Portland, OR - Comcast - Page 145

Earlier this week I made the rounds of Comcast’s Portland, Beaverton and Milwaukie locations looking for a DCX3200. None were found. A kind lady at the Milwaukie location ordered a DCX3200 for me. I picked it up Thursday morning. This DCX3200 is not new--it has several scratches, scuffs and soiling to the case.

The DCX3200 was swapped directly into the place of a DCT700 with a composite connection, through "Y" cables, to two Panasonic DVD recorders--just the same as the connections to the old reliable DCT700. I wanted to check out the DCX3200 operation before component and/or HDMI connections were made to a TV. In the menu I "restored all defaults" once the DCX3200 was functional.

The DCX3200 was tuned to TCM (HD 784) and left there. I set up several timer scheduled recordings between the two Panasonic DVD recorders.

I scheduled two movies to record at 5:00 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. After those recordings the disc was removed and a blank disc was swapped in. Friday morning the disc was finalized and the recordings were reviewed, finding no problems.

Scheduled recordings were set up for Thursday on one Panasonic for 8:30 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. When I turned the TV on at around 9:44 p.m., I found that the DCX3200 signal was missing as the DCX3200 was powered off. I powered the DCX3200 back on. Friday morning, after finalizing, I reviewed the disc where I was able to determine that the DCX3200 had powered itself off at around 9:36 p.m Thursday evening. The Friday 1:30 a.m. recording was found to be entirely blank, the DCX3200 had been powered off before the recording started.

With the other Panasonic the Thursday evening and early Friday morning scheduled recordings were set for 10:00 p.m. and midnight. Friday morning, after finalizing, I reviewed the disc where I found the 10:00 p.m. recording was satisfactory for the first 1:16:52 but the DCX3200 had powered itself off at 11:56:52 p.m. Thursday evening. The recording scheduled for Friday at midnight was entirely blank as the DCX remained powered off for that recording, as it was for the other Panasonic’s Friday 1:30 a.m. scheduled recording.

In both instances where the DCX3200 powered itself off while a recording was in progress there was no "dialog box" reporting that the DCX3200 was about to power itself off--there was a picture one second and there was a blank screen the next second.

Upon arising Friday morning I found the DCX3200 was (once again) powered off.

Friday morning I downloaded, printed and reviewed the DCX3200 User Guide. I found no mention of a sleep timer or any mention of the DCX3200 powering itself off after a period of inactivity.

A little later on Friday morning I called Comcast Technical Support. Of course, the representative had never heard of a DCX3200 powering itself off. She said she would send out a "reset." I asked if the problem was related to "switched digital." The representative had no answer.

I've set up several Panasonic scheduled recordings on TCM (HD 784) for Friday late afternoon, evening and into the overnight hours early Saturday morning. In another room I've set up the old reliable DCT700 connected to a Mangnavox 2160A HDD/DVD recorder and scheduled the same recordings--this time to TCM (SD 501). Some of these scheduled recordings will record from the composite input and some from the RF input of this Magnavox 2160A recorder.

More later . . .

I think I get it now .... sounds like you can record in HD onto your PC system drives and feed out to any remote HDTV throughout the house and have true HD quality? Can you point to a link where more info on setting up a house with Windows Media Center is available with step by step instructions for dummies like me? What Windows Operation System are you using? Thanks

George-O,
The Green Button forums have tons of information, in fact it's the official Windows Media Center Community.
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/default.aspx

DigaDo
Sounds like you got a defective box.

Since you chose to edited it out I won't address your eluded to conspiracy, however I can tell you I picked up a DCX3400 in September and I leave it on 24/7 and it's connected to an HDTV using HDMI as well as a tuner/capture card in my PC (HVR1800) via S-video that's also left on 24/7. The Comcast box doesn't much seem to care if I'm recording, watching, or taking a nap, I've never had it shut down on its own.

Neither did my DCT6412, that it replaced, that I got when they first became available here in Portland a few years ago.

I've not had that problem with the DHC3416 on one of my other TV's either.

