Orange County, CA - Cox - Page 58

I compared NBC HD tonight closely on my OTA tuner and the 6416. It's no contest, the OTA picture is so much sharper in clarity and smoother in motion. The 6416 has the hiccup problem and actually looks noisy compared to the OTA picture - definately something wrong with the 6416, so it's going back for sure. Still deciding on what to replace it with, but it won't be another 6416 for sure.

Can't believe what I just witnessed. An Emergency Alert System (EAS) message appeared via Cox cable warning of flash floods for tonight in Orange County. Right before the 6416 was recording 2 shows. The EAS message completely killed both recordings and once the EAS message finished the 2 recordings did not resume!! What a POS. I've had ReplayTVs for 5 years and never have I seen them do that - they simply keep on recording through the EAS message.

moyekj,

I noticed this on my 6412 PhaseI while dual recording and watching the olympics. It was this that finally forced me to get a 6416 III. I have not seen this per se on the new box. There was some "skipping" during the men's board cross event, but it was specific to that event, the skating that followed did not exhibit the same effect. I also have had a recording error which some how corrected its self. (???)

Strange. Overall I am impressed with the video quality (HD and SD) vs. the 6412 I.

I took a break while writing this response to watch the womens snowboarding fiasco. Once again the skipping was extremely noticeable. This is a NBC site specific effect. NBC's HD coverage is embarrassing!!! Lipsync, (Bob Costas should have had a "Via satellite" banner like it was 1969 all over agin", stutter, and non stop motion artifacts. This is crap!!!!! not the box.


niesman

niesman, check CBS HD and I think you will notice the hiccups occur there too. I see the hiccups quite noticeably there too but not with my OTA tuner. I already have the box emptied and unplugged and ready to go back for a replacement tomorrow morning. You're getting me worried now that the problem really lies at the Cox headend... remember the old HD tiling problem we had way back! I hope this isn't another such problem.

Yes I remember, I will pay close attention to CBS HD college BB for motion jitter.

I watched INHD volleyball just to check and did not see any effects there. Have you checked the stats on NBC and CBS? Cox has been testing more channels and I wonder if they are squeezing the local HD for subscription HD.

niesman

This morning I swapped out my old 6416 for a brand new one at the Cox store in Quail Hill. Plugged in the new unit and tuned directly to 704 (NBC HD) and immediately recognized the hiccup problem. Tuned to 702 (CBS HD) basketball and saw the problem there right away too.

My QAM tuner for my PC tunes to those same channels and does not have the problem. Also my OTA tuner attached to the HDTV doesn't have the problem.

I can only conclude that 6416 has a hardware defect or incompatability with Cox headend. At the Cox store I looked closely at a 6412 III on those channels and didn't notice the problem so perhaps those units are OK, but 6416 for sure is messed up.

Guess I'll be making another trip to the Cox store again today and I'm going to try and get a 6412/2000 (Phase I).

moyekj,

What is your TV's native resolution? My sony is 720P when I switch to 720P res on the 6416 all the hiccups disappear!!!! And The Picture is far superior. This new box's scaler may be very sensitive to your set's internal scaler. I too have a new 6416 III sitting in my car, I may swith it out, but your observation tells me that the results will be the same. The only reason I was using the 1080i out put was that it gave more punch to the PQ. Now the opposite is true.

niesman

I dont know if this is possible or works for the 6416 (I have the 6412 III) but you might want to try the following moyekj.


Turn off and reset the box.

Leave it alone for a good 10-15 minutes.

Turn on the box.

Tune to channel 700

Tune to channel 2

Hit the SWAP button on your remote

Now tune to channel 700 again





Hopefully the hiccup problem will now be fixed for your 1080 channels.

niesman, my HDTV is a 1st generation LCD and accepts only 480i, 480p, 1080i as input resolutions so I have no choice but to use 1080i - ironically I've always found 720p channels look better on this TV.

TheRock, somehow your crazy recipe seems to have resolved the problem!? How in the world did you come up with that one? (I had to use 702 though, not 700 as I don't subscribe to 700). Thanks! Seems like a 6412/16 III related issue then for sure. I'm going to make note of your crazy workaround recipe in my 6412 web page.

EDIT: I updated my web page Known Problems section to include a problem description of the frame hiccups/hesitations and TheRocks recipe to fix it. Thanks again TheRock.

I went to my friends last night in Corona Del Mar. My friend uses Adelphia, and he had a wild looking Motorola DCT... It was a DCT 9022 AKA MOXI.

I looked it up on Motorolas site and around the web, and it appears the 6412 line is far superior with 120+ GB now 160 as we have seen in the 6416. And it looks like the Moxi lacks a FW port.

My only quip with Cox vs Adelphia, the Moxi software looks way nicer, can anyone confirm through prolonged use of Moxi over Passport.

Anyone have any experience with Moxi, Does it really allow you to share units, like watch what is taped in room A in room B, or has that not been implemented?

