Hi there-

I just moved from Cox Connecticut to Cox Orange County in Irvine. Could someone confirm TNTHD, HDNet Movies and TBS-HD are being flagged as CCI 0x02 - Copy Once? These channels were flagged 0x0 in CT and, from the head end spreadsheet, here as well as of Feb.

Thanks,
Chris

Sorry if I am in the wrong Forum.

I live in zip code 92673. I have Cox but am considering also placing a Terk antenna on my roof for OTA to my Pioneer Kuro.

Considering I am about half-way inbetween Los Angeles antennas and San Diego antennas, the ocean is to my left, and a large hill is to my right, should I bother doing this? My second story roof is pretty high.

I am interested in this for the extras you supposedly get like the pop-up menus during programming, etc.

Is it worth it?
Fran: Go to antennaweb.org, punch in your info and you'll get a good look at whats available. Maybe take the LA locals from Cox, and the S. Diego locals off-air?? Good luck...

Hi there-

I just moved from Cox Connecticut to Cox Orange County in Irvine. Could someone confirm TNTHD, HDNet Movies and TBS-HD are being flagged as CCI 0x02 - Copy Once? These channels were flagged 0x0 in CT and, from the head end spreadsheet, here as well as of Feb.

Thanks,
Chris Just checked on my Tivo Series 3. HDNet Movies shows CCI=0x02. TNTHD & TBSHD shows CCI=0x00.

Just checked on my Tivo Series 3. HDNet Movies shows CCI=0x02. TNTHD & TBSHD shows CCI=0x00.

Hmmm.. that's interesting. I wonder if there is a problem with the 5C flags where I am.

Can anyone with a DCT3416 tell me what they are seeing?

Thanks,
Chris

Hmmm.. that's interesting. I wonder if there is a problem with the 5C flags where I am.

Can anyone with a DCT3416 tell me what they are seeing?

Thanks,
Chris P.S. Just tried a couple of 1 min recordings of TNTHD & TBSHD and I was able to transfer clips to my PC as well as to my other Tivo Series 3 which is only possible when CCI=0x00. It seems like the Moto boxes via the firewire port have notoriously flagged channels as having CCI bit set when that's not really the case. TheRock (a user posting here occasionally) reports channels with non-zero CCI settings on his Moto box which I don't see set that way, so the firewire recording method seems to be unreliable at best. I used that method a couple of years ago (even still have a dedicated web page on the procedure) and I'm glad I don't have to deal with it's shortcomings anymore.

I think that Cox is bit shaping the hell out of Sci-Fi HD. After removing commercials from a firewire dump, my files were averaging around 5.5Gb, now they are around 4Gb...

I think that Cox is bit shaping the hell out of Sci-Fi HD. After removing commercials from a firewire dump, my files were averaging around 5.5Gb, now they are around 4Gb... I noticed the last episode of Stargate Atlantis (with commercials) was about 6GB compared to about 8GB which I posted about last week. Quite a big difference and was certainly noticeably less good looking. What's up with that :mad:

Actually my capture was Atlantis (5.52GB). You can really see the loss of quality on my broadcast CRT. I think it is cox's end that is compressing the hell out of it. a 25% loss in quality is very noticeable!!!

If cox were to put channels 804-998, all the adult stations, and channels 333-700, on SDV, they would have plenty of bandwidth...then they just need to make some SDV adaptors available to the public at a very cheap price (or give them away)...

Actually my capture was Atlantis (5.52GB). You can really see the loss of quality on my broadcast CRT. I think it is cox's end that is compressing the hell out of it. a 25% loss in quality is very noticeable!!!

If cox were to put channels 804-998, all the adult stations, and channels 333-700, on SDV, they would have plenty of bandwidth...then they just need to make some SDV adaptors available to the public at a very cheap price (or give them away)... Only BRAVOHD (1080i) & SCIFIHD (1080i) are sharing this QAM (RF 125) from my scan. For a 6 MHz QAM 256 channel there is ~ 39 Mbps bit rate available which should be plenty to handle 2 1080i channels, giving them both about 19 Mbps or 8.5GB/hour each available without dropping any bits. So there should be no reason for any bit rate shaping to happen in this case. So it's likely the problem is at the source satellite feed. Wherever the problem lies though, it's Cox's responsibility to fix it.

Did anyone have a chance to checkout the CCI settings on a Motorola box on TBS and TNT HD?

Thanks!
Chris

earthquake!

earthquake!

Just a light dusting. Although it was the biggest quake in our area since 1987.

Any stations go off the air with the quake ? ... http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/FaultMaps/118-34_eqs.htm Anyone feeling the aftershocks ???

Ok I will diverge with you.

Irvine Center Tower was swaying on it's rollers for 30 seconds. Got our attention. Back on topic. The Cox connections remain intact.

Eureka on SciFi HD only 5.72GB.. Haven't seen a show hit 8GB mark since that one Stargate Atlantis episode.

Yeah...Rising Part I was 5.43 GB. I am going to give cox a call tomorrow!

The following channels just showed up in the HD channel list
796 (Test34)
797 (Test35)

Eureka on SciFi HD only 5.72GB.. Haven't seen a show hit 8GB mark since that one Stargate Atlantis episode.

Yes, I had been looking forward to the premiere, particularly to see it for the first time in HD. While it was definitely a step up from SD, it didn't have that wow! factor we've all come to love with HD. At least now I know why. Thanks.

Yeah...Rising Part I was 5.43 GB. I am going to give cox a call tomorrow! Please share here the outcome of your conversation as I'm very interested as I'm sure are others. Though I'm not sure what can be gleamed from 1st level support. Ideally somebody else with a different service provider would have to tell us what size recordings they are getting as a good comparison point. I'm pretty sure Cox will say they do little to no bit rate shaping on SciFi HD.

I haven't run my experiments in a while, but for local broadcast stations like CBSHD, ABCHD, etc. I can record the OTA and Cox versions at same time on my Tivo and compare sizes. Last few times I did that a while back there were insignificant size differences (less than 2% off) which gave me some confidence Cox is doing the right thing. Of course for a cable only channel that's not possible. What I might do though is ask in Tivo forums for others to post the size of their shows to compare against.

P.S. I just started a thread on this in Tivo forums. Hopefully there will be some people posting in that thread that we can compare against (vs FIOS in particular would be a great comparison):
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=401074

The following channels just showed up in the HD channel list
796 (Test34)
797 (Test35)

I have a feeling these channels relate to the forthcoming Olympic coverage in China- one is related to US Basketball while the other focuses on US Soccer.

Sorry if I am in the wrong Forum.

I live in zip code 92673. I have Cox but am considering also placing a Terk antenna on my roof for OTA to my Pioneer Kuro.

Considering I am about half-way inbetween Los Angeles antennas and San Diego antennas, the ocean is to my left, and a large hill is to my right, should I bother doing this? My second story roof is pretty high.

I am interested in this for the extras you supposedly get like the pop-up menus during programming, etc.

Is it worth it?

Forget Terk, they are not considered a very good product.

Go for it. I am also in 92673 and get all the LA stations. KCBS at 90%+

I use a Silver Sensor indoors. Yes, 60+ miles from Mt Wilson with an indoor antenna and I get great reception. For reference I'm at Vera Cruz and Sarmentoso.

-chuck-

From my thread in Tivo forums:
My Cox OC SciFi HD recording of Eureka "Bad to the Drone" - 5.72 GB
FIOS recording of same exact show reported by another user - 7.76 GB

Now that's a huge disparity!! That's 26% lower bit rate for the Cox feed!! The 7.76 GB number is much more like it should be.

More inputs on the same show:
Suddenlink Amarillo, TX - 7.50 GB
Comcast Minneapolis MN - 5.89 GB
Comcast Alexandria, VA - 6.16 GB

I have a feeling these channels relate to the forthcoming Olympic coverage in China- one is related to US Basketball while the other focuses on US Soccer. Confirmed. On my Tivo when I tune to those channels the channel description currently is:
796 = (HD) NBC OLYMPIC BSKTBL
797 = (HD) NBC OLYMPIC SOCCER
While there is nothing broadcasting on those channels right now yet they are mapping to a frequency (549 MHz).

Hey guys, just bought an HDTV on Saturday (Samsung LN32A550, 1080p) for my bedroom so I'm pretty new with this HD stuff.

Quick question: I hooked up my Cox HD/DVR box and get all the channels fine. The COX on-screen menus/program guide seems to be small and I can't get it to expand the length of my screen. Is this normal? Seems to be 4:3 instead of 16:9. Am I making any sense? haha.

Also, what's everyones "Video Output Format"... I have mine at 1080i, Sidebar 4:3 Pic.

Thanks in advance for the help!

If people are curious: AVS lost posts back to August 2, so they are gone.

On to my rant of the day. NBC you idiotic morons.

704 NBC HD
722 USA HD
744 Uni HD
750 CNBC HD
796 Uni BB HD
797 Uni FB HD
Telemundo
MSNBC
nbcolympics.com

With 8+ venues to show live and taped content I do NOT understand why we on the west coast are cheated from seeing the olympics live

I can understand showing them live on NBC PrimeTime East Coast, I can even see why for advertising and ratings it is delayed on 704 for us Socal people.

Why for pete's sake does 744 and 750 carry the same feed though!
They should be showing the live NBC east coast feed on Universal HD 744, for us who actually care to watch live, others can all pile into the time delayed 704 Feed.

I am so furious with this poor decision.

I understand in 1996 when NBC and USA were the only channels they had access to, but this is 2008, the internet tells me the score the second it happens, why can't my tv!

...the internet tells me the score the second it happens, why can't my tv!

Very much agreed! I receive e-mail alerts from MSNBC, CNN, etc. as big news events break. Of course, one of the big news events right now is the Olympics. I have to remember to avoid looking at my e-mail until we get the taped "live" events. Unfortunately, I keep forgetting and continually feel like a kid on Christmas morning whom has already seen his presents. That being said, it sure is exciting to watch so much content in HD. It makes even the dullest events more exciting.

hi, I live in the 92782 area and im subscribed to Cox regular cable (no box, no hd subscription)

i have an LCD tv at home that is "HD-ready" but does not have its own tuner... im not really sure about this HD, QAM, OTA stuff so... my question is:

does anyone have any experience with plugging in cox cable into a tuner to get some local HD channels?

or is there any other way for me to get local HD?

thanks!

hi, I live in the 92782 area and im subscribed to Cox regular cable (no box, no hd subscription)

i have an LCD tv at home that is "HD-ready" but does not have its own tuner... im not really sure about this HD, QAM, OTA stuff so... my question is:

does anyone have any experience with plugging in cox cable into a tuner to get some local HD channels?

or is there any other way for me to get local HD?

thanks! You would need a tuner box capable of QAM 256 tuning in order to pick up the Cox HD re-transmissions of the HD locals.
The other alternative is to have a tuner box with ATSC tuning capabilities to pick up local HD broadcasts over the air with an antenna.
Many of the standalone ATSC tuners also have QAM tuning capabilities, so you choose a box that supports both for maximum flexibility.

You would need a tuner box capable of QAM 256 tuning in order to pick up the Cox HD re-transmissions of the HD locals.
The other alternative is to have a tuner box with ATSC tuning capabilities to pick up local HD broadcasts over the air with an antenna.
Many of the standalone ATSC tuners also have QAM tuning capabilities, so you choose a box that supports both for maximum flexibility.


wow thanks for the quick reply... can you give me any suggestions on such equipment? local stores: best buy, circuit city, fry's...

wow thanks for the quick reply... can you give me any suggestions on such equipment? local stores: best buy, circuit city, fry's... This (http://www.amazon.com/ATSC-QAM-NTSC-Tuner-Receiver/dp/B000V8XR1U/ref=pd_ts_e_13?ie=UTF8&s=electronics) is an example of the type of box you need. I found it via a Google search so not necessarily endorsing that particular box. I still have an old Samsung box lying around but it had some issues (slow channel changing, no way to tune sub-channels directly). Back a few years ago the LG tuners were considered pretty good but I don't know if they are still selling any or not.

This (http://www.amazon.com/ATSC-QAM-NTSC-Tuner-Receiver/dp/B000V8XR1U/ref=pd_ts_e_13?ie=UTF8&s=electronics) is an example of the type of box you need. I found it via a Google search so not necessarily endorsing that particular box. I still have an old Samsung box lying around but it had some issues (slow channel changing, no way to tune sub-channels directly). Back a few years ago the LG tuners were considered pretty good but I don't know if they are still selling any or not.

Ah, I see... thanks...

what do you think about the Samsung DTB-H260F tuner?

there seemed to be a lot of those lying around @ Best Buy and Circuit City...

Ah, I see... thanks...

what do you think about the Samsung DTB-H260F tuner?

there seemed to be a lot of those lying around @ Best Buy and Circuit City... That seems to be the next generation Samsung box of the one I have (the SIR-T150). The SIR-T150 had a few issues that I recall:
1. No way to direct tune to sub-channels with remote. I.e. If you want to got to 70-2 you first had to tune 70 which gets you to 70-1 and then channel up to get to 70-2. Any decent tuner must let you enter the subchannel as well so make sure it can do that.
2. Scanning took a long time and would not always pick up all available clear QAM stations, so I had to know their frequencies to get them added to the scan list.
3. Couldn't properly tune Fox HD and ABC HD (which are on the same QAM here in Cox OC). I never figured out why.

I don't know if this box you are looking at suffers from any of the above problems, but 1 should be easy to research.
I suppose if you are going to buy at brick & mortar just be sure they have a good return policy (no re-stocking fee) so that if it doesn't work as expected you can return it without hassle.

That seems to be the next generation Samsung box of the one I have (the SIR-T150). The SIR-T150 had a few issues that I recall:
1. No way to direct tune to sub-channels with remote. I.e. If you want to got to 70-2 you first had to tune 70 which gets you to 70-1 and then channel up to get to 70-2. Any decent tuner must let you enter the subchannel as well so make sure it can do that.
2. Scanning took a long time and would not always pick up all available clear QAM stations, so I had to know their frequencies to get them added to the scan list.
3. Couldn't properly tune Fox HD and ABC HD (which are on the same QAM here in Cox OC). I never figured out why.

I don't know if this box you are looking at suffers from any of the above problems, but 1 should be easy to research.
I suppose if you are going to buy at brick & mortar just be sure they have a good return policy (no re-stocking fee) so that if it doesn't work as expected you can return it without hassle.


Hm, I'm hoping this box will work, will try to pick one up tomorrow and check... what kind of HD channels can I expect to get from basic Cox cable if I hook up that line to this box? (only 2-13 channels??)

Why for pete's sake does 744 and 750 carry the same feed though!
They should be showing the live NBC east coast feed on Universal HD 744, for us who actually care to watch live, others can all pile into the time delayed 704 Feed.

maybe because not all cox areas have CNBCHD yet. Plus I just checked the guide in Omaha Nebraska and UniversalHD and CNBCHD don't have the same thing showing in our area..

How would it be live when the Olympics are in a different time zone?

Hm, I'm hoping this box will work, will try to pick one up tomorrow and check... what kind of HD channels can I expect to get from basic Cox cable if I hook up that line to this box? (only 2-13 channels??) For HD channels it's only the local broadcast stations like CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, WB, PBS etc.

I recently had to do some re-connecting of A/V components (HDMI port on my DVD player crapped out) and I wanted to connect the DVI port on my 6200 box to my HDMI input on my Samsung DLP. I got an adapter, plugged in my HDMI cord, plugged in audio cables and got...nothing. No signal, no sound, nada.

The Cox site says the DVI port is not currently enabled, but postings going back several years on this thread say it IS. Is there a setting somewhere I'm missing? There's nothing in the TV menus -- I should just have to select HDMI as the input. Is there a setting somewhere on the box I need to change? Or is the DVI port no longer usable on the 6200 box? And why would that mean no audio?

Thanks in advance!

How would it be live when the Olympics are in a different time zone?

Easy - Beijing is 12 hours ahead of the East Coast Time zone (15 for Pacific), so many of the events are live for the east coast - 8 pm on NBC east is 8 am for Beijing - works perfect.

