TiVo Series 3 - Part III

Game Over

Both for the San Diego Chargers, and one of my TiVo Series 3 Boxes. I phoned customer care today and had a replacement sent out. Let me re-cap, in reverse order, the problems:

• No program guide - the channel list is populated with the correct channel lineup, I can view the programs on both receivers (today, for a change) but there is no program guide data to record so I've got to record them "vcr style" - manually. When I try to schedule a program online, it will try too, but then I get a message on my tivo that says "your box does not think you receive that channel". Yea. right. my box knows I get it, it's checked off on the channel list and I can watch it.
  
• One receiver goes out occasionally - One of my internal receivers, (slot 1) goes out from time to time. It's not the cablecard, I checked.
  
• Continual Re-boots - i've had the common "infinite reboot" problem. Highly annoying.
• Front Panel OLED goes out - only displays the top half of the time/program can be seen.

Oh, there's more. I'm just too tired to remember. this post is more to point the TiVo team to than warn people off these. When they work they're awesome.

TiVo Series 3 - Part II

Well, as anybody could read on the TiVoCommunity forum pages, all it not well in Series 3 land. My own experience in the past couple of days is there along with the others. While one of the two TiVos works flawlessly, the other is beset with nagging glitches:

- one of the receivers seems to fail to decode the digital stream about once every other day
- when I reset the machine, with or without the cable cards, it goes into an infinite "reboot" loop
- sometimes tivo thinks that it's working, and records programs, but it is not - and I get junk recorded.

So, 50% failure rate at this household. I'm glad I saved one of the two boxes for sending back to TiVo for a replacement.

TiVO Series 3

After years of waiting, the HD Tivo came out in 2006. I waited until the end of the year to purchase "them". I say that as my family are such tivo addicts that we already had two with lifetime service plans, which are now a thing of the past. I wanted to preserve this for the HD TiVo service as I believed, for a long time, that HD and TiVo is the way to go. Everybody seems to really like the new box.

The rationale is simple - once you go DVR you never go back..unless you have HD withtout TiVo (or decent DVR capabilties). Having HD withtout TiVo for years has been rather frustrating to say the least. I have to watch the HD live. Not a big deal on HBO, but now that most networks are broadcasting significant portions of the lineup in HD it's back to watching commercials. So naturally I was thrilled that it was avaialbe - albeit with a bit of sticker shock.

The installation involves a visit from the cable guy, which in my case was from TimeWarner in San Diego. This guy admitted he'd never done this before. In fact, when he arrived he was a bit surprised I needed 4 cable cards. The cards are from SA and have a PCMCIA form factor. Some folks have had lots of trouble with these. I was therefore expecting the worst, and have only had a few problems. First, I had Juan install the first set of cards on the upstairs Tivo with the Sony HDTV with an HDMI inteface. This was a snap. It powered up and I had it all ready for the installation. He did the cards, one at a time (you need to "authorize" the cards from the central TW office). Meanwhile, downstairs I tried to the second TiVo working. It was hung on the "just a few minutes more" page...for like 15 minutes. Naturally, I went into my office and searched messge boards and found that occasionaly you need to disconnect the wireless broadband USB connector during the boot up. Which I did and Voila! it worked.

Good news:

• After I figured out that with the component cable connection to my "old HDTV", which when purchased in 1999 was state of the art, and now, well, let's say it still works just fine. When I first started watching Discovery HD I was stunned at how lousy it looked. I had failed to simply press the small button on the front panel that toggled the output between 480i/480p/720p/1080i. Awsome picture quality!
• The Tivo picture sharing from my iPhoto library works great, as does the music sharing from iTunes
• everything else is as you would expect - just like the series 2 tivo

Bad News

• One of the cable cards has "lost lock" about 3 times and I've had to reset the box. This is irritating and time consuming and I hope it does not continue. The last time the machine went into "looking for service" mode I had to call TW customer support - and it was this guys first call with a cablecard (I resisted removing the cable cards as the TiVo trouble shooting page said not to). I was told to pull the power cable, pull the cable cards, count to 30, reinstall the cable cards and plug the unit back in. That worked, but again, it took like 20 minutes to do all that.
  
