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.
