About a month ago, I somehow stumbled across Velocity Micro. They provided a very attractive price for HTPCs with CableCard tuners in them as compared to say, VidaBox and Niveus Media. Well, as they say - you get what you pay for.
After receiving my machine and having some not particularly qualified for prime time installers attempt to pair the cable cards to the tuners (this was really an excruciating process...having to tell them what numbers to read...) - the signal still wouldn't show up. I could get basic cable at times, but no digital and no HD - defeats the whole purpose of this machine.
Anywhoo...I call VM's tech support (i.e. Bobby Joe sitting next to Great Aunt May - I kid you not) and when I was finally put in touch with someone and stated my question - well...I didn't get to state my question - about 4 or 5 words in and he cut me off and very argumentatively said "I'm not going to speak to any cable people". Great tech support...way to get things started.
Now, to be fair...I'm a bit of a boiling pot right now while we're getting everything ready for the wedding - so this was really not the time to piss me off...so I pretty much unloaded on him, somewhat to the effect of "I just paid $3500 for this ...<fill in your choice of words> ...you're going to let me finish my sentence." Of course, after which ...all I was asking if it was okay to plug the tuners into the external USB ports rather than the mobo's USB headers.
Gomer had it out for me at that point it seems and probed as to why I had this question, and I explained that I swapped the case out and put a better power supply on it (Antec Phantoms are insanely quiet!). He then blurted out "well YOU just voided your warranty - I can't help you".
While the latter part of that statement was true for oh so many reasons, Velocity Micro advertises that they use more or less off the shelf parts so that you can customize it any way you want. Not to mention, when I spoke with the sales person on the phone - they said that changing cases wasn't a problem at all. Not to mention THE WARRANTY SAYS IT'S OKAY!!
Excerpt from warranty:
"Removal or addition of hardware inside a Velocity Micro system DOES NOT [e.d. NO editorial emphasis added there - that's exactly how the contract reads] void the customer's warranty for the remainder of the unchanged and unmodified computer components, unless the changes or parts damage other components that are covered."
So...you're not going to provide a warranty on the case or power supply? Okay..cool. Alas, they don't exactly see it that way. So after ranting after that and screaming for a manager ...and waiting 10 more minutes...I got one who at least put me through to an arguably competent, sorta, tech person who, of course, blamed everything on the cable company.
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Oh..back track a tad - they claimed that since I changed my power supply, my warranty was voided. I fail to see how that lives up to the warranty contract, not to mention the manager stated that it was a "significant change". Now...I don't know about you, but I've built a ton of computers and have a rack of servers sitting in a spare bedroom - I'm pretty sure I can handle a case change and a power supply swap without it being significant. Of course, my response was "Could you please tell me how removing eight or ten screws from the motherboard and screwing them back in somewhere else constitutes a major change?"
</digression>
Well, after a little playing around - I'm not sure that I buy that ...and as it stands, my $3500 investment is largely a piece of junk aside from the fact that it has a BluRay / HD combo drive in it. The sad fact is, VM offers miserable support and is simply too small to be playing in this space. I'm honestly considering filing a complaint with CableLabs to see if they'll revoke their certification for the ATI cards given that they seemingly can't support them. I've spent the majority of the time playing around with and fixing things myself rather than their poor advice of "re-install Windows"...which I did.
At any rate, bottom line is - avoid Velocity Micro for your HTPC needs. I'm strongly considering selling it and getting a Vida Box. If nothing else, they have awesome dealers - heck, one in Phoenix is actually researching issues with Cox Communications and the ATI tuners / cable cards, to see if there's anything that might be wrong...of course, he said the few Vida Boxes he's installed (with the HD tuners) in the area...have had no problems at all...go figure.