About stahlgrau

Another awesome post!  Only 7 more days until my DirecTV Genie install, I can't wait.  I hope I don't have Dish TV envy now!  I mainly went with DirecTV because I had them in the past and I knew all their equipment and how well it works.  The Genie will be new to me but their whole-home DVR worked before and Genie reviews seem good.  Their apps work pretty well too.  I got a good deal on the Genie-to-go thing so we'll see how that compares to Dish with Sling.   Oh and to all of the people worried about getting a dish because they think the signal goes out -- unless you get a lot of snow in the winter I wouldn't worry.  My dish went through cat 1 hurricane winds in Virginia and had a signal the whole time.  I had to have someone come out and re-aim it every few years but no biggie.  Trees in the way are of course another issue, it definitely needs line-of-site to the satelites.   @blautens wrote: I'm not sure what the best way to deal with Comcast is when it comes to...well, anything. They hang up on you after you've held for an hour plus when you're paying customer, so imagine how they will behave when you're trying to tell them to go pound sand.   FWIW, Dish TV has next day appointments. Yup, I ordered it at 11 PM and they still offered to come the next day. But I waited until today to have it installed.   Oh. My. God. What have I been doing all my life? Dish is AWESOME. First of all, everything works. Well. Fast. And there are a lot of things to work, far too many to mention - just a couple:   1) Remote setup for your Vizio sound bar got you down? Try the Dish TV method - Menu, Settings, Remote Manager, Aux Code, Audio Accessory, Lookup code, select Vizio, scroll down to your model, select and you're done. Yup, and online database, constantly updated. Almost like we live in the year 2013, huh? Want to lock the volume control to only use the sound bar? Go back a screen or two and choose Volume and then choose TV or Aux. Want to know how Comcast does all this with the new XR2 remote? Yeah, me too, because you can't. They won't give up the EFC codes like the old Comcast remote so at least you could painstakingly program it. At best, if supported, Comcast offered this excellent method - press, hold, blinkie blinkie, enter numbers, pray, push buttons, worked? No? Try again, Thanks, Comcast. Very helpful. And the remote itself? Full featured, RF and infrared. Not a $149 Harmony, but not the sub $2 remote Comcast has built for them.   2) I'm watching NFL network live on my Galaxy Note 2 while my son watches Disney on the main DVR (I got 2 - one Hopper with Sling and one plain Hopper - and 2 Joeys.). It took about 1 minute for me to setup - went to the Android app store, download Dish TV app, and logged in with my Dish account. From there I could pick either DVR, and basically after that, it's like you're carrying a TV. You've got the full guide, you can play recorded programs, On Demand, or watch live TV - any TV you pay for, no dumb restrictions based on device and bizarre DMCA rules - anything you can do at your TV, you can pretty much do from your phone or tablet. And it WORKS. Inside the house - outside the house - public internet, LTE, all good. Fast, flawlessly. (I'm looking at you, worthless Xfinity crapps - oft downloaded yet rarely enjoyed).   3) Features? How about all major network prime time TV automatically recorded for 8 days? How about Picture in Picture? Yeah - PIP - the thing Comcast ripped away from me for some BS reason - it worked great and was awesome for football. They obviously sensed I was enjoying it, and had to make sure my spirit remained crushed. And it's more cruel to give and then take away, so kudos to you, Comcast, the Shawshank of TV providers. Bluetooth? Check. DLNA? Check. Yes - no more dropping out to my LG's Plex client - I can do DLNA right from the Dish units!!! Are you kidding me? This is...like Chistmas morning, all day long, every day!   I could go on and on - the intuitive interface, the snappy, reliable performance, the excellent picture, free of the oppressive compression Comcast inflicts on my beloved football, the ability to PAUSE LIVE TV from the Joey's, something Comcast feels is apparently the holy grail that must be alluded to, promised but never actually seen or touched by mere mortals. Everything from the extremely professional, Dish employed installer (not a contractor) who actually didn't leave nails and staples on the side of my house for my 2 year old or my dog to impale themselves with. In fact, he swept, he tucked cables, pushed back furniture, and generally worked hard and communicated effectively, in english, the only language I pretty much know, but is apparently optional for some Comcast contractors (do they employ technicians any more?).   He had just left (after spending time to make sure I was happy, understood the features, that they worked, and I could use them) and I felt this enormous sense of elation, this weight lifted from me, and it came to me - as a former police officer, I realized, I was clearly the victim of abuse, and like many such victims, I lived with my domestic abuser (Comcast) and just considered it my burden, my choice, the one I made, and now I had to live with it.   Why did I wait? Who conditioned me to the hopelessness and misery of life with Comcast as if it were my cross to bear?   Dish had lifted me up - made me understand that we didn't have to live with the abuser we brought into our house with good intentions - we deserve better - and we CAN break the cycle of this abuse. The epiphany unfolding before me became even more clear - I must follow Comcast vehicles and when they stop, I must warn people not to fell prey to them - but that Dish offers a better way. Dish doesn't care what sins were committed with Comcast - they offer forgiveness, and joy, and a better way.   Yes, it is clear - once you escape the satanic grip Comcast exerts, you owe it to your brothers and sisters to be a Disciple of Dish. In fact,  I must take a step beyond disciple - I must become "Dish Jesus", and offer life after Comcast to the broken souls crushed by the unholiness known as Xfinity.   Life is good. Now my last challenge is to return to my abuser's house as a new man -  take all my X1 junk down to the Boca Comcast office and try really hard not to throw it at the people who clearly were either lying to me or are just pathetically incompetent.         ... View more