Why for pete's sake does 744 and 750 carry the same feed though!
They should be showing the live NBC east coast feed on Universal HD 744, for us who actually care to watch live, others can all pile into the time delayed 704 Feed.

How would it be live when the Olympics are in a different time zone?

He was referring to the live east coast feed not our delayed "live" west coast feed. Which wouldn't be hard to do, on one of their cable channels. Live is live no matter what the time zone.

So once the Olympics are done is COX going to use that space for "NEW" hd channels? I just saw that San Diego now has HD On Demand programming.

So once the Olympics are done is COX going to use that space for "NEW" hd channels? I just saw that San Diego now has HD On Demand programming.

Let's hope so. It seems like San Diego tends to get new channels first and then we follow.

Got a letter today about Fun Zone

997 998 999

Yippee, channels I will never use.

But I would like some new HDs Cox, thank you!

So once the Olympics are done is COX going to use that space for "NEW" hd channels? I just saw that San Diego now has HD On Demand programming.

the picture quality on those 2 olympic channels has been pretty bad - I tuned in this morning (5am) to watch USA basketball and there were only a few minutes of viewable picture during the entire game. I hope they fix this before the semifinals and finals.

the picture quality on those 2 olympic channels has been pretty bad - I tuned in this morning (5am) to watch USA basketball and there were only a few minutes of viewable picture during the entire game. I hope they fix this before the semifinals and finals.

I concur with you. I recorded that channel and it was watchable during the China vs Lithuana game until mid 4th quarter than it started breaking up pretty badly after. It's not the first time it happens. I gave up watching the USA game and I'm watching it online instead.

I would've thought that they (Cox) would monitor those live feeds and would take necessary action to correct the problem right away.


Eric

I concur with you. I recorded that channel and it was watchable during the China vs Lithuana game until mid 4th quarter than it started breaking up pretty badly after. It's not the first time it happens. I gave up watching the USA game and I'm watching it online instead.

I would've thought that they (Cox) would monitor those live feeds and would take necessary action to correct the problem right away.


Eric

its interesting because I watched (am watching) the 9am replay of the USA game on that same channel and the picture is perfect (so far).

its interesting because I watched (am watching) the 9am replay of the USA game on that same channel and the picture is perfect (so far).

That pretty much proves that the problem has nothing to do with the live feeds and it is on Cox's end. I hope they will get their act together for the rest of the competition.

Better late than never - my Tivos finally got guide data this am for these 2 Olympics channels - previously I was using manual records which made it much harder to schedule things.

Picture quality has gone downhill big time since Cox OC added all these HD channels the last 6 months or so. There are now some QAMs sharing 3 HD channels (previously 2 was the norm) and as I already reported the SciFiHD & USAHD feeds we are getting are severely degraded vs. what is provided by other providers in other parts of the country. I will need to run my OTA vs Cox tests again on the local HD broadcast channels to see if they are getting degraded as well.

I will need to run my OTA vs Cox tests again on the local HD broadcast channels to see if they are getting degraded as well.

I look forward to seeing this.

I, too, have been quite disappointed in the quality of late. When we asked Cox for more HD programming, we meant more quality HD programming; I guess they didn't hear that. After all, degraded HD defeats the entire point of HD in the first place.

With all providers (cable, satellite, telco, etc.), it seems to be more of a race (bragging rights) about who has the most HD channels. Perhaps that will change soon, but it has been going in an unfavorable direction for quite some time - at least with Cox.

Does anyone out there know why Lake Forest, now encircled by cities who already have received the expanded HD channels, appears to be the last folks on earth to receive them? I would just like to know the reason. Does cox have something against Lake Forest?

My DVR has been crashing frequently as of late. It always happens when I am watching a show for awhile and then hit the swap button. I do this because I can watch two shows and fast forward the commercials. Unfortunately when I do this my box shuts off, the screen goes black, and the box reboots itself. Very annoying. Makes me wonder if its getting ready to die (again) and I will loose everything I saved on it (again).

My DVR has been crashing frequently as of late. It always happens when I am watching a show for awhile and then hit the swap button. I do this because I can watch two shows and fast forward the commercials. Unfortunately when I do this my box shuts off, the screen goes black, and the box reboots itself. Very annoying. Makes me wonder if its getting ready to die (again) and I will loose everything I saved on it (again).

what model of dvr do you have I also have been noticing reboots in the Omaha Nebraska area on the 3416.

My DVR has been crashing frequently as of late. It always happens when I am watching a show for awhile and then hit the swap button. I do this because I can watch two shows and fast forward the commercials. Unfortunately when I do this my box shuts off, the screen goes black, and the box reboots itself. Very annoying. Makes me wonder if its getting ready to die (again) and I will loose everything I saved on it (again).

Does it only happen when you do this one event? I don't recall doing that exact event, but I do quite a lot of trick play type events and have not had any reboots that I recall. However, if it is just that one event that triggers it, then I will give it a try and report back. My main box is a 3416, but I have other models, too.

Does anyone out there know why Lake Forest, now encircled by cities who already have received the expanded HD channels, appears to be the last folks on earth to receive them? I would just like to know the reason. Does cox have something against Lake Forest?

:( I hear you, at least they gave us USA, though I'm sure that's only because of the olympics, otherwise they would have been flooded with complaints.

My DVR has been crashing frequently as of late. It always happens when I am watching a show for awhile and then hit the swap button. I do this because I can watch two shows and fast forward the commercials. Unfortunately when I do this my box shuts off, the screen goes black, and the box reboots itself. Very annoying. Makes me wonder if its getting ready to die (again) and I will loose everything I saved on it (again).

Just transfer everything off via Firewire :)

BTW my parents DVR was running slow as hell untill i transfered some shows that were on there for the past two years. I dumped it to my laptop then removed it. Now the guide comes up quicker and everything else is fast. How much stuff do you have archived on there?

Just transfer everything off via Firewire :)

BTW my parents DVR was running slow as hell untill i transfered some shows that were on there for the past two years. I dumped it to my laptop then removed it. Now the guide comes up quicker and everything else is fast. How much stuff do you have archived on there?

I believe the box in question is:

Motorola DCH3416/6380/000/160
516 Phase 4

I already transfer shows using firewire. Unfortunately I have some programs that don't appear to be airing again any time soon that I cant transfer because of 5c copy protection. Believe me, I would love to transfer everything to my computer to improve performance and free up space.... Not to mention offer a reliable backup solution that I can trust. Unfortunately the "premium" channel providers don't believe in a little thing called "Fair Use Rights" unless they get a sack of money from companies that offer "compliant devices". The funny thing is a great deal of the content is available online to download for free even with these copy protections like 5c in place. So instead of backing up the material I want in real time (content I pay for) I have to bog down and monopolize the internet network downloading gigs and gigs of material.

I believe the box in question is:

Motorola DCH3416/6380/000/160
516 Phase 4


Yes, the same one I have. I tried swapping between shows as you suggested, as well as other similar activities, but cannot get it to reboot. Sounds like it's time to get a new box.

omarh: Member

I used to be a Cox subscriber, but one thing that made me switch to Dish was their vip DVR which can be used with two tv's. you choose one as the primary which is HD, and the other is just SD going over coax (RF). For those who have more than one tv in the house, do you guys just lease a 2nd HD DVR or a SD DVR etc? The convenience of having a central DVR for both rooms is kinda nice. Like if you're watching something late at night, and want to finish it up stairs, its easy to do that. Has the software on the motorola dvr's improved much since last year?

Too bad the multi-room capability is limited to SD only. There are some nice features in the VIP 722 overall and certainly a much more capable system than the Motorola solution (which really hasn't changed much at all the past 2 years or so), but I think overall Tivos still have the best overall capabilities, including HD multi-room viewing.

Dish User: Member

I too used to use Cox -- but nevermore.
1) Very slow and choppy Motorola box (very big and ugly too)
2) Cox's channel selections and corresponding prices are really poor.
3) Cox never seems to have updated HD channels operating until after the competition does it first.

This forum proves that Cox always has to futz around with their service and channels in every single city. No wonder they spend so much money on customer support in just one county! If Dish network or Direct TV had to do the same futzing that Cox does, they would be outta business.

In the end, Cox refused to refund me the balance of my last month service until I called in to ask for it. Then after 2+ months of waiting, I finally had to cancel the entire last month payment I made via credit card. Cox ignored the credit card company altogether. So they ended up losing their entire last month payment. A real loser company -- I guess $89 is peanuts to them.

Too bad the multi-room capability is limited to SD only. There are some nice features in the VIP 722 overall and certainly a much more capable system than the Motorola solution (which really hasn't changed much at all the past 2 years or so), but I think overall Tivos still have the best overall capabilities, including HD multi-room viewing.

I must say when we first got SciFi HD channel and I viewed Battlestar Galactica I was very disappointed because of the intentional "grainy look filter" applied to the HD version (not a Cox issue). However, watching "Stargate Atlantis, The Seed" last night the picture quality was quite phenomenal. 1 hour episode was amost 8GB in size which implies about 18 Mbps bit rate which is about the highest I've seen for a Cox OC HD channel.

USA HD on the other hand continues to underwhelm me. For example, a 1 hour Monk episode is only 5.5 GB, or 1 hour Burn Notice is 5.9 GB. Doesn't surprise me as NBC/Universal have a terrible track record for HD broadcasting quality (and yet they maintain exclusive on Olympics coverage unfortunately).


I dunno.... count your blessings. It looks to me like 4 channels (in English) NBC-HD/ USA-HD/ CNBC-HD/ MSNBC-SD/ are available and at least two are always running 24-7. Sounds like more choices than you bargained for compared to the past. Remember when they thought they were doing the public a biiiig favor by broadcasting on CH-4 most of the weekends but only a few hours during week days? Remember one year when HBO had the exclusive rights and you had to pay plenty for your one channel of HBO and just a few hours of Olympics?

Besides that, do you really really need to be able to count the rain drops on the May/Walsh team's arms while they kill the ball? Maybe you bought one of those hoax 120mhz 1080p screens that blurs out fine detail during screen movement. Or maybe you are sitting 5 ft in front of your 52" screen thinking you are getting a great view. My Pioneer 720p 60mhz Plasma does a great job and I sit 8-10 ft away from it. Lots of HD detail, no blurs, very small jaggies.

Forget Terk, they are not considered a very good product.

Go for it. I am also in 92673 and get all the LA stations. KCBS at 90%+

I use a Silver Sensor indoors. Yes, 60+ miles from Mt Wilson with an indoor antenna and I get great reception. For reference I'm at Vera Cruz and Sarmentoso.

-chuck-

1. Get the Terk antenna
2. Get rid of Cox

I live at 92677 near CV and Moulton. I have a cheapo amplified Terk indoor antenna. It sits in the family room (nr the TV) on a cabinet about 4 ft off the ground. It aims out toward the back yard sliding glass door. It works great! The Dish Network receiver scanned all the LA and OC channels (found them all) and integrated them in with the entire regular Dish Prog. Guide. Can Cox's Moto box do that? Last I looked, Cox's box had trouble just scrolling thru its own Prog Guide channels, let alone those from an OTA antenna.

Forget Terk, they are not considered a very good product.

Go for it. I am also in 92673 and get all the LA stations. KCBS at 90%+

I use a Silver Sensor indoors. Yes, 60+ miles from Mt Wilson with an indoor antenna and I get great reception. For reference I'm at Vera Cruz and Sarmentoso.

-chuck-

Confirmed. On my Tivo when I tune to those channels the channel description currently is:
796 = (HD) NBC OLYMPIC BSKTBL
797 = (HD) NBC OLYMPIC SOCCER
While there is nothing broadcasting on those channels right now yet they are mapping to a frequency (549 MHz).


Dish Network reports these as mostly replay stuff. I've seen a few nearly live events on one of them, but very few.

Just transfer everything off via Firewire :)

BTW my parents DVR was running slow as hell untill i transfered some shows that were on there for the past two years. I dumped it to my laptop then removed it. Now the guide comes up quicker and everything else is fast. How much stuff do you have archived on there?

My DVR has been crashing frequently as of late. It always happens when I am watching a show for awhile and then hit the swap button. I do this because I can watch two shows and fast forward the commercials. Unfortunately when I do this my box shuts off, the screen goes black, and the box reboots itself. Very annoying. Makes me wonder if its getting ready to die (again) and I will loose everything I saved on it (again).

Interesting how many people are reporting that the Cox DVR crashes and running slow. My Dish Network VIP722 500GB box doesn't crash and doesn't run slow. It scrolls smoothly thru the Prog. Guide listings. Whereas my former Cox Moto box either froze and wouldn't scroll at all, or it scrolled very choppy and irregular. The Cox box is clearly an inferior product. It probably has a very slow microprocessor and/or poor firmware implementation.

Dish User, it's pretty clear you have an axe to grind against Cox and probably for good reason, but using this thread to bash Cox and tout the VIP722 constantly in your first few posts in the forum won't go over very well and I'm sure is not appreciated by most reading this thread. I think your position is pretty clear that you are happy you switched to Dish and that Cox sucks - enough said.

I was told by someone who lives in a Woodbury development in Irvine that Cox is using fiberoptic cables in test areas in Woodbury and Northwood. Can someone else confirm this, and does anyone know if Cox has any plans to expand its fiberoptic coverage to other areas, and if so, when?

Interesting how many people are reporting that the Cox DVR crashes and running slow. My Dish Network VIP722 500GB box doesn't crash and doesn't run slow. It scrolls smoothly thru the Prog. Guide listings. Whereas my former Cox Moto box either froze and wouldn't scroll at all, or it scrolled very choppy and irregular. The Cox box is clearly an inferior product. It probably has a very slow microprocessor and/or poor firmware implementation.

Crashes? Did you read my posts? No crashes here - and I have three Moto boxes. I used to be a Dish subscriber myself and they do have a great service. However, some of us are living in places where we don't have the proper southern exposure, so satellite is not an option. That being said, I have had (and continue to have) some issues with Cox - price, occasional compression artifacting, etc., but let's give Cox some credit. They have fixed most of the issues related to the Moto boxes and have given us most of the HD channels we have asked for.

Obviously you hate Cox and love Dish, but, as Moyekj stated, this is not the forum (or the best method) for getting your point across. Besides, many of us have suffered through quite a few issues with Cox over the last few years and, while Cox may not always respond as quickly as some of us have hoped, they have listened to us, and continue to add HD content - even if it is not always the best. Do you think your comments are going to dissuade us now?

Dish Network reports these as mostly replay stuff. I've seen a few nearly live events on one of them, but very few.

Well, on Cox, these two stations have had all of the basketball games (796) and most of the soccer games (797) live. The picture quality was bad at times but has been good the last few days. They have continuous coverage (no commercials) and stay on the venue during timeouts and between periods/quarters. Its been enjoyable watching them live (except for the bad picture) compared to NBC (Channel 4, 704)'s lame 3 hour delay of its coverage (even on weekends!) - eg their coverage of the women's basketball gold medal game was at 10am this morning, 3 hours late, and advertised as "live" - I had already seen the game on 796 live plus the medal ceremony at 9am live. I guess we might be able to watch the men's basketball gold medal game live on 4/704 tonight since it is scheduled at 11:30pm our time, but I will still watch it on 796 to avoid the commercials.

I guess we might be able to watch the men's basketball gold medal game live on 4/704 tonight since it is scheduled at 11:30pm our time, but I will still watch it on 796 to avoid the commercials.

I tried to watch it tonight on 796, but got the "Temporarily Off Air" message, so just watched it on 704. Perhaps that was because it was actually live on 704, NBC, and they didn't need it live on both channels.

I tried to watch it tonight on 796, but got the "Temporarily Off Air" message, so just watched it on 704. Perhaps that was because it was actually live on 704, NBC, and they didn't need it live on both channels.

I noticed that also; I called Cox support and they said that NBC had turned off the 796 feed. Apparently, the game wasn't going to be live for us on 704 initially but they changed their mind on that an hour or so before game time. Maybe they just wanted everyone to be subjected to commercials. I think it might have been the first event that was truly live in all time zones.

