Wow! When I asked for a second box they said "no!". Maybe I should try asking someone else. With whom did you speak with skfields01?

Regarding the HDD available space, yeah the system they use is pretty weak. Basically when you go to "LIST" then when you are running close to filling up the box, *AND* you have recordings scheduled, then there will be an hourglass next to the programs in lowest queue priority on your list. And when you scroll to it, the item listed will say "3 days left" or "2 days left" or "less than 1 day left" meaning there will be a recording within that many days that may/will erase that item listed. Kinda confusing, but I guess it works...

-T

A few folks mentioned the auto-backup when fast-forarding worked for them. Thanks for the tips, I'm not sure why it didn't work when I first tried it, but I'll try again. -probably me.

Jet, you mentioned that with the 6200, once you find Peter Gabriel, you can click and see every time it comes on for the next week. This is still true on the 6412, it's just finding something in the first place that can be killer. If you know it's coming on, but not when, you're in trouble.

Knowing that the box starts with the title of the currently highlighed show when you search by title may be helpful though. For example:
Say you know the movie "Every Which Way but Loose" is coming on, but you don't know when, so you want to find it in the guide by Title.
The normal(crappy) way would be to go to Guide, Search by Title, scroll to the letter 'E' and then page through EVERYTHING in the E's until you get to it.
A trick shortcut would be to find a known show whose title starts with the same first few letters as the show you want. Then go to Guide, By Title, and you would be alphabetically on that show and could scroll from there. In my example above, I would go by time in the Guide to "Everybody Loves Raymond", which is on every single night, switch to By Title, and viola, I'd be within a few screens or "Every Which Way but Loose".

Yeah, I know a terrible kludgy workaround, but possibly useful till the feature design gets fixed.

Had another bug-type incident last night. We were watching Fear Factor(yeah I know) and I had to run an errand for about 20 minutes. So I paused the show and left. When we came back to the TV about 20 minute later, the screen was black... turns out the 6412 was powered off. Nobody was in the room, so we have a ghost or it powered itself off. We thought, no sweat just turn it on and it will be in the live buffer, nope, buffer was empty when we turned in back on and I even got the "Subscription Service" message when the box first came back on. I know Cox claims this bug doesn't exist and is a signal problem, but a LOT of us are getting it. I had a 5100 for a year without any "signal "problems". Whatever is was, I missed the final stunts and winners of last nights couples Fear Factor.

We then watched CSI and had no problems at all.

Cheers,
Ray

neyugnt,

Not sure who I talked to. Just talked to a random guy at the OC sales office.

I just received a reply to a tech support email that says you can have a second HD box, just not a second HD DVR box. I guess it depends on who you ask at Cox. Different reps give out different answers.

Tiresius


The exact same thing happened to me last night at around the same time. I was scrolling through the guide and the box rebooted! FYI, The people at tech support know nothing about the subscription bug. A Cox field service rep was just at my house. My signal gain is smack in the middle of the gain window, to quote the filed rep "damn near perfect". The bug does exist. The rep confirmed that the dual tuner firmware roll out is Sept 13 and this firmware update should resolve the issue.

niesman

Well the people arn't talking to each other. If you go back to Steve Wilcox's post 0f 8/20 he reported that Cox told him the subscrition bug is oa know issued with the box.

Well the people arn't talking to each other. If you go back to Steve Wilcox's post 0f 8/20 he reported that Cox told him the subscrition bug is oa know issued with the box.

Thanks for the info guys! I've never had a PVR, so it'll be all new to me also. I am looking forward to it big time...another few weeks wont matter now that the Olympics are history.

I've never gotten the service error with my 6200 (or the 5100 before it) Now my old 2600 DTV box got moved to the bedroom when I got HD. It's been giving me fits a long time on digital channels. Major picture breakup/blockiness etc....and I recently saw that service message too on it. Wierd. Not called them in, cause I still need to get into the attic and switch out the Amp up with the quality one I bought awhile back. Then I'll know its not on my side. Waiting for cooler weather! :D

Has anyone taken up these bugs to Pioneer? It is their software.

JET,

Remember that the Cox signal levels may vary even before the cable enters your house. On "bad" days, I see more of the service errors and it may be due to a weaker signal to my house.

I understand that, but I want to make sure things in my house are up to snuff. They say you have pay a service charge if they find the problem is on your end. And I know the amp up there is 12+ years old (previous owner, pre-hd, most likely RS) and over the years I've added a lot more tv's and things like cable modems too. I feel better at least knowing its there!

I have one of these Electrolines

http://cgi.(e b a y "dot" com)/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=39803&item=5717246940

Learned about it here in one of the equipment forums. They've got all sorts at this ebay store

http://stores.(e b a y "dot" com)/Electroline-Cable-TV-Amps



Once I get that in then I'll be calling them! :D

When Cox installed my 6412 the Cox installer tested my signal and then installed an amp and replaced all the splitters and cable ends to insure that I had a good signal at all points. They good news that all the signal improvements were provided at no charge.

Anyone know what the current capabilities of the PVR and then the expanded capabilities on Sept 13th??

I can watch a show live and tape a show? Only watch a taped show while taping?

The (non-cox) installer mentioned I can't watch some digital channels above a certain #.....I can't remember what he said about what it will do now vs. what it will do on the 13th.

Any Help?

As far as I know... it is just going to be activating the Dual Tuner capability and correct some of the bugs in the system and menu guide. Having the Dual Tuner in itself is enough for most people. I especially will like having the option to record 2 seperate programs at the same time.
Currently I have both the 6412 (used for mostly HD) and the old 5200 (for SD - better picture) on my 55" Mitsu Widescreen TV. So it will be nice to actually be able to record 2 things and be able to watch a 3rd.

If you start with the assumption that watching something live requires a tuner, that recording something requires a tuner, and that watching a recording does not require a tuner, then here are the possibilities:

One tuner:
Watch a live show while recording that same live show
Watch a recording while recording a live show

Two tuners:
Watch a live show while recording that same live show
Watch a live show while recording another live show
Watch a recording while recording one or two live shows

I'm supposed to get my 6412 this afternoon. I'm only using the PVR capability as a start. My TV is a first-generation HD-ready set from Mitsubishi, which only takes HD input through RGBHV. I'm already getting OTA HD through an RCA DTC-100, and I don't want to buy and configure another converter right now to account for the 6412's component output.

Originally posted by walford
When Cox installed my 6412 the Cox installer tested my signal and then installed an amp and replaced all the splitters and cable ends to insure that I had a good signal at all points. They good news that all the signal improvements were provided at no charge.

Where was the amp installed? Mine is in the Attic, don't know if they'd climb in there.

Well the reason I have 2 cable boxes on one TV is because the old 5200 box gets a much better/superior SD picture than the new 6412... atleast on my RPTV. When they brought out the new HD set top boxes... it got such a bad looking picture on anything below #100 that it was just unwatchable. This is just my situation only. I am going to be upgrading from my RPTV to Plasma within the next year... so I am sure that I can just go with the 6412 at that point. But for now, I have to have both the 6412 (for HD) and the 5200 (for SD). Again... this is just for my purposes only.

For those of you still waiting for your 6412 you don't need to wait anymore as long as you don't require an installer to come and install it for you. I signed up for the box only recently so was on the bottom of the list. This morning I called customer service, made sure I actually got Orange County customer service, and asked about the 6412. The customer rep says they have plenty of boxes in now but the delay is scheduling for an installer, but you can arrange to have them ship you the 6412 via UPS to swap out with your 6200. No installation charges apply using this method. You just return the 6200 in the same box that your 6412 arrives in. I'm receiving mine this Friday as a result after calling this morning. So don't delay calling them too long or they may run out of boxes.

Has anyone else noticed that the SD and to lesser extent HD signal seems to be horrendously over sharpened?

I have a Samsung HLN, and even with DNIe turned off and sharpness turned down to 0 I still get dancing text and edges on graphics. With DNIe on and Sharpness down to zero like I normally (DCT6200 days) have it set it now unbearable.

Is it possible the DCT6412 is responsible for this? or am I imagining thing?

Originally posted by JETninja
Where was the amp installed? Mine is in the Attic, don't know if they'd climb in there.
In the cable box at the side of my house. It gets power over the cable line from a "power brick" connected to the cable line at the HDTV set connection.

Originally posted by Steve Wilcox
If you start with the assumption that watching something live requires a tuner, that recording something requires a tuner, and that watching a recording does not require a tuner, then here are the possibilities:

One tuner:
Watch a live show while recording that same live show
Watch a recording while recording a live show

Two tuners:
Watch a live show while recording that same live show
Watch a live show while recording another live show
Watch a recording while recording one or two live shows

I'm supposed to get my 6412 this afternoon. I'm only using the PVR capability as a start. My TV is a first-generation HD-ready set from Mitsubishi, which only takes HD input through RGBHV. I'm already getting OTA HD through an RCA DTC-100, and I don't want to buy and configure another converter right now to account for the 6412's component output. Makes perfect sense. What threw me for a loop was when he mentioned I couldn't watch X channel or digital channel over #XXX while recording/watching X. I just spaced out during that part of the presentation. Anyone else hear about this during their install??

jb510

You are not imagining things. The SD PQ on the 6412 box has noticeable digital artifacts including some kind of edge enhancement. On my Sony 60XBR800 the only way to reduce this was to turn the 4:3 override off and have the 6412 send out 720P to the Sony. Using the DVI output also helps, but as I said in my previous post, the Sony DVI looks slightly washed out compared to component. Both had excellent sharpness characteristics using 720P on HD material. Also, I am not familiar with the Sammy service menu, there may be a section to reduce edge enhancement and filtering, I would check the RPTV section of AVS for some Sammy threads.

niesman

Well, i'm looking forward to when moyek gets it, and he tries extracting video from the firewire port.

I will not be surprised about SD analog channel picture quality of 6412 box looking like crap compared to the 6200 or 5100 as many have complained about. The problem is that the analog channels have to be mpeg2-encoded by the 6412 before being displayed on your TV so that they can be stored/buffered on the hard drive (even live TV buffers to the hard drive to enable PVR functions). And my guess is the quality of that encoding is not that great and probably designed to minimize hard drive space rather than preserve a good picture. At least with ReplayTV it does buffering at it's highest quality (highest bitrate) so the resulting picture is not bad - with the 6412 I haven't heard of any quality level selection for the encoding, so you have to live with whatever bitrate is designed in.

So I am already planning to split the cable signal before the 6412 and feed one split to the 6412 and the other directly to my replayTV box (replayTV can also RF bypass to TV so that one can use it's tuner too if desired). The replayTV will then handle all analog channel lineup and PVR functions and the 6412 will be reserved strictly for HD PVR functions. I don't really watch any of the SD digital channels but those theoretically shouldn't look any worse than the 6200 so will let the 6412 handle those too.

I haven't found much information out there on hacking the 6412 to add more disk space and other hacks. Seems like the firewire port would be the natural place to add an external hard drive to supplement the internal hard drive with more space, but I'm sure the software is not designed to handle an external firewire drive yet. However, sooner or later someone will figure out the filesystem used by the 6412 and should be able to extract an image off the built-in-drive which can then be transferred to a higher capacity hard drive of your choosing - I don't think it's a hard hack. It's been done for ReplayTV since inception, so should be easily done on the 6412 too.

Cool - just ran into this thread for adding a 30-second skip button on your universal remote for a 6208 (and presumably a 6412 too). Requires some JP1 remote programming but doesn't look too hard. Let me know if someone tries this. It may be a while before I try this - I don't have JP1 cable or expertise and want to try out other things first, but eventually I know I'm going to need that 30-second skip.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=416868

By SD channels, do you all mean channels below 200?

If so, channels at 200 or above should look the same on the 6412 as on the 6200, right? They don't need to be re-encoded in MPEG for storage, if I understand this correctly?

I have not upgraded my unit yet and want to be sure that any new MPEG encoding will not affect my premium channels (non-HD).

Also, when Cox rolls out larger hard drives for new customers, I wonder if they will offer existing customers with upgrades to their existing HDs.

Rich4av, I'm talking about the analog channels 2-99. Those will be definately be encoded to mpeg2 before display and so the quality of those channels will be degraded for sure compared to 6200/5100 box. All digital channels (100+) I wouldn't think need any re-encoding (including the HD channels) - they are already in digital mpeg2 program or stream formats so can just be stored directly to hard drive.

Today I turned off my 6412 and unplugged it to move some cables around.
The 6412 came back and I started watching it without any problem, however, an hour late it decided to try and reboot itself. Things just got worse and later I finally called COX they tried redownloading the box, however, the new download and initialization did not help. A technician is coming out Friday afternoon since I could not be home tomorrow at an available time. I will post the results late Friday.

Originally posted by Rich4av
Also, when Cox rolls out larger hard drives for new customers, I wonder if they will offer existing customers with upgrades to their existing HDs.

Can you supply more information regarding this? Who told you, how much more, and when???

-T

Actually, I don't know anything specific about Cox. Hard drive capacities go up, so I expect that larger drives will be supplied at some point. I wonder how cable companies will handle this.

Regarding the SD channels - it's too bad that the signal output is re-encoded. Maybe I will keep my 6200 and still get the 6412.

Originally posted by Rich4av
Regarding the SD channels - it's too bad that the signal output is re-encoded. Maybe I will keep my 6200 and still get the 6412. You don't need a cable box to tune into the analog channels - you can use your TV or VCR tuner for those, so I don't think it's necessary to keep the 6200 for those. SD digital channels of course require the box but hopefully the 6412 quality will/should be same as 6200.

So here's a synopsis of my PQ:

All PQ is better through the 6412 vs. my TiVo both live (buffered) and recorded (replay) because it's connected via component rather than TiVo's s-video. I've noticed the over-sharpening mostly on CNN and I know I have noticed it on other channels, but didn't think at the time whether it was only analog channels, or all channels. I think I've noticed it on digital channels including HD channels, but perhaps just not as bad as on the analogs. I'll look tonight...

My 6412 was waiting for me when I got home tonight - ahead of schedule. I haven't had time to give the box a good workout, but I did test out the firewire output - and GREAT NEWS IT WORKS.

The 6412 outputs to firewire port whatever you are watching live OR playing: i.e. it's just another audio/video output. So it makes sense whatever you are displaying at the time goes to that port. I was able to capture 6412 HD and SD recordings to my WinXP laptop. I was also able to playback those captures on the laptop using Media Player Classic (free player). So this is a great way to offload programs to your PC (from which you can re-author for DVD if you like). This is AWESOME.

To confirm the burn to DVD possibility I did the following:
1) Took a 5 min HD capture from the firewire port
2) Took that mpeg2 transport stream into Womble Mpeg Video Wizard. With Womble I could cut out commercials (if there are any) and also transcode audio from AC3 to layer II since my DVD authoring program doesn't like AC3 audio source. I wrote the resulting mpg out in program format. This step is very quick since only audio is transcoded - video is left intact.
3) Took the mpg generated by Womble into Sonic MyDVD and authored VOB fileset to the hard drive. Sonic MyDVD took a LONG time to transcode the video to a DVD-compatible format. A full length movie would take all day.
4) Confirmed the VOB fileset is good (EXCELLENT quality) by playing it with WinDVD.

I'll have to spend alot more time playing around with the box but I'm really thrilled HD and SD recordings can be extracted from the box and re-authored to DVDs. I did not expect to have such capability from a cable co. DVR.

Oh, almost forgot - the analog channels PQ are TERRIBLE (very grainy) compared to what I see through the ReplayTV or directly to the TV as I expected. No big deal as I'll use the ReplayTV for DVR functions for analog channels.

Had the new DVR for a week now. One major issue. When watching the buffer as the box is recording (so live show, which was set to record and I am watching from the beginning of the program), I FF at the commercial and hit play when the commercials end, instead of stoping at the right spot it jumps to the end of the recording. I then have to rewind and find the spot I was watching. Very frustrating.

It does not happen every time, but somewhat regularly. Anyone else?

Originally posted by moyekj
Cool - just ran into this thread for adding a 30-second skip button on your universal remote for a 6208 (and presumably a 6412 too). Requires some JP1 remote programming but doesn't look too hard. Let me know if someone tries this. It may be a while before I try this - I don't have JP1 cable or expertise and want to try out other things first, but eventually I know I'm going to need that 30-second skip.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=416868

Hey moyekj,

For what it's worth, I tried doing the 30 second skip hack for my 6412 after I got it last Saturday, but it doesn't work.

