Time Warner Cable NYC Begins DVR Distribution

MikeTRose writes "Today's NYT Circuits section has an article about the proliferation of digital television choices for cable and satellite customers. They mention that Time Warner Cable will be starting to offer DVR cable boxes to New York City subscribers in September 2003. Apparently the time-shifting features of the new Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 (flash demo) set-tops are unusually powerful, as I got mine in Brooklyn this past Tuesday. 80 GB drive, which equals an estimated 50 hours of digital cable programming (no quality controls a la TiVo or ReplayTV, everything is as-broadcast). Programming interface is integrated completely into the slightly-updated channel guide, and you hit one big ol' record button to save a show. The tuner can handle two channels at once, so you can watch one/record one, or record two programs while watching a prerecorded show (similar to the DirecTV TiVo units if I recall correctly). Works great so far, and there's no quality problem with recompressing the digital cable as there is with standalone DVRs, nor is there the annoying 2-3 second channel change lag while it caches video. At less than $10 a month -- no cost to the subscriber for the box -- that money we were saving for a TiVo is up for grabs."

Comments

I have one

[astrashe]

I've had one of these boxes for two or three weeks, in Lincoln, Nebraska. It's great.

It costs an extra $5 a month, on top of the standard digital cable rate, and there were no hardware or installation charges. There's very tight integration with the program guide - when you browse through channels, you can see whatever you're watching (live or recorded) in a small window, and it's easy to program things.

The digital cable channels look fantastic - you can really tell the difference, especially when you pause the picture.

I've never used or even seen a tivo, so I don't know how this box compares to those, or specifically to the feature that lets you skip commercials. This box has a nice fast forward feature, with three different speeds, and when you drop out of it, the box tries to line you up with a scene change - in practice, it's pretty good at letting you hit the end of the commercial exactly.

At first I thought they were offering this because a DVR would make an ideal pay per view platform, but the box doesn't add anything to the PPV functionality of the old digital cable box. Time Warner has a system they call "iControl" that lets you pause, rewind, fast forward, etc., a PPV program, and the new box uses the same system, instead of its own disk.

Apparently they've been sending out a few software updates to these boxes. I was a very early adopter here - I had to keep calling the cable company, to see if they were out yet, to get mine. The installer told me that there were a lot of glitches early on in the roll out, but I haven't had many problems.

It is possible to trigger a reboot in the box by overloading it - I'm not exactly sure what causes it, but if you're doing several things at once with it, you can sink it. This has happened to me two or three times.

The really cool thing about these boxes is that they have USB and Firewire ports on them. But there's no software support for them. If you could extract video from these things, they'd be perfect.

Re:I have one

[ultrapenguin]

try this place:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&t hreadid=269141.

Requires an Apple laptop/desktop, firewire cable, OSX 10.2+, some C++ skills, and a large hard disk.

Re:I have one

[mckwant]

the TW DVR has something that's supposed to be similar, but it does a lousy job at maintaining itself. For some reason, if you ever schedule anything at the same time (which is possible with the second tuner), it cancels your season's pass without telling you.

I pray that people will use TiVos more than they use these crappy boxes, because I could go on about their inferiority, but, well, it's TW.

I mean really, even the grandparent admits it "reboots when you overload it." My TiVos only reboot when I unplug them. Just sickening.

Re:I have one

[astrashe]

I'm not familiar with tivo's season pass, so I'll just describe what this box does.

You schedule recordings from the program guide -- you can page through a grid and pick the shows you want to record. When you select a program, you get a pop-up menu that lets you record the one episode, or the entire series.

If you record the series, it will only record it on that channel, by default, but it will record it all times.

But you can go into another menu (series manager) and change the options -- there you can tell it how many episodes of a given show to keep, whether or not to record it only a specific time, or at all times, etc.

It's pretty good, for the most part, but it's not terribly bright about some things. For example, I like south park, and I want it to record all of the episodes. But it will keep a second copy of the same episode on the disk, even though the program guide has enough information for it to know that it's the same program.

I stopped recording dennis miller live on HBO, for example, because of that problem. When you get HBO here, you get 12 english channels, and they have dennis miller all over the place, with a ton of duplications, especially across the time zones.

