briandigital
02-11-2008, 11:51 PM
Hello all,
For my first post here I was going to tell the story of my last two weeks of running the DCH3416 HD Comcast TiVo box. But it has been one has been one disaster after another. When my post broke 2,500 words, I decided to save it for my blog, and simply link it up here:
<http://recently.rainweb.net/hive/1139/>
First post here, but I've had a Series II Toshiba SD-H400 TiVo (with TiVo basic subscription and built-in DVD player) since they were available. May I add that's been a trouble-free ~4+ years.
Here's the list of reproducible bugs from that post (that I can remember, since my box is currently FUBAR for the second time in the two weeks we've had it)
Took forever to install. All service requires a technician in your home.
There's no power button on the remote for the TiVo box
Nearly every button press has a delay before the box reacts. Sometimes several seconds.
Menu screens don't slide over, they just appear, without TiVo's trademark user interface classiness.
Sound effects: The correct effect would begin to play, but half way through the sound, it would start to play whatever the previous sound had been.
if you're typing in a name for a search recording, and you clicked left too many times (easy when the box is a solid 2 seconds behind your button presses - often more) you would slide back a screen, losing everything you had just typed in for the search.
When you were watching a channel, if there was a TiVo suggested recording coming up, it would interrupt you on the channel you were watching, (where the other tuner was doing nothing) and say "I'd like to change the channel to record a TiVo Suggestion" if you're not sitting in front of the tube at that moment, I can only assume it would automatically answer in the affirmative and leave what you were currently watching and start recording something else.
If you pause a live program and walk away from our Series II box, you get 45 minutes of buffer before the box would automatically start playing (unless you had already set the box to record the program you were watching). This box has a much shorted buffer, maybe 20 minutes.
Setting Season Passes or any similar special recording, it takes at least a minute to register, probably closer to two. Ridiculously slow (compared to four year old TiVo). Setting regular recordings takes about half that time, but about 80% longer than on the old box.
We find double recordings on the recording list. One would have about 2 minutes of the episode, and then end. The other recording would be complete. Unless the last minute or two were missing.
System yesterday began missing scheduled recordings
We can no longer delete any program from the TiVo recordings list
Box is currently stuck in a two minute boot, show live tv, be totally unresponsive and then reboot cycle. An infinite loop that several power cycles could not end.
My advice, buy a stand alone, TiVo-built box, or at minimum, wait till you hear the "all's well" from this forum.
Much, much more in my post about the multiple melt downs that my box has endured and the endless hours with service calls, appointments, and missed appointments. The experience for my is so bad that I feel early adopters with this many problems should, at very least, not have to pay the monthly fee until Comcast has these bugs out. We are essentially paying to beta test these. And they're some of the roughest beta software I've ever used.
Here's hoping the Comcast rep sees this post!
Please feel free to comment on either the list or the blog post here, or on my blog's comment section.
For my first post here I was going to tell the story of my last two weeks of running the DCH3416 HD Comcast TiVo box. But it has been one has been one disaster after another. When my post broke 2,500 words, I decided to save it for my blog, and simply link it up here:
<http://recently.rainweb.net/hive/1139/>
First post here, but I've had a Series II Toshiba SD-H400 TiVo (with TiVo basic subscription and built-in DVD player) since they were available. May I add that's been a trouble-free ~4+ years.
Here's the list of reproducible bugs from that post (that I can remember, since my box is currently FUBAR for the second time in the two weeks we've had it)
Took forever to install. All service requires a technician in your home.
There's no power button on the remote for the TiVo box
Nearly every button press has a delay before the box reacts. Sometimes several seconds.
Menu screens don't slide over, they just appear, without TiVo's trademark user interface classiness.
Sound effects: The correct effect would begin to play, but half way through the sound, it would start to play whatever the previous sound had been.
if you're typing in a name for a search recording, and you clicked left too many times (easy when the box is a solid 2 seconds behind your button presses - often more) you would slide back a screen, losing everything you had just typed in for the search.
When you were watching a channel, if there was a TiVo suggested recording coming up, it would interrupt you on the channel you were watching, (where the other tuner was doing nothing) and say "I'd like to change the channel to record a TiVo Suggestion" if you're not sitting in front of the tube at that moment, I can only assume it would automatically answer in the affirmative and leave what you were currently watching and start recording something else.
If you pause a live program and walk away from our Series II box, you get 45 minutes of buffer before the box would automatically start playing (unless you had already set the box to record the program you were watching). This box has a much shorted buffer, maybe 20 minutes.
Setting Season Passes or any similar special recording, it takes at least a minute to register, probably closer to two. Ridiculously slow (compared to four year old TiVo). Setting regular recordings takes about half that time, but about 80% longer than on the old box.
We find double recordings on the recording list. One would have about 2 minutes of the episode, and then end. The other recording would be complete. Unless the last minute or two were missing.
System yesterday began missing scheduled recordings
We can no longer delete any program from the TiVo recordings list
Box is currently stuck in a two minute boot, show live tv, be totally unresponsive and then reboot cycle. An infinite loop that several power cycles could not end.
My advice, buy a stand alone, TiVo-built box, or at minimum, wait till you hear the "all's well" from this forum.
Much, much more in my post about the multiple melt downs that my box has endured and the endless hours with service calls, appointments, and missed appointments. The experience for my is so bad that I feel early adopters with this many problems should, at very least, not have to pay the monthly fee until Comcast has these bugs out. We are essentially paying to beta test these. And they're some of the roughest beta software I've ever used.
Here's hoping the Comcast rep sees this post!
Please feel free to comment on either the list or the blog post here, or on my blog's comment section.