I have Cox Cable in CT, btw.

I also tried all the unused codes between 0 and 65 and none of them did anything undocumented either.

So, if you find one that works, let me know!! :D

BTW: if you do end up getting into JP1 stuff to program your remotes, be aware that while most of the codes are the same as the 6208, they moved some (and others don't work on the new box).

The codes for stop/play (which used to be the same codes as day -/+) are now moved to their own separate previously unused codes. Also, the A button changed to a previously unused code. I'm at work, so I don't have the new numbers handy.. but I can send them to you later if needed.

In actuality, the only button codes which aren't already mapped to a button on the current remote (Atlas 5 device DVR) that seem to do anything are Day -/+ [Which I mapped to the PIP -/+ buttons since those currently are unmapped to any function..]

Oh yeah, the remote for the Cable box IS a JP1 remote, so you can reprogram that one vs. another universal if you didn't know.

Tonight I plan on creating a ReplayTV mapping for the new remote.. I can always send it to you if you want.. You can use RemoteMaster to change the button assignments if you don't like mine ;)

Walburga, thanks for your input and offers. Too bad about the 30-sec skip not working... guess I won't go down that path. I've got the ReplayTV programmed into my universal remote and it's working well. The A/B/C, LIST and a few other buttons needed to effectively control the 6412 are a pain since I'll have to add those to my universal remote - and there's no buttons for them to make them intuitive unless I spring for one of those LCD remote battery drainers. Looks like it's going to be quite some work to get the 6412 accomodated properly into the mix... Let us know if you find anything on a 30-sec skip for the 6412. Scouring the net indicates that the underlying Microsoft software stripped out the capability for 30-second skip in the 6412 so most likely it's not possible. I may have to pursue a fancy macro for the remote using ff/play that accomplishes a 3-minute skip or so instead.

The COX technician swapped out my failed 6412 in just a couple of minutes today and everything is back to normal.
He also told me that the latest date they have been told for the firmware is September 8th.
He also told me that the USB port will be activated in the not too distant future specifically for the purpose of adding additional storage.

Can't wait for the new firmware, especially with new seasons about to start (must... have... two... tuners...).

I'm liking the box so far, but I have nothing else to compare it to except the generic Cox digital cable box. I purposely did not buy a TiVo so I could get the Cox PVR.

FF'ing through commercials is a bit of a pain, but better than watching them.

I really don't like the smaller guide. I wish I at least had the option to hide the current programn and see more of the guide.

Just got my 6412and I love it. Only because it's HD though, otherwise it gets the crap kicked out of it by my mythtv boxes, and never mind comparing it to the TiVo... we would be here all day listening to me bitch =)

Oh well, it's hdtv and it works, if barely. I can't even watch shows while they are being recorded because it kicks me to the live portion of the show everytime. Attempting to rewind takes forwever, especially since the 15 minute skip just kicks me back to live too. Works how it should when it's done being recorded, just not while during.

Great quality, though that's to be expected. Recording a QAM stream and playing it back from a hard drive isn't exactly rocket science =)

Cox needs to hurry up and get the WB and PBS in HD, I can get those OTA on a good day. And starz and cinemax and bravo and...

Gendal,

Until Cox finds some way other than extreme compression, we are all going to have a limited number of HD selections from cox. As it is NBC is full of macro blocking on all of its sports and HBO has the same issues with action movies. Somehow CBS, ESPN and ABC have found ways to presureve the HD quality of thier programming, even after Cox has compressed the hell out of it.

niesman

A few glitches/dislikes to report on the 6412:
1) I use the DVI output, and when I first turn on the TV there is no signal to TV. It's not the TV at fault since I had no such trouble with the 6200 box on DVI. I tried various workarounds suggested by others having the same problem, but as they also found there is no single reliable way of dealing with the problem. So I have switched to component connection for now - quality is still very good for HD programs but now I can't connect my DVD player through component. Hopefully the next firmware update will solve this DVI problem.
2) I've also ran into this subscription bug others are seeing.
3) Guide only shows 6 days of programming!! That's ridiculous.
4) It appears that buffering of tuner to hard drive continues even when the 6412 is turned off and nothing is set to record - I expected the hard drive to always be spinning, but not to be writing data while turned off and nothing is currently in schedule to record.
5) Searching for shows by name is a joke - I use my ReplayTV for that task, but since there's only 6 days of guide data one can't even plan too far ahead in terms of scheduling like I do for my ReplayTVs.
6) Analog channel encoding looks like crap - again ReplayTV to the rescue to record those as I mentioned before.
7) Attempting to watch a show while it's still recording can result in problems, including causing the show to stop recording in one case. At first I thought this was a repeatable problem but lately I've not have much trouble with it while recording and watching the US Open Tennis.

There are some good things about the box and I'll write up my full review at some point once I've really had a chance to meddle with it, but the above is my current list of contentions with the box.

Not too impressed by Cox service:

I am new to HD, just getting a Sony 50" GW3 and Cox HD right before the Olympics. Although very impressed with Discovery & INHD, NBC in HD was disappointing ( & not just because of "Hey Todd"). As pointed out in previous posts, the pixelation on fast-moving closeups (FMCUs) was very annoying. I thought I would just confirm with technical support at Cox that others were having the same problem and it wasn't the TV, or my box, or signal strength. Well, to my surprise, the tech said that I'm the first to report this, and there must be something wrong and they would send somebody out. I asked if he could verify the signal on his end, because I thought the problem lied in the broadcast. He put me on hold, came back in a few minutes and told me that the HD picture looked perfect on his monitor.

I thought it was a waste to send a tech out, and I was right. The tech said that it was the broadcast, as I had suspected. I'm wondering, though, if this is somewhat normal for sporting events, especially with FMCUs? Does anybody have any experience, say with the Super Bowl. Is it pretty much a problem with NBC, as I don't see the problem on other channels? Do you think this problem will get better as better equipment becomes more available and less expensive, or worse as bandwidth becomes even more crowded?

On another note, I have been on the waiting list for the HD PVR for over a month. I started calling a couple weeks ago when I read on this thread that the units started to ship. Well, every time I call, which has been about 6 times, I get a different answer to when I can expect the unit. Somebody told be that I can just go to the Irvine office and swap it, if they have one. Another said that there might be an upgrade kit available. Another said that it must be installed by a service tech. One advised that I will get a call this week. Today I called and the rep said that it won't be available until the end of the year!

I don't mind waiting for new technology, but Cox could get their story straight on this and other problems regarding HD. I am surprised at what a small percentage we folks on the cutting edge seem to make up.

Don

sucha deal!

It is NBC, not your set. see my previous post. NBC consistently has the worst HD, sound drop outs, macro blocking etc. Of the big three: ABC followed closely by CBS. Interestingly, CBS had horrible HD for most of last football season, then by the end of the season they figured it out. Some networks have figured out how to survive Cox's compression algorithm (INHD, DiscoveryHD, ESPN, ABC, and CBS are the best) HBO has issues with action films, but their own shows are excellent ( Sopranos, Six feet).

Niesman

I agree it's NBC broadcast that doesn't survive the over-compression. NBC HD is BY FAR the worse HD channels on my display and I complained about it from day 1. I've noticed artifacts on other channels too, but nowhere as bad.

With regards to waiting for a DVR, a few posts ago I mentioned that if you call and make sure you get OC support they will happily ship you a 6412 to swap out for your 6200 assuming they have some 6412 boxes to spare - don't wait around and pay an installation fee. It's getting close to firmware update time - some in this thread mentioned tomorrow is the day, some mentioned the 13th. Regardless, this dual-tuner firmware upgrade should also bring some fixes to other problems such as the subscription bug, but no doubt will introduce some new bugs we haven't run into yet.

Tonight I hooked up the 6412 ethernet port to my LAN. The 6412 ethernet port is active - my router lit up the 10/100 LED to which the 6412 was attached and the setup indicated it was active also. However, DHCP did not assign an address to it so I was not able to get any info out of it.

Originally posted by niesman
Gendal,

Until Cox finds some way other than extreme compression, we are all going to have a limited number of HD selections from cox. As it is NBC is full of macro blocking on all of its sports and HBO has the same issues with action movies. Somehow CBS, ESPN and ABC have found ways to presureve the HD quality of thier programming, even after Cox has compressed the hell out of it.

niesman


How do we know that Cox compresses the HD signal?


-------------------------------------

How do we know that Cox compresses the HD signal?

evector,

All digital TV is compressed using mpeg-2, presently most sources of HDTV ( and digital tv) are limited to broadcasting at a maximum bandwidth of 19.39-Mbps. In order to fit several hundred channels, cox must choose a limited bit per second encoding scheme. mpeg-2 allows the encoder to choose from 56bps, 200, or 500bps. If the original content is already compromised by a less than optimum bit rate (500bps) the program will suffer from artifacts. So the game cox must play is which programs (if any) get the high bit rate and which do not. One would assume that cox gives the HD channels the best encoding. But I often question it.
.:(

niesman

Does OTA & Satellite also compress as aggressively as cable? Are the artifacts less noticeable? In-other-words, did the Olympics on NBC-HD look better with these other broadcast methods? I can't get OTA where I live, but Sat is always an option.

Moyekj, is there a specific number or person to talk to about the HD-DVR? They seem to be pretty adamant that there is a huge waiting list and I must wait my turn. (it's "only" been a month and it looks like others have waited longer.)

Also, Niesman, you mentioned that you thought setting the cable box to 720p looked better on your Sony. I never thought to try this but it made sense since my Sony only displays 768 lines. I made the change and I think it looks better, but I'm not sure what to look for - they both look great when tuned to the best HD broadcast, which makes me realize that all of this fine-tuning of equipment pales in comparison to the quality of the HD broadcast.

Anyway, this whole issue of resolution settings is rather confusing to me. If ABC is broadcasting in 720P, does Cox change this to 1080i on their equipment and then we have a option to scale it back down to 720p on our cable box? Vice versa, are we losing something if we "downscale" a 1080i broadcast to 720p. Where does the other info go when you take a 1080 signal, output it at 720 to a screen that then displays 768 lines, interlaced or non-interlaced not withstanding? It seems that the output should match precisely what is being broadcast by the station, otherwise there would be scaling problems, NTM the compression/decompression issues. Maybe someone can point me to a discussion that explains this in layperson terms...

Next, I have to experiment with DVI or component output and which looks better.

BTW, does anybody know what code to use to program the Sony remote so it will function with the 6200/6412? The Sony manual for the GW3 doesn't even list the Motorola!

Cox transmits at the resolution received, sine to change decode the MPEG2 and then recode in real time would be an expensive proposition and gain them anything.
When 1080 line video is downscaled to 720 or when 720 is down scaled 1/3 of the lines and 1/3 of the pixels per line are thrown away.
Upscaling is far more complicated all of the companies have developed their own proprietary algorithims for inventing the content of the added lines and pixels They no longer just duplicate every second line or pixel.

My brother had the 6412 installed last night. I drilled the senior tech for answers on when the Dual Tuner was going to kick in. He said that he was told, just today, that it is now the end of the month.

One other Q. My brother... the moron that he is... switched the settings from 480i to 480p. Now he can't see anything since his TV only handles 480i. Does anyone know how specifically he can get it back to 480i. Example... hit settings, go down 2, left 1, and enter twice.

skfields,

Is your brother using component outputs, or something else? I was fiddling around with the settings today, so I remember when you power down and hit the middle left button (menu, or settings?) it brings up that gray menu. The first item is Display Type (16:9 or 4:3), the second item is component out, and the third item (down) is 4:3 default (480i/p/stretch/none). I believe it will flash some symbolic meaning on the actual display on the box (the LED screen) like YbPbRb or something like that when you are one on top of the thing you are wanting to change. :)

Is there any way to check the firmware revision on this box? Obviously no 2-tuner software loaded yet on mine... that sucks to hear that it is now the end of the month. Drat!

-T

Sucha deal:

Call Randall at 949 546 200 x7543, he's based out of Rancho Santa Margarita.
I put my name on the interest list about 2-3 months ago and I wasn't even a Cox subsriber at the time. Randall called me the last week of August saying that my DVR is available.
I then subscribed to Cox and mentioned that I want the DVR when Cox will come to install my service and the Cox customer rep said no problem.
A week later, Cox techinician came with a DVR box.

Hope this helps.
Eric

DVI issue:
Currently everytime I turn on either my plasma or my DVR box, I have to unplug the DVI cable from the box and re-plug it back to make it work.
Hopefully it would be fixed soon.



Originally posted by sucha deal!

Moyekj, is there a specific number or person to talk to about the HD-DVR? They seem to be pretty adamant that there is a huge waiting list and I must wait my turn. (it's "only" been a month and it looks like others have waited longer.)

[/B]

Originally posted by neyugnt

Is there any way to check the firmware revision on this box? Obviously no 2-tuner software loaded yet on mine... that sucks to hear that it is now the end of the month. Drat!
-T Power off the box (easier using the buttons instead of the remote) and within a second or so hit the select button. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get it - it was much easier/quicker with the 6200 without the hard drive buffering. Then scroll down to option 8 (Code Modules) using down arrow and then right arrow to see the software version details. Various other options are of interest too, for example option 3 shows you your signal/noise ratio. Another option displays which ports are active. To exit simply power off the box or scroll down to E and right arrow.

At this point I care more about the DVI issue being resolved than 2-tuner support. Unless the USB port is enabled for additional hard drive storage to bump up 12 hours of HD to something more reasonable 2 tuners will simply enable you to fill up the hard drive quicker. My TV only has 1 component input and now I have to use it for the cable box - so my DVD player is now relegated from component to S-video - YUCK! I can't justify to my wife spending $200+ for a DVD player with DVI output either.

Nope, he is using straight A/V cables.

Don't know if this is of interest to anyone, but here are the specs on the mpeg2 transport streams put out by the 6412. I gathered these with some captures from the firewire port. What surprised me most was the high bitrate used for analog encoding - 9 Mbps - which is what ReplayTV does at high quality. Wonder why the ReplayTV resulting mpeg looks much better? Was also surprised that SD digital horizontal resolution was less than SD analog horizontal resolution and the audio bitrate is so low.

6412 HD STREAM INFO
===================
System Stream Type=Transport
Video Standard=NTSC
Video Compression=MPEG-2
Video Bitrate=38,810.4 Kbps CBR
Resolution=1920x1088
Frame Rate=29.97 fps
Aspect Ratio=16:9 (1920x1080)
Audio Compression=Dolby AC-3
Audio Stream=6 channel, 48kHz
Audio Bitrate=384 Kbps

6412 SD DIGITAL STREAM INFO
===========================
System Stream Type=Transport
Video Standard=NTSC
Video Compression=MPEG-2
Video Bitrate=15,000 Kbps VBR
Resolution=528x480
Frame Rate=29.97 fps
Aspect Ratio=4:3
Audio Compression=Dolby AC-3
Audio Stream=2 channel, 48kHz
Audio Bitrate=128 Kbps

6412 SD ANALOG STREAM INFO
==========================
System Stream Type=Transport
Video Standard=NTSC
Video Compression=MPEG-2
Video Bitrate=9,000 Kbps VBR
Resolution=720x480
Frame Rate=29.97 fps
Aspect Ratio=4:3
Audio Compression=Dolby AC-3
Audio Stream=2 channel, 48kHz
Audio Bitrate=320 Kbps

Originally posted by skfields01
My brother had the 6412 installed last night. I drilled the senior tech for answers on when the Dual Tuner was going to kick in. He said that he was told, just today, that it is now the end of the month.


I was told yesterday that the 2nd tuner will be activated 9/13. My DVR's in transit, should have it by Thurs. :)

Steve

[QUOTE]Originally posted by moyekj
Power off the box (easier using the buttons instead of the remote) and within a second or so hit the [b]select button. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get it -

At this point I care more about the DVI issue being resolved than 2-tuner support.

With the 6412 you have to hit the select button TWICE rapidly not just once as was true with the 6200. Same for the Menu button, hit it twice.

What is the DVI issue you are referring too. DVI has worked fine for me since my unit was installed last month.

Originally posted by walford
What is the DVI issue you are referring too. DVI has worked fine for me since my unit was installed last month. DVI worked fine for me with the 6200 box. After a couple of days with the 6412 box I could not get a picture on the TV through DVI output without jumping through hoops - essentially the only reliable way to re-establish the signal was to unplug the DVI port from the TV and then plug it back in. On one occasion I also got the strange message on the display others have reported as follows (which is when I really knew there was a real problem):
HD Copy Protection has been compromised on this display. Please use the YPbPr outputs for your HD connection.

