Since Cox lost the ESPN feed in HD this afternoon in access of 2 hours does Cox plan on replaying missed programming like the NHRA Drag racing? I was able to tune ESPN2 on a straight not hd channel on an older TV but not on either DVR in HD. Sp hats the plan for missing this program? Both channels 32 and 33 were offline.
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ESPN Outage In Phoenix
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RE: ESPN Outage In Phoenix
Jeririch,
I can understand how frustrating that was for you. Unfortunately we will not be rebroadcasting this programming.
I can understand how frustrating that was for you. Unfortunately we will not be rebroadcasting this programming.
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RE: Closed captioning won't turn off
I finally called tech support and was able to do the automated reset of the cable box that way - although it took more than half an hour for it to complete. The captions are gone.
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RE: Pausing the picture
Thank you for resolving this issue for me!
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RE: Digital Mini Box
Keep in mind that the mini-box will only receive channels that part of the starter and expanded service tiers if you're subscribed even if you have other traditional digital services on other TV sets. Visit http://www.cox.com/channels for more information on what channels are available in your area and the package requirements.
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RE: Digital Mini Box
I had a similar problem when I installed my Minibox. Some channels came it perfectly, others all I got was a no signal message and a black screen. These were channels that are part of the expanded services and definitely should have displayed. To make a long story short, I found a bad ground on one connector, replaced the connector and all is well. Not saying that is your issue but check all your wires and connectors.
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RE: Digital Mini Box
Not happy with this new setup! I have 11 TV's in my house 2 cable box's. now I need 9 new TV's that except cable cards or get mini boxes.
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Digital Mini Box
Started using the Cox digital mini box and found that some channels that I should be receiving as part of my TV package are not available or in other words, not being displayed. Remedy?
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RE: Digital Mini Box
c2ctransnow I need 9 new TV's that except cable cards
Do they still make TVs that have cablecards slots? You could go 3rd party too like a Tivo or Moxi. Digital is the way of the future. The less efficient analog signal just takes up too much room/bandwidth. More channels, faster internet tiers = bye bye analog.
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RE: 1080p
I believe a select number of OnDemand is 1080p, but in general, the highest resolution being broadcast at this time is 1080i. As for which channels give a 720P feed, and which ones give 1080i to Cox is a bit more complicated.
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1080p
Is cox playing shows in 1080p or do networks stream in 720p and 1080i?
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RE: DVR failure to record
These boxes are obsolete and thus, fraught with problems. Regardless what Cox say's about them still being within service life I'm on my sixth SA 8240HDC DVR in about a year with the same hard drive failure problems. I am not uninformed or trying to be a jerk at all, but they have many known issues which is again with hard drive failure and hard drive problems that give you recording errors. I have had ones freshly picked up from the store or installed by techs that failed immediately and others that took a week or two before the DVR feature was a no longer working - Retry Disk error. One, I could save it by re-booting it, which you should rarely have to do, but that one eventually failed as well to where it would never function for me as a DVR again, in any way, shape or form.
Again, not trying to be a jerk but I've been in the industry for 20 years now and know for a fact that TWC stop deploying these boxes for the exact same reason about close to a year ago now. You are taking about CPE here that is near ten years old (at least) and has been refurbished multiple times with multiple software and firmware issues that to this day are not resolved.
I was told by tech support that last night was going to be the firmware/software update that would fix the hard drive error and then to give it a couple of days and then call back to get credit for the DVR service not working over the past year. In other words what I got in the parlance of the industry was "The Special", that is basically not being told the exact or near truth, just a pass along to make me someone else's problem next time I call in. I don't know if this because billing agents don't want to get hit with having to give a sub credit and so that is what the wait the whole couple of days thing is about, but I do know that the issues that I have been having have been with bad hard drives. Either they are failed or have bad sectors and no amount of firmware/software is going to fix something that is mechanical in nature, in my experience. And,. waiting a couple of days makes no sense, it either takes the update or it fails, there is no waiting for it to magically cure itself a few days later.
So here's the catch, if you want to get an actual working DVR such as the Cisco box the answer will be nope! Sorry we can't do that, you need to upgrade to contour! So every trip back to the cable store, it's the same old song and dance routine, here's another SA 8240HDC DVR, aka the Silver Brick, see ya soon! 