The main feature that tivo has that this doesn't, as far as I can tell, is the thing that suggests programs for you. This box only records what I tell it to record, or what I watch.

Re:I have one

[SuperDuperMan]

I've had two DirecTivos for years since they came out and not a single failure of the modem. I also have experienced only a few odd lockups and not in recent memory.

You don't have to be a fanboy to speak well of a product. TiVo isn't just a DVR it's a damn good DVR.

Re:I have one

[Jordy]

The digital cable channels look fantastic - you can really tell the difference, especially when you pause the picture.

I imagine that Time Warner NYC is just like every other cable company in the US and the first 60 channels give or take are analog.

If so, how do those channels look with this device?

No Features, cheaper prices

[RhoryCalhoon]

Time Warner and other cable companies need to spend less time thinking of more features they can charge for and instead find ways to bring better service for lower prices. Once they figure that out, then they should move on to more features. I know in Boston cable can be 60 bucks a month for basic service.

Uh huh

[acxr is wasted]

"The whole category has been about the customer being able to get control"

Really, who has control here? Given the fact that it's the cable companies themselves that are distributing the boxes and the software, it's pretty safe to assume that they have complete access to information regarding what shows you've watched, what you're recording, etc. This is just the next step towards the uber-specific TV commercial placement of the future. Buy, my pretties, buy!

Re:Uh huh

[willtsmith]

There is a potential privacy issue here. However, if they "anonymize" the info, I see no problem.

In fact, this could become a great improvement over the "nielsen" ratings model. We all know that the Nielsens are problematic. The sample size is way too small. Too many excellent programs get cancelled due to "poor ratings".

It would be awesome if what people were actually watching would get credit. A lot more quality "niche" shows would probably be more viable. Especially in the cable markets.

I say, that this would be great so long as they:
1) Allow individuals to "opt-out" for ANY reason.
2) Anonymize all the information that is streamed from the box. Make the specific source code open source so geeks can verify that "big brother" isn't watching what they are.

Re:Uh huh

[MikeTRose]

it's pretty safe to assume that they have complete access to information regarding what shows you've watched, what you're recording, etc

Scientific Atlanta FAQ says that no channel choice or program info goes upstream from the box to the provider. FWIW.

Re:Uh huh

[ONU CS Geek]

I kinda find that a little bit hard to believe. I used to work for Time Warner cable as a High Speed Data installer, and I know that once a week the DCT (Digital Cable Tunter) guys had to chase "Non-Responder" tickets...boxes that had stopped talking to the head-end.

I do know that when you get a SA DCT, they come "golden" from the box--meaning, as long as your tv doesn't get "hit," you'll get all of the premium channels that they have, but not the pay per views. Once that box is hit, and you scan through a channel that you're not subscribed for, it'll call the head end to see if you've 'subscribed' to the channel, and will be polled regurally to see if you've ordered any Pay Per Views. (by the way, the stories about people putting filters and getting all the pay per views that they want, is false--the box only has about a $100 limit, and that filter basically puts the box on the Non-Responder List--meaning you'll have a tech out within a month to make sure everything's hunkey-dorey.) The reason that they won't take a $50 and leave your box un-hit is because it's still listed as on your truck until it's hit...and then the cable guy's responsible for the equipment...and they don't want to have to have that $500 box taken out of their paycheck ;)

Re:Uh huh

[ONU CS Geek]

From what I know and understand about the way DCT's work, even if you could do something like this, you'd only have 24 hours to do it before it would reqired to be "hit" again, or, it'll CYCO out (Call your Cable Operator). If you've got enough gumption, or enough free time, or enough money, anything can be done. I believe that the protocol is encrypted, and that the communications protocol is well kept. Then again, I'm just a former HSD Technician, and I really don't know a whole lot about the DCT side of things.

Great! Oh...wait a minute...

[niko9]

I was almost salivating when I read the article, until I realised that I live in the Bronx.

We have Cablevision here, and the service just plain sucks. I'm paying sixty doallrs a month for basic cable with no premium channels. They have a monopoly here, I can't switch cable providers, and my building won't let me have a dish.

