Cox Cable 6412 w/ Pioneer Passport Review and Discussion

I have had a Motorola 6412 for a few days now. The dual tuner capability is not functioning yet. They say it will be activated within a few weeks (yeah, and pigs fly). DVI is functioning... well sort of. The same issues with previous boxes still apply. Have to sequence the power on's, or in my case just unplug and re plug the DVI cable. I have went back to component until this is fixed. There does not seem to be any difference in PQ. I did an experiment with looking at the difference tonite. I recorded some content on DiscoveryHD on the DVR then went back and watched it thru component then DVI. I could not see any difference.
The on screen menu is the pioneer passport interface. The DVR does both analog and digital and HD content. We have been happy with it. Those who have had Tivo have liked tivo's intuitiveness better- I hear. The firmware version is 8.03 for those of you keeping score.

The unit does seem to take awhile longer to lock in to the digital channels than my old 5100 with a few hiccups and drops during the first few seconds of a new channel.

On the good side when one views the guide, you can still see the programing in the upper right hand corner.

I have no idea whether the firewire is "firing" since I dont have any firewire devices to check out with, but they said it was.

front

back

I am offended by the implication, but here it is.

I too am impatiently awaiting more locals. I may be adding an OTA receiver soon just out of spite.

I am not a beta tester, just an early adopter glutton for punishment. Nor am I an employee or relative...
I called the cable provider awhile back and asked to be put on a list when the new boxes were available, mainly interested in DVI output, I then heard from a tech that was at my house on another issue that there were to be released. I get 7 days of programming in the guide. Here is a shot of what happens when you press "List" which shows which programs you have recorded

Program guide

press record from program guide or just hit record and this comes up:

hit the menu button and one gets this:

You said: " Surprised that your cable co would even release it in such a state."


Such a state? This is not a bad stb, and they were VERY upfront with the fact that it would be a few weeks before the dual tuner was functional and a few other things. 99% of all customers are not going to notice a thing wrong with this unit. Those of us who are A-V obsessive are going to nit pick anything to death. The DVI issue one can understand a little because hardly anyone uses it except for us geeks. Most of the CSR's don't even know what DVI is. The tech guru here in town at the cable co. told me I was his first call about DVI. And he was very helpful and courteous. Kudos! He is going to follow up with me tomorrow to see if the new power up-power down sequencing is still effective.

There has to be immense pressure to bring the dvr's to market since the satellite co's and Tivo have a corner right now. Despite the fact that the box isnt fully functional it is still good business as long as they are up front and they were.

We believe we have solved my DVI issue with some delays in power up and some sequencing of the power on commands.

We are charged 9.95 for the box rental, then an additional 4.95 for the dvr function. I think. I know the dvr price is correct, but the box rental I am fuzzy on.

Hey Bink: I thought nobody was believing that I actually had one. No harm dude.

Over the past 2 days I have noticed that the audio and video dropouts when turning channels have gone away. The term for this seem to be macro blocking.

We have given up the DVI connection and will wait patiently for a firmware upgrade sometime down the line. It does work but there are some hoops to jump through with my particular configuration so it is not worth the trouble.

We like this box. My wife can easily record programs and call them up, pause live programming...

An old wise man once said: "If momma is happy, everyone is happy"

Just two things on the wish list for us:

1. Navigation arrows automatically bring up info at bottom of screen, and the navigate with them through time and channel without bringing up guide, as the 5100 did.

2. The ratings (G,PG, R...) would show up on the bottom of the screen when changing channels.

All that being said, we like the pioneer echo GUI and with a few tweaks we will love it.

BTW. I felt my remote was decidedly better than the one with the 5100. Although now that we have all the dvr functions on the Pronto Pro, we dnn't use it anymore.