X1 Technical Issues

How do I get a list of the channels and programs I have paid for? I do searches and all the programs that come up want me to pay extra. All the movies want me to rent or buy. When I try to go through channels it seems to do the same thing.  Help!

My subscription includes HD channels,  but when I attempt to go to any of these channels I receive a message offering to upgrade my service or watch in SD.  I have viewed HD in the past and have double checked my account online and HD channels are still listed as part of my subscription.  I have tried rebooting my receiver mutltiple times which has not helped.  Why am I not able to watch these channels now?  I also see that Cinemax was added to my subscription which I am also unable to view.  I never requested or authorized this upgrade.  I don't use my comcast email, so until now, I never saw an email that went out on March 31 confirming this upgrade to my subscription which I never requested or authorized. What's going on???  I have tried reaching out to xfinity throught the live chat that was offered to me while logged into my account, but after 30 minutes of waiting for it to connect and someone to respond, I figured I'd reach out here on this forum.

I only have one cable box.  The problem has been occuring for about 2 months now.  Something similar happens on the ABC channel, where the top 4 lines of resolution on the TV (a 1080 set) are blank.

adding...

on the xfinity >> gear(settings) >> "device settings" >> "Video Display" check to be sure zoom :none is set.

on the TV find your settings menu, On that menu look for something like screen mode (should show wide or normal depending if you are on HD or SD program. In my opinion, set it to 'normal' so the TV is not zooming/stretching the video.

You didn't say what kind of program you were watching, was it a movie perhaps that is in a wider format natively than  16:9 (if so would be letterboxed on 16:9 with blank area called a curtain above and below?

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@MareliM wrote:

How do I get a list of the channels and programs I have paid for? I do searches and all the programs that come up want me to pay extra. All the movies want me to rent or buy. When I try to go through channels it seems to do the same thing.  Help!

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Apologies for the issue and the experience that you described above.

The channel lineup for your area is attached, also check out https://customer.xfinity.com/local-channel-lineup

Your current level of service is listed as Digital Preferred. 

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@bmorris0519 wrote:

My subscription includes HD channels,  but when I attempt to go to any of these channels I receive a message offering to upgrade my service or watch in SD.  I have viewed HD in the past and have double checked my account online and HD channels are still listed as part of my subscription.  I have tried rebooting my receiver mutltiple times which has not helped.  Why am I not able to watch these channels now?  I also see that Cinemax was added to my subscription which I am also unable to view.  I never requested or authorized this upgrade.  I don't use my comcast email, so until now, I never saw an email that went out on March 31 confirming this upgrade to my subscription which I never requested or authorized. What's going on???  I have tried reaching out to xfinity throught the live chat that was offered to me while logged into my account, but after 30 minutes of waiting for it to connect and someone to respond, I figured I'd reach out here on this forum.

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Apologies for the issue and the experience that you described above. I have asked a colleague to review your account and reach out to you so that we can get any underlying issues identified and resolved.

Thanks for your patience.

Rustyben,

Changing the picture setting in the TV menu fixed the issues - specifically from "screen fit" to "16:9".  Every review I read about my TV recommends "screen fit" so that there is 1:1 pixel mapping and no zooming/stretching/overscan.  In fact, the "screen fit" setting is necessary on my calibration disk to achieve no overscan.

I wonder why I only have a problem on ABC - a 720p station, and NBC, a 1080i station, while all other 720p and 1080i stations do not exhibit the issue?  The issue appears no matter what is being watched on either channel.

Also, is there any way to get the box to output "native", so that the TV does the scaling?  My old Motorola DCX3400 had such a setting.  The current X1 box only allows for 16:9 1080p, 1080i or 720p.  I have it set to 1080i since this is the most common station resolution.

Thanks for your help.  So you use 1080p.  I have also noticed more pixelization at random times with the X1 box than the Motorola - and random audio dropouts - which I know is another issue entirely.  I'm going to try 1080p instead of 1080i and see if it helps any.