(The bronze medal game was broadcast live on Universal and CNBC.)

I tried to watch it tonight on 796, but got the "Temporarily Off Air" message, so just watched it on 704. Perhaps that was because it was actually live on 704, NBC, and they didn't need it live on both channels. Yeah that really sucked! I had recording scheduled on 796 and all I got was a 0 minute recording since it was black screen. Then of course looking to see when it was scheduled to be broadcast I ended up seeing the final score so just watched the highlights online. Looked like a great game and I'm pissed I missed it. Funny that Cox never really advertised these extra channels in the 1st place AFAIK so I guess I can't complain too much... Anyway, glad USA won!

Incredible that it took the last day of the Olympics for NBC to realize that it might be nice for us west coasters to see something live on the main station....

I'm in San Pedro (90732), just moved from Colorado and am surprised at the few options for my area. Definately jealous of my friends with verizon FiOS. The cox website doesn't really show any deals for new subscribers that I would consider outstanding. Has anyone recently started service with what they considered a good deal, promotion code, etc?

About the only thing I found on google was coxspecials/broadbandinfo although it looks a bit schetchy. Appreciate any recommendations, thanks.

The cox website doesn't really show any deals for new subscribers that I would consider outstanding. Has anyone recently started service with what they considered a good deal, promotion code, etc?....Appreciate any recommendations, thanks.

I've been with Cox for nearly ten years now and I don't recall ever getting a good deal from an advertised promotion - okay, maybe the six months of free phone service. However, nearly every time I've called them, I have been able to get some kind of promotion beyond just the six months of free phone. Whether the given promotion they offer measures up to your expectations, only you can say. It also depends on what services you intend to get. The more you get, the more you save - if the $180 a month I pay is really considered saving. Verizon, we want FIOS in Irvine (and apparently San Pedro, too) NOW!

I assume that San Pedro is in the same market as Palos Verdes, and thus the OC, too, so I looked to see the current online promotions – basically nothing. I strongly suggest you give Cox a call to see what you can get.

I assume that San Pedro is in the same market as Palos Verdes, and thus the OC, too, so I looked to see the current online promotions – basically nothing. I strongly suggest you give Cox a call to see what you can get.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, San Pedro seems to be lumped in with PV as nothing else is apparently available. I'll call Cox up in a few days to barter.

JOEZO, I'm not sure if u were talking about fiber to the doorstep of the residence or the general vicinity.

I live in Portola Springs and can confirm that my 1 year old development has fiber runs nearly to the door. There is a shiny metal box where the fiber terminates with coax cabling running to around 18 homes or so. From peaking around when my service was installed it was clear that each residence has its own cable run. None of that 1980's daisy chain stuff we see in older communities where the first home on the chain's signal is to hot while the last homes is weak.

I'm not sure how the apartments are done, but from what I've seen all of portola springs single family homes & condos have individual coax cable runs from a box that has fiber terminating into it. In terms of a new neighborhood cox infrastructure, I don't believe verizon fios has anything superior. Our picture quality woes & lack of 30+mbit internet is due to the fact that COX is and will be for a long time running a hybrid network on the back end. It would be customer service suicide from multiple angles to offer superior service options in 1/3rd of Irvine/south orange county that happens to be new construction. Unfortunately the picture quality issues we see are there because Cox has to account for the weakest parts of their network and provide "transparently" identical service options.

Lake Forest is screwed because all the back end hauls out of the individual neighborhoods are coax...35 year RG59. Deerfield and part of Northwood are in the same boat over here in Irvine. When I lived in University Park Cox was tearing up the streets laying down fiber. We also got lucky 20 years ago when cox ripped out the daisy chain setup in my part of University Park. The cabling was so bad they just had to re-run new cables to the homes. Lake Forest is a much larger area to cover but I'm sure they are doing the exact same thing...


...just mah 2 cents.

-bubu

Incredible that it took the last day of the Olympics for NBC to realize that it might be nice for us west coasters to see something live on the main station....

the sad thing is that I don't think they ever realized it. While watching the bronze medal game live on universal hd (9pm - 11pm) the announcers kept saying that the gold medal game would be broadcast live on the specialty channel (ie 796) and would be live on the east coast. Then, during the 3rd quarter they changed their story to the gold medal game would be live on nbc for all time zones (so obviously it was a last minute decision) - this was after they had killed the feed for 796. I had called Cox support around 9pm when I first noticed that the 796 feed was gone and it took about 40 minutes on hold before being connected to a support agent who said that they had been getting tons of calls about 796 but there wasn't anything they could do as nbc had killed the feed (alhough it might have been nice if they had put a more specific message up for it rather than just the generic "temporarily off the air" screen).

But again on Sunday, all of the "live" events on nbc were back to being 3 hour delay for us, so I think the live basketball broadcast was probably just due to the late hour of it taking place.

Verizon, we want FIOS in Irvine (and apparently San Pedro, too) NOW!

Won't Happen, Irvine is ATT (Uverse) land. Verizon has no rights to sell service, much like Time Warner can't encroach on Cox territory.

Won't Happen, Irvine is ATT (Uverse) land. Verizon has no rights to sell service, much like Time Warner can't encroach on Cox territory.

Well, that is very sad. I have looked into U-verse and do not like it - besides, it is not 100% fiber to the house, so I am sure bandwidth will (and is already) an issue. I just wish we could have a choice instead of our city deciding what we want. I'll have to look into this some more and find someone, somewhere to complain to.

Won't Happen, Irvine is ATT (Uverse) land. Verizon has no rights to sell service, much like Time Warner can't encroach on Cox territory.

Not true anymore. The state legislature passed a law called the Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act of 2006 (Google DIVCA). Cox, Verizon, AT&T were given statewide franchises. Cities have to allow them access to the public right of way to install their equipment. So if Verizon wanted to install FIOS in Irvine, it could.

Well thats interesting to know, but i highly doubt they will come in to Irvine given the cost of installation and minimal return.

What ever happened to the service that cox was going to come out with were you could watch a recorded show from the DVR on any cable box in the house.

Unnecessary posts deleted.

What ever happened to the service that cox was going to come out with were you could watch a recorded show from the DVR on any cable box in the house.

As far as I know cox has no plans to do that for the Motorola boxes, but they offer it on the SA platform.

That is lame, I thought the demo they had a while back used motorola equipment. So does San Diego have this feature, and we don't.

They had a demo at the RSM office with Motorola equipment http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/money/article_1631943.php

They had a demo at the RSM office with Motorola equipment http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/money/article_1631943.php

That's from 2007 as far as that it seems like they think they can announce stuff and the forget about it.

Good find, that was the article from the Register that I remember. Almost 2 years later and nothing. I thought that with all the new motorla boxes that were being rolled out this would be coming soon. What gives.

Good find, that was the article from the Register that I remember. Almost 2 years later and nothing. I thought that with all the new motorla boxes that were being rolled out this would be coming soon. What gives.

remember the new boxes are do the fcc not anything cox wants to do. The current DCT models can also do PIP without a PIP TV, but cox chose not to have that feature either.

FIOS is apparently now available in Rancho Palos Verdes, although they aren't really actively marketing yet. Website shows it's available now, and comparable service (basic plus digital tiers plus HBO/Showtime plus HD plus HD DVRs, and premium Net) is a lot cheaper. But FIOS hasn't rolled out additional HD channels yet, and they're missing some things (NBA TV/League Pass, NHL TV/HD) that I want.

Cox should be trying to keep customers here right now, but other than the daily Digital Telephone junk mail offers, I haven't seen any reaction to the competition. When FIOS raises the number of HD channels it offers and if it adds the NBA and NHL channels and packages, I'd be hard pressed to stay with Cox.

When FIOS raises the number of HD channels it offers...I'd be hard pressed to stay with Cox.

Agreed - just hope it comes to the OC and specifically Irvine.

I'm in San Pedro (90732), just moved from Colorado and am surprised at the few options for my area. Definately jealous of my friends with verizon FiOS. The cox website doesn't really show any deals for new subscribers that I would consider outstanding. Has anyone recently started service with what they considered a good deal, promotion code, etc?

About the only thing I found on google was coxspecials/broadbandinfo although it looks a bit schetchy. Appreciate any recommendations, thanks.

My experience w/ cox in South OC (from '92 thru 5/08) has been grim with respect to cost, service, channel choices and especially their signal quality and inferior hardware boxes. Satellite beats it all.

Originally Posted by nocturne1
Incredible that it took the last day of the Olympics for NBC to realize that it might be nice for us west coasters to see something live on the main station....


the sad thing is that I don't think they ever realized it. While watching the bronze medal game live on universal hd (9pm - 11pm) the announcers kept saying that the gold medal game would be broadcast live on the specialty channel (ie 796) and would be live on the east coast. Then, during the 3rd quarter they changed their story to the gold medal game would be live on nbc for all time zones (so obviously it was a last minute decision) - this was after they had killed the feed for 796. I had called Cox support around 9pm when I first noticed that the 796 feed was gone and it took about 40 minutes on hold before being connected to a support agent who said that they had been getting tons of calls about 796 but there wasn't anything they could do as nbc had killed the feed (alhough it might have been nice if they had put a more specific message up for it rather than just the generic "temporarily off the air" screen).

But again on Sunday, all of the "live" events on nbc were back to being 3 hour delay for us, so I think the live basketball broadcast was probably just due to the late hour of it taking place.

I heard an interview on CNBC-HD with NBC's Mr. Immelt (??name) a Prez or whatever at NBC. He mentioned that NBC was very happy with the viewer response and market share of the Olympics. He said it proves that if you offer material that the people enjoy, then they will indeed watch it. NBC's two extra free HD channels, (Dish Ch98 OLYM-a and Ch99 OLYM-b) had alot of event replay material this time.

I think that for the next Olympics, we'll see alot more coverage on alot more channels. Maybe next time they might offer more Olympic channels a-la the hundreds of useless PPV movie channels. Ugh..... and they'll probably want big bucks a-la the useless boxing matches etc. "Get Your Olympics Package Now! Only $100 for 10 channels for 1 week! And if you call right now, we'll double that to both weeks for $100 with your credit card order!"

And I agree ... a "live" event should mean just that - "live" right now, no delay and not EDT or Bejing time.

Good find, that was the article from the Register that I remember. Almost 2 years later and nothing. I thought that with all the new motorla boxes that were being rolled out this would be coming soon. What gives.

I think its because Cox is a private company now and is not answerable to stockholders or the public. They only have to answer to the city(s) that give/sell them a franchise and probably to the FCC. The FCC doesn't basically care about content (except porno etc issues). But the city(s) do care. However, Cox or any other cable company has a way of blowing them off and telling 'em "we're working on it".

So it seems to me that the best alternative is to go with another provider who has the features and hardware you want at an acceptable cost. My own experience (after having had cox from '92-5/08) is get satellite. The cost is great and my 500GB DVR box works perfect for recording and/or playing from either of 2 TVs. That includes HD and SD recordings. One of my TVs is HD and the other is SD. The SD TV can watch all of the HD channels and recordings in either letterbox or non-letterbox format. And if you have an OTA antenna, they even seamlessly integrate the OTA HD channels in with their own normal program guide. I skipped Cox cable because they are way too far behind.

Originally Posted by pmsimon.
When FIOS raises the number of HD channels it offers...I'd be hard pressed to stay with Cox.

Agreed - just hope it comes to the OC and specifically Irvine.

Cox is a private company now. They appear to be stuck in the position of having to raise their bottom line profits in order to go public with another IPO. However, they have to spend $$$ to upgrade their service just enough to keep just enough customers. The old rock/hard place. Cox management doesn't seem to get it that if they were to offer great service at great prices with great equipment, people will buy. But right now they offer none of these.

Reported Dish User to the moderator. Hopefully, he will ban him from the forum.

Has anyone harrassed Cox OC about the tuning resolvers lately? Where the heck are they?! It was supposed to be Q1 or Q2 08...

We have a Motorola 3416 dvr

It appears that the HDMI output just died
Anyone else have the HDMI die on the dvr??

Component working fine
I unplugged the box, that didnt help
I tested the TV HDMI port and the cable with other equipment, it's all fine

Any ideas?

Exchange it for a new one

We have a Motorola 3416 dvr

It appears that the HDMI output just died
Anyone else have the HDMI die on the dvr??

Component working fine
I unplugged the box, that didnt help
I tested the TV HDMI port and the cable with other equipment, it's all fine

Any ideas?

Since you mention it just died, I assume it was working before and nothing in your configuration has changed. Otherwise, it could be an HDCP handshake issue. Other than that, as MJCS stated, it's time to get a new box.

Lots of outages over the weekend in Irvine 92606, cut in and out for 10 min at a time during nadals 4th round win.

Rick,

If you haven't already, try rebooting the Motorola box. Just hold down the power button until you see "boot". If that doesn't help, you need a new box from Cox. I've had mine die for other reasons, but never the HDMI port.

Chris

Hello,

I have a 6416 Phase 3. I am unable to get it to output video via Composite or S-Video. It is currently connected to my HDTV via HDMI and that works great, but I am trying to also connect it to my VCR via Composite or S-Video to tape some recorded shows, and I can't get video out of these ports. I downgraded the video to 480i but that didn't help. I also tried changing the video to 480i first, then powered off the DVR and unplugged everything except for the Composite video, but still no video. Audio comes through fine.

I was able to do this last year with Component to HDTV and Composite to VCR simultaneously, but this stopped working ever since I started using HDMI to my TV.

Is there another setting somewhere I need to change on my DVR to "re-activate" the Composite or the S-Video ports? Thanks!

When SDV does become effective in our area(PV), I better see the HD lineup sharply increase. From a wishful thinking but not too optimistic perspective, 130 HD channels would be nice. From a realistic one, about 85-90 would keep me content. As long as ESPNEWS HD, Smithsonian HD, Outdoor Channel HD, Weather Channel HD, FOX NEWS Channel HD, and ESPNU HD are among them, that's fine. I'll give COX till November to do what it takes or else I will switch to FIOS.

When SDV does become effective in our area(PV), I better see the HD lineup sharply increase. From a wishful thinking but not too optimistic perspective, 130 HD channels would be nice. From a realistic one, about 85-90 would keep me content. As long as ESPNEWS HD, Smithsonian HD, Outdoor Channel HD, Weather Channel HD, FOX NEWS Channel HD, and ESPNU HD are among them, that's fine. I'll give COX till November to do what it takes or else I will switch to FIOS.

The last time (about 3 weeks ago) I inquired about adding a specific HD channel I got this response:

"Cox Communications is currently in negotiations with several networks to provide their programming in HD. We are anticipating offering 100 channels by the end of 2009 in addition to expanding our HD OnDemand programming. While we can not disclose the names of the networks we are currently in negotiations with, we do notify all of our customers at least 30 days in advance of any channel additions or changes."

Note "end of 2009", so I wouldn't count on 100+ hd stations anytime soon.

I was wondering if anyone else has tried to watch Transformers on HBO HD lately? The picture break-up and micro-blocking is simply un-watch-able. As per usual on a Michael Bay Film lots of action and camera movement and on Lake Forest Cox, picture break-up. USA HD also looks bit starved. We haven't been up-graded yet, so maybe this will improve when they finish???
I sure hope so, and a recent internet price hike doesn't help....That is faster down, about the same up. Interested to hear what everyone else sees, and thinks....

I was wondering if anyone else has tried to watch Transformers on HBO HD lately? The picture break-up and micro-blocking is simply un-watch-able. As per usual on a Michael Bay Film lots of action and camera movement and on Lake Forest Cox, picture break-up. USA HD also looks bit starved. We haven't been up-graded yet, so maybe this will improve when they finish???
I sure hope so, and a recent internet price hike doesn't help....That is faster down, about the same up. Interested to hear what everyone else sees, and thinks.... Don't count on it. SciFi HD & USAHD and most of the other new HD channel additions are all degraded. I ran a poll in Tivo forums a while back comparing our SciFi HD bit rates to other cable companies nationwide and really only FIOS was the one that had decent bit rates (on the order of 8GB/hour instead of the ~ 5GB/hour we are getting here). Looks like cable companies took the cue from Satellite companies and while the resolutions are not being cut back the bit rates are.