This is a DVI handshaking bug that is discussed in this and other threads so I know I'm not the only one with the problem. Most of the complaints are with the 6208 but looks like the bug carried over to 6412 as well. Supposedly the dual-tuner software addresses this DVI handshaking problem. If you use DVI and haven't had this problem with your 6412 consider yourself very lucky. Here's some links on the DVI problems:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4198536#post4198536
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=4192915&highlight=DVI#post4192915
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3800231&highlight=DVI#post3800231
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=391557&highlight=compromised

Originally posted by niesman
evector,

All digital TV is compressed using mpeg-2, presently most sources of HDTV ( and digital tv) are limited to broadcasting at a maximum bandwidth of 19.39-Mbps. In order to fit several hundred channels, cox must choose a limited bit per second encoding scheme. mpeg-2 allows the encoder to choose from 56bps, 200, or 500bps. If the original content is already compromised by a less than optimum bit rate (500bps) the program will suffer from artifacts. So the game cox must play is which programs (if any) get the high bit rate and which do not. One would assume that cox gives the HD channels the best encoding. But I often question it.
.:(

niesman

Thanks for the explanation. But, it sounds like we're making some assumptions and don't know for certain if Cox compresses the HD signals.


----------------------------------------

I talked to OC technical support today on some of the issues we bring up here, including the DVI issue. As far as they are concerned there have been little to no issues reported for 6412 machines yet in Orange County - not surprising given the limited rollout. So I encourage anyone here having problems to at least call in and report them. Their first reaction is always to want to send someone out to the house to look at signal strength and/or replace the box. I'm convinced signal strength is fine and I doubt there is anything wrong with the box other than the firmware - so swapping out the box won't do anything, so I denied a service call. I told them I would wait for the new firmware release to see if it helped my DVI issue. I'll switch back to DVI tonight and see how often I get the problem meanwhile. They did reset something on the box while I was on the phone, though I doubt that will help.

I am keeping my 6200 and getting the 6214 as well for now. Cox had to get permission for me to have both, and they said OK. I should have my unit by early next week.

Prior to having the HD-DVR, I had a regular digibox and an HD digi box.

When I asked the technician if I could keep my 6200 and could they take back the regular digi box instead, as I wanted to have HD in the master bedroom for a future display upgrade, they said I could keep it if I paid $50 (HD upgrade). Do you get to keep your 6200 for free, Rich?

-T

I'll find out but they are UPS'ing my 6412 to me. I would be surprised if they charged me.

First, 1080i gets upsampled to 720p and 720p is downsampled to 1080i. It’s not quite accurate but you could think of 1080i more like 540p and 720p would be like 1440i. Case and point 720p takes more bandwidth than 1080i... Doesn't matter... both look great if you want to get all geeked out on it search and ye will find MANY threads explaining the whole process of deinterlacing, upsampling, downsampling, etc...

Second, I find it very interesting that Cox uses VBR (Variable bit rate compression) on it's Digital and Analog SD channels, but uses CBR (Constant Bit Rate) on it's HD channels. This could very well be the reason the Fast Action Close-ups look bad...

Third, I reported to Cox that the NBC HD feed was horrible and looked "over-compressed" every time a they had a fast action close up... they told me "That's the first I've heard someone complain about it, but I'll file a report for you"... funny people nationwide we complaining on message boards like this one... makes you wonder if anyone bothers to complain to the people that could actually affect change (namely Cox and NBC).

I have no DVI problems, just the well discussed 720p via component to a Samsung HLN series not working. I have my STB set to 1080i and it works fine. 720p did work via DVI, but I prefer my upconverting DVD player hooked up via DVI.

The "subscribe to" issue went away for me about two weeks ago. It was only an issue the first week, I figured they'd already updated the firmware to resolve it.

The big "bugs" I care about getting fixed are:
1) Inability to convert the live TV buffer into a saved recording (this is a huge issue)
2) Inability to skip to beginning of a program that is currently being recorded (it instantly skips back to live) so you have to RR all the way back which takes forever on HD...
3) Gross disparity between RR/FF speed on SD vs. HD material
4) Need 30 second skip button instead of instant replay button.
5) Useless search by title function... There must be a way to SPELL out the title, not just select the first letter. I dare you to go search for "Pimp my Ride", it'll take YEARS to get through all the "Paid Programming" crap… the same is true of all the letter “N” which require going through “NFL, NHL, etc… “ the same is true of all the “M” In Demand” crap.
6) 6 days of guide data is pitiful for a DVR. 10 Days is bare minimum. 14 days is appropriate.
7) Reduce/eliminate excessive sharpening (presumably due to compression?) of picture when viewing recording analog SD channels. It makes watching record shows that have digital graphics or news streamers (CNN) unbearable. It’s not bad on HD, although the compression on the NBC-HD during the Olympics was dreadful, watching sprinting runners (like vaulting gymnasts, pole vaulters , etc…) up close turned everything into a over-compress blur, but that’s not the DVR’s fault it is Cox and NBC’s fault.
8) When watching something in the live buffer and the channel is changed by the STB to record a scheduled recording you instantly lose the live buffer.

The above are all BASIC usability issues, that I care far more about then the following list which are more "bonus" additions:
1) Dual Tuners
2) More storage
3) Ought to have a better system to display recorded programs (similar to TiVo's folders so that if you have 12 episodes of South Park recorded it shows up as one item, then when you arrow left you get an expanded view showing all 12 episodes)
4) Anywhere where the user must select A B or C ought to have the ability instead to highlight the A, B or C option using the arrows and then press select to chose that option.
5) Terribly slow guide/menu speed when watching HD material
6) When pulling up INFO when watching a recording it ought to fill 3/4th of the screen with the info the way it does it you pull it up form the guide. Showing two lines of info is ridiculous.

I would STRONGLY encourage everyone here to email Cox Customer service with their own list of bugs, complaints, requests, etc... and to do it NOW while they might actually be interested in initial customer feedback.

Originally posted by jb510

2) Inability to skip to beginning of a program that is currently being recorded (it instantly skips back to live) so you have to RR all the way back which takes forever on HD...
If you are > 15 mins into the recording you can use the skip to tick method to back up which works much quicker than a rewind. i.e. Press the rew button once and then press left arrow to move back 15 minutes per click. The only thing is if you go one click too far it throws you back to the live point again, so <= 15 minutes into program you still have to use rew which is very slow as you mentioned.

jb510, what email address did you use to report your issues? We should all make sure we send them to the same/correct email address that actually gets some attention.

Yes, jb510! What email did you use. I agree it is time to make sure our complaints are voiced to the correct people at cox. Calling is not the answer. I have made several posts about the ineptness of the phone staff at cox. If we do not get their attention now, it will only get worse. I for one would rather have a handful of excellent quality HD selections over many with poor PQ.

niesman

Originally posted by niesman
...I have made several posts about the ineptness of the phone staff at cox...

Niesman, what problems have you had with Cox Customer Service?

In my experience I've had very good phone and email service from them, well beyond my expectation for a cable company. Perhaps it's expectations though, I have not gone back through your posts. I have seen frustration from others through that came from conflicting information about future products/firmware roll outs and the beta DVR service. First, it's unrealistic to expect all the technical or sales support staff in a company to be updated and briefed on the future plans for service roll outs, they change too often. No company is going to train thier CSR's on what might possibly be happening in the uncertain furture. The CSR's giving out "pre-release" info are just trying to be helpful by giving you un-official info. I've run into plenty of CSR's that just give out the "We have no official info at this time garbage...". Via email suport Cox has often elevated my question to someone that could give me that sort of info. Regarding the DVR service, it was clearly advertised at this time to be an early and limited roll-out with an update coming in few weeks to months to fix the bugs. I'm fine with the bugs, I expected them. I just want to make sure Cox knows about them all so they fix them before the service goes into full distribution.

You can get to email support through the Cox Web Site (https://www.cox.com/support/oc/emailchat/emailus.asp). There is no DVR option so just choose Digital Cable or HD service.

Everyone should remember... spouting off your frustrations with service/product "X" here on AVS forums may make you "feel" better and you may find some empathy from others around you, along with annoy the people around you who vie wit as pointless griping... regardless it does nothing to solve the root problem you may have. You must let the service/product provider know if you want to accomplish anything positive. Cox and others certainly don't monitor the myriad of independent forums out there looking for feedback or to help users with problems, they expect that when you have a problem the first thing you do is to call/email their customer support directly with your issues. When they want feedback they have people come in for focus groups.

It amazes me how many people seem to think of AVS as their first line for customer support rather than their second line.

Sorry about the high soap-box content...

jb510,

Most of my frustrations with cox tech support phone people is that they are based out of San Diego, which uses Scientific Atlanta equipment. So they often give information that is incorrect for Motorola base equipment used in OC. Furthermore, I worked in grad school as a tech support person for a large scientific instrument manufacture. We were required to be "experts" on every instrument. If we did not know the answer we were required to forward the issue to someone else , live, or return the call within one hour. So I may be a little sensitive to tech support issues.

anyway thanks for the link and a little soap boxing is good for the soul.


niesman:D

DVR ownes should check this out.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=76341&p=irol-newsArticle_other&t=Regular&id=611110&

That's awesome. A few things to note in the press release:

In addition, customers now have an enhanced DVR navigation experience using Pioneer's latest Passport Echo software from Pioneer Digital Technologies, Inc. The enhancement provides the following new functionality:

-- Enhanced Recording Options: Viewers can set preferences to
store first-run episodes of a favorite show; a favorite show
on any channel where it appears, a favorite show only in its
primetime slot; or all shows any time it airs. The priority
system also allows viewers to automatically manage hard-drive
space. In addition, if a customer decides that he/she wants to
record an entire program after it has already started, it can
still be recorded in it's entirely provided that the channel
has not been changed since the start of the program.

-- Title Search: Viewers can quickly and easily search for
programs by using an on-screen keyboard.

-- Keyword Search: Viewers can also find programs by entering
keywords (such as actor, director or subject) and then set-up
automatic recording of these programs using the series
recording option.

I think the title and keyword searches will be well received by a few posters in this group. The little tidbit about recording a program in its entirety provided the channel has not been changed since the start of the program is interesting. Does this mean you can record the buffer + program, or only the part of the buffer that is part of the program you want to record.

I think in the recording options, they added every option except the one I really wanted to use. Which is to record all episodes of a program except where that episode is in your hard drive stash already. Whether it's a re-run, been recorded and deleted, etc.

The press release is dated the 8th, to be downloaded automagically. I wonder when this will happen for OC.

-T

Doubt it will accomplish much if anything, but below was my email to Cox. I didn't list all my gripes since I didn't want to overwhelm anybody. It would be more useful to interface more directly with the developers of Pioneer Passport Echo since many enhancements and bugs are in their control. In any case, as was mentioned, as early adopters we may have a small influence in future software updates at this stage in the game.


As a long time PVR owner (I own 4 ReplayTV PVRs) and a new customer of the Motorola 6412 PVR I have some issues and requests regarding the 6412 with Pioneer Passport Echo software:

1) DVI output handshaking problem with TV DVI input. If I am not careful to power up/down TV & 6412 in right order then I cannot get a picture on TV through DVI output. This problem has been reported in many online forums so I know I'm not the only one. I used the DVI port with the 6200 box with no such problems. Currently this is what I have to do to ensure a picture using DVI output:
- When powering up I must first power up TV and select it's DVI input, then power up the 6412.
- When powering off I must first power off 6412, then power off TV.
- Failure to follow the above sequence means no DVI picture shows up on TV. To fix the problem then I have to either unplug and replug DVI connection or pull the power cord on the 6412 to reset things.
- Switching to component output eliminates these problems/workarounds but then I don't have another component input on TV for my DVD player, so is highly undesireable.
- I heard the upcoming (Sep. 13th?) dual-tuner firmware update may have a fix to this problem but would like some confirmation that this is the case.

2) Attempting to start watching a program that is still recording immediately takes you to the current recording point. The only way to get to start of the program is to rewind backwards all the way which for HD recordings takes forever. There should be an option to "play from beginning" when you select a program to watch that is still recording.

3) A 30 second skip capability is much more useful than an instant replay button. Even if there is not a button on the remote to do this there should be a method to accomplish this. This feature alone makes ReplayTV and Tivo much more appealing. Aside from Tivo and ReplayTV, Dish network PVRs do offer this capability which makes their PVRs very attractive.

4) FF/REW on High definition recordings is VERY slow compared to standard definition recordings even at maximum speeds

5) 6 days of guide data is pitiful for a PVR. Would like to see it at bare minimum 12 days to be able to plan ahead.

Side note I hadn't seen mentioned before. If your 6412 unit is currently recording and you bring up the "select" or "menu" screens (power off then double select "select" or "menu") it will kill your recording. I did that this morning so I could check the firmware version and it killed my ongoing US Open recording.

In general it seems like it is pretty easily to accidently kill an ongoing recording, and I imagine a software update will do that along with potentially wiping out all setup future recordings.

I have noticed something interesting that I have no idea what it means. About an hour or so ago... while watching The Missing, I noticed that the colon between the clock started blinking. Never did that before. Wonder what it means? Any clues?

uh, not to be a wisea$$, but wouldn't you expect it to stop recording if you turn it off? I wouldn't touch the power button during a recording...

skfields, hopefully the blinking colon means it is.. downloading the dual tuner software??? Not sure...

Steve, I've turned the box on/off during recording many times. It's never stopped my recording. The way my clock LED display is setup (on/off w/ power), I can be recording something, turn off the box (clock goes bye bye, red light stays on).

-T

Originally posted by Steve Wilcox
uh, not to be a wisea$$, but wouldn't you expect it to stop recording if you turn it off? I wouldn't touch the power button during a recording... It's not a problem to power off the unit - it continues to record without interruption as is the case with ReplayTV, Tivo and others. For ReplayTV and Tivo it's encouraged to power off the units when not in use since they won't buffer current tuned channel to hard drive when powered off - therefore you can expect to extend the hard drive life that way. The 6412 appears to buffer to hard drive continuously even when powered off, so I'm not sure powering off actually accomplishes anything useful anyway. (For me I have to power off the 6412 to overcome the DVI connection issue I described above in this thread).

Originally posted by Steve Wilcox
uh, not to be a wisea$$, but wouldn't you expect it to stop recording if you turn it off? I wouldn't touch the power button during a recording...
Turning it off only turns off its generation of normal video/audio outputs to the different connectors. It does not turn off the control functions or the disk drive( as evidenced by the amount of heat still being genereated when it is "off")

Not surprising I got a canned response from Cox on my email I posted above. But at least the response was pretty quick and my email didn't go to a black hole. I wonder if product support will even look at it.

Hello Kevin,
-
Thank you for your e-mail. Cox is committed to providing the best
customer service possible.
-
Thank you for your feedback, it is appreciated very much. I have
forwarded your comments to our Product Support department.
-
If we can be of any additional service to you, please do not hesitate to
contact us again.
-
Sincerely, Phil
Tech Support - Video & Telephony
Cox Communications Online Support Team

Originally posted by Steve Wilcox
uh, not to be a wisea$$, but wouldn't you expect it to stop recording if you turn it off? I wouldn't touch the power button during a recording...

I think moyekj was trying to enter the configuration menu while recording, as in the service menu a tech (or AVS forum member) might use, but a normal user would not.

I recall the Microsoft guy working on FE that posts to the forums here mentioning something about it being a hardware issue and different software developers handling it in various ways. If anybody can find the link (I forget where it was) please post it.

BTW, moyekj, don't be surprised if you do get another email from Cox's Product Support department, I've had them forward my emails around to the right people before prior to hearing a useful response.

Thanks for not ripping me a new one in your responses, guys! I learned something today.

My clock is still blinking... or atleast the colon that seprates the hours and minutes is. Has anyone else had this happen to their box? I just got off the phone with a Cox DVR tech and they said it is normal. I do not remember this happening a few days ago... and my other boxes don't do this. Very puzzling.

Mine blinks too. Now, I think mine always did this. Kinda just like a clock pulsating the seconds even though it does not display them.

-T

Maybe I am just getting loopy. Don't remember this when I first hooked it up. Guess it was always there.

Originally posted by sucha deal!
Does OTA & Satellite also compress as aggressively as cable? Are the artifacts less noticeable?

