About three weeks ago we decided to get cable again after a 2 ½ year break because Hulu owned by NBC Universal, Disney/ABC and Fox started delaying shows by 30 days after broadcast unless you subscribe to a participating satellite/cable provider; Cox is not one of the participating providers at time of writing.
We have started recording the shows we like on the DVR until we have watched the previous episodes on Hulu after the 30 day delay period then in all likelihood we will cancel Hulu completely as we wont need it because we have the DVR, Hulu is useless to us as Cox is not a Hulu partner at this time.
So Contour itself; it’s OK, but has issues with connectivity, the iPad app is a good idea but we have lots of connectivity issues and also doesn’t allow for watching programs you have recorded on the DVR on the iPad; plus it’s only available on your own home network; so don’t get any ideas of taking television with you when you go on vacation or business trips, which is a big negative for me.
The Cisco/Cox Record 6 DVR is generally good, no problems with setting and watching recordings but the recordings are not high motion encodings; in fast moving scenes there is a good amount of pixelation. Watching TV is fine in general, although often channels go “offline” saying there is no TV signal being received. The HD channels output in 1080i video and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio for the most part but we have experienced intermittent video and audio breakup. Occasionally I also get a failed recording because it has disappeared from the program guide after the recording was set using the guide.
We also have the Cisco client box in our bedroom which connects to the main box in the living room to set and watch DVR recordings; but there seems to be connectivity issues, recorded programs refuse to play on the client box roughly one in every four times, but will play fine if I watch it on the Record 6 DVR box in the living room, there are clear communication issues between the Record 6 DVR and client box.
Obviously the biggest marketing point is the personalized recommendations but we really don’t use the service. We know what we want to watch and most of the recommendations are kids programming as the kids use the TV more than the wife and I do. So I suppose it works, but it’s not really used.
The question is “is it worth upgrading?”; and the answer is; it depends on what you currently have; if you already have HD Television and a DVR then it’s probably not worth upgrading unless you are a prolific recorder of programs; in which case the six tuners and 2TB hard disk would be a nice bonus for you. If you are upgrading from non-HD or straight into the back of your TV cable, then it’s definitely worth the upgrade, high quality video, digital 5.1 audio and many more viewing choices.
I have recently installed contour in my home with three client boxes. I have have numerous technical difficulties. Some shows set up to record every week will record multiple time on the same channel in the same time frame. I also get constant error messages while trying ing to set up recordings. Cisco has not designed the DVR functions to be at all user friendly. The recorded shows can not be sorted into alphabetical order and the time slot that they were recorded in is also not displayed. This is a real pain if you if you record a lot. It just seems cumbersome to accomplish anything as you have to go through several screens for set up. So far I think I preferred my old hd dvr.
I’ve not had an issues with setting up recordings but on two occasions, recordings were not made. One registered as a missed recording because it disappeared from the guide after setting the recording. The second just didn’t record, yet I know the program was aired. There was a third recording that seemingly recorded but playback was not possible, it gave me an error code to give to Cox tech supt but I didn’t feel like being on hold for half an hour. Contour definitely has it’s issues, hopefully most of these issues with be ironed out; being able to watch DVR recordings on mobile devices would also be nice.
Cox Contour is the worst cable box set up I have ever been associated with. I will never do business with Cox again. The entire system is so slow and it takes 30 minutes to move one space down in On Demand. If you are looking for a good quality cable company, DO NOT USE COX!! I would rather drag my dick through a mile of glass rather than give Cox another dollar of my money to their worthless company.
For just watching TV OK but try to rewind, forget it error codes galore. They cannot make it work I have had them come out repeatedly and there is no fix. Press rewind and expect it to lock up so this feature really is not a feature. Yes it records more programs but they don’t always record! Very frustrating as cox in the past has been a good provider I have been with them over a decade but am currently looking for options.
