BeachCox's profile

BeachCox

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Why did Cox take away Pac12 Football?

I've got 3 old Motorola boxes because the new Cisco and Contour boxes are buggy, less responsive, have latency issues, UI issues and the satellite system ** for pausing and rewinding live TV. I am VERY happy with the old Motorola boxes. They work just fine, are very responsive and do what they were designed to do. 

So, along comes Cox to mess up what already works. In early October Cox disabled the Pac12 HD channel on the old boxes in Orange County. This takes away college ball for everyone in SoCal. They now require you to "upgrade" to the new Contour boxes to get it back. They are quick to say "oh, you still have it in standard def..."   WTF? Has anyone ever watched standard def on a 90" TV? The FCC doesn't even allow regular broadcast in SD anymore. This is like providing football in Black and White and saying "well it is still available".  

So, my question is: Why did Cox remove the Pac12 channel and force an upgrade to Contour?
While I am at it... Let me ask about the idiot that designed the Contour boxes and the Cox exec that approved them. Pausing and rewinding live TV was the most basic feature of the first TiVo DVR in 1999. How did Cox manage to produce a product 14 years later that is worse? It would have costs less than $20/box to put a gig of SSD memory in each satellite box to buffer live TV. Instead it is buffering on the other side of the house and only if there is an avail tuner. At best it is incredibly unresponsive with really bad latency. So, question number two is: Why would Cox roll out an advanced DVR system that is a worse user experience than what we had in 1999?
I've talked to three reps at Cox and nobody has a solution that isn't worse for me to get Pac12 football back. 
Question 3: what should I do?

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Domino

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BeachCox:

Question #1: Are your old boxes (DVRs) capable of receiving programming that is broadcast in the 840MHz-1GHz band? Can it receive MPEG4 (H.264) video? If so, I suggest you insist that Cox live up to its "...if you get the SD version of a channel, you get the HD version FREE!" marketing mantra. What is the model number of your box (DVR.)

BTW, the "Contour" boxes are just standard Cisco DVRs running NDS/Cisco/Cox "Trio" (Contour) IPG. Each box has varying amounts of RAM, from 384M on the 8642HDC, to upwards of 1GB on the 9800HDC series. The CPUs Cisco used also are more robust on the 9800HDC series. Cox had nothing to do with the DVR design, and little/nothing to do with the Trio/Contour design.

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BeachCox

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Domino,

Good to see that Cox's social media strategy includes hired advocates. If only their customer services was as fast and knowledgable they wouldn't need guys like you. 
On the H.264 question, no the moto box doesn't support it, but it was COX'S DECISION to move the Pac12 channel to a frequency not supported by the older boxes. I used to have the channel in HD and then Cox changed it. Even the tech that came to my house said, "yeah, they are trying to phase out the old boxes and get everyone on the new (more expensive) boxes by switching all the premium channels". I applaud your attempt at deflecting the blame by citing the technical encoding, but it is Cox that made that decision. 
Re your design response... Duh! Cox does not make Cisco hardware, BUT they choose to resell it under their own brand and they push it on their customers. They could have chosen TiVo, but they didn't. That would be like saying, it's not India Airlines fault that the Russian planes they fly are bad. They don't design them. The equipment defines the customer experience and the Cox brand. They should take some ownership of that instead of having a paid social advocate (employee) pretend it isn't in their control. 

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Domino

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2.8K Messages

Wow! What misinformation.

"Good to see that Cox's social media strategy includes hired advocates."

Would a "hired advocate" suggest you insist that Cox live up to its "...if you get the SD version of a channel, you get the HD version FREE!" marketing mantra?

"I applaud your attempt at deflecting the blame by citing the technical encoding, but it is Cox that made that decision."

I'll take your word for it when you say the HD version was originally MPEG2 and was at a lower frequency, but here and in most other locales it was MPEG4 at launch. [And yes, I'm in SoCal.]

"Duh! Cox does not make Cisco hardware, BUT they choose to resell it under their own brand and they push it on their customers. They could have chosen TiVo, but they didn't."

I won't comment on your remarks about the FYI info I gave you about Cisco DVRs. It was just to inform you in light of your "While I am at it... Let me ask about the idiot that designed the Contour boxes" and "It would have costs less than $20/box to put a gig of SSD memory in each satellite box" rants, since it is obvious  from your opening statement that you really don't care.

BTW, if I were you, I'd change to a 8642 or 8752 and demand from Cox that you get the FREE HD to which you're entitled.

 

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Health_Edge

+5 more

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What type of response were you looking for BeachCox? I decided to break down your post and try to answer the only questions I could fathom from it.

1. Has anyone ever watched standard def on a 90" TV? Yes

2. Why did Cox remove the Pac12 channel and force an upgrade to Contour? Not sure, low interest in your market?

3. How did Cox manage to produce a product 14 years later that is worse? Technological progression is not linear, usually its 2 steps forward and 1 step back.

4. Why would Cox roll out an advanced DVR system that is a worse user experience than what we had in 1999? Is this a rhetorical question? There is no logical answer, so that alone should show you that there is no malicious intent. Could you design a better DVR?

5.  what should I do? The hokey pokey?

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