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@wboffthelake wrote:

Thanks for your help.  So you use 1080p.  I have also noticed more pixelization at random times with the X1 box than the Motorola - and random audio dropouts - which I know is another issue entirely.  I'm going to try 1080p instead of 1080i and see if it helps any.

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the picture detail is same for i/p but since original is in i (interlace) for most TV technology it is better to let the TV do the 'de-interlacing' as they spend a lot of money on the tech to do it best since the TV processes inbound signal and changes it to its own format of 'p' anyway.

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@RickGr4 wrote:

Rusty,

Sorry man but this post is nonsense. Please speak English and clarify.

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@Rustyben wrote:

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@wboffthelake wrote:

Thanks for your help.  So you use 1080p.  I have also noticed more pixelization at random times with the X1 box than the Motorola - and random audio dropouts - which I know is another issue entirely.  I'm going to try 1080p instead of 1080i and see if it helps any.

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the picture detail is same for i/p but since original is in i (interlace) for most TV technology it is better to let the TV do the 'de-interlacing' as they spend a lot of money on the tech to do it best since the TV processes inbound signal and changes it to its own format of 'p' anyway.

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de-interlacing (making a single picture out of two alternating line field images) requires a lot of technical processing and elimination of 'ghost/side-band' interferences (uses expensive comb filters and electronic processing). The better de-interlacing hardware is probably in the TV as opposed to generic cable set top box. I'm sorry if it was not understood by you.

bmorris0519 -- You're unable to access HD channels because you're not subscribed to service. HD service does cost $10 per month however you're account has an available discount for it to be $0 x 12 months. Would you like that added? I can also have Cinemax removed from your account if you don't want it. 

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@CCAndrew wrote:

If you go to Comcast Labs and turn on New Video Playback Controls, you could've hit Fast Forward 5 times. You'll see a lightning bolt symbol, it's a much faster way to get to a spot in a long recording.

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The lightning forward is a great feature, thanks Andrew.

Now please try to have the designers add a couple buttons for different skip forward options, programmable/selectable would be great (play/pause is redundant), make the control area smaller (it still grays out about a third of the screen, 10, 15, even 20% would be better, make it a selectable option like font size if someone wants it larger), get the humungous pause/play icon out of the center of the screen (the most important viewing area, I already know what button I pressed, I pressed pause, and now I can't see what I paused to see, a little feedback in a corner somewhere would be ok UI, but again, make the giant icon in the middle of the screen optional, for people with bad eyes and apparently bad button pressing accuracy), and most importantly, add frame by frame funcitonality.

And then we'll all have a great modern user interface! (well, other than the whole talking to the server to make anything happen implementation thing)

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@tctc wrote:

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@CCAndrew wrote:

If you go to Comcast Labs and turn on New Video Playback Controls, you could've hit Fast Forward 5 times. You'll see a lightning bolt symbol, it's a much faster way to get to a spot in a long recording.

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The lightning forward is a great feature, thanks Andrew.

 

Now please try to have the designers add a couple buttons for different skip forward options, programmable/selectable would be great (play/pause is redundant), make the control area smaller (it still grays out about a third of the screen, 10, 15, even 20% would be better, make it a selectable option like font size if someone wants it larger), get the humungous pause/play icon out of the center of the screen (the most important viewing area, I already know what button I pressed, I pressed pause, and now I can't see what I paused to see, a little feedback in a corner somewhere would be ok UI, but again, make the giant icon in the middle of the screen optional, for people with bad eyes and apparently bad button pressing accuracy), and most importantly, add frame by frame funcitonality.

And then we'll all have a great modern user interface! (well, other than the whole talking to the server to make anything happen implementation thing)

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Actually I have to revise this, I can't use the new controls, yet.

When I watch sports I do a lot of navigating, so a lot of button presses, and I just can't handle the bottom third, and now also the top third, and a large circle in the middle, so about 70% of the screen being grayed out every time I press a button.  (yes, I know I can make most of it go away with addional button presses)

Looking forward to the day when I can navigate around in recorded content accurately and while being able to view the whole screen.

