I hate my cable box!
I have a Motorola cable box, from Comcast. And I hate it. IT SHOWS ME ADS ALL THE TIME! Every time you change a channel, it shows you an ad. It also shows ads whenever you check the program guide. The menus are full of ads. It pretty much shows you ads every time it gets a chance. It is also incredibly slow at changing channels, the slowest one I’ve ever had. I always assume it’s the ad processing that’s slowing it down and get madder and madder the more I use it.
Today it came up with a new trick. There was a little red light on the front panel, that I’ve never seen before. It was next to a label, “NEW MESSAGE”. Being incredibly stupid, I get all excited. I’d seen the “messages” feature before when I did my normal depth-first traversal of the menus when I first got the box. But it was always empty. I quickly turned on the TV, went into the menus and selected “VIEW MESSAGE”.
You probably already know what happened next. It was another ad! “Don’t miss WWE Wreslemania XIXICXIIV! THIS SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!”
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Yeah my digital cable box is also garbage. You need to \”reboot\” it every month or so, by unplugging it and plugging it back in again, or the GUI gets all clunky and weird and won\’t repaint properly. Occasionally, it will just shut itself off for no apparent reason. TiVo doesn\’t know this fact, and will spend days happily recording black screens for me to watch. Plus the cable box is also really slow at changing channels. Plus it is controlled by Tivo, which is REALLY slow at changing channels. The average time it takes to change a channel is like around 10 seconds. It\’s ridiculously dumb.
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My last one used to crash all the time and need rebooting, at least this one doesn\’t.
Boy I just can\’t wait until cable companies integrate PVR functionality into their boxes, driving TiVo out of business. I bet they\’ll do a really great job, it\’ll be super reliable and easy to use, and flexible too.
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OK since this thread is devoted to the ills of cable boxes her is my problem. My cable company, COX has a box that doesn\’t show ads and doesn\’t crash but it does not send a consistent stereo or dolby signal which can be decoded either by my TV set or my VCR. At least not on the higher numbered channels. I just had a so-called tech here and he just shrugged his shoulders and mumbled that they have a lot of problems like this I think it is a software problem. I can\’t fix it. That\’s life. So I am paying for a bunch of movie channels and getting half of the product.
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I have sort of a similar problem on low numbered channels: When anybody says an \”s\” or \”f\” sound I get a loud burst of static.
It\’SXSXSC eSXSXSCtremely FXSXSCruSXSXSCrating to liSXSXSCten to.
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after a series of emails with COX, they now inform me that they \”..do not advertise either surround sound …they deliver a limited stereo signal that can deliver some enhanced sounssound to all channels up to a point\”
Are all cable companies this bad?
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comment My cable box sucks!!!!!!!!
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I\’m so sick of my cable box I want to take it out and give it the Office Space treatment. My friend also shot a disk drive with twelve guage buckshot (single slug) I wonder what that would do for the cable box. If only my Tivo weren\’t so dang stupid I could hook it to the analog cable like all my other TVs.
Oh did I tell you? I HATE MY COMCAST CABLE BOX!@!@!@!@#$!@$#$#!@$#@
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Best title for a cable TV rant: Comcastards!
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You know, ever since they gave us video on demand, I haven\’t hated my cable box quite so much. As long as they keep the episodes of Chobits coming, I\’ll keep quiet.
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I had Motorola\’s HD box when I was with Comcrap. SD pictures were horrible on it, especially analog. They pulled a sneaky $5/month charge thing for it on me, so I took it back. I have their lifeline basic for local channels now, Dish Network for everything else. I luv it, 2 PVR\’s and a much nicer picture. Everytime I switch over to Comcrap for local TV I am reminded of why I switched to Dish.