Exactly!!!  I'm just jealous you got a satellite install date so soon.  I still have to wait two more weeks for my DirecTV install.  Hmm Comcast why do you think satellite installers are slammed with new installs in my area?  Get a clue...   By the way, DirecTV told me the genie mini boxes (equivalent to X1 terminals) could pause live TV.  Somehow I believe them when they tell me things unline Comcast.  At least I knew not to trust anything the Comcast reps said so I had no illusions that their X1 terminals could pause live TV.  I feel bad for everyone dealing with this garbage.  Please please someone start a class-action lawsuit!   Up next is a fun call to Comcast to tell them I am cancelling my tv service after just two months.  I am sure I am in some sort of contract and they will try to charge me an early termination fee even though I am (ugh) keeping their internet service, which I will flat out refuse to pay.  Any advice on how to deal with them?   @blautens wrote: Wow - mirror image. Emails, calls, people call me from Retention, the local office, everyone contradicts the previous person at least a little.   I asked, asked, asked, the same question over and over - will the satellite boxes pause live TV? It's about a 60/40 split (60 on the no side).    But I was guaranteed it did. Today I lost two DVRs that worked fine, and I got a new X1 DVR and something more like a cable box, at best a DVP - since it does NOT RECORD. Also, a lot of stuff just blows with X1, but I would even be willing to live with that. I tried so hard to be a customer and fork over $225 a month. Never gave the money a second thought - even when it mysteriously creeped up every few months.  It was NEVER ABOUT THE MONEY! I don't care about the money! I want what you SAID YOU WOULD DO. You solicited me! And when you drop the ball, everyone offered to lower my bill - no one offered to actually do what they promised and failed to deliver. Not one.    I work for a multibillion dollar software company, and I'd be upset that sometimes the support guys wouldn't hit the mark, so to speak. But the worst newbie in our food chain is an astronaut compared to every person I've ever spoken to at Comcast. Well, to be fair, I found two smart people, and they both left for other companies.   Seriously, you have testing/QA, right? Would you like to know how to do that? If you don't, even scripting and offshoring our test  - no product ends up this crappy.   Another 4 hours on the phone as I type (hung up on, transferred to a "non working extension", dumped back in the queue after telling my story the 15th time this month).    Here's a lesson, Comcast - set customer expectations correctly. One person tonight finally said "well, you might get disconnected - that happens". I told him he he was my favorite rep of the night (so far). He told me I might get dumped. And I didn't! And I was happy! (Wow - how badly have I been flogged by Comcast to actually be happy with that?)   Done. I'm done. The boxes get tossed at the front door of the local office and we're Dish customers as of next week. But that's not going to make me happy. Nor will the fact that starting tomorrow , I will make it my personal hobby to dent Comcast's income, if I have to make sure my HOA signs with someone else, if I have to post my experience so our incoming employees where I work will not bother with you, if I have to stand in front of the grocery store and hand out free Girl Scout cookies to anyone who will help me in my mission.   And as someone who was working on peering and transit when Comcast was still just forcing rear entry on TV junkies, your network security is a joke. But no hacker needs to bring it down - you guys do it all on your own. (Just kidding, NSA automated bot reading this...)   No, I will be happy when...well, someone figures out that the only thing worse than letting a company monopolize an industry by being both a content provider as well as a delivery system - is letting a company like Comcast do it. At least ATT was a competent monopoly.   I'm done. Hang up on me quicker next time - you'll get shorter posts.           ... View more