(Yes, I know I probably sound like a broken record.  And for those of you too young to know what a record is, it's something we used many years ago to listen to music, back in the era when we had frame by frame capability on our VCRs.)

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@tctc wrote:

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@tctc wrote:

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@CCAndrew wrote:

If you go to Comcast Labs and turn on New Video Playback Controls, you could've hit Fast Forward 5 times. You'll see a lightning bolt symbol, it's a much faster way to get to a spot in a long recording.

---

The lightning forward is a great feature, thanks Andrew.

 

Now please try to have the designers add a couple buttons for different skip forward options, programmable/selectable would be great (play/pause is redundant), make the control area smaller (it still grays out about a third of the screen, 10, 15, even 20% would be better, make it a selectable option like font size if someone wants it larger), get the humungous pause/play icon out of the center of the screen (the most important viewing area, I already know what button I pressed, I pressed pause, and now I can't see what I paused to see, a little feedback in a corner somewhere would be ok UI, but again, make the giant icon in the middle of the screen optional, for people with bad eyes and apparently bad button pressing accuracy), and most importantly, add frame by frame funcitonality.

And then we'll all have a great modern user interface! (well, other than the whole talking to the server to make anything happen implementation thing)

---

Actually I have to revise this, I can't use the new controls, yet.

 

When I watch sports I do a lot of navigating, so a lot of button presses, and I just can't handle the bottom third, and now also the top third, and a large circle in the middle, so about 70% of the screen being grayed out every time I press a button.  (yes, I know I can make most of it go away with addional button presses)

 

Looking forward to the day when I can navigate around in recorded content accurately and while being able to view the whole screen.

(Yes, I know I probably sound like a broken record.  And for those of you too young to know what a record is, it's something we used many years ago to listen to music, back in the era when we had frame by frame capability on our VCRs.)

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I use my iPad or iPhone now to do frame by frame by playing the part i want to see while recording video. then play+pause the vidwo on iDevice and then use the frames scrub bar to go forward/back by just sliding. wish we could do that on the cloud DVR playback.

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@Rustyben wrote:

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@tctc wrote:

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@tctc wrote:

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@CCAndrew wrote:

If you go to Comcast Labs and turn on New Video Playback Controls, you could've hit Fast Forward 5 times. You'll see a lightning bolt symbol, it's a much faster way to get to a spot in a long recording.

---

The lightning forward is a great feature, thanks Andrew.

 

Now please try to have the designers add a couple buttons for different skip forward options, programmable/selectable would be great (play/pause is redundant), make the control area smaller (it still grays out about a third of the screen, 10, 15, even 20% would be better, make it a selectable option like font size if someone wants it larger), get the humungous pause/play icon out of the center of the screen (the most important viewing area, I already know what button I pressed, I pressed pause, and now I can't see what I paused to see, a little feedback in a corner somewhere would be ok UI, but again, make the giant icon in the middle of the screen optional, for people with bad eyes and apparently bad button pressing accuracy), and most importantly, add frame by frame funcitonality.

And then we'll all have a great modern user interface! (well, other than the whole talking to the server to make anything happen implementation thing)

---

Actually I have to revise this, I can't use the new controls, yet.

 

When I watch sports I do a lot of navigating, so a lot of button presses, and I just can't handle the bottom third, and now also the top third, and a large circle in the middle, so about 70% of the screen being grayed out every time I press a button.  (yes, I know I can make most of it go away with addional button presses)

 

Looking forward to the day when I can navigate around in recorded content accurately and while being able to view the whole screen.

(Yes, I know I probably sound like a broken record.  And for those of you too young to know what a record is, it's something we used many years ago to listen to music, back in the era when we had frame by frame capability on our VCRs.)

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I use my iPad or iPhone now to do frame by frame by playing the part i want to see while recording video. then play+pause the vidwo on iDevice and then use the frames scrub bar to go forward/back by just sliding. wish we could do that on the cloud DVR playback.

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Why is that we should have to use 'other' devices to do what Comcast  X1 used to do and should do again like with frame by frame?