Comcast DVR - TIVO Software update

Go an email from Comcast last week about some updates to the TIVO DVR software.  Nothing really groundbreaking, mostly functionality and reliability updates.  I played around with the new features the other day and I probably woudln't have noticed anything new if it were not for the email.  The highlights of the emial are below:

• Improved stability and recording reliability
• Faster and more consistent responsiveness, including for menu and Guide navigation and scheduling recordings
• New "Turbo Mode" continuous scrolling in Guide and continuous channel change
• With the grid Guide displayed, users can now continuously press (i.e. press and hold down) the arrow keys (up/down/left/right) to more rapidly scroll
• "Turbo Mode" also works in the Guide for paging up/down using the Channel/Page keys, paging left/right using the RWD/FF keys, and 24hr skip forward/back using the Advance (aka skip-to-tick) and Instant Replay keys
• In Live TV, users can now continuously press the Channel Up or Down key to enter "Turbo Mode" for channel change

 They also had a link in the email for a coupon for a free on-demand movie rental.

Clear Comcast TIVO Hard Drive

I noticed a couple months ago that I had a recording om my TIVO that seemed to be corrupted. I think Comcast refers to these as phantom recordings. I could not play it or delete it although it said that recording was in progress there was no light on the front of the box indicating something was recording. I called Comcast about it a couple months ago, they couldn't figure it out and told me that they would call in a specialized TIVO tech to get back to me. I never heard from them.

It wasn't much of an issue until recently where we started having an issue where recordings on our season pass were not recording and things that were recording were getting deleted after a couple days. I assume these issue are due to the phantom recording so I called Comcast back today for some help. I assumed that they would just send a tech out with a new box. But the tech wanted to try something new.....He said there was a way to delete everything from the hard drive which should fix the issue. For those having similar issues below are the steps I went through to wipe out the hard drive.

1. On the Comcast Box - Press the power button and then the select button. This will bring up a diagnostics screen
2. On the TIVO Remote - Press the replay button
3. Press the TIVO button three times
4. Press the Live TV button
5. Press the channel up button

After this sequence is completed the box will reboot. When it starts back up all of the recordings, season passes and other setting should be gone. Time will tell whether this fixes the issues I have been having.

Comcast Tivo Online Scheduler

Back in June I got a postcard from Comcast advertising some new features for the Tivo on Comcast. One of the features that I was really excited about was the online scheduler. This feature will allow you to schedule tivo recordings from any computer. A very nice feature if you are not at home and realize that you have forgotten to record something. The postcard just said the feature was coming soon and pointed to this page: http://comcast.net/tivo to check for availability. At the time the feature was not available for me and I kind of forgot about it.

Earlier this week I decided to check the website again and was presented with a page allowing me to activate the TIVO online scheduler. You click on the button it verifies your TIVO box and you are good to go. In order for the feature to work I think you need to be logged into http://www.comcast.net/ using your Comcast ID. Then you need to access the TV listings for your area. The TV listing Guide with the TIVO Online scheduler is below.

It is pretty simple to use, just click on the show you want to record and a little box pops up on the right allowing you to schedule the recording or set up a season pass.

If you click on the little Tivo Online Scheduler Button on the upper right another box pops up (above) that allows you to view or cancel your upcoming recordings and season passes.

There is also a DVR selector page that will appear if you have multiple DVR's. I assume this page did not appear because I have only one DVR.

First Impressions:

The interface was easy enough to use and I think is a great new feature. This is a feature that is included if you buy a real TIVO box so it is time that Comcast added it.

Issues:

The TV Listing page can take a while to load. Not all of the time but a couple times when I went into it I thought my screen had locked up.

The Online Scheduler screen seems a little buggy. When I cancelled a recording the list of programs got all crunched together and I could no longer read them. See below:

Not really an issue but something to keep in mind. You need to give the DVR some time to sync up with the online changes. So if you need to record something that starts in 5 minutes you probably will miss it.

I wish Comcast would notify their customers where these features are available. I got the initial postcard in June but it was not available at the time. Some time over the past couple months they turned this on and did not notify me. I have a friend who also has the TIVO box and he was not even aware of the Online Scheduling functionality

Overall:

Despite the few issues I have I am very happy that Comcast continues to add features to its products. The online scheduler is not something that I will use that frequently but will be nice to have when needed.

Comcast DVR with TIVO New Features

I got a postcard in the mail today from Comcast regarding some new and upcoming features on the Comcast Tivo DVR.

