Originally Posted by
boris
Just 'upgraded' from Flow's old HD boxes (2) to the AVS system - Quad play combo with old C&W landline number ported to Flow and cellphone transferred to package. The technician didn't do any rewiring, even though I had a couple of splitters in the existing cabling. He did check the signal though and strength/quality showed as '100%' on the tv when loading.
Assorted random thoughts, some trivial, some not so trivial, on the cable system after a couple of days playing around. Somehave already been mentioned elsewhere :
Things that are better on the new system:
- ability to watch any program that is in progress from the beginning - so if you stumble across something that looks interesting you can watch it from the start
- channels you actually get are shown in red. Channels you don't are in grey (although under the old system you could manually hide channels you don't get)
- remote is smaller and has fewer superfluous buttons (tip: if you use a universal remote like Harmony, the controls seem to work if you tell it it that it is a Cablemas HD box)
- ability to watch a recorded show on any tv
- a lot cheaper
- more HD channels
- as somebody else said, the box is small enough to hide behind your TV and you can use the supplied IR blaster
- channel numbering more logical/no duplicates
things that are worse on the new system:
- pausing/rewinding is cumbersome unless you put a thumb drive in the back of the box (thanks for the tip GPRS Internet !!)
- only one tuner so you can't jump between two channels and rewind each
- channel guide does not indicate whether an episode is new or not
- apparently no ability to record all first run episodes in a series - this was very easy under the old system. There is a 'keyword' recording option under the new system, but haven't worked out how to use it yet.
- takes more keypresses to change channels
- video stutters occasionally..am watching this. Used to occasionally get terrible pixelation on the old system though.
- on one of my tvs, picture initially seems duller than using old boxes..needed to tweak tv settings
- no clock on box - didn't realise how much I looked at this
- generally executing commands seems to be fiddlier - although could just be I haven't got used to the new system yet.
General comments
The Video on demand seems pretty much a waste of time. The biggest selection is on the adult section.
re the landline phone, if you want multiple instruments they'd have to be cordless, unless you want to run phone wire all over the place - you won't be able to use the existing C&W wiring. Not sure what happens in a power cut...the modem has a battery. Assuming the Flow system doesn't go down, you'd need to either have a combo coded/cordless phone system or plug in a corded phone that gets its power from the phone line so at least the 'base station' still works.
Re the internet, the wifi signal from the modem is much weaker than that from my own router. Also doesn't seem to allow port forwarding, so I have turned off the modem's wifi signal
Re the installation process, as had been said elsewhere the visit to the Flow office was a nightmare - a long wait then a long session in a small room that smelled strongly of feet. The technician arrived early and was pretty efficient.
End of random thoughts
Newbie
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