monitoring standards".
Not to mention, a NON-Microsoft PVR is the best solution if you want your view habits to remain private.
If unstable technology were the reason why cable co's DVRs are so unreliable, then why is my ReplayTV -- built in 2000 -- still running fine with 100% reliability, never once missing a show?
Because ReplayTV and TiVo are DVR companies. These companies spent the time, resources, and management focus on delivering an absolutely fantastic user experience from a set-top box perspective.
CableCo management is based on network technology, content acquisition and licensing, and customer service. They essentially outsource all of the DVR components in their business strategy: My Comcast DVR is Motorola, with the GUI built by TVGuide.
If something isn't "core" to your business model, you outsource. Thusly, these CableCos clearly don't see DVRs as their core business (yet).
Once they do, they will either more effectively manage these external vendors, or buy them up to ensure that their brands are effectively represented through the DVR GUI.
I know that if I ran Comcast's set-top box strategy, I would convince executive management that the DVR is where the brand touches the consumer -- and thusly requires additional investment in oversight, standards, and rigor in managing these vendors.
So, let's not let CableCo's off the hook because "technology" is getting more complex. Let's demand that they deliver what they're promising... and threaten to hold back our monthly payments when said services don't live up to their hype.
Only then will management get the financial incentive to invest more in the DVR experience.
The current generation of cable DVR is a step backward. The guides and navigation are slow and unresponsive, the recordings are less reliable, the boxes crash or need rebooting often, and once you try to use networked pay-per-view the network is sometimes too busy and you get a denial of service.
I have both TIVO and cable DVR, TIVO wins hands down on all aspects.
The future generation that the cable companies are trying to push to save $$$, where almost everything would be on the network, would be an even bigger step backward as far as customer experience. It will be even slower, even less responsive, even less reliable, etc.
You are right that the old telephony system embedded all the intelligence in the network and was quite successful. But remember, it was a snail paced evolution over 100 years.
In your case, I suspect if network based DVR would really solve the problem. You just need better software on your DVR.
No, we need a standard way to let DVR's manage cable just like you can buy any phone and plug it in, and it works. I've been reading about CableCard which is supposed to solve this mess, but I have no idea when it will be readily available, or when supporting devices will be out.
Until then I guess I'll still have to "work the TV" for my wife.
I had a RebootTV er... ReplayTV for a couple of years. It was great when it worked, and sucked when it locked up and I had to unplug and plug it back in to reboot it.
I finally created my own media PC running Windows XP (I'd sooner douse myself in oil and set myself ablaze than upgrade to Vista when it comes out so I'll stick with XP). I bought a program called SageTV which gives me all of the DVR functionality I need without having to pay a subscription to access programming information.
I can view photos, listen to mp3s, browse the web and watch, record, and pause television video from the same box - all without Tivo or ReplayTV keeping track of my viewing habits which I think it none of their business anyway.
The only pain to all of this is that many satellite and cable decoder boxes don't have a way for a computer to interface with it to change the channel. For this, I use an IRBlaster.
The other issue I had was signal strength. The picture looked fine but the strength caused problems with the box slowing down and crashing. They added a 2nd line and it solve this problem.
The only reason I use the DVR from my cable company is for HD recording. Satellite has this, however they charge a lot more for this ability.
Until Tivo/ReplayTV/whoever offers a plan where you just send me a bill and I pay it, they'll always be second. It's totally convenience that I can simply call up Cox, say I want the thing, they ship it to me, and bill my account. No credit cards, no credit checks, no prescreens, no hooks. I don't like locking my plastic into some recurrent charge that I might get screwed on later (like them billing me $199.95 instead of $19.95, because Rep A wasn't paying attention when they typed in the price per month and added an extra 9. No thanks.)
If only I hadn't moved I would still be enjoying my Timewarner service. Bleep it all to Bleep.
I am happy I bought my Replay when I did and avoided all the tempormental DishPlayer/TimeWarner/etc... rebooting cruddy boxes.
I have a 160 GB drive in the Replay and it works great and will for years to come and haven't paid a cent for it since I bought it. Dunno why anyone would pay $10 a month to a cable company to 'use' one!
worst was that the legacy analog channels would barely record.
More often than not the recording should show the same start and
stop time with no actual content recorded. I had Time Warner
change out the unit for a model 8300 after demonstrating the
problem to them. It has been much improved and I rarely lose a
recording on it. It also has much more memory ( 112 Mb vs 48 Mb
on the 8000) and has faster processors ( 250 MHz vs 164 MHz on
the 8000).
- TIVO is King!
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by gpaulgar
July 31, 2006 10:35 AM PDT
- Tivo would be on many more shelves if they had been better at cutting deals with others. It was SO SOLID when I used it on satellite several years ago. Recently tried a ComCast unit; not good, crashes frequently! Just went from cable to DirectTV; their DVR unit is TIVO-like, but squirelly. Now learning to live with its idiosyncracic behavior, e.g. don't ever power it off unless you want to do a POR later.
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See all 108 Comments >>Miss my TIVO! ??Perhaps I should buy one??