Norfolk, VA - Cox - Page 8

Occasio or anyone else that's knowledgable,

A few months back, my Cox HD/DVR box died. I got a new one, Phase III, I think, but I'm pretty sure not the 160GB version. Ever since I got the new box, the sound would go out and not return unless I changed channels or hit "pause" and then "play". I've been suffering along with that one because we had about 70 hours of programming that we hadn't watched and I didn't want to lose it all like we did when we got the replacement box.

A few weeks back, I noticed that about 2/3rds of the programming we had recorded disappeared overnight. Now, we can only record about 24 1 hour shows in SD before running out of disk space. HD recording is now out of the question. Has anybody seen this problem before? I called Cox and, no surprise, didn't get much help other than "we can send a tech out". Seems there is no ability to remotely access the box and determine it's health or status. Anyway, I'm about to force my wife and kids to sit down and "speed watch" what we do have recorded so I can get another box that works.

If anyone else has had this problem, and found a solution, please let me know.

Thanks,

Eric

They look and sound way better to me on the Southside! I wish they'd hurry up and map them to their real channel numbers soon!

Eric,
I have the same box and it is quirky as hell. I find rebooting the unit by pressing and holding the power button helps.

I have the 6416 box and "knock wood" it works perfectly. It does run hotter than my old Tivo . . . . at least it seems much hotter when you touch the top of the box. On a 'normal day" I see temps within the box running between 107 to 113 degrees. Is this what most of you folks see? Before I opened my rack, I did see it operating (one time) at 138 degrees. I know that had to be too hot but it never skipped a beat.

Just read the following post on Norfolk, VA - HDTV thread:

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Received an email from Cox Communications to participate in a 10 minute survey online. The survey was based around DVR technology. Here was one of the questions...

As you may or may not know, Cox offers DVR service. The DVR is built into the Cox digital receiver box and is operated using a Cox digital service remote control. While Cox currently offers its own DVR service, the Cox DVR may soon be powered by TiVo, and include the features that TiVo owners have come to expect. If Cox were to offer digital cable service with a TiVo branded DVR for about the same price as you are currently paying for satellite service each month, how likely would you be to switch from satellite TV to Cox cable that featured this TiVo branded DVR service?

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Robert F Corbin
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I have the exact same sound problem on my 6416 box. I have not had the HD problems that you talk about.

Are the "On Demand" channels 1 and 499 different or are they the same channel mapped to two channel numbers? I have used both and both have worked. However yesterday when I tried to use channel 1 I kept receiving error messages........"Network busy 101" "Network busy 103". When I went to 499 things worked fine.

Anyone??

Perhaps my question was not clear. All I want to know is are channel 1 and channel 499 the same channel? Is it normal to receive network busy messages? I've had digital cable less than a month and these are new to me. Thanks

Whoa that was a whole lot of questions

Eric--My view is swap out the box first. The boxes are quirky. I believe the sound problem was resolved on the 6413 & then resurfaced on the 6416. Sounds like your HD is malfunctioning in regards to the recording.

Nmlobo--It's a known issue. I usually refer people to the channels 499 or 150 when I refer to the On Demand.

I usually use 900 for OD. Its closer to the HD channels. Of course with all of the 800 channels inserted.....

occasio, what's the latest on HD locals? Anything at all?

nada that i know of. There's alot going on right now so I'll see what I can find out.

I know some want this thread to die but I have a serious quetion relating to Cox.

I moved into my house last October, got cable and they had to run a new line to my house for whatever reason. Long story short its still not buried after being told it would be done around November timeframe and now the Home owners Association (HOA) is charging me $10 a day because of this. I am working with Cox and CCE to get this taken care of but they keep saying Misutility cant find my address. Twice I have given them specific directions to my house. I know the cable will eventually get buried but heres my question.

Should I ask Cox to credit my bill for the amount that the HOA is charging or is this something I will have to suck up? Friday will be day 4.

Yipes!! I thought my HOA was rough - $10 a day. Remind me to not move into your neighborhood!! These are my thoughts. I am not qualified to give legal advice. To me, your question appears to be more of a generic 'utility connection' and/or home owners association question - it not necessarily Cox specific. I assume you signed an agreement with the HOA when you purchased your home. Does this agreement state that all connections to the home must be underground? Are you on the hook (per any agreements with Cox or anyone else) to pay to have the cable buried? Did the Cox installer write a work order to bury the cable when he strung the new line? How actively have you pursued this? Seven months is a long time not to have any activity. If you can prove that Cox was aware of the requirement to bury the cable (seven months ago) and failed to act then you may have a case for them to credit your account for the HOA fees. If this is something that slipped your mind and you did not follow up until the HOA contacted you, you may just have to 'suck it up'.

As far as the rules of the HOA, I checked and its very vague and seems to lean on their side. I did contact Cox about it in November but after that it did slip my mind sort of. I guess I always knew it was there but never really thought anything of it. Most of my neighbors have satellite so I thought maybe I was the first one in my row of houses to get cable.