I can't speak for OTA, or "Current" Sat compression, but overall Sat has much less bandwidth then Cable. That why unless some killer compression code comes out, as more HD becomes available, Cable wins all over Sat. (unless you have no need for the dozens of other Analog or DTV channels....thats why Voom can get away with all HD and so many channels. Direct has to decide what to give up when it wants to add...)

For Moyekj.
I do not get the HDCP error with my 6412 and an Sammyy HLP model DLP even when I had both the component and DVI cables connected at the same time for comparison testing. I currently use DVI for all channels and have removed the component cables.
A friend of mine has a Sammy HLM model DLP set and he gets the HDCP error if he has both the component and DVI cables connected at the same time. He does not get the error if he removes the component connection but he has less flexibility with how his first generation Sammy handles SD video via DVI.
Are you using both connections when you get the error or do you get it when you use only the DVI connection?

So here's a question: When the firmware is updated, how will we know? Will there be an obvious change in the menus/guide? Will we have to do anything special to take advantage of the two tuners, or will the system sort that out for itself?

Does anyone know if the new firmware update will make pip/swap function available? The press release stated the dual-tuner firmware update to allow simultaneous recording, as well as the new search interface for title/program names, but says nothing of the pip/swap function similar to the dual-tuner scientific atlanta boxes (for time warner cable).

-T

I got my box this weekend, and overall I am pretty satisfied. I did not own a Tivo before, so I like the functionality. I did find that the current firmware level will not work well with DVHS recorders. I still kept my 6200 for my DVHS VCRs.

When the firmware changes, I am sure someone will notice and post here.

Originally posted by walford
For Moyekj.
Are you using both connections when you get the error or do you get it when you use only the DVI connection? I do only use DVI since my TV only has 1 component input and I like to save that for the DVD player progressive scan output. The bug is very annoying and happens every time I power the TV off - the only workaround that works is to bring up the menu when the 6412 is powered off, which kills any current recording - so it's basically a PITA to turn on to watch something while the unit is recording. I'm going to wait to see if this new firmware release solves the problem else potentially spring for a DVD player with DVI output (Panasonic) (my wife will kill me though). I should have researched the TV better before buying and made sure it had at least 2 component inputs.

Thank you for your quick response.
Do you know if your TV's DVI connection is HDCP compliant. I read in a post in another forum of someone who had to get a firmware upgrade to their projector to make its DVI HDCP compliant in order for it to work correctly with their 6412.

I am sure someone will know when the Dual Tuner kicks in. I check my setup for it everynight when I get home from work. I am pretty sure that the PIP swap will work also.

I also heard an interesting tidbit yesterday. I was told that in a near future firmware upgrade that you will be able to search the Guide by entering the first 3 digits of the program you want to find. They said it will work completely onscreen.

Originally posted by skfields01
... I also heard an interesting tidbit yesterday. I was told that in a near future firmware upgrade that you will be able to search the Guide by entering the first 3 digits of the program you want to find. They said it will work completely onscreen.

Yes you'll be able to spell the show title with a "virtual keyboard". Also to be added, or so I've heard, is the ability to do keyword searches (like wishlists on TiVo).

Sounds like they're addressing most of my major concerns except:
1) More guide data, we need 14 days.
2) More storage space!!!!!!

I'm used to 30-40 recordings on my TiVo, now by the time I get 2 HD movies, an HD show or two and then a few SD programs I'm out of space! going from 40+ recordings to 10 is rough. I've already lost several programs well before I would have expected.

Hello from Hartford Conn. JUst got this eamil from cox!.
************************************************************ *
Thank you for choosing Cox's DVR service!

We are pleased to announce two enhancements to this service on September 14 -
dual tuner digital video recording capabilities and an enhanced interactive guide.
These improvements are designed to further increase the robust recording capabilities
and navigation of the service.

The new dual tuner functionality allows you to record two programs simultaneously
while watching a previously recorded program, or watch a live program while
recording an additional program. The dual tuner software will be automatically
downloaded to your set-top box.

In addition, you will have an advanced DVR navigation experience on the on-screen program guide:

- Enhanced Recording Options: Viewers can set preferences to store first-run episodes
of a favorite show; a favorite show on any channel where it appears, a favorite show
only in its primetime slot; or all shows any time it airs. In addition, if a viewer
wants to record an entire program after it has already started, it still can be recorded
in its entirety, provided that the channel has not been changed since the start of the program.
- Title Search: Viewers can quickly and easily search for programs by using an on-screen keyboard.
- Keyword Search: Viewers can also find programs by entering keywords
(such as actor, director or subject) and then set-up automatic recording of these programs
using the series recording option.

************************************************************ ***********************

Important messages about the upgrade process:
The automated software download will happen on Thursday morning, September 14
from 1:00 AM to 5:00 AM. During this download period, you will not be able to record programs.

Also, the software upgrade requires some free space on your DVR set-top box.
If you have your DVR set-top box filled to capacity with recordings that are "locked",
it is important that you unlock several recordings to make room for the second tuner
(over 5 hours) to be safe before September 14. These recordings might be erased during the upgrade.

Sorry if this is in the wrong thread but I can't find one that answers my question. I recently bought an ATI HDTV Wonder and am wondering if I will be able to recieve OTA HDTV signals while I am at UCI.

You would at least need to purchase a HDTV decoder and an antenna.

Something like this I believe is what you need.

HDTV decoder (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1076628571410&skuId=6294752&productCategoryId=cat03022&type=product)

Not sure what OTA HDTV reception is like in OC though.

Originally posted by cxxken
Sorry if this is in the wrong thread but I can't find one that answers my question. I recently bought an ATI HDTV Wonder and am wondering if I will be able to recieve OTA HDTV signals while I am at UCI.
Your ATI PC card and the decoding software that came with it should do fine with an inexpensive UHF antenna since most of the stations broadcast from Mt Baldy. Go to TitanTV.com to find out exactly what stations you will be able to receive from your UCI address and how good an antenna you need.

Thanks for the reply, but is the antenna that came with my card going to be ok or will I have to buy a new one?

This afternoon I finally got a DCT6200 installed for my bedroom in addition to the DCT6412 that is hooked up in my living room -- I won't take you through the frustrations I've experienced with Cox over getting this to happen.

The idiot installer managed to get Cox's records updated so that my DCT6421 was removed instead of the old digital cable box that was in the bedroom. So when I went downstairs this evening and turned on the main system, I no longer had any HD channels except for 702, 704 and 707.

So I called Cox and while they were trying to figure out what happened, I was telling the support person about the periodic rebooting of the 6412 and mentioned that I was hoping tonight's firmware update would solve that problem. She told me that she had received an email this evening saying the upgrade was postponed until Wednesday morning (the 15th). She said there was no information in the email explaining why the delay.

hi there moyekj!
thanks for trying out the firewire port and reporting here that it works.
That is excellent. Now if only I had a laptop with a firewire port...my laptop only has usb....i wonder if there's a pcmcia - firewire adapter? but then i wonder what's the point with my laptop's relatively small hard drive.
still it is pretty cool....i would like to try it someday

I'm really looking forward to dual tuners because some of the shows we watch are already starting the new seasons....I already noticed one conflict this friday I think, when third watch comes on at the same time as something else I watch. i think it was joan of arcadia. hmm

By the way, has anyone else noticed various pops and cracks on NBC? When I watch Hawaii in High Def, its extremely annoying...often the sound cuts out for a second...its like what you get with satellite tv if the dish isn't aimed properly. Pretty pathetic since this is cable.
Should I call Cox about this?

I picked up a PCMCIA USB 2.0/Firewire card a few months back at MicroCenter. I don't recall if they had any that were just Firewire. I always used the USB 2.0 on it over Firewire because it's somewhat faster. I now have a new laptop with both ports built-in, so I gave it to someone and he uses the Firewire port to attach a DVD burner and it works fine. I think it was an Adaptec card.

Originally posted by cxxken
Thanks for the reply, but is the antenna that came with my card going to be ok or will I have to buy a new one?
I do not know how good the reception will be in your UCI location hopefully the antenna that came with it will do fine. If it doesn't then consider buying a new one

Well, I checked this morning at 7:00 am Pacific time and nothing was new. No Dual Tuners and no enhanced features on the guide. Anyone else check this morning?

Originally posted by cxxken
Sorry if this is in the wrong thread but I can't find one that answers my question. I recently bought an ATI HDTV Wonder and am wondering if I will be able to recieve OTA HDTV signals while I am at UCI.

No.. this is completely the wrong thread.

Go to this thread: L.A. Area, S. Orange County - My Initial OTA Results (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=191672&perpage=20&pagenumber=27) they will be very helpful with your exact question and location :)

For help with your hardware check out the HTPC forum: Home Theater Computers (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=26)

Now back to discussion about Cox CABLE orange county...

What's the point of dual tuner? There isn't enough space to record programs in HD from one tuner... gripe gripe gripe...

Ok seriously, did anyone else watch LAX last night on NBC in HD? It was letter boxed at 16:9... ie. black bars top/bottom and left/right! As if the STB was set to 4:3 even though it was going to a 16:9. Anyone else notice this? NBC HD sucks... Perhaps I should just forget about it since I don't think I'll be watching LAX again... When do West Wing and CSI start back up?

Wow I'm negative this morning...

Ditto about LAX, letter boxed all the way through and audio is 2.1.
Somebody at KNBC forgot to turn the switch again?

I agree about the dual tuner, the only nice thing is you can record one and watch another program at the same time.

Eric


Originally posted by jb510
What's the point of dual tuner? There isn't enough space to record programs in HD from one tuner... gripe gripe gripe...

Ok seriously, did anyone else watch LAX last night on NBC in HD? It was letter boxed at 16:9... ie. black bars top/bottom and left/right! As if the STB was set to 4:3 even though it was going to a 16:9. Anyone else notice this? NBC HD sucks... Perhaps I should just forget about it since I don't think I'll be watching LAX again... When do West Wing and CSI start back up?

Wow I'm negative this morning...

I noticed that too on LAX. It says it was broadcast in High Def and Widescreen... so I don't know what was up. Las Vegas was fine an hour earlier though. CSI New York is on Wednesday the 22nd @ 10:00 pm. What sucks though is they never aired a repeat of the CSI: Miami that was the lead in to New York.

Cox told me that they are working on enabling us to add a hard drive as additional storage. I don't know if it would be a Cox external hard drive or any USB drive.

Also saw and was annoyed by letterboxing on LAX last night, same thing happened with the first episode of Hawaii. KNBC seems to be having a tough time getting it right the first time a new show comes on. I'm glad my TV allows me to scale the image with a 1080i signal, it looked about right in Toshiba's "theater wide 3" mode. Hopefully they'll get it right next time.

By the way, has anyone else noticed various pops and cracks on NBC? When I watch Hawaii in High Def, its extremely annoying...often the sound cuts out for a second...its like what you get with satellite tv if the dish isn't aimed properly.

I get this as well. It got so bad we had to switch to SD for one of the Hawaii episodes.

I'd be interested to know what this is or how many others are having it.

We had a similar issue with Fox on our last box. Cox came out and looked at it, The tech said our signal was fine but that 713 and another channel(I forget) are especially susceptible to FM interference. He reterminated all my cable F-connectors and it didn't seem to help much. He finally ended up trying another 5100 box and the problem mostly went away.

Ray

Ditto here. It only happened on Hawaii, so wondering that is has something to do more with KNBC than with COX.

Originally posted by Tiresius

I get this as well. It got so bad we had to switch to SD for one of the Hawaii episodes.

I'd be interested to know what this is or how many others are having it.


Ray

Folks it is NBC not your set or Cox. NBC HD is Horrible!!!!!!!

They consistantly drop the ball.

It is time to complain to NBC not Cox or AVS.

niesman

Originally posted by walford
Thank you for your quick response.
Do you know if your TV's DVI connection is HDCP compliant. I read in a post in another forum of someone who had to get a firmware upgrade to their projector to make its DVI HDCP compliant in order for it to work correctly with their 6412. It says in the manual it is... and with the 6200 box it worked with no problems at all, so I have to assume this is a bug with the 6412 that apparently only affects some TVs.

Originally posted by skfields01
...CSI New York is on Wednesday the 22nd @ 10:00 pm. What sucks though is they never aired a repeat of the CSI: Miami that was the lead in to New York.

Yes they are...
Per TitianTV.com
KCBSDT 702 Wednesday 9/15/2004 10:00 PM, 1 hr
CSI: Miami
MIA/NYC-Nonstop (Repeat)
Evidence recovered at the scene of a double homicide, in which a husband and wife were murdered in their upscale home, leads Horatio to believe that the killer lives in New York. When he arrives in the Big Apple, Horatio is assisted by Det. Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) who suspects that the murder of a New York undercover cop is linked to the Miami crimes. Stella: Melina Kanakaredes. Sheldon: Hill Harper. Aiden: Vanessa Ferlito. Danny: Carmine Giovinazzo. (2004)

Next week:
KCBSDT 702 Wednesday 9/22/2004 10:00 PM, 1 hr
CSI: NY
Blink
Debut: The second spin-off of the "CSI" franchise centers on two hard-nosed detectives working cases in the Big Apple. In the opener, Det. Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) tracks a serial killer who is murdering women. Stella: Melina Kanakaredes. Hawkes: Hill Harper. Flack: Eddie Cahill. (2004)

lol guess I have to buy new antenna, the one that came in w/ the card is a pos one. I tried attaching foil all over it and it ionyl improved the signal for 5 seconds.

jb510

Thanks for the info. It is now set to record. I missed it when it first showed and was wondering why I hadn't seen a repeat yet... especially when then knew one was showing next week. Thanks again.

Originally posted by flip831
...She told me that she had received an email this evening saying the upgrade was postponed until Wednesday morning (the 15th). She said there was no information in the email explaining why the delay.

Checked my box this morning. No update yet...

I set it up to record LAX this week, but it only recorded less than 1 second of it!! The list of recorded shows has it listed but it starts and stops at the same time. what happened??? I don't think anyone was downstairs when it came on...I was really disappointed.

I don't know what causes this, omarh, but I've had it happen several times. Hopefully it will go away once the firmware upgrade is installed. However, at least IMHO, you didn't missing anything as far as LAX goes. Definitely not watching that show again. If it happened with Alias or 24 or CSI, I'd be upset.

Software got Updated overnight!!!

Dual Tuners, Search by title, etc... etc...

Ohh and the skip back 15 minutes, or begining work too.

BTW, I too have had a few recordings only pick up the first 1, 3 or more minutes. Once I had it record 1 minute in one file, then record 18 minutes in the next file, then give up entirely and not complete recording the HD Movie I was trying to record.

I suspect those bugs and more are fixed in last night's update.

I have had an occurance of the Subscription Bug with the new 9.11 firmware that was downloaded overnight.

Yes... I also got the new features too. Dual Tuner and the expanded Search functions now are active. Works great so far. I do wish they would have also added the PIP feature. The only thing you can do is Swap the 2 programs or tuners. Oh well... can't have everything and I am happy with what I have.

By the way. I have always had the 15 minutes skip FF/REW feature. Is there something I am missing?

I have had it fail to record a program several tiimes as well. It shows up in the list as a 1 minute program, but no contents. This REALLY needs to get fixed. As it is, I can't trust the box to record a show unattented. I've been recording everything on my Tivo as well just in case the 6412 screws up. Thats just not gonna fly long term.

Hopefully this is fixed in the new code.(which I didn't have time to look at this morning)
If anybody sees it with new code, please post so we're aware.

Also last night we were recording Hawaii and started watching it about 20 minutes in. The "skip to live" bug was driving us crazy. Everytime a commercial came on and we'd try to ff through it we get jumped to live. At one point we got jumped to live and I tried for 15 full minutes to get back to where we had been. No matter what I tried, every single time I'd get popped back to live at some random point along the way. I finally threw the remote and walked away until after it was finished recording. Once it was done recording, all the navigation worked fine.

This kind of crap is OK for us on the "early adopter" program, but it will not be acceptable going forward.

I really hope some of this basic functionality stuff is fixed now that we have new code.

I know I know, call Cox not the AVS forums, but it's theraputic to vent to a forum where people use this stuff rather than some idiot in a call center that's not all that certain what HD and DVR even mean.

The bright side is that many of the new features are steps in the right direction and none of us had to pay the $900-1000 it would have cost to get started with Directv/HDTivo or Dish.

Have you guys tried to reboot the box by unplugging and replugging the power cord?
It seems to fix mine until now. I will try to reboot in the morning until there's a fix to it.

