Aaron couldn’t get the HDMI port of his Time Warner Cable DVR box to work. When he went to customer service with the problem, he says the rep told him TWC provides HDMI as an option to customers but does not support it.

He writes:

I’ve been experiencing issues with my DVR’s HDMI. It blacks out every so often for a second or two. I know it’s the cable box because I tested the same wire, same TV port, with my blue ray player and experienced hours of black-out-free television viewing. I even connected my computer to verify it was the cable box.

Per the standard technical issue, I rebooted my box, both hard and soft. After still experiencing the black out, I decided to call Time Warner (TW) and ask for support. TW stated that they don’t support HDMI. They offer it as an option to their customers, but no not sell cables or support any video out via the HDMI port. I asked how this could be – they stated if I’d like help with my Component, they could do that, but HDMI, while available on all their boxes, is unsupported by them. The service rep then mentioned that HDMI can be fickle and depend on priority of boot sequence and to contact the TV’s manufacturer. Sigh… failure of comprehension and troubleshooting.

They did schedule an appointment to have someone come out and test with me. So that’s a plus. I’ll be certain to ask the technician why HDMI is offered but not supported.

We contacted TWC for comment and received this reply:

So sorry it has taken me a few days to get back to you. Time Warner Cable fully supports all of the equipment we put into customers’ homes. That includes all boxes, routers, cables, etc. If the customer has an issue with a piece of equipment not provided by TWC, we tend to help them troubleshoot, but not do any repairs. Based on the original post that I assume this is in reference to, if the HDMI jack on a TWC box is not functioning we will fix or replace it. Shouldn’t be any harder than that.

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