I've been reading copious quantities of forum posts over the last five days. Mostly to prepare myself for setting up my first Tivo, but also as a last chance for someone to talk me out of not getting a cable DVR and buying a Tivo. I have to admit, though the forum reading didn't convince me not to buy a Tivo, it did fill me with much trepidation concerning the cable card / tuning adapter setup.
The day started with me going to the TWC office to pickup my "easy setup kit". In and out in 20 minutes, despite the fact there were five people in line ahead of me. The TWC clerk gave me a cable card and tuning adapter that both appeared to be used, so my trepidation level only increased.
Next stop was Best Buy to purchase a Roamio Basic. They matched the Amazon.com price. In and out in 10 minutes.
Next stop was Microcenter Mall to pick a cable modem. I purchased it online for store pickup, so I was in and out in 5 minutes.
At home, my first task was to setup the TWC internet connection. This was way easier than I thought it would be. After connecting the cable modem to the coax and connecting a computer to the cable modem, I hit the TWC website on another computer which was using the internet connection through CB Fioptics. Found the page for activating cable modems and started a chat with TWC. They asked identifying questions and then asked for the MAC address of the cable modem. The whole chat probably took 20 minutes, but most of that time I was just waiting for the tech to do stuff on his end. At the end of the chat, my cable modem was connected to the internet, sort of. It was actually connected to a proxy that sent me to the TWC account setup page no matter what URL I typed in. After setting up an email address and accepting TWC terms & conditions, my internet connection was complete.
Next came the Roamio setup. I connected the tuning adapter to the coax. Connected it to the Roamio via USB and coax. Put the cable card into the Roamio and connected the Roamio to the TV. And then powered both up. The Roamio powered up and gave me the option of "cable card setup" or "guided setup". I chose the cable card setup option and then called the national TWC cable card setup phone number. The nice lady on the other end of the phone had me look at several of the Roamio cable card information screens. On the "CP" screen the "renew" value was something like 800000 seconds. Since that was clearly way too long to wait for the Roamio to look for a CP auth, she had me pull out the cable card and reinsert it. After that the renew value was 360 seconds. Once she confirmed that the CP status was "waiting for CP auth" she said I should be good to go in about five minutes and that I could go ahead with the "guided setup" and by the time I completed that the cable card should be active. I have to say that I was more than a bit dubious and fully expected to be calling her again.
The guided setup probably took 10 minutes to complete. When it was done, I started checking out channels and they were all there. The cable card / tuning adapter setup had literally only taken five minutes on the phone.
The next step was to activate the Roamio guide service, but before I did that, I played around with the Roamio a little bit and noticed a couple things that you don't appear to be able to do without the guide service activated that wouldn't seem to be at all related to the guide services:
Activating the Tivo was relatively painless. I did it via the website. The final screen of the activation process said that it might take up to 24 hours for my Tivo to recognize the activation. Being the impatient person that I am, I went to the Tivo and forced a connection. Interestingly enough, some things seemed to become active on the Tivo quicker than others. Even after the "Manage recordings" option appeared on the Tivo screen, pressing the "Guide" button still said that the service wasn't activated. Even after information appeared on the "Info" screen for the channel I was watching, pressing the "Guide" screen still said the service wasn't activated. Finally the Guide appeared. The time between me noticing the first items, and the Guide actually appearing was probably 3-4 minutes. Strange.
So in less than six hours, I bought a Roamio and cable modem, installed them and had working internet and DVR. I post this just so others that might be in my position, wondering whether mixing a Tivo with TWC cable service is a good idea, can see a really positive experience. :):) It CAN be as simple as plug-and-play. No guarantees though. Read as much of this forum as you can and you'll be prepared even if it doesn't go as smoothly as it did for me.
One other tidbit. While I was talking to the TWC clerk, he said, completely unsolicited by me, that he was hoping that TWC in Cincinnati would have IP tuning capability ready by the end of the year so that the tuning adapters can be retired. He didn't give any source for his "hopes" but if the TWC employees are talking about it maybe it will happen.
