Comcast DVR is complete garbage

aj's blog — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 13:52:56 GMT

First, some background. I’ve been a TiVo subscriber for over 6 years but I left it with my parents after they became hooked to it, thinking I would get a TiVo Series3 when (if?) it comes out later this year. My wife and I only watch two or three shows a week now, so I figured the Comcast DVR would do the job until this fall.

So last week I ordered the Comcast DVR (a Motorola 6412 device), hoping I would be able to use it to record a few HD shows and maybe a some movies occasionally. Boy was I wrong. What a complete piece of garbage!

The unit itself makes a constant chirping noise and is louder than a TiVo. The device gets so hot I had to remove it from the TV stand because it was generating so much heat. I wasn’t expecting much in terms of the user experience, but with so many devices doing UI right these days, there’s no excuse for a crummy experience like this. The people who designed and engineered this thing should be ashamed of themselves.

As soon as I got the device, I used the clumsy interface to setup recordings for “24” and “Lost”. As I did this, the unit would frequently stutter or freeze up and become unresponsive to the remote control. I finally got the recordings setup and forgot about the whole thing for a few days.

On Wednesday, I decided to watch the latest episode of “24” in HD. I hit the “My DVR” button on the remote and it took me to a list of recordings. It actually listed the same “24” episode twice -- one in HD and the other regular. Curiously, it said the device was 13% full. I assume the HD content takes up a lot more disk space.

I hit “Play” on the HD version of “24” and it started up perfectly. The quality was excellent and I was able to enjoy the first 15 minutes of the show. Once the commercials started, I hit the fast forward button a few times. This is when the unit completely locked up and I started getting errors on the screen. “We cannot process your request…” I even tried hitting Stop, Play, etc but it didn’t do anything … I kept getting more errors until the screen went black and the unit became completely unresponsive. It then asked if I wanted to delete the recording. I selected not to delete it, but the unit remained unresponsive. I hit the power button on the remote but it didn’t do anything. After waiting a few minutes to see if anything would happen, I finally reached behind the unit to recycle the power.

Bad idea.

After the unit restarted, none of the menus were available for almost 5 minutes. There was no program guide data, and when I hit the Menu button, it said “One moment please… the service is being restored.”

I waited patiently, anxious to continue watching the rest of “24”.

Finally the menus became available, so I hit the “My DVR” button on the remote.

“No Listings Available”. 0% Full.

I go to “DVR Schedule” and find it completely empty. The recordings I setup earlier are completely gone. Are you kidding me? Isn’t there a hard drive in this thing? Wouldn’t it make sense to put scheduled recordings on the hard drive so they would it be there even after, say, a power outage?

What a waste of time. I am disappointed that Motorola would release such a crappy product. It’s time to return this piece of garbage and get another TiVo. I guess we can live without HD until Series3.

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Comcast DVR is complete garbage