And hey!!! On this note, MOXI is coming to SoCal to show off new features it appears, free on Feb 25 for AVS Members, https://secure.digeo.com/contacts/moxiguy.jsp

Sigh... I spoke too soon on the 6416. TheRock workaround is not working for me anymore on live 1080i channels (add TNT HD to the growing list that I've seen the problem on), and I'm seeing on recordings from NBC HD which I don't think the workaround could address. So frustrating! Tivo S3 where are you already!

Too Bad,


I just finished optimizing my 720p input and the PQ is outstanding. So far no more jitter. I am tired of replacing boxes so I am going to keep the 6416. I do not understand how Cox OC/Moto continues to issue products with serious issues. I am sure by summer there will be yet another firmware/software revision to address these issues and some other demon will crop up. Cox really needs to consider terminating there present agreement with Moto and look to other vendors. Judging by the incredible number of dissatisfied customers returning their HDDVR boxes at RSM today, that day may come sooner than later.

niesman

just a thought,

This could be a componet output issue. I only have a DVI input for my set and it is not a true all digital pathway (many Sony < 2004 sets have DVI that go DVI->analog-> digital, wile thier component input is analog->digits, with one less conversion). The Phase III boxes did away with DVI infavor of HDMI. The boxes may have only been spected out for HDMI. Anyone out there using the digital output and seeing jitter on 1080i?


niesman

Sorry to hear that the tip didnt end up working for you.

I did notice some hiccups on TNT during some of the NBA Allstar events but I think it was TNT's fault and not COX or the MOTO boxes. The hiccup was only for one show and I havent seen it since.

I did have some issues this morning with TNTHD. My box didnt want to tune on to the TNTHD channel 718. It didnt seem to recognize it or something. The problem seems to be fixed now though. I can now view TNTHD without any issues.

I havent noticed the hiccups on any other 1080 channels but I must admit I havent watched much of those channels lately with all of the reruns being shown.

Unfortunately I think you guys (and COX) choose the worst possible time to update your boxes. I think these TEST channels are messing things up for everyone. I have seen changes in my own box with how it is acting. I think that is why these channels are still in the TESTing phase and not active. I think COX is having a ton of problems getting these channels to work properly.

Yeah, that's the SINGLE MOST ANNOYING thing about digital-cable boxes! You can't tune past those things, they interrupt playback (and evidently, recording) and you have to sit thru that annoying-ass message (whether you want to hear it or not).

I end up muting the TV, as there's no way to get around it. Is there a way to opt-out of these? I lived for 34 years in places with real weather (compared to SoCal) and I managed to not die w/o these screaming EAS broadcasts.

I have HDMI->DVI hookup as well to the TV and the glitches are still there when viewing from that source.

At Quail Hill they seemed to have a hard time finding any 6412/2000 (Phase I) machines... that's the only unit for sure I know does not have this hiccup issue and I should not have given mine up.

Following niesman's train of thought I figured I'd try and disconnect component output from 6416 altogether and just try HDMI->DVI. When I did that the problem got even worse! Now it was continuous bump, bump, bump of a picture, not smooth at all. I rebooted the box (component unconnected & HDMI->DVI still connected) and it went back to the previous behavior - occasional hiccups on 1080i channels. This 6416 with current 12.27 firmware is very screwed up and I can't wait to get rid of it - hopefully tomorrow. It's not like I got a bad box either, as my 1st 6416 was doing the same thing.

I don't get this whole hiccup issue you guys are getting. My 6416 works perfect with 1080i output over component video connection. No hiccups at all.

I'm gonna have to second "gb61"s post, but in all honesty I don't watch that set that much (plus we don't know exactly what is meant by "hiccup").

I do recall that I've seen where the video skips a beat, but I always figured that was a Cox transmission issue.

The "hiccup" issue is only noticeable during fast action sporting events. The effect is somewhat like a frame missing from a film. Most of the time your brain fills in the missing information, but if the frame loss is on the same time scale as your brain the "jitter" in the motion of the sport becomes obvious and extremely annoying. As I said switching to 720p resolved the issue for my system. I have a second box that I am going to try tomorrow using 1080i.

niesman

niesman, following your workaround and since I can't get 720p I set output instead to 480p. With that output setting I verified the hiccups went away. I left it that way about 10 minutes just to verify for sure there were no more hiccups. Then I switched back to 1080i and the problem seems to have gone away now for the last couple of hours. So this may be a new workaround to the problem. I'll keep the box a few more days and see if this workaround really works or is just a coincidence.

Workaround summary:
* Switch output mode to 480p
* Verify no hiccups
* Switch back to 1080i

(BTW, I'm back to using component with HDMI unconnected)

niesman, I'm now very curious to see that if you now switch back to 1080i that your problem has also gone away?

