Are the Time Warner police gonna be knocking at my door?

[ZetaVu]

Ok, Merry called me out so I put a voltmeter on two of my tuners, not a sausage.

I don't deal with Comcast cable, but I use their internet. Last year I spent over a month dealing with horrendous customer service trying to diagnose poor performance, as a result had to take my router out and run directly from the modem to my computer for tracking the problem. Eventually (after a month of them telling me nothing was wrong) I proved it was my modem and got it replaced, and a credit for a months service. Overall I was irritated but happy with the credit. In the meantime I dealt with some good people and some shifty, outright liars. I spent a lot of time dealing with the main office to resolve an issue with one tech in particular who claimed to come to my house (and never did, I waited outside for him) and claimed to test the line (and was never there) and threatened to charge me since it wasn't their problem. His boss did not appreciate the fact that he lied outright and was blowing off service calls.

Now, I agree with a few of Merrypig's points, Comcast only needs to service their equipment, and the connection from them to the end unit. So, if you have a problem then you definitely should disconnect everything else first and then see if the problem is still there. At that point, they need to honor their contract. There are dozens of things that can cause static on a line, itnerference (cheap splitters, poor shielding, crossed wires, cheap wires, and yes, bad equipment be it a vcr or computer or tv can all cause problems) But, a properly working tuner card is no different than a proper tv. And, unless they demonstrate (which is exactly what I said before) that your hardware is undeniably causing an issue, they cannot refuse to service their line or charge you. Again, Merrypig is right, you chould always remove all spillters and extra devices to test your line BEFORE calling Comcast, that's just good practice.

And regarding your connections affecting neighbors, I don't know of any modern cable system that does not install a filter at the pole/connection, this serves to limit what you receive and to insure you do not cause static on the main lines. This is coming from the cable installers that were on top of their game. I don't claim to be an expert, I don't have to, I'm not the one representing the company to their customers. Any tech that makes misleading representations and in that case outright lies does so representing the company. These people are supposed to be trained, and they are considered as experts, therefor what they say is accountable. What we say on these threads are opinions and (as may be the case) we are often wrong.

Either way, that's a subject that hits a nerve with me. A company is only as good as its first line of customer service, and by those standards, this example is a poor representation.

And yes, the Tasteefreeze comment was extreme, that I take back. I'm sure he'd make a stupendous chilidog.

[merrypig]

Originally Posted by ZetaVu

Ok, Merry called me out so I put a voltmeter on two of my tuners, not a sausage.

Absolutely, because you're measuring local reference points. Need to consider the larger scale. However, cable companies are in control of the infrastructure and blocking voltages between the neighbours and their equipment etc. At the very least they should have isolating transformers or a choke to filter out the noise.

But, a properly working tuner card is no different than a proper tv.

Sadly that's the problem. TV's undergo far more testing and compliance regulation than do computer tuner cards. The majority of the capture card companies take reference designs from chip manufacturers and manufacturer them unchanged. They'll be classified to FCC class A (or b in some cases) as standalone units and they'll never once be tested against a cable spec. As such, you do end up with cards with poor grounding, or failure modes that can bring down a cable system.

And regarding your connections affecting neighbors, I don't know of any modern cable system that does not install a filter at the pole/connection, this serves to limit what you receive and to insure you do not cause static on the main lines.

Exactly. The cable companies can do things badly or they can do them correctly. But the responsibility is theirs. El cheapo cable company would be the ones I'd expect to try and cut corners. The mature cable companies will learn from experience to do it properly and make sure that no one customer can kill the system, particularly with a common loop infrastructure.

These people are supposed to be trained, and they are considered as experts, therefor what they say is accountable.

Absolutely. I really wish there were ways to bypass tier 1 support staff though. Sometimes "we" really do know what we're talking about and jsut want to cut through the hour of crap and get to the person who can fix it...

What we say on these threads are opinions and (as may be the case) we are often wrong.

*grin* <colbert mode> I accept your apology. Thank you for supporting the president</colbert>

Just kidding

And yes, the Tasteefreeze comment was extreme, that I take back. I'm sure he'd make a stupendous chilidog.

With that fake orange dayglow cheese? Now you're talking!!

[TomSwift]

The RIAA is for MUSIC protection only. Has nothing to do with video. Video would fall under the MPAA I believe. As far as the back voltage statement, he's full of it. From what I've seen of Comcast from friends in Nashville lately, Comcast has problems with pixelation period, they don't need any help.

[ZetaVu]

Merrypig, I seem to say a lot of things that get me on the wrong side of you, and that is definitely not by intent.

Anyway, yes, the issue is that tier 1 seems to blur the actual policy from the efectual policy. Anything at my house that can affect neighbors, like you said, should be choked or controlled by a feed filter to my house. If they put in some half ass controls and there is interference, That is beyond user responsibility. Users can end up with poor quality tv tuners or tv set s or video recorders, that otherwise meet fcc specs. It is wrong to single out pc tuners merely because they offer customers the most versatility, which is what I read into the original statement. But then again, this is an open board and for all I know the original message was nothing but a story conceived for flame bait (meaning I fell for it hook line and sinker).