The contour box sucks. It runs hot, and Cox insists it has (in an old, not current release box) a 1 TB SSD instead of a spinning hard drive. Never heard an SSD whine on startup, but this box does. It freezes on playback of recorded programs, misses recordings because the “program was not found in the guide” – not found by whom? I could see it in the guide! But worst of all, they have no provision for backing up recorded programs. So if you are recording a season’s programs in prep for a binge watch, be advised that there’s no way to be sure they’ll be there when you want them, because the box is erratic, you can’t back them up and restore them to a replacement box, etc. Here’s the question: of what use is a box with a terabyte of storage – presumably designed so that you can have a collection of shows that you like to watch – that does not allow you to back them up so that you can watch them. Copyright? That issue was resolved with acceptable use policy 40 years ago. How’d you like to have all your financial data on your PC, but have no way to back it up before tax day? Probably wouldn’t use a PC for that, would you? Probably shouldn’t use a crummy service like Contour with no provision to service you with what you are buying if there’s a technical glitch, either. Are you listening, Cox?
George, why don’t you ask for the latest Cisco box? it has issues, but nowhere near as many as you describe. If the box you have is *that* troublesome, Cox should replace it without hesitation; it’s amazing what threatening to leave them does for you getting what you want!
Jason – here’s the rub: there are over 100 episodes of Wheeler Dealers, many episodes of various shows that are one-time appearances, a few movies that haven’t yet been watched, etc. all on this box. Cox provides NO provision for backing them up so that a failure, which is what happened to the box, doesn’t invalidate months of accumulating entertainment. I back my computers up religiously and daily – all of them – with a home server. I am never without at least two copies of important files. I have off-site backup for disaster recovery. Cox provides none of this – if you lose the box, you lose everything. To me, that’s completely at odds with what acceptable use policy, which allows backup copies of entertainment, software, etc, was meant to cover. And their box has frozen up, refused to record, played back with hiccups, been updated with firmware that I didn’t want, and that had an inferior user interface, etc. They are oblivious to the needs or wants of their customers, providing only excuses and blather in response to rational requests when I call or when technicians come. We have politicians for that, not private enterprise. Now that their junky, unreliable Cisco box is toes up, those collections are gone. Their only response is to start all over again with an empty box, re-record everything, re-set up everything. That’s an acceptable level of service?
George, I see the issue now, the latest Cisco Record 6 DVR box has 2 USB ports and an eSata port for expansion but I’ve been doing some reading and it’s standard practice to “lock” programs to the DVR to stop piracy (like that works). Dare I say open up the box, remove the “SSD”, which it clearly isn’t and connect it to your PC and transfer the files, assuming they are not in some weird file format, container or indeed DRM’ed upto the hilt! Good luck!
Very disappointed in this con tour I got a 2 half weeks ago I’ve had problems with almost every single day become constantly stops and middle of watching something main had to replace the main box I do not recommend this for anyone I’m going back to my DVR
It’s pretty darn terrible. I have HUGE delays when rewinding whether it’s live or DVRed. Playing a DVRed program takes multiple tries at times and just gives me errors messages. It’s really not worth it right now. I think I’m going to ask them for a basic HD DVR box without Contour. It’s such a terrible so-called “enhancement”. Stay away from it!
The Contour is the worst system ever. It freezes, won’t change channels, rewind…etc. We are unable to play recordings without completely restarting the system. We have restarted this system too many times to count. We are not keeping Cox which we have always had….for as long as there was cable. We are switching to ATT Uverse. It couldn’t be worse and it will save us a lot of money.
I’ve read all these complaints about Cox Contour. I’ve had Contour through Cox Cleveland since February 2014. What I read and what I have personally experienced, sounds like 2 totally different companies and 2 different systems. I am completely satisfied with Contour, and have been completely satisfied with Cox for over 5 years. I have experienced some intermittent issues with Contour, but these have been few and far between. Just this last weekend; however, playing back a recorded show caused the menu screen to freeze. The only way to eliminate was to turn off the receiver. Even then it would not always return back to live TV, but it would return to the frozen screen. I tried the old pulling the plug routine for 20 second and plug it back in to re-start, that didn’t do a thing. I finally got back to being at least able to watch live TV. This was on Sunday. I called Cox first thing Monday (7/21) AM, they pushed an update to both boxes, and 20 minutes later I’m back in business. Working like a top ever since. Bottom line I couldn’t be happier with Cox or Contour. And I had Dish for many years, along with a local cable company and there is no comparison with Cox. And Time Warner? I will never move into an area serviced by Time Warner. Only one thing though, I share the same concern as George has: what happens if my receiver needs to be replaced, is Cox able to save all my recorded shows and transfer them onto the new receiver?
