Is there no one that can make a responsive cable box?

[TheAdvocate]

I have an old SA 8300HD and I like it fine, although the HD's in them tend to crap out.

So I went to get a box for my new plasma downstairs, and TWC gave me a Samsung SMT-H3050 (no DVR model).

It's a piece of crap. Picture freezes constantly, sound goes in and out, and the delay on the guide is so bad that you can be on the ESPN line, and it's showing the day's lineup on AMC or BRAVO. Fuggin hate it. It's not just a latency issue, because my SA box has no such issue.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: NSFW
Moxi

i have a moxi hd dvr just sitting here, waiting for Time Warner to play nice with cable card rentals.
I have a Scientific Atlanta box that I absolutely would enjoy throwing out the window, running down to the street with a bat, proceed to go Office Space upon its remains, and then drive to Time Warner's local office, walk in, stand in line, and when I get a turn at the counter proceed to simply throw the box over the CS representative's head and walk away, without saying a word.


cannot wait to use this Moxi. Had it hooked up to the digital cable without a box and browsed the local hd channels very snappily. Wonder if the cable card will slow it down...

 

[rh71]

The cablevision cable box (Scientific Atlanta) takes forever to respond. The FIOS cable box (Motorola) does not. Go with a better company that uses dependable shit.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Here's a suggestion: Use the guide that is slowing things down to find out what you want to watch and go directly to it rather than scrolling through 500 channels of senate subcommittee hearings, infomercials and Spanish soap operas.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: rh71
The cablevision cable box (Scientific Atlanta) takes forever to respond. The FIOS cable box (Motorola) does not. Go with a better company that uses dependable shit.

I can't. The "free marketers" seem to think my local government monopy cable company should be allowed to "compete freely". Which means no FIOS here. No southern exposure for satellite.

If there was only some way the public could do something about a company they gave a public franchise to act in the best interest of the public? Nah. That would interfere with the "free market".

 

[sjwaste]

My Fios box is faster than my old Comcast DVR was, but it's by no means surf-able. Still takes about a second between channels. It's the Mot 6416 DVR.

 

[Triumph]

When we switched to FIOS in maybe...2005? We were one of the very first areas in the country to have it. Had dish before that, or directtv, or something satellite, I can't even remember. Anyway, the point is that Fios' menu functions were exponentially faster than the satellite ones. They are still fairly fast, but seem to have slowed down over time. 1 second for pause to respond? No that doesn't happen. Page up/down is not quite instantaneous, but still quite good. I think we still have the original box that they gave us.

 

[BeauJangles]

We just switched from RCN to Comcast. Our new DVRs are infinitely better. The interface on the Comcast box is so much snappier and quicker than the RCN ones.

 

[Quasmo]

Windows 7 with cable card. /Thread.

 

[yllus]

Haha. I know a couple of people who write software for Scientific Atlanta. I'm going to forward them this thread URL and tell them to get on it.

 

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: yllus
Haha. I know a couple of people who write software for Scientific Atlanta. I'm going to forward them this thread URL and tell them to get on it.

Great... while you're at it, tell them to fix the busted ass DVR software on the 8300 series as well. Some of the recordings that I get from that thing are choppy as hell.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: techs

Originally posted by: rh71
The cablevision cable box (Scientific Atlanta) takes forever to respond. The FIOS cable box (Motorola) does not. Go with a better company that uses dependable shit.

I can't. The "free marketers" seem to think my local government monopy cable company should be allowed to "compete freely". Which means no FIOS here. No southern exposure for satellite.

If there was only some way the public could do something about a company they gave a public franchise to act in the best interest of the public? Nah. That would interfere with the "free market".

I love how you blame the effects of a government-granted monopoly on the free market. :laugh:

 

[fleabag]

speaking of cable boxes, my cable box just kicked the bucket!

 

[eplebnista]

Originally posted by: guyver01
here's a hint...

with over 1,000 channels..

there is STILL NOTHING GOOD ON at 2am on a Sunday!

