First impressions: Time Warner Cable's Navigator

If I said Time Warner Cable's current on-screen guide and DVR interface looks antiquated, I'd be guilty of gross understatement.  Rarely have I turned on my DVR in the last couple years without feeling a sense of nostalgia for technology past that I usually get when I pull a 5.25" floppy disk out of a shoebox in my closet.  With modern set-top platforms like those found on TiVo and AT&T U-Verse making Time Warner's on-screen guide look like a dusty DOS relic from the 80's, clearly it was ripe for change.

Well that change is slowly starting to roll into Northeast Wisconsin living rooms, and it's a welcome one.
 I had the opportunity to get a private walkthrough of Navigator on one of Time Warner's HD DVRs at the cable operator's Appleton office earlier today, courtesy of Stacy Zaja, Director of Community & Media Relations from Time Warner Cable's Milwaukee headquarters.  Ironically, not all the receivers at the Appleton office had yet gotten the Navigator upgrade in advance of our meeting today, so instead of seeing the guide in action on one of their glossy, ultra-large flat-screen TV's, I was treated to a more modest demo on a good old-fashioned workstation monitor in one of their production edit bays. 

Even on a 13-inch non-HD TV screen, Navigator is gorgeous.  No bones about it.  It's just pretty.  Though, seriously, anything above their current offering (Passport, I believe) is a monumental improvement.  The look of the guide is slick, polished, modern, and very readable.  This is the guide Time Warner customers have been waiting for.  The feel of the navigation feels lightyears ahead of the old system.  Menus, guides and other on-screen overlays fade in and out smoothly.  Arrowing through guide listings is much more responsive and speedy.  On-demand menus load substantially faster, and on-demand programming starts quickly too.  Other markets, including Milwaukee, have had Navigator for a while now.  While those markets initially groaned over glitches and slowness at first, those bugs appear to be worked out for the most part.  Whatever development went into Navigator between now and then, the experience feels all the more snappy, lightweight and well-thought-out for it.

If you're not so accustomed to them yet, get to know your remote control's "A" and "B" buttons.  The "A" button has become stale in the last couple years, and "B" doesn't do much outside of the guide.  In Navigator, they're given much more to do.  "A" brings up your Access menu, giving you access (get it?) to things like Caller ID on TV, the DVR show list, and settings.  One nice thing it also gives you is a list of "what's playing now."  You can find out what shows are on right now in different categories, like "Sports Now," "Kids Programming Now," and such.  It also gives you a list of the shows on right now that are in high-definition.  Give it a shot.  It's more convenient than I make it sound.

The "B" button is now the Google of your remote control.  It gives you the ability to search for shows by title, using an on-screen keyboard.  This is a very handy feature, though the keyboard (non-QWERTY) takes a bit of practice.  As you type new letters, a list refines.  Usually, you don't need to type a full title before your intended title comes up.  What's particularly nice about this keyboard search feature is that it searches both programs on linear TV channels and available programs in Time Warner's current on-demand selection.  As a current example, when you bring up the search, the movie (500) Days of Summer comes right up at the top of the list.  That movie is a new release in their Movies On Demand channel.  That can be a very convenient feature, considering Time Warner's catalog genre-based movies-on-demand channels feature many classic films at a reasonable price (compared to trudging out to the video store).  The "B" button also lets you find titles by theme, rating, and other means.  Far as I could tell, the new guide goes out two weeks instead of the current one-week span, and I believe the search encompasses that duration.  When you find a show, it also gives you the days and times that show airs in the upcoming week.

Another sorely needed feature is improved conflict resolution for the DVR.  Navigator appears much smarter in the way it handles recording conflicts, and on-screen icons show you when recordings are in opposition of other shows.  It appears to give you better options for resolving recording overlaps, and a recording log shows you what happened to recordings (ie. shows didn't record, shows got deleted, etc), so you are better able to manage your DVR.  Also new is a series manager screen in the DVR, that on my brief demo appeared much closer to modern platforms like TiVo.

When you set up a show or series to record, it gives you the option to save up to 7 of the latest episodes.  I think you are also able to save all episodes if you want, but I can't recall for sure.  You are able to set recordings to start and end earlier and later, respectively, by a minute or more past the scheduled time.  I believe it goes up to 2 hours past end time as well, which is good for sporting events.

Favorite channels, already a feature of Time Warner's guide, get a little more functional in Navigator.  While you can set favorite channels now, you can only really cycle through them using the "FAV" button on your remote.  In Navigator, you can set favorite channels to appear first in your program guide.  While not as handy as AT&T U-Verse's ability to toggle channel visibility on-and-off in the guide, it's better than what it was before.

Also improved in Navigator is parental control functionality, the settings menu and other little redo's and conveniences.  Setting display options for HDTV's is much improved, and doesn't involve going into a special menu by a secret series of button-pushes on your box's front panel.  It's all under settings.  Navigation through settings, on-demand menus and other areas of Navigator is much more polished, giving you better use of all four directional buttons on your remote.

All-in-all, Navigator is a gigantic step forward.  It's slick, sexy and functional.  As with anything new, some will gripe over having to learn things all over again.  In a way, the great channel number realignment was a good primer for customers.  This change is much more worthy of your time learning it.

What's more, the upgrade to Navigator is the beginning of more good things to come in the future to Northeast Wisconsin Time Warner Cable customers.  The software enables future feature upgrades and additional HD channels.    One future feature is Time Warner's "Look Back," which is a compliment to their current "Start Over" feature.  On available channels, you would be able to watch shows that aired already that day, even if you missed the show entirely.  The new feature just launched in Milwaukee this week, and Navigator is the first step toward that and other innovative features.

Navigator is said to give Time Warner more ability to add HD channels.  Ms. Zaja told me Time Warner Wisconsin is aiming for 150 HD channels by year's end, with the Viacom HD channels obviously next on the horizon.  Over the past year, it's been a bit depressing to see reports of other Time Warner markets hitting 100 channels while we slowly trickled past 50 in our area.  I'm really hoping their commitment to 150 HD channels this year comes to fruition.  There are supposedly some cool things coming with the upcoming Winter Olympics too, and since we have many of NBC Universal's channels in HD (Bravo, MSNBC, USA, etc), this year's games will be much better for high-def lovers than the last ones.

The biggest thing I took away from my Navigator demo?  Don't fear change.  It may change the way you record shows, browse for on-demand titles and other common functions, but it's all for the better.  Trust me.  Watch for it on your digital cable boxes and DVRs in the next couple weeks.  Be sure to let us know what you think!

Stay tuned next week for an exhaustive video comparison and tutorial on Navigator, right here at Fox Cities TV!