I think part of the problem is this stupid race started by D* to add as many HD channels as possible. Personally I'm happy with the HD lineup we have and would much rather see improved quality for those we already have than another bunch of additions I will never watch.

Tivo announced today a new HD XL DVR with a 1 TB drive for up to 150 hours of HD recordings. That would work a lot better for me than the current 160GB drive in the 3416's. I assume this will have network capability also. Anyone know the status of the SDV adapters for Tivo? Also, will Cox rent me an "m" cable card for this for $1.99 a month with dual tuners, or will they only rent me two "s" cards for $1.99 each?

What channels are SDV right now in Irvine?

thanks,

Chris

Hiya,

I haven't been around much lately, and reading back confused me a bit, so I'm hoping you guys have some answers (you usually do!)

I can't say I'm miserable with the Cox DVR -- the interface isn't great, but it does have some advantages, like being able to browse the guide while in a recorded show. But my main gripe is the lack of hard drive space -- 10 hours of HD just isn't enough, particularly now with the increased channels available.

I was looking at the new TiVo (http://www.amazon.com/TiVo-TCD658000-HD-XL-DVR/dp/B001EWEIOW/?tag=tiv-20), and wondering some things.

1) How many HD channels do you not get if you switch from a Cox DVR to a TiVo with cable cards?

2) Is there any solution to that on the horizon?

3) How big a hassle is it to get the cable cards installed? (Moyeki, can I bribe you enough to come to my house?) :)

4) How much per month does Cox charge you for them? If I get rid of my cable box, do I still keep my "triple play" discount of $10 a month for phone, cable and internet? In other words, how much more/less will I pay per month?

5) Does TiVo still allow switching a lifetime subscription over from a series 2, if you buy one of the new HD models?

6) Anything else to consider as I think about this switch?

Thanks, guys. Your token forum chick appreciates your advice!

...But my main gripe is the lack of hard drive space -- 10 hours of HD just isn't enough, particularly now with the increased channels available.


I'll let the HD TiVo owners answer most of your questions, but I will comment on the one statement you made about 10 hours. Which box do you have? I have the DCH3416 and get closer to 20 hours of HD - not that 20 hours is great and not that I am trying to sway you away from a new TiVo. I even have an old series 2 Tivo and have always preferred it to the moto boxes and passport GUI.

1) How many HD channels do you not get if you switch from a Cox DVR to a TiVo with cable cards? For HD channels currently only a handful: SCIENCE, TRAVEL, HISTORY, ANIMAL PLANET

2) Is there any solution to that on the horizon? Yes, there is a USB based Tuning Adapter for both Motorola and Cisco/SA hardware that have completed the design/manufacture stage and have been demo'd and Tivo has updated their software to support them. However, no word yet when they will be available for general use and more particularly in Orange County.

3) How big a hassle is it to get the cable cards installed? (Moyeki, can I bribe you enough to come to my house?) :) I think it's pretty hassle free these days though Cox OC still requires a truck roll to do it. The good thing is with THD you only need 1 M-Card (which Cox OC has)

4) How much per month does Cox charge you for them? If I get rid of my cable box, do I still keep my "triple play" discount of $10 a month for phone, cable and internet? In other words, how much more/less will I pay per month? CableCard is only $2/month and you drop around $15/month off your bill when you don't use Cox DVR hardware + service fee. If you choose a long term Tivo service plan (like a 3 year pre-pay) your effective monthly costs are lower than the Cox DVR, however you have to pay for THD hardware and potentially up-front several years of service for Tivo so up front costs are much higher with Tivos. Over the long run though your effective monthly fees are not much higher when you average things out and of course you get a much superior DVR experience.

5) Does TiVo still allow switching a lifetime subscription over from a series 2, if you buy one of the new HD models? AFAIK, no. There is a lifetime option you can buy for any new Tivo now ($400 for 1st time Tivo users or $300 if you have 1 other Tivo active). Problem with lifetime is it stays with that box and is not transferable unlike the other service options which can transfer easily to new boxes.

6) Anything else to consider as I think about this switch? Going for a Tivo HD tends to lock you into staying with cable for a while (since the THD is not satellite compatible), so if you have any inkling you may want to switch away from cable it might not be a good idea. Personally I wouldn't pay that much for a 1TB HD tivo as it's cheaper just to buy the 160GB model and upgrade the hard drive yourself, so if you have any semi-technical inclinations I would recommend that route.

For me, the cablecard install was so painful (8-10 hours over 2 days) that I wouldn't even think of getting a new one until the tuning resolvers come out. Just so everything can be done at once...

I recently ordered an additional hd receiver from Cox and received a Motorola DCH3200 box. It seems to work fine and has an hdmi port which earlier receivers didn't have. It has an embedded M-card but all of the HD channels come in and the on demand interactive stuff also works well. Does anyone else have experience with this model?

Live in Turtle Ridge section in Irvine, on the side of mountain, have Cox cable service and motorola Cox box connected to my HDTV with HDMI cable, I find the box is little noisy, replacing it did not make any difference.

I am considering, getting rid of the Cox altogether, since we watch only couple of major network TV, not sure if the outside antenna would work.

Stations seems rather far upto 50 miles via the antennaweb information. Is there any experience by anyone with outside antenna in this region?

thanks,

gychang

I recently ordered an additional hd receiver from Cox and received a Motorola DCH3200 box. It seems to work fine and has an hdmi port which earlier receivers didn't have. It has an embedded M-card but all of the HD channels come in and the on demand interactive stuff also works well. Does anyone else have experience with this model?

This one is little noisy with the fan and Hard Drive (DVR, which I never use) constantly going...

gychang

This one is little noisy with the fan and Hard Drive (DVR, which I never use) constantly going...

gychang

Noisy? You think that's noisy; you should hear my PS3 in the summer. I have three different Moto DVRs and wouldn't say any of them are particularly noisy. No noisier than my series 2 TiVo or any other DVR.

In any event, I don't believe the DCH3200 is a DVR - strictly a receiver.

Noisy? You think that's noisy; you should hear my PS3 in the summer. I have three different Moto DVRs and wouldn't say any of them are particularly noisy. No noisier than my series 2 TiVo or any other DVR.

In any event, I don't believe the DCH3200 is a DVR - strictly a receiver.

correct - it is a receiver only; however the Cox quickstart instruction sheet did mention a hard drive, but no additional information about what it was for (maybe they supply same instruction sheet for dvr and non-dvr boxes)

...however the Cox quickstart instruction sheet did mention a hard drive, but no additional information about what it was for (maybe they supply same instruction sheet for dvr and non-dvr boxes)

Probably just the same sheet, as I don't think it has a hard drive -

http://developer.motorola.com/docstools/specsheets/DCH3200_Datasheet.pdf

Service outages, internet slow down, what is going on?

Daily my internet goes out, daily recordings do not complete due to loss of signal, and now my internet speed tests are coming in at 200kbps

What on earth is going on and what do I do. I have made 0 changes to my setup over the past 4 months.

Service outages, internet slow down, what is going on?

Daily my internet goes out, daily recordings do not complete due to loss of signal, and now my internet speed tests are coming in at 200kbps

What on earth is going on and what do I do. I have made 0 changes to my setup over the past 4 months.

I'm not having any of those issues. Have you called Cox?

Service outages, internet slow down, what is going on? Daily my internet goes out, daily recordings do not complete due to loss of signal, and now my internet speed tests are coming in at 200kbps.
I have made 0 changes to my setup over the past 4 months.

I had this problem with internet service several years ago. Cox come out to my house three times to fix it. They gave me a phone number for a direct line into their tech center to report problems. Bottom line is that they never fixed the issues so I changed to AT&T Yahoo DSL and now I have reliable internet service. It is not as fast as Cox claims their service is but at least it's reliable! Like you, my service was working very well for years but then it became unreliable and I had not made any changes either.

Sorry if this has been covered. If I buy a new bedroom HD set with the digital tuners built-in, will I be able to receive ANY of the Cox HD channels in the 700's??? I want to get away from another HD box, HD Dvr, or cable card. I'm hoping for the HD local channels and maybe HD Espn 1, 2 and HD FSN or???
Any help appreciated..... Thanx

...will I be able to receive ANY of the Cox HD channels in the 700's???Thanx

You will get the local HD channels (CBS2, NBC4, KTLA5, etc.). I don't believe any of the Expanded HD channels (ESPN, CNN, etc.) come in without a converter box or cable card.

Live in Turtle Ridge section in Irvine, on the side of mountain, have Cox cable service and motorola Cox box connected to my HDTV with HDMI cable, I find the box is little noisy, replacing it did not make any difference.

I am considering, getting rid of the Cox altogether, since we watch only couple of major network TV, not sure if the outside antenna would work.

Stations seems rather far upto 50 miles via the antennaweb information. Is there any experience by anyone with outside antenna in this region?

thanks,

gychang

I'm in Lake Forest I tried an indoor antenna when I first moved here, got absolutely nothing. You might have more success with an outdoor one though. But like you said most of the stations are pretty far away. When I lived in LA I got everything really good with the indoor one, of course I was only a few miles away then.

You will get the local HD channels (CBS2, NBC4, KTLA5, etc.). I don't believe any of the Expanded HD channels (ESPN, CNN, etc.) come in without a converter box or cable card.

Sorry if this has been covered. If I buy a new bedroom HD set with the digital tuners built-in, will I be able to receive ANY of the Cox HD channels in the 700's??? I want to get away from another HD box, HD Dvr, or cable card. I'm hoping for the HD local channels and maybe HD Espn 1, 2 and HD FSN or???
Any help appreciated..... Thanx

He's right without a box you will only get the major channels like NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, etc

I had this problem with internet service several years ago. Cox come out to my house three times to fix it. They gave me a phone number for a direct line into their tech center to report problems. Bottom line is that they never fixed the issues so I changed to AT&T Yahoo DSL and now I have reliable internet service. It is not as fast as Cox claims their service is but at least it's reliable! Like you, my service was working very well for years but then it became unreliable and I had not made any changes either.

I had one problem with my service when i moved in three years ago, since then i've never had a problem except when there has been a service outage but that affected everyone...

Speed is wonderful.... last speed test, 28MB up and 3MB down and it shows when i'm working with local servers and my own website...

Sorry that you had problems.....

I had this problem with internet service several years ago. Cox come out to my house three times to fix it. They gave me a phone number for a direct line into their tech center to report problems. Bottom line is that they never fixed the issues so I changed to AT&T Yahoo DSL and now I have reliable internet service. It is not as fast as Cox claims their service is but at least it's reliable! Like you, my service was working very well for years but then it became unreliable and I had not made any changes either.

how old is your cable modem box? I had similar issues about 2 years ago; at that time my cable modem was an older Toshiba that was about 6 or 7 years old. I got Cox to come out and check and they replaced the modem with a new one (no charge to me) and they also adjusted the filters (outside and inside); since then I have had excellent internet speed and quality.

it is (6 months old) brand new modem from cox. the outages have subsided for now. will keep you posted.

Cox Irvine provides "local HD" channels FREE under their basic cable plan. These include the HD versions of local broadcast stations. I receive these directly to my HDTV without a cable box.
Can I receive and record these on my new TiVo-HD? Will I need a cable card?

Cox Irvine provides "local HD" channels FREE under their basic cable plan. These include the HD versions of local broadcast stations. I receive these directly to my HDTV without a cable box.
Can I receive and record these on my new TiVo-HD? Will I need a cable card? It's a long story (search Tivo forums) but to save you time the conclusion is: To get guide listings for those channels you need an M-card. Without M-card and hence guide listings you can only setup manual recordings for those channels which makes the Tivo pretty useless.

COX want to charge a monthly fee for Digital plus the fee for the cable card. The Basic cable I have coming from the wall contains the local broadcast channels in HD, I assume these are already Digital.
Will I succesfully get the local broadcast channels in HD on my TiVo if I can convince COX to rent me a M-card without the associated digital service?

COX want to charge a monthly fee for Digital plus the fee for the cable card. The Basic cable I have coming from the wall contains the local broadcast channels in HD, I assume these are already Digital.
Will I succesfully get the local broadcast channels in HD on my TiVo if I can convince COX to rent me a M-card without the associated digital service? Yes, they are unencrypted so no extra level of service or authorization is needed. The M-card would provide the channel mapping information you need to be able to get guide listings for them. Post here if you are able to get M-card without digital service. Some in Tivo forums (but with Comcast) have said they managed to do so. Others managed to do this in a sneaky way - signed up for digital service for a month, got cable card(s), then canceled service and did not return cable cards (they continue to get monthly charges for cable cards but not for digital service that way). Haven't heard of anyone in OC (posting in this thread) that actually has done anything like that though.

Looks like Lake Forest finally got all the HD channels, ahead of schedule too.:)

I saw the news and just checked, where I am in Lake Forest has not received any new HD channels yet. I have to say the ones we do have look bit starved to me lately. Lets hope we get the new channels soon....

I saw the news and just checked, where I am in Lake Forest has not received any new HD channels yet. I have to say the ones we do have look bit starved to me lately. Lets hope we get the new channels soon....

That's weird, I'll double check when I get home tonight, but they were there last night, I watched a few. A couple of months ago I had some new channels for a few weeks when no one else had them in LF and then they took them away. I hope it's not the same thing again this time.

I am in Lake Forest and no, I did not see any new HD channels last night either. 88al88, I guess you are the lucky one again.:(

I am in Lake Forest and no, I did not see any new HD channels last night either. 88al88, I guess you are the lucky one again.:(

I went to my friends house tonight and they have the new HD channels as well, they are a couple of streets over in LF. They didn't have them when I had them the first time, so I don't know why we would have them now and you guys wouldn't. We are over by Trabuco and Ridge Route. Maybe soon for the rest of you then...

Hey 88 I checked again this morning, no new HD yet. I'm in Lake 2. I checked the Cox/OC web-site and it now says new HD for L. Forest in NOVEMBER. GREAT. I am really looking forward to the Vs HD and NFL HD this fall for Hockey and Football. Lets hope we get more channels sooner than later, and the ones we have quit looking so bad.....

Ray,

Are you sure the Cox/OC web-site says November? I just checked and now it says January, 2009. How disgusting!:mad:

I am near the corner of Trabuco and Lake Forest, not far from 88al88. So I called Cox this morning just to make sure that I was not left out by mistake. No, no mistake, my street is not ready and they don't know when it will be.

Ray,

Are you sure the Cox/OC web-site says November? I just checked and now it says January, 2009. How disgusting!:mad:

It definitely says January 2009 for Lake Forest and March 2009 for Laguna Beach. The "updated on date" stated has not been, well, updated, but they definitely changed those dates recently.

I sure am glad Irvine got the new channels a while ago, but I really feel for the cities that have had to wait for more than a year since Newport Beach and other communities first received the channels. It's one thing if Cox had just waited for all their communities to get them at once (but selfishly I am glad they didn't), but seeing others have them for so long, seems so unfair.

So from October to November and now January that's really lame. I guess I should be grateful some parts in Lake Forest have it but it doesn't seem to be too many. I can't believe Laguna Beach has to wait till March now... oy.

I just checked the Cox site again, it has indeed changed to Jan. 09 for the Lake Forest HD up-grade....WONDERFUL... I gotta say the HD we DO have looks horrible, especially HBO HD. I have some access to compare Directv and Cox channels "head to head" on the same tv. Until recently Cox was ALWAYS better, not now, not at all. Shouldn't I at least expect a great picture for the channels I do receive??? They look band-width starved, if that is the correct word. Hey Cox Blue-man, HELP!!!

