- Sep 29, 2000
- 70,150
- 5
- 0
I am writing this review as a kind of therapeutic outlet because, of course, it's that time again for me to complain about my Scientific Atlanta box. I found some other reviews on the net of this, pretty much all negative but perhaps somebody will stumble upon this from Google and by God's grace do what they can to avoid ever having to use one of these.
I use this box with Time Warner cable. It remains the standout most awful technical experience of my life, and is like a bad dream that will not end. I've had the box for almost two years. I remain absolutely convinced that Scientific Atlanta knew about how terrible the software on this box was but let it out of the factory anyway. One of my dear hopes of the current recession is that the company would completely go bankrupt and everybody who has ever worked for Scientific Atlanta never finds work again.
The good:
1) Reliably records shows when I tell it to. Seems to have a decent bit of room, including of HD programming.
2) Can record two shows at once. In fact can record two shows at once AND allow watching of a pre-recorded show all at the same time
The horrific:
1) Comedically long boot-up times if you ever have to unplug it. This is rare, but really it's like loading up the flight systems to a space shuttle on a 286
2) When playing back HD-recorded content the sound/audio will often lose sync. On average I'd say this happens about once per hour-long show but sometimes 2-3 times. It can be resynced by hitting RWD for a split second then playing
3) Lag time for every single button push. EVERYTHING is in slow-motion, from bringing up a menu to scrolling in it to changing channels, everything is very very lagged. Always without fail. Slow, guaranteed. This is absolutely and by far the most annoying thing about this box because it's omnipresent.
4) When pressing pause I'd say 1/3rd of the time the show will pause (after the lag, of course), but then a second later it will play 2 more seconds of show and THEN pause as if it was first doing a test-pause. I find this personally infuriating at a cellular level.
5) If it's been a while since you played a recorded show, when you do choose one from the menu and play it there is a 30% chance or so that the screen will go black and nothing will happen. Ever. Until you change channels and THEN try and play your show again. Like the intermittent pausing-restart, it seems like sometimes it just needs to think about things first before playing your show.
6) Rarely, but also enraging in the extreme, when you type in your channels (lag for every single numeric entry)--say you want channel 1011, occasionally when you plug in the 1 and it pops up on the screen and then the 0, the 1 will magically disappear, so then you end up with a 0 at the first. So, you have to cancel out and start again. This one is rare and so unbelievable I almost wonder if I had a nightmare about it but I'm pretty sure it's real.
I use this box with Time Warner cable. It remains the standout most awful technical experience of my life, and is like a bad dream that will not end. I've had the box for almost two years. I remain absolutely convinced that Scientific Atlanta knew about how terrible the software on this box was but let it out of the factory anyway. One of my dear hopes of the current recession is that the company would completely go bankrupt and everybody who has ever worked for Scientific Atlanta never finds work again.
The good:
1) Reliably records shows when I tell it to. Seems to have a decent bit of room, including of HD programming.
2) Can record two shows at once. In fact can record two shows at once AND allow watching of a pre-recorded show all at the same time
The horrific:
1) Comedically long boot-up times if you ever have to unplug it. This is rare, but really it's like loading up the flight systems to a space shuttle on a 286
2) When playing back HD-recorded content the sound/audio will often lose sync. On average I'd say this happens about once per hour-long show but sometimes 2-3 times. It can be resynced by hitting RWD for a split second then playing
3) Lag time for every single button push. EVERYTHING is in slow-motion, from bringing up a menu to scrolling in it to changing channels, everything is very very lagged. Always without fail. Slow, guaranteed. This is absolutely and by far the most annoying thing about this box because it's omnipresent.
4) When pressing pause I'd say 1/3rd of the time the show will pause (after the lag, of course), but then a second later it will play 2 more seconds of show and THEN pause as if it was first doing a test-pause. I find this personally infuriating at a cellular level.
5) If it's been a while since you played a recorded show, when you do choose one from the menu and play it there is a 30% chance or so that the screen will go black and nothing will happen. Ever. Until you change channels and THEN try and play your show again. Like the intermittent pausing-restart, it seems like sometimes it just needs to think about things first before playing your show.
6) Rarely, but also enraging in the extreme, when you type in your channels (lag for every single numeric entry)--say you want channel 1011, occasionally when you plug in the 1 and it pops up on the screen and then the 0, the 1 will magically disappear, so then you end up with a 0 at the first. So, you have to cancel out and start again. This one is rare and so unbelievable I almost wonder if I had a nightmare about it but I'm pretty sure it's real.
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