| captainjy | captainjy Member 2006-Jan-5 11:39 pm New to Comcast, complaintsI am probably going to come across as a complainer, but the quality of Comcast compared to DTV is night and day, IMO. We just moved from DTV/Tivo to Comcast's HD/DVR service in Denver and my issues are: The unit is just too loud- even when the TV is on, it can be heard, clicking away, writing to disk. Changing channels is slow- I didn't notice this when they first installed, but it some times take 5 seconds for a channel to change. The volume lowers and then raises at time- not a problem when watching a DVD so it seems like it's the service or the unit. HD programs don't always record as HD- For example, Medium started out in HD, but 5 minutes in, it wasn't. I understand this could be programming. The DVR is a sloppy at best- DTV's Tivo service just blew Comcast's DVR service out of the water. Forwarding and rewinding are slow and for some strange reason, a few of our recorded shows cut off with 15 minutes left and we still have 80% space left to record. I am not complaining for the sake of complaining. I am curious if these issues are common issues and complaints from any of you and if there is anything that can be done about any or all of these issues. Truth is, I am not a DVR/HD expert so please enlighten me if there is something I am missing. Thanks for any input you can provide! |
· actions · 2006-Jan-5 11:39 pm · | |
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CableTool Premium Member 2006-Jan-6 12:39 am Thats all pretty accurate. Ive never had Dtv's so I have no comparison. Most likely so do most that have Comcasts DVR. The only issue you listed that I can agree with from reference is the hard drive. Its noisy as hell. Hopefully the Tivo Comcast Deal will take care of a lot of the software differences. Also Comcast is cutting deals with various manufacturers Ive noticed recently so I am expecting a change at some point. |
· actions · 2006-Jan-6 12:39 am · | |
| captainjy | captainjy Member 2006-Jan-6 1:33 am Thanks for the reply! Glad I am not the only one that is having some of these issues. To be honest, I would like to stay with Comcast, but these issues are enough to make us go back to DTV in the spring when they get local HD channels. DTV carries Universal HD, which is an HD channel I would love to get. I really hope that either Comcast gets better or DTV offers some sweet deals in a few months. Thanks again! |
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| comcrashtic | comcrashtic to captainjy Member 2006-Jan-15 5:34 pm Re: New to Comcast, complaintssaid by captainjy: I am probably going to come across as a complainer, but the quality of Comcast compared to DTV is night and day, IMO. We just moved from DTV/Tivo to Comcast's HD/DVR service in Denver and my issues are... Friend, you couldn't be more right. I was at my cousin's house last night watching the Broncos beat the "unbeatable" New England Patriots. (If Phil Simms had puffed them up any more, they'd be the NE Puffed Rice... but that's another topic.) They have a DTV HD set-up. Because one still cannot get local HD via DTV in Denver, I brought over my directional UHF antenna and we re-formatted their HD-DVR to bring in the local HD channels over-the-air. Oh my gosh, the picture was flawless. Somebody said they were going to throw rocks at their conventional TV when they got home. Then we started to prowl around the rest of their dial. HDNET 1 and 2 looked amazing, Universal-HD too (I hear NBC will use that, in part, for Olympics coverage), HBO, Showtime, both ESPN HD channels-- all of it looked crystal clear. Even the standard def offerings were clearer and brighter than Comcrash, like we were getting the full 480i. I'm waiting for Denver's local HD to be available over the DTV satellite and for the new "H2O" MPEG4 DTV DVR and 5 LNB dish to be available later this year, then I'm gone With the wind. It will be an expensive, one-time changeover. But it will be well worth it. I mean when a $20 UHF antenna gives me a better picture for local HD than Comcast does, with it's gazillions of dollars worth of equipment, something is seriously wrong. Watch MSNBC (channel 65) for a few minutes and tell me what you think of that pathetic picture (faded). We have the pleasure of verticle lines through it, too, because there is supposedly a Spanish language FM radio station bleeding into that frequency band, if you can believe that. I thought the FCC had rules against that sort of thing, and so I even quesiton Comcast's explanation for that. BTW, the Motorola 6412 Phase III box is a disaster with more bugs than Comcast knew how to deal with. They've shipped over 60,000 back to Motorola to fix after more than two failures each in customers' homes. |
· actions · 2006-Jan-15 5:34 pm · | |