Don, I haven’t had too many issues, the occasional failed recording, either not in the program guide or just fails to playback. I used to get a lot of digital video distortion on certain channels, but since reducing my Internet connection to 50Mb from 150Mb, that issue seems to have cleared up. The second box in our bedroom does seem to be quite laggy compared to the primary DVR box in the living room, scanning through the EPG works in stops and starts.
As for transferring recordings to a new DVR receiver should it need replacing; I was told by a Cox rep in a recent call that, I’d just have to record the programs again, which is stupid as some programs are not broadcast again for months and in some cases, never.
My wife and me have been Cox subscribers since 1980. Over the years, we’ve upgraded our service to the point we had 3 DVR boxes and a standard digital cable box in our home. We have been very content with our level of service and the reliability of the Cox network.
Then we replaced our DVRs with Contour!
In the past month since the new network was installed, we’ve had 3 technicians (including the installer) visit us and made innumerable calls to the support center because of:
1. Error messages while using the client boxes
2. Loss of channels on various boxes at different times
3. Loss of remote control functions (channel changes, search, play, pause, rewind, fast forward) on ALL units at different times.
I have not called about the occasional screen freezes, or pixilated screen images that occur regularly
Today, our DVR failed to record a program my wife set up to record earlier in the day
Cox replaced our new Cisco DVR with another new one (losing all recorded programs in the process), explaining there had been a system upgrade in the last week and they’re having to change out far more boxes daily than prior to the upgrade.
They also modified our cabling because we were “bleeding” signal at various points.
Everyone we’ve had at our home and spoke with on the phone has tried to correct the problems. They have also been very courteous and done everything they could to help us including providing a credit to our account to the maximum their guidelines allow.
The problem is in my view, the faulty software/hardware Cox has selected and put on the market. I very much like the idea of a whole house network, but Cox needs to regroup and come up with a better solution to make their customers happy.
What we accomplished was trading in a perfectly good arrangement for a setup that had us on the phone with customer support within 2 hours of the installation being completed, followed by daily frustration at their inability to permanently correct the issues. At this point, my move will be to return the Contour boxes and get individual DVRs once again. The $16 per month savings isn’t worth the aggravation to my wife and me!
I was just on phone trying to get a free upgrade to Contour, after 45 minutes of holding they gave me a 27.00 dollar discount on my bill, down to 223.00 but no Contour. After reading the feedback here, I do not want it now! Thanks. I do need to know what is a better system, I have internet, phone and TV with a few pay channels with Cox? We are HD with Premiere TV and internet ? Any ideas….Over all our normal service with cox HD and internet and phone has been good, I have replaced a few boxes, but it is fairly easy to do…?
I was dumb nough to allow cox to install contour..LOL! Cox is here as I write this to fix yet another glitch in. The system, second time this week. I would warn everyone to stay away from it, I have only had it 6 months or so and I have had atleast a problem a week since, I pay over 200 bucks a month for crap!!! Cox is aware the system is very flawed, I know two People in the main office, they tell me that it gets thousands of complaints and they are instructed to downplay them. The problems that have are going to take a lot of time to fix, and they aren’t doing much to fix it yet, so GOOD BYE COX, HELLO direct tv!!!!
I’m guessing that different areas have differing problems as I personally have not had anywhere near the issues that some of the commenters above have had. Mike, look at Dish before Direct TV, because Direct TV have just been bought by AT&T who have terrible customer service and everything is an add on service to bump up the price you pay!
I am ready to switch back to the old DVR. Overall this is much worse than the old system. Nothing but missed recordings, partial recordings, Just does not want to work correctly. Worse than trying to get SDV channels to work for TIVO, and that does not work with Cox either. Anyone tried that frustration? Trying to get TIVO to work with the required tuning adaptor? Go beat your head on the wall for 30 minutes instead, it might make you forget the frustration. After 20 years of Cox I am ready to switch! Internet random disconnects, very bad bandwith from early morning through evenings. Great 10 pm-5 am. Not a happy camper. waiting for 7th Cox visit trying to resolve Contour not working.
NO COX CONTOUR IS NOT ANY GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!