I gotta say the HD we DO have looks horrible, especially HBO HD. I have some access to compare Directv and Cox channels "head to head" on the same tv. Until recently Cox was ALWAYS better, not now, not at all. Shouldn't I at least expect a great picture for the channels I do receive??? They look band-width starved, if that is the correct word. Hey Cox Blue-man, HELP!!! That's an unfortunate truth. Until this deluge of HD channel additions in the past year or so HD picture quality was very respectable. Now it's dropped in quality big time. I can no longer advocate Cox OC as better than satellite in general for picture quality. The focus of late (pushed by D*) has been quantity rather than quality.
I can only hope that Cox OC takes the Switched Digital Video deployment as a chance to free up currently starved bandwidth and improve the picture quality for all HD channels.

I am curious. Has anyone actually found out the reason why Lake Forest is the last (or one of the last) to get the expanded HD Channels. We are literally encircled by communities that have it. Are we backwards or something? Did we offend Cox is some way? Are we not Human? I would love to know the real reason.

I am curious. Has anyone actually found out the reason why Lake Forest is the last (or one of the last) to get the expanded HD Channels. We are literally encircled by communities that have it. Are we backwards or something? Did we offend Cox is some way? Are we not Human? I would love to know the real reason.

Am I the only member on this forum that has the new channels in Lake Forest? Based on what someone posted earlier it seems like it's because the current infrastructure can't handle the new bandwidth so they need to rewire everything. Of course that's no excuse, they could have started earlier on the re-wiring.

I think FoodHD comes in the best out of the new channels, National Geographic also doesn't look that bad. I think USA has also slightly improved, from it's really bad quality before, it could just be me though.

Hey guys I'm in Foothill Ranch. I just signed up for cox digital cable last week with DCH3416 DVR and I have all the channels you're listing. I would love to see FX HD. Does anyone know if Science Channel is a paid channel? It doesn't show up with the basic HD package.

Also, is PIP supposed to be disabled on my DCH3416?

And lastly, has anyone tested an external e-sata hard drive to expand storage? I know it works for scientific atlanta boxes in time warner. Any luck it works for us?

Hey guys. I'm moving to the area soon - is there any logic to what areas of Orange County Cox is available in and which ones they're not? It seems kinda random, but maybe it makes more sense after you live there.

Cox first updated communities that had other cable companies competing in the area, then they updated areas from the highest customer base to the lowest. http://cox.com/ocpv/hdtv/city_list.asp

Hey guys. I'm moving to the area soon - is there any logic to what areas of Orange County Cox is available in and which ones they're not? It seems kinda random, but maybe it makes more sense after you live there.

Well you can see in the city list which cities it is available. Someone above me posted the link. But basically it is available in southern orange county only and Palos Verdes, northern orange county is Time Warner country. I guess they overlap some in Irvine.

A bit OT, but thought I would share something a bit positive about my recent dealings with Cox customer service - particularly for those who forget that Cox is willing to negotiate.

I just received my latest bill and much to my surprise, it was for $212. Granted I get all the movie channels, have three DVRs, and get phone and Preferred Internet, but come on, $212? This was a sharp increase from the $175 I was paying before (a promotion or two expired I guess).

In any event, I called up Cox, asked to speak with the client retention department, and basically pleaded for some relief. The representative commented how I am basically making a car payment a month with them and that their competition has been "quite aggressive lately."

In any event, I got my bill down to $165 - cheaper than it was before - and I didn't have to drop any of my services. It's only good for six months, but the rep said there would probably be more promotions then. You gotta love competition.

I encourage those of you who don't have current promotions to give the customer service department a call - (949) 720-2020 - it's worth a try.

Now back to watching some HD - even if it is a bit sub-par of late.

Hi, does anyone know if the Moto 6416 HD-DVR box supports external storage to expand recording capacity? I've read eSATA works on some boxes for some cable companies, but am having a hard time telling if it will work with cox on this particular box.

If so, will any drive work or only some?

Thanks

Hi, does anyone know if the Moto 6416 HD-DVR box supports external storage to expand recording capacity? I've read eSATA works on some boxes for some cable companies, but am having a hard time telling if it will work with cox on this particular box.

If so, will any drive work or only some?

Thanks No, there are not any Moto DVR boxes with external eSATA support enabled anywhere (for any cable company) AFAIK. Only SA/Cisco boxes with particular software installation have had that enabled in certain markets.

That's funny, I just called them up today to complain about my bill and the nice young csr said let me put you on hold and see what promotions we have you may be eligible for, when she came back and told me she already put these promotions on my account and proceeded to explain each one to me. She knocked about $85 off my bill, some of the promos are for six months and some are for one year.....

A bit OT, but thought I would share something a bit positive about my recent dealings with Cox customer service - particularly for those who forget that Cox is willing to negotiate.

I just received my latest bill and much to my surprise, it was for $212. Granted I get all the movie channels, have three DVRs, and get phone and Preferred Internet, but come on, $212? This was a sharp increase from the $175 I was paying before (a promotion or two expired I guess).

In any event, I called up Cox, asked to speak with the client retention department, and basically pleaded for some relief. The representative commented how I am basically making a car payment a month with them and that their competition has been "quite aggressive lately."

In any event, I got my bill down to $165 - cheaper than it was before - and I didn't have to drop any of my services. It's only good for six months, but the rep said there would probably be more promotions then. You gotta love competition.

I encourage those of you who don't have current promotions to give the customer service department a call - (949) 720-2020 - it's worth a try.

Now back to watching some HD - even if it is a bit sub-par of late.

That's funny, I just called them up today to complain about my bill and the nice young csr said let me put you on hold and see what promotions we have you may be eligible for, when she came back and told me she already put these promotions on my account and proceeded to explain each one to me. She knocked about $85 off my bill, some of the promos are for six months and some are for one year.....So do you need to ask for the "customer retention" department, or just ask for promotional offers? Before seeing these posts I called and asked for a review of my bill because it seemed higher than before (~$200) and was basically told that everything is correct. I have phone, internet, and cable TV with two DVRs and a couple of premium channels. No offers of any special promotions for me, but then again I didn't ask for any.

So do you need to ask for the "customer retention" department, or just ask for promotional offers? Before seeing these posts I called and asked for a review of my bill because it seemed higher than before (~$200) and was basically told that everything is correct. I have phone, internet, and cable TV with two DVRs and a couple of premium channels. No offers of any special promotions for me, but then again I didn't ask for any.

In my case, the CSR brought up the fact about the promo's, so I would call back and ask about the promo's....the interesting thing is that I called into the telephone support vs. the cable tv support, but she had access to everything there....

So do you need to ask for the "customer retention" department, or just ask for promotional offers? Before seeing these posts I called and asked for a review of my bill because it seemed higher than before (~$200) and was basically told that everything is correct. I have phone, internet, and cable TV with two DVRs and a couple of premium channels. No offers of any special promotions for me, but then again I didn't ask for any.


Correct, you won't get any deals unless you ask. I asked for the customer retention department, but was told that the person I was speaking to was in that department. However, when I called a few months back to cancel service, I was transferred to an actual client retention department. Perhaps it is just a higher level rep with the customer service department?

They reduced my bill 30 dollars, $142, now $111. For 6 months.
I asked for more, but she said $15 off cable and $15 off net was all she could do.

180 off i wont complain.

BTW, I have a technician coming to my house today to look at the mess that is the wiring in my home. If i am running about 5 splitters, will he be able to rebuild it so all my tvs get signal. I am on the 3.99 protection plan, so i wont get charged.

The tech (3rd party contractor) came out 6 hours early, after calling first and seeing if it was ok. After adding a signal booster was not enough. We found there were just too many splitters on crappy cables, so instead of hunting it down we rewired about 3/4 of my house and ensured my net and HD were all working as I wanted.

Nice guy, offered him a tip, he declined.

I am not sure what I will be charged for this visit, but I was on the Protection Plan, so I hope nothing. When can I cancel the in house protection plan now?

Of note, speedtest never exceeded 5mbps before today. After the Boost was plugged in, speedtest registers 16mb down 2.5 up.

Does anybody knows how a Cox subscriber can find the contention ratio? I know the ratios are 50:1 for residential and lower for business 20:1, 10:1...

Hey, have you guys been getting A LOT of "artifacting" lately on the HD channels? Over the last few days it's been REALLY bad here in Laguna Niguel. The debate was really hard to watch because of all the freezes and pixelization that occurred. ESPN HD is doing the same thing right now as I type this.

Anybody else?

I'm on Discovery HD and it looks great

Hey, have you guys been getting A LOT of "artifacting" lately on the HD channels? Over the last few days it's been REALLY bad here in Laguna Niguel. The debate was really hard to watch because of all the freezes and pixelization that occurred. ESPN HD is doing the same thing right now as I type this.

Anybody else?
I've mainly been watching the baseball playoffs on 727 tbs and tbs hd sucks big time, i haven't seen much artifacting, but i have seen a bunch of jittery picture (not sure what this is called) I am bummed that I can't even pull out my OTA antenna and use it cause it's on TBS......

Hey, have you guys been getting A LOT of "artifacting" lately on the HD channels? Over the last few days it's been REALLY bad here in Laguna Niguel. The debate was really hard to watch because of all the freezes and pixelization that occurred. ESPN HD is doing the same thing right now as I type this.

Anybody else?

It's been fine here in Irvine - well, at least the same as always, anyway.

I have been getting macro blocks like crazy on many channels

No problems in Aliso Viejo, the HD quality is amazingly good (sonyXBR 46), for the playoffs.

FYI: A Comcast New Jersey user with a Tivo has reported he obtained his free Cisco Switched Digital Video (SDV) Tuning Adapter today and it's up and running fine:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6743015#post6743015
So looks like they are being officially released now. (Funny that Comcast was the 1st to release these and yet of the major cable companies they are the ones least using SDV right now).
So Tivo has done it's part. Let's hope Cox OC has these available soon...

VERY nice to see that Comcast allows self-installs of them. Lets hope that Cox will do the same.

So Cisco's obviously shipping them according to that post. Doesn't necessarily mean that the Motorola ones are shipping yet unfortunately....

VERY nice to see that Comcast allows self-installs of them. Lets hope that Cox will do the same.

So Cisco's obviously shipping them according to that post. Doesn't necessarily mean that the Motorola ones are shipping yet unfortunately.... Looks like Motorola SDV TA deployment is soon following (this one at Mediacom for RidgeCrest, CA):
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6747111#post6747111

I was wondering if anyone else has noticed on Lakers telecasts (1 so far) that sometimes the HD picture goes blurry a bit for a second, and seems to happen at various points during the game, almost like a focusing issue. I noticed it last year also, but it only happens on KCAL Laker telecasts. Moyekj, have you ever noticed this?

I watch a lot of HD sports and this is the only time I have ever seen it, just during Laker games.

Bob in Mission Viejo

I was wondering if anyone else has noticed on Lakers telecasts (1 so far) that sometimes the HD picture goes blurry a bit for a second, and seems to happen at various points during the game, almost like a focusing issue. I noticed it last year also, but it only happens on KCAL Laker telecasts. Moyekj, have you ever noticed this?

I watch a lot of HD sports and this is the only time I have ever seen it, just during Laker games.

Bob in Mission Viejo Yes, KCALHD broadcasts had a bunch of problems last year from what I recall. I watched at least parts of every single Lakers games last year and overall was not impressed with broadcast quality in general. The FSNWHD broadcasts were better overall compared to KCALHD. TNTHD was not that great either. ABCHD/ESPNHD ones were probably the best.
I don't watch pre-season games though so can't comment on last broadcast.

FYI, TWC San Antonio now also announced SDV TA availability, so looks like the deployment of these Tuning Adapters is picking up steam:
http://www.timewarnercable.com/SanAntonio/Products/Cable/sdv/default.html

Hello,
I've noticed that only on NBC 4 HD, there is a popping sound from the left speaker every few seconds, in the exact same interval. I'm on Cox digital southern California and this doesn't occur on any other channels, just NBC HD. Is anyone else experiencing this?

If not, can a DVR box cause this? Problems with just one channel or is there nothing I can do. Thanks!

Yes, KCALHD broadcasts had a bunch of problems last year from what I recall. I watched at least parts of every single Lakers games last year and overall was not impressed with broadcast quality in general. The FSNWHD broadcasts were better overall compared to KCALHD. TNTHD was not that great either. ABCHD/ESPNHD ones were probably the best.
I don't watch pre-season games though so can't comment on last broadcast.

Well it's good you do not watch the pre-season games so far, no defense for the Lakers yet.

Bob in Mission Viejo

Hello,
I've noticed that only on NBC 4 HD, there is a popping sound from the left speaker every few seconds, in the exact same interval. I'm on Cox digital southern California and this doesn't occur on any other channels, just NBC HD. Is anyone else experiencing this?

I noticed this in a show I recorded on 704 on Wednesday night. I thought it was my speaker until I tested it.

Do you think it's with the Cox DVR? Should we change that? Doesn't seem likely, but it's weird issue to have for NBC.

I THINK THAT I CAN EASE YOUR WORRIES!!!


I have the same exact problem from my sony television speakers. I just purchased a new television so i did extensive research on the what was going on. NBC HD has a ticking, popping, clicking type noise every 4 seconds that comes from the left channel. I have determined that this happens only when watching NBC HD. I live in los angeles and i have direct tv.
The problem happens on:
1. Direct TV NBC HD
2. OTA NBC HD
3. Time Warner NBC HD
4. As well as converter box ota nbc

I have heard this sound on different televisions WITH DIFFERENT SERVICE PROVIDERS. THere must be something going on with the signal from the digital version of NBC because it does not happen on the analog.

Has anybody heard anything about a fix for the dolby digital bug on the new dvrs. When you record two shows at once the sound gets kicked back to pcm and you have to reboot to get dolby digital back.

I THINK THAT I CAN EASE YOUR WORRIES!!!


I have the same exact problem from my sony television speakers. I just purchased a new television so i did extensive research on the what was going on. NBC HD has a ticking, popping, clicking type noise every 4 seconds that comes from the left channel. I have determined that this happens only when watching NBC HD. I live in los angeles and i have direct tv.
The problem happens on:
1. Direct TV NBC HD
2. OTA NBC HD
3. Time Warner NBC HD
4. As well as converter box ota nbc

I have heard this sound on different televisions WITH DIFFERENT SERVICE PROVIDERS. THere must be something going on with the signal from the digital version of NBC because it does not happen on the analog.

Looks like this is pretty widespread; I'm getting the popping through my Fios service in Ventura County. There's another avs forum reporting the same issue: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14840721 - I recommend letting NBC know.

Has anybody heard anything about a fix for the dolby digital bug on the new dvrs. When you record two shows at once the sound gets kicked back to pcm and you have to reboot to get dolby digital back.

i have the exact same issue which drives me nuts..... hate having to reboot the box a couple of times a week. i haven't heard anything about a fix for that bug as of yet, been patiently waiting for one.

i have the exact same issue which drives me nuts..... hate having to reboot the box a couple of times a week. i haven't heard anything about a fix for that bug as of yet, been patiently waiting for one.

I just don't think Cox really thinks it is much of a problem. Back in the days when we had the subscription bug issue (failed recordings), a ton of people were complaining, at least on this forum. As for the annoying red recording light and the even more annoying Dolby Digital issue, I rarely read many complaints, yet these issues affect at least me nearly every day.

I highly encourage those who are frustrated, too, to let Cox know:

https://www.cox.com/support/ocpv/emailchat/emailus.asp

800-234-3993
949-240-1212

I just don't think Cox really thinks it is much of a problem. Back in the days when we had the subscription bug issue (failed recordings), a ton of people were complaining, at least on this forum. As for the annoying red recording light and the even more annoying Dolby Digital issue, I rarely read many complaints, yet these issues affect at least me nearly every day.

I highly encourage those who are frustrated, too, to let Cox know:

https://www.cox.com/support/ocpv/emailchat/emailus.asp

800-234-3993
949-240-1212 Don't know about you but the last 3 support questions I sent to Cox via email I got no feedback from Cox other than the automated acknowledgment they received my email.
It's frustrating because lately the questions I have submitted are related to CableCard or Switched Digital Video which the phone support 1st level seem to know next to nothing about.
For my last email I even sent a followup email regarding one of my emails that went ignored and, you guessed it, that was ignored as well. So it seems to me the email support infrastructure is just a vast black hole that goes largely unchecked...

