Comcast customers suffering from poor-quality Motorola DVR-boxes
I have it on semi-good authority that cable-TV giant Comcast is experiencing a lot of problems with its Motorola DVR-boxes. The info I got was a bit vague on whether it is a hardware or a software failure, but it is definitely a failure that requires a Comcast technician to swap boxes on-site. Whatever shows the customer with a faulty box has recorded are lost.
Comcast is hoping that the new, soon-to-be-rolled-out DVR boxes from will fix the problem and also improve the overall experience.
March 12th, 2006 at 12:45 am
Motorola rushed their set top boxes out too quickly. There is a known defect in one of the sound drums. I’m not sure techincially how it breaks down but many customers have problems with the sound slipping out. It isn’t just Comcast customers who are experiencing this though it’s anyone with a Motorola box. Sounds like a hardware issue. It should be interesting to see if the TiVo upgrade will be able to make the boxes more stable.
March 12th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
Thanks for your comment, Davis. I didn’t know that the problem extends to non-Comcast Motorola customers as well (although it makes sense that it does). What I took away from the conversation was that the problems I heard about are related to something other than the sound drums, something that prevented switching channels, accessing saved programs as well as On Demand. It basically disabled the affected bozes, which could sometimes be temporarily restored through a reboot - but only temporarily.
I can’t say how widespread the problem is, other than that it is “common” and happens “a lot.”
March 29th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
I’ve gone through 5 Motorola DVR boxes losing everything on the box each time. I’ve had the boxes completely go down, I’ve had the DVR function dissapear out of the menu while everything else still works, and I’ve had everything in my saved programs listing just dissapear. The box I have now is just freezing twice a day at around 4:20 AM and PM. If it’s in the middle of recording anything it stops, and if I’m not around to unplug and re-set the box, everything that’s schedule to record gets skipped.
Comcast “fixes” the problem by just giving me a new box and saying “these things happen”. Their customer service SUCKS and their call-center people know nothing about the equipment they support.
Do you have any suggestions on how I can get Comcast to give me a DVR that won’t sh*t the bed after a few months?? Thanks very much for your expertise and feedback.
October 3rd, 2006 at 7:51 pm
I got the Motorola DVR through Comcast when first available in November 2004. This was the single-tuner DVR box. The dual-tuner box came out about a month later and we immediately swapped for it. However, since January of 2006, we have had our DVR box replaced 7 times. We just got our most recent box about 2 1/2 weeks ago and I KID YOU NOT, the Hard drive has gone bad already. Motorola is using Seagate hard drives on these boxes and for whatever reason, my personal experience is that seagate drives reak, worse than Hitachi/IBM. Anyways, here we are again with yet another service call in for a box replacement. Makes me wonder how Comcast can continue to be profitable when they continue to provide inferior equipment.
February 11th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Oh no, i just read this thread. We just swapped out our tivo and got a comcast motorola DVR which promptly didn’t work… now i am stitting here waiting for a repair man to come replace it. I am in California, and there is a public utilities comission that has a lot of clout about things like this. Does anyone know who to write to?