I am going to go into the cable store tomorrow and at least swap it out for another bad one because that has been par for the course, AND this time, I am getting my credit. Then it is to begrudgingly shopping for TIVO which is a bad deal price-wise but from everything I have read and seen in person, it is far superior in performance. Pretty sad situation for someone directly involved it the field end of the business to have to do, but there you have it. Needless to say, I am very, very disappointed. The first one that I had, an 8300HD worked flawlessly for 12 years, yep same one for twelve years until it broke about 14 months ago when the box totally bricked on a firmware update, in other words, the box lost all functionality and picture. That is typical end of service life stuff, or beyond end of service life but still functional. I am pretty bummed about this and frustrated as well 
Update: I just did a hard reset by unplugging and plugging it back again. Same error on load that I was getting using the soft reboot, that is using the Retry List >> Reboot. The screen now reads in this order as it begins the boot cycle n/u >>> boot >>> FAIL then it goes to the slash dots on the display until it reboots completely, which can take up to a half an hour most of the time.
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RE: DVR failure to record
sdtechSo here's the catch, if you want to get an actual working DVR such as the Cisco box the answer will be nope! Sorry we can't do that, you need to upgrade to contour! So every trip back to the cable store, it's the same old song and dance routine, here's another SA 8240HDC DVR, aka the Silver Brick, see ya soon!
So? Many of the problems were/are caused by the newest version of Passport. Switch to the 8642HDC with the Contour IPG (like I did over 2 years ago) and start to record programs again.
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RE: DVR failure to record
So your solution is to pay Cox more money?
The DVRs have worked fine for me for several years. The only thing that has changed is this recent firmware "update". If I drive to a Cox "Store" and end up being provided the same faulty hardware, I will no longer be a Cox customer.
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RE: Contour Digital Output Options - Which is Best?
I apologize for the delayed response. I got with one of our Video Engineers about your situation.
It is true that LPCM is superior to PCM. It is also likely that both PCM and LPCM will be superior to AC-3 because of the trade-offs made by Cable companies and Programmers (the source of the TV content). The trade-off is due to the fact that AC-3 is a compression technology that is lossy. This means that you can trade-off quality for bitrate. As you decrease the audio’s bitrate to save on B/W, then the quality of the audio is reduced. So it turns out that the AC-3 audio is what determines the quality of the audio that you hear. The trade-offs have usually been made by the Programmer when sending a TV channel (service) to Cox via satellite or by some other path (like over-the-air). The Programmer has already made bit rate vs quality decisions when encoding the audio via AC-3. At this point you cannot improve the audio’s quality by any amount of AC-3 decoding and by any amount of “processing”.
So the quality that you hear is locked in by the AC-3 encode/decode process. In your home it does not matter if you decode the AC-3 audio in the STB or in the Receiver. You will experience the same level of audio quality. And it will not matter if you use the HDMI I/F vs the Optical Audio Out I/F. These two paths both offer a superior method of transmitting the audio from the STB to the Receiver vs the AC-3. When AC-3 is used, you cannot improve the audio quality once it is decoded; so it does not matter whether the decoded audio is transmitted via PCM or LPCM the rest of the way.
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RE: Contour Digital Output Options - Which is Best?
StephanieASo the quality that you hear is locked in by the AC-3 encode/decode process. In your home it does not matter if you decode the AC-3 audio in the STB or in the Receiver. You will experience the same level of audio quality. And it will not matter if you use the HDMI I/F vs the Optical Audio Out I/F. These two paths both offer a superior method of transmitting the audio from the STB to the Receiver vs the AC-3. When AC-3 is used, you cannot improve the audio quality once it is decoded; so it does not matter whether the decoded audio is transmitted via PCM or LPCM the rest of the way.
I'm not sure I understand your point, Stephanie. Of course, no processing will substantially improve the quality over the original source. But ... the setting does matter if you are using Optical Audio Out. If you select the PCM option over S/PDIF the DVR (at least my 8742HDC) only outputs 2.0. The DD (AC-3) option outputs 5.1 or 6.1. The setting doesn't seam to matter when using HDMI for audio, both settings output 5.1 or 6.1.
