DVR Chatter

ghoofie wrote:

I'm sure there is an additional cost ..but Tivo was advertising
you can set the recorder from the internet.  That would be
a nice feature for the comcast DVR.   Imagine:  You're setting
at your desk at work, unknown to your boss (right), you are
surfing the net and you are looking at Titan.com or such ,
and find a TV show is on this afternoon that you would like
to record. So you go on over to comcast.com, logon to your
account, set up a recording time and it downloads to your
DVR.   Not something I would wanna pay for though. And there
would surely be a Comcastic charge for that.

By the way....the Comcast trucks are still driving around my
neighborhood with big On Demand adds and cable telephone,
none of which are available in my neighborhood.

I won't mention the numerous TV ads for On Demand...which I
am fortunately able to  FF through.

actually you can do that using a 3rd party small box. you can no only record remotely but you can SEE the realtime video from your motorola trought the internet!. the box cost 200 usd.

Hi guys. I just stumbled across your community here and like the setup. I am a technician with Comcast in California. As for being able to remotely program your DVR, I can give you a hint to something on the horizon in the next 1-3 years (so they tell us).  In my area, we are just beginning release of CDV (Comcast Digital Voice) which is obviously our digital home phone service. Our next step will be cell phone service.  This is where you will get your remote activitiy. You will have the capability to use your cell phone to access your TV Guides as well as your DVR itself, and you can then program your DVR remotely.  The ETA on this service for California is still sketchy; other markets in the US may already have this service available.

Also, I used to work in the department that reprograms and services ALL Comcast boxes (with exception to DCT700 and 3412 as my system is not an All-Digital system yet), so I may be able to help in areas of troubleshooting for DVRs, HDs, and Basic boxes.  I would more than happy to answer questions to best of my ability.

Having worked with the boxes myself and seen numerous issues you (the public) would never come across, I completely understand your complaint. The sluggish respond to remote control commands varies from box to box. The boxes are much like your average PC: every now and then they "brain fart" and may take a few seconds to gather itself and if you happen to be issuing a command at that given time, it will respond slowly. Much like when your computer is at the desktop and for now reason it randomly starts HDD activity and you wait a minute or so before it will really go anywhere. We have had issues that are Motorola specific, and an answer to this would simply be: we operate a Motorola DAC/Headend which is our sole control center for cable broadcasts, Internet, customer accounts, etc. etc. To change this technology to that of a different base would cost way more than it would costs to simply R/R defective equipment. 

As for other bugs, I don't have definite answers other than they are "mostly" Motorola-related. There was a firmware upgrade to ALL Moto boxes about 4-5 months ago that absolutely screwed us up in our processing center.  You may have noticed your main menu change, as well as guide setups change.  The firmware "update" also caused major issues specifically with the DVI/HDMI ports on all DCT5100/6200/6412P1/P2/P3 in the fact that the brand of your HDTV is now a factor in the functionality of these ports. To give an example: i have a Samsung DLP HDTV and was using the HDMI on a 6412P3. After the firmware "update", anytime I turned my TV on I would have a blank or green screen showing until I power-cycled my box.  I began to ask around and other people who had brands such as JVC and Sony had no problems at all.  The 5100 and 6200 HD boxes seemed to be affected the most with their DVI ports.  This problem may be more of a Samsung issue as i have heard since then that they tend to be last in line when it comes to engineering communication on firmware updates on any equipment hooked up to their TVs, but I have heard other brands of TVs have similar issues.

The simplest and honest answer i can give to ANY bug issues would be that we simply live in the age of advanced technology that revolves around electronics.  ANY computer-savvy person will tell you that no computer is perfect, no bit of electronics is flawless; technology will always have its pros and cons.  For some, these problems are job security.

I hope that was somewhat of a logical answer. Not being an engineer or programmer, I am short of a technical answer you might have hoped for.

I am actually just starting my journey into the installations world right now (I have been with the company over 1 year working on the boxes themselves), but I do understand that at times, people may get frustrated with "the system" just as i would with any other product.  I will try to be of as much help as I can be. Please remember my knowledge at the moment is currently limited to California, more specifically the Central Valley market (or South Valley to be exact: Fresno, Visalia, Los Banos, Merced) but I am working on expanding my ventures to nationwide.  I say this because each Comcast system is different from the next.