I "upgraded" from Rovi about a month ago and its okay. Contour has a few quirks but overall it's okay. On my Rovi, however, the Auto Tune to HD feature and Closed Captioning button on the remote never worked.
With Contour, you can customized the Guide to only display HD channels. Although there is no CC button on the Contour remote, you can tap the B button twice to enable it. You can see my Contour review at https://forums.cox.com/forum_home/tv_forum/f/tv-forum/23219/no-screen-picture-in-picture-in-program-guide/89317#89317
Being "experienced in IT Systems," you'd understand this isn't a software replacement but instead a hardware refresh. Cox had always used "receiver" in their messages and never "Rovi" because Cox is refreshing the hardware within their cable boxes. For example, you're losing channels because those channels are (were) still encoded in MPEG2 as opposed to MPEG4. Although MPEG2 is much better encoding, MPEG2 is also a bandwidth hog. The hardware in the Rovi boxes can't decode MPEG4 content.
With Rovi, Cox had to either dedicate 2 channels for TMC (MPEG2 & MPEG4) or TMC is no longer encoding in MPEG2. For example, with Rovi, I only had 3 HBO channels in the Program Guide because they were still encoded with MPEG2: HBO-1, -2 and Latino. With Contour, I have all 8 HBO channels because they're all encoded with MPEG4.
The new IPG (Contour) just comes with the hardware refresh. Besides, Rovi requires a license fee and if it sets on outdated hardware, why should Cox keep paying the fee?
"...changes as described yesterday to me here on the forum, require a date put out 3-6 months..." Cox started notifying you in December 2018...6 months ago. Cox didn't estimate 1 End Date nationwide but for your market. It appears your End Date will be June 30.
Not experienced....EXTREMELY EXPERIENCED...and you are 100% supporting not informing customers about what is going on.. My TV has 2 receivers are they being replaced also??
How "extremely experienced" could you be if you couldn't deduce losing channels on your cable-box to an unknown piece of outdated equipment?
Cox is now using more efficient coding for CATV...Cox is now using packet-switching for Voice...Cox is now supporting DOCSIS 3+ for optimal Internet. ALL equipment has changed...you don't have it...and now you're dawdling with serial numbers.
IT's ONLY the channels that I view mostly that are being removed piece by piece. IT is 100% someone purposely doing this..... Is there something special about Latino channels, selective non-hd channels that's about all I have left for 130 bucks a month.
And how do several of you guys know 11 + months ago in these forums about Rovi when NOWHERE in Cox's invoices are customers informed way back then about any of this.....you are supporting treating long-time customers like they are nothing.....and from the MAC-ID's they should know whom has what equipment. And this cable modem SHOULD have been given to me at the Henderson store with a CD, No CD and it was not listed in Cox's equipment list until after I called & let them know. Same for my DVR and it is a DVR not a TV receiver,.
Latino and remaining SD channels are probably the only ones broadcasters are still encoding with MPEG2.
How did we know about Rovi being phased out? TV commercials, junk mail, spam, News from Cox on our bills, posters asking questions in the Forum, notices in our accounts after logging in, etc. i suppose we just read it.
Initial issues had a CD. You got a used modem.
