The new PACE box is out - they want $25 fee to give it to me

[jaymer]

as i stated on the home page, that kinda pushes my last button with BHN.
they don't seem to have a clue

did everyone who got the new pace box have to pay $25?
no one picked one up in person?

[FTBoomerIII]

They blew me off the waiting list as well. I called and they told me it would be $25. I argued and they gave in. I told them I needed the DVI connection (not true) and that the box they had given me was not fully compatible with my TV, They sent one out 3 days later....no charge.

[evarney]

I too was blown off the list, but was not aware the boxes were in until I called and found out they had dozens just sitting around. Needless to say, I was forced to schedule a time to have someone come out and "install" the STB. However, never once did they mention anything about a service fee of $25 or otherwise. And I never saw a charge on my bill.

More over, the guy who showed up to do the "install" knew next to nothing about installing the box. When I asked him why I couldn't just pick up the box myself, he replied, "It's much more complicated than the orginal SA STB. We even had to go to a class to learn how to install them and what features were available." This coming from a guy who thought the component cables were for the audio. I actually pushed him out of the way after that revelation. There was no way I wanted him any where near my TV, much less putting things into it.

Sorry about the long post, but it is still an amusing story to me. :?

[Icarus]

I had a tough time convincing them I needed to swap out my boxes as well. I had a very nice phone rep, but her supervisor said that they couldn't do it. I told her to tell her supervisor I would cancel my service and switch to Directv if they wouldn't do it. No service charge. Nice guy showed up and swapped out the boxes.

In my case, I needed the scaling features of the box for my Samsung 4:3 1080i direct view set, and I needed dvi for my Samsung DLP set that was arriving that week.

I have no idea why we can't just go down to the local office and swap these things out in person. It's just silly.

-David

[LonghornXP]

This is exactly why I switched from BHN in the first place. When I first bought my HDTV set I called to have my box replaced with an HDTV box. I at that time didn't know what model would be for HD and they came out and installed a Explorer 2200(non HD box) and my HD channels wouldn't come in and the guy said I would have to have a tech come out the next day. They did come out and he said well this is your problem you weren't given the right box (2200HD not 2200) and he didn't have any HDTV boxes on his truck and I would have to have another tech come out with the right box. That tech came out and brought the right box and hooked it up right and all was well. Than my next bill that came about 20 days after getting the right box had two 25 dollar install charges and I spent over 2 hours on the phone saying why am I paying twice when your people screwed up not me and so on.

I was put on the pace and DVR list and they came available in my area a little early but I was kicked off the list. For some reason I got a call last week telling me that the DVR box was now available and I just dish out everything I hated about BHN that aren't problems on DirecTV.

I found out later that the pace boxes were available for 4 weeks before I switched and I called them the day before I switched and they said sorry they aren't available yet.

When they launched HBO on Demand they told me they would add Cinemax, Showtime and TMC on Demand by the end of they year which was the end of 2002. Well January 2003 came around and they said they are going to only add Showtime on Demand by April 2003. Well here comes April and I call and they tell me it's now June 2003 and once June came along and they said by the end of the year I called DirecTV and got prices and switched becasue they have been all talk. They gave the excuse that the BHN changeover was slowing it down but once it went through on April 4 or something within two weeks BHN orlando added the other 3 on demand channels but they couldn't give me any info at all. Now my friend a couple streets down from me has been asking for these channels as well and he just got them last week.

That gives you an idea of how I feel about BHN. oh and that name change doesn't make me think any differently of this company. If anything I gave TWC the benefit because the switchover could have slowed things down but since the switch occured and nothing has changed in my mind I think they are worse as BHN than as TWC.

CBS, NBC and ESPN HD are whole other stories.

[CANDY76MAN]

hehe :lol: ....I actually pointed out some of the features of the Pace box to the guy that came out to "install" it...like the A/V pass through.
He didn't know about the menu's accessed using the # key either.

Actually I installed it as well but then again I don't think anyone could figure out the rats nest behind my home theater even if they know what they were doing....I have trouble remembering how I have stuff hooked up sometimes and I hooked it up...lol :lol:

[Max_Gator]

To add insult to injury, they didn't charge me anything either. But they would not let me pick it up.

My tech was able to hook up the box (I just told him to hook it up directly and showed him what I wanted done) but he asked me "what's that box up there connected to that antenna?"

