Rumor: Google is Selling Off Motorola's Set-Top Box Business

[exfileme]

Google is looking to sell its Motorola Home Business unit.

Rumor: Google is Selling Off Motorola's Set-Top Box Business : Read more

 

[dgingeri]

From my experiences with Motorola set top boxes (Comcast uses them) they SUCK. They're unreliable and featureless. They're horrible. If anyone is interested in this division, it must be for patents and contracts, not for the engineers' talents or the production quality.

 

[BigBodZod]

My issue with the Motorola HDVR (Comcast) unit I have is it sometimes will be slow to change channels or not receive the direct typed in channel number, I was always hoping that this could be fixed with a firmware upgrade but that has never happened.

The other thing that is annoying is the freaking small-ass HDD capacity, only 160GB on a HDVR unit ?!?

For me these are the only annoyances I can think of with my Motorola unit.

 

[dgingeri]

Oh, you don't know about the hard drives? I had 4 replaced in a span of 3 months due to bad hard drives. As it turns out, Comcast replaces the drives themselves with other capacity retail drives. However, in one case where I got one with a 500GB, I found they artificially limit the drive capacity. This also causes problems with the drives, causing that slow response you noted. HD-DVRs with a regular 160GB drive won't have that problem. The only real solution to that slow response problem is to do a full power cycle on the box. I've had it get really bad, where button presses wouldn't respond for several minutes. That's really annoying, as you can probably imagine, while playing back a recording and you want to skip through commercials.

 

[sykozis]

With Cox Comm, I went through 4 Motorola cable boxes. I'm on box #2 with Verizon. I've tried to replace it but there are no M-Card compatible cable boxes that are available to consumers aside from TiVo....which requires additional subscription fees. Hopefully, if someone actually buys Motorola's set-top box division, they improve the quality and are willing to sell to consumers. I'm tired of paying Verizon for a cable box that's flaky as hell.

 

[10tacle]

I've been using the same Motorola/Comcast HDVR for nearly four years and thousands of hours of use. About my only complaint is the relative low storage compared to something like what DirectTV costs. But anything I want to keep I just burn it to BD through a HTPC. I'm no Comcast lover, but they are the best option where I live. I can't complain.

 

[alxianthelast]

... to Microsoft...?

 

[kyuuketsuki]

Motorola made pretty crap set top boxes anyway. Scientific Atlanta (a.k.a. Cisco) makes much better STBs.

 

[BigBodZod]

[citation][nom]dgingeri[/nom]Oh, you don't know about the hard drives? I had 4 replaced in a span of 3 months due to bad hard drives. As it turns out, Comcast replaces the drives themselves with other capacity retail drives. However, in one case where I got one with a 500GB, I found they artificially limit the drive capacity. This also causes problems with the drives, causing that slow response you noted. HD-DVRs with a regular 160GB drive won't have that problem. The only real solution to that slow response problem is to do a full power cycle on the box. I've had it get really bad, where button presses wouldn't respond for several minutes. That's really annoying, as you can probably imagine, while playing back a recording and you want to skip through commercials.[/citation]

That's interesting because I can see the Seagate HDD inside the unit from the top vent slots, it is indeed a 160GB model and not a higher capacity model.

I think it's most likely due to the firmware and the sata interface being used on the unit I have.

 

[scook9]

My FiOS boxes definitely are not impressing.....the software is pretty cumbersome to use and Verizon charges out the ass for them ($19/month for a multi-room HD-DVR - really Verizon? GO F*** thyself!)

About 25% of my FiOS bill is leases for Set top boxes......