Either way, I think we should do what we can to determine and communicate as much info for those looking for "Fair use copyright". Now, a recent story seems to substantiate a lot of what we;ve been talking about,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070324/tc_nm/dvr_dc_1
Cablevision was pushing for network recording but this violated copyright law as "retransmission" however, the ruling seems to have indicated that pvr or other end user recording was validated as legal in the judgement (again, I am not a Lawyer, and in matters of this concern I do everything I can to refer to my observations and opinion as being that and non-qualified for legal argument). But either way it is an inteersting read and seems to support my non-goofy rants And I've never tried that dayglow cheese, maybe after Lent (Colbert grin)

[darren_e]

Originally Posted by ZetaVu

Personally, I would cancel my TW cable immediately and switch to satellite. When dumping them, I would mention the moron by name and describe how he threatened you with baseless claims and lies, and specifically state for the record that they now have no permission to ever contact you again, regardless of your prior business arrangement (and if they do you can report them to the government if your number is in the donotcall registry, $11,000 fine). Also tell them that you are recording this conversation for legal purposes, and end with "Have a nice day"

I back up this advice. As a former electronics technician (Navy, Qualcomm, and Oilfield) I wouldn't even qualify that technician to change the channels on my TV none the less, tell me that "electrical signals" coming from the PC could degrate the neighborhood's reception. I would take his comments as a threat. If they are going to try to "Blacklist" you as a subscriber, forget them. FORGET THEM NOW!!!

That's just like a cable company to do/say something like that. Take Zeatvu's advice-

Drop your TW cable and sign up with DirecTV or Dish (I'm VERY happy with DirecTV) then tell TW to pack sand.

[Mistergq]

Originally Posted by ZetaVu

Either way, I think we should do what we can to determine and communicate as much info for those looking for "Fair use copyright". Now, a recent story seems to substantiate a lot of what we;ve been talking about,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070324/tc_nm/dvr_dc_1
Cablevision was pushing for network recording but this violated copyright law as "retransmission" however, the ruling seems to have indicated that pvr or other end user recording was validated as legal in the judgement (again, I am not a Lawyer, and in matters of this concern I do everything I can to refer to my observations and opinion as being that and non-qualified for legal argument). But either way it is an inteersting read and seems to support my non-goofy rants And I've never tried that dayglow cheese, maybe after Lent (Colbert grin)

this is great news. There are plenty that want to get Sony Betamax case back (Betamax authorize time shifting recording when Beta first came out). So far, the Supreme Court has declined every opportunity to reverse itself. However, other Supreme Court cases have not reversed Betamax, but they find distinguishing differences. I was worried that PVR/DVR would be the opportunity for them to change Betamax ruling. However, its seems the copyright owners are not pursuing arguing that PVR/DVR technology is illegal. Maybe they are getting paid too much by TIVO and major cable companies to stay in check.

Cablevision's network is an excellent idea, but I could have told them it was illegal.

[MrWolfinWV]

I agree with pretty much everything merrypig is saying. Their responsibility is to give you a connection and equipment that works. If they can isolate their equipment and connections and the problem goes away, they will put it back on you and there's not much you can do. If you have a problem with a third-party piece of equipment, it's pretty much up to you to prove to them that they are doing something that does not meet standards, if that's the case. This is where most people hit a brick wall because they do not have the skills to prove them wrong and the finger pointing begins. I recently had it out with Suddenlink because they have a lot of jitter on the line which does not affect anyone doing standard Internet activities. However, throw someone like me in the mix, VPNs, RDP, VOIP, etc, and things start to not work so well. I sent them more graphs and measurements than their own people could produce and they have admitted to the problem, but have yet to fix it. I'd say that 99% or more people could not carry it as far as I did. I'll give them credit, they did send someone out with some cool toys that I'd like to have They spent 90 minutes producing the same results as my tests...it's been four months, still no fix. You can retransmit packets for most things, but VOIP tends to drop words when you do that. DSL modem should be here next week...cable not so hot in the new neighborhood.

Anyway you look at it, it's always put back on the consumer to PROVE anything because if their standard stuff is working ok, not many of the cable company employees are going to have the knowledge or skills to even understand any issues beyond that.

[Flatus]

Originally Posted by bnflaherty

This was after they saw the Mess that is my Splitters -- several for the PC's and others for lines going to and from the other floors...

No comments were made as far as the Spaghetti...

*I* thought he was going to start disconnecting all my stuff -- that can be slightly irritating when one is not able to either talk to the tech nor Be there at the time... "Don't touch my stuff..!!"

But all ended up fine.

Most if not all the tech's I've dealt with actually Do have a clue -- and several are computer guys anyway -- so luckily in my area they hire people who actually know something.