As you might have guessed that was my ota stb. He had NO IDEA that you could get HD over the air. I switched the input so he could see pbs and he was amazed. "That's coming from that little antenna?" LOL>

[mjsuperman]

Does the box that BHN is distributing come with the firewire? I have a Mits so firewire but no dvi. In the documentation, it said that firewire was an option on the box.

mjsuperman

[racemanfl]

Mine has firewire.

[bdraw]

Your box has firewire? Which box do you have? I have a Pace HD550 which only has USB on the front no firewire. I know I read on Pace's website that the HD550 had an optional firewire.
Have you ever tried to hook up your firewire port to anything? There is some new software coming out soon that will alow you to record via firewire to your XP PC.

[CANDY76MAN]

Even if there is a fire wire port I would be REALLY suprised if it is functional in any way.

both my pace boxes only have a usb port on the front...I don't even see any cutouts or reserved spaces for a firewire port.

[MTAS]

as i stated on the home page, that kinda pushes my last button with BHN.
they don't seem to have a clue

did everyone who got the new pace box have to pay $25?
no one picked one up in person?

I wanted to pick it up in person, and take the old Scientific Atlanta box with me to exchange, but was told that "a technician needs to come out and install it". Well their "technician" was clueless as to how to set it up. On the bright side (no pun intended), I wasn't charged a dime for the swap, and the turn around time from call to install was less than a week.

[racemanfl]

Your right my mistake. Believed what the tech said and don't have any firewire to test.
All I know is all I've had is problems with this box since it was installed.
Either the movie channels don't work,or the on demand, or it just shuts off
and 1 time my cable modem quit and it took 4 days to get that fixed.don't know what that had to do with pace box but it did quit at the same time.
Then next the digital channels quit.
Tech came out 2 days ago changed box's now on demand won't work again.They said wait 24 hours and it would work.Still won't.
Sent a long nasty email as calling on the phone does nothing but get you another tech (who knows nothing about digital cable)
Asked for someone who knows digital to please come out and fix it and a supervisior called and left her ext. to call her back, but she won't come to the phone.
This is getting very tiring waiting on them to be 3 to 4 hours late for an appointment.I have taken 4 half days off work and they still don't show until 7 pm will only tell you between 12 and 5 pm.
Customer service is terrible.
SD looks terrible,HD great, digital channels pretty good.
Just my 2 cents worth, sorry for being long winded but this is terrible service. Thanks for the great forum, look forward to all of the input here for HDTV problems and solutions.

Thanks agin Jerry

[Hop]

When my old 3100HD box died, I called BHN and they said to stop by the next day and pick up another box. I did and all they had were PACE boxes. They gave me one and there was no charge.

[ozric100]

I just got my HD set and order a STB from BHN. I was bummed when I saw the SA box. I called the next day and the Rep told me it would take 2 days for the Work Order to close and then to just call back for a Pace 550 swapout. I called back and got the meanest Lady on the phone, she told me I was SOL and they did not have enuff Pace STB's for everyone yet. I was going to ask her about a waiting list, but I could not stand to talk to her one more second.

So I still have the SA, I might call this weekend and see how it goes. The HD stuff looks good but, I have to switch inputs on my TV for DTV and STV stuff, that is kind of a pain, Not to mention the y spliters for my audio feed to my TIVO, and direct to my AMP cause nothing under 100 comes off the optical feed.

[jaymer]

I JUST GOT MY PACE BOX...

went by there on fri afternoon - carried in my old one, told them
"i've been having some problems with this box and they told me to bring it in and you could swap it out"

no prob - got a PACE!
no charge.

jaymer...

[ezleonard]

I've been having wacky problems with my 5.1 audio. Sometimes I don't get all the channels (sound will only come out rear speakers for example) I've got the SA box which I've had for several months and haven't had any problems. Anyone knows if the new PACE box will fix the problem? Also what features does this box have over the SA box?

Thanks! :)

Eric

[Hop]

I have never had any audio problems with either box.

[ozric100]

It's a long story but ... I called again to get a Pace and I was told, that I was not on the account. I was the one who got the WO for the SA HD STB!!!!. Anyway my wife called and they tried to give her the run around.(BAD IDEA!) Now I have Pace No charge.

Not a very big improvement, anything below 100 still looks like ass on the HD input, I have to go with my Tivo S-video feed, 100 and up look fine, HDTV looks great. And I do like the pass thru, now I run P-scan again for my DVD. Turning off the STB while I watch DVD's kinda sucks for my Tivo. Another cable will fix that soon. Oh they did give me 2 more sets of 6' componet cables.

I have notice that this thing puts out some heat, and I get some strange glitches on FNC every so often.