The day started with me going to the TWC office to pickup my "easy setup kit". In and out in 20 minutes, despite the fact there were five people in line ahead of me. The TWC clerk gave me a cable card and tuning adapter that both appeared to be used, so my trepidation level only increased.
Next stop was Best Buy to purchase a Roamio Basic. They matched the Amazon.com price. In and out in 10 minutes.
Next stop was Microcenter Mall to pick a cable modem. I purchased it online for store pickup, so I was in and out in 5 minutes.
At home, my first task was to setup the TWC internet connection. This was way easier than I thought it would be. After connecting the cable modem to the coax and connecting a computer to the cable modem, I hit the TWC website on another computer which was using the internet connection through CB Fioptics. Found the page for activating cable modems and started a chat with TWC. They asked identifying questions and then asked for the MAC address of the cable modem. The whole chat probably took 20 minutes, but most of that time I was just waiting for the tech to do stuff on his end. At the end of the chat, my cable modem was connected to the internet, sort of. It was actually connected to a proxy that sent me to the TWC account setup page no matter what URL I typed in. After setting up an email address and accepting TWC terms & conditions, my internet connection was complete.
Next came the Roamio setup. I connected the tuning adapter to the coax. Connected it to the Roamio via USB and coax. Put the cable card into the Roamio and connected the Roamio to the TV. And then powered both up. The Roamio powered up and gave me the option of "cable card setup" or "guided setup". I chose the cable card setup option and then called the national TWC cable card setup phone number. The nice lady on the other end of the phone had me look at several of the Roamio cable card information screens. On the "CP" screen the "renew" value was something like 800000 seconds. Since that was clearly way too long to wait for the Roamio to look for a CP auth, she had me pull out the cable card and reinsert it. After that the renew value was 360 seconds. Once she confirmed that the CP status was "waiting for CP auth" she said I should be good to go in about five minutes and that I could go ahead with the "guided setup" and by the time I completed that the cable card should be active. I have to say that I was more than a bit dubious and fully expected to be calling her again.
The guided setup probably took 10 minutes to complete. When it was done, I started checking out channels and they were all there. The cable card / tuning adapter setup had literally only taken five minutes on the phone.
The next step was to activate the Roamio guide service, but before I did that, I played around with the Roamio a little bit and noticed a couple things that you don't appear to be able to do without the guide service activated that wouldn't seem to be at all related to the guide services:
- Pressing "Live TV" multiple times does not switch between the tuners.
- After pressing "Info" the channels to which the tuners are tuned do not appear
- You cannot set a manual recording since the "Manage my recordings" option does not appear on the Tivo screen.
Activating the Tivo was relatively painless. I did it via the website. The final screen of the activation process said that it might take up to 24 hours for my Tivo to recognize the activation. Being the impatient person that I am, I went to the Tivo and forced a connection. Interestingly enough, some things seemed to become active on the Tivo quicker than others. Even after the "Manage recordings" option appeared on the Tivo screen, pressing the "Guide" button still said that the service wasn't activated. Even after information appeared on the "Info" screen for the channel I was watching, pressing the "Guide" screen still said the service wasn't activated. Finally the Guide appeared. The time between me noticing the first items, and the Guide actually appearing was probably 3-4 minutes. Strange.
So in less than six hours, I bought a Roamio and cable modem, installed them and had working internet and DVR. I post this just so others that might be in my position, wondering whether mixing a Tivo with TWC cable service is a good idea, can see a really positive experience. :):) It CAN be as simple as plug-and-play. No guarantees though. Read as much of this forum as you can and you'll be prepared even if it doesn't go as smoothly as it did for me.
One other tidbit. While I was talking to the TWC clerk, he said, completely unsolicited by me, that he was hoping that TWC in Cincinnati would have IP tuning capability ready by the end of the year so that the tuning adapters can be retired. He didn't give any source for his "hopes" but if the TWC employees are talking about it maybe it will happen.
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