Hah! Your mess is something like mine. I have four DirecTV receivers and two Dish Network ones, each of which feeds a good quality surround sound RF modulater. Oh, I also have the security cameras going into a modulater. A couple of the receivers are upstairs, the rest downstairs. Takes three separate antennas (plus two OTA antennas inside) to get everything. LOTS of cabling--probably something over 1,500 feet of it.

Bottom line, I have my own cable system with each receiver having it's own UHF channel assignment. Through timers, the receivers are always tuned to a satellite program that has a fighting chance of being interesting.

I did have a Time Warner cable coming into the house, but it was only to get Earthlink. One day two young men, nicely dressed, with neat haircuts, came knocking on my front door asking if I was satisfied with my TW service and if I wanted to add any channels. I said I was and I didn't, and that I used the satellite for all my TV.

They pressed the conversation and it became apparent that they were off duty cops doing 'detective' work for TW. They had seen that I had their cable coming into the house, and, looking into their listing of TV customers, that I wasn't a participant. At that point I mentioned that I only used TW to get Earthlink broadband. When I told them that, everything fell into place and they thanked me and left.

Since then, I've switched to DSL because of some awesome incentives the phone company tossed at me.

BTV does just fine capturing all the output from the various receivers that I have. But it is complicated setting up BTV recordings because of the manual steps that are involved in creating an additional programming source.

Flatus

[Mr. C]

This thread caught my interest so I figured I'd chime in on the subject. I am a TWC tech, not employed in the system in question. So far there seems to be a lot of misinformation in the thread, the most glaring example coming from the Time Warner tech!

Please note that in some cable systems, TWC employs contract workers to handle various field work. Here in my system a majority of installs are contract, and some trouble calls are, depending on call volume. People in our system generally become familiar with distinguishing the two types of workers very quickly, with the TWC employees having a FAR superior reputation for quality of service. Different contractors go to varying lengths sometimes to hide the fact that they are contract workers because of this. Many people after having repeat issues will refuse to let anyone but TWC techs in their house with a "No contractors" clause on all their service work orders.

Of course he was completely wrong about the RIAA statement, goes without saying.

The voltage being backfed from CPE or COE is a somewhat common occurrence, so he's not (completely) all wet on that one. This has nothing to do specifically with having a tuner card installed, we have had similar problems with customers only using the RoadRunner service. A majority of the time it is either a miswired electrical outlet or in rarer cases a bad PSU. In some cases the PSU's will dump ~60v at 120 hz directly onto the case, a side effect of the poor design in the primary rectification stage. This ONLY happens with faulty equipment, it is not the rule for PC tuner cards, rather the exception to it.

Depending on the current (amperage) levels this CAN cause a partial node outage, especially on the digital carriers. This is one reason why NEC grounding specs and good installation are so important. The tap plates provide isolation of the cableco's lime amp power supply, which is ac with a dc offset in most cases, from the drops going to customers homes. This isolation also works in reverse, but at higher current or voltage levels, this isolation can be overcome. The same goes for noise, if a customer is feeding noise onto their cable line the tap will provide a good deal of attenuation, however, the attenuation is finite, and customers, especially near termination (lower tap attenuation) on their segment, can have negative effects on that entire segment. As an aside, the filters (traps) used by most cableco's do not block voltage (at power supply, non RF freqs) or current.

The return path is not a 'voltage feedback'. It is a modulated RF carrier to provide two way communication. Voltage feedback, as being discussed in this thread, and implied by the OP's TWC tech, is very different.

Two way cable amplifiers can be had from certain mail order and online vendors for less than $13 each. Best Buy locally sells the exact same amplifiers with a Motorola sticker (made by Antronix) for almost $60.

It can take nothing short of an act of god sometimes to get a bad tech fired, no matter what kind of stupidity may have transpired. This depends on your particular division. I hear posting a YouTube video of a cable guy falling asleep on your couch might be enough though.

If people come to your door asking about your cable hookup and asking you if you want to add channels, they are most likely the direct sales people. They do tap audits and look for illegal hookups, as well as getting a list of services you currently have. If you are 3rd party billed, say from Earthlink or AOL, sometimes you will not show up on their services list. Hence they will approach you as a customer having an illegal hookup. I doubt undercover cops or off duty police could be convinced to help TWC fight cable theft under any circumstances. Direct sales is just doing their job, trying to make some commission.

The tech (or perhaps contractor, hopefully) in question was trained, to a degree, had probably heard other techs talking, and didn't understand what he knew about the situation. Some guys are just plain dumb, others are lacking training, some are tech wizards but haven't clue one about customer service. Some will feed you whatever they think will get them out the door faster.

Look at it this way, you got the opportunity to see one bad tech. We get to see dozens and dozens of 'interesting' cable subscribers every week! Most are not your average BeyondTV enthusiast. Just remember, all those entertaining people you see walking around, driving about, doing stupid things, acting like morons -- they ALL have cable tv.