Buy TiVo HD and transfer lifetime subscription

I took the bait and bought two TiVo HD units to replace my two Series 2 w/ lifetime subscriptions. If all goes well with the cable card installations, I'll dump my crappy SA 8300HD DVR.

I've been reading the Time Warner Cable Card installation thread on the [url=http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=316313&goto=newpost
]TiVo Community forum[/url]. Seems like the incompetent TWC service reps are not limited to the Albany area.

I got a Tivo HD a couple of weeks ago and had TWC install CableCards. They don't have M Cards yet (at least not at the Troy office), and the first time they came out the installer refused to install 2 S Cards. After I called customer service he came back a week later with another card and another tech to help him out. Each install took about an hour.

I called Albany TWC today to make an appointment for my Cable Card installation. TWC will be coming Wednesday 10/24/07. (My TiVos arrive Tuesday)

The Customer Service Rep had to put me on hold when I requested two M-cards (one for each TiVoHD). He came back and said that they do not have M-cards yet, but will be getting them in December.

Since they claim they don't have the multistream cards, I'll need 4 single stream cards (2 for each TiVo).There is no charge for the installation. Other TWC regions have charged for installation like Los Angeles ($25) and Raleigh, NC ($49).

I ordered two TiVo HD’s on Friday, October 12th. The tracking number I received indicated they would arrive on Tuesday, October 23rd. I contacted Time Warner and set up a service visit for them to install the Cable Cards on Wednesday, October 24th. While on the phone with Time Warner, I asked for two Multistream cable cards (Mcards) instead of four single stream cards. The customer service representative immediately put me on hold so he could speak to a supervisor. He came back on the line and told me that they did not have Mcards yet, but expected to have them in December. I insisted that they do have the Mcards, having read elsewhere that other Albany TWC customers have had them installed. The customer service rep wouldn’t budge, so we set up a service visit to install 4 single stream cable cards for Wednesday, October 24th. The service call was scheduled for between noon-4:30PM, and I was to get a phone call 15 minutes before the service rep arrived to I could leave work and meet him at my house. I also confirmed that there would be no charge for installation of the cable cards. ;D

Since I had more than a week before the TiVo’s arrived, I investigated how to upgrade the hard drives in the TiVo HD’s. (The standard supplied 160GB hard drive can store 20 hours of HD programming or 180 hours of SD programming) I started at the TiVo Community Forum and ended up on the MFSlive website. I ordered a 500GB SATA hard drive for $169 with the intention of swapping it out with a hard drive on one of the TiVo HD units to give me 64 hours of HD or 607 hours of SD.

My two new TiVo HD’s were delivered on Tuesday, October 23rd. I replaced my two Series2 TiVo’s and ran guided setup on each new TiVo unit.

On Wednesday October 24th, I received a phone call at 8AM from the Time Warner Service Tech supervisor. His name was Tom Landry (yes, the same name as the former Dallas Cowboys coach). Tom asked why I needed 4 single stream cards, so I explained my situation and how I asked for two Mcards, but the customer service rep said they didn’t have them. Tom said they do have them and he would send a bunch with the service tech. I thanked Tom for contacting me and arranging for the Mcards.

I got a call at 12:30PM from the service tech, who told me he was on the way to my house. I went home and let the service tech in my door at 12:50PM. By 1:15PM, the tech had left the house after installing two Mcards. Even he was surprised as to how easy the installation had gone. The first two Mcards he tried worked, and he had to make two phone calls back to the office. The first call was to supply the numbers on the cards so they could be activated and the second was to the “head end” of Albany TWC to supply the cards with the channel info for all the services I subscribe to (HBO, Showtime, HD Tier, etc).

After TWC’s service tech left my house, I ran guided setup again on both TiVo HD’s in order to populate the guide data with all the new digital channels. Once guided setup was done, I disconnected one of the TiVo HD’s, took off the metal cover, and removed the hard drive. I copied the hard drive to my laptop using WinMFS and then copied the file from my laptop to the new 500GB hard drive. A few turns of the screwdriver later, the new hard drive was installed into the TiVo HD and I had 64 hours of HD storage capacity. It took less than an hour to install the new 500GB hard drive from beginning to end.

Everything is working great and the experience was essentially pain free. After reading all the horror stories on the TiVo Community website , I was surprised how easy everything went. As long as the TiVo HD’s continue to work well for the next week, I will be returning my SA8300HD DVR. I’ll probably get a regular HD box in order to keep access to OnDemand services (until the USB Dongle is released ). Now, only if Albany TWC can resist changing any HD channels to Switched Digital Video (SDV), I would be very happy.

I would suggest that anyone in Albany who gets the "...we don't have Mcards..." response from the customer service reps should call Tom Landry a day before the scheduled installation. PM me and I'll provide you with his direct phone number & extension.