Comcast Problems with DCT6412 III HD Tuner/DVR
Living in the Sacramento region, I've been using 2 of these miserable devices for over a year and they both exhibit the exact same problems, despite both of them being replaced 3 times over the past 6 months. There are several blogs and threads throughout the web proving many, many other frustrated owners are facing the exact same problems. The infrared command "lag-time" problem and the "audio dropout" problem are widely experienced, yet Comcast either covers its eyes on the issues or is truly inept at troubleshooting. Either way, their field techs, when pressed hard, will admit that Comcast has directed them to merely swap out the units with used refurbished units that ultimately also exhibit the same problems. Comcast placates their customers this way because there is no firmware update available or real technical solution to otherwise fix this problem. Considering the expense of Comcast services and the lesser priced competing alternatives, any HD TV owner reliant on an HD signal is well advised to completely avoid Comcast and to use a service by one of the satellite carriers. Note: I have no fiduciary interest one way or the other and actually prefer cable because it is a more convenient method of serving all of the rooms in my home, however Comcast simply offers an experience in repeated (every 2 days or so) frustration that will put you over the edge and it isn't worth it. I have an engineering background and I am in the telecommunications field, so you can bet that I have exercised due diligence in trying to work out solutions with Comcast to this problem, or at least to get them to admit to the problem and demonstrate to me a timeline for resolving it. Comcast will do neither. If you ask for service credits, Comcast begrudgingly will comply, but not before forcing you to repeat technician visits and device replacements. Without looking at your account case history, Comcast reacts as if you are trying to cheat them any time you ask for a service credit. Meanwhile, you can expect to often not be able to change channels, pause, rewind, forward etc. without a lot of frustration that will nearly drive you to thow the remote through your new HD TV. Trust me. There's enough frustrations in life that the last thing you need is to be relaxing in front of the ball game to rewind that great pass reception, only to have the infrared command processor freeze up on you - but because you end up pressing a bunch of buttons trying to restore functionality, the DVR processes ALL OF THEM 2 minutes later in a batch where you end up on a different channel and now you can't go back to see the play you were trying to review. If you are a blood-pressure patient, Comcast and this piece-of-crap HD DVR will put you in the grave very early. It's just not worth it. Get DirectTV's DVR or if you want HD, spring the grand for Tivo's HD version.