Because we have a total of 6 TVs in the house, to make sure recordings did not occupy too many tuners I ordered 2 Contour boxes and 4 Receivers. The whole system has been a total disaster. The 2 Contours cannot communicate cleanly with each other, playing back from one Contour to the other results in a disjointed playback, missing portions of video and audio. One Contour will not show anything but the DVR List, it will not show what is on each of the individual Contour boxes. We have had approximately 9 technical visits in 4 weeks and all of the technicians were knowledgeable but unable to fix the problem. It seems as though Contour has been introduced far too early, all of the magic marketing smoke and mirrors do not compensate for what is an awful system. I have been told my problem will be escalated and am waiting for the next step. When I called, in annoyed desperation, to have Contour removed and the old system installed I was told that this would cost me over $170. I cannot believe that the famous Cox customer service could be so unfriendly compared with the positive attitude of the technical staff. Even stupid things like the remotes being able to control volume on a particular device (receiver or TV) is a major task. Like many others I am considering my options for cable TV service. I do not know if anyone from Cox reads these comments, I will be very surprised if I hear from them. It is a shame, I have been a Cox customer for over 20 years in total but this is not the Cox of 10 years ago.
I am a 28 year cox customer (same house)… and I believe the reason I may have to finally cancel my service is because of the Contour. It worked for about two weeks, then missed a scheduled recording…. then incomplete recordings (e.g. 42 min of a 60 minute broadcast). Freezes, delays (click the Guide and it appears 5 minutes later). I’m on my 4th contour dvr in the last month. 7 different technicians have been on site. Problems with each one (freezes, won’t come on, won’t turn off, no picture, command delays, etc.) We’ve tried changing HDMI cables, changing to component cable connections, new AV receiver….. even tested multiple TVs (as we thought maybe it was bad HDMI controller in TV). Could I have such bad luck as to receive 4 bad DVRs in a row? One technician said he’s seen it happen. However my conclusion is the Contour DVR and/or its software are just not ready for prime time. Or the San Diego Cox technicians don’t know what they’re doing.
My Cox Contour will not play back recordings without resetting the entire whole home DVR system. It will then playback for about 24 – 36 hours, then I get the 2.1.2.2 or 2.1.2.9 error messages. Tomorrow will be Cox’s 13th service call. I have just decided since I’ve got time on my hands, to keep having a technician come out until it’s fixed. I figure it must cost Cox at least $100.00 each time a tech comes out ($200.00 if two come out), so right now, I’m at about $1,500.00. Maybe someday someone in charge at Cox will figure this out, but I doubt it.
Dan, a word of warning, Cox can at their discretion charge you for a technician visit despite their hardware/software/network being at fault. A Cox tech told me some time ago that if s/he believes that the fault was user error, they can charge for the visit. Half the Cox techs don’t actually work for Cox; they are freelancers and they get paid more if it is determined to be a non-technical issue, e.g. caused by the end user and the customer has to pay.
I’ve had contour for a few months and I HATE IT!!!! Pretty much the complaints others have posted are the complaints I have. CONSTANT picture freezes. I’m afraid to pause TV because 9 times out of 10, I’ll have to re-boot the whole system! It does not function the way they’ve advertised. we’ve had boxes switched out, technicians out and it’s still just a bad system.
We’re switching to “The Hopper”.
Has anyone noticed that they don’t run the Contour commercials on tv anymore? I think they’ve had so many issues with it that they’ve pulled them from the air. We made the decision to “upgrade” to Contour a few months ago and I’ve regretted it ever since. I am NOT a happy camper!
CONTOUR IS THE WORST PIECE OF SHIT THAT HAS EVER BEEN INVENTED STAY AWAY FAR AWAY FROM IT THE TECH WAS HERE 4 5 HRS AND STILL COULD NOT GET IT WORKING 100% THE CLIENT BOXES WORK FINE BUT THE CONTOUR SOFTWARE IS A PIECE OF SHIT AS WELL RUN AS FAR AS YOU CAN FROM CONTOUR I AM A 20 YR SOTWARE AND NETOWRK ENGINEER AND IT IS BAD
Hello,
I started having problems with the 250GB hard disk in one of my older Cox Motorola boxes – I have been seeing commercials for Contour, and I am always running out of space or tuners. I ordered an upgrade today for the whole home DVR, because it is basically the same price each month, but you get the 6 tuners and 2TB of space.
After seeing the comments here, I am pretty sure I am going to cancel the truck roll to install Contour. There are two elderly people that live here too that are not good with technology, and if they are going to have problems with pausing and resuming programs and lock ups I will go crazy.