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Ebolla Member 2006-Jan-16 1:36 pm can you show proof of this "60,000" units returned? I havent heard of this and all I do in my job is work with DVR's and HD boxes. Not saying no boxes have ever had issues, but you have said this multiple times and said you spoke with a senior tech. How did you get ahold of them? Calling in? no rep would ever direct you to warehouse. ECC? they wouldnt either. No offense, I understand you have had issues and complaints and you should rightfully complain, BUT if you are going to toss out a number like 60,000 units being returned please post actual proof of this. BTW, if 60,000 seatbelts in a car caused an issue the company would be recalling them, not making more units of "defective" equipment.. |
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| captainjy | captainjy to comcrashtic Member 2006-Jan-16 6:21 pm Comcrashtic, I have tried to be patient with Comcast's service, but it's just not very impressive. It's no wonder that they are so competitive with DTV. The day we got Comcast installed, it was almost pristine. Over the last week, there has been a lot of pixelation. And I don't know if it's Comcast or not, but the SD channels are very painful to watch. Not only that, but again, my complaint is that the DVR is horrible. I mean just terribly painful. It's slow and so loud, I can hear it in our kitchen which is 25 feet away! My last complaint is that the Guide is a mess. Some programs in the Guide record as something else. The whole time we were with DTV, we didn't have 1 problem and really only had to clear the dish during the blizzard some time back. Other than that, DTV was stellar. I just hope they run some smoking promos when they get local HD channels because I am ready to ship off myself. Now the more serious stuff- Crush the Steelers!!!!!!!!!! |
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| comcrashtic | comcrashtic to Ebolla Member 2006-Jan-16 7:01 pm It was a technical manager. He called me after I spoke with a CSR about the firmware upgrade to 12.22 from 12.18. He called me inquiring where I had heard about the upgrade. It's his number, not mine. For all I know they were warehousing the boxes for the whole country here, so I don't know if that was just for Denver. And if you read the article on the dslreports main page today, Comcast has commissioned Samsung to start building new set-top boxes in 2007. Initial order is 200,000. And this will put them about 6 months behind the two satellite companies in having MPEG4 capable STBs. » I know you guys don't want to believe the 60,000 number. I was incredulous and asked him. "Did you say 6,000 or 60,000?" And he said 60,000. He also told me they didn't accept the firmware upgrade because they wanted new features for it, including PIP. That is what the man said. Maybe he was exaggerating. I wish I had gotten his name. But I stand by it. said by Ebolla: can you show proof of this "60,000" units returned? I havent heard of this and all I do in my job is work with DVR's and HD boxes. Not saying no boxes have ever had issues, but you have said this multiple times and said you spoke with a senior tech. How did you get ahold of them? Calling in? no rep would ever direct you to warehouse. ECC? they wouldnt either. |
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| captainjy | captainjy Member 2006-Jan-16 7:07 pm So whatever happened to the Tivo/Comcast deal? Won't this partnership bring in new units? |
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| nanoflower | nanoflower Member 2006-Jan-16 10:50 pm No, I don't believe the Tivo deal would bring in new units. The Tivo deal will bring in a new middleware client so it should be just a software update. So when they are ready to roll it out in an area it might be somewhat transparent. Although, then again, maybe not. There might be problems in maintaining data through the change over so it's likely to require either a box replacement or a call to a CSR to order the change over. At least that way no one would be surprised if they lost all of their recorded programs. |
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| captainjy | captainjy Member 2006-Jan-16 11:56 pm Nanoflower, thanks. Tivo would keep me interested if it's a large improvement over Comcast's current offering. As much as I hate to drill this in, compared to DTV, Comcast's quality for us hasn't been very good. HD is pixelated too much, sound is up and down, channels change too slow, and so on. |
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| comcrashtic | comcrashtic Member 2006-Jan-17 8:11 pm Yup. The manager I spoke to at Comcast said there were three scenarios being discussed in the company: 1) A Tivo in place of the Motorola, 2) What Nanoflower said, 3) A choice between the two. This info was from about 12/21/05. Things may have been decided already. said by captainjy: Nanoflower, thanks. Tivo would keep me interested if it's a large improvement over Comcast's current offering. As much as I hate to drill this in, compared to DTV, Comcast's quality for us hasn't been very good. HD is pixelated too much, sound is up and down, channels change too slow, and so on. |