@paul1845ga wrote: Some updates on this situation that may be helpful for others. Problem is not resolved, but have better information. Whatever update was pushed caused all boxes in my system to fail to boot. Boxes display an error of RDK 03003 or 03004, along with a message to call 1-800-COMCAST for help. DO NOT bother to call that number, as the standard support techs seem to have limited ability with X1. I learned that the hard way. If you have an X1 problem, ONLY call the special X1 support line 1-877-896-8678. These folks are the X1 specialists and even better, there is none of the 20 questions automated routing system to go thru. Be sure to write down that number or bookmark this message! The tech was able to confirm that signal levels were proper on all boxes. She said RDK errors are indicative of firmware problems, and if a simple reboot doesn't solve, what happens is the ticket gets assigned to a specific person in 'Level 2', which is the group who can decode the error codes and then push whatever needed firmware to the boxes. There appears to be no mechanism to change the priority of cases assigned in level 2. The bad news is the stated response window for level 2 is up to 48 hours, though she said it rarely takes that long. There is no option for X1 to swap boxes at the local Comcast storefront, as with regular hardware. Trying to dispatch a tech appears to be no help, as the next service appointment is 3 days out in our area. These are not the answers or service levels we all want, but they are reality for now. I am going to give this a try before reverting back to the previous technology, as X1 really did what I wanted just fine for the 2 weeks since it was installed, and the old technology did not. Good info!  Hope everything works out.  I live in an older neighborehood with many neighbors who all have comcast.  Amazingly I had a problem-free night last night streaming recorded shows from my DVR to one of my terminals but it's too little too late.  I may check it out again two years from now when my DirecTV contract runs out. ... View more

@paul1845ga wrote: How do we get better info and help? Left this morning and my X1 DVR and 4 terminals were working. Came home this evening and all were dead in the water. After waiting an hour on the phone, the csr was totally unable to help, and could only enter a ticket to escalate. So by someone pushing out a defective update, they crashed my entire house. Given the time on hold, the same bozo decision must have pushed it to lots of other folks. There appears to be no way that the csr or supervisor can send the boxes the former firmware that worked. Is anyone at Comcast listening? Directv is starting to look good. Join me!  After a nearly a month (hard to believe I put up with this garbage that long) I am finally excited to move back to a whole-house DVR system that doesn't crash (not to say it's perfect but at least they have a beta team that tests their software before pushing to paying customers).    FYI I had issues at night on nights when no software updates were pushed so that may or may not have been your issue.  I am convinced when you don't have a VERY clean and strong signal to the upstream RF router you're going to have issues with this equipment because of poor design choices and unrealistic assumptions.  ... View more

Equipment all lost signal, again, last night (makes two nights in a row).  No joy on reboot at all, but of course they were working when I woke up.  I gave up and called DirecTV today, getting a Genie and two mini-genie's in two weeks.  Good luck to everyone else, I really wanted to like the X1 but it is no where near ready to prime time.    One last rant, there is a major design flaw -- if a DirecTV signal or even the old Comcast DVRs loose their signal at least you can watch recorded shows.  They're on the local hard drive after all.  Not so much on the X1 even though the shows are still local, what were you thinking Comcast???  Don't get me started on the upcoming X2 where your shows are stored on Comcast servers and you need a connection to stream them. ... View more

@davephillips41 wrote: 1. Check behind every wall plate.. I once had issues where the connection ot the wall plate was coming apart and that caused a ton of noise on the line. 2. Buy some cheap coaxial cables at the local dollar store and see if that fixes the problem. When you do it change 1 at a time and see if the noise decreases.   Thanks for the post!  What's the best way to measure how much noise you have?  For me it either works or it doesn't.  I can check the numbers in the diagnostics menu but right now I have only been looking at the DOCSIS downstream and upstream power numbers.  If there were less noise on the line would I see lower (better) upstream numbers? ... View more

@A2X1User wrote: One thing I discovered early on, is that all TVs can  affected by 1 bad connection.  The Tech said something about noise on the line.  In my case, I had 1 coax cable replaced between the wall and and satellite box in my daughter's room.  It affected the whole house.  It had a cheap coax connector that I had around for years.  Who knew? Interesting.  Did you have issues all the time or just at certain times of the day?  Is there any way to tell how much noise is on the line?  How did they trace the problem down to that one connector? ... View more

More glitches tonight, of course.  I can't believe I actually thought everything would be fine.  My DVR stopped responding, held down the power button to reboot, came back for maybe 3 minutes before the video froze again.  I held down the power button again to reboot, came back to an 03033 error.  After about 2 minutes it sudenly came back again.  Anyone else having issues tonight?  Just happened ~10 minutes ago.  I checked my terminal and no surprise it was totally frozen.   I checked my DVR signal levels and they seem good, down is +1.8 and up is 46.  Anyone think my problems are still related to signal level?  I can call and get the tech out again (yay). ... View more