Yes as earletp mentioned thegreenbutton is a good one. Or google for "htpc" (Home Theater PC). I was using Vista but recently upgraded to Win 7. Some of these newer tuner cards will only work with Win 7 because MS added a bunch of new capability for HD (Since cablelabs lifted some restrictions).

Earletp,

I appreciate your advice. You've confirmed for me that this DCX3200 is probably defective.

My comment about "switched digital" was occasioned by reading a post where it was reported that a dialog box appeared advising the user that the STB would power itself off unless any remote control button was pressed. I don't recall if the STB in question was a DCX model. (I've searched but haven't found that post.)

Saturday morning I arose around 5:15 a.m. The DCX3200 was (again) found to be powered off. The Friday evening/Saturday morning recordings from the Panasonic recorders were reviewed. On one of those discs I found that the DCX3200 powered itself off at around 10:19 p.m. on Friday evening. All the DCX3200/Panasonic recordings are blank after 10:19 p.m. The old reliable DCT700 in the other room remains powered on and the Magnavox 2160A recorder continues to record from TCM (SD 501) as I type this post.

Addendum: I've now reviewed the DCT700/Magnavox 2160A recordings with special attention to the Friday evening 10:19 p.m. time-frame. This recording, and the other Friday/Saturday recordings seem to be normal in every respect.

Update: On 12/5 the defective DCX3200 was exchanged for another DCX3200 at the Sandy Blvd. location--they were in stock that day. This second DCX3200 has been powered on since the morning of 12/6 with no problems.

Does our Comcast have the multi-stream cable cards or do you need to get two of the regular cable cards for Tivos? Santa might be bringing me one of these this year.

Yes they have them. However, I don't know whether the equipment they are used in (in your case the tivo) needs to be designed to use the multi card or if its just a format where either type can be used. You might want to check beforehand. My guess is it will work using either...

The Tivo TCD658000 HD XL is designed to take either card.

And are we allowed to install the cards ourselves or do we need to take a vacation day to watch two Comcast subcontractors plug in the card? Some Comcast locations are letting regular people do it.

I'm using a multi-stream card in my TiVo HD. Originally used 2x single-stream cards but once I found out multi-stream cards were available, I ordered one.

As far as I'm aware, you have to have someone from Comcast install and activate the card. At least that's what they told me. When the engineer arrived all he did was plug in the card and then call a number to activate it using the unique IDs that TiVo displays on the appropriate configuration screen.

This sucks a little bit because that means I can't get the card before Christmas. That makes the Tivo a little less exciting as a Christmas present since it won't do much until one of Santa's helpers from Comcast plugs the card in.

I guess I could have Comcast activate it and then put it back in the box and wrap it up, but I'd have to plan it so the person getting the gift wouldn't find out.

If you haven't already, I would check with your local office as Comcast is allowing self-installs more and more lately. They've had self-installs in the SF bay area for over a year now.

What's the real story on Comcast and HD quality? I'm thinking about taking the plunge and buying a new HDTV but if their quality of HD programming is as bad as I've been reading in this and other places it wouldn't be worth all of the extra costs just for Blue Ray movies. Is anyone satisfied with Comcast HD programming?

Some channels are terrible. A&E HD is barely watchable. If they show something like Aliens, you're better off watching the DVD because the screen will be a complete mess. Other channels like Universal HD also appear to be getting just enough bandwidth to be watchable most of the time. National Geographic will be a mess at times too but it's tolerable for the content.

Other channels look fine. The sports channels seem to be getting enough bits.

Network channels and sports channels seem to be OK mostly (although the minor ones like Versus can be pretty bad). Others are a crap shoot.

Heres a good read. The more channels they add the worse the quality is because they have to recompress existing channels to make room.

I think I'll just wait until my current TV dies. It's pretty damn good but not HD and based of what I've read and seen I really don't want to pay extra for crappy looking HD. I'd have to upgrade my TV, Tivo and buy a PS3 and frankly it's just not worth it. Hopefully Comcast will either find a way to make their HD not look like ass or I'll have moved to a Fios area by the time my current TV goes to the great recycling center in the sky.