The only thing I can count on is for their prices to go up. I can't even get 24/7 pay-per-view porn like they do in Manhattan.

It costs twenty dollars a month for basic channels 2-13 recpetion. Twenty bucks! Some people don't pay that for internet access!

When are they going to regulate cable companies who can't regulate themselves.

Re:Great! Oh...wait a minute...

[zztzed]

The cable company here charges $30/month for channels 2-13. I think if you want all the channels (including digital ones) it comes out to $80-90. And of course there's the receiver rental fee. So it could be worse.

Also, the owner of your building cannot prevent you from installing a satellite dish under one meter in diameter. See here for details.

What is the downside?

[sllim]

A year ago the TV people were crying that Tivos and other DVR devices would spell certain doom for free/commercial TV.
Then cable companies started talking seriously about pushing out there own DVR units.

Seemed pretty obvious to me that it had something to do with locking down certain features on the DVR's that the free/commercial TV people didn't like.

Has anyone found a downside yet?
The one reviewer seemed pretty pleased with the fast forward button. I thought for sure that would be one thing. I thought that they would restrict the speed so you were forced to watch commercials. Tivo's FF speed is pretty fast.

How about the ability for the cable companies to keep you from recording a program?
I am almost certain there is a programming flag that they can turn on to keep you from recording programs. It is supposed to be used for pay per view and the like, but tell me it isn't screaming for abuse.

Has anyone found any programs (or entire channels even) that they cannot record or time shift?

With my Tivo I have digital cable, and I have yet to be told I cannot time shift someone. I Tivo HBO all the time.

Re:What is the downside?

[generic-man]

One of the biggest hang-ups with DVRs is that some of them could automatically skip commercials. My ReplayTV 5040 does a passable job of skipping commercials: about 80% effective overall, so 20% of shows must be fast-forwarded manually. Sometimes, during those 20%, I get lazy and watch the commercials anyway.

ReplayTV's old owners, SonicBlue, faced litigation from many large TV networks over their ad blocking, so the forthcoming 5500 series will not have the automatic commercial skip functionality. TiVo's investors include some players in the TV programming industry, so TiVo has never supported automatic commercial skip. (Source: PVR Compare)

ReplayTV caved in to industry pressure. TiVo is part-owned by big industry players. Of course, these new set-top boxes will have feature sets dictated by content providers.

Don't like it? Build a Linux-based DVR, which should be feature-complete by the time The Simpsons' 16th season premieres.

Re:What is the downside?

[devaudio]

I have both the DVR (since January in Syracuse) and 2 tivos. The FF speed on the TW offering is much much slower than the Tivo one, so you do see commercials, albeit at high speed. No programming skip buttons there. They did a study and found people still get the gist of commercials played at high speeds. There are channels you can not record (on demand, and some pay per views) and they do have flags to prevent you from recording regular digital channels, but all are disabled so far. It also does get much slower with the more programs you record. I would say the only adventage over tivo is the ability to record 2 channels at once. Other than that, tivo rocks it's world

Is it just me, or...

[SuperBanana]

...is this story a blatant product placement? It reads like MarketDroid(TM) output. Nevermind that it's freakin' -enormous-...

Yuck

[Bruha]

I've seen Time Warner's digital cable.. yes you dont have to compress it becuase it's already compressed. And it's horrible at that.. Just look into a dark area of a picture and you'll see the compression adjusting and all kinds of artifacts.

DirectDvr for DirectTv is much better becuase the picture quality is higher due to the extra bandwidth the satelite can play with.

Pictures?

[preric]

Can anyone take some pictures of their TW unit? With the serials blurred of course... would love to see the back and (for the daring and screwdriver handy) insides...

Compression

[badasscat]

I'm not sure I believe there's no recompression done to the cable signal. Are you really telling me that this is taking the digital signal, leaving it digital, and simply storing an MPEG-2 stream (or whatever it is) as it comes in through the cable on the hard drive? If so, I would like to read more in-depth about this box (not just a Flash demo) - anybody got a better link?

