Tag Archives: time-warner

roku replacing cable?

Posted on by
1

A friend asked me to help her set up Roku to replace Time Warner Cable.  I’m not a fan of Time Warner (I had to get a DVR on no notice and the DVR periodically doesn’t record.) so no worries about helping them have one less customer.

Requirements

We started by listing what shows she watches to make sure the Roku met her needs.  The must haves were all on network tv with the exception of Fox News and HGTV.  HGTV doesn’t stream live anywhere although some shows are on their website.  Knowing this, she decided it wasn’t worth cable for just that one channel.

Setting up the Roku

They made this part really easy.  The instructions were simple and easy to follow.  The only wrinkle was that the Roku comes with a RCA component cable.  There is an option to use a HDMI cable, but you have to buy it separately.  My friend’s TV requires an adapter to use a RCA cable.  Lucky her cable box uses a HDMI cable so we borrowed that.

Activation was online.  Roku gives you a URL to type in.  It then polls to see if you’ve activated because the Roku knew it was activated as soon as we entered the registration info on the computer.

What went well

The Roku is easy to use.  It is easy to search for channels on it.  In fact, it does everything it promises.  The problems were almost all caused by external parties.

Problem #1 – six month Hulu Plus gift card

Roku is running a promotion that you get 6 months of Hulu Plus for free if you buy the $79 version.  They said you get it even if you buy the hardware in a physical store.  Needless to say, Best Buy knows nothing about this.  Calling Roku tech support, they insisted that Best Buy has the 6 month gift card and knows about it.

Problem #1.5 – CBS on Hulu

This isn’t really a problem; this is me not looking in advance.  I figured we would test the Roku with a show that we both like – Big Bang Theory – and tried to find it on Hulu Plus.  This show is available live free on over the air tv.  And later on cbs.com.  (We then tested watching Modern Family and the quality was good.)

Problem #2 – Fox news

The Fox News Channel listing shows an option to watch “Live Video.”  Including a link to the image because this is so key.  

See how it clearly says you can watch live video?  Well, you can’t.  Going to that channel on the Roku only shows three options – live audio, shows and topics.   Roku support says it is available “certain times depending on your area.”  I don’t buy that.  Searching online said this feature was always intermittently available.   The website live.foxnews.com takes you to FOX Business channel.

I did find an explanation of what is going on that is better than Roku Support’s answer.  Per RokuGuide.com:

FOXNews.com Roku channel has been relaunched as Fox News Channel. Gone is live weekday streaming of the Web-based Fox News Live program. In its place you now get live 24/7 streaming of Fox News Radio and clips from several popular Fox News television shows.

So far, Roku provides a convenient way of getting shows from different websites.  Which can be done for no additional fee.  Convenience doesn’t generally save money.

Conclusion

Over the air tv + watching internet streams on the tv seem like a better bet.  Still doesn’t show Fox News, but why should my friend pay $80 to have the same abilities she can get for free.

time warner’s cutomer service

Posted on by
6

I’ve had the “pleasure” of dealing with Time Warner customer support two or three times in the last month.  (One time the queue was too long and I gave up.)

The one thing I liked

Time Warner lets you contact customer service via online chat rather than sitting on the phone.  It still takes forever, but at least one can do something else during that time.  The first time I was #41.  The second time I was #37 (and decided not to wait.)  Today I was #15.  The pace crawled today compared to the first time.   Now that we’ve gotten the good stuff out of the way, let’s go through what happened.

Contact #1

Saturday September 18th I contacted customer service to make sure they knew the cable was out in my building.  This was about a day and a half after a tornado hit my area.  Both Verizon DSL/Time Warner Cable were out in my building and DSL had just come back.  (luckily power was not affected.)  Now I figured someone else had already reported the cable being out, but was just checking in case.

Result: The rep said he would credit my account for the inconvenience.  That’s nice, but I have to complaint to get a credit?  They know the whole building didn’t have cable.  It should be automatic.  I’m a bit peeved you have to complain to get a credit.

Contact #1.5

My DVR was ok so I watched some recorded shows.  On Monday, I thought “surely it will have been fixed by now” and decided to reboot the cable box.  After all, it helps with computers.  After rebooting, my cable box couldn’t tell what time it was, what was on the DVR or that I was even a customer.  Not good.  I tried to contact customer service to ask about this, but the queue was too long and I gave up.

The high tech notification system

I found out the cable was back Tuesday when I threw out the garbage and noticed the super of our building put a sign on the elevator saying the cable was back.  Thank you!  I had tried when I got home and the cable was still out.  I wasn’t going to try again that night.

Contact #2

I got my bill e-mailed and no credit.  Sigh.  I thought we went through this on September 18th.  The rep I chatted with this time (Pablo) says there will be a credit of $19.42 on next month’s bill.  If  it isn’t done then, I’m giving up the time and calling on the telephone to speak to the supervisor.  That would be time to ask for *another* inconvenience credit for the time I’ve wasted with their lousy support.

False promises

The chat form asks if you want to be e-mailed a transcript.  I clicked yes and never received anything.  Why offer it if you aren’t going to send one?

And finally

And finally, I’d like to commend Con Edison,Verizon and the city/parks/etc for their prompt work in fixing things, removing trees/debris and overall making the area.

Pattern.MULTILINE