Thread: Unofficial Mediacom DVR Firmware Upgrade - Requests

Lets face it, Mediacoms digital cable box & DVR firmware is outdated.
My biggest complaint is it only shows 4 channel lines at a time, while Direct DVR's show at least 6.
There's to much wasted space, and in this day & age it needs to be upgraded to fill a wide screen TV.
Another complaint I have is the Motorola 3400 at times can be VERY slow to react to remote control commands, like it can hang for 2-4 sec. Don't know if that's firmware related or slow box processor.

Please list any features you would like to see added to the firmware. Edited screen shots would be helpful here. Lets see if Mediacom can get something done with this by 5/1/2010.

Get rid of the annoying Recording is finished popup.

Allow series recordings to be set to HD only channels or later be able to edit the series to change the channel the series is recorded on (sucks when channel lineup changes and you have to recreate series recordings).

Allow user to hide any channel. Have option to hide any channel the user doesn't subscribe to (hidden channels should be removed from channel up/down operation too.)

Improve the resolve recording conflicts interface.

Allow recording conflicts that have small like 10 min overlap to record the rest of show when tuner frees up. Right now some networks end their shows 3min late and then the DVR won't record the remaining 57min of a show on another channel if there isn't a tuner available for the entire show's duration.

Keep history of recorded shows and don't record a new episode twice. When you record a series on a channel like Discovery that shows a new episodes multiple times throughout the week, the DVR will re-record an episode you just watched and deleted earlier in the week.

Let the user set skip forward and reverse durations. 30 seconds requires way to many slow button operations on a slow Mediacom DVR.

Add a user configurable trick play adjustment. Example, you are fast forwarding and hit play when you see the show, the DVR should jump back as few seconds to allow for user delay hitting the play.

Let the user configure the live recording buffer duration.

Mark various show start times in the live recording buffer and allow user to navigate to start and end of shows in the buffer.

Allow the series recording "start early" and "end late" features be suggestions (do it if possible). Currently adding a padding to shows will cause recording conflicts when you are recording shows that start right after the actual end time on certain nights.

Allow a recorded content view that shows all episodes of a particular show under a folder or treeview for that show. Allow user to delete all episodes of a particular show.

Allow user to block play back of selected recorded content (play back password required to view show information and view the show).

A show find feature that really works. And one that is more flexible. These DVRs have the worst find feature of any IPG I have ever used.

User programmable searches that keep on the look out for shows that match a certain pattern or type (RCA called these scouts). As new listing are downloaded the filters are checked for matches. The user should be able to set these searches to record and match. Not all shows are series so the current series idea doesn't work for recording all shows about a sport like poker or pool for example. The recording made by these finds should be listed uniquely in the recorded shows list (on another view would be good.)

Allow the unit to be shutoff (put in standby) while it is recording (every other DVR I have used is able to do this). The front panel and audio/video outputs should be shut off. When the recordings are finished the unit would enter its normal standby. This save power by spinning down the internal and external HDDs.

Allow a method to upgrade external HDD by moving shows from the external HDD to the internal HDD. Or even better allow the encrypted shows on the old external HDD to be copied to another external HDD connected via USB and then moved back on the new external HDD. This feature could be used when a customer has to swap a defective DVR unit with Mediacom to save recordings.