• Reminder to Pad Live Recordings - When you schedule a recording for a live program, you will now get a reminder to add extra recording time in case the game or event runs long. I guess this is a nice feature but I think it may get a little annoying to be reminded every time I schedule a recording.
• Recently Deleted Folder - If you accidentally delete a recording you can now recover it from the recently deleted folder. I noticed this folder a couple weeks ago. Nice feature but it is pretty difficult to accidentally delete something with the TIVO interface.
• Saved On Demand Programs - If you find an On Demand program that you want to watch later you can just save it to the Saved On Demand folder in the Tivo Recording List. This is should be a pretty useful feature as it will save time navigating through the menus to get to Saved On Demand
• TIVO Online scheduler - Soon you can schedule your recordings away from home - even manage your Recording schedule and Season Pass Priorities. This is the feature that I am pretty excited about. On a couple occasions I have forgot to record something and was not home in time to set it. This is a feature that the full-blown TIVO has so it is about time that Comcast gets it out there. There is no time frame on the postcard regarding when it will be available. It just says that an email will be sent to my Comcast Account. Based on previous rollout schedules I have to assume that the feature will be available within the next couple months. There is also a website link http://comcast.net/tivo but it just says that the feature is coming soon.

Comcast / TIVO Issues in Boston Area

Last week a happened across this article written by a Comcast customer in the Boston area that was/is having issues with his TIVO box. According to the article it isn't just him but many other customers in the area that are experiencing issues. I didn't think much of the article as my TIVO has been working fine......until tonight.

• A couple shows we had a season pass set up for did not record.
• I can not manually record any shows
• I can not delete any previously recorded shows.

I can watch saved shows but that is pretty much it. I first tried the standard restarting the box procedure which did not fix the issue. So I got on the line with Comcast Customer Service who seemed to hint around that they had been seeing some issues but did not come right out and say it. She had me restart the box again which again did not fix the problem and she sent some codes to the box which apparently told her that the box was functioning. Since not of that fixed the issue she had me unplug the box and then plug it back in which also did not fix the issue.

So I now have a problem ticket open with Comcast and a technician scheduled to come out to my house on Sunday. I guess I will have to just wait and see what happens. Interested to see if any other customers are experiencing similar problems and what the resolution was. I have a feeling though that I will be getting a new box on Sunday.

Issue with Channel 845 on the Comcast TIVO Box

A few weeks ago when Comcast added a few new High Definition channels I started noticing an issue when scrolling through the HD channels. When scrolling through the HD channels using the up arrow button on the remote or cable box when it should be going to channel 845 (which is Weatherscan) it jumps down to channel 245 (which is the non HD version of Weatherscan).

The workaround is to just use the numbers to enter the next number (846) or the guide to navigate to the next number. It is not really a huge issue but it does get a bit annoying if you forget and suddenly find yourself in the 200s and forgot what channel you were last on.

I tried rebooting the box hoping that would fix the issue but it didn't. I was out for lunch with a friend the other day who also has Comcast/Tivo and asked him about the issue and he said he had noticed the same thing. That made me feel a little better as hopefully it was something Comcast is aware of and is working on.

Tonight I decided to call Comcast support and report the issue and see if there was anything they could tell me. After a short wait I was connected to a rep and reported the problem. The rep told me that this is a known issue and is something they are working with Tivo on to get fixed. She also told me that they will be releasing a fix for the Guide software on August 26th that they hope will resolve the issue. So I guess we will wait and see.

TIVO on Mororola motorola dch3416

This weekend I had a friend over who also recently had Comcast TIVO installed. We were comparing our experiences, we have had similar experiences and basically came to the conclusion that the box is still pretty buggy but that is the price we pay for being early adopters.


Then he noticed my cable box and noted that it was different than his, he still has the old Motorola DCT6412. I had assumed everyone who was getting TIVO through Comcast was getting a new box but apparently this is not so. So I asked my wife about the install as I was at work when it was installed. My wife's reply was "Oh yeah, they tried to get it going on the old box but it wasn't working so they brought this one in". So it looks like if they can't get TIVO working on your existing box they just install it on the motorola dch3416. For those interested the motorola dch3416 looks like this

In my opinion it is a better looking box than the DCT6412. You can find the specs on the box here. I didn't really have time to compare all of the differences between the DCT6412 and the DCH3416 but one spec did stand out to me. The DCT6412 has a 120GB hard drive and the DCH3416 has a 160GB hard drive so at the very least I shoud have a bit more recording capacity. Intersted to see what model other TIVO users have been given

More on Comcast's new Tivo box

So now that I have had a little more time to use my Comcast TIVO box I figured I would post some more observations. I am still pretty happy with the box but it seems it isn't without its problems.

