As most of the world knows TiVO released their new DVR called the Roamio. Which in all shapes and forms appears to be the most awesome DVR yet. With the ability to do 6 tuners and stream live TV to the TiVO Mini, it alone will save me hundreds of thousands of dollars in stupid hardware rental fees from Comcast. So before I put down nearly $1000 for the new Roamio and a lifetime subscription I decided to ask Comcast if their Morgantown, WV system would support it. (I had seen some people on the interwebs saying there were issues with some cable systems not supporting all 6 tuners yet.)
So the first place I went was to twitter to ask them (@comcastcares) if they supported it and if there were any hoops I had to jump through to switch it from my Premiere to the Roamio. Well they wrote back and said to contact [email protected]. So I sent them an email asking about the support for the Roamio and whether it was required for a tech to come out to do the install.
So I got the typical boiler plate email back saying they would review my concerns.. Pretty typical.
Today I got a call from their Executive relations group while I was at work. So I called them when I got home and here is roughly how the conversation went:
ER: Hello, I was calling to address the email you sent us.
ME: Ok, well I am looking at getting a Roamio and was wanting to make sure it was supported before buying it.
ER: Well does it support 3 cable cards? We only have cable cards that support 2 tuners, so if it doesn’t have 3 cable card slots then it probably won’t work.
ME: No it only has one slot for a M-CARD. (Thinking to my self, yeah if I had to get 3 cards that is extra money to you.)
ER: Oh, ok. well we didn’t even know that TiVO had a DVR that did 6 tuners. (Thinking well, they have had a 4 tuner one for a couple of years now.) I have some calls in to our warehouses to verify if we have a cable card that supports that many tuners, but right now the only thing we support is 2 tuners.
ME: Ok, well from what I was reading it is just a firmware issue.
ER: Hmm, hmm, hmm, ok, ok, ok (don’t have a clue what he was doing) {he then repeats about checking with the warehouse people}
He then addressed my issue with doing a self install and said yes you can do it, but you have to call them to activate it. (Which I knew but was confirming it again.)
I then brought up the issue where the website says that for each customer owned piece of equipment you should get a $2.50 credit to your bill. I told him I had 2 TiVO’s and therefore I should see a $5.00 credit on it. To which he explained that I do get the credit but it isn’t reflected on the bill. He then told me that the cable card fee is actually the same as the other box fees ($9.95), but they subtract the $2.50 from it (which is the “cost of the box”)� to make it $7.45 (which is the cost of the “service”).� I told him that the Comcast website doesn’t say that and even the paper that comes with the bill doesn’t show that the Cable cards are $9.95..
The funny thing was that I told him that my friend sees the $2.50 credit on his bill. He immediately said “well different parts of the country does billing a different way.” I sort of laughed and said “well, he lives 2 miles away from me. So your hypothesis doesn’t work.” He couldn’t figure out why mine didn’t show it but others did.
He ended the call with saying he would call me back once he hears back from the warehouse and whether they would or ever support a TiVO with 6 tuners. I said “well I sure hope you do as it is going to save me hundreds of dollars a year in rental fees.” He didn’t really say anything after I said that.
So long story short, TiVO has released something that is far superior to anything Comcast could ever offer their own customers. So now they are going to probably give out false information to make sure that customers don’t purchase the new Roamio. Just another reason why Comcast is evil, and making billions a year from people from hardware rental fees. Shit I have had 2 Scientific Atlanta 3100 standard def boxes since 2001. The interface is slow, they put ads on the guide screen, and I have paid probably close to $1,500 in rental fees on them since then.