• between my G5, the home network and the tivo service, the music/photo service seems to need restarting a lot. I have to go back to system preferences, stop the tivo service, start the tivo service, and then it works.
• you can no longer transfer between tivos (files are too big)
• you can no longer "1 button" delete a program like on the series 2 machines, and naturally there is no longer a "recently deleted" folder

Finally, I'm not fan of what I've seen so far on TiVocasting. The CNET shorts are for luddites as far as I can tell and the other Tivopodcasts don't seem much better. But it's a good idea and I trust in 2007 this will improve.

Online Traffic data

Does everybody have this accross the country? I mean a CA style Sigalert.com function. Arizona has something like it, but not quite as complete. Today there was slow traffic...really slow traffic...due to a "possible fatality". The normal 20 min drive from carlsbad to del mar (where I live) was estimated at close to three hours. Average speed on I5 south is currently 5 mph.

Traffic is bad in most cities I've lived: San Diego, Washington D.C., even Duesseldorf. But it is REALLY bad in California.

Even more fascinating than the speeds is the level of detail reported on the website linked from the Highway Patrol.

Have a look at this:

South Before 805 South Possible Fatality 12:42 PM

Thomas Guide Map Coordinates: Page 1208, Grid 4A

Traffic Hazard Fast Lane 12:44 PM

Black Sw or Sed; Lane #1 12:45 PM
Reporting Party #1;
now Advsing Just South of Carmel Valley Road 12:45 PM

Find Out If Tows Needed and Start Them 12:46 PM

Blocking #3, #4 12:48 PM

Bringing in Break 12:49 PM

Starting Tow 12:52 PM

Message/Item Delivered Guardian Tow 12:53 PM

Far Right Lane Blocked, Closer to the 805 12:56 PM

Roll Evidence Tow, 12:57 PM

Might Be Long Term Closure Here, 2 Right Lanes 12:58 PM

Sig Alert Issued 12:59 PM

Message/Item Delivered Caltrans Const Regarding for this Area/ Regarding Line 23 12:59 PM

Hold off on the Evidence Tow for now 12:59 PM

Roll Coroner 1:03 PM

Message/Item Delivered Coroner 1:04 PM

Message/Item Delivered Caltrans Supr 713 Regarding Line 27 1:08 PM

Transportation Management Center Working on Having Sign Truck Respond 1:12 PM

CHP Unit on Scene 1:13 PM

Sign Truck En Route 1:28 PM

CHP Unit Enroute 1:40 PM

Lanes Closed 1:46 PM

Sign Truck is On Scene in Area Unable to Set Up Due to Traffic Queued, Can CHP Provide

Update on 1:46 PM

Extremely Slow Speeds South 5 from Oceanside to Carmel Valley 1:46 PM

Guardian Tow Back On Top, Will Need Evidnence Tow Black Avalon in Center Divider 1:57 PM

Sign Truck Assignment Completed 1:58 PM

Starting Break to Look for Evidence 2:00 PM

Sign Truck En Route to South 5 Just North of 78 2:17 PM

CHP Unit on Scene 2:22 PM

Roll Evidence Tows, Total of 2 2:32 PM

Confirm Caltrans is En Route with Sign Truck and Cones 2:35 PM

Message/Item Delivered Star With 2 with Flatbed Tow Truck 2:36 PM

Caltrans Supr 713--Please Advise If this Will Be a Closure ? 2:42 PM

Caltrans 713 Advise Will Have Cone Truck En Route 2:50 PM

Sign Truck On Scene South 5 Just North of Cassidy on Right Shoulder With "5 South Accident

Use 78 East to Interstate-15 " 2:55 PM

CHP Unit Enroute 3:01 PM

Caltrans 713 97 With CHP--Advise Not Closure / Cone Truck Disregard 3:11 PM

CHP Unit on Scene 3:26 PM

Roadway Open Leave Sig Alert for at Least Another 30 Min 3:28 PM

A year without blogging

After years of blogging I took a year "off" to spend all available free time working out and working and with the family. And well, it's that time again.

Christmas 2006 was the usual blowout. I did my part by purchasing a Wii system (on ebay..the stores were sold out). It was EXACTLY what I was hoping for:
- easy to install
- easy to use
- quick easy internet connection

Unlike some reports, we have not yet thrown the remote into the screen. Great to see girls finally getting into boxing too. My 5 year old (see photo) managed three strikes in a row and was the house champ!

