CableCard Installation Woes, TiVo Goodness and Amazon Unbox

You get your moneys worth with this post…

As I posted a little while ago, I had finally had enough of the piece of technological rubbish that is the Comcast HD DVR box and purchased a TiVo Series 3 through Amazon. All that was left to do was actually have the two shiny cablecards installed by the “qualified” Comcast technician.

To be quite honest, I have no idea what they mean by “qualified” as he took a couple of hours to plug them in and sit on the phone chatting to a friend back at base while said person back at base kept pressing a button to send a signal to activate them.

My present and non-present technicians quite happily took ages to attempt this feat of technical brilliance and also failed to actually achieve it.

You see, it took my “qualified” guy eight cablecards to find two that actually worked and then left telling me that it was all working.

Well, at least it appeared to be working.

Later that day I figured out that you couldn’t have both tuners set to channels 118 or above. One would work and the other would just show a black screen.

Uh oh.

It actually took me a while to figure out which of the cards wasn’t working correctly, but once I did I called up Comcast and spoke to a sharp lady who actually appeared to know what she was talking about. She had me pop the duff card out of the box and read her the physical serial number.

Two of the digits were transposed between the actual serial number and the number that they had in their database.

Hmm. So my original “qualified” technician, didn’t really check anything at all. I wonder if those other six, duff cards were actually ok, that he just couldn’t read and that he just gave up?

Anyhow, I thought that now Comcast had the right serial number they would now be able to send the correct activation signal and all would be well?

No.

I had to take the card to the local retail store and exchange it for another one. I have no idea why and couldn’t get anyone to explain it to me.

I did as I was bid, wrote down the serial number of the new card and called up Comcast again.

“You’ll have to bear with me as this is the first time I’ve done a cablecard pairing.”

Oh joy.

After thirty minutes I was told that I was all set and the new cablecard should be activated within ten minutes.

No joy after another thirty…

So I call up again and speak to another seemingly intelligent Comcast droid who looks at my account, says “Umm, the signal was never sent. Hang on a second.”

Bing! All channels received!

Thank you, mysterious Comcast technician…

And as for the actual TiVo itself? What more can I say, this thing is exceptional. Snappy and beautiful UI, gobs of storage (with the ability to add more via USB), lots of online features, the ability to move recorded shows around the net, etc…

And so far, the best thing is Amazon Unbox. Order TV shows and movies via the TiVo itself or via the web and have them show up almost immediately via the internet is a thing of beauty.

At the moment, the wife and I are heavily into Heroes (which we missed the first time around). All delivered via Amazon Unbox.

Highly recommended.