So it seems to me the email support infrastructure is just a vast black hole that goes largely unchecked...

Sadly, I feel you are probably right. I've received their canned response in each of the technical issues I've raised. The responses to my requests for additional HD channels reference the actual channels I requested, but I am sure it is also just a canned response utilizing a mail merge.

I still encourage others to send an e-mail, or, better yet, call in. I have done the latter on a couple occasions - at least I feel in talking to a real person that some action may result.

The good news is that competition will continue to increase, and with this economy, I would think Cox may have to start actually listenting to their customers again.

Perhaps I am just too optimistic...

Not sure when it happened (it may have been a long while now), but 762=History Channel HD can now be tuned with CableCard. That still leaves 3 HD channels that cannot (not that I care about any one of them):
732=SCIENCE HD
753=TRAVEL HD
772=ANIMAL PLANET HD

Not sure when it happened (it may have been a long while now), but 762=History Channel HD can now be tuned with CableCard. That still leaves 3 HD channels that cannot (not that I care about any one of them):
732=SCIENCE HD
753=TRAVEL HD
772=ANIMAL PLANET HD

probably has to do with this

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=408003

Not sure when it happened (it may have been a long while now), but 762=History Channel HD can now be tuned with CableCard. That still leaves 3 HD channels that cannot (not that I care about any one of them):
732=SCIENCE HD
753=TRAVEL HD
772=ANIMAL PLANET HD
762 was added quite some time ago - when we got the last batch of channels. I believe I posted about it, but of course, it apparently got lost when the board last crashed and was restored.

762 was added quite some time ago - when we got the last batch of channels. I believe I posted about it, but of course, it apparently got lost when the board last crashed and was restored. Yes I remember when it was added quite a while ago, but it was kept out of the CableCard channel map along with the other 3 HD channels I posted about. At some point that changed...

Yes I remember when it was added quite a while ago, but it was kept out of the CableCard channel map along with the other 3 HD channels I posted about. At some point that changed...
It was added to the CableCard mapping right before the olympics started, from what I recall.

...I to have noticed the HD PQ steadily decline over here in Irvine (Portola Springs). I see pixilation, blurring, etc...and from what I can see the files my S3 TiVo records are significantly smaller than they were 6 months ago. I'd guess around 25% off my hip.

This is just an overall impression with Showtime HD and HBO...and the broadcast networks. Could our PQ issues be related to baseball playoffs and cox tweaking the available bandwidth for the live games? It seems like the PQ problems have gradually crept in. On my end it was nothing noticeable. Judging by my 6+ month old recordings (I tend to record a whole season of a show before watching it) week by week the PQ just gets a tiny bit worse.

With that said, I was a happy DirecTV customer until they dropped TiVo and moved their HD offering to MPEG-4...now with the reports of DirecTV offering a new MPEG-4 enabled HD TiVo are any of you considering switching?

I'm probably going to do it...but then again DirecTV has its own horror stories. I guess we'll have to wait and see in 09.

-bubu

...I to have noticed the HD PQ steadily decline over here in Irvine (Portola Springs). I see pixilation, blurring, etc...and from what I can see the files my S3 TiVo records are significantly smaller than they were 6 months ago. I'd guess around 25% off my hip.

This is just an overall impression with Showtime HD and HBO...and the broadcast networks. Could our PQ issues be related to baseball playoffs and cox tweaking the available bandwidth for the live games? It seems like the PQ problems have gradually crept in. On my end it was nothing noticeable. Judging by my 6+ month old recordings (I tend to record a whole season of a show before watching it) week by week the PQ just gets a tiny bit worse.

With that said, I was a happy DirecTV customer until they dropped TiVo and moved their HD offering to MPEG-4...now with the reports of DirecTV offering a new MPEG-4 enabled HD TiVo are any of you considering switching?

I'm probably going to do it...but then again DirecTV has its own horror stories. I guess we'll have to wait and see in 09.

-bubu You are right, over the last year or so HD picture quality has degraded considerably. Last I checked there were even cases with 3 HD channels sharing a single QAM (previously the limit was 2 per QAM). In some cases it's so bad if you pause playback and look at the still frame it just looks horrible. The bit rates have gone way down on some channels for sure so I think Cox OC has become overly aggressive with bit rate shaping. It would seem like even though SDV is supposed to have been deployed by now that's not really the case yet and so all bandwidth is being used up right now and Cox is degrading quality to squeeze everything in.
It used to be for some 1080i channels my recording sizes would be 7-8 GB/hour. Now most of them are less than 6 GB/hour.
I really should compare recording file sizes of OTA vs. Cox feed for CBS, ABC, etc. again as I believe those have been affected as well.

I'm not sure if there is a sympathetic ear at Cox OC to this issue. It would seem most customers prefer quantity over quality...

It would seem most customers prefer quantity over quality...

Unfortunately, this is true. As has already been the case with music (MP3s), we should expect the same for HD television. Having mass consumer adoption of HDTV has certainly been a good thing in some respects, but up until the advent of DVD, quality and mass adoption were often at odds. I believe this negative trend continues with the current struggle for both Blu-ray and quality HDTV.

In this time of greatly increased competition (DirecTV, DISH, Fios, U-verse), not to mention the economy, I hope that we can eventually get quantity AND quality. I realize the Cox answer to this is SDV, but have we heard any reports on just what level of quality SDV gives us, or doesn't? Besides, even if the introduction of SDV restores us to our previous average HDTV quality, the relentless quest for as many channels as possible will just continue and we will be back to subpar quality again.

In the long run, Cox has got to (and will) do something if they want to compete. In the meantime, those of us who want and are able to switch should be greatful for the alternatives.

Just my two cents....

Posting here recording sizes (as reported by Tivo S3) of OTA broadcast HD channels recordings vs. Cox cable OC re-broadcast of the same as a rough comparison of bitrates.
(On my Tivo S3 with antenna I'm able to record OTA version while at the same time recording Cox version on 2nd tuner)
NOTE: It's not a typo if you see cable larger than OTA
NOTE: Tivo adds some metadata and encryption to the files stored on disk, so actual pure mpeg2 sizes as captured by PC tuners for example will be about 10% smaller than these sizes.

CBSHD 10/21/2008 9:00-10:00pm
OTA=6.5GB CABLE=6.67GB

NBCHD 10/21/2008 10:30-11:00pm
OTA=2.61GB CABLE=2.56GB

ABCHD 10/21/2008 11:15-11:45pm
OTA=2.72GB CABLE=2.71GB

FOXHD 10/22/2008 12:00-12:30am
OTA=3.65GB CABLE=3.65GB

CONCLUSION THUS FAR: No significant differences for local broadcast channels (which is what I found when I ran this experiment quite a while back).

Posting here recording sizes (as reported by Tivo HD) of broadcast HD channels vs. Cox cable OC re-broadcast of the same as a rough comparison of bitrates.
NOTE: It's not a typo if you see cable larger than OTA

CBSHD 10/21/2008 9:00-10:00pm
OTA=6.5GB CABLE=6.67GB

Interesting. Perhaps an ignorant question, but is file size enough of a determinant? Clearly both broadcast and Cox are using compression, but could the OTA be using a different compression format? Is it possible to measure bitrate for the two? I don't have OTA HD, but it seems to me those who do feel that the picture quality is better.

Interesting. Perhaps an ignorant question, but is file size enough of a determinant? Clearly both broadcast and Cox are using compression, but could the OTA be using a different compression format? Is it possible to measure bitrate for the two? I don't have OTA HD, but it seems to me those who do feel that the picture quality is better. While the transmission mechanisms are very different ultimately what you get via OTA transmission or via cable QAM is mpeg2 video in an mpeg2 transport stream container. Within an mpeg2 transport stream container there can be (and usually are) several different audio and video streams as well as PSIP data. Ultimately though Cox is taking streams from the local stations and muxing them in with others with some fancy equipment and bit rate shaping techniques and using QAM modulation as distribution method over hybrid fiber/coax network. Once it reaches your house a QAM tuner then demodulates and picks out the relevant streams which make up the mpeg2 video. This feed is identical in format to what you get out of an ATSC tuner.
What is different is the bit rate and that is largely determined by the equipment at the cable headend and how it muxes together several streams in 1 6MHz QAM 256. There is ~ 38 Mbps total available per 6MHz QAM 256 so no matter how many channels Cox is cramming into that QAM the total bit rate cannot exceed 38 Mbps. If Cox is too aggressive and crams too many streams in 1 QAM then that means bits have to be dropped here and there depending on the dynamic bit rates of the other streams.

Long story short, yes they are identical compression formats and in the case of Cox OC the resolutions are also identical, so the only big variation is the bit rate. There are tools for analyzing mpeg2 transport streams that you can verify that.

There is other information such as PSIP which can be different between the two and the feeds can be from different sources which can help explain some of the size differences. Also I believe ad insertion by Cox could be another pretty sizable difference. However, ultimately as a rough estimate the total size of the recording gives a good indication of bit rate differences in this case. What I'm looking for is any gross differences between the two, which so far I have not seen (and from previous such experiments have not seen either).

Of course with this experiment what I can't do is analyze other non-local broadcast feeds. However you may have seen I set up a little poll about SciFi HD channel a while back asking Tivo users the size of their recordings for certain programs on SciFi HD. Consistently (and not unexpected) the FIOS feeds were by far the highest (8 GB/hour) versus typical cable company sizes of around 6 GB/hour or less.
It could very well be that Cox OC is not degrading things very much at all, but their source feeds they are getting may already be degraded (for example for HBO, Showtime, etc).

there were a few posts on other forum threads, but I didn't see anything on his one, so am reporting this; last week the FCC announced that it is proposing a $20K fine against Cox, Fairfield for apparent violation of several regulations when they moved a small number of channels onto SDV in Fairfield late last year which resulted in some customers using cablecards being no longer able to receive these channels. In addition, Cox has to provide refunds to these customers for loss of service. The full FCC ruling is here: http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-08-2299A1.pdf

This ruling doesn't seem to imply that Cox cannot add new channels via sdv; only that it cannot move existing ones over.

Your file size differences are most likely different comercials. I know that in CT, Cox inserts some comercials on all of the networks you listed. If I watch OTA I might not see the local pawn shop comercial where I do on Cox.



Posting here recording sizes (as reported by Tivo S3) of OTA broadcast HD channels recordings vs. Cox cable OC re-broadcast of the same as a rough comparison of bitrates.
(On my Tivo S3 with antenna I'm able to record OTA version while at the same time recording Cox version on 2nd tuner)
NOTE: It's not a typo if you see cable larger than OTA
NOTE: Tivo adds some metadata and encryption to the files stored on disk, so actual pure mpeg2 sizes as captured by PC tuners for example will be about 10% smaller than these sizes.

CBSHD 10/21/2008 9:00-10:00pm
OTA=6.5GB CABLE=6.67GB

NBCHD 10/21/2008 10:30-11:00pm
OTA=2.61GB CABLE=2.56GB

ABCHD 10/21/2008 11:15-11:45pm
OTA=2.72GB CABLE=2.71GB

FOXHD 10/22/2008 12:00-12:30am
OTA=3.65GB CABLE=3.65GB

CONCLUSION THUS FAR: No significant differences for local broadcast channels (which is what I found when I ran this experiment quite a while back).

The commercials certainly would make a difference since they take up anywhere from 18 to 22 minutes of a 60 minute show and they tend to be in SD on cox...

Another thought, it could very well be the broadcast networks cutting corners with the feed they provide. Satellite bandwidth can't be cheep...

-bubu

The commercials certainly would make a difference since they take up anywhere from 18 to 22 minutes of a 60 minute show and they tend to be in SD on cox...

Another thought, it could very well be the broadcast networks cutting corners with the feed they provide. Satellite bandwidth can't be cheep...

-bubu Yes I mentioned ad insertion as possible reason for the differences in file sizes.
If you read this Mpeg4 Rules the World (http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6606548.html) article it is noted that ABC will start distributing it's national feed to stations with mpeg4 compression very soon. Then that will have to be converted back to mpeg2 before being broadcast by local station, so I would expect further degradation from ABC HD coming soon.
Also note that HBO & Cinemax I believe already have switched over to mpeg4 for national distribution via satellite, so they too must be converted back to mpeg2 at some point causing further degradation.

Long story short, yes they are identical compression formats and in the case of Cox OC the resolutions are also identical, so the only big variation is the bit rate....

...What I'm looking for is any gross differences between the two, which so far I have not seen (and from previous such experiments have not seen either).

Thanks for the excellent mini-analysis. It sounds like there are quite a few processes involved in the transmission of HDTV signals from studio to house, so it seems the more there are, the worse it CAN be. Emphasis on CAN, as some do better than others.

Question for those who are able to do side-by-side (or at least sequential) comparisons of OTA vs. Cox; do you notice much of a real-world difference in overall picture quality? I would be curious at least to hear of any differences in resolution and / or macro blocking - or anything else you might see.

I would ask the same question of OTA vs. satellite if there are any of you out there who have both.

Question for those who are able to do side-by-side (or at least sequential) comparisons of OTA vs. Cox; do you notice much of a real-world difference in overall picture quality? I would be curious at least to hear of any differences in resolution and / or macro blocking - or anything else you might see. There is no noticeable difference in the case of Cox OC and that's the intent of these occasional comparisons to prove that is the case beyond just subjective visual comparsions. The signals coming in are virtually identical and defects show up the same for both. For my case sometimes OTA signal strength can drop below marginal level for some channels (NBC HD for example) and so I will get some unrecoverable lost bits which show up as image defects and macro blocking. So normally I prefer to use the Cox feeds for recording, but I like to keep OTA option available as well to do these kinds of comparisons and give myself option to drop cable completely (not likely as I like to have ESPNHD, TNTHD, USAHD, SCIFIHD, etc. but it's nice to have that option).

There is no noticeable difference in the case of Cox OC...

Okay, so back to the original post of bubu yesterday regarding jumping ship (as way of reminder, he was referring to jumping from Cox to DirecTV), the question then is how does DirecTV look compared to Cox? It sounds like at least some of the decrease he is seeing in quality may be more studio / broadcaster dependent and not necessarily Cox. I guess the only way we will know, though, is if there is someone out there who has both and would like to compare and comment.

This is quite frustrating in that we all definitely see degradation in the PQ for Cox, yet pinpointing the cause may either be too expensive or be too impractical.

Here's another interesting read which may explain reduced quality feeds at national level:
http://www.tvpredictions.com/2008/03/is-comcast-squeezing-your-hd-picture.html
In particular:
Furthermore, you do not have to be a Comcast subscriber to note this diminished picture quality. This 3:1 compression is being performed at the Comcast Media Center’s Headend in the Sky(HITS) in Denver which feeds the cable channels to many other cable companies including Cox and Charter. The 3:1 compression does not effect all HD channels, at least not as of yet. Select channels without much in the way of motion are being grouped together in groups of three. The affected channels are as follows: Discovery HD, SciFi, USA, Food, National Geographic, Universal HD, A&E, HGTV, Starz, Cinemax, HBO, TLC, Animal Planet, Discovery HD Theater and History.
That very well may explain back when I did my SciFi HD poll in Tivo forums that the posted Comcast file sizes were very similar to the ones I posted (seeing as they come from same source), and of course FIOS was the best by a long shot.
It looks like it may very well be the case DirecTV has a leg up on Cox on picture quality now for those HD channels and possibly others.

Here's another interesting read which may explain reduced quality feeds at national level:
http://www.tvpredictions.com/2008/03/is-comcast-squeezing-your-hd-picture.html

I just wish we could get FIOS.

