Comcast DVR - Worst piece of technology ever?

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obeseotron

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
1,910
0
0
I moved from NYC (Time Warner) to NJ (Comcast) and never gave much thought to the change in cable service. I had a DVR box for years in the city from TWC, and it more or less always worked. With TWC, a box died on me once, the hard drive was pretty small, and fast forward and rewind were quite choppy. Not quite a Tivo experience, but it worked. Never missed a single show I asked it to record, never recorded a repeat I didn't ask it to, and never just stopped recording. Now that I've endured Comcast for a few months, I'm just about ready to cancel cable it's so bad.

My complaints so far:
-No coax output
-Did not come with cables (not even a power cable, I had to go back to the center and make a scene to get one)
-No concept of new or rerun shows (Daily Show records 4 times a day, despite setting the series recording to only record new episodes)
-No ability to series record sports (ex: record all Yankee games)
-Does not delete old shows when it runs out of space (just stops recording anything)
-Does not delete old shows when quota of a certain show is reached
-Randomly decides not to record certain shows (It skipped Lost and Inside the NFL last night)
-If you are recording one program, you may not change the channel without interupting the recording. This is a dual tuner box.
-Two shows will record simultaneously, but switching between them requires picking one from the DVR menu and starting from the beginning every time you want to switch.
-I had no idea hard drives as loud as the one in this box were still made. (I can hear it across the room, even while sitting next to my PC with 4 7200RPM drives in it.)
-New On Demand programming will not show up without unplugging and replugging the box.
-Calling Comcast results in 15 minutes hold time followed by an operator with an accent and IQ reminiscent of Cletus the slack-jawed yokel.


I have more complaints but this post is already too long.

Edited for clarity.
 
S

SLCentral

Diamond Member
Feb 13, 2003
3,542
0
71
Originally posted by: obeseotron
I moved from NYC (Time Warner) to NJ (Comcast) and never gave much thought to the change in cable service. I had a DVR box for years in the city from TWC, and it more or less always worked. A box died on me once, the hard drive was pretty small, and fast forward and rewind were quite choppy. Not quite a Tivo experience, but it worked. Now that I've endured Comcast for a few months, I'm just about ready to cancel cable it's so bad.

My complaints so far:
-No coax output
-Did not come with cables (not even a power cable, I had to go back to the center and make a scene to get one)
-No concept of new or rerun shows (Daily Show records 4 times a day, despite setting the series recording to only record new episodes)
-No ability to series record sports (ex: record all Yankee games)
-Does not delete old shows when it runs out of space
-Does not delete old shows when quota of a certain show is reached
-Randomly decides not to record certain shows (It skipped Lost and Inside the NFL last night)
-If you are recording one program, you may not change the channel without interupting the recording. This is a dual tuner box.
-Two shows will record simultaneously, but switching between them requires picking one from the DVR menu and starting from the beginning every time you want to switch.
-I had no idea hard drives as loud as the one in this box were still made. (I can hear it across the room, even while sitting next to my PC with 4 7200RPM drives in it.)
-New On Demand programming will not show up without unplugging and replugging the box.
-Calling Comcast results in 15 minutes hold time followed by an operator with an accent and IQ reminiscent of Cletus the slack-jawed yokel.


I have more complaints but this post is already too long.
Click to expand...

FYI, to be able to switch between two recordings, or change the channel while recording, you can use the Swap button on your Comcast remote to do so. If it doesn't work, google it, it may need to be unlocked on your remote.
 
BrokenVisage

BrokenVisage

Lifer
Jan 29, 2005
24,772
14
81
While Comcast DVR is by no means perfect, I love my box and it hasn't failed on me for over a year now.
 
Gooberlx2

Gooberlx2

Lifer
May 4, 2001
15,381
6
91
Originally posted by: obeseotron
I moved from NYC (Time Warner) to NJ (Comcast) and never gave much thought to the change in cable service. I had a DVR box for years in the city from TWC, and it more or less always worked. A box died on me once, the hard drive was pretty small, and fast forward and rewind were quite choppy. Not quite a Tivo experience, but it worked. Now that I've endured Comcast for a few months, I'm just about ready to cancel cable it's so bad.