:|

With Comcast's On Demand, that is no longer a problem either.

 

[lokiju]

Originally posted by: Mojoed

Originally posted by: Skoorb
Believe me, every single day mine steals my FVCKING SOUL.

I already spoke of this in the past and will again in the future. And my feelings are every bit as strong as they were when I created this thread.

This should cheer you up Skoorbie! :beer:

:laugh:


I am tempted to get a Tivo with cable cards since I HATE my motorola cable box with a passion.

It takes forever to do anything.

Even when I'm done watching something that was recorded n the DVR it'll freeze for 15 seconds at least before popping up the "do you want to delete this recording" option.

So damn annoying.

I used to have a DirecTv Tivo box years ago and the box was awesome but the service (for me) was horrible.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob

Originally posted by: yllus
Haha. I know a couple of people who write software for Scientific Atlanta. I'm going to forward them this thread URL and tell them to get on it.

Great... while you're at it, tell them to fix the busted ass DVR software on the 8300 series as well. Some of the recordings that I get from that thing are choppy as hell.

It's possible you need to defrag the hard drive.
I don't have the link, but somewhere on AVS forum they give you directions on how to do it.

 

[BassBomb]

I have had generic Dishnetwork 300 and also DishTV

DishTV was sooo polished and awesome, but it was very very slow

Dishnetwork 300 reciever very basic but pretty fast

I haven't had any Cogeco cable boxes because we only have regular.

When we got an LCD TV I simply stopped channel surfing on that one because it was impossible due to: Slow channel changing on the internal tuner, far more channels picked up extra

I still channel surf on our CRT that the LCD had replaced, I actually prefer watching SDTV there since it is far more capable than the LCD of displaying that content. I can channel surf and go full circle on the channels in CRT in about <30s and figure out what to watch by then.

I fear getting hte motorola boxes cogeco uses for HD if we end up getting HD content (increase of 40$ on our bill though)

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: techs

Originally posted by: rh71
The cablevision cable box (Scientific Atlanta) takes forever to respond. The FIOS cable box (Motorola) does not. Go with a better company that uses dependable shit.

I can't. The "free marketers" seem to think my local government monopy cable company should be allowed to "compete freely". Which means no FIOS here. No southern exposure for satellite.

If there was only some way the public could do something about a company they gave a public franchise to act in the best interest of the public? Nah. That would interfere with the "free market".

I love how you blame the effects of a government-granted monopoly on the free market. :laugh:

No, I blame the effects of morons who seem to feel actually regulating a government granted monoply intereferes with the free market.

 

[ViviTheMage]

my DISH ViP HD/DVR works AMAZINGLY. I have used a lot of cable boxes, as well as sat boxes and this is by far the best.

 

[lupi]

When I move next year I'm seriously thinking about dumping cable and going with fios, how is their hd/dvr boxes?

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Originally posted by: Sahakiel
Not possible. Cable companies technically own the encryption.

All that means is you can't sell/distribute it yourself.

You can still develop the software and the technology it uses to provide a fast interface then market the idea to cable companies

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: yllus
Haha. I know a couple of people who write software for Scientific Atlanta. I'm going to forward them this thread URL and tell them to get on it.

I've got a list of some bugs you can forward them....

1) Check free space BEFORE you start recording and make room. Currently if it runs out of space while recording it will STOP the recording, DELETE something else, and then finally START a NEW recording thus giving you two recordings for the same show split at some arbitrary point in the middle with X number of seconds missing depending on how long it took to clear up the space.

2) Auto-Expire shows that didn't get recorded. For some reason my cable box won't actually record everything it says it going to so over time the list of 'scheduled recordings' grows increasingly large. I let this go on for over a year and now I have a list of about 100 shows that are set to record @ (Today - 7 days during 8-9PM block). Obviously once the scheduled recording item gets to be older than 1 year the box doesn't know what to do. Honestly I don't even understand why they keep a 'scheduled recording' around after the scheduled date/time have passed. Of course, this would all have been avoided if it actually recorded the show it said it was going to record.