The last part of that article is so well put and so important. I frequently suggest channels to Cox, but have never commented to them about picture quality. I will now. I strongly suggest others do the same: https://www.cox.com/support/ocpv/emailchat/emailus.asp

I would suggest that those of you that care about the quality of their HD experience complain to Comcast or their own cable company about what they are doing. Otherwise, they will continue to do so and spread the practice to other channels as well. They will take your silence as a sign that you are not noticing what they are doing to the signal which will only encourage them to continue and even worse, expand the practice. Tell them you are as mad as hell and won’t take it anymore! Or, at least, that you will switch to another service if it continues. Loss of subscribers is the only thing that will get their attention! The ball is in your court, HD fans!

I don't mean to carry a torch (at least too far) on this, but for those who are looking for a simple cut-and-paste way to tell Cox how you feel about their recent degradation in picture quality, here is what I posted to this URL: https://www.cox.com/support/ocpv/emailchat/emailus.asp

I have often requested more HD channels, but this request is of a different nature and may seem to contradict my previous requests. While I definitely want additional HD channels, I requested such under the assumption that picture quality would remain pristine. After all, that is the whole reason so many of us wanted, watch, and absolutely love HD. However, I have watched the quality of your HD channels degrade significantly over the last few months and now I find out you are compressing three HD channels into that same QAM slot that previously held only two. Cox, I hope you listen to me and others like me who I am sure are or soon will be complaining. From this point forward, when I suggest HD channels to you, I should qualify my request as follows: I would like to formally request that Cox please add the HD feed for the [insert requested channel here] channel, but not at a cost to the picture quality of the other HD channels I currently enjoy. ---It's simple: Picture Quality First, Channel Quantity Second--- If you can't get this right, you will lose my (and certainly others) business; it's just a matter of time, so I implore you to heed my suggestion.

I had absolutely no idea that HBO etc have already moved to MPEG-4 the re-packaging of MPEG4 into MPEG2 would certainly explain some of the video loss on the "premium" cable channels I've noticed. I unfortunately do not have any 6+ month old shows saved from HBO.

Just to clarify, the MPEG-4 DirecTV tivo won't be released for another year...I'm just looking @ the long term. If the national feeds are going to go to MPEG4 as HBO has apparently already...why expose yourself to another "layer" of re-encoding which has to cause pq degradation.

...now the haunting question is the whole "HD-LITE" fiasco directv has been litigated over done with, are they still down-rezing their HD signals or was that back in their MPEG2 days? Them going MPEG4 and dropping TiVo may have been the "coffin" that made me bail them 3 years ago...but HD-Lite was definitely the final nail.

As a curiosity, does anyone know if directv is still distributing FOX's national HD feed?

...on a side note, I tried AT&T's u-verse.

You gotta be a masochist to endure their buggy receivers...and the HD PQ was noticeably more grainy & "fizzly" for better lack of words when comparing to the iffy COX pq on the same show using my S3 TiVo...I wound up canceling within 7 days.

...on a side note, I tried AT&T's u-verse.

You gotta be a masochist to endure their buggy receivers...and the HD PQ was noticeably more grainy & "fizzly" for better lack of words when comparing to the iffy COX pq on the same show using my S3 TiVo...I wound up canceling within 7 days.

Yes, I've heard quite a few negative views on u-verse. I do appreciate at&t's effort, and certainly welcome the added competition, but having copper from the street to the house just doesn't make sense. It certainly wasn't forward thinking. Verizon did; I just wish they offered Fios in Irvine.

I don't think there is anything fundamentaly wrong with the way AT&T went about deploying u-verse. There is plenty of bandwidth and expandability in copper. I think their biggest problem is the same one COX has...older lines are not capable of supporting the bandwidth so their service offering has to reflect their 30+ year old copper.

...The u-verse/att service boxes are less than 900 meters from the homes they service (at least in my neighborhood) so I think copper vs fiber may be a mute point down the line. The primary dsl flavor they use is VDSL (they may claim its ADSL, but trust me its VDSL). I've seen VDSL2 offer symmetrical speeds north of 100mbit. I've seen 100mbit symmetrical VDSL2 residential lines when I was in Korea over the summer. I remember bell south here stateside talking about 80mbit service via VDSL2 by the end of 2008 (obviously that's fizzled out). I have no idea what the DSLAM distance is for the service over in Korea but they follow the same model as AT&T follows here state side; fiber to the DSLAM (basement or floor of the apartment building), copper from the DSLAM to the end user.

FIOS vs. U-Verse ...outside of the delivery technology and their corresponding strengths & weaknesses (FIOS using cable tv standards vs AT&T using IP-TV). I don't think there is any difference in terms of the quality of service both of these services can provide. Its just shame AT&T is using its customers as beta testers...then again same thing could have been said about COX DVR's :) (the reason I wound up a TiVo devote)

...I really believe that we'll be choosing service based on PQ alone within 2 years.

Mojo is gone from Cox in RSM... Anyone else still have it? Three Sheets was my fav show.

Mojo is gone from Cox in RSM... Anyone else still have it? Three Sheets was my fav show.
Mojo HD cancelled (http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/10/02/mojo-hd-gets-canceled-should-vanish-by-months-end/)
Personally I never watched the channel and even took it out of my channel lineup.

Posting here recording sizes (as reported by Tivo S3) of OTA broadcast HD channels recordings vs. Cox cable OC re-broadcast of the same as a rough comparison of bitrates.
(On my Tivo S3 with antenna I'm able to record OTA version while at the same time recording Cox version on 2nd tuner)
NOTE: It's not a typo if you see cable larger than OTA
NOTE: Tivo adds some metadata and encryption to the files stored on disk, so actual pure mpeg2 sizes as captured by PC tuners for example will be about 10% smaller than these sizes.

CBSHD 10/21/2008 9:00-10:00pm
OTA=6.5GB CABLE=6.67GB

NBCHD 10/21/2008 10:30-11:00pm
OTA=2.61GB CABLE=2.56GB

ABCHD 10/21/2008 11:15-11:45pm
OTA=2.72GB CABLE=2.71GB

FOXHD 10/22/2008 12:00-12:30am
OTA=3.65GB CABLE=3.65GB

CONCLUSION THUS FAR: No significant differences for local broadcast channels (which is what I found when I ran this experiment quite a while back).

Well I'm replying late, but that seems a little low for CBS. When I record an hour of Letterman on my computer it's usually about 7.5GB. I have noticed the office is down to about 2.8GB for 30 minutes where as a 30min show on CBS is usually about 3.2GB to 3.5GB. Not sure if NBC was always lower or it just recently was degraded but I thought last season my file records for the office were also about 3 to 3.5GB. Of course this is all through COX, but I actually do have some office records form last year saved somewhere on my hard drive.

I just got 2 Tivo (1 HD XL and 1 HD) with lifetime service.
Went to the Cox store in Quail Hill and requested an M-card installation services for my 2 tivos.

There were 3 CS reps and NONE of them had any idea about the M-card. They kept saying they only install the regular cable cards.

I had enough wasting my time arguing with those clueless people and asked them to schedule an installation and put a comment on the order sheet that the "customer wants to install Tivo M-cards" this coming friday.

Hopefully, the tech would bring the m-cards with him.

Eric

I just got 2 Tivo (1 HD XL and 1 HD) with lifetime service.
Went to the Cox store in Quail Hill and requested an M-card installation services for my 2 tivos.

There were 3 CS reps and NONE of them had any idea about the M-card. They kept saying they only install the regular cable cards.

I had enough wasting my time arguing with those clueless people and asked them to schedule an installation and put a comment on the order sheet that the "customer wants to install Tivo M-cards" this coming friday.

Hopefully, the tech would bring the m-cards with him.

Eric LOL. Try mentioning Switched Digital Video or Tuning Adapter next time too while you are at it. :D No laughing matter really...

http://gizmodo.com/5069240/cox-becoming-a-virtual-wireless-provider-using-sprints-network-in-2009

This sounds like failure is written all over it.

Unless they offer cutthroat prices with good handsets and interesting connections to my DVR without bugs (Which they claim they will) why would I leave ATT / V / or Other.

LOL. Try mentioning Switched Digital Video or Tuning Adapter next time too while you are at it. :D No laughing matter really...

LOL, they would think I come from another planet if I had mentioned the above :D.
It's just really frustrating that 90% of Cox employees has no clue about these things.

Cox will charge me $50 for the M-cards installation :mad:.
Has anybody been able to waive that charge successfully?

Eric

Did anyone else notice breakups during the World Series game on FOX last night? They were really bad for me in RSM. Thanks,

Cox VA sends a letter to customers about additional SDV channel deployment and confirmation that Tuning Adapter for Tivo Series 3 customers will be available free of charge "later this year":
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=408897

Since AFAIK no customer of Cox, OC has received a letter such as the one in VA I'm assuming that SDV indeed has not yet been deployed here, and we should be getting a similar letter before it happens.

Cox will charge me $50 for the M-cards installation :mad:.
Has anybody been able to waive that charge successfully?

Eric

I too was steaming :mad: about the "install fee". I was charged $50 EACH, for 2 M-cards (1 for each TiVoHD). All they did was plug the thing in, make a call and read off a bunch of numbers. I could have done that!

I too was steaming :mad: about the "install fee". I was charged $50 EACH, for 2 M-cards (1 for each TiVoHD). All they did was plug the thing in, make a call and read off a bunch of numbers. I could have done that!

Did they install both cards during the same time visit or 2 separate visits to your home?
They better not charge me $50 twice when they come tomorrow to install 2 M-cards.

Did anyone else notice breakups during the World Series game on FOX last night? They were really bad for me in RSM. Thanks,


We had intermittent breakup problems in Palos Verdes for the last couple of games on Fox. Blocks aplenty. Annoying as heck for this Phillies fan. I thought it might be a matter of cable signal strength, but we're not having problems on other channels.

Woot! Tech just came by, upgraded the Box on the side of the house from a 800Mhz to a 1Ghz Unit (I think I got that right) for future ugrades. He said they are doing MV first, he was doing 25 houses himself today. Don't know what it means at this point (sure moyekj can explain it) but any upgrade is a step in the right direction.

Finally it's Lakers time!! Hopefully TNT HD feed won't be too crappy tonight... go Lakers!

Did they install both cards during the same time visit or 2 separate visits to your home?
They better not charge me $50 twice when they come tomorrow to install 2 M-cards.

It was a single visit. Let us know if your experience was different.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/10/29/cox-adding-slew-of-hd-channels-in-kansas-arkansas/
We can only hope that means us soon.

Very cool!

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/10/29/cox-adding-slew-of-hd-channels-in-kansas-arkansas/
We can only hope that means us soon. Until SDV deployment actual happens here (which I believe is not the case) I wouldn't expect any more HD additions.

So whats the benefit of the upgraded unit they intalled on my house yesterday? Will it allow them to add more channels, more bandwidth, etc?

PS..nice start to the Lakers Season, only watch a few mins here and there but feed was fine.

So whats the benefit of the upgraded unit they intalled on my house yesterday? Will it allow them to add more channels, more bandwidth, etc?

PS..nice start to the Lakers Season, only watch a few mins here and there but feed was fine. I believe the latest node enhancements were to increase line bandwidth from 750 MHz->1GHz, so they were probably just ensuring that any amps, splitters, etc. from node to each house also are capable of up to 1GHz. However the headend video equipment is still only good up to 860MHz (there are no channels in our lineup on frequencies > 860 MHz). So the line upgrades so far got us another 120 MHz or so (20 additional QAMs) which is why Cox was able to add all these additional HD channels over the last year or so.

Carrying video at frequencies > 860 MHz would require expensive video equipment upgrades at the headend. Other issue is that many existing set top boxes don't support > 860 MHz either (I know the S3 Tivos don't either). So I doubt Cox will be using 860-1000 MHz range for video services any time soon, but perhaps other services can such as internet & phone. Could be, for example, that they may implement DOCSIS 3.0 in that extra range and give us >= 100 Mbps internet downloads. Other possibility is to have MPEG4 video distribution use that frequency range as well. MPEG4 requires newer set top boxes with mpeg4 decoders that are likely capable of frequencies up to 1 GHz.
Being a private company the details of what they plan to do with extra bandwidth are not publicly disclosed, so one can only speculate.

Aside from SDV personally I think it's time that Cox started dropping some analog channels completely (making them only available in digital tier). Each analog channel they drop can fit 2 HD mpeg2 channels or 10-15 SD mpeg2 digital channels.

It was a single visit. Let us know if your experience was different.

Installation went fine with one minor bump.

One of the M-Cards was faulty and would not display anything on the pairing screen.
Robert, the Cox tech, was really nice enough to check around if one of the other techs on the field has any spare M-Cards. Luckily one of the other techs in the Irvine area had one spare M-card. He then went out to get it from the other tech and came back with a working card.

So kudo to Robert for going the extra mile to save me from another (paid) visit. He was very knowledgeable about M-Card installation on the Tivos.

Best of all, Cox actually waived the installation charge.
I called Cox 2 days ago to complain about the outrageous charge and told them how misguided their CS reps are at the store about the M-Card.
I asked to be called back from one of their supervisors and received a call from a nice lady in the billing department yesterday who waived the charge that the rep at the store promised me for.

Hope this helps any future M-Cards installation for Tivo owners.
Eric

..............So I doubt Cox will be using 860-1000 MHz range for video services any time soon, but perhaps other services can such as internet & phone. Could be, for example, that they may implement DOCSIS 3.0 in that extra range and give us >= 100 Mbps internet downloads. Other possibility is to have MPEG4 video distribution use that frequency range as well. MPEG4 requires newer set top boxes with mpeg4 decoders that are likely capable of frequencies up to 1 GHz.
Being a private company the details of what they plan to do with extra bandwidth are not publicly disclosed, so one can only speculate.



The Tech did mention it at first Phone, but I pressed him some (nice guy, though doesn't even own a TV yet! LOL! I told him about this place...) and said it would at sometime improve all services....we'll see. :D

Of course Edgadget reported a few days ago Cox's plans to finally get into the Mobile Market (they purchased a chunk of the 700mhz spectrum IIRC) and that they had plans for us to be able to watch tv on the handhelds as well as program your home DVR, etc....

Awesome news for Tivo series 3 owners - streaming from Netflix directly to your Tivo is coming:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/30/netflix-watch-instantly-coming-to-tivo/
No extra fees for that service either!

I'm sure every cable co & directv are watching the Netflix rollout with anxiety...

Its one thing to pay per show via Itunes...quite another for a low monthly all you can watch fee with netflix. Has anyone browsed their offering on the TV side? If the offering becomes extensive I'm sure it will lure away many time shifting "wait for the season to finish" TiVo users...heck TiVo becomes irrelevant since the service is offered on xbox live...and through blue-ray players.

I guess it comes down to the content providers and who they signed their souls away too. I doubt we'll ever see content as "fresh" as that found on Itunes in the netflix offering, but for someone like me who tends to record half or a full season of a scripted show before watching it this may be a viable and waaaaaay cheaper option to get legal content. Anyone else think that Comcasts preemptive download cap was at least partially designed to thwart this emerging market? I personally find it funny that a company will offer 50mbps downloads and cap their users @ 250GB. It may seem like a lot but if you start downloading HD content as your primary source of "tv"......better question, can anyone comment on the file size of an hour of 1080i video in mpeg4?

I keep looking @ my $150 cox bill every month (granted $50 is for internet)...and keep thinking wow I spend a small but significant portion of my annual income on...cable tv. I'm not a cheep bastard but its a lot of money for something which I can count on one had the number of times to have watched "live" in the past year.

...I won't delve into the fact that you can obtain all the current hd content you want by pegging that nice 18mbit cox internet connection to a newsgroup server. Is the automation portion of your DVR experience worth a couple thousand dollars a year when you can spend 90 minutes every 4 months and have every recent TV show's full season downloaded in a matter of hours? The option to access content "live" keeps me hooked to the current distribution model, and probably will indefinitely despite how little I actually utilize it. I'm curious how many of you have considered going the download route for your content, be it netflix, itunes, or internet downloads?