What you guys are referring to are the reasons I took my 6416 back over two weeks ago after only having it for 6 days. The main reason was the picture quality was HORRIBLE on SD and analog channels compared to the 6412's.

Now, my question about the EBS thing. If that comes on, does that erase all of your files/shows you've recorded? Because we had a bunch of shows and programs recorded (about 12 all together) and they're all gone now.

We usually leave our box on and turn of the tv at night. would turning the box off eliminate the EBS from erasing the show we've recorded?

niesman, I'm now very curious to see that if you now switch back to 1080i that your problem has also gone away?[/

moyekj,

Yes I have tried switching back to 1080i and the jitter returned although with fewer instances. I must point out that for my set ( Sony 60XBR800 ) the picture quality is superior with 720p for HD and SD. This was not the case with the 6412 I. I am beginning to think that my first thought that there is a compatibility issue with my set's scaler and the 6416 III's scaler is most likely the cause of the jitter.
It is only a guess. With these Moto boxes anything is possible.


niesman

OK thanks niesman. I can say that tonight after switching to 480p then back to 1080i the box was perfect - didn't notice a single hiccup on NBC HD, CBS HD or TNT HD. Just hoping it will now stay that way...

In my experience the 6416 simply stopped my 2 current recordings and after EAS warning completed the recordings did not resume so I ended up with 2 partial recordings (other pre-recorded shows were not deleted).

In contrast my ReplayTV recording (recording analog channel directly from wall cable) during that same period simply recorded the whole show and include an EAS message on top of the screen in the recording - a much better way of dealing with it obviously. One big difference I noticed is for 6416 the message had a blue background and was in the middle of the screen. For ReplayTV recording the message was simply overlaid over video on top of the screen and audio of the EAS message took over, so obviously the DCT boxes are programmed to deal with EAS in a different way than other devices.

Not a single "hiccup" glitch tonight on NBC HD and I watched at least 2 hours or so (there were a couple of blackouts in NBC transmission but nothing new there). Still hard to believe that the 1080i->480p->1080i change would have fixed it but if that's all it takes I can live with that assuming the problem doesn't re-surface often. I put the problem description and apparent workaround in my web page - let's see if it stands the test of time.

I realize that this may belong in the HDTV DVR forum, but I"m in the OC so I'm posting here. I think my 6412 may be dying. I've had it for about 13 months now, relatively few problems (aside from the subscription bug which hasn't ailed me for many months now). I'm connected to a Vizio 42 HD Plasma via DVI from the 6412, box is set to 720p.

I began experiencing the following problems yesterday: first, when I turn the TV on (I usually leave the cable box powered on), I get nothing but white snow for a few seconds (like 10 - 15 seconds); sound comes through fine but no video. Then, the picture will begin flickering on and off (back to snow), for about another 10 seconds or so. Finally, the picture will come on but with a bunch of colored lines (strectching the entire width of the picture and randomly appearing at different vertical points on the screen. These lines, which are generally green, only appear for miliseconds at a time but there are enough of them to make the picture very difficult to watch. Eventually, the quantity of these "lines" (not sure what the technical A/V term is!) decreases after about 10 minutes to a point where its bearable to watch the picture. After about 20 minutes, they disappear altogether.

When this first happened, it was affecting the HD channels only (i get all by Showtime). In other words, when I switched to a SD channel, no problems. But more recently, the SD channels have some of the same issues. I tried rebooting the box this morning...didn't change a thing.

I guessing it's either the cable (I've disconnected and reconnected both ends) or the box; I'm hoping its not the TV although I plan to visit one of the Vizio threads to see if this has happened to anyone else with these TV's. Tonight, I'll try a Component cable to see if that changes anything, but in the mean time, has anyone else experienced anything like this (don't recall hearing about it here previously).

Any thoughts are more than welcome!

Lardoggy, I had something similar a while back when using DVI connection - weird colors, don't remember seeing snow. A close inspection of my DVI cable on both ends revealed that one of the pins on one end that are normally angled at 45 degrees was at a different angle compared to other pins around it and thus presumably not making a good connection. Once I righted the angle on that pin to match the angle of the other pins the problem went away. Obviously you want to disconnect the cable from equipment before messing around with it to be sure you don't short out your equipment.

You should check component connection from 6412 to your TV to confirm the 6412 is OK (which most likely is the case). My bet is on the DVI cable as the cause of the problem. Unfortunately these cables are not that cheap especially if you buy them at a local store such as Best Buy or CC etc. If you are patient then ordering online they are MUCH cheaper. Luckily I was able to fix mine myself since it was a minor problem.

Thanks, Moyekj, I'll take a look at the pins themselves tonight too, although I havent touched the cables in months...I'm not sure how one of them would have gotten bent, but you never know! Absent that working, I'm gonna hookup the Component too. You're right about the cables, though...not cheap. I'm actually kind of hoping that this is the problem as I'm kind of reluctant to swap out my box based on problems I keep hearing about the newest ones.