I'm quite fair though. Whilst I think that it's better not to receive bad service in the first place, I'm also open to changing my opinion on a company if they sort a problem out swiftly. In fact, it can lead me to place a lot of trust in that company going forward, because I know that if something does go wrong I can put some faith in them to sort it out.
Which leads me to PCTV Systems. I've fancied a TV tuner for a while, and finally took the plunge to buy one. I did a bit of research, found one with generally good reviews and went and bought one on Saturday morning.
A PCTV nanoStick.
I installed the drivers for it, as the reviews for the bundled software weren't great, and started up Windows Media Center in earnest (I'll use the popularly used acronym MCE from here for ease of reading). After the boring task of channel searching was over, I excitedly tried out the live TV. I tested a bit of recording. And checked that the cool feature of recording whilst my laptop was on standby worked (another big reason to use MCE).
Then I noticed a few problems. I couldn't get some channels, including Film4 (one of the main channels I wanted a TV tuner for). And sometimes when I scheduled a recording, it just didn't work (I scheduled a recording whilst I was out on Saturday night, something I had wanted to watch for ages and it didn't record). This fault was replicated by me a couple of times over the next couple of days and couldn't work out what was causing it - even if I followed exactly the same steps each time. Obviously playing Russian roulette whenever you try to record something isn't ideal.
In a quest to try and make sense of the issues I was having, I installed the bundled software (TVCenter). After yet more channel searching, I found the channels that weren't working in MCE worked on this software. But some channels were missing completely (including BBC4, another one of my favourites. Yes, I know that makes me mature).
Or were they?
If I went into advanced channel settings, they were there. And I could click on them to view them. But I couldn't add them to my normal channel list.
So I did a so-called 'best quality' channel scan. This took about 45 minutes. And I got the channels. But lost others. Argh!
Some web searches for my problems found other users with similar issues, and no fixes (it seems that just searching for reviews on a product don't always bring up common faults if you don't know what you're looking for).
So my next stop on Sunday was emailing the company that manufactured it, and hoped that I would get some helpful advice.
Did I heck.
I laid out three issues with detailed descriptions on each:
1) Channels which display in TVCenter will not display in Windows Media Center
2) Recording using Windows Media Center only works intermittently
3) Channels not displaying in TVCenter channel list
The reply I received yesterday (Monday) lunchtime said this:
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1.)
TVCenter channel lists are not available for Windows MediaCenter. If you want
use Windows MCE with your PCTV Product, you have to scan with MCE again.
If you have any issues with MCE, please contact http://support.microsoft.com.
Furhter to it, make sure you have closed on TV viewing app if you want use the
other one.
2.)
For all MCE issues please contact http://support.microsoft.com.
3.)
I assume that TVCenter scanned crypted channels also, which we do not support.
Due to it you cannot see them in the main app.
If you are talking about not encrypted channels, can you add them manually?
Further to it, we didn't released the nano Stick for MCE.
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Great help, they just bumped me off to Microsoft, and completely misunderstood most of my problems anyway. Furthermore, they attempted to claim that their product was not compatible with Windows Media Center.
And there was a big, big problem with this. Their website and the product packaging had the words "compatible with Windows Media Center". Hell, the back of the box even had a pretty picture of Windows Media Center alongside these words.
Being a stickler for consumer rights, I got a bit more blunt in my reply, and after a few links to UK consumer law websites explaining how any product sold must be as described, said that I trusted that they would now assist me with my issues and not attempt to palm me off the Microsoft. I even helpfully clarified each issue for the support team.
I also had to introduce a new problem that I had discovered. TVCenter (which was specifically designed for Windows 7) had a setting to place the computer into standby, hibernate or shut it down when it had finished a scheduled recording. This simply didn't work.
I finally got another reply just before 5pm today (Tuesday).
---------------------
thank you for feedback. you do not quite understand, you cannot import thelist of channels from TV center into Media Center, you need to scan for
channels in Media Center again.
---------------------
Now, admittedly, by this point I had already decided to take my product back to where I purchased it and say that it was not as described. But this email annoyed me. My reply was a very blunt:
They outdid themselves and replied just two minutes later.
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thank you for feedback. have you run Windows Media Center and scanned forchannels in Windows Media Center ?
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OK, deep breath. Well, actually, I didn't really need to take a deep breath, as I laughed out loud when I read this on my phone. I already had my replacement product in my hands as the store I had purchased it from had agreed to exchange it for me. I replied just for the hell of it though.
I have wasted literally hours trying to set this product up, so I'm happy to waste a bit of their time now.
I swapped this product for a Hauppage WinTV-HVR 900. And it's been a dream. Compared to a wasted weekend, this took about two minutes to install the necessary drivers, and about 15 minutes to complete the MCE setup. And everything works perfectly, including the nice looking remote control that was bundled with it.
So I can wholeheartedly recommend Hauppage. This is despite me finding out tonight that Hauppage actually purchased PCTV (then called Pinnacle) in December 2008. Clearly, some knowledge transfer between the two companies needs to happen, and fast.
And I must also give a 'great service' mention to PC World in Bath. I've knocked PC World plenty of times in the past, and I think they generally have a bad reputation amongst consumers. But despite me going in armed with emails and prepared to quote consumer law, the representative on the service desk seemed concerned at my experience and was happy to exchange the product there and then. I'm always happy to highlight great service as much as bad.
(And they once swapped a cable with no hassle once that I purchased in error, even though I had opened it and I knew that they were well within their rights to tell me to get lost).
So, congratulations to companies that provide great service. And well done to those who have appropriate systems in place to recover a customer's faith in them. We should always publicly mention them.
But it is also our job to moan about bad service and also not let companies ride roughshod over the very rights that are in place to protect us in the first place. When they do, you owe it to your fellow consumers to moan like hell about it.
n.b. I did threaten to report them to UK trading standards. However, since they started offering (admittedly limited) support for MCE with their product I won't (as I did also say "as I trust that you wouldn't wish I contact UK trading standards about this matter, I expect you will assist me now", and it seems unfair to do so despite their woeful efforts). However, I have satisfied my own morals in letting you all know to avoid this company like the plague.
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