Last week we noticed that we couldn't get into any of our OnDemand content. At first we thought it may just be temporarily down as this happens sometimes, but when we couldn't get into OnDemand for a few days I decided to call Comcast. I have had some pretty good experiences with Comcast Support so I don't usually hesitate to call. Interestingly I was transferred to their TIVO support line so I thought maybe I would get some insider info. First off the woman I spoke with sounded more like a phone sex operator than the normal support geek so we were stating out on the right foot. She wanted to know what I thought of the box and I explained some of the issues we have been having, unfortunately she didn't have any solutions. Eventually she got around to having me unplug my box to solve the OnDemand issue. The good news is it solved the issue. This seems to be the cable version of rebooting a computer which solves 99% of all problems. I will warn you though, if you plan on unplugging your box give yourself at least 10 minutes for it to start back up. The start up process has some type of a diagnostic process that takes forever to get through. But it did seem to solve the issue.

We did have another problem with the box today. While watching programs on any channel I was getting intermittent cutouts of the video and audio every minute or so. After a about 30 minutes of this the box locked up and then rebooted itself. When it came back up everything was fine. But all I was thinking was I hoe this doesn't happen next weekend during the Superbowl. Pretty cool that the box realized that it was having an issue and rebooted itself but unfortunately I had to wait through the 10 minute diagnostic process again.

My wife is a little frustrated with the quirks on the new Tivo box and wants the old Comcast DVR back. I think we are going to stick with it though and see if they can get the bugs worked out.

Comcast and Tivo

Comcast has been talking about offering Tivo service on their DVR boxes for couple years. As I understand there were some issues to work through but in late 2007 they started rolling the new service out in a few states. It was supposed to be offered my state so I was pretty excited to get it but when I called Comcast early this year they told me it was not available yet in my town.
I did find a Comcast webpage where you can enter your zip code and it will tell you if it is available in your town, if it is not available in your town you can enter your email address and they will email you when it is available. You can get to the webpage through the link below.

http://www.comcast.com/tivo/

So a few weeks ago when it became available Comcast emailed me and I called and made an appointment to have it installed. I was under the impression that the Tivo software could just be uploaded to our existing box with no need for a tech to come out to our house. The rep told me that since I had an older box I would need a new one. The charge for Tivo is an additional $3/month on top of the charge for the old DVR service.

I was not home when the tech came to do the install but it seems that the install was not that easy. It was the first time this tech was installing the new Tivo box and he was at my house for a couple hours. As I understand he was downstairs for a while doing something, not sure exactly what though. Some friends that have had recent installed have had similar experiences. I guess that is the price you pay for being an early adopter.

So now that we have had the box for a week and have had a chance to use it for a bit I have to say that I am pretty impressed. My biggest complaint with the old DVR box was the intermittent lockups that would happen when changing channels. I am glad to say that I haven't seen this happen with the new box. The new Tivo interface is nice, much easier to navigate than the old box. The Season Pass is also a great feature on the Tivo box that didn't really work well on the old DVR box. You also get a new remote with the Tivo box. It is smaller than the old remote but is taking us a little bit to get used to.

There are few minor annoyances that I have noticed:

1. If you tell the box to make suggestions based on your recordings sometimes when you are watching a show it will pop up a box asking to change the channel to record a suggestion. If your turn suggestions off for your recordings this won't happen so that is a sufficient work-around for us.


2. If you are watching a show and you go into the guide to get info about another program it automatically changes the channel from the program you were watching to the show you are getting info on. The old box allowed you get info on other programs without changing channels. There may be a work-around for this as well I just haven't figured it out yet.


3. We have a High Definition TV but we bought it in 2002 so it is not a wide screen format. When we watch non HD shows they take up the whole screen, HD shows have black bars on the top and bottom. The front of the new Tivo box has a button to switch modes from 480i, 480p, 720p or 1080i. When the rep set up the box he just left it at the default 480i. I didn't notice it until we were watching the football game in HD and the pic looked like crap. That is when I noticed the button, switched it to 1080i and the picture looked great. The issue is when I watch non HD shows in 1080i mode I can no longer watch them full screen, I get black bars all around the picture. It is pretty easy to just push the button to switch it back but it is pretty annoying since I didn't have to do this with the old box.

Overall I am pretty happy with the service. I haven't used at much as I would like to given the writers strike and not too many new shows worth recording. But with Lost and Jericho starting soon I will have more of an opportunity to use it more.