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| Ultra TV General Reactions and Questions We just got upgraded our WOW cable to Ultra TV on Feb. 18, and for the few improvements it gives us, I think it's worth the extra $2 that we were told it would cost from our existing setup.
I'm still apprehensive about the next bill though...
Firstly, the new features that we get are great, but I think the GUI could use a lot of improvement. The text is often too small for a TV interface (it would work great if it was built for a computer), and I often wish the screen real estate were more effectively filled. Add to that the fact that quite a lot of general nav/selection functions can be done with many different buttons or arrows, or sometimes arrow functions change on the fly.
(Left arrow closes, Right arrow closes, OK on "close" closes, but sometimes the Right arrow goes somewhere else depending on what menu you're in)
So, the overall menu experience is usable, but somewhat of a disappointment. Either that, or I'm just spoiled by Apple's mostly-excellent UI design.
The features like improved recording options (6 + 1 shows at once, shared recording storage, etc.) are really awesome, and it really does address serious recording conflicts we've had in the past.
I also appreciate the ability to sort channels by type, as well as the search feature. These things are probably the only advantage Ultra TV has over the traditional Grid program guide (I also prefer the visual design of the old Grid over the new Grid).
However, other than those big things, most of the other main menu items/features are mostly useless/a waste of space. We have an Apple TV, and I think that does photos/music/even movies a lot better than Arris ever could (I have no idea if WOW got to contribute anything to the software directly further than suggestions). HomeConnect for us is pointless when we have Airplay and such; I really have no desire to check out any DLNA clients.
Further, my dad was really looking forward to being able to schedule/manage recordings from his iPhone. iOS app compliments seem to be a given these days with all kinds of home hardware, and I myself was surprised to find that there is no offering in that regard. Is it Arris' fault or does WOW have control over something like that?
Now, I understand that the Media Players are not designed to be powered off, but I think it's silly that even when the TV/audio devices are turned off, you still have full control over the Media Player. You can press the Menu button and control it like normal even without visual feedback. Obviously you could do this with the old systems, but at least you knew whether or not the DVR was powered on or off. Is it not possible for modern hardware to detect whether or not its signal is being used or not?
On to a few technical questions...
Our Media Gateway has been saying this in it's status since we got it: Telephony-Reg with Call Server | In Progress
To signify this, there is a blinking telephone light on the Gateway.
We do not subscribe to any WOW Phone service at all, so I was wondering if I could make that stop. It's probably something that can only be done on WOW's end, because I've been through all the settings.
Is there a real reason why the Media Gateway cannot be set to bridge mode? Is it because the Media Players need to have immediate access to the Gateway? Does the cable signal pass through the Gateway before it makes its way out to the Players?
Since the Gateway does not have gigabit ethernet, does that mean, since my Airport Extreme is just a bridge from the Gateway, that I can only reach 100 Mbps on my LAN (for example, transferring data from one computer to the other)? (I'm nowhere near that to begin with, but I'm curious)
This is just hypothetical, but could the Media Players technically be hooked up to the Gateway via ethernet and function fine?
Does anyone know why MoCA requires this?
»www.arrisi.com/product_catalog/_···r_PF.pdf
(beyond the basic info the link has)
tl;dr
I am satisfied, but I like to complain a lot. | |
| The gateway and all of the doc 3 modems have gigabit ports on them. | |
 WOW_DanPremium
join:2011-03-24
Naperville, IL
kudos:22 | reply to Jonathan2
said by Jonathan2:Further, my dad was really looking forward to being able to schedule/manage recordings from his iPhone. iOS app compliments seem to be a given these days with all kinds of home hardware, and I myself was surprised to find that there is no offering in that regard. Is it Arris' fault or does WOW have control over something like that? Apps are in the works, they will be coming, but there's no time frame for that currently.
said by Jonathan2:Now, I understand that the Media Players are not designed to be powered off, but I think it's silly that even when the TV/audio devices are turned off, you still have full control over the Media Player. You can press the Menu button and control it like normal even without visual feedback. Obviously you could do this with the old systems, but at least you knew whether or not the DVR was powered on or off. Is it not possible for modern hardware to detect whether or not its signal is being used or not? It is not possible for the media player to detect if the TV is on. It goes into Standby mode on its own after being left idle for a few hours.
said by Jonathan2:Our Media Gateway has been saying this in it's status since we got it: Telephony-Reg with Call Server | In Progress
To signify this, there is a blinking telephone light on the Gateway.
We do not subscribe to any WOW Phone service at all, so I was wondering if I could make that stop. It's probably something that can only be done on WOW's end, because I've been through all the settings. There is no way to disable this. The EMTA portion of the gateway will always be active and searching if you don't have phone service.
said by Jonathan2:Is there a real reason why the Media Gateway cannot be set to bridge mode? Is it because the Media Players need to have immediate access to the Gateway? Does the cable signal pass through the Gateway before it makes its way out to the Players? The gateway DHCP server is required for communication between the players and the gatway. If you could bridge the gatway, your players would not come back online if rebooted.
said by Jonathan2:Since the Gateway does not have gigabit ethernet, does that mean, since my Airport Extreme is just a bridge from the Gateway, that I can only reach 100 Mbps on my LAN (for example, transferring data from one computer to the other)? (I'm nowhere near that to begin with, but I'm curious) The gateway does have 4 gigabit ethernet ports on the back.
said by Jonathan2:This is just hypothetical, but could the Media Players technically be hooked up to the Gateway via ethernet and function fine? The ethernet ports on the media players are currently disabled. There is currently no plan to use those ports. We only use MoCA for connecting the players to the gateway.