Netflix states that for their HD downloads you will need around 8 Mbps to enjoy full quality which translates to 3-4 GB/hour. That sounds about right as good quality 1080i mpeg2 is ~8GB/hour and with VC-1/H.264 compression of similar quality file sizes are 1/2 to 1/3 those of mpeg2.

Netflix states that for their HD downloads you will need around 8 Mbps to enjoy full quality which translates to 3-4 GB/hour. That sounds about right as good quality 1080i mpeg2 is ~8GB/hour and with VC-1/H.264 compression of similar quality file sizes are 1/2 to 1/3 those of mpeg2.

Not to be pessimistic, but I don't see anywhere in the press release that states that the Netflix downloads would be HD for TiVos. I think the Xbox360 is the only platform that they've claimed HD for

Not to be pessimistic, but I don't see anywhere in the press release that states that the Netflix downloads would be HD for TiVos. I think the Xbox360 is the only platform that they've claimed HD for
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13515_3-10078091-26.html
The # of titles is small (only 300 of them) but the other supported boxes other than Xbox360 (Roku, LG, Samsung) will also be able to stream from day 1. So that's promising sign that Tivo will as well. Of course the Tivo HD units are at a disadvantage compared to the S3 units since they are a little slower. 8 Mbps may be pushing it on the THD units. For my S3 units I can easily get 12-13 Mbps on the LAN so don't see an issue there. Not sure if my Cox internet can sustain 8 Mpbs downloads over prolonged periods though...

Don't we have some limits on our cox internet accounts? It wouldn't be of enough value to me if I either lost Internet service or had to start paying heavy premiums for going over the bandwidth limits, whatever they are.

Don't we have some limits on our cox internet accounts? It wouldn't be of enough value to me if I either lost Internet service or had to start paying heavy premiums for going over the bandwidth limits, whatever they are. Comcast fairly recently instituted a fairly large cap @250GB/month and from reports I've heard they do not really enforce that limit unless you go way over. No idea if Cox has a cap - I don't think they advertise what it is if they do have one.
My plan is to be on the Netlfix 1 DVD at a time plan ($8.99) and pay the $1/month for Blu Ray titles. That way I can stream most SD titles to my Tivos and for really good titles rent the Blu Ray version.

Cox is very weak in terms of monthly download limits compared to other providers:


Premier with PowerBoost Package
Feature Maximum Limit

1. Maximum downstream speed 1 10 - 20 megabits per second
2. Maximum upstream speed 1 1 - 2 megabits per second
3. Maximum monthly consumption cap 60 gigabytes downstream; 15 gigabytes upstream
4. Personal WebSpace account size 10 megabytes of disk space per User ID
5. Personal WebSpace traffic 300 megabytes of traffic per month (for visitors viewing your pages)

Preferred with PowerBoost Package
Feature Maximum Limit

1. Maximum downstream speed 1 5 - 9 megabits per second
2. Maximum upstream speed 1 512 kilobits – 2 megabits per second
3. Maximum monthly consumption cap 40 gigabytes downstream; 10 gigabytes upstream
4. Personal WebSpace account size 10 megabytes of disk space per User ID
5. Personal WebSpace traffic 300 megabytes of traffic per month (for visitors viewing your pages)

Value Package
Feature Maximum Limit

1. Maximum downstream speed 1 256 - 1,500 kilobits per second
2. Maximum upstream speed 1 256 - 384 kilobits per second 2
3. Maximum monthly consumption cap 4 gigabytes downstream; 1gigabyte upstream
4. Personal WebSpace account size 10 megabytes of disk space per User ID
5. Personal WebSpace traffic 300 megabytes of traffic per month (for visitors viewing your pages)

http://www.cox.com/policy/limitations.asp

Comcast's cap @ 250 GB? Way to go Cox...:mad:

Cox is very weak in terms of monthly download limits compared to other providers:


http://www.cox.com/policy/limitations.asp

Comcast's cap @ 250 GB? Way to go Cox...:mad: Wow, thanks for finding and posting that. If it's only 40 GB down and 10GB up for Preferred I'm pretty sure I've gone over both those limits before (including upstream limit because of using Slingbox). I've never received a notice however, so I'm not sure how tightly they enforce the limits in this area. That is a general corporate page last updated in 2007, so hopefully the limits have been increased since.

Yeah I have gone way...way over the limit - 200GB in a month downloading various test software from Microsoft and never got notified...go figure

This 1 year old article on Cox provides some good insight into what they plan to do with their now almost completed 1 GHz bandwidth upgrades:
http://www.onetrak.com/ShowArticle.aspx?ID=2870&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

Some highlights:

Cox’s marching orders from now until 2010 include:
* scale back the analog channel count from 74 to 68
* increase standard definition channels from 110 to 200-plus
* raise HD channels from just 8 in 2006 to 100-plus
* boost data bandwidth to 25 Megabits per second downstream, 4 Mbps upstream.



Cox’s plan is to move its plant nationwide to 1 Gigahertz capacity – the first major MSO to take that step – and cut node size down to 310 homes initially. Eventually, the node size will reach a maximum 250 homes, Bowick said.



Cox also plans to start trials of Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) 3.0 in 2008. The new technology in its final iteration can deliver more than 160 Mbps downstream and 100 Mbps upstream.

Elsewhere, Cox also is eying the video bandwidth savings using MPEG-4. While the compression codec won’t be accessible to homes with older digital set-top boxes, MPEG-4 “plays beautifully in the 850 to 1 Gigahertz realm,” he noted.


EDIT: More on DOCSIS 3.0 in general and some comments by Cox:
http://www.cedmagazine.com/Article-DOCSIS-3-0-arrives.aspx

Cox Communications’ John Coppola, director, access technology and engineering, said his company has 3.0 modems in labs.

“Our goal is to go out the door with 3.0 modems,” Coppola said. “I don’t want to have to put non 3.0 modems out there and then have to worry about pulling them later. There will be some limited trials and deployments this year, but it is more of an ’09 thing system wide.”


I think these ambitious plans will take much longer than these articles indicate. I don't think SDV is a reality here yet, I doubt we'll see DOCSIS 3.0 in our market anytime soon (Cox will concentrate on markets where FIOS is a competitor) and I doubt we'll see MPEG4 before 2011.

LOL...I'm way over those caps...I download live Music torrents. (legal) Sometimes have 4 or more going at a time...all the time. At the same time me we have 4 pcs, a PS3, PS2 all connected to the network and on most of the time as well playing online games....

I hope we DO NOT get MPEG4. If I wanted ****** video quality I would go to Dish

I hope we DO NOT get MPEG4. If I wanted ****** video quality I would go to Dish As I reported a few posts ago though some providers like HBO & Cinemax already distribute their feeds solely in MPEG4 and ABC is going to switch to MPEG4 for national distribution. So those then have to be converted back to MPEG2 before we get them which means worse degradation than just passing along the MPEG4 feed as is. So if that trend continues for other content distributors then we will actually be better off with MPEG4 and it's more efficient compression.

What sucks is if the conent is created in MPEG2 (HDCAM, XDCAM, HDV) and then converted to MPEG4 it already is going to be created. MPEG4 is more efficient as a compression codec but the increase in space saved means loss in major amounts of quality; most of this quality loss will be in compressed blacks and whites.

MPEG-4 itself is not a bad codex. If the video is properly processed there is marginal if any quality loss going from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 so even if the source material is originally in mpeg-2 it makes little difference...proper post-production into MPEG-4 eliminates quality loss. I'd like to think HBO and the other networks going to MPEG-4 will insure there is no quality loss on their end when they send the feed out...then again who knows.

I think we get hurt on the service delivery end as COX winds up re-encoding the mpeg-4 in real-time...and lets face it unless the conversion is done scene by scene...and in some cases frame by frame there is noticeable quality loss no matter how many passes they use and how good the algorithm is. Anyone who's watched a properly ripped DVD going to xvid or dvix can tell you there is no noticeable quality loss if the ripper did their job properly.

On the cable modem end...I can personally attest to downloading over 1TB in a 30 day period for months on end (I went download happy with newsgroups). COX HSI is a great service, their upstream peering to level-3 is exceptional. I can attest to having my connection pegged @ 18mbit (and 14 before the upgrade a few months back) for 100+ hours straight with a variation of maybe 30kbps to 50kbps (out of 2000kps). I've used my connection heavily for over a year and cox has never said anything to me.
If they've never said anything about the 1TB+ of use for 3 months straight I doubt they'll go after you guys for 200gb ;). I think you'd wind up running out of content to download (like I did) before cox says a word.

...the quality of cox HSI is why I've seriously pondered dropping cable service and downloading all my shows. In the end the convenience factor of auto-scheduled recordings with tivo is worth $1200 a year to me. It will be interesting to see if quasi-legal IP-TV services wont start popping up in the US in the next few years as docsis 3.0 becomes wide spread.

Did they install both cards during the same time visit or 2 separate visits to your home?
They better not charge me $50 twice when they come tomorrow to install 2 M-cards.


I just got off the phone with Cox to set up my tech visit to install the cable cards. I was told they have no M-cards in their system, they are not offered. I will be charged $50 per TIVO (I have 2 HD Tivos) for the install and $1.99 x 4 per month for the S-cards.

Who can I call to get M-cards at Cox? Anyone have a number besides 949-240-1212?

I AM STEAMING!!! I HATE COX!!

BTW - I was originally told the cards were $2.99 each per month and the install is $50 per card. After pressing the rep, he backed off and said the cards are $1.99 each and he can take half off of the install. These guys are dirty!!!

I just got off the phone with Cox to set up my tech visit to install the cable cards. I was told they have no M-cards in their system, they are not offered. I will be charged $50 per TIVO (I have 2 HD Tivos) for the install and $1.99 x 4 per month for the S-cards.

Who can I call to get M-cards at Cox? Anyone have a number besides 949-240-1212?

I AM STEAMING!!! I HATE COX!! Don't worry about it too much. Just have the CSR put a note for the installer that you wish to have M-cards. The S-cards are no longer being produced so it's likely a good portion of CC inventory is M-card only but the CSRs just don't know it. Chances are the installer will show up with M-cards. It would be nice to be assured of that however. If you call back ask for a supervisor who may have a clue or contact who does.
The fact that you still have to have a truck roll and $50 charge is ridiculous - it should be web based self install. Comcast has gone to self installs with no charges in many areas.
For my S3s they also wanted to charge $50 per card but I talked them out of that and after detailing my experience the 1st time around that took several hours was credited $50 in that case. For my 2nd S3 the install went flawlessly and I didn't bother trying to recoup the $50 charge.

Don't worry about it too much. Just have the CSR put a note for the installer that you wish to have M-cards. The S-cards are no longer being produced so it's likely a good portion of CC inventory is M-card only but the CSRs just don't know it. Chances are the installer will show up with M-cards. It would be nice to be assured of that however. If you call back ask for a supervisor who may have a clue or contact who does.
The fact that you still have to have a truck roll and $50 charge is ridiculous - it should be web based self install. Comcast has gone to self installs with no charges in many areas.

Thanks Moyekj

The install charge is $50 per TIVO or $100!!

I really dislike this company.........horrible service and flat out deception. If I could put a dish up, I would be soooo happy. We'll see what happens Friday with the tech visit and I'll provide an update to everyone. I guess I'll have to battle customer retention on the install charges. Cox Sux!!!

Don't worry about it too much. Just have the CSR put a note for the installer that you wish to have M-cards. The S-cards are no longer being produced so it's likely a good portion of CC inventory is M-card only but the CSRs just don't know it. Chances are the installer will show up with M-cards. It would be nice to be assured of that however. If you call back ask for a supervisor who may have a clue or contact who does.
The fact that you still have to have a truck roll and $50 charge is ridiculous - it should be web based self install. Comcast has gone to self installs with no charges in many areas.
For my S3s they also wanted to charge $50 per card but I talked them out of that and after detailing my experience the 1st time around that took several hours was credited $50 in that case. For my 2nd S3 the install went flawlessly and I didn't bother trying to recoup the $50 charge.

Moyekj is correct. Call them back and ask to put a note for the installer something like "Install Tivo M-Cards, Quantity:2". Also make sure that the installer has some spare ones, one of the 2 M-cards my installer brought was faulty.
You should not be charged no more than $25 IMO, especially if your cable bill is more than $150 a month. I would call them and ask to speak to a supervisor in the billing department. It worked for me.
I'll PM you the name of my installer (don't think you can request for a particular installer but you never know). He was extremely knowledgeable on the M-Card installation on the Tivo.

Eric

If you are polite they will waive the 2nd $50 install charge. I even called back and had them waive the 1st charge after the fact by being nice.

Islanti is right...I've had both of my cable card installs refunded by calling.


...speak to customer service and explain you are disappointed to see this sort of "gouging" out of cox for inserting a card. If they grumble point out that the cable card install process is even simpler than that of a regular receiver box which they allow self install on. Be polite but firm...if they don't back off ask to cancel service. If the rep you are speaking with does not credit your account, the retention rep will.

Hi there, I hope this is not beyond the scope of this forum, but i thought it was best to ask this question to people who know the Cox service here in OC.

OK, we are contemplating a switch to HD over Christmas and we are die-hard TiVo users. We plan to upgrade to a TiVo HD and use an M-Card form Cox. We also will be buying a flat panel to hang on the wall; -- not projection.

What I'd like feedback on is what do you recommend getting for a TV assuming we are using Cox and Tivo??? 1080P is the gold standard, but from what i am picking up, Cox doesn't have this quality of service, right? Will I get better performance with 720p?? I watch a lot of sports -- college football, basketball and auto racing mostly.

Also, I would say almost 50% of the homes I go into with "HD" have a picture worse than my CRT. The issues are usually the aspect ratio is wrong, compressing the image and (I assume) the channel is non HD and looks worse than my standard TV. I really hate watching TV at some peoples homes even though they have "HD" -- it really sucks.

So....for those knowing Cox's service and how things work through a TiVo HD, what TV woudl you recommend getting? LCD or Plasma, 720 or 1080? Is there a way to have the aspect ratio dynamically change? If anyone has a proven recommendation, let me know. I am generally a techie, but for TV, I just want it to work right without futzing. I have to futz with tech all day at work!

Thanks in advance for all your help!

Hi there, I hope this is not beyond the scope of this forum, but i thought it was best to ask this question to people who know the Cox service here in OC.

OK, we are contemplating a switch to HD over Christmas and we are die-hard TiVo users. We plan to upgrade to a TiVo HD and use an M-Card form Cox. We also will be buying a flat panel to hang on the wall; -- not projection.

What I'd like feedback on is what do you recommend getting for a TV assuming we are using Cox and Tivo??? 1080P is the gold standard, but from what i am picking up, Cox doesn't have this quality of service, right? Will I get better performance with 720p?? I watch a lot of sports -- college football, basketball and auto racing mostly.

Also, I would say almost 50% of the homes I go into with "HD" have a picture worse than my CRT. The issues are usually the aspect ratio is wrong, compressing the image and (I assume) the channel is non HD and looks worse than my standard TV. I really hate watching TV at some peoples homes even though they have "HD" -- it really sucks.

So....for those knowing Cox's service and how things work through a TiVo HD, what TV woudl you recommend getting? LCD or Plasma, 720 or 1080? Is there a way to have the aspect ratio dynamically change? If anyone has a proven recommendation, let me know. I am generally a techie, but for TV, I just want it to work right without futzing. I have to futz with tech all day at work!

Thanks in advance for all your help!
Plasma vs lcd is pretty simple. If you can darken the room during the daytime, plasma will be fine but if you have a lot of natural light (windows) then plasma will give off a lot of glare. You also risk burn-in with a plasma, can't happen with a lcd. Ever been to a sports bar that has plasmas, but you can't see the game because of the glare? I would go with an lcd (sony bravia, phillips).

1080 vs 720......depends on more than Cox. The Tivo does a pretty good job maximizing the aspect ratio. I've bought 1080p recently in preparation for more broadcasting in this format. I think it' easier for a box to downscale than upscale, but I could be wrong? It will also depend on the broadcaster and what their native ratio is currently (720p or 1080i). I think there's just a few that broadcast in 1080p today.

BT