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| rody_44 | rody_44 to captainjy Premium Member 2006-Jan-18 10:03 pm no, boxes are kept whithin a county. ide bet 60,000 would be more then any system even has. lol. |
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| | rody_44 to captainjy Premium Member 2006-Jan-18 10:04 pm back to topic, some are loud it is defective. |
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| | rody_44 to captainjy Premium Member 2006-Jan-18 10:05 pm and also i cant hear mine from a foot away. |
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CableTool to comcrashtic Premium Member 2006-Jan-18 11:00 pm said by comcrashtic: It was a technical manager. He called me after I spoke with a CSR about the firmware upgrade to 12.22 from 12.18. He called me inquiring where I had heard about the upgrade. It's his number, not mine. For all I know they were warehousing the boxes for the whole country here, so I don't know if that was just for Denver. I know you guys don't want to believe the 60,000 number. I was incredulous and asked him. "Did you say 6,000 or 60,000?" And he said 60,000. He also told me they didn't accept the firmware upgrade because they wanted new features for it, including PIP. That is what the man said. Maybe he was exaggerating. I wish I had gotten his name. But I stand by it. Ive seen this posted by you everywhere and thats fine but I too have never heard about this. 60k DVR's is an insane amount. We dont have that much in stock at any given time and Im in Chicago. Its great that he called you and gave you this info... but I have issues with it. For MOTO to take back 60 thousand, even if its Nation Wide then I would think ONE MORE PERSON on this board would be able to step up and say "YEAH! We shipped 5 thousand back from my area..." But no one has even heard of this. Also.. with that INCREDIBLE quality control, what was so buggy about those that made them different then what is buggy out there now? Ive also seen 12.22 on Motos, mainly the 3412's so far. So...er.. somebody SOMEWHERE is accepting the new firmware upgrade.. regardless of what he said. p.s. Maybe BCunningh can shed some light since he is in Col. as well...? |
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| riekl | riekl to captainjy Member 2006-Jan-19 8:38 pm I'm not sure why you guys think this 60k # is so out of the ballpark. Comcast at last check had what ? 20 million subscribers ? If 10 % of them got the DVR service thats 2 million boxes, thats only a 3% defect rate and these 6412's undoubtably have a higher defect rate then 3%. I've been through _6_ 6412's (i have 2 so thats really 3 tradeins for each) and 3-4 tradeins seems to be a common amount. |
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CableTool Premium Member 2006-Jan-19 9:13 pm Its because apparently only one person in the entire company knows about it. That no warehouse has 60,000 DVRs quote:He also told me they didn't accept the firmware upgrade because they wanted new features for it, including PIP I have seen firmware 12.22 in the field so for some manager to say they refused to load it isnt accurate either. Hell, Id like to see PIP enabled as well but I am not going to refuse a Firmware version because it fixes other crap but will not give me PIP? I see someone covering their ass. Why is my DVR so buggy? pfft. |
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| rody_44 | rody_44 to captainjy Premium Member 2006-Jan-19 9:20 pm boy comcast would love to have 10 percent of subs with dvrs. probably less then 1 percent tho. |
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nascar Member 2006-Jan-20 7:56 am said by rody_44: boy comcast would love to have 10 percent of subs with dvrs. probably less then 1 percent tho. Yeah, maybe if Comcast, Motorola, GuideWorks, and who ever else is to blame can fix these buggy SOB's then they would have 10% deployed. |
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| zdman8 | zdman8 to captainjy Member 2006-Jan-20 11:56 am said by captainjy: The unit is just too loud. Since I have been using two of these units for about a year now after switching from dishnetwork's pvr I thought I would throw in my 2 cents worth, maybe I am just one of the lucky ones: Unit is loud: Mine are quiet enough that I don't notice anything at all, on either of my 2 units. But then my old dishplayer had no fan and I had to put an external fan (it was very loud) on it to keep it from burning anyone who touched it. So I will gladly accept a little noise if it keeps the unit running cool. I do notice if I am setting within 3 or 4 feet of the unit that I can hear the hard drive chatter a little, but I cannot hear it from 10 feet away where I normally sit. Changing Channels is slow: Compared to my old dishplayer, it is fairly fast. I know dish actually added a patch that buffered a little video before it showed up on the screen. I think this helped prevent some sync problems. I will say that I have hooked an antenna up directly to my sony