My complaints so far:
1. No coax output
2. Did not come with cables (not even a power cable, I had to go back to the center and make a scene to get one)
3. No concept of new or rerun shows (Daily Show records 4 times a day, despite setting the series recording to only record new episodes)
4. No ability to series record sports (ex: record all Yankee games)
5. Does not delete old shows when it runs out of space
6. Does not delete old shows when quota of a certain show is reached
7. Randomly decides not to record certain shows (It skipped Lost and Inside the NFL last night)
8. If you are recording one program, you may not change the channel without interupting the recording. This is a dual tuner box.
9. Two shows will record simultaneously, but switching between them requires picking one from the DVR menu and starting from the beginning every time you want to switch.
10. I had no idea hard drives as loud as the one in this box were still made. (I can hear it across the room, even while sitting next to my PC with 4 7200RPM drives in it.)
11. New On Demand programming will not show up without unplugging and replugging the box.
12. Calling Comcast results in 15 minutes hold time followed by an operator with an accent and IQ reminiscent of Cletus the slack-jawed yokel.

I have more complaints but this post is already too long.
Click to expand...

Numbered for your convenience.

1. True, definitely irritating
2. That sucks. Never had that problem. The installation tech should have given you one, unless you picked it up at the center to begin with.
3. Don't delete the recorded show. MTV is the worst. It will re-record any series show that's labeled as "new" everytime you delete it. Shows like The Real World are aired like 400,000x in one week, for that week until the next new episode is aired for a week.
4. Never tried this, I don't watch sports.
5. Works fine for me, at least with automatically recorded shows. Manually recorded shows are kept until you delete them it seems.
6. same as above.
7. Never had this problem.
8. You can, you have to hit the SWAP button to change tuners. It's stupid and could be easily fixed with a shceduled firmware upgrade, but I digress.
9. Never really tried to watch two shows whist they're both recording, but I imagine that would be irritating. Try watching one of or both of them via My DVR instead. atleast it will remember your position that way....or should.
10. Yes, it is quite loud.
11. Haven't had this problem.
12. True.

Some good points. Good frustrations. Hopefully some of the workarounds I mentioned might help.
 
Skeeedunt

Skeeedunt

Platinum Member
Oct 7, 2005
2,777
3
76
Wow, I don't have any of those problems with mine. I do, however, have the problem where it keeps freezing and having to be reset at the power switch. Which is apparently quite common.
 
Linflas

Linflas

Lifer
Jan 30, 2001
15,395
78
91
A couple of things that annoy the hell out of me:
1. Doesn't remember where you stopped when you are playing back a program and stop it to watch something live,

2. No "skip" feature at all. With my DirecTivo I can hit the skip while fast forwarding and jump ahead +/- 10 minutes.

3. Kludgy as hell to stop a program and change back to live TV.

Edit: If it does do this stuff somehow I wouldn't know because Comcast doesn't hand out a manual with it and nothing about the box is intuitive.
 
O

obeseotron

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
1,910
0
0
Originally posted by: Gooberlx2

Numbered for your convenience.

1. True, definitely irritating
2. That sucks. Never had that problem. The installation tech should have given you one, unless you picked it up at the center to begin with.
3. Don't delete the recorded show. MTV is the worst. It will re-record any series show that's labeled as "new" everytime you delete it. Shows like The Real World are aired like 400,000x in one week, for that week until the next new episode is aired for a week.
4. Never tried this, I don't watch sports.
5. Works fine for me, at least with automatically recorded shows. Manually recorded shows are kept until you delete them it seems.
6. same as above.
7. Never had this problem.
8. You can, you have to hit the SWAP button to change tuners. It's stupid and could be easily fixed with a shceduled firmware upgrade, but I digress.
9. Never really tried to watch two shows whist they're both recording, but I imagine that would be irritating. Try watching one of or both of them via My DVR instead. atleast it will remember your position that way....or should.
10. Yes, it is quite loud.
11. Haven't had this problem.
12. True.

Some good points. Good frustrations. Hopefully some of the workarounds I mentioned might help.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice on the swap button. It comes up when I watch football on sundays mostly. There are two games aired at the same time on most Sundays, but since commercials, half time, timeouts and challenges make up about half the game you can more or less watch every play of both games. Outside of sports I don't see how this would come up.
 
Skeeedunt

Skeeedunt

Platinum Member
Oct 7, 2005
2,777
3
76
Originally posted by: Linflas
A couple of things that annoy the hell out of me:
1. Doesn't remember where you stopped when you are playing back a program and stop it to watch something live,

2. No "skip" feature at all. With my DirecTivo I can hit the skip while fast forwarding and jump ahead +/- 10 minutes.

3. Kludgy as hell to stop a program and change back to live TV.

Edit: If it does do this stuff somehow I wouldn't know because Comcast doesn't hand out a manual with it and nothing about the box is intuitive.
Click to expand...