I went on online chat Saturday morning telling them I wanted to make sure the tech was going to bring an EVO no-gain amp with him, and to request a credit for outages for the past week including Friday night.  They said yes the tech would bring the amp and offered $5.   I said my service was out for 25% of my billing period they need to offer at least 25% off my bill, to which they said they will have to research, so we'll see what happens.   The tech came out and had never heard of the EVO amp.  He had some other splitters which got my numbers up a bit more but upstream on my terminals is still around 51 (ugh).  He looked up the no-loss amp and said they are very new and they have to make a special request to the warehouse.  So far our terminals are doing ok but we'll see this week.  If there are more issues I get to make yet another call for support and ask for the amp.  If that doesn't solve it I told the tech I'm dumping X1 and going back to DirecTV... ... View more

I'll make sure to ask for an evo no loss amp, thanks for the suggestion.  I'm going to try online chat and let them know to tell the tech to bring one.   In Seattle and had the same outage last night.  Big time.  DVR took a dump around 730PM and the bedroom terminal was toast an hour or so later when we tried it.  Multiple reboots, all we had on the terminal was green and yellow on and red blinking.  I really hate paying tons of money to be a BETA tester for Comcast...   It also makes it really hard to troubleshoot my low signal problems when they have outages.  I never know if it is my low signal causing issues or the X1 cloud.  Here is my working theory (let me know if I am crazy):  my boxes seem fine during the day but at night they freeze and on reboot only come back to a blinking red light or error message.  Sometimes they come back around 9PM-930PM but not very often.  When I wake up the next morning they seem fine again.  I was thinking 8PM is prime time where everyone in the neighborehood is watching TV clogging up the small upstream bandwidth.  Since I have a weak upstream signal the X1 box must need a certain amount of bandwidth just to function, and with my weak signal it can't compete with my neighbors.  Any truth to any of that?   Thanks!! ... View more

@Andrew.lindsay wrote: If you can just use what you need. Using just a 4 way splitter would get you in spec. A no loss amp works great especially for x1. You're right the whole point of amps is to boost signal but the x1 boxes are like modems and use the downstream and upstream signals that you can't amp with a normal amp. Hope that made sene The splitter definitely makes sense, I totally forgot it's passive and signal loss is even across output ports whether they are in use or not.  I think I will have to read more about the no loss amps before I understand them totally but I appreciate your response.   I switched my 8x1 out to a 4x1.  Numbers before were -9 and 54, now they are -3 and about 51.  Hopefully this helps everything out.  I'll still telll the tech tomorrow I want them to put the amp in to see if the numbers improve more (especially upstream). ... View more

@Atolicus wrote: So I tried hooking up with component.  A new problem came up.  It worked perfectly fine at the Xfinity screen just like HDMI.  Once it went to the loading screen, the TV had a picture reset, then had a jumbled picture.  The cable box was outputing a resolution the TV couldnt understand.  Since the TV has everything except 1080p I assume its that.  Once the cable box fully booted up, I plugged in the HDMI cable, and then the picture popped in on the component.  I switched to HDMI and it also worked there.  However, once I pressed the Xfinity button to get to the video settings, the picture got small again.  And pressing the Xfinity button puts the menu off the screen, so I couldnt see if there was a choice to choose resolutions.   I tried rebooting and going through the same process again to see if I could see the menu in a different way, but after the first time, plugging in the HDMI does not fix the picture.  Component hookup is just displaying an incompatible resultion.     Any other ideas? I had the exact same problem with an older, ~2003 ish, 720P panasonic plasma.  HDMI would be a 1/4 of the screen picture in the upper left corner, and component would be lots of small horizontal white lines on a black screen that were flickering.  I had to unplug HDMI just to get it to boot, then after it finished booting with component and I got the flickering lines, I could plug HDMI in and after hitting something that filled the screen like guide it would be fine.  What I noticed is if I then unplug HDMI after I get a good picture and leave it on component after that it is fine even after a reboot.  Just don't try HDMI anymore after you get it good on component.  It sucks but I'm sure it is an HDCP issue and my (and maybe your) TV just can't handshake right over HDMI.  Component seems fine over 1080i in the settings screen.  Hope that helps! ... View more

