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

Comcast Personal Web Pages

I have have been using Comcast's Personal Web Page service for around 3 years now. Initially I used it for hosting some personal family albums and other hobby websites. When I first started using PWP Comcast gave you 25 megabyres of space per accound and since Comcast allows you to have 5 accounts that is over 100 megabytes of space which was plenty for what I was using it for. They also offered some really basic web page builder tools and ftp tools. The tools weren't really that great but I wasn't really bothered by that as I have my own HTML editor and FTP tool.

In the summer of 2007 Comcast announced that they were upgrading their Personal Web Page service and giving users a gigabyte of space and some additional features like blogging. At the time I was considering turning one of my webpages into a blog so I held off and waited until the upgrade happened.

Before the upgrade happened Comcast sent me an email informing me that my webpage would be inaccessable between 12am and 7am. Unfortunately after the upgrade access to my webpages were intermittenet at best for weeks. For a few days I also could not use my 3rd party FTP tools to upload any files to my account. They also changed the shortcut you were able to use to access webpages. You used to be able to access a webpage bu using the url :

home.comcast.net/~username
or
username.home.comcast.net

After the upgrade typing in the url username.home.comcast.net would redirect to username.home.comcast.net/~username on most browsers but I was told by some people that used aol that they were no longer able to access my webpage, I assume because AOL was preventing a redirect.

I also looked briefly at the new blogging software they provided and it was extremely basic. Not even a tenth of the features that free blogs like blogspot provide. Another issue I has was all of the entries in my guestbook disspapeared. Luckily I somehow found a way to aceess them and was able to save them but haven't been able to get back into them since.

Calling Comcast support didn't seem to help as most of the techs aren't familiar with PWP and are only able to tell you if they are up or down. The only area that I was able to find any information was in the comcast help forums. There were may people there posting with problem some much worse than the problems I was having. But at least it was a place to go to see that I wasn't the only one having issues. Seems like Comcast may have contracted the upgrade out and is was messed up royally. There are still to this day people posting messages in the forum that have been having issues since the upgrade. Some pretty unhappy people in there.

I ended up moving some of my webpages off comcast PWP and onto blogspot and hadn't looked back at the features until recently when I noticed that the new features like blogging were no longer available and the feature set had rolled back to the way it was before the upgrade. I am not sure if this is something affecting just my account or if it was everyone. I also noticed recently that the urls for accessing pages is intermittently changing. Sometimes username.home.comcast.net works, sometimes it doesn't. The new result of this is the pictuures that I have hosted on comcast are sometimes unavailable.

In summary I think Comcast PWP are good for basic web pages that only a few people will be accessing. If you are concerened about downtime don't use them. There are plenty of free blogs or cheap webhosting products that you can get if you are hosting professional websites that you plan to make money off or run a business from. Interested in hearing what others experiences have been with Comcast PWP.

The Slowskys

Usually when companies go overboard with their advertising campaigns it drives me a crazy. But I find the Comcast commercials featuring the Slowskys really funny. If you haven't seen the commercials they feature two turtles who of course like everything slow so they have DSL rather than Comcast High Speed Internet. Not sure why I find them so funny but it probably has to do with the sarcasm.

I did a quick google search on the Slowskys and found that Comcast has a website for the SLowskys. Seems like they have a bit of a cult following, On the website you can watch a couple of their commercials and there is a store where you can but t-shirts and mugs with the catch phrases from their commercials. Gotta get me a "You Push It" T-Shirt. There is also some odd random widgets on there to keep you busy on the website for hours. Someone definitely took some time putting the website together. Their advertising budget has to be huge.

Oddly you can't view all of their commercials from the website but a simple Youtube search on the Slowskys and they are all there. Looking forward to seeing if they have a new commercial for the Superbowl this weekend.

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 OnDemand

I rarely go to the movies anymore since buying a High Definition Television and Surround Sound. I just can't justify paying $10 to see a movie in a noisy theatre with a sticky floor when I can watch a movie in the comfort of my home. I usually get free dvd rentals using credit card points and we watch most new releases on DVD. There are some movies that we really aren't that interested in or aren't sure if I will like. This is where OnDemand comes in handy.