Knowing how ass-backwards Time Warner usually is and how technology like this is often trailing-edge rather than leading-edge, I would have thought the box is recompressing the signal after converting it to analog just like every other DVR on the market. The fact that it looks so good could be for any number of reasons - a higher bit-rate or better compression algorithm (MPEG-4?) or whatever. If not, this is really a revolutionary device.

Does anyone have any more information on this? And what sort of record times do you get with it? With highest quality on TiVo you get about 20 hours on an 80GB hard drive; that's MPEG-2 decoding (you'd get more if it was MPEG-4).

Re:Compression

[rusty0101]

I would have thought the box is recompressing the signal after converting it to analog just like every other DVR on the market.

I don't know where you are getting your information, but while stand alone tivos, replays, and if they exist stand alone ultimate-tvs all do compress the anlaog signal they receive, direcTiVos and DirecTV UltimateTV receivers simply decrypt the digital stream from DirecTV, and re-encrypt it before storing the digital stream onto the hard drives. This is why there is no "compression setting" on these systems. The compressed stream from DirecTV is about as compressed as the high compression setting of a SA Tivo, while being about as high quality as the low compression(high quality) setting.

There is some variability between manufacturers on the playback quality. The only time I have noticed pixilization on my Philips DirecTiVo has been duing bad rains. I have heard people complain about the quality of playback on other units.

Go to Google and look up "Tivo Community DirecTiVo playback quality" and start looking for reports of quality to determine which system may be best for you.

So far as I know no digital broadcast system is streaming Mpeg-4 yet. There may be a couple of Internet based companies trying it out, but it is too cutting edge for most businesses these days. If you want to get the rights to do so, this may be a way to sell cable over DSL. You will want a lot of bandwidth at the head end however, even though you will not have a lot of customers initially. I would also recomend using multi-cast to get around bandwidth issues initially. Figuring out what networks to multi-cast and what to uni-cast will be an ongoing decision making situation.

-Rusty

Good but not with out it's problems

[papasui]

I'm in Oshkosh, WI and I've had one for about 4 months now. Overall it's great, but there's little things that I wish they would iron out with a firmware upgrade. When you choose to record all episodes of a show it records all occurances, so you might record the same show 5 times in the same day if it's aired multiple times on multiple channels. It also has a tendency to crash once in a while and need to be factory reset. The AV inputs and the firewire connectors can't be used right now. But overall it's a great box, and well worth the money. I work 2nd shift and it lets me catch all the shows I miss during primetime and the ability to pause live tv is especially useful when my wife (seriously I have mod points and I got a wife) is feeling extra emotional. I work for Charter and I'm still waiting to see the DVR they have rolling out this fall in Minnesota.

You're lucky!

[toupsie]

I was a RCN customer in Manhattan that was told I was getting "high speed" internet access. Ended up with a one-way cable modem (telco upstream) that cost 10 cents (price of a local call) every time RCN's crappy PPP internet lines dropped the connection. Then they decided that the local number it dialed was long distance four months in a row. Wanted me to pay $1,000+ for local phone service in month for their faulty equipment and blamed me for their problems. I finally dropped them (another nightmare -- customer service idiots) and moved on.

If you are contemplating RCN, rub your face with a cheese grater instead, it will be a much more pleasant experience.

Wait and see....

[gad_zuki!]

>I thought for sure that would be one thing. I thought that they would restrict the speed so you were forced to watch commercials.

Call me cynical, but it would seen suicidal to wake up the sleeping DRM right now. Wait till Tivo et al are out of business and then push the new licensing agreement on them. I mean, why *wouldn't* they do that. The cable industry isn't exactly really into ethics or competition. They have a history of signing exclusive municipal deals, fighting off shared access, and a few months ago comcast told all its cable modem subscribers that unless they order their video service then the cable modem service will cost 10 dollars more.

Heh, just wait to see what they've got in store for him, especially when HBO, TBS, or whoever says, "We wont do business with you unless you stop skipping our commercials." Tivo and Replay would be immune to that, the cable companies aren't.

You really don't want your content provider to also be your hardware provider.

Re:Wait and see....

[WebMasterJoe]

Heh, just wait to see what they've got in store for him, especially when HBO, TBS, or whoever says, "We wont do business with you unless you stop skipping our commercials." Tivo and Replay would be immune to that, the cable companies aren't.