I am going to do some more research on Contour, and see if New England is any better than other parts of the country. Are the Record2 boxes the same thing as the Motorola boxes that support the e-Sata drives and have 250GB hard drives? Can you still swap those out for the same equipment if you have a problem (my hard drive is dying, and I need to do a power cord pull about once very 3 days because of lock ups).
Sounds like Contour is not ready for prime time, and Cisco does not make a good system…
30-year Cox Customer No More Due to Contour!
Issues after just three weeks of service (but in reality, from day one):
1. No rewind or pause on just about every program (works when it feels like it)
2. Many schedule recordings not made (I guess Cox assumed I didn’t want to watch the finale of Boardwalk Empire amongst dozens of other missed recordings)
3. Screen blacks-out for a second or two every few hours
4. At times some channels tell me I don’t have service for them (but I do)
5. Error messages take 30-plus seconds to fix / disappear
6. Modem / router (that came with Countour so-called upgrade) stops working once or so a day needing to be rebooted
All-in-all I can’t complain too much, because I’m cancelling within my 30-day allotted time and moving over to DirectTV, whose giving me pretty much the same deal for about $75 less per month for the first year!
If you’re a customer looking to upgrade, maybe you’ll be a lucky one and not have any issues. But if you do switch to Contour and have issues, be sure to cancel within 30 days before they lock you into a three-year contract.
If your Cox, stop promoting an inferior cable TV service, because you’ve just lost a very long-term customer due to it! And you’ll likely lose more… Fix your shitty service!
BTW, the customer retention lady I spoke to did downplay having heard of any of the issues I was complaining about. I asked her if she was “for real?” She told me she had the service herself and had no issues whatsoever, but that she would Google “cox contour complaints” (to appease me I guess)! She was clearly lying to me!! :)
Nothing but problems on a daily basis. I can’t even call anymore. All they tell me is… They can send a tech out. That never works. I’m shaking right now because I am so pissed.
I have been with cox for many years and haven’t had issues until this past year. The two dvr boxes I had weren’t working, constantly freezing up and wouldn’t record our shows. After numerous calls to cox they said those dvr boxes were obsolete and if we upgrade for an additional $50/month to contour we wouldn’t have these issues. Ha! Our contour hasn’t work since being installed four months ago. We have had atleast 10 visits from techs, many many calls to cox to get a re boot and it still freezes up daily and takes 30 minutes to re boot. In addition after installing contour our wifi stopped working. We were on the low plan for Internet and we had to upgrade to the premium and it still works like its 1999. I don’t know why this happens with the contour, the tech told us it is from the contour using our wifi. So in short we pay close to $300 monthly for the worst cable/internet we have ever had and we are on their most expensive plans! II wouldn’t recommend updating to the contour! Plus one of their selling points is ypu can record many shows at once where the old box you could only record two, what they don’t tell you is if you try to record more than two everything will freeze up and nothing will record and ypu will aol for the night in regards to watching cable! And if you think you want to rent a movie through cox forget it! Out of the 20 times we tried it only worked once. It will freeze up for 20 minutes and then give you an error code. And when any of the boxes have issues they all have issues as you have to reset the main box and it shuts down the entire “whole home” system. After all the calls and no solution we have decided to switch to direct tv.
Janet, I can tell you for sure that Contour does not use Wi-Fi to communicate between boxes, it would not provide fast enough data connections, let alone a stable connection as Wi-Fi is inherently flaky, the Cox tech clearly has no clue how the system works. As far as I understand it, the boxes communicate through the copper coax wire installed in your home. I have Wi-Fi, my own setup, I bought my own modem and router so I have full control over my system unlike the Cox provided hardware. I have some issues with Contour, but nothing like what I have been reading in the comments, the system seems to work reasonably well here in Wichita, KS, so I wonder if cabling etc is the problem for some people with connectivity, I do live in a recently built neighborhood where the cabling is less than 10 years old, that may have a bearing on some people’s issues if outside of city limits or older neighborhoods.
Contour is horrible. Have the latest Cisco Box. Actually have two boxes with DVR. Send a tech out is the joke. The techs are all contractors and are never on time in their time slot. I’ve been with Cox for thirty years. Cox could care less. Have internet and phone which has been good overall.
Cox television with Contour is crazy. You can’t fast forward or playback without major glitches occurring. The hard drives go out which causes you to lose all recorded programs. No way of downloading to memory. Cox says it’s copyright infringement? Have no idea whether it is or isn’t. It is a giant loss and pain in the ass when it inevitably occurs..
