This is an upgrade? Time Warner Navigator woes run rampant

It's been a rough year for customers of Time Warner Cable, Kansas City's leading cable provider and possibly the leader in TV-related headaches. Time Warner would like to apologize for that, and we would like to accept its apology -- mostly, though, we hope it's learned its lesson.

The trouble started in January, when Time Warner started “upgrading” people's set-top boxes with new software to control the on-screen guide, DVR recording and other features. And then there was the ongoing soap opera with the NFL Network, which wasn't Time Warner's fault (in my opinion) but still resulted in a lot of angry customers wondering why they couldn't get the Packers-Cowboys game Nov. 29. In between, a channel-changing snafu irked some fans of A&E (the channel, not the newspaper section).

Above all, though, there was the Navigator debacle. In January I wrote that Time Warner was rolling out a new menuing system for its cable boxes. I quoted a local spokesperson who said Navigator had been developed “so we can be more responsive to our customers.” Famous last words. Since then, customers have flooded Time Warner's help lines, and my mailbox, with horror stories of sitting down to watch a recorded show, only to discover their DVRs had been wiped clean by the new software. Others were put off by the new menuing system, or driven mad by the three-second response times each time they pressed a button on their remotes, or felt like they were in a car with bad brakes each time they tried to fast-forward through a show ... the list went on.

“I have never seen my wife so frustrated with anything, (and) that is an area where she usually counsels me in patience,” wrote Chad Colgan of Lenexa. On Aug. 28, Time Warner switched his HD-DVR to Navigator, erasing the entire fourth third season of “Battlestar Galactica,” which they were saving up for one of those viewing marathons that DVR users look forward to.

Two months later, when I checked in again with the Colgans, they were still having trouble. “When the DVR works we don't have many complaints,” said Colgan, “but the 50% of the time it hangs or freezes, like a slow computer, you want to yank it out of the wall.” Not only is he considering a switch to Everest, so is his brother-in-law. His cable hasn't been upgraded yet but is spooked by Colgan's tales of woe.

That's the kind of word-of-mouth damage Navigator can do to Time Warner's business, and not just in Kansas City. Its customers in Lincoln, Neb., also got “upgraded” this year, and the ensuing debacle led the city council there to pass a resolution calling for an investigation. The city's cable advisory board concluded that Time Warner had “beta-tested” Navigator on the unsuspecting people of Lincoln. (The AVS Forum's Navigator complaint thread scores high in Google search.)

I could go on: Jim Savage, HD-DVR customer, reports that “Navigator still gives me headaches as it is still incredibly slow, poor resolution, among other issues,” months after it was installed. Rebecca Tasler: “We had been so dissatisfied with the new Navigator software that my husband talked a tech into reinstalling the old Passport software system.” After that, recorded shows looked “horrible,” were heavily pixellated — what a surprise, my Passport-enabled box is suddenly doing the same thing. So now it’s not just Navigator.

Scott Simerly, who called my attention to the troubles in Nebraska, called Navigator’s interface “downright prehistoric. I fail to see any improvements in the functionality and the keyword search is horrible in comparison to the old system (Passport).”

And yet, the vast majority of people reading this are, according to Time Warner, having no problems at all. That's because they are using set-top boxes that have been tested with Navigator and work fine. The problem, says Damon Shelby Porter of Time Warner Cable Kansas City, is that there are some four dozen different cable box models in use around the area. And while Porter said Navigator has behaved well with “97 percent” of them, getting the software to behave with them all has been a bear.

“It was tested by our lab, it was tested by our employees in their homes but -- mea culpa -- it's really taken much longer for us to iron out the problems than we had hoped,” Porter said. “We're very frustrated.”

Not as frustrated as I was when I had to return my Navigatored HD-DVR to Time Warner for a replacement. To my relief, the new DVR hasn't been upgraded, because it's a different model and Time Warner has slowed the rollout of Navigator.

There was also that matter of Time Warner moving A&E to Channel 35 without telling anyone (although technically it did warn those of you who read the legal notices in the business section). Porter said a new process was put in place so future channel changes get better publicity.

And another thing — at some point, TWCKC pulled the plug on Turner Classic Movies' secondary audio (or SAP) channel. Time Warner hadn't gotten back to me by the time I filed this report, but a reader and I each independently confirmed you can't get the audio description of many TCM films offered on the SAP channel for viewers with visual disabilities. That feature should be available to everyone with cable, set-top box or not, and needs to be restored pronto.

Channels changing: On Jan. 1 Court TV, best known for launching Nancy Grace's career and for its gavel-to-gavel coverage of headline-grabbing trials, will become truTV (small “t”). Trials will still air during the day, but the channel's new owners -- what do you know, Time Warner again! -- will expand the evening lineup to include other types of mayhem besides criminal. Among its new series are “Sky Racers,” which will follow TV news choppers; and “One False Move,” focusing on people whose jobs or adventures take them to the edge of death.

Discovery is also rebooting two of its digital-tier channels in January. Discovery Times, which was launched in 2003 as a joint venture with the New York Times, petered out after three years. It's been quietly rebuilt around in-depth documentaries, and now the channel will be known as Investigation Discovery.

Planet Green is the new name of Discovery Home & Leisure, focusing on eco-friendly programming. You may have already heard of one program it's launching in 2008, “Greensburg Eco-Town,” which will document efforts in tornado-devastated Greensburg, Kan., to rebuild using environmentally friendly materials.

Meanwhile, another year has passed without a single international news channel being added to Time Warner's -- or Comcast's, or Everest's -- digital tiers. Al Jazeera, BBC World and France 24 are all there for the taking. This lack of public responsibility in a post-9/11 era is disheartening.