I see your point for some stations, but HBO and TBS are both owned by AOL/Time Warner. So is Cinemax, TNT, Cartoon Network, CNN, TMC, Court TV, WB, and NY1. And they own so many media companies, that just about every station has to pay them for something they do.

The fact is, AOLTW is probably going to be a major trendsetter in this arena, simply because they own so many of the companies that could oppose their decisions. I'm staying clear of this whole mess (I use Dish Network's dishplayer, and the TCO is cheaper anyway) because I don't feel like giving this 500lb gorilla any money when there's an easily attainable alternate solution.

Your building can't stop you from having a dish

[Anonymous Coward]

Under FCC guidelines, a Homeowner's Association or a landlord cannot prevent a homeowner from installing a satellite dish less than one meter in diameter on any property where the owner has both direct or indirect ownership and exclusive control. In some cases, a Homeowner's Association may be able to require the owner to adhere to certain guidelines, such as professional installation and proper screening. Furthermore, there may exist regulations on satellite dishes in historical districts.

In regards to rental property, FCC guidelines permit a leaseholder to install a dish less than one meter in diameter on areas that are under exclusive use of the tenant. Prior consent from the landlord is not required if the leaseholder intends to install the dish on an area where they have exclusive control (i.e. a patio or balcony).

For more information on satellite installation rights and regulations, please see the zoning section of the SBCA Web site at: http://www.sbca.com/government/zoning.htm.

I've has one for months in Austin... it's okay...

[Halo-]

We've had them in Austin, Texas for some time now. In fact, I'm watching a show I "time-shifted" earlier right now. I have to admit the technology is cool, but not as rapid as you might think.

For one thing, if it is recording something, expect the remote to be sluggish. Like 5-10 second response times when it's feeling especially pissy.

I've also had a few cases of corruption a long time ago when I was recording two shows at once (yep, you can do that, but two's the limit) Both shows came out garbled and pretty much unwatchable.

Sometimes it locks up. You'll need to unplug it for a bit and let it think about what it did wrong. Oh, and when they don't turn it on until it gets the clock signal, they mean it. That, and sometimes I've lost everything which was stored after a power outage. Which is strange, cuz you would think the hard-drive would be okay with that...

I realize I've listed a bunch of negatives here. I do like the device, and it's worth the few bucks a month.

Now if I can just continue to resist the urge to explore those USB, FireWire, and other interesting bits, things will be grand. :)

Fools talk about Big Brother...

[jjh37997]

Sounds great, but what about monitoring your viewing habits?

Who cares! If you're so ashamed at what you are watching that you're scared somebody might find out then maybe you should stop watching it in the first place.

Frankly, I WANT advertisers to know what I watch. If they can get accurate data maybe the shows me and my friends watch have a chance of surviving beyond the first season.

Check TiVo out first

[macwhiz]

I haven't used a SA 8000 myself, but I've talked to people who have. I've also played with other "advanced" SA boxes, like the 3100HD. I own a TiVo. Based on all that, I'd recommend anyone considering the SA 8000 take a good look at a TiVo first. The consensus seems to be that the SA 8000 looks good only so long as you don't know what you're missing.

The SA 8000 has these advantages:

• No up-front cost
• Dual tuners
• No need for the IR dongle
• Better recording quality for digital channels
• Doesn't require phone line connection

However, the TiVo has advantages over the SA 8000:

• Season Pass function is far smarter about multiple shows, reruns, etc.
• Suggestions feature will often record things you want to see that you didn't know to record
• Rarely if ever crashes
• Doesn't lose all your shows when the power goes out or the box crashes
• Isn't tied to your current cable system -- operates without the cable line attached, can be taken with you on vacation or to a friend's house
• If you are comfortable with computers, can be easily modified
• Better user interface doesn't get in the way of watching TV
• Can play MP3s from your home computer when connected to your home LAN*
• Can display JPEGs from your home computer when connected to your home LAN*
• Can be programmed remotely from any web browser -- so if you're at work and you realize you forgot to record a show (or you are about to stay late), you're a few clicks away from having no problem*

* Requires Series2 TiVo and Home Media Option (extra cost)

The Season Pass is the key to DVRs. The power of the DVR is the ability to say, "I want you to record every new episode of ER." The DVR then figures out which episodes are new, when they come on, which ones to record, etc. My understanding is that SA's DVR has a fairly rudimentary ability to record shows by name. The Season Pass has an ability to distinguish reruns from new shows, determine when a show is on six times in a week and record it just once, automatically determine which of six showings in a week doesn't conflict with other recordings, and even record shows based on keyword searches of the actors, title, or description. What point is there in owning (or renting) a DVR if it's as cumbersome to use as a VCR?