Therefor, the sound quality may be limited by the source encoding, but the Contour settings do matter if you are using the Optical interface. It does matter how the decoded audio is transmitted if the decoding/transmission process down-converts from multichannel to two channel stereo.
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RE: Contour Digital Output Options - Which is Best?
As has been noted, when using HDMI to connect the Contour box to a receiver and then on to the TV, these settings make no difference. But as Stepanie has noted, the original audio quality that Cox gets does make a difference. I have noted these differences. I get Dolby Digital signals from the Contour, but the DD seems to be much higher quality when I view HBO programs. In fact, I have listened to HBO movies and specials in which the DD (5.1) signal sounds much better than the THX processing I use on the Onkyo for most BlueRay movies coming directly from my Sony BR player. Most regular TV audio is barely stereo (which is why I leave the receiver off most of the time when watching TV). Most people probably don't care about audio quality, but a few of us do. (HBO Go also seems to deliver better audio.)
David
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RE: Contour Digital Output Options - Which is Best?
AllenPStephanieASo the quality that you hear is locked in by the AC-3 encode/decode process. In your home it does not matter if you decode the AC-3 audio in the STB or in the Receiver. You will experience the same level of audio quality. And it will not matter if you use the HDMI I/F vs the Optical Audio Out I/F. These two paths both offer a superior method of transmitting the audio from the STB to the Receiver vs the AC-3. When AC-3 is used, you cannot improve the audio quality once it is decoded; so it does not matter whether the decoded audio is transmitted via PCM or LPCM the rest of the way.
I'm not sure I understand your point, Stephanie. Of course, no processing will substantially improve the quality over the original source. But ... the setting does matter if you are using Optical Audio Out. If you select the PCM option over S/PDIF the DVR (at least my 8742HDC) only outputs 2.0. The DD (AC-3) option outputs 5.1 or 6.1. The setting doesn't seam to matter when using HDMI for audio, both settings output 5.1 or 6.1.
Therefor, the sound quality may be limited by the source encoding, but the Contour settings do matter if you are using the Optical interface. It does matter how the decoded audio is transmitted if the decoding/transmission process down-converts from multichannel to two channel stereo.
There might have been a mis-understanding with my post. I was focusing more on how the audio is delivered and not the specific settings for different connections.
The settings will make a difference because PCM over the S/PDIF, whether it be connected via coax or TOSLINK, is limited to 2 channels when carrying uncompressed audio. HDMI does not have this limitation.
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Contour Digital Output Options - Which is Best?
The Contour settings menus let you set digital output format. The options available are (this is what the manual says):
Pulse Code Modulated (PCM): This is the default format of digital output
Dolby Digital (Labeled AC-3 in the actual menu on my box): If you have a unit that can receive and decode Dolby Digital output, use this option.
For my setup, the Coutour HMDI output goes first to a Onkyo Receiver, and then on to my Sony TV via HDMI. I have HDMI pass-through on the receiver turned on, so that the video and audio signal goes to the TV whether or not the receiver is on.
I have the Contour now set to output AC-3 audio, and the receiver handles it fine. (It also handles the PCM input fine.)
My question: is the PCM option "Linear PCM"? LPCM is an uncompressed signal which theoretically provides improved quality. I know some TVs can only handle the two-channel standard PCM, but that is not the case for my receiver or TV.
Why does the manual recommend the AC-3 option? I have been told that the LPCM provides the best audio signal. (I honestly can't hear any difference between the two formats from the Contour. I care more about "quality" when playing BlueRay disks.)
David
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RE: Contour Digital Output Options - Which is Best?
Sorry for the misunderstanding, Stephanie. I interpreted the quoted paragraph as saying you would get the same quality audio regardless on interface and/or settings. For sure, PCM over S/PDIF only yields 2 channels.
David, I agree much of standard TV is broadcast in DD 5.1 but the content is stereo at best. The networks do have some shows that make use of surround sound like CSI, Grimm, etc. I go through my AVR for everything, easier for my wife ... she presses one button the the remote, "Watch TV", and it turns on all devices and configures the proper inputs 
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