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I have COX digital cable and I am pissed… I have three digital cable boxes hooked up throughout the house. My tv in the living room went bad. I’m thinking the tv just had a short life… anyways I moved to a new house with the same three digital cable boxes and in the first month my other tv in the new living room broke and my 800 dollar receiver went bad too… this all happend after connecting them to the same box that my last tv broke on. So I called cox and they sent someone out. He didnt even care… Im like, hello… 2 tv’s and my receiver went bad after being connected to this cable box.. What are the chances of all three going bad, and not being caused by this “bad box”.. still nothing… If anyone else has had problems like this, please let me know… I think cox should pay for repair. email me at azbizman@hotmail.com
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My General Instrument digital cable box from Comcast doesn’t show the correct time, it sometimes lags by 8 minutes or so. And I get “no listings” or “to be announced” for every channel in the TV Guide interactive onscreen guide. There is no way to know what is on Statz or any of the 100s of other channels. I’ve unplugged it in the past and sometimes that works. but often not. And, the plug is behind a heavy entertainment center, so yesterday, I just tripped a circuit breaker for a moment. Now it just says 12 O’Clock and the guide says it will be restored in a few minutes. Or, maybe never? The box gets all the proper channels, but no onscreen guide. Any ideas or help? Thanks. Mark.
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I just read YOUR post.
What was the brand of your box?
I plugged my television into my cable box, and then programmed the auto-shut-off option that turns your TV off after an hour of non-use in case I fall asleep.
Well, I woke up as it did this because it made a horrible very loud zapping noise and now my $600 DVD/VHS 36″ TV is completely broken. It zapped the power right out of my TV!
I called Comcast, and filed a complaint. They said ‘we will get right back to you’. 12 days later, no TV, they are still charging me, and I haven’t heard from them. So I called back and boy are they snotty. They wont even send someone out to investigate.
Maybe I should take them to small claims court?
-J
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I have a Cox cable box that is a royal pain in my azz. It only stores approx eight hours of memory and is slow for every function.
Also it loses the signal approx every four min or so.
Cox guy was out here, said he fixed it. All the probs remain.
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Just had Comcast out to my house to install internet and cable. When they finally get done (2 1/2 hours later) they tried everything out just to make sure it was working. Well, my TV now doesn’t work. The power button flickers every 5 seconds and that’s it. I just called and they said I needed to call the manufacturer (RCA) and see what they say first. Then get back to them. What a fucking royal pain in the ass. All I want is cable and internet and now I have to fucking call around and try to get my broken tv (that was working fine before and during their visit) fixed. This is such horseshit. I’ll keep you up to date on what happens…but I doubt they will do anything. Maybe it’ll be worth taking them to court. Assholes.
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I thought getting the cable box from comcast would be far better than what I was experiencing with Direct TV (no frozen screen with seven commericals still going by) and with the anime channel I was rather content. But now, for some odd reason, I can’t get any channels past the regular cable digits without a big black screen and a blue bar that says,
“Not Authorized
DIY
For ordering information, press info”
What ordering information? And this already comes with the package. Maybe I’m a little slow, since I haven’t had digital cable in sometime, but come on already. Where’s the better support section?
I don’t feel like dealing with customer service on the phone since my mother successfully hung up on the guy after getting into some heated argument. All the support responses are useless to me. I knew I get ten times the bad with a little good.
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Cable boxes suck!
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I think that it is safe to say that all cable companies and their equipment suck. I used to have Charter Communications. When I moved I was keeping the same modem, cable boxes, remotes, etc. The new place was cable ready and they just had to turn it on. They insisted that they HAD to come hook everything up because it was too complicated. Then of course they would slam me with a huge install fee. I told them that I had moved all the equipment around from room to room before without an issue. They didn’t believe me! So, the guy came out to plug in a few cords and hand me an “estimated” first bill for the new adress. Such bull! I now have Cox communications. Our cable box stopped working. So, the guy came out to fix it. Now it shows the date as 3 months ahead and the time is 6 hours ahead…plus no guide because who the hell knows (or cares) what is on in january when it’s still October! All cable companies SUCK!!!!
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@steve
hmmm my dad had that problem – I sorted it out easily by turning down the tv volume and cranking the cable box volume. Not sure if that’s the way it SHOULD be fixed… lol… but it WORKS, and my father is happy again. :)