The Olevia 337H 37″ LCD TV that the Big Guy and I tried to buy on Black Friday came on sale again for a good price at Fry’s yesterday. The Big Guy had already gotten one online and has been very positive about the picture quality and performance so I decided TS1 and I deserved to have it as well. A day and a half later things are more or less set, but the experience has been a wearing one.
The connection and rationale still aren’t clear to me but Fry’s threw in a Sony DVD/VCR combo box as part of the deal. If it had HD capability… but no, it’s just a normal, $99 list price piece of equipment. Still in the box, probably going on eBay or Craig’s List.
At the store I didn’t think about how I was going to get the large, heavy box up the flight of stairs to our apartment. I could call someone for help but that seemed like overkill for two minutes of work. I punted, leaving the box in the car while I called Comcast and ran over to their office to get the necessary new HD settop box. Warned that the settop box had only a DVI output, I grabbed a DVI-HDMI cable at Radio Shack.
The box also had two of those yellow hard plastic straps around the short side and testing seemed to prove I could use the straps for a decent hold and leverage, which turned out to be true though getting up the stairs required stopping every two or three steps–the box was not only big, it was heavy too.
Disconnecting and removing the old TV and settop box were straightforward though the TV was more difficult to move than the Olevia was to get up. I reviewed all the connections and hard to read instructions and plugged everything together, then gave the cable box a half hour to activate.
Not good. All I could get on screen was black and white picture, no sound and only the basic (non-digital) channels, no matter what I tried. Calling Comcast support yielding the first disappointing news. Neither the TiVo Series1 (which I’ve had and loved for four years now) and Series2 (which I was willing to buy to get the dual tuner, new features and big recording capacity) work with the Comcast HD boxes. Unfortunately we cannot (nor would we even if we could) spend $800 for the Series3 TiVo HD recorder, plus $300 for the first three years of service prepaid.
Initially I thought this was ugly business maneuvering by Comcast, (illegally?) tying their DVR to the HD box. But then I realized that neither the Series1 nor the Series2 have HD input or output and so even if they could be used that would be missing the point of having an HD-capable TV.
The TiVo and my (10 year old) home theater receiver were removed from the wiring flow with the settop box and DVD player connected directly to the Olevia. Still no sound though and, after checking websites, documentation and calling the Big Guy, I found out that DVI (unlike HDMI) only carries video and not sound. Problem solved by adding a cable from the Comcast audio out to the TV.
Still no sound, but good picture on all the expected channels. The DVD player worked fine, sound and all. More reading of documentation yielded the nugget that I’d used the wrong audio jacks on the TV. Okay, sound finally working.
What to do about recording shows though? The only immediate answer was to go back to Comcast and trade up to their HD DVR, which I did this morning. When I asked the officeperson if a box with HDMI would be available any time soon he stopped typing, turned the box around so the back was facing me and pointed to an HDMI jack. So the expensive DVI-HDMI cable went back to Radio Shack and an HDMI-HDMI cable came home to take its place.
The new equipment all went in and, with just a little bit more frustration and annoyance, worked. All in time to watch a repeat of Newcastle-Tottenham on FSC (not an HD channel and not the live match I expected, which was on the Setanta Sports package instead). Afterwards, being energy-conscious, I turned off the Olevia.
An hour or so I later I turned it back on and the screen filled with snow rather than the pretty picture and sound from before. As an experiment I pulled the HDMI cable out of the TV, waited, and plugged it back in. This worked. After a few more minutes I power cycled again with the same snowy result. This is California, it doesn’t snow here!
I called Olevia support this time and was put on hold for over 30 minutes; the front line support rep told me I was 34th in line and 12 techs were on duty. Finally connected, only to learn that this is, er, expected behavior for any HDMI TV connection, regardless of brand, and I could turn off the cable box every time I turned off the TV, losing its recording capability, or leave the TV on.
We can thank our friends in Hollywood because this is yet another noxious DRM-related “feature.” The HDMI protocol requires all devices that can take HD content (the TV) to get an authorization token from the the supplying device (the Comcast box) before it can decode the signal. The Olevia forgets the token, or is required to get a new one, the tech support staffer wasn’t sure, every time the power goes off and on.
The workaround for power cycling the cable box is unplugging and plugging the HDMI cable, awkward due to the jack locations. The HD picture–I’m watching Florida St. beat UCLA on ESPN HD right now–is excellent, I have to say. Can’t wait for some soccer to show up on FSN HD or ESPN HD!
I still miss TiVo, though. If for nothing else the onscreen programming guide is vastly superior to Comcast’s, but also for the much better user interaction design (that is, the number and of type of clicks required for specific tasks like finding shows or setting up recordings), TiVo Suggests and all the Season Passes set up over the years.
The Comcast HD DVR settop box (though not the plain HD one), in its favor, does have dual tuners, which will be handy when the shows come back with new episodes next week month year. I can finally watch My Name is Earl again and deal with SciFi moving Battlestar Galactica to Sundays.
Maybe TiVo will pick on Microsoft’s idea and send me a Series3 to blog about? Stranger things have happened.
FYI: UCLA QB Patrick Cowan just threw an interception that was returned for a TD right after Florida State drove 90 yards for a TD and the Seminoles look to have locked up the Emerald Bowl, leading 44-27 with 2:45 left in the game. Any team that beats UCLA is okay in my book. Go ‘Noles!
BillSaysThis 