@Andrew.lindsay wrote: Stahl your downstream should be between 8 and -8 and upstream should be between 35 and 50, see if theres any splitters you can either eliminate or reconfigure to help the signal or you'll keep getting that error. Its not necessarily a signal based error its an error that the box cant communicate with the system, sometimes a bad piece of cable or bad wall plate contributes Thanks for the post!  I'll take a look this afternoon and see if I can make it any better.  IIRC there is a 2x1 splitter at the input so the cable modem has priority then an 8x1 for the rest of the coax in the house.  I could try to chain a few smaller ones instead since I'm only using three coax lines and see if that helps.   Would a no gain amp help?  The whole concept baffles me honestly because I thought the whole point of an amp was to boost the signal, i.e. add gain.   Thanks again! ... View more

Awesome just got a new error message on my terminal   Your player must be restarted due to a system error.  Please use the button below to restart.  If you see this message again after restarting, contact Customer Care at 1-800-XFINITY, or live chat with an agent at http://comcast.net with the following diagnostics code: xcl-1.   And there's a restart button.  Which of course does nothing because the system appears to have hung.  Has anyone seen that code before? ... View more

Awesome now I am stuck in a reboot loop with error RDK-03032 on the terminal.  What the heck.   I saw on the Comcast Facebook page a few comments about it being a low signal level.  I was able to check my levels before a reboot on System page 5 in diagnostics and my downstream receive power was around -7.9 IIRC and upstream power was around 54.  Are those causing my issues?  Any suggestions (maybe the zero gain amp)?  I have a tech coming this Saturday bringing a third terminal (can't wait for more issues), I'm going to have him check my levels on all outlets and ask for the amp if they are low. ... View more

Has anyone on the west coast (Seattle where I am or other) had DVR and terminal issues the last two nights?  Last night on the X1 DVR my kid was in the middle of Little Einsteins and suddenly BAM gray screen but it still had audio (and I had a sad kid).  After he went to bed I tried a few hold-the-power-button-down reboots but even though the box came back to the clock display the output never came back and it was unresponsive (no audio after the reboots either).  We gave up and went to the other room with the terminal.  It was also unresponsive even though it was showing the channel with video and audio.  After a reboot it was still unresponsive with no video or audio.  Same problem with the terminal two nights ago.  Both times it got through 4 dots on boot on both boxes.  I haven't checked either today.    What is going on COMCAST??  I love being a guinea pig as much as the next guy but did this stuff even go through testing?  Has anyone had any luck getting a refund for days without X1 service?   I really want this to work too.  I came from DirecTV with whole-home DVR that let me have multiple DVRs in different rooms that all shared their playlists with each other and just worked, no reboots, no crashes, no freezes, no sad kid. ... View more

Just curious if anyone has experienced anything like in my previous post (if I power on with HDMI connected it won't get past ---- to CAST, but if I power on with just component I get through full boot but halfway through I get scrolling small white dashes on a black screen like the signal is out of phase.  I plug HDMI back in and the signal comes back on component).    The box must have rebooted again last night because I had to do the HDMI cable dance again.  Do I just have a bad box?  I'm wondering if my old Panasonic 720P Plasma doesn't support HDCP, do I need something like a Gefen HDMI Detective (http://www.gefen.com/kvm/ext-hdmi-edidp.jsp?prod_id=8005) to fake out the X1?  Think Comcast would foot the bill? :) ... View more

Great thread!  I just got my X1 DVR and one terminal yesterday.  Install was a disaster, tech took 3.5 hours, went through two DVRs and two terminals.  Finally got both working, mostly.  The terminal seems solid, stays connected and works without issues.  The DVR is another story.  I saw some earlier posts about HDCP issues and I think that might partially explain my DVR issues but I was hoping someone might have some advice.  I have an older 720p Panasonic Plasma connected with both HDMI and Component to the X1 DVR.  If I have both plugged in when I connect power to the DVR I just get two dashes and the red Xfinity logo for maybe 30 seconds then a blank screen.  It doesn't matter if the TV is on Component or HDMI, it never gets further.  If I only have component connected when I connect power, the DVR gets all the way through boot and is on, but I have tons of small white dashes on the TV flashing all over.  If I let it go all the way until I get a clock on the DVR, then connect HDMI, then switch TV inputs to HDMI, I get a picture.  I can leave it on HDMI or back to component and it seems to work fine.  It must have rebooted last night because this afternoon I went to watch and it was stuck on two dashes and no signal.  I immediately thought it must be an HDCP issue, but why the flashing dashes on the screen with component?  Then why do I have to connect HDMI back just to get a normal signal?  On the plus side I have display set to 1080i and it seems to have stuck on reboot so I got that going for me.   I really do think it is a good box with interesting features.  I wish it responded faster (new hardware rollout with your new software and still laggy?  Really?), but the new features are mostly well thought out and pretty unique. ... View more