Comcast DVR piece of CRAP!!!

Yes, it certainly is...

Hope you weather the storm alright.

 

Though to be fair, if these are real EBS messages (whatever the new term for EBS is), the Tivo will change channels and stop recordings on you too.. (and not restart the recording afterwards)

 

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Out of curiosity, what software is on your unit? Is it iGuide?

 

We had Microsoft Foundation software on our Comcast PVR here in the Seattle area. That user interface was tolerable. There were occasional glitches of programs not getting recorded (or recorded empty).

Recently iGuide rolled out here and the within two days of suffering under iGuide's more primitive interface, my wife insisted that we go back to TiVo. You couldn't mask off unsubscribed channels. Favorite channel list would sort of help, but you could only cruise up your favorite channels, not down. The grid guide was likewise clogged with unsubscribed channels. You could see a grid of your favorite channels but that always flipped to channel 2 no matter what position you were at. Stopping and deleting a program seemed to kick you one layer further out of the menu than one would expect. Fast forward and reverse control wasn't as easy. It was the most effective thing Comcast ever did to make a TiVo HD look enticing.

It took $1000 to do a new machine, subscription and drive updgrade plus a whole weekend getting the cable cards and everything sorted it but was worth it to get rid of iGuide and have the intuitive and reliable TiVo interface. The option of going to 100 hours of HD capacity was also a big plus.

 

I have the comcast DVR and have never had any problems in the 18 months that I have had it. I would like a S3 but I dont want to spend that amount of money. I also have a ser 2 thats on another TV in a different room. I guess you might have a different brand of DVR than what comcast uses in my area.

 

My tivo did the same exact thing during the storms last week, so its not Comcast's fault.

 

EXACTLY the same thing?

Wouldn't let you get to a channel that was providing needed information? Locked itself on a channel that wasn't giving up to date info, and allowed only video but no sound?

By the way...

The device's name is spelled "TiVo", not "tivo".

 

The thing is, the alert was issued via the EBS, which on any comcast box displays EBS on the channel display, so it cuts to the channel that the EBS is on. Of course the DVR and tivo is going to turn to those channels automatically.

The funny thing is, my weatherbig issued a Tornado warning 2 minutes prior to the EBS, as I went downstairs from my room upstairs and told my wife that we are under a tornado warning and just as I finished saying it, the EBS kicked in and stopped the tivo from recording something on HBO and tuned into the EBS channel. By the time I got back upstairs(the tornado warning was for south Porter County, and I live in north Porter County) to call my friend who lived in the path of the tornado, the warning was over and I could turn on Fox in Chcago to see the power doppler feed. Of course I also was watching the radar on their website as well ( http://media.myfoxchicago.com/wx/files/live1.html ) already when the initial alert went through the weatherbug.

So you got stuck with a gray screen, but keep in mind, it did give you the required info from the NWS as well, if you were listening.

 

Your TiVo refused to go back to normal operation AFTER the end of a EAS alert, as Philosofy is describing?

Operative phrase here being AFTER the end of a EAS alert.

During is one thing, but After????

Philosofy's problem was that when the warning was over, he could not turn on another channel.

 

Not right away I couldn't. It took about 30 seconds for the gray screen to go away and for the cable box to turn off the EBS, but after that, it was smooth sailing on turning the channel back.

He probably wanted to turn the channel right away, which it wouldn't allow him to do because the EBS overrode the box, thus not allowing it to be changed. Once the EBS was over, and the over writing was turned off, he was free to turn the channel.

That happens regardless of whether you have a DVR or not is what I am saying, and that was straight from Comcast's reps that I spoke with yesterday about it as well.

HE was upset because he wanted to turn to Fox right after it was issued, and the EBS would not let him until it was over, which is exactly what the EBS is supposed to do, not allow the people to change the channel until the warning is issued for the alloted time.

 

So im clear, you left your coax plugged in to your dvr instead of plugging it in to your tv to get these warnings?

You put yourself in danger because your an idiot, lol. I would have unplugged it and had a direct feed into my tv if i couldnt get it through my dvr.

 

Yep, I agree the Comcast HD-DVR is crap. I went through 3 of them before giving up and paying the price for a Series 3. I got tired of the partial recordings, lockups, and unexpected resets. The final straw was the iguide update. The Comcast guide was crap, but after the 'upgrade' it became intolerable.

 

What good is plugging the coax into the TV if all you ever watch is the DVR?