Screen sizes

I landed a PSP for Christmas. Whoopee. Just what I asked Santa for. I had been talking with the president of Intercasting Corp. over the holiday's. They just released a Brew app, Rabble, that allows user mobile content to be easily posted...sort of a "myspace" for mobile devices....which got me thinking again of screen sizes.

The folks at lunch were raving about the PSP screen. I'd seen one before, but having my own was a bit different. I'm a fan of PS2 and XBOX driving games and tried one on the PSP. It's a bit of a challenge. I suppose I need to try one on the phone now. as for video playback, a bigger screen is nicer, but I've been having no trouble ripping content onto my iPod video.

One blog reivew comparing the PSP and the Video iPod concluded:

It is very close to being a toss-up. The PSP has its strengths, and so does the iPod. Of course we didn’t try to watch either of them hooked up to a TV — something that you can’t currently do with a PSP — but the resolutions of the files lead us to believe that the difference would have been negligible. Really, it’s all about what you want. If you want super-sharp video and can stand the small screen size, the iPod isn’t a bad choice. If you want the larger screen and don’t mind losing a little bit of the image clarity, the PSP is your gadge

We never stop working for you

Well, that was fun. Long blogging haitus due to much work and little time. But I digress.

After telling my friends and family for years that they should switch to verizon as they have the best coverage overall, I've converted to really disliking them immensly. I'm more of a VerizonPathetic visitor now. This story captures what's happend with the Samsung A890 story.

Can you see it to the right in the phone graveyard? Well, there it rests in peace never to be charged again, maybe. This was an early death brought about by poor design and worse support. What happend to Samsung anyway?

Rather than go through the whole litanny of issues, let me summarize this wonderful experience:

• I purchase a TREO 600 to do email and voice calls on the same device. I'd seen Stewart Alsop rave about the treo years earlier at a BREW conference, and I assumed it had to be better than the wireless Palm device I'd been using. Well, it too sucked. It begain a bit of a saga documented earlier.
  
• Well, that was problematic to say the least. After a $4300 phone bill and lots of problems, my company installed Goodlink software and the problems were reduced. they did not go away, however, as a new issue arose: I missed abotu 50% of my phone calls as the push email service had taken over my phone.
  
• to keep the email productivity going, but also stop missing phone calls, I switched to a family plan and put all the phones, including the new Samsung A890, on the same plan. In total I had the following on my 3000 min plan: treo 650, EV-DO card, my daughter's Kyocera Slider, an other daughter's E815, and the others. Well, I had to forward my calls from the Treo to the Samsung, and carry two phones, but the problem SHOULD have been solved. but no. The MALLOC error surfaced.
• I've been on the phone countless hours with Verizon about the Malloc error. I've recived 3 "new" A890s all with the same problem. I've been told repeatedly by Verizon that "...the only choice you have is to pay full price for a different phone, or keep getting replacement A890s". this despite the fact that I pay Verizon like $450/month for the family plans, I've been a loyal customer, and their equipment is faulty.
  
• I ordered a new e815 from the web site to "upgrade' from the A890. After a few weeks with no phone I look into why it's taking so long only to find out "...you must have listed a PO box as your address". Huh? I did no such thing. Moreover, why was I not contacted about this issue by phone or email?? I told them "...cancel the order. I'll buy one of these new Razr phones instead". my reason was for the bluetooth and to try yet another new phone.
  
• well, when I tried to go back to the web site, I was unable to order it online since my "canceld" order on the e815 was preventing me from doing anything else (it's still that way by the way). So they told me to upgrade a different phone and then switch when it came in, which is what I did.
• I finally spent another 30 min on the phone yesterday since I had to activate the Razr on one account, move it to another account and switch ESNs back to normal. What a pain. I was not able to do this online for some reason (you can switch ESNs on line now, most of the time).

Well, so far no MALLOC errors, but the video quality sucks compared with the Samsung, which was not all that great to begin with. Oh yea, you cannot send videos to/from the Razr like you could with the MOT and Samsung phones.....but that's a story for another day.