Anyone here have HDTV from TWC in Houston? I've had it for about 2 weeks and just lately I have been experiencing HORRIBLE hiccups in my service. Sometimes the delay is up to 4 seconds!! In an NBA game, that's a missed shot, drive to the basket or foul, during Letterman, that's a whole missed reply to a question. My service will stop, then the image will pixelate then return, missing 4 seconds. I called TWC and they said since I did a self-install, I would have to pay them to come and install it correctly ($19.99), then if it still had problems, I would then have to get it fixed. I mean, come on, there is literally 6 cables to plug this thing in... Cable in, Blue Red Green HD cables, 2 audio cables and that's it!! How could I have messed that up?? So, does anyone have these same problems? I have the Explorer 8000 HD/DVR box by Scientific Atlanta.
I'm not sure which HD cable box I have, but my service is also Time Warner and it sucks. I've always had a jittery picture on ABC(which makes shows with jittery camera shots like Lost and Alias even harder to watch). Sometimes I have the problem on Fox. I've had dropouts on Showtime. And now I'm not even getting half the HD channels. Fortunately I did pay them to install it 3 years ago, so whenever I get around to calling them about this, I assume they'll come out and fix it for free.
I have a Dish Network HD tuner and it catches all the local HD signals except 13. Luckily, I have an old Samsung HD Tuner, but to watch the Finals (or anything else in HD on 13) I have to switch the connection to the Samsung tuner. It's quite annoying.
I turned off my HDTV because I decided my TIVO is more important to me. But when I was using it, I experienced similar problems. Two thoughts: 1. Go to Radioshack and buy an active, bi-directional amplifier. Active usually means you have to plug it into a 110v wall outlet. bi-directional means it'll process bi-directional signals you'll need for Internet or Pay-per-View movies. It'll cost about $20. If any of the wiring is old and has interference then you'll have problems. OR 2. Disconnect your HDTV and take back the box. Then wait a week and ask TWC to do their own damn installation for free since they want to be snotty about it.
I've never had a problem with my TWC HD. I'd tell them you are having a problem and you think it is related to low signal and they should give you an amplifier.
I also have no problems with HD picture from TWC. I have Explorer 8300 HD/DVR box by Scientific Atlanta which is the newer version. (I installed it myself). My advice would be to go to one of the TWC locations and exchange the 8000 for the newer 8300 and see if you still have problems. They should not charge you anything
Question, As I mentioned in another post. I am in the process of purchasing a HD TV with the built in HD TV functionality (so I would not have to have an external HI Def receiver). With that said. I already have a DirecTV Tivo unit/receiver (which is not a HI Def receiver). I assume it will still work with my new TV. Am I correct in my assumption that I can record all shows to my TIVO. Or will I be unable to record HIDEF shows to the TIVO? The price of a DirecTV HIDEF TIVO receiver are still very pricey the last time I checked. I was watching Shopathometv (shopathometv.com) this weekend and they were advertising this 42 "Long life" plasma. They said it was the latest in technology (50,000 hour life), no fans on the back needed, orbiting pixels to avoid screen burn in, and some other stuff. I think the TV is on their website. My question, is there such a thing as "long life" plasma. The company that made the Plasma was HISense. It was selling for $2599 including free shipping. It was only HD Ready so I was not going to purchase it. Curious to get your feedback on this unit.
You may want to check with DirecTV before you buy that tv. I went through this same thing last year, and I was told by DirecTV that the built in receiver would not work with their service. You may be able to get the OTA channels in Hi Def, but thats it. Also as far as the Tivo goes, you will not be able to record in HiDef with an ordinary Tivo reciever....you have to get the HiDef reciever with Tivo built in.
I had the same problem. The cause was that the signal was weak due to the house being big, so they installed an amplifier to make the signal stronger. No problems after that.
Other than a few pixilation things here and there I have no problem with my TW HD SA Explorer 8000. However, my analog picture sucks, it very snowy. I have heard that using componenet cables somehow overamps the analog signal. I guess I could split the cable signal , run a straight coaxial feed into my Video 2 channel and use that when I want to watch analog but that would preclude channel surfing from HD to analog. Anybody else have bad analog through component cables?
On a somewhat different note, I am looking for a cheap HDTV. I want it to be between 25"-30". Does anyone know of a place (online or actual store) that has good deals now?
My crappy 8000 converter finally crapped out on me. The problem had sorta cleared up after I banged on the cable box a few times!!?? I put up with a bad signal far longer than I had to... Then this past Friday the converter box just crapped out, I couldn't get any channels past channel 99. I talked to TWC on the phone (I like to use the 800 number to call TWC ) They 'ran some tests' and when nothing happened, they suggested a new box. I got them to pro-rate my charges for a couple of days and then I exchanged the crappy 8000 converter and got the new 8300 and haven't had ONE SINGLE hiccup in service since!! I should've done this a lot sooner!! LOL. Anyway, my picture and service has been flawless ever since.