DVI issue:

The current issue I have before the software update is I have to unplug and replug the DVI cable from the PVR box to get my panny HD plasma to display the pictures from the box. This works regarless the PVR or plasma are on stand by or not.
Will check tonite if the new software would fix this handshaking issue with the Panny.

Eric


Originally posted by Tiresius
I have had it fail to record a program several tiimes as well. It shows up in the list as a 1 minute program, but no contents. This REALLY needs to get fixed. As it is, I can't trust the box to record a show unattented. I've been recording everything on my Tivo as well just in case the 6412 screws up. Thats just not gonna fly long term.

Hopefully this is fixed in the new code.(which I didn't have time to look at this morning)
If anybody sees it with new code, please post so we're aware.

Originally posted by skfields01
...By the way. I have always had the 15 minutes skip FF/REW feature. Is there something I am missing?

The "feature" was always there, the problem was that if you tired using it with something being view through the live buffer (ie. something that hadn't finished recording) it would jump to the live rather than playing at the time mark you pushed play at.

...and yes it's fixed.

...multiple letter title search is available - I like that it eliminates the 2nd/3rd letters that are useless. Cool feature I've never seen before. Also the shows titles are grouped in folders. So if you go looking for CSI by title, it'll have a little folder next to CSI, and one next to CSI:Miami. To see all the CSI: Miami episodes you scroll to that, and it expands to show you all the times and channels it appears on. Cool so that you don't have to scroll though 50 episodes to CSI and CSI:Las Vegas to get to CSI:Miami.

...search by keyword... cool, although it seems you can only search by predetermined keywords... I think? and you can't set up a wishlist to record a series based on a keyword, at least not that I've figured out.

...the first thing I actually like better than TiVo is that you can bring up the Guide while you're watching a recorded program. It's nice to be able to watch a recorded program while you set up your future recordings.

...FF/RR speeds seem to be similar in SD vs. HD.. although the amount of "jump back" seems a little out of wack. HD jumps WAY back when you stop the FF.

...menus are still really slow why playing HD...

...only 6 days of guide data still... :p

...new more descriptive options for video output, it now lets you select what happens to 16:9 and 4:3 signals independently. Including a zoom option... and just like on computers it asks you to confirm the "new settings" otherwise it'll auto-revert back to the old settings very cool...

If your wondering why that last one is cool, my Sammy HLN567 won't take 720p over component since I got the "lip-sync" fix done... so when I try to set STB to 720p it won't sync and I've got to blindly scroll through the menus to switch it back to 1080i... not any more though... and no it still doesn't work with the new firmware (I was hoping that might fix it). Note this is totally different than the DVI sync issues...

Overall I'm very happy now with this software... I would still like to see in order:
1) More storage
2) Folders in the recorded programs area I don't want South Park showing up as 15 different programs, give me a folder with 15 items inside it
3) 14 Days of guide data

Wow, this 9.11 release fixes quite a few problems:
1. DVI handshaking bug seems to have dissapeared for me - YEAH!
2. FF/REW of HD programming is much smoother and faster - YEAH!
3. Playing a program that is still recording actually starts from the beginning now and FF/REW doesn't kick you back to live - YEAH!
4. Dual tuner seems to work as one would expect - YEAH!
5. Search capability now rivals that of Tivo - YEAH!

Agree with jb510 in terms of additional capability still missing:
1. USB should be enabled for external storage
2. 12+ days of guide data
3. Categories for scheduled and recorded programs (the ReplayTV approach not the Tivo approach).

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jb510


If your wondering why that last one is cool, my Sammy HLN567 won't take 720p over component since I got the "lip-sync" fix done... so when I try to set STB to 720p it won't sync and I've got to blindly scroll through the menus to switch it back to 1080i... not any more though... and no it still doesn't work with the new firmware (I was hoping that might fix it). Note this is totally different than the DVI sync issues...


Use the settings button on the remote to change the setting to 720p instead of using the 3 line menu. I don't understand why doing it with the settings button works where the Menu does not but it does with my Sammy.

I tried the new firmware. If I swap between tuners once too often, the HD channels start breaking up and I need to unplug the unit and reboot it to get proper functionality.

Regarding the FF skip back when you stop - do FF, PAUSE, and play. It seems to stop and start where you stopped instead of jumping back in time.

Ditto here on DVI issue being fixed now :).

Enabling firewire or USB for additional storage would be my biggest request.

Eric


Originally posted by moyekj
Wow, this 9.11 release fixes quite a few problems:
1. DVI handshaking bug seems to have dissapeared for me - YEAH!

Originally posted by Rich4av
I tried the new firmware. If I swap between tuners once too often, the HD channels start breaking up and I need to unplug the unit and reboot it to get proper functionality.

Regarding the FF skip back when you stop - do FF, PAUSE, and play. It seems to stop and start where you stopped instead of jumping back in time.

Good tip on the FF, thanks.

I have an issue that has shown up with the new F/W. If I'm recording a channel and try to watch the same channel, I get huge amounts of pixelation and drop-outs. This makes it pretty much impossible to watch what you are recording. I didn't have this issue until last night. At one point I also had two channels recorded simultaneously and tried watching one of the ones being recorded, fagetaboutit. Anyone else?

Originally posted by joeracerx
Good tip on the FF, thanks.

I have an issue that has shown up with the new F/W. If I'm recording a channel and try to watch the same channel, I get huge amounts of pixelation and drop-outs. This makes it pretty much impossible to watch what you are recording. I didn't have this issue until last night. At one point I also had two channels recorded simultaneously and tried watching one of the ones being recorded, fagetaboutit. Anyone else?

I tried the same thing last night with no problems, except when the next program (not being recorded) came on. There was a slight pause in the signal when the the DVR stopped recording and then it jumped to live to catch up (approx 3 seconds).

niesman

Nice reviews & tips all, very helpful. I didn't have much time with it last night, but I did record Survivor and Blue Collar TV simultaneosly(s) last night and watched Survivor later on.

For the breif minutes I played with it, I did notice quite a bit of pixelization would get(and keep) going if I swapped between tuners, especially if both tuners were on HD stations.

I don't know what the data rate is to read/write an HD stream to disk, but if you add together writing two streams while reading back at least one to display, the box is pushing a lot of data back and forth.

One question, it seems to me that if the box is off, it does not keep a life buffer(s) going. Is this true? If so it seems odd, because the disk is always spinning and the thing is always generating enough heat to warm a small home.

I also noticed the Pixelation bug when swapping the 2 tuners that are both in HD. I do not think you have to unplug and reboot. Just go out of HD to SD... wait a sec and go back to HD. Worked for me.

I would like the see the following in the next upgrade:

1. 10-14 Days display on the Guide.

2. Faster scrolling through the Guide.

3. Ability to group togther like titles that are recorder on the HDD or Alphabetical. Currently it groups by date/time recorded. I would like to put all my CSI or Smallville togther.

4. Larger HDD. Especially since this thing is designed for Hi-Def.

5. Controller needs to light up.

Originally posted by walford
[QUOTE]Originally posted by jb510


If your wondering why that last one is cool, my Sammy HLN567 won't take 720p over component since I got the "lip-sync" fix done... so when I try to set STB to 720p it won't sync and I've got to blindly scroll through the menus to switch it back to 1080i... not any more though... and no it still doesn't work with the new firmware (I was hoping that might fix it). Note this is totally different than the DVI sync issues...


Use the settings button on the remote to change the setting to 720p instead of using the 3 line menu. I don't understand why doing it with the settings button works where the Menu does not but it does with my Sammy.

I no longer have any 720p sync issues with DVI, however, I do still have the problem with component with my HLP.

New DVR Comments

Thanks Eric (fenwayfan) for the lead to Randall who set me up with the DVR. I would encourage anyone who is on the waiting list to call him. He was a breath of fresh air from a contaminated sea of incompetence from Cox.

I did a self install Wednesday night and then called a special DVR-HD phone number to initialize the box. The phone message said the process could take up to 2 hours.

Well, when I woke up Thursday, the box still said "INIT EXEC". I called a tech (there was a new choice for DVR on their voice-menu), and he said that my "selection codes" were never entered properly and he would take care of it. Five minutes later I was in business.

My impressions are mixed: I recorded two HD programs at the same time and it played back fantastically! Of course, NBC-HD looked as bad on the playback as it did on the original (Maybe they know that nobody's watching LAX anyways!).

I have some comments & questions on my first couple hours of playing around with it:

- the disk drive makes irritating and fairly noticeable disk accessing sounds whenever the box is turned on. When the DVR is off, it keeps spinning but unless it's in your bedroom, it's not loud enough to be noticed. I would like to suggest on the next software update, a user option to turn on or off the buffer record.

Does anybody else find it irritating that there is no longer a "Skip Channel" feature? I personally like to eliminate all the PPV in which I never subscribe as well as religious and Spanish stations. I don't want to use the Favorites menu to take the place of this important feature. Remember when the digital guide first came out a couple years ago, you could delete channels and they would be gone from both the on-screen channel guide, as well as when you would scan through the stations. Back then, you could also change the order of the channels on the display - a very cool feature that allowed custom grouping of channels. Then Cox "updated" the guide about a year ago, forcing you to see all the channels on the guide but at least letting you skip channels on scan. (They also eliminating the ability to turn the power of your VCR on and off on auto record). Now the latest update has eliminated Channel Skip altogether. This is rather irritating.

- 5 lines of guide on the screen takes forever to scroll through. And only 4 of the 5 lines change when you use the page up or down buttons.

- I also see additional artifacting. I don't think there is enough speed/bandwidth in the box to handle the dual HD tuners and playback.

It's great to see some of the technology that we only dreamed of coming to fruition, but it sure is frustrating to wait until it all works properly.

I got two cases of the dreaded 1-minute recordings... This had not happened with firmware 8.03...

I got the new dual tuner firmware now...I set it up to record Joan of Arcadia and Third Watch tonight. Anyway for some reason, Joan of Arcadia had a bunch of weird pixellation and noise for the first 3 minutes, then it clears up.
I also recorded venus bikini photoshoot on INHD1...it was full of pixellation and noise until the last few minutes!!

I watched live tv,and noticed this pixellation thing happens randomly...if I change channels and then go back, it goes away 99% of the time.
Any clues? It also happened with CBS and fox. So I think its a Cox issue, not the broadcasters.

Found something interesting and not sure if it has been noted yet. If you hit play twice in a row... it goes into fast forward frame by frame skip. In other words... 1 second fast forward.

OK, I get the pixellation bug too now quite frequently and always while watching HD channel. Even more annoying and as was mentioned before, recorded programs also get ruined by this pixellation. Channeling in and out (if you happen to be watching live), especially to SD channels fixes the problem, but then the problem comes back seemingly at random. For others having this problem have you seen the problem using Component output? I am using DVI and wonder if it's related to DVI output.

In any case, anyone having problems please send email to Cox - it doesn't really help to report problems here other than to obtain a consensus that the problem is widespread as appears to be the case.

I asked Cox Tech Support about the 1 minute recordings. In my case, one of the recordings that failed was a series I had created on the previous firmware. The tech told me to cancel the series recording and recreate it under 9.11. I did, and today's recording was OK.

I also had them resolve a problem whereby the 6412 would give a permanent subcription error today on some of the HBO and Starz channels (changing channels did not work). The tech said everything looked fine; a reinitialize did not work. She then did something else and those channels started working again... These channels were fine yesterday.

Originally posted by moyekj

In any case, anyone having problems please send email to Cox - it doesn't really help to report problems here other than to obtain a consensus that the problem is widespread as appears to be the case.
Yes, it appears that the pixellation is a new problem with the 6412, but so far I haven't seen it when I record. I would also encourage an email and/or a phone campaign to complain about this as well as needing more than a 7-day guide, the lack of a channel-skip feature, option to turn off disk drive buffering and cleanup of the playback commands on the remote.

We might as well be united in our suggestions. Hopefully they will have another new software upgrade very soon.

Originally posted by moyekj
For others having this problem have you seen the problem using Component output? I am using DVI and wonder if it's related to DVI output.


I get the pixellation problem, and I'm using component outputs, so it seems the problem is box/software-related. It is easily recreatable if BOTH TUNERS are set to HD channels. If I set one tuner to SD then the other tuner to HD it is fine. Recording an SD/HD is fine, one HD while viewing one SD is fine, but two HD is a no-go, at least in my trials. Just seems like there's either not enough juice or bandwidth there, or the disk read/write caching is not working well enough w/ so much data in the HD stream.

-T

Originally posted by skfields01
Found something interesting and not sure if it has been noted yet. If you hit play twice in a row... it goes into fast forward frame by frame skip. In other words... 1 second fast forward.

Maybe we're talking about the same thing, but what I noticed is that if you hit play twice, you get slow motion...

Could someone check their guide and see if there is any program data from 5pm next Wednesday through 4am next Thursday? I have a gap full of "No Data" in there. The program data picks up again at 4am Thursday. The only exceptions are programs that start before 4am and end after 4am; they appear OK. I noticed the Wednesday No Data listings a few days ago, but assumed that the guide data hadn't been downloaded past that time yet. This morning I noticed the Thursday listings. If others have the same problem, I wonder if the new firmware download intereferd with the guide download?

Originally posted by Steve Wilcox
Could someone check their guide and see if there is any program data from 5pm next Wednesday through 4am next Thursday?
I'm OK until next Saturday @ 5 pm. I would reinitialize your box if you're missing this, or it might have been just a temporary glitch,

Yah, a call to Cox did the trick.

By far, the most serious problem with the new DVR w/latest software is the pixellation/artifacting on HD programming. It is unacceptable. I spent a little time with it today and here's what I found:

The problem happens everytime you invoke the disk drive. It doesn't matter what is going on with the second tuner - all you need to do to recreate the problem is tune to a HD program, verify that the picture is stable (that means no NBC HD), and merely hit the Instant Replay button on the remote. That's it. In a few moments, you'll see the image breaking up. Now if you hit Live, the problem is still there. If you're recording an HD program on the other tuner, it will be screwed-up too. (BTW, you can see what's on the other tuner by hitting the Swap button). The way to eliminate the artifacting is simply to change channels - you don't even have to go to an SD station - just channel up, and then down, and the problem is fixed.

This means that if you want to record an HD show, you better not do anything else with the disk drive: do not record or playback anything else, or invoke the replay function. Recording unattended makes a lot of sense, so a family member doesn't ruin a good HD recording.

Although it is unacceptable that these important features don't work, I have to admit that I would be equally impressed if everything functioned perfectly. The processing of that much data is no small task! Hopefully these problems can be resolved with only software/firmware upgrades, rather than requiring a faster CPU or bandwidth that can't be delivered.

If anybody has come up with any other work-arounds in the meantime, please share them.

Don

I have to agree. The most serious problem for me is the pixellation/noise issue on various channels. I'm using component output by the way, and i noticed its also there on regular composite output as well.

It has ruined the emmy awards "live at the red carpet" recording...and it partially affected a recording of third watch.

I've been mostly recording only HD channels...so I'm not sure if this happens with non HD...its really sad if this isn't fixed soon.

By the way, what email address at Cox can I complain to about cable issues?

I also experienced the same pixellation issue as you described.

I've sent a complaint on various issues on the previous firmware and got a bla-bla-bla reply from this email address: Cox eCare Orange County OC.Services@cox.com

I suggest that we all send our complaints on the latest software to this address.

sucha deal!:
Glad that was helpful.

Eric


Originally posted by omarh
I have to agree. The most serious problem for me is the pixellation/noise issue on various channels. I'm using component output by the way, and i noticed its also there on regular composite output as well.

It has ruined the emmy awards "live at the red carpet" recording...and it partially affected a recording of third watch.

I've been mostly recording only HD channels...so I'm not sure if this happens with non HD...its really sad if this isn't fixed soon.

By the way, what email address at Cox can I complain to about cable issues?

Hmm...I will try giving Cox a call...but I fear I'll just get some guy to roll out in his truck to check the lines..and proclaim they are fine...maybe they'll swap out my box...but apparently that isn't the problem.

I actually called them over the weekend and they acknowledged the problem. The rep said "I'm sure they're working on a fix...".

The classic sci-fi movie, featuring our fine governor, "Total Recall" comes to mind...

In the meantime, I sent an email to Cox saying that I shouldn't have to pay for a defective product. I would advise others to do the same so Cox will give the remedy high priority (hey, $5/month adds up!)

Don

Long time TiVo user here. I just got the HD and DVR on Saturday, and I have the same problem.

