Forum Discussion

bababerry's avatar
bababerry
New Contributor
7 years ago

Contour 2 faults

Regarding the update of Cox Contour 1 to Contour 2, there are some improvements, but some things are much worse. I can find no link to send feedback to Cox other than to post my observations in the forum. These observations may affect your desire to upgrade to Contour 2.

The voice control is a handy.

But the Guide is worse. In an effort to make it "fancy", they have filled the screen with graphical information that limits the amount of Guide that can be shown. There are only five lines of shows, one of which stays on screen when you page down. That means each page of scrolling is only four channels. It's not enough. And, it seems to me, the width of the Guide has been reduced too, to show less time.

Contour highlights the popular evening shows for two prominent days. But the two days shown are the two days that just ENDED, not the next two coming up. I can't understand why they thought this would be useful, and they you haven't changed it.

It's handy having Netflix built into Contour, but it doesn't work well. Netflix programs "stutter". That is, they drop a frame every several seconds, so the video jitters. The sound does not seem to be affected. The same Netflix show shown on my Samsung Smart TV doesn't do that, so it has to be in Contour.

Previously, if you were watching a movie and you decided to save it, you could hit RECORD and Contour would save the whole movie from the beginning. With Contour 2, the recording does not go back to the beginning and record the whole movie. It only starts recording from where you pressed the record button. Even if you rewind live TV back to the beginning of the movie and press RECORD, it only records from the current time.

I've been to the local Cox office to talk to them about some of these features, and was pretty much brushed off with the attitude "Yes, well, that's the way it works."

  • yak's avatar
    yak
    Contributor III

    Thanks for the info.  I still have Contour 1.  It has quirks but I will keep it instead of getting a Contour 2.

    • bababerry's avatar
      bababerry
      New Contributor

      Am I right that Contour 1 has more than 5 lines in the Guide? I forgot to mention that Contour 2 seems to have more content in On Demand. Not that I use it....

      • yak's avatar
        yak
        Contributor III

        Contour 1 has 7 lines in the Guide.  It's very easy to use.  My Contour 1 problems are mostly with the recording features.  one out of 12 recorded shows will not play back.  so I miss the show.  I never know which one of the 12 ( I am estimating) it will be.  I also have one out of every 20 recordings appear in the Missed Recordings list with ridiculous reasons like "This recording failed because it conflicted with another high priority recording"..... but there is no "high priority" option..... and I was only recording one tv show at this time so there was nothing to cause a conflict.   My other complaint is with the Pandora music option.  When I called Cox about the feature having many problems, no one at Cox even knew the feature existed.... no one listens to Pandora on their tv; only on their smartphone.  Contour 2 has "iheartradio" instead of Pandora; have you ever used it?

  • StephanieA's avatar
    StephanieA
    Former Moderator
    Thank you for your feedback. I've forwarded it to our Product Team for review. I want to help with your Netflix issue. How many receivers do you have? Are you having issues with all of them or just one TV?

    StephanieA
    Cox Forum Support Moderator
    • bababerry's avatar
      bababerry
      New Contributor

      We have two receivers, but mostly watch only the DVR box. Every time we watch Longmire it stutters, so I tried it on the Smart TV and it doesn't. Also, had a friend over to watch a different recorded show and he asked if the stuttering was part of the episode or in the TV.

      • Becky's avatar
        Becky
        Moderator
        Hi Bababerry, are there any splitters on the coax connection to your DVR? The stuttering you are experiencing may be due to a signal issue getting to the DVR. Make sure all the connections to the DVR are finger-tight. Perhaps you can bypass the splitter temporarily and watch an episode of Longmire with the receiver connected directly to the cable outlet to see if the stuttering continues. -Becky, Cox Support Forums Moderator
  • OldMainframeGuy's avatar
    OldMainframeGuy
    New Contributor III

    I have the same stuttering problem but only on the main Contour 2 box; on the set connected to the satellite box everything is fine.  Interestingly we both are having the issue on a Samsung SmartTV.  Do you have a Samsung sound bar attached?  That used to be problematic with the built-in Netfix app.   Samsung fixed it but it breaks again from time to time.

    Rob

    • jp702's avatar
      jp702
      New Contributor

      I am also experiencing the stuttering you and bababerry describe when viewing On Demand programming. I wonder if some of these Contour 2 DVRs are having issues when it comes to streaming content but I don't know if the issues we are experiencing are related. I have another thread describing my specific problem with jerky video/stuttering when viewing on demand content...my tv is a Panasonic though.

      • Becky's avatar
        Becky
        Moderator
        Hi Jp702, is there a splitter on the coax cable that connects to your Contour 2 receiver? -Becky, Cox Support Forums Moderator