My cable is old. Contractors say it is old and incredibly cheap wiring. Cabling does seem to have major problems.
The worst thing about Cox is they do not care. There is no customer service. Retention is an oxymoron for the company.
Going to give Direct TV a chance. Cox has been the only game in town for Cable. See if something else isn’t a daily pain!
Contour is great for the main box, but spotty for our secondary box. Shows sometimes will not play on the secondary box, but will play on the main box. So, connectivity issues galore. Tech came and gave better splitters and this seemed to help about 70% – still get recorded programs that won’t play, but far less than before. I also agree that there should be a way to back up recorded programs – and detracting from a product due to copyright infringement concerns? Get real. Cost requirements determined the lack of backup on these systems. Consumers all got the royal cox up their wazoos on this generation of contour. Strangest thing is that there is still one program that consistently won’t play back unless it’s recorded in non-HD – at the lower, non-HD channel.
In response to the cox hiring contractors and the idea they make more billing a customer thats false its the same pay usually less than twenty dollars so when u see that tech running up ladders in ice storms and changing every fitting in ur dilapidated oversized house with grounding issues trying to network those junk contour boxes while u complain about his being tardy when he has three jobs in every time frame up till seven at night and hes been at ur house three hours he made nothing after gas expenses and if some fat lazy inhouse tech comes after him and finds a fitting on the ground from two years before they take seventy five dollars out of his check.people today are so ignorant and rude they hired contractors so work gets done cuz hourly paid techs do one job for the day milking the clock and cox will just send a contractor out on the trouble call then back charge him if he cant fix it and charge u as well.so cut the guy a break if hes doin work be greatfull for not getting doortagged
THANK YOU to EVERYONE on this site. Signed up for Contour today. Just called to cancel. Already so unhappy with the monopoly of Cox cable that I would have gone postal had I gotten Contour and had all these described problems. Grateful I found this site and you all shared your experiences.
Contour locks up when you try to rewind on the satellite boxes. I had Cox replace all of the boxes. The only fix now is to reboot by disconnecting the power cord.
Two Cox service people said that a software upgrade is coming soon…
Directv at Costco is looking good…
Contour still an awful solution. I have 4 tv’s on Contour and the 3 slaves are a dismal failure. Cant rewind, ff or even view recorded programs 90% of the time. All Cox wants to do is replace the main unit, which has 100’s of hours of recordings that we want to watch at a future time. Very flawed platform. Anoyne have TiVo Romero input? I am thinking of yanking Contour and getting a new TiVo with 3 slaves.
Not worth your time or $.
I can’t rewind or pause live watch live TV in my room. I have constant errors EVERYDAY and lucky if I can start a DVR recording. If I do get so lucky then the next time I try to use the DVR it goes black for about 20 seconds in my bedroom then get an error code 2.1.2.2 I have reset both boxes several times today alone (a daily chore). We called a while back and the lady on the phone admitted they have major problems. It has only gotten worse over the last few months. It’s absolutely infuriating. The only reason we haven’t dumped COX is because my parents are the type to do nothing to avoid the hassle of switching and they depend on me to reset the boxes to get their TV working for the day because I was a high end professional A/V installer (not a cable shlump… no offense just can think circles around installers you get at your house…I went to school for it.) Yes I’ve checked all the knuckle head things like cables, connections, the different ways to reset the boxes.
The point is they advertise a broken system and need to be sued for false advertising.
If you have one box you’ll encounter problems. But if you have more it is worthless. Honestly it is so bad they should pay us to use it. AVOID AT ALL COST. If someone is telling you it does not work listen and don’t think the other boxes are only as bad as the main.
The installer virtually ran out when asked about the problems. Turn tail and ran. I don’t blame him.
Please head my warning and do not go with COX you will regret it.
Chris, It’s seems to depend on the area you live, I make the assumption that everyone has the Cisco Record 6 DVR and just from these comments the issues seem different for everyone and a lot of people I know have next to no issues locally. My personal issue is our client box having issues with receiving TV channels intermittently, while our main DVR box works almost flawlessly.
We moved to a different area on May 1,2015. Cox has came every two days to replace the box. Today the number five box bit the dust. This is a horrible product!