Originally posted by sucha deal!
the most serious problem with the new DVR w/latest software is the pixellation/artifacting on HD programming

Originally posted by omarh
Hmm...I will try giving Cox a call...but I fear I'll just get some guy to roll out in his truck to check the lines..and proclaim they are fine...maybe they'll swap out my box...but apparently that isn't the problem.

I called Cox, what a joke!
- first he tells me that the DVR doesn't record HD, hah!
- I said it only happens on the "instant replay", he says not many people use the instant replay ... what!?
- then he says he'll make a note of it and let Motorola know ... I said, I want my money back
- he says he tried to duplicate the problem but can't
... so a truck is coming out on Weds to "check the signal strength and make sure the box is not defective" ... yeah, sure.

When you call Cox Tech Support, do you get transferred to someone else for HD DVR Support? I did on my first 2 calls and got someone who was knowledgeable.

By the way, I also have the "hole" in my online guide on Friday - "No Data" for a number of hours and then the guide continues normally.

Originally posted by Dong-Kinh
... so a truck is coming out on Weds to "check the signal strength and make sure the box is not defective" ... yeah, sure.

Don't waste your time with this. I also went through this futile exercise when I called and complained about NBC's terrible artifacting on the Olympics. They said "wow, we've never heard this before" and sent out a tech. When he looked at my situation, he couldn't understand why Cox Support kept sending him out on the same problem, which, of course, was NBC's poor broadcast.

Make sure if you call for support that you hit the menu button for DVR support like Rich suggested. You definitely got the first level support rep who is just trained to send a truck out and "check levels".

My suggestion is to save your breath and email them at the address Eric suggested above. If we all do this, it will be much more effective.

Don

Just an FYI, since the dual tuner upgrade from Cox in Rhode Island I am having the same HD recording issues, what a PITA this is, I sure hope they have a fix in the works. I called it in, the jackasses wanted to send a tech out, I know this is a software issue due to my research here, I even explained that to him, he's all like "you know it has a hard drive in it and it's very sensitive", I'm like ya I know it has a hard drive, and I'm not in the habit of juggling my cable box around, he's like "ya well it can be a bumpy ride in the truck". OMG where do they find these people? In any event, after trying to get a tech out multiple times I finally explained that I knew it was a software issue but just wanted to report it, and please could he zap my box so I got the guide data (I was missing data after 7:30 on tuesday night), which he did and fixed the guide problem. I'm VERY surprised they rolled out such a buggy release of the software, I guess it's fortunate that they can easily update these things remotely. Maybe as a fix they can limit one of the tuners to SD recording, at least until they come up with a more permanent fix, I sure hope they don't leave it the way it is!
Tom

Tonight, when I turned on my box, I immediately got the breakup. The channel was 707 - showing football in HD. I checked the other tuner and sure enough, it was on 704 - NBC HD. So the problem can occur without even touching the replay button or invoking the buffer.

I always check the "other" tuner and set it to an SD channel when I am just watching. Since I had recorded 704 earlier, the other tuner was set to it.

Regarding HD DVR Support - when Cox tech support answers, tell them that you want HD DVR support. They usually will transfer you to someone else.

Someone had posted in one of the forums that Cox has a more advanced version of the firmware being tested somewhere, with 5C copy protectiuon turned on. Ours has 5C turned off. I am sure we'll get that update soon.

Oh lovely...
well I sure hope they fix the pixellation issues and aren't spending all their resources on adding 5c copy protection, which doesn't benefit me the consumer at all.

Well, the pixelation problem seems to happen on every HD station and is not just limited to a few. I was at the Ladder 49 premier last night and was taping CSI: Miami... the SEASON Premier... and sure enough... got home and it is so bad that I can't even watch it. This sucks BIG TIME. Now I missed the Season Opener for one of my favorite shows. Should have stuck with recording SD until the issue was solved and just watch HD when I can. That way atleast I know I won't miss anything.

skfields, was your box off when you recorded? I turn my box off for unattended recording and so far, so good. You can also set both tuners to SD stations before you turn the box off, just in case...

I had set it to tape the emmy awards and most of the broadcast is full of pixellation and noise :(

I will try turning it off to see if that helps...but we shouldn't have to do that. The purpose of having two tuners is so you can watch something else at the same time.

I'm very interested in Cox's feedback on the pixellation issue. I have the PVR but I have *not* started HDTV service through Cox, as I am getting my HDTV OTA. I would like to lose the extra OTA set-top box, though, and doing so would also give me an excuse to upgrade my display. However, if I'll be getting bad picture as a result, I can wait for the fix, whatever it might be.

Tech support claims they've had no complaints about pixelation (Orange County, CA), which I know it crap seeing the amount of people having problems here. They say it's a "case by case" problem, and that they can send someone out. I'll post any new information, but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't own up to the problem.

Steve

Update: WOW, someone actually acknowledged the problem. They admitted to the software issue and told me that they are currently addressing it. She didn't have any timelines, and it doesn't look like they'll be reverting back to the old software either. So........we're stuck with what we have until they can fix it. Guess I'll be recording all my shows in SD for the foreseeable future... :(

All of my unattended HD recordings are working fine (no NBC) without having to set the second tuner to SD, but I haven't tried unattended recordings of two HD programs at the same time. I notice that I have a problem after playing a recorded HD show and then go back to a live HD program without changing channels. I still think the problem only happens with some sort of disk access, but it might be a combination of factors.

It seems that the compression/decompression processing get overburdened since the pixellation occurs much more so on fast changing scenes. So keep watching those slow beautiful scenery shots on INHD & Discovery until it changes to a fast changing picture to determine if there's a problem.

I hope everyone is sending an email to Cox Support.

On a brighter note, I just hooked up the 5.1 output (via optical) to my sound system and what a difference it makes. HD with great sound is so important to the total home theater experience! Be aware, though, that not all HD movies are broadcast with 5.1 (many are not even made that way), so look on your receiver's display to make sure it's available. I recorded Star Trek: Nemesis and it was fabulous. Last night on INHD was an old but great sounding documentary on the human body that also was in 5.1 and sounded great (lots of classical music). I recorded that too.

My point is that even with these latest glitches, today's technology has to be appreciated. From the early days of "quadraphonic sound", and KLOS' stereo simulcasts with ABC's "In Concert" (anybody remember that?), it is great to see and hear what is being offered now.

Don

Rich4av,

No I left the box on. I never turn of the box... ever. I always got in the habit of leaving it on because in the old days if you turned off the box... the guide would have to gather up all the info again and sometimes that would take like 20 minutes.
Next time I'll try turning the tuners to SD stations and then turning off the box. See what happends then.
To me... these are Major problems, but are Minor in the big scheme of things. Yes I am upset that I missed the season premier of CSI: Miami, but it will be on again eventually. Atleast I am able to have 2 tuners and am able to record both SD and HD without too many problems 95% of the time. They will address and fix the problems soon enough. They usually do... like with the upgraded search function. That was all because of the feedback they got from people like us.

Outlook is positive.

Response from Cox:

"Hello Don,
-
Thank you for your e-mail. Cox is committed to providing the best customer service possible.
-
Please accept my apologies for the "bugs" that have been encountered with this brand new "Cable Industry" technology. It will take time to work them all out and rest assured that the bugs are being addressed.
Thank you again for the feedback, we appreciate it. I will pass it along to our Product Support group. We have received several complaints about the same issue. Motorola is being made aware of these issues so that they can come up with a resolution for us as soon as possible. We can't say yet when the resolution will be available, all we can do is wait on Motorola, sorry. Please continue to send us your feedback, it is important.
-
If we can be of any additional service to you, please do not hesitate to contact us again.
-
Sincerely, Phil
Tech Support - Video & Telephony
Cox Communications Online Support Team"

Got exactly the same reply from "Phil".

Originally posted by fenwayfan
Got exactly the same reply from "Phil". Well I'm glad someone got an email response - I imagine I was among the first to complain about this via email and never even got a reply. I would encourage anyone in OC who has not already called to complain about this to do so to let them know this is a very widespread problem, and not limited to Orange County.

I was wondering what you all where talking about with the pixillation issues and the HD PVR but I ran into both of them with the Amazing Race and Father of the Pride tonight... both where pretty much unwatchable. Thank god for the backup tivo.

Originally posted by Gendal
I was wondering what you all where talking about with the pixillation issues and the HD PVR but I ran into both of them with the Amazing Race and Father of the Pride tonight... both where pretty much unwatchable. Thank god for the backup tivo. Please call them and report the issue. In my email I did refer them to these forums for more samples of users with issues.

What someone should do is post the exact email address of where to complan. That way no one had to seach around for the correct one.

This is where I went. I also got the "Phil" response.

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

When you contact OC tech support about this problem also suggest that they setup a technical forum monitored by them where we can go to discuss this and any other bugs/enhancement requests etc. IMO this is the best way to get your problems/needs addressed and to provide useful and efficient 2 way communication. Or easier yet just have them monitor and post to this thread.

Here some more from "Phil"
-----------------------------------------
-
Thank you for your e-mail. Cox is committed to providing the best
customer service possible.
-
We have discovered that the dual tuner software upgrade we loaded into
the DVR’s may be causing a problem. Please accept my apologies for the
"bugs" that have been encountered with this brand new "Cable Industry"
technology. It will take time to work them all out and rest assured that
the bugs are being addressed.
-
As far as we can tell this problem is happening to all of the DVR boxes,
it appears to be related to the dual tuner software upgrade that was
loaded into the Digital boxes last week. So far we have determined that
the tiling and audio skipping occurs after using the pause, rewind, and
fast forward functions.
-----------------------------------------
... the rest of the email is the same as what was posted by "sucha deal!"

Originally posted by Rich4av
By the way, I also have the "hole" in my online guide on Friday - "No Data" for a number of hours and then the guide continues normally.
I've had this problem resurface since Cox fixed it last time. I'm starting to think this another new bug...

I received a reply from "Phil" at 2:15 PM PDT that is a slight expansion (copied belwo) on what Dong-Kinh posted earlier. It's pretty much just a thorough acknowledgment of the problem ...

"As far as we can tell this problem is happening to all of the DVR boxes,
it appears to be related to the dual tuner software upgrade that was
recently loaded into the DVR Digital boxes. So far we have determined
that the tiling and audio skipping usually occurs after using the pause,
rewind, and fast forward, and LIVE functions, especially if both tuners
are tuned to HD channels, and when an HD channel is being recorded.
-
For example, if you go to an HD channel and not use pause, rewind or
fast forward, the picture is fine. If you then use one of those 4
functions, the picture starts the tiling and audio skipping. If you
change to a different channel and then come back to this channel the
picture is fine until you use one of those 4 functions again. Then you
have to change the channel and then come back again to stop the problem."

Originally posted by Steve Wilcox
I've had this problem resurface since Cox fixed it last time. I'm starting to think this another new bug... I got the "guide hole" problem now too. Today has a hole in the data as well as several other days ahead. A hard reboot of the unit (unplugging the unit and replugging it) solves the problem but of course is not a desireable workaround to it.

I had the same problem with a day of no data but guide data after that. i just called the Cox phone number and was able to trigger a reset from the phone menu. It was quick and corrected the problem with no side effects.

I have a hole in the guide again on Sunday. I can fix it through a reload but it's a bug for sure.

This is the latest status on the 6412 new bugs. It is very encouraging to see that Cox OC is now very aware of the bugs and how to reproduce them and have fed all the information to Motorola. Under the circumstances it seems like Cox OC is doing the best they can to expedite a fix for the problems. This was the latest email I got:

We were given an email this morning from our product support team,
explaining the known issues that have been recognized by Motorola
regarding the HD-DVR. As the "front line" employees who speak directly
to the customer, ir can be as frustrating for us as it is for you, to
want to understand why certain problems keep repeating and what can be
done about them. It takes a lot of gathered information sometimes, and
solid data to give our leaders before the situation is acknowledged.

What we were told:
1) Starting a HD recording and then watching a HD channel will cause the
bug to appear.
2) Turning off the power on the box while on a HD channel--If the box is
set to power on to last channel viewed, the box will power on to a HD
channel, which will cause the bug to appear.
3) While recording a HD channel in real time, the use of trick modes
will cause the bug to appear.
4) While watching a HD channel, pressing the instant replay button and
then pressing the live button will cause the bug to appear.

There also seems to be an issue with the fast forward button as well,
that we are just learning about. The program will fast forward, but when
you Play again, it goes back to where you started.

Regarding the guide having "holes" we are just beginning to hear trends
about this, so we are again gathering information and seeking
resolutions. Rebooting the box seems to help for now, but of course it
should not be happening at all.

We have been told that these issues are in every Motorola HD-DVR across
the U.S., not just with Cox or in the Cox system. Although that is no
consolation to you, of course, the bugs are being identified and
explored as we speak, so that we can get these issues corrected.

I have forwarded your email to product support, in hopes that they will
consider posting some sort of formal announcement about the problems and
the resolutions on this forum. Our lack of information has made us look
much worse than the fact that there were bugs in the software. We are
sincerely trying to learn all we can and convey it to you as thoroughly
as possible. Thank you for "hanging in there" with us!

Sincerely,
Brenda
Cox Communications - Video/Telephony Tech Support
Online Support Team

The test of a company's service is not how they act when everything is going according to plan, but how they react when it all goes wrong. I think Cox and their support group is doing a pretty good job on this one.

On the other hand, as the manager of an engineering test department for a computer company, I would have to say that Motorola's test department appears to be nonexistent. These were problems most of us found the first few hours of using the box. Hmmm, lets see, record two HD channels at the same time on your new dual tuner firmware. Nawww, that's way too obscure to bother trying before you release it on all your boxes.:rolleyes:

I just get a bad feeling on this. I don't think it will be a quick fix. As I have mentioned in previous posts, this is a bandwidth issue that probably just can't be solved with a simple program patch.

I sure hope I'm wrong, but I don't think these boxes have the necessary horsepower. Firmware, and software patches usually can take care of bugs - I think this fix needs a faster processor and/or memory or redesign. Or downgrade the feature-set (only single HD recording).

It's good to see their contrition, but I also don't think Cox should send any more of these units out until the problem is fixed, whether it's a download, field-service-upgrade or replacement. In the meantime, they should at least waive the $4.95/mo charge.

Originally posted by sucha deal!

I sure hope I'm wrong, but I don't think these boxes have the necessary horsepower. Firmware, and software patches usually can take care of bugs - I think this fix needs a faster processor and/or memory or redesign. Or downgrade the feature-set (only single HD recording).
I hope you're wrong too - but even if the hardware needs an upgrade we are all renting the hardware, so if it takes another box to do the job then so be it - just hope there is already one well past the design phase at Motorola.

Cox did waive the $4.95 charge when I told them that the PVR can't deliver its promises.
I recommend everyone to call and ask them to waive the charge until there's a fix.


Originally posted by sucha deal!
In the meantime, they should at least waive the $4.95/mo charge.

This morning I notice that it wouldn't let me schedule two HD recording at the same time. I haven't had a chance to throughly check this out, might have been anomaly, but I'm hoping this isn't there resolution to fixing the dual HD bug.

I've also found it annoying that the "skip back" after fast forward seems to just skip back to the last even minute mark. ie. if you hit play at
1h:23m:10s into a program it skips back to 0h:32m:00s; if you hit play at
1h:23m:59s into a program it skips back to 0h:32m:00s; this sucks...

jb510, after FF hit Pause first, then Play. It will skip ahead a bit and resume at the right place.

Originally posted by moyekj
...This was the latest email I got:
"...We have been told that these issues are in every Motorola HD-DVR across
the U.S., not just with Cox or in the Cox system. ..."

Not quite so. I'd like to point out that Motorola's other two-tuner HD-DVR, the BMC9012 with Moxi has been in commercial deployment since May and both tuners have been working since day one. It's not on the Cox system yet, but subscribers on Adelphia and Charter are able to record two HD shows simultaneously while playing back a third. Motorola's other two-tuner HD-DVR, the BMC9012 with Moxi has been in commercial deployment (but not on the Cox network) since May both tuners have been working since day one. It's not on the Cox system yet, but subscribers on Adelphia and Charter are able to record two HD shows simultaneously while playing back a third.

Originally posted by Rich4av
jb510, after FF hit Pause first, then Play. It will skip ahead a bit and resume at the right place.