I've recently noticed something like a 'static burst' on the screen between commercials. This 'burst of noise' happens for only an instant. It does not happen when scenes change within the same show or commercial but only when changing to a new commercial or sometimes between the show and the commercial. Does this happen because Cox is changing feeds (i.e. from network to local feed), is this a symptom of a weak signal, or some other artifact?

Underground cable problem is now solved. The misutility guys were finally able to find my house, once they marked everything CCE (the actual people who bury the cable) came out within 3 hours. Unfortunately the whole marking the underground lines was not needed because the guy who came out here said there was already an underground cable running to my house and that he didnt know why they ran another cable. This underground cable runs to a different box as well so I'm not sure it that means I will be getting better or worse picture quality. But I'm just happy its all done with.

FYI to anyone that cares, the next HOA meeting is this monday and im going to ask for forgivness on the debt. Talking with a neighbor he said they usually accept it as long as the problem is solved, in this case the cable is buried so I should be ok.

Good luck!!

Does a digital TV signal get noiser/weaker as the days get warmer? I notice the SNR with my COX HSI is better in cold weather. As the temps rise it appears that it requires more power from Cox to my modem and from my modem to Cox to maintain a good connection. I recently noticed that a couple of my digital channels 'appeared' grainier - when the temps were >75 degrees. Is this normal?

I think it may be true that the PQ is better at night. Less RF interference?

Technically, DIGITAL transmission and reception does NOT have any "noise" or "snow" or "ghosting" or "ringing", etc., that is characteristic of ANALOG transmission and reception. There should be no Signal-to-Noise issues. If what you see looks like snow or grain it would have to be added to the video signal before conversion to digital at the station, or after conversion back to analog in you receiver/TV. Digital signals can show "compression" artifacts in a received video picture, but these are random, not evenly distributed throughout the picture.

What is an HSI anyway?

High Speed Internet

For the last three days, I have not been receiving a signal on 712 & 751. I am receiving a close-to-perfect signal from the other Cox HD channels, but not these two. Anyone else experiencing a problem? I called Cox and was told that they have not received any other reports from customers concerning these two channels. A technician is coming out today.

BTW - I live on Shore Drive, and I am a Cox subscriber and an OTA broadcast user with a channelmaster in the attic. This is the first time I have ever had an issue with receiving either Cox HD or OTA HD.

I live off Shore Drive too. I don't subscribe to Max and rarely watch ESPN. I'll check 712 when I get home though. I'm surprised Cox didn't just refresh your box. That seems to be their answer to every fault.

Ok here in Haygood. Sounds strange, if it is a connection problem I would think you would be getting "blocking" dropouts on those and other HD channels(but still a picture) This happen to me once, ended up being a bad connection or component on the pole down the street. Are the channels blank, or is there that "not subscribed" screen message showing?

I watch 712 everyday without problems so far.

Anyone else get firmware 12.31 yesterday? What exactly does this fix and will we be getting Passport 2.7 anytime soon as well?

Another thing that is bothering me is this lack of local HDs. I know the situation with Cox, LIN and Belo and that many here are pissed about the situation. What gets me upset is that other cable companies (obviously in other areas) are able to reach agreements with LIN and Belo to carry thier HD signals. I did a quick five minutes of research and found other markets served by providers such as Comcast are carring these signals. Why the hell can't Cox come to some type of agreement with these locals? Until I started looking around (today) I thought that maybe these stations were not on any system due the "greed" that Cox accuses them of, but after looking around a bit I think that Cox is the greedy party and that they are showing no concern for their customers. Obviously, if these other providers are able to negotiate with these stations, Cox should be able to work out the problem. It's probably going to take FIOS or D* to come in with the HD locals in order to motivate Cox to do what is right and I think that is truly sad.

For the last few days Channel 10 (WAVY-TV Analog) -- on COX cable only -- has had severely unbalanced stereo sound (right channel is much louder than left). The problem does not appear to exist on channel 810 (digital version of Analog 10). Of course, if you live in an HR area where "810" is already "mapped" to show up when you tune "10" then you won't notice this.

Stereo sound is just fine on either OTA version of WAVY-TV using an antenna (10 analog or 10-2 DTV).

When I lived in Vegas, I had HSI installed from Cox there. It didnt work when the sun was shining directly on the cable because the cable was older and not shieled properly. Is the cable running on the side of your house or anywhere that would expose it to direct sunlight?

An update...

A service technician was scheduled to show up at my house between 5 & 7 PM. Well, I received traditional Cox customer service... the technician was late, very late. He showed up at 8:45PM. (I earned a $20.00 showin' up late credit.)

I was told by the technician that the reason he was late was due to a MASSIVE increase in Cox service calls due to..... drum roll..... the new digital simulcast. Apparently, the new digital simulcast has really affected reception and signal strength for some subscribers. He added that the simulcast has been rolled out in three tiers, with certain stations in certain tiers. After getting the first tier rolled out, Cox decided to slow down a bit and work on straightening out the reception problems associated with the new digital simulcast. Right now, a good portion of the channels are mapped correctly, i.e. 803 and 3 are correctly linked, but other channels are not.

Anyway, he added a signal booster to my line and ESPNHD and MAXHD are now working.

End of story.