You know what Jason Lewis, read the comments. You seem to be the only one happy with it. You replied back 6 times to tell us yours is working. Give it a rest.
It’s presumptuous to claim that I am the only person to have just a few problems, taking away from my six responses, which were direct responses to other commenters, that leaves 36 commenters that have significant issues, that is a drop in the ocean compared to the millions of Contour users. I’m not trying to tell you anything, I have expressed a view, take it of leave it! Leaving pissy anonymous comments on my article achieves nothing and helps no-one, clearly you did not read the article or my subsequent comments properly as if you did you would not have made such claims.
I live in an area where weather-related extended power, cable, and internet outages are not uncommon. A generator solved our power issues and a Tivo Premier allowed us to stockpile shows for a “rainy day.” The Tivo also allowed us to transfer recorded shows to our desktop computer and then to our iPad. The Cox Contour won’t playback without internet connectivity, and it also can’t transfer shows to another device. Tivo, I sorry I left.
Every time we have a power surge the contour goes out. Supposedly we’re getting the signal but it won’t transfer to the A/V TV system. We’ve had 8 contour boxes replaced in 8 months, and no tech has any idea what’s going on. Its costing Cox more than i’m paying them! You would think they would come up with a solution!
Having read through just about every comment from the very beginning I’ve suddenly had an epiphany. And that is, COX pitched this new Contour Technology to all of us as the latest state-of-the-art TV Technology. Albeit new by their own admission, having had literally dozens of tech visits, re wire’s, equipment change outs causing me to lose all my season’s programming a few times over, boosters, amplifiers, not to mention the inconvenience of having to be your own techie by constantly roaming from room to room resetting your boxes, or the hours of time you’ve spent on the phone dealing with their support techs whose only resolution is to do a total reset of all your boxes from their home terminal.
Then comes the countless home visits from both COX employees and their myriad contractors who at the end of the day openly admit to me that they’re still trying to work out the bugs. Work out all the bugs? My ass!! I’m now left feeling more and more like a test market Guinea pig.
Did we buy into this whole new technology on the basis of it’s all too well known and admitted inconsistencies and technical glitches? Was there any place in our contract that specifically stipulated that we would be having to deal with all these inconveniences? Not as far as I can see.
So why then is it that we should be forced to become part of this involuntarily vast test market experiment and why then should we have to belly up for the full premium price for such a lack in QUALITY? Having been a subscriber/customer of COX for the past 22 years with multiple residences and spending a total of close to $500/mth or more realistically close to $120,000 over this period I for one think that I have a vested interest and a voice in speaking out about the corner that COX has inadvertently painted us into.
But I’m not alone. You all have equally as much of a right to speak out. If COX isn’t willing to compensate us for all the inconvenience and frustration it has brought upon us through no fault of our own then I think we have no choice but to band together as an entity and file a class action lawsuit against COX which will then hopefully get their attention.
Have a scheduled install for next week. After reading this board I think I better cancel.
wish I would have read this before I switched from DirecTV to Cox. I have had nothing but trouble and most of the tech make it sound like it’s my fault. We are switching back to DirecTV later this week.
COuldn’t agree more. I HATE CONTOUR!!! You can only go back and watch what you missed when you went to the kitchen on the main box tv. This alone is a show stopper. Then the writing is so small and hard to read I can’t even tell what channel I”m on. Then, my husband changes channels in one room and it changes my TV in another room. Did I mention that I HATE CONTOUR!! They came out to install it free but you have to pay to get it taken out. Go figure. Cox is turning into a bad company. SO sorry this is happening.
I have been a Cox customer for about 28 tears. The Contour Box, DVR, is the worst I ever ever seen. In the last month customer service has been here seven times and cannot fix the problem.
THE PROBLEM IS I CANNOT FAST FORWARD ON MANY RECORDED PROGRAMS. IT WIILL NOT LET ME KNOW WHERE I AM SO I AM FORCED TO WATCH AT REGULAR SPEED AND WATCH ALL THE ADDS.
The tech always tell me that they have not seen this problem before, I don’t believe it. The problem is That I live in Rhode Island and Cox has a monopoly.
I am stuck and I hate it,
Yep contour sucks as stay away from it just get the old silver dvr box much better. cox stop lying to you customers on how good it is we got rid of it in 2 days the tech could not get it to work and gave up. He was a contractor for cx