wega and it takes a while to switch to HD channels too. Not sure why, maybe digital is not always faster. Volume changes: I have never noticed this on either unit. It still seems to me that all commercials are too loud, but I skip through those most the time anyway. HD programs dont always record as HD: I record a lot. Probably close to 20 hours a week, some HD, some SD. I have never had this problem. I have seen the local HD channels mess up now and then where shows that should be HD were broadcast as 4:3 SD on the HD channel. Have not seen it lately though and this was also happening via my over the air antenna so I dont think it was the box. Forwarding and rewinding are slow: I think there are 4 or 5 different FFW and RWW speeds. I can only compare to the dishplayer and they seemed about the same, except that the highest speed is not near as fast as the dishplayers X300 FFW and RWW. Fast Forward and rewind when viewing ON-Demand is really slow. I dont use FFW much, typically use the skip foward and skip back buttons. Recorded shows cut off: I have never seen this problem on either box. In my experience, the motorola boxes are much more stable than my old dishplayer ( I never had directv or TIVO so I cannot compare them). I had to reboot and reset my old dishplayer at least every other month and it would take up to an hour to get it all loaded again (usually had to do this after a software update was sent). The dishplayer did have much better search features than the motorola and I miss those. It also seemed a little more user friendly. Just an FYI, I leave my 6412s on all the time, every week or two I will hit the power button, let it go off for a minute and then turn it back on, just to make sure it is clearing out its memory and such. The biggest complaint I have with the units (both do this) is that at times, usually around the hour or half hour mark, the keypresses lag. It just stores them up and then they execute about 10 seconds later (have actually seen it take as long as 30 seconds). The only other issue is the crappy picture on analog stations. If they would fix keypress delay, get digital simulcast going and give me a good search mode, I would be one happy camper. |
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celeritypc Premium Member 2006-Jan-20 1:36 pm said by zdman8: I thought I would throw in my 2 cents worth, maybe I am just one of the lucky ones... For what its worth, I seem to be one of the lucky ones too. I have had my box for 13 months with no real problems. I record HD all the time and it plays back not only in HD but with 5.1 sound. The box is not noisy other than the occasional hard drive write. I do turn the box on and off several times during the day. I record and delete programs several times a week as well as I have several shows archived. The only issues I have ever had with this box are the black screen at power on (hasn't happened for at least 4 months) and the command queuing. Both problems have not been show-stoppers for me. |
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| np23 | np23 Member 2006-Jan-20 2:26 pm said by celeritypc: said by zdman8: I thought I would throw in my 2 cents worth, maybe I am just one of the lucky ones... For what its worth, I seem to be one of the lucky ones too. I have had my box for 13 months with no real problems. I record HD all the time and it plays back not only in HD but with 5.1 sound. The box is not noisy other than the occasional hard drive write. ditto...I sit 5 feet away one unit and hear nothing. I do turn the box on and off several times during the day. Mines on almost 24/7 I record and delete programs several times a week as well as I have several shows archived. ditto The only issues I have ever had with this box are the black screen at power on (hasn't happened for at least 4 months) and the command queuing. Both problems have not been show-stoppers for me. I get command queing sometimes, no biggie. I got the "phantom recording" once, unplugged and it was fixed. Not all Motos are crap. |
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| get me some to rody_44 Anon 2006-Jan-20 3:20 pm They would also like to have 100% of their 20 million subs to have the digital boxes, not the 30 to 40% tjhey actually have. |
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| bcunningh | bcunningh to rody_44 Member 2006-Jan-20 7:35 pm said by rody_44: boy comcast would love to have 10 percent of subs with dvrs. probably less then 1 percent tho. Actually according to the 3Q05 conference call advanced STB penetration (includes HD and DVR) among digital subs is 22%. Source: »mediastockblog.com/article/4310 |
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CableTool Premium Member 2006-Jan-20 8:24 pm I also read a new article a few days ago Ive been trying to find again, it stated digital STB rentals among cable companies was up a pretty large percentage from the year before. Largely due to HD and DVR's. |
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