Recent Discussions
Live and cloud recorded video low quality
I have 2 Cox Contour receivers (1 nonrecording too) with cloud recording. I have been experiencing poor quality video that comes and goes on live and recorded video. I had a tech here for over 3 hours and he could not fix the problem. Signal into the house is fine and he even replaced the router. Upon checking Wifi bands we found out that a neighbor who just go Cox is on the same wifi channel we are on. So it makes sense that we are getting interference. The ability to change the wifi channel is not selectable in the app and now after going through chat support they say they cannot change the channel. Has anyone found a workaround to this? I am about ready to switch to ATT.
Cisco Contour 1 boxes still needed, please keep them avail
Cisco Contour 1 boxes still needed for TVs without HDMI and for non-widescreen TVs When my Cisco Explorer Contour 1 DVR died, I took the box into a Cox store (Omaha, NE) for a replacement. At first I was told they could not replace that box, I'd have to go with the newer Contour 2 boxes. Fortunately, a customer service employee at the store had remembered seeing the Contour 1 Cisco boxes in the back and was able to get one for me. But I almost wasn't able to get one. These Cisco Contour 1 boxes are needed for the component (red, green, blue) analog connections. These connections are eliminated on the newer boxes. (While the newer boxes may have a composite analog connection, composite is inferior to component even on standard def TVs. And the component connection supports HD for HDTVs that lack HDMI, while composite does not support HD at all.) Not everyone has a TV with HDMI. Even some HDTVs did not have HDMI. (None of my TVs have HDMI.) Not everyone wants to replace a good quality CRT TV still in good condition with an inferior LCD just to get HDMI. The Cisco Contour 1 boxes also have a very critical feature needed for non-widescreen TVs. When I was demonstrated Contour 2 in a Cox store a few years ago, these boxes seemed to be lacking this critical feature. (Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.) The critical feature is a zoom feature. When an older non-widescreen show is stuffed into a widescreen channel and then displayed on a non-widescreen TV, it shows up as a little picture in the middle of the screen. (This is NOT the same as when the same show is displayed on a widescreen TV with the right/left black bars on the side, this is MUCH different. This is a little picture surrounded by a big black border on all four sides.) The zoom feature on Cisco Contour 1 (and the prior Motorola DVR boxes) restores said show to fill the non-widescreen TV's screen as originally intended. Without this feature, these shows are not really watchable on the non-widescreen TV. Likewise, the same zoom mode is used to crop/zoom 2.40:1 and 2.35:1 widescreen movies to 1.85:1 widescreen. While 1.85:1 widescreen looks fine on a non-widescreen TV, the 2.35:1 and 2.40:1 movies are basically unwatchable on a non-widescreen TV. The same zoom fixes this. This zoom does NOT remove the top/bottom black bars in this case, it just makes the pic the same size and shape as 1.85:1 widescreen movies without the zoom on the non-widescreen TV. (Zoom for 2.35:1 video makes the top/bottom black bars the same size as when 1.85:1 widescreen video is displayed on the non-widescreen TV without the zoom.) Please continue to support these boxes as they are critically important for compatibility with non-widescreen TVs and TVs without HDMI. Again, not everyone wants to replace a good CRT TV with an LCD. Or could Cox obtain newer boxes with component connections and the same zoom feature as Cisco Contour 1 (and the prior Motorola DVR boxes)? An example of this zoom can be seen by setting the Contour 1 box to 4:3 480i TV output letterbox and connect through component output to the TV. (Zoom does not work through composite for some reason and I don't know if it works through HDMI.) Then press the zoom button on the remote. (You might be able to simulate a non-widescreen TV by setting a widescreen TV to 4:3 or sidebar mode.) Please do not abandon customers who have a preference for their CRT TVs, which usually do not have HDMI and are very often not widescreen.
Contour TV app on the iPad
I've been using the Contour app on my new 10th gen iPad for a few weeks now and have run across a few nagging problems. 1. Micro audio dropouts in channels like CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC, particularly noticeable when listening through headphones, occurring every minute or two if not more frequently, during the program itself and commercials. I had the same problem years ago with YouTube TV, but they were able to reproduce it, and they fixed it. When they occur in recordings, they are reproducible by skipping back and replaying. When watching South Park on Comedy Central, when the show goes to commercial and vice versa, the first moment of the audio glitches just about every time. 2. Watching Live TV, e.g. CNN, video will freeze while audio keeps playing. Screen eventually dims, goes black, and playback stops. Fix: Stop and restart playback. 3. The bottom row of the guide is mostly hidden by the app's action bar (Home, Live TV, My library, and Browse buttons). For my Favorites set, I had to add an unwanted channel to the end to ensure the last of my favorites is visible.
Disappointed in the Contour 2 4K set top box
I’ve been fighting for weeks to keep my older Contour 1 Hard Drive based dvr, but I have to give up now. The new box with its cloud based storage is decidedly inferior. This is the end of my month long endeavor to keep my old box. 5 visits to the local store and hours and hours of hold time and ineffectual tech support. Not that it’s the techs fault, as cox is discontinuing service on the old boxes and will not let them back into service. I brought this on myself when changing other aspects of my service I said “sure, I’ll try a 4K stb” I did not think it would be such a big disappointment with no way to revert back to the older tech. I had the 6way tuner before and I could buffer up to six channels of live TV, returning to each and being able to rewind back to the point where I was last watching and watch what ever I missed while I was on another channel. This is incredibly useful for watching multiple sports games at one time. the Contour 2 is also very glitchy with playback of recorded shows. The ff and rw functions are a crapshoot as to where it takes me. Very imprecise. Sometimes it just kicks me out and makes me play back from the beginning. There’s no clock or channel info on the front of the box. Using the ‘last’ function is about a 5 second operation now. With Contour 1 it was about a one second time to acquire the previous channel. Makes a big difference when I’m watching two games and I’m trying to see who is going to break the huddle first. I am very dejected and demoralized that I have to deal with change that I don’t like and don’t want. Contour 2 set top box is a big letdown. I will be looking at satellite or Verizon fios or anything else to see if they offer what cox has taken away. 🙁😢😤😱🤢🤬😡😠😟
Contour compatibility
I currently have 3 Cisco HD set top boxes (which use the older Cox interface). In addition I have 1 cable card that is in a TiVo XL4 box and associated tuning adapter. I have been told that I should consider migrating to the newer Contour system because the older equipment is prone to breaking down and is not reliable. I am willing to do this conversion provided: the TiVo box will continue to work AND I can get contour boxes that have composite/component output connectors Does anyone know if this is possible? thanks. Terry (Cox Orange County)