To Time Warner Cable:
The new Navigator software looks pretty, but I can't see any useful, added
features.
You forced on "upgrade" upon me that I don't want or need. Many of my
settings have been lost or overwritten, even when there was a strong
correspondence between my old settings and the new values.
_ The DVR crashed while trying to watch a recorded program. The player
wouldn't stop fast-forwarding. I pressed play repeatedly, but it
continued fast-forwarding through my program. I pressed pause and the DVR
crashed and rebooted. This has not happened again, thankfully.
_ The DVR no longer prompts me to confirm that I want to delete a
program. The old software used to ask me to verify by pushing a specific
button. Now, it just deletes the recording. I hope I don't press delete by
accident! This happens when I'm viewing a recording and press stop. The
prompt asks to stop and save or stop and delete. There is no confirmation
if I chose to delete.
_ At least half a dozen series set for recording are missing. Monk,
Desperate Housewives, ER, 30 Rock, The Office and more are no longer
listed under the Series Recording Manager. Fortunately, we found this
problem before missing any of our favorite shows. Unfortunately, I can't
add a series to record until it appears again in the program guide. My
first impression is that every program in the Series Manager that wasn't
in the current guide listings was deleted.
_ I used to be able to use the Favorites button while using the channel
guide. Previously, when I pressed the Favorites button while the channel
guide was on, it scrolled the channel guide to the next favorite. Now, it
closes the channel guide and jumps to that channel. This is a loss of
functionality.
_ When I pause a PPV movie, the screen saver ends after I few minutes and
I have to navigate through the menus, find my program in the listings and
select the movie all over again. Play resumes where left off, thankfully.
However, after resuming, I pressed the instant replay to back up the
movie, the movie restarted from the beginning instead of backing up a few
seconds.
_ If I want to see the rating for a movie, I now have to press the Info
button to see how many stars the movie is rated. This previously was
displayed in the guide. Admittedly, the movie ratings are pretty liberal,
but are better than nothing.
_ I can't find the default volume control. I used to be able to set the
recording volume and now I can't. Maybe it's there somewhere, I just can't
find it.
- All new recordings marked "Do not delete until manually erased". I
can't find where to reset the default.
- It takes more steps to mark as recorded show as "Do not delete until
manually erased". I'm referring to recordings already on the hard drive
when you upgraded the system.
_ It seems like I have to press more buttons and navigate more menus
before I can do anything.
I'm also not happy about losing many of my movie channels. Are you
replacing Action West, Mystery West, etc., etc., with new content?
Overall, it looks like you prettied it up and added some new features I
don't know how to use while dropping some features I used frequently. I
have to press more buttons to do the same things and the crash when
playing back a saved show really shows me that the new software wasn't
tested well before being deployed.
If I wanted a DVR with less features and a less easy to use interface and
fewer digital channels, I would have stayed with Everest Cable.
On an unrelated matter, I'm not happy about the lack of widescreen movies
available on PPV. I don't have HDTV, but I don't want to see a reformatted
film. I'm not planning to buy and more PPV movies unless I can view the
film in it's original format, not pan-and-scan. Unfortunately, most of
your PPV offerings are not widescreen.
~ Jeffery Pyle