That's even worse! That jumps FORWARD 5 seconds or so. The point is that it should JUMP BACK an even ammount of time to compenstate for user reaction time. TiVo does this perfectly and after a few days with TiVo you find it second nature because it's consistent.

Originally posted by MoxiGuy
Not quite so. I'd like to point out that Motorola's other two-tuner HD-DVR, the BMC9012 with Moxi has been in commercial deployment since May and both tuners have been working since day one. It's not on the Cox system yet, but subscribers on Adelphia and Charter are able to record two HD shows simultaneously while playing back a third. Motorola's other two-tuner HD-DVR, the BMC9012 with Moxi has been in commercial deployment (but not on the Cox network) since May both tuners have been working since day one. It's not on the Cox system yet, but subscribers on Adelphia and Charter are able to record two HD shows simultaneously while playing back a third. Thanks for the post. I read about the Moxi system and must say it sounds pretty impressive. It has all the features of the Passport Echo system and more. One feature I really like is that when you remove channels you don't care about/subscribe to from channel list they won't show up in the guide. Don't know yet if the USB 2.0 ports have been enabled to allow additional external storage but at least that option is there. The 6412 only has USB 1.x ports AFAIK.

MoxiGuy, when you say it's not in the Cox system yet, does that mean there are plans for it sometime down the road? Do you know why Cox chose the 6412 as their platform over the BMC9012? Maybe we can start a campaign to have Cox OC transition to the BMC9012 as a means to solve the problems we are seeing.

Originally posted by moyekj
MoxiGuy, when you say it's not in the Cox system yet, does that mean there are plans for it sometime down the road? Do you know why Cox chose the 6412 as their platform over the BMC9012? Maybe we can start a campaign to have Cox OC transition to the BMC9012 as a means to solve the problems we are seeing.
I can't speak for Cox. I can tell you we're talking with them about the merits of Motorola BMC9012 and the two-room system, BMC9022 with Moxi Mate. "Yet," expresses my hope that we will be persuasive. As for a customer campaign, that's up to Cox customers. If you want to learn more about the Motorola BMC9012 with Moxi, here's our website. (http://www.digeo.com)

Read a little more about Moxi. Other features to like over the Passport system:
- 30 second skip button!
- multi-room system (looks like 2 room system and not yet released). This allows streaming shows between 2 boxes among other things.
- hiding channels in the channel guide (as I mentioned before already)
- didn't see how many days are available in the channel guide, but I have to assume it's more than 6.

There's probably more I overlooked in my quick perusal.

Originally posted by moyekj
...didn't see how many days are available in the channel guide, but I have to assume it's more than 6....It's 14 days of program data.

BTW, simultaneously playing and recording high definition video is not that easy. Our developers may have cheated: They elected to use a 733MHz processor that's several times faster than the processor in the 6412. The 9012 has more memory and it uses a real operating system with a highly tuned file system. The architecture was designed from the outset for two HD tuners. It was never thought of as "adding a second tuner."

I'm sold on the Moxi system. For all those with Cox and especially those with Cox OC if you like what the Moxi system has to offer please go to the following site to express your interest. Moxi will pass the information along to Cox with enough requests.
https://secure.digeo.com/contacts/moxiform.jsp

I just got off the phone with Cox cable customer service. I was informed that Cox has known from the very beginning that the 6412 was not able to work properly in the dual tuner mode. The $4.95 fee for this service is in fact a discounted fee from $9.95, so all of you who thought that cox was providing this service for $14.90 (including box) a month, like me, have been duped. When Cox works out the bugs it is going to be $19.00:mad:

On the bright side the customer rep was very happy to escalate my request for the Moxi system. She also has a 6412 and is frustrated.
Now my question is how did some of you get an additional discount?
The rep told me that the only way to remove the $4.95 was to completely remove the service and get my old 6200 back.

Niesman

Originally posted by MoxiGuy

BTW, simultaneously playing and recording high definition video is not that easy. Our developers ... elected to use a 733MHz processor that's several times faster than the processor in the 6412. The 9012 has more memory and it uses a real operating system with a highly tuned file system. The architecture was designed from the outset for two HD tuners. It was never thought of as "adding a second tuner."

This is what I thought: it's going to be difficult to get the 6412 to perform the way we want it, and an uphill battle for Cox to make it work. And so far, I'm not overly impressed with the Passport Echo system. As I talked about in a previous post, the channel skip/hide feature alone is worth the change. It also automatically records what's in the buffer when you hit the record button, another very desirable feature that is lacking with Passport. Moxi and the BMC9012 really seem to be the ticket. There are other threads on AVS about Moxi that you can also look at, and it's refreshing that no one has the problems that the 6412 has. The additional processing speed and memory and design that MoxiGuy talks about is what's necessary.

I think we should rally behind a effort to influence this change to the BMC9012. I don't think an email to "Phil" is going to do the job though. I called Cox specifically to get an address where our efforts could make a difference. I was told that a letter sent to the following address would do the most good and is given the most attention. He said writing a letter is much better than an email or phone call:

Cox Communications
29947 Avenida de las Banderas
Rancho Santa Margarita, CA 92688
Attn: Complaints

In my letter, I will explain my disappointment with the 6412 and mention that there is a solution from Motorola/Moxi that looks like it will solve the problems.

What do others think about this letter-writing campaign? I figure those that are on this Forum can really make a difference (and have the ability to communicate). Send a post if you write a letter to Cox!

Don

I've finally given up. I'm going to switch back to the old HDTV tuner.

Tonight I couldn't even watch non-HDTV programs with out some skipping and watching HDTV channels are such a chore, even without recording. I'll get better analog channel quality and I can live with a vcr for my recording needs. It was a nice idea, but the dual-tuner is definitely not getting fixed any time soon. I'll just wait for a working product. I'm tired of technology companies using the paying customer to test their equipment.

Plus, all of my recorded shows have disappeared as well as my scheduled future recordings. It would better serve Cox to just go back to the old single tuner software or switch the better hardware.

Sydor,

That sucks to hear you are having such a frustrating time using the machine. Have you tried just tuning both channels to regular SD channels then using only one tuner to scan through the HD channels you want to watch? For most of us that has fixed 99% of the digital breakup problem. Although your mentioning of your shows disappearing does strike odd. Don't think I've ever read anyone else have that problem. Maybe your box is just a little more deadbeat than the rest of ours?

-T

For the most part, for me, the 6412 has worked fine for viewing and DVR purposes. I do not get the skipping, and as long as the second tuner is not on an HD channel, everything works fine with minor glitches such as the holes in the guide. I checked signal levels and I was getting about 35dB on the first tuner and 33-35dB on the second tuner yesterday. Maybe when the signal level is not "GOOD", there are such problems?

I think we need to give Cox and Motorola a chance to fix the problem before asking for a new platform.

Originally posted by Rich4av
For the most part, for me, the 6412 has worked fine for viewing and DVR purposes. I do not get the skipping, and as long as the second tuner is not on an HD channel, everything works fine with minor glitches such as the holes in the guide. I checked signal levels and I was getting about 35dB on the first tuner and 33-35dB on the second tuner yesterday. Maybe when the signal level is not "GOOD", there are such problems?

I think we need to give Cox and Motorola a chance to fix the problem before asking for a new platform. You're probably right, but the Moxi solution has some big advantages over the Passport system as I listed above. And seeing as it's the same vendor (Motorola) it would not seem to be a stretch for the switch to happen. I'd gladly pay a little more per month for the Moxi platform.

For you guys that are not having problems with the new software, count your blessings.

Ever since the new software I've already had 6 instances of the phantom recording (where it looks like it is there, but it won't play). I stopped trying to record HDTV shows anymore because of the break-ups and audio drop outs. Just yesterday I lost all of my recorded shows that were saved on the HD and all of my schedules. I get the "no data" guide bug almost every day. I've tried all of the "fixes" that are recommended and nothing helps.

I didn't have any problems before the software upgrade and I wish Cox would just go back to the older software for the people that request it. I don't really need the dual tuner yet, I can always use my VCR tuner to watch other shows while the DVR is recording.

I'll jump back on board when a working product becomes available. For now it is back to the VCR. :(

I'll keep an eye on this thread to see when Cox gets their act together. At least they aren't claiming that these are "signal strength" errors. :rolleyes:

Last night I lost my guide info, and Cox could not reset it, even after numerous tries. The problem with losing the guide isn't just a minor inconvenience: anything that's scheduled to record, won't. And trying to record the current program is a pain since it doesn't know an ending time. One good thing is the service rep that I was talking to knew that this box/software has all sorts of problems. They are probably inundated with calls. I would encourage everyone to keep up the assault!

On a brighter note, I found out that the buffer is indeed recorded when you press the Record button and select the manual option. It actually works! Remember that the buffer clears every time you change channels, but if you've been watching a movie or show for a while and you want to save what you just watched and continue to record, just press the record key. Remember to NOT press replay, rewind or any transport function before, during, or after you press the Record key, or you'll ruin the recording with the artifacting problem (at least in HD).

Originally posted by sucha deal!
Last night I lost my guide info, and Cox could not reset it, even after numerous tries. The problem with losing the guide isn't just a minor inconvenience: anything that's scheduled to record, won't. Rebooting the unit by unplugging it has worked for me thus far to re-populate the guide. Are you saying that doesn't work for you? It definately is a MAJOR bug along with the HD video tiling and needs to be addressed with same priority. But so far I thought the unplug method could at least keep the guide populated for now as a crappy workaround.

Originally posted by moyekj
Rebooting the unit by unplugging it has worked ... for now as a crappy workaround.
Well, the "hole" was only about 4 hours and I thought it would come back on a reinit. Besides, I was watching something. Does it lose any scheduled recordings (or anything else) when you power down? How long does it take to come back online?

I went the unplug route once so far. Worked fine. Didn't lose any scheduled recordings, and came back online within 1-2 minutes.

I think I've been able to make the bug happen by using the Day+ button to go past the latest downloaded schedule. For example, let's say the schedule only goes through next Sunday, and I use Day+ to go to next Monday (seeing only No Data for now). After that, the Monday schedule remains blank, even after the Tuesday schedule has been downloaded. I haven't tested this rigorously yet, but it fits what I've seen so far.

Originally posted by Steve Wilcox
I went the unplug route once so far. Worked fine. Didn't lose any scheduled recordings, and came back online within 1-2 minutes.

I think I've been able to make the bug happen by using the Day+ button to go past the latest downloaded schedule. For example, let's say the schedule only goes through next Sunday, and I use Day+ to go to next Monday (seeing only No Data for now). After that, the Monday schedule remains blank, even after the Tuesday schedule has been downloaded. I haven't tested this rigorously yet, but it fits what I've seen so far. I think you're onto something Steve, so thanks for the post. I think I have had the bug when perusing ahead a few days - since there are only 6 days of guide data it's pretty easy to run ahead and get to No Data sections. It's important for us to identify how to predicatably reproduce this "Guide Hole" bug so that the cause can pinned down. If anyone else has insight as to the cause of the problem it would be great to post it here.

I had a case of phantom recording today, the first one after I reset my series recordings when the new firmware was loaded (per Cox)...

I got 2 0-minute recordings recently, both of them on a repeating series-record channel for "The Apprentice". On the same day one of these phantom recordings happened another single-record channel worked just fine.

For others that have this problem, does it only happen on series-record channels too or have you seen it on single record channels too? I'm thinking maybe this is a bug with series-record channels only?

Series only, It happened to me with ER. Thankfully I was paranoid enough to check the recording after the first 15 min. A manual record worked fine for the rest of the show.

niesman

Series only, It happened to me with ER. Thankfully I was paranoid enough to check the recording after the first 15 min. A manual record worked fine for the rest of the show.

niesman

sorry about the double post

It happened more than once before the dual tuner firmware. It hasn't occured yet with the new firmware but I have never used series recordings.

I am kind of glad I passed on this one in view of the issues.

Considering all the problems I would hope that everybody is being refunded the rental cost for being BETA testers !

If you don't already follow the "Motorola 6412 review" AVS thread be sure to check it out as there is a lot of good info on the status of the various bugs we have discussed here. Also, there is some great info from a Cox employee in Atlanta (VideooooGuy):
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=414680

Biggest news is that the "HD Video tiling" issue may be fixed in 1-2 weeks by Cox without the need for a firmware update on our set-top boxes. Also, Cox is aware of and working on the other major bugs (though no ETA given on a fix for those):
Guide Holes
0-minute recordings

ukaussi,

If you already own a Tivo or ReplayTV unit, then I would understand, however I must say that there are definite ways to ensure flawless HD recording (by leaving both on SD channels, and then setting up to record an HD via the guide), and I've never had any problems with two SD's at the same time. Once recorded, playback is exactly as it was stored. If it wasn't broken going in, it'll be fine going out. There have been quite a few issues but none that I wouldn't pay the extra 4 bucks for, maybe it's because I've never owned/used a DVR prior to this.

-T

Looks like the HD video "tiling" issue is already fixed (at least tonight). I tried to force the error tonight and couldn't reproduce the bug whatever I tried.

The video tiling is most definitely not fixed. I was watching the Dodger game and had the DVR set to record CSI: Miami on channel 702. I had the other tuner on channel 5 and was watching channel 63, both are non-HD channels. During one of the commercials of the Dodger game, I switched over to the other tuner to see how it was doing and I saw many artifacts during the broadcast. I had to stop the recording, change the channel then switch it back to channel 702, then start the recording again. If I switched over to the other tuner to watch the Dodger game and then switched back to the CSI:Miami recording, the artifacts came back. I had to again stop the recording and change channels and re-start the recording.


Has anyone been able to record an HD broadcast with a series recording? Not by using the Guide to record or the "record" button on the remote.

I also had two more phantom recordings last night. I've set the DVR to record several shows overnight to see how many it will capture correctly, making sure that the box was set to two non-HD channels when turned off and not recording more than one show at a time. This should not cause any problems with the DVR.


Does anyone think that I have a bad box? I didn't have any problems before the software upgrade, but I'm not sure if I should try another DVR box before switching back to the older HDTV tuner.

So I don't risk missing my shows, I've been recording the standard definition version of everything...kinda sucks, but at least I don't have to watch shows with all that stupid pixellation.
I hope they fix it soon.

Originally posted by Sydor25
The video tiling is most definitely not fixed. It still appears to be fixed this morning for me. I tuned both tuners to HD then used instant replay, pause, ff, live on one of the buffers several times and picture continued to be perfect on both tuners no matter what I did. It used to be very easy to get the tiling going before late last night. Perhaps the fixed kicked in late last night which is why you didn't see it?

Originally posted by Sydor25


Has anyone been able to record an HD broadcast with a series recording? Not by using the Guide to record or the "record" button on the remote.


Yes, it has worked for me. A few times though I got a listing, but no recording. Lately it has been working with the series option.

Chris

Before leaving for work I rebooted the 6412 to fix "No Data" in the guide so that it can record tonight. Right away the "tiling" bug re-appeared when I gave it a quick test. The box must have been in some state before that somehow avoids the bug. In any case, the tiling bug is NOT fixed yet so sorry for false alarm.

Originally posted by moyekj
Doubt it will accomplish much if anything, but below was my email to Cox....

Here's a letter I wrote to Cox today, it basically lays out my concerns (but this definitely looks promising!)
=================

On 9/24/2004, I had the Motorola DCT6412 dual tuner hi-def DVR installed at my home with my existing cable RG6 wiring, which had been unused for 3 years). Overall, my experience using this unit heavily this weekend compares quite favorably with my 8 years-of-DIRECTV-service (with 2 dual-tuner TiVos for the last 2.5 years).

Menus are far faster, graphics and guide are terrific, remote control quite usable.

But I have 3 concerns, the first two being quite serious, and potential reasons I may end up cancelling Cox and keeping DIRECTV if they're not addressed in the near future.

-----------------------
1) I'm getting pretty bad pixelation on HDTV channels, what is an ETA on a update that may resolve this?

The installer even witnessed the breakups (1-3 per minute) on DiscoverHD 710.

At present, can't even show the HD channels to wife/kids, they'd tell me to send the unit back immediately if they saw it and not even give it another 25 days or so.

-----------------------
2) I'm told I can only have one DCT6412 at my residence at this time, that's not acceptable as I'm trying to replace 2 TiVos that I currently have (for household harmony and multiroom viewing).

a) When will I be allowed to have 2 at my address?
b) What new cabling/splitting will be required? I currently have an installer-provided-splitter at the DCT6412, with one feed going to the DCT6412, the other to the cablemodem.
c) can 2 DCT6412 units be used in the same room, with two different remote control codes or something (as TiVo allows)?