I hear a lot of people complaining about the "useless" Comcast OnDemand service. I actually like OnDemand and watch the free content quite a bit. There are literally hundreds of free movies that you can watch for free. Most of them are not new releases but I always seem to find some classic that I have somehow missed watching.

If you subscribe to a premium channel like HBO you also get a few new releases a month to watch for free as well. These are usually the movies that we didn't want to spend our free rental on. If we don't like the movie nothing is lost. HBO also lets you watch old episodes of their series like Sopranos and Sex and the City.

The pay OnDemand movies are pretty competitive price-wise with video rentals. The only disadvantage I see that they have is the lack of special features and content that comes on dvds. I don't usually watch the special content so it doesn't really matter to me. I think I recently saw a commercial that they are including special content with the latest Harry Potter movie so it is probably something they are starting to include. The biggest advantage I see with OnDemand is not having to leave the house to rent and return the movies.

New OnDemand movie releases are $3.99 and New releases in High Definition are $5.99. I have watched a couple of the pay OnDemand movies but have never paid for them. Every few months we seem to find free OnDemand coupons in our local paper, so we use those whenever we get them. We also have a book of free coupons that we got when a Comcast rep came to our door taking a survey of what Comcast services we have.

I have yet to watch any of their High Definition movies OnDemand but plan to soon as I am interested how the quality compares to the standard definition movies. Unfortunately the only network show you can watch in High Definition is CSI. CBS is the only network that is currently providing shows OnDemand in my area. I seem to remember a while back the other networks were offering content as well but they don't seem to be available anymore. I think I also remember they were charging $1/per episode which seems pretty reasonable to me. Obviously it wasn't profitable though since they discontinued it. Too bad.

Overall I think OnDemand is a pretty valuable service, they seem to be continually adding content which means there is always something new to watch.

Comcast Pivot Cell Phone Service

A few months ago I noticed that Comcast was offering cell phone service called Pivot (partnered with Sprint). A nice feature was the ability to just add the service to our existing Comcast bill. Our old cell phone plan was through Verizon Wireless which at the time did not offer the all in one bill option so we switched our home phone service to Comcast Digital voice a year or so ago, further consolidating our bills.

So last year when our contract was up with Verizon we went into our local Sprint store to sign up with the Comcast Pivot Service. With Verizon we were paying around $85/month for two phones. The family plan that Pivot was offering at the time was $59/month. So it was pretty much a no-brainer for us to sign up for the service. You can see the pricing for the plans using the link below.

http://www.comcast.com/corporate/wireless/plans.html

We did have to buy new cell phones. They had a pretty good selection on the phones. We ended up getting the Sanyo Katana II. I think this is a $90 phone but with rebates and promotions we ended up paying just $30 for both phones. We had a little problem with the rebate but a quick phone call to Sprint resolved that.

The service so far has been really good. There used to be a few areas near us where calls would drop but we haven't noticed this with the Sprint Network. The only issue we have had is with billing. The first couple bills we received had an additional charge for equipment protection and we were also being charged for text messages. For both bills I called Comcast and the charges were taken off and I was told they won't be on my next bill, but they were. I am hoping that it gets resolved when my next bill comes.

Update 2/5/2008:
3rd bill with Comcast Pivot andd still getting random additional charges. Unfortunately nobody I have spoken to at Comcast can tell me why these charges keep appearing. Getting a little frustrated.

Pivot also offers a really cool multimedia plan which we did not sign up for. Some of the features included in the mutimedia plan are:

• Access to Comcast Email on your phone
• Radio Channels
• Internet Access
• GPS Driving Directions

At some point in the future we will probably upgrade to the multimedia plan. The cost for upgrading would cost is an additional $40/month which is not really worth it for us right now. Although email access and GPS directions are pretty intriguing.

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.