Some important points about the SA 8000 that aren't immediately obvious from the hype:

• Although it does record digital channels without recompressing, it must compress analog channels itself. Any channel that you could get without the digital converter box is still analog, even with the digital box.
• If your cable connection is out, and the box can't get authorization to operate from the cable company, you may not be able to watch the stuff on the hard drive.

In my opinion, SA has work to do on their line of digital boxes. My 3100HD was plagued with issues. It had trouble with digital sound. It would occasionally reset for no apparent reason. It seemed to degrade analog channels quite a bit -- its comb filter was terrible. From all the reports I've read, the 8000 is even worse, suffering from annoying, crippling bugs that haven't been resolved in a year of deployment. I question whether or not SA is dedicated to making these boxes work properly, or if they're "good enough" to generate extra revenue for cable system operators.

The TiVo works great, it's stable, it's the standard to which others are compared, and I own it. I can modify it. I can use it as I see fit -- it doesn't require "authorization" to work.

Don't get taken in by the "invasion of privacy" FUD. Yes, the TiVo will report back on your viewing habits. The data is anonymized. Personally, I like the idea that my viewing habits may be scrutinized by the networks. Too many good shows that I like are taken off the air for "poor ratings." I firmly hope that someday, TiVo data is taken as seriously as Nielsen est

I took mine back

[Matt_Bennett]

I had Time Warner's PVR since a few days after they released it in Austin- and I just took it back. The problems I had:

1) The box is slow- particularly when recording- if you choose to record one channel and watch another- changing channels take a few seconds, though all the keypresses on the remote get queued. Really irritating when surfing around.
2) The box frequently 'forgot' programming, and when I told it to 'record every episode' of a show- it would record some, not others, and it was pretty unpredictable.
3) The 'pause live TV' feature takes a while to actually start up (it doesn't record by default) and for some reason, it stopped working altogether. It would just end up giving me a blank screen.
4) A bunch of the programs I recorded ended up being corrupted.
5) (and final straw) It suddenly stopped with an 'unrecoverable write error'

Considering that I was paying nearly $100/mo for cable service (Digital+HBO+PVR+regular set-top) It just wasn't worth it.

Though they advertize it as $10/mo- not really- my bill dropped by about $18/mo when I swapped the PVR for a normal digital set-top box.

The Explorer 8000 is a piece of junk

[mpeskin]

I had this box in Austin for 4 months or so, and it was such a piece of junk it singlehandedly convinced me to switch to satellite (DirecTiVo - a HUGE improvement).

Problems I encountered (in rough order of annoyance):

• Loud chattering hard drive was constantly annoying - especially when NOT watching TV!
• Unbelieveably obtuse interface modeled on existing crappy Scientific Atlanta program guide
• Poor picture quality for analog channels
• SLOW!
• Nearly useless, duplicative, "record all episodes" feature (TiVo season pass is orders of magnitude superior)
• Bugs bugs bugs bugs bugs! The fact that SA was too proud to put a reset button on the front panel is unforgivable.

• Frankly, I expect technology to work (and as a software developer myself, I have little patience for products released with OBVIOUS software/firmware bugs). My life with this box was a teeth-grinding experience, and now that I have switched to satellite I will never look back.

  I don't really blame Time Warner, per=se, for these problems, but rather their insistence on using Scientific Atlanta equipment. SA's attempts at manufacturing high-tech equipment have been laughable - they should have stopped with good-old analog cable boxes, which they actually knew how to make.

  Remember, the equipment you get from the cable company was designed and manufactured to please the cable company (i.e. it's cheap), not you!