The filter is to keep MoCA from back-feeding into the cable plant. Without it, it's possible your equipment and your neighbor's equipment could interfere with each other if you both have Ultra TV. The filter kills the MoCA signal and keeps it in your home only.
--
Dan Della Terza
WOW! Internet, Cable & Phone
CMTS Operations Engineer | |
| reply to Jonathan2
The ethernet ports on the media players are currently disabled. There is currently no plan to use those ports. We only use MoCA for connecting the players to the gateway.
Would save me from running CAT5e in my house everywhere. | |
 stetVolitar Prime
join:2002-03-08
Warren, MI | reply to Jonathan2
You don't really need a dedicated smart phone app, just use your phones web browser.
I agree about the power thing. The remotes do have a power toggle command which can wake the media players up out of stand by. I wish they would also turn them off or at least put them back into stand by instead of having to wait 6 hours or so for it to happen automatically. Also, when in stand by the media player's audio and video outputs are still active which often causes issues with auto sensing/switch AV devices. They should turn off.
I also think that it would be great to be able to use the ethernet port on the back of the media player as an ethernet connection through the MoCA connection back to the gateway. It would really simplify a lot of home wiring.
--
01011001 | |
WOW_DanPremium
join:2011-03-24
Naperville, IL
kudos:22 | reply to Body Count
said by Body Count:The ethernet ports on the media players are currently disabled. There is currently no plan to use those ports. We only use MoCA for connecting the players to the gateway. That's really sad actually. Perfectly good port not being used just because WOW doesn't want to take the time to support it. Would save me from running CAT5e in my house everywhere. That port was never designed for you to plug a device into to get an internet connection. The port is there for companies who want to run the media player over CAT5 instead of Coaxial. The hardware does not support using it for an internet connection. That's not a limitation set by WOW, the hardware is just not capable of doing that.
--
Dan Della Terza
WOW! Internet, Cable & Phone
CMTS Operations Engineer | |
| reply to Jonathan2
said by Jonathan2:Firstly, the new features that we get are great, but I think the GUI could use a lot of improvement. The text is often too small for a TV interface (it would work great if it was built for a computer), and I often wish the screen real estate were more effectively filled. Add to that the fact that quite a lot of general nav/selection functions can be done with many different buttons or arrows, or sometimes arrow functions change on the fly.
(Left arrow closes, Right arrow closes, OK on "close" closes, but sometimes the Right arrow goes somewhere else depending on what menu you're in)
So, the overall menu experience is usable, but somewhat of a disappointment. Either that, or I'm just spoiled by Apple's mostly-excellent UI design.
The features like improved recording options (6 + 1 shows at once, shared recording storage, etc.) are really awesome, and it really does address serious recording conflicts we've had in the past.
I also appreciate the ability to sort channels by type, as well as the search feature. These things are probably the only advantage Ultra TV has over the traditional Grid program guide (I also prefer the visual design of the old Grid over the new Grid).
However, other than those big things, most of the other main menu items/features are mostly useless/a waste of space. We have an Apple TV, and I think that does photos/music/even movies a lot better than Arris ever could (I have no idea if WOW got to contribute anything to the software directly further than suggestions). HomeConnect for us is pointless when we have Airplay and such; I really have no desire to check out any DLNA clients.
This part of Sporlo's post could have been written by me. I REALLY hope that some effort is made to improve the fonts. There is NO reason for instance that the next three shows on the Flip Bar should be grayed out. Not everyone has 20/15 vision. | |
| reply to WOW_Dan
said by WOW_Dan:The gateway does have 4 gigabit ethernet ports on the back Wow, I am not very observant. I confused the Media Player tech page for the Gateway page. Sorry about that.
And thanks for the replies! They were very helpful! | |
| reply to WOW_Dan
I believe that feeding the media plays through the gigabit ports would yield a big improvement 270 Mbps of MOCA vs 1 gigabit of Ethernet. It you also would see improvements in streaming video to the media plays through DLNA. | |
WOW_DanPremium
join:2011-03-24
Naperville, IL
kudos:22 | said by mcluck03:I believe that feeding the media plays through the gigabit ports would yield a big improvement 270 Mbps of MOCA vs 1 gigabit of Ethernet. It you also would see improvements in streaming video to the media plays through DLNA.
The port on the media player is not gigabit, only the gateway is. The media players are 10/100, which is still plenty of bandwidth for streaming video, but if we're looking at pipe size of MoCA vs Fast Ethernet, the MoCA has a larger pipe. Streaming video, while it can be a lot of bandwidth used overall, the stream itself isn't anywhere close to needing a gigabit connection. You wouldn't have any difference in video quality with gigabit.
--
Dan Della Terza
WOW! Internet, Cable & Phone
CMTS Operations Engineer | |
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