But they've gotten rid of a large chunk of the bandwidth-sucking analog channels so there's lots of room again. The problem is that they don't appear to have any intention of fixing the channels that are less than DVD quality.

yes I have been looking hard at FiOS. It seems they have cablecard support and are about the same price as what Im paying at comcast for tv/net but you get a lot more and higher quality (speedwise on the net end and picture wise on the hdtv end). That and its just cooler to say you have fiber optics than this old fashioned cable thingy cabob

The funny thing with me is that I'm just two blocks from a Comcast hub (a nondescript concrete block building) so there's only a few hundred feet of coax between me and the fiber optics.

My take is that none of the channels look great and many of them are just dismal. Despite cutting the analog channels they added so many new HD slots that the overall effect was negative.

This last batch of channels added this fall broke the camels back IMO. It seems that the muxing or what ever it is that they do must now be incorporating some DR filtering in conjunction with the higher compression. For the first time I now see some blatant banding and "clay-face" that didn't occur before, on the local HD channels even. I will admit that I haven't watched any OTA in a long time since becoming wed to the DVR so I can't say I've made a direct comparison in a long time. But it did begin right at the time when all the new HD was added though so it seems highly likely to me...

The hardest to take for me are the Blazer games. Last year the HD home games were really very nice and a pleasure to watch. A very minor bit of pixelation on some of the close zoomed shots but overall very sharp with great depth, saturation and the proverbial HD "pop". Since those feeds came on a part-time channel slot that was only active during games I suspect they were never stacked and basically got full everything. Now that CSN is a full time channel and is most certainly at least paired if not tripled up, the games range only from pretty good to lousy depending on what they are stacked up with. None of them have the nice HD pop at all . If it weren't for the fact that Verizon seems to have no great desire to add the HD feed of CSN I would have dumped comcast and moved to Fios long ago.


ron

The thing that I think it funny and horrible at the same time is that Comcast is hyping up the study that found they had the best looking HD available. Perhaps when they only had a few HD channels that was the case but I'd love to see the results of the test run today.

It used to be the case. No more.

That's because no one wants to pay the outrageous fees Comcast is charging the big boys to add the HD channel of CSNW. And I'll agree that the quality of that HD channel has gone downhill this year, saw it at my B-I-L's house and couldn't watch more than a few minutes of a game before turning the channel. You get what you pay for!

Comcast does allow self-installs of cable cards right now.

But. man, expect to spend ten minutes on the phone trying to out-smart the sales people who will try to trick you into adding every service you don't have at no cost (for mumble months). They'll be "surprised" that you don't have these extra services that you deserve to pay for. They're just trying to help you out because you're a "VIP customer". How flattering!

Correction: Comcast tells you on the phone that you can install the cable card yourself, then when you haul your STB down to their office and stand in line for 20 minutes, they tell you that you can't and they'll have to send a technician to your house some time next week to install it.

It's odd that you got a salesperson when calling to activate the card. The procedure here in the SF bay area is to install the card and then call a special tech number, it's on the sheet of paper you should have been handed when you picked the card up, give them the numbers they need and then maybe 10 mins later it's all done.

I was not calling to activate the card. I was calling their sales people to see if I could exchange my STB for a card. They told me to swing by my local Comcast office and pick one up. I did that and the guy there said Comcast must have a skilled technician to install it "in case it doesn't work" and doesn't allow customers to install things on their cable system.

I pointed out that I installed my cable modem myself. He said that I didn't, a Comcast technician did. Then I decided the issue wasn't worth holding up the long line over.

Yes, the clueless are everywhere when it comes to Comcast.

So I'm still a little confused, Comcast does not allow self-install of CC's in your area then, that's the bottom line? It sounds like you may have had better luck handling the 2 procedures, the CC install and the return of the STB, as two separate calls/visits, that way there was less to confuse them.

That's ridiculous. I exchanged my DVR for another one and installed it myself. I picked up DTAs at the office and installed them myself (including calling up the number to get them activated). Maybe they won't let you install the cards, but it's not because they won't let customers install things on their cable system.