-----------------------
3) Can the remote be upgraded in some way (I see there are some connectors in the battery compartment)?

The remote control can't learn commands or macros, and isn't RF capable. I also attempted an IR to RF converter:
buedo.com Model=RR-X300
and it won't work at all with this remote (but works fine with 7 other pieces of AV gear I have).

-----------------------

Any answers to any of the above questions greatly appreciated, please feel free to call me anytime at (860)XXX-XXXX (cell phone), thank you!

Aww that's too bad. I've been out of town the past week, so was hoping they would have fixed the HD pixellation bug by then. Good thing I set up all my recordings on the SD channels...but I really would like to watch some of them in high def soon.

I witnessed the zero length recording bug last night in person. I was watching a show on the hard drive at 10:00pm. CSI-NY was set to record on the HDTV feed (702). I saw the record light blink on, and then off. So I stopped the show playing to view 702. It had the infamous "subscription needed" message. I channel change up/down fixed that, and then I recorded it manually. So I think that the zero length records are certainly related to the subscription needed message, at least for some of them.

Chris

Originally posted by cpteague
I witnessed the zero length recording bug last night in person. I was watching a show on the hard drive at 10:00pm. CSI-NY was set to record on the HDTV feed (702). I saw the record light blink on, and then off. So I stopped the show playing to view 702. It had the infamous "subscription needed" message. I channel change up/down fixed that, and then I recorded it manually. So I think that the zero length records are certainly related to the subscription needed message, at least for some of them.

Chris Yes, I'm pretty certain about the correlation to the "subscription bug". I set several recordings for SD digital, HD and analog channels. All analog channel setups recorded fine while a couple of the HD setups had 0-length. Since basic analog channels don't need a subscription it's not possible to get the subscription bug with those and that's why all the scheduled recordings on those channels go through fine. If anyone has had a 0-minute recording for a basic analog channel I would like to know - I sincerely doubt that it has happened to anyone.

I sent another email to Cox OC detailing the current major bugs and status since Video Guy seems to have dissapeared. I have not yet heard Cox acknowledge the "0-length recordings" or the "subscription" bugs, so please log your complaints with Cox by phone or email on these problems and also mention that they are correlated.

Anyone else seen the HD video tiling bug fixed last night? I can no longer re-create the video tiling. I have powered off and restarted the box several times, put both tuners on HD stations and swapped between them, then started playing an HD recording and switched back to live HDTV, all with no video tiling. I have noticed, however, that it now takes longer to swap between tuners or from a recording to live HDTV. This is a small price to pay to finally be rid of the video tiling bug. It will take more time to determine if the subscription/0-minute recording and guide hole bugs have also been fixed.

Tiling issue seems fixed in Irvine. I cant reproduce it either. :-)

I have also long believed that zero length recordings were a result of the "Subscription Channel" bug.

Not sure about tiling being fixed as we've been going way out of our way to avoid touching transport buttons while recording or watching live TV.
I'll stress test it tonight and report my results. For the last two weeks the problem would occur if we even so much as thought about using ff/rw/pause or swapping while HD recording was in progress.(live buffer or regular recording)

Last night we had 4 shows at 8pm that needed watching/recording.
Ended up HD recording Hawaii & Lost.
Tivo'd Lost as a backup in case of above bugs.
Broke out an old VCR for Nova(son's school assignement).
Watched Smallville live via TV's tuner.

Good news:
Both Lost & Hawaii turned out fine, no tiling, and both recorded. Of course I took every possible precaution, pre-tuned both tuners to SD channels and then did not even look in the direction of the box or it's remote between 8 and 9. By pretuning to SD channels I decreased the chances of the tiling, but at the same time increased the chances of the dreaded "Subscription Channel"/zero length recording bug cascade.

It would be great if tiling was fixed. That and take care of "Subscription Channel", zero-length, guide holes, and I'd be left with only recording capacity to gripe and whine about.

Originally posted by Tiresius
It would be great if tiling was fixed. That and take care of "Subscription Channel", zero-length, guide holes, and I'd be left with only recording capacity to gripe and whine about.

Don't forget about 30-second skip (or lack thereof) ;)

Tiling bug is still there. Again it came back shortly after I rebooted to fix the increasingly annoying Guide Hole bug. The Guide Hole bug is really becoming very frustrating - I end up unplugging the unit every 2 days to force guide re-load. Video Guy seems to have dissapeared and Cox tech support does not seem to be supplying useful info via emails anymore. Anyone have recent feedback from Cox regarding these issues?

It seems that pixellation problem is 10 times better - they must have done something. I still get it slightly, but much less frequently, and I really have to try to make it happen. I'll spend some more time this weekend, but I'm pleased (and somewhat surprised) that this seems to be getting fixed.

Moyekj, you seem to get the missing guide problem more than others. I've only seen it twice so far on my box. Perhaps you should try a swap.

That's weird. I'm in the Irvine area as well. This morning I was able to reproduce the problem, easily. Tune both tuners to HD channels, pause one. The other goes haywire instantly... I would go so far to say it's not *as bad* but it's still obvious (the garbled lines).

-T

Originally posted by sucha deal!
Moyekj, you seem to get the missing guide problem more than others. I've only seen it twice so far on my box. Perhaps you should try a swap. I wonder if it's related to the fact I usually leave the box powered off when I'm not using it (not unplugged, just powered off). I'm not even sure that powering off the 6412 really does anything useful - I was hoping the unit wouldn't buffer both tuners to disk when powered off, but it seems like it does so anyway. For those of you not having too many Guide Hole problems do you normally leave the 6412 powered up? For those that do have frequent Guide Hole problems do you leave the 6412 powered off? The problem must have something to do with the internal cable-modem communication with the mothership.

I've had guide hole problems off and on.....I usually power it off when I'm not using it. I got used to doing that with my old Tivo because when its powered off, it records its suggestions instead of just blindly buffering whatever you left the channel on. I have no idea that this box is doing though when its off....I mean, I know it still records stuff in its schedule, but what the live tuners are doing, I don't know.

I haven't had any guide holes, subscription errors, 0-length recordings or major tiling problems since Wednesday. I do get occasional intermittent tiling that lasts 1 second, then disappears. This happens maybe once a minute on average. It's not perfect, and I'm not saying all the above-mentioned problems are fixed (it will take more time to determine that), but to me it looks promising.

One other problem I've noticed that I've never seen mentioned before, is that the red light doesn't always come on the box when it's recording. I set it to record the Presidential debate last night. I got home around 6:45pm and immediately looked at the box to see if the debate was recording. No red light! But sure enough, it was being recorded on the inactive tuner. They need to fix that, because I'm tired of getting a heart attack thinking important programs aren't recording.

Red light always had worked for me.
I always turn the box off when not in use.

Maybe Cox is not releasing the updates to everyone at once, hence some still having problems. Perhaps someone can post the firmware/software level (I'm at work). If you haven't received the latest rev, you should be able to call Cox to download it.

The channels that are currently tuned to, even when the box is off, gets recorded in the buffer, from the beginning of the program. As soon as you change channels, the buffer gets cleared. So when you first turn on the box, you might want to check if there is something worthwhile on the two channels that you last left it on. If so, you can rewind and watch, or save the entire show by hitting the record button. Pretty cool. Make sure you keep the box at its default setting of "last channel when power up".

It's not a firmware/software upgrade. Cox is making changes to their headend equipment so that it handles HD channels in a way that's compatible with the DVR. Video Guy has stated that we won't see a firmware upgrade until the beginning of November at the earliest, because of the amount of time required for testing.

Originally posted by gb61
Video Guy has stated that we won't see a firmware upgrade until the beginning of November at the earliest, because of the amount of time required for testing. Imagine how long it would take if they really did any meaningful testing :) Sorry, couldn't resist... but given the severity of some of the bugs with this and the previous firmware, and how quickly they were discovered by many customers, it just boggles my mind how they ever passed any QA tests. The only thing I can think of is all tests were run using SD analog channels only.

Originally posted by moyekj
I wonder if it's related to the fact I usually leave the box powered off when I'm not using it (not unplugged, just powered off). I'm not even sure that powering off the 6412 really does anything useful - I was hoping the unit wouldn't buffer both tuners to disk when powered off, but it seems like it does so anyway. For those of you not having too many Guide Hole problems do you normally leave the 6412 powered up? For those that do have frequent Guide Hole problems do you leave the 6412 powered off? The problem must have something to do with the internal cable-modem communication with the mothership.

Let me tell you what I've noticed.. and my experience with the NO DATA guide hole...

I always power off (not unplug, just power off like you).

I noticed something yesterday night, was when I hit the DAY+ button it would immediately list "NO DATA" while reading data or waiting for data, then fill in the data a split second later. If I hit DAY+ twice really quickly, the day in the middle would have a NO DATA hole. So maybe.. if while it's reading in guide data from the mother ship and you advance to another day, it locks in whatever it read (NO DATA) for that time slot and doesn't go back to the mothership to re-get the data.

-T

neyugnt, this observation is very similar to what Steve Wilcox reported a couple of pages back in this thread, and there's definately something to it:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4412128#post4412128

However, I've left the Guide alone for a few days without using DAY+ button to look ahead in the schedule and still end up getting holes, so there are other factors causing the problem in addition to the above.

Has anyone figured out a good way to reboot the box without unplugging it? It's getting really old reaching behind the entertainment center and finding the right plug to pull every couple of days to fix this Guide Hole problem. I'm sure there must be a way to reboot from the box without unplugging. For those that used to have the 6200 box what was the way to do it?

Originally posted by moyekj

Has anyone figured out a good way to reboot the box without unplugging it? It's getting really old reaching behind the entertainment center and finding the right plug to pull every couple of days to fix this Guide Hole problem. I'm sure there must be a way to reboot from the box without unplugging. For those that used to have the 6200 box what was the way to do it?
Clap On(clap clap) Clap Off(clap clap)
:)

For the last 2-3 days, navigating through the guide has been more sluggish than before for me. It used to be a bit faster, especially going right or left through it.

Last night I lost the guide (until 4:00 am) and I couldn't get it back even after unplugging and plugging the box back in. I had it unplugged for about 2 minutes. Is there any trick to getting the guide back?

For me, just unplugging and plugging it back in fixes the guide "no data" issue. No other trick that I know of.

Chris

I'm still very much getting the video tiling bug. It looks better than before, but still pretty bad. I posted some snapshots of recordings with the bug in the 6412 thread - this link takes you directly to my post there:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4442124#post4442124

If you run into the problem please post yours over there too. As far as the Guide Hole bug, rebooting has worked for me thus far.

Video tiling is back for me as well, although not nearly as bad as before. I get about 2 or 3 tiling errors per minute, and very rarely does the sound break up anymore. While this is much better than before, it is still unacceptable. Subscription and guide hole bugs are still there as well, although I have been lucky and have not had any 0-length recordings for a week. The guide hole bug definitely seems to be related to paging ahead to the "no data" days. It's as if the box thinks that you have already downloaded the data for those time slots, just because you viewed them already (when they were showing "no data"). I can get around this problem simply by being very careful when browsing ahead in the program guide.

Anyone else lose all of their recordings plus their series and future recordings?

I have now completely lost everything three times in a week. I'm starting to think that have a bad hard drive or a bad update.

I wish they would activate the USB port for external hard drives.

Originally posted by Sydor25
Anyone else lose all of their recordings plus their series and future recordings?

I have now completely lost everything three times in a week. I'm starting to think that have a bad hard drive or a bad update.

I wish they would activate the USB port for external hard drives. Didn't lose recording setups, but got a couple 0-minute recordings. Video Guy explained in other thread that USB ports will NOT be used for external hard drive space since there is no standard encryption protocols for that interface - much more likely one of the firewire ports w/ 5C protection will be used. Also, I think I remember seeing those USB ports are 1.x, so wouldn't have the horsepower for handling HD recordings anyway. In fact, you can extract recordings off the 6412 to a PC/laptop using Firewire port today already (in real time only - go back several pages for my post on that).

I need to ask a question regarding the installation fee (30+ bucks). When I originally called to get the DVR, I was not told that I could do the quick-connect (they send you the new box via UPS, and you bring back your old one). In fact I recall being told I had to pay the installation charge or no new box. Now I've read many people being able to do the quick-connect and waiving the install fee. Do you know of anywhere I can call to argue about this? The guy that came to do the install knew less about the DVR than I did, left my switcher hanging by its cables, and smelled of cigarettes...

-T

Originally posted by neyugnt
I need to ask a question regarding the installation fee (30+ bucks). When I originally called to get the DVR, I was not told that I could do the quick-connect (they send you the new box via UPS, and you bring back your old one). In fact I recall being told I had to pay the installation charge or no new box. Now I've read many people being able to do the quick-connect and waiving the install fee. Do you know of anywhere I can call to argue about this? The guy that came to do the install knew less about the DVR than I did, left my switcher hanging by its cables, and smelled of cigarettes...

-T From what I recall, the UPS quick-connect option for the 6412 was available only for customers that already had the 6200 box and subscribed to HD service and had signed up for DVR service... but that was a while ago when 6412 was first available, perhaps the circumstances have changed now especially given all the problems customers are having with the 6412. At this point the 6200 looks like the better box to have...

Originally posted by moyekj
From what I recall, the UPS quick-connect option for the 6412 was available only for customers that already had the 6200 box and subscribed to HD service and had signed up for DVR service... but that was a while ago when 6412 was first available, perhaps the circumstances have changed now especially given all the problems customers are having with the 6412. At this point the 6200 looks like the better box to have...

I was one of the first customers to have the 6200 box/HD service. I was one of the first customers to sign up for the 6412 DVR service. I was one of the first customers to get "the phone call" for the DVR service, and I was one of the first customers to get the DVR installed (installer in fact said I was his first 6412 install).

Just got my bill so I'm curious to know if any of you can point me to someone who might listen to my gripe.

-T

I just got off the phone with Cox OC tech support. The CSR I talked to claimed that all Cox OC 6412 PVR owners will automatically get a credit on their account essentially waiving monthly fees associated with 6412 PVR since the box is not working right. He was very vague as to the details of what charges exactly will be waived. I'll have to see it to believe it. He also said they are very much aware that the video tiling problem is still there after the headend fix and that only a software update to the 6412 will fix the remaining problems. He refused to give any estimate as to when that software update would roll out. I didn't get a warm fuzzy talking to him and had to literally pry the little information I got out of him. He also said it's against Cox policies for them to participate in any online forums and was very surprised when I mentioned VideooooGuy from Atlanta.

Thanks for the update, moyekj. I just called Cox's billing department and the rep also said that he would waive the charges, but didn't say it would be an across-the-board, automatic credit. I would recommend that everyone call in individually to make sure the charges get credited or waived until the equipment works properly. This is the fair thing for Cox to do. I already said in a previous post that they should not release the 6412 to anybody else until these problems are resolved.

The rep was very nice, but he had no idea (nor did he care) of anything technical. Ironically, he couldn't look up my account because their "system was down".

I seem to be having the most trouble. :(


Has anyone else had a SD program not play from the hard drive? I recorded Gilmour Girls and now it won't replay from the hard drive. It starts to stutter and then just goes blank. If I use the swap button I can usually get the program to start playing again, but it only plays for 30 seconds at a time.


Anyone else experience this? I'm starting to think that my hard drive is corrupted or something. :confused:

Also, do you guys tend to get more help with e-mail or phone calls? I tend to have better luck with getting relevant information through e-mails. I have yet to reach a knowledgeable person over the phone. :(

I have sent an extremely long e-mail outlining the problems that I have experienced. I'll let you know what the response from Cox is when I get it.

Originally posted by Sydor25
...Anyone else experience this? I'm starting to think that my hard drive is corrupted or something. :confused:

Also, do you guys tend to get more help with e-mail or phone calls? I tend to have better luck with getting relevant information through e-mails. I have yet to reach a knowledgeable person over the phone. :(

I have sent an extremely long e-mail outlining the problems that I have experienced. I'll let you know what the response from Cox is when I get it.

I'd call them, they'll almost certainly have to send out a tech to give you a new box and you're probably not going to find it easy to set up an appointment time via email... much easier by phone.

Does anyone else think that HBO-HD has gotten worse recently? Almost every movie seems to be way too compressed. Most of the time the DVD looks much better, especially action movies. Showtime-HD and INHD don't have as many compression artifacts as HBO-HD.

Do you guys agree?