In 2006 we bought a Toshiba RD-XS35 DVR while we were living in an apartment in Nebraska. The DVR worked fine and did as promised while we lived in Nebraska. Late in 2007 we moved back to our house in Colorado. After the move we found the DVD tray would open and not close whenever power was applied. Of course I found our warranty had expired and I had to pay to send the DVR back for repairs. Everything worked fine until early last year, around June 2009. It was then that I noticed the TV Guide on-screen had stopped working, making programming the DVR annoying at best. After trying to re-setup the DVR numerous times I finally decided to try contacting Toshiba technical support. This started my long term relationship with the Advanced Services Group (ASG) at Toshiba.
First contact with Toshiba ASG occurred on September 11, 2009. We stepped through the key sequences to do a low level reset of the DVR and they told me to call back if that didn't fix the problem. It didn't. I even checked with Comcast after the first call to see if they were blocking the necessary TVGOS analog signal. Comcast said they were not blocking any analog signal. I've contacted the Toshiba ASG by phone three times since and each time resulted in stepping through the same sequence to capture diagnostics and then resetting the device. Each call ended in a promise that they would pass the diagnostics to "The Engineers" at Rovi (Macrovision) and get back to me. After not hearing anything from Toshiba ASG I would call again and go through the same ritual.
Now on April 9, 2010, the problem with the DVR is still happening and I've heard nothing from Toshiba ASG. So I sent them an email trying to explain my frustration and receive a reply that says, "My team here in Advanced Services Group have done everything that we have been asked by "Rovi" (Macrovision) and I understand that this has to cause frustration on the customer's behalf, especially when there seems to be no resolution. Since this is a third party affiliation, it is hard for us to do much when we are at the mercy of another company and the programming." Toshiba ASG didn't seem to understand that expecting me to call back, e-mail them or otherwise follow-up after providing them the requested information is unreasonable. Communication is two-way and the protocol required a response from them. The matter is closed and I will never buy nor recommend another Toshiba product under any name.
I am reminded of an episode with a 1986 Chrysler Voyager mini-Van. The van suffered from vapor lock and eventually in the mid 90's became totally gutless which is fatal living in mountainous country. I kept taking this van back to Chrysler over and over, eventually I only dealt with the manager when I would drop the van off to have it looked at. On the last visit, the eleventh, the manager had the moxie to tell me as we stood looking under the van's hood that, "those Mitsubishi engines always were crap", and then incredibly walking away toward the showroom said, "interested in looking at a new van?"
What that Chrysler manager and Toshiba ASG don't understand is that I didn't buy anything from their suppliers, either Mitsubishi or Rovi. They each made the design decision to buy something rather than build in-house. Even more important, they made promises to their customers about the capabilities and functionality of their products. These are not the failures of individuals within the companies, but instead a statement on poor quality products and lack of support capabilities. These things cost money for stock holders, so they are willing to drive customers away.
The Toshiba DVR issue is closed, not by Toshiba, but Comcast instead. On the same day I e-mailed Toshiba this last time I received a letter from Comcast telling me that to "improve my digital experience" they were going to require that any TV (and other devices) would need either a set top box or digital adapter to receive their service. So the Toshiba DVR will become a very expensive DVD player and I will never buy another Toshiba product. I guess Toshiba is the winner here since they managed to not fix their product at the expense of only one lifetime customer. Makes you wonder how long they can keep doing this kind of support.