If I actually hit the Stop button during a recorded show, it will resume from that spot when I go to play it again. You'd have to open up the guide again to switch to whatever channel you were going to though.
 
ultimatebob

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,134
2,450
126
Comcast seems to be pretty inept, and I don't even have service from them yet! They just took over Adelphia in my area, and they transferred me from the Adelphia office to the Comcast Colorado office, to the Connecticut Comcast office, and then back to Adelphia! At that point, I just gave up.

It sounds like I might end up missing the Scientific Atlanta DVR that I just returned to Charter today. Other than the occassional unexpected reboot on weekends (firmware updates, I guess), it worked like a charm.
 
J

jordanz

Senior member
Apr 27, 2005
275
0
0
Newer DVRs do have coax output.

Edit: I'd suggest calling and having a newer DVR put in, because if your newer onDemand stuff doesn't register, the firmware for the Guide or on the box might be corrupt.
 
J

Jack Ryan

Golden Member
Jun 11, 2004
1,353
0
0
Gooberlx2

Gooberlx2

Lifer
May 4, 2001
15,381
6
91
Ugh! this is the one that pisses me off the most!

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_to_use...watching_live_TV_or_a_recorded_program

The box may stop responding to the remote while watching live TV or a recorded program

* Note: The show will play back fine without stutter. When you press fast-forward or rewind, the box will ignore you. This goes on for maybe 30-60secs. Then, the box will respond to all the buttons you have pressed, leaving you in a very confused state. Intensely annoying.**
* Cause: Unknown
* Remedy: Unknown

** It has been my experience that this also happens WHEN you're fast forwarding or rewinding, so when it ignores your commands, it blasts waaaay past the point where you wanted to be. And this behavior is "clumped", so when it working fine you have nothing to worry about, but when it starts doing this chances are it'll do it again. So it'll probably just blast past your spot again when you try to correct it.
 
dabuddha

dabuddha

Lifer
Apr 10, 2000
19,579
17
81
Originally posted by: Linflas
A couple of things that annoy the hell out of me:
1. Doesn't remember where you stopped when you are playing back a program and stop it to watch something live,

2. No "skip" feature at all. With my DirecTivo I can hit the skip while fast forwarding and jump ahead +/- 10 minutes.

3. Kludgy as hell to stop a program and change back to live TV.

Edit: If it does do this stuff somehow I wouldn't know because Comcast doesn't hand out a manual with it and nothing about the box is intuitive.
Click to expand...

1. Mine always remember where I stopped watching a recorded program.
2. That would be cool if it had that :/
3. I just hit the exit button to switch back to live TV or just punch in the channel.
 
V

Vortex22

Diamond Member
Sep 6, 2000
4,976
1
81
I have a Scientific Atlanta 8000HD from Brighthouse (basically Timewarner), and it's never given me any problems at all. I especially like the ability to record two shows at the same time while watching a third (recorded) show.
 
B

blackdogdeek

Lifer
Mar 14, 2003
14,453
10
81
we had to have our comcast hd-dvr replaced about 5 times before we got a unit that wouldn't eventually just stop working (no playback, no recording, no on demand, no guide, etc). the most annoying time was when the tech didn't bring out some bit of equipment he needed and never returned though he said he would.

the most annoying bug was when there was no sound and we realized that the dvr's own mute function was in effect. unfortunately, by default the remote's mute button is mapped to the tv's mute function so that didn't remedy the problem. luckily, i read through one of the many angry blogs and forums about the comcast hd-dvr and found instructions on how to map the dvr's mute function to the button of your choosing on the remote. i chose the "mute" button :)
 
J

jdini76

Platinum Member
Mar 16, 2001
2,468
0
0
Originally posted by: dabuddha
Originally posted by: Linflas
A couple of things that annoy the hell out of me:
1. Doesn't remember where you stopped when you are playing back a program and stop it to watch something live,

2. No "skip" feature at all. With my DirecTivo I can hit the skip while fast forwarding and jump ahead +/- 10 minutes.

3. Kludgy as hell to stop a program and change back to live TV.

Edit: If it does do this stuff somehow I wouldn't know because Comcast doesn't hand out a manual with it and nothing about the box is intuitive.
Click to expand...

1. Mine always remember where I stopped watching a recorded program.
2. That would be cool if it had that :/
3. I just hit the exit button to switch back to live TV or just punch in the channel.
Click to expand...

2. There is a skip. The only prblem is that it is not set to any buttons on the Comcast remote.

I have the logitech 880 remote, and I have set one of the buttons to "Advance". It skips in 30 sec chunks.
 
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