3) Occasionally when watching any channel my audio and video will completely freeze up, the only way to fix is to change channels and then come back. I think this is related to disk issues, perhaps when the current buffer runs out of space it doesn't switch to a new one it creates after deleting content.

4) Their conflict resolution system is horrendous. Since shows often times have different starting/ending dates I could have picked 3 shows that don't have a conflicting scheduled recorded time, however when a new season starts and schedules change a conflict might arise. When this happens shit just doesn't record and the box will arbitrarily pick show(s) and just flat out cancel the entire schedule for it. As far as I can tell the only time you can fix a scheduling conflict is when the box can detect it at the time of schedule creation.

5) Their 'standby' mode leaves a lot to be desired. Sometimes the box won't go into standby mode and will repeat whatever the last played recording was over and over, and when the box does happen to go into standby mode it takes no less than 30s for the remote to usable after exiting standby mode. While this is happening you can still queue up button presses and completely overload the box when it finally catches up. However if you press enough buttons the box becomes completely unresponsive and will not recover.

In short... I could shit a better firmware than what comes on the box and I'm sure I've only scratched the surface on this. Their QA department(if it even exists) leaves a lot to be desired IMO.

 

[Martin]

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: yllus
Haha. I know a couple of people who write software for Scientific Atlanta. I'm going to forward them this thread URL and tell them to get on it.

I've got a list of some bugs you can forward them....

1) Check free space BEFORE you start recording and make room. Currently if it runs out of space while recording it will STOP the recording, DELETE something else, and then finally START a NEW recording thus giving you two recordings for the same show split at some arbitrary point in the middle with X number of seconds missing depending on how long it took to clear up the space.

2) Auto-Expire shows that didn't get recorded. For some reason my cable box won't actually record everything it says it going to so over time the list of 'scheduled recordings' grows increasingly large. I let this go on for over a year and now I have a list of about 100 shows that are set to record @ (Today - 7 days during 8-9PM block). Obviously once the scheduled recording item gets to be older than 1 year the box doesn't know what to do. Honestly I don't even understand why they keep a 'scheduled recording' around after the scheduled date/time have passed. Of course, this would all have been avoided if it actually recorded the show it said it was going to record.

3) Occasionally when watching any channel my audio and video will completely freeze up, the only way to fix is to change channels and then come back. I think this is related to disk issues, perhaps when the current buffer runs out of space it doesn't switch to a new one it creates after deleting content.

4) Their conflict resolution system is horrendous. Since shows often times have different starting/ending dates I could have picked 3 shows that don't have a conflicting scheduled recorded time, however when a new season starts and schedules change a conflict might arise. When this happens shit just doesn't record and the box will arbitrarily pick show(s) and just flat out cancel the entire schedule for it. As far as I can tell the only time you can fix a scheduling conflict is when the box can detect it at the time of schedule creation.

5) Their 'standby' mode leaves a lot to be desired. Sometimes the box won't go into standby mode and will repeat whatever the last played recording was over and over, and when the box does happen to go into standby mode it takes no less than 30s for the remote to usable after exiting standby mode. While this is happening you can still queue up button presses and completely overload the box when it finally catches up. However if you press enough buttons the box becomes completely unresponsive and will not recover.

In short... I could shit a better firmware than what comes on the box and I'm sure I've only scratched the surface on this. Their QA department(if it even exists) leaves a lot to be desired IMO.

Part of the problem here is that if users get their boxes from the cable companies, then the cable box manufacturer's primary customer is not the end user, but the cable company itself. Thus, in order to sell their wares, they have to first meet the cableco's specs and caring about users is almost optional.

 

[kalrith]

People still channel surf?

 

[brandonbull]

I have the Motorola DVR for FIOS and it sucks donkey balls. The worst is try to navigate thru the On-Demand channels because you have to wait 5-10 seconds for a response.