How Dumb is the design of the DCX3400?

Am I missing something with this Motorola DCX3400? I thought the Scientific Atlanta we have at work was the lamest HD DVR on the planet but the 3400 appears to be even worse. I had the older model Moto BMC9012 at home for several years and it was not perfect, but it was far better than the 3400. The 9012 started hanging on channels so I turned it in for a newer model. How can newer model stink so badly by comparison?

There appears to be no way to search on titles or key words. Is there a true search function? What this model calls a “search” is just a listing. And it’s not even a complete listing. If I select sports/golf, it shows me some golf that is on at the current time, but not all, and it does not list any future golf events. (the TiVo lets you search on keywords in the title or title and description).

The two arrows FF (>>) is actually just real time while dropping frames. It looks like it drops 10 frames and then pauses for 1/3 second and then plays a few frames then drops 10 frames and holds for 1/3 second, so rather than a 1.5x or 2x fast forward, it is just sputtering forward at real time. Not very useful.

When fast forwarding (>>>) most decent DVRs compensate for reaction time by jumping back one or two seconds when you hit “play”. This thing actually pauses then jumps forward, so it makes watching sports miserable by making sure you completely miss everything you want to see.

When recording a show already in progress (hit the REC button) there is no option to extend the “end time”. So far I‘ve only found those options while going through the guide and setting up a recording. (the TiVo is actually smart enough to ask if you want to add time to anything that is a live event, even just hitting the REC button on the remote).

The remote is a gem. Like the Scientific Atlanta, the buttons that jump forward to “live” or back to the start of a program are about 1/8 inch above the FF and REW. If you accidentally touch one of those you jump possibly hours away from where you are in the program and then there is no incremental jump button, so you have to FF all the way back to where you were in the program. (The TiVo lets you jump forward or backward in ¼ hour increments).

If you look at Future Recordings it does not show you a list of all of them, just day by day. So you have to scroll through each day to see what you have scheduled.

The user manual I found on the Motorola website is nothing but instructions on how to hook up the connections. No information of any of the actual user functions.

I am pretty sure I am going to have to go ahead and buy a TiVo HD DVR because time Warner provides these Motorola boxes which get worse with each generation. I would have been happy with a working BMC9012 if it had more storage. Maybe I am spoiled by the SD TiVo in my bedroom, I just stunned by what a miserable user-unfriendly box this 3400 is.

(another common sense TiVo feature is letting you recover a deleted program that has not been over written yet. Motorola seems to think once you’ve deleted something you would never ever want to look at it again, even 10 seconds later.)

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With the exception of the FF pausing glitches you are talking about, the rest of your issues are the TVGUIDE/Comcast software that your cable company chooses to use on the Motorola box. All cable company provided units have the same front end software on them for a given cable company. The PACE and SA boxes will have the same user interface and features for recording and such.

I find it hard to believe that the cable companies don't pressure TvGuide/Comcast to update that DVR software to fix some of the sort comings.

The reason Motorola manual only has basic information is because various different front end UI can run on the box (based on the Cable company).

With the exception of the FF pausing glitches you are talking about, the rest of your issues are the TVGUIDE/Comcast software that your cable company chooses to use on the Motorola box. All cable company provided units have the same front end software on them for a given cable company. The PACE and SA boxes will have the same user interface and features for recording and such.

I find it hard to believe that the cable companies don't pressure TvGuide/Comcast to update that DVR software to fix some of the sort comings.

The reason Motorola manual only has basic information is because various different front end UI can run on the box (based on the Cable company).

So the box is probably capable of better functionality and is limited by what Time-Warner loads on it? This sounds like the cell phone providers. My Nokia phone has the capability to use any MP3 file as a ring tone but T-Mobile does not enable it.

The FF thing makes it very unpleasant to watch anything where you might be skipping parts of it. The way this works is almost as bad as VHS tape which slides past the point where you want to start playing and you have rewind to find where you want to be.

The lack of a real search function is pretty lame. That with the FF problem are bad enough to make me want to spend several hundred dollars to get something that won't frustrate me so much.

I am going to contact TW and see if they have any solutions. If not I'll let them know I will getting my own box.

Thanks for the info.
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