8300HD finally died...

[pbenjamin]

I got an 8300HD the first week that Cox offered them. I've used it fairly heavily over the years. Lately I started having the picture and/or sound interrupted, odd visual effects, etc. At first I thought it was the cable connection but eventually I noticed different issues playing back the same recording at different times, making me wonder if it was maybe heat related. One day I turned on the TV and saw "irrecoverable disk error" stuck on the screen. It was resolved by a reboot but the other problems persisted.

The big problem was that we save up episodes of shows that air near the end of the prime time season and watch them over the summer months. Sitting on this dying machine was the season- or series- ending episodes of most of what we watch. Slowly but surely, enduring stutters and freezing, often abandoning a show to try it at a different time, we got through everything. We had it as a goal to get a new box in time for the season premiere of Mad Men.

Saturday I took the box to the Cox storefront at 7th Street and Glendale. I had not been in one in years. It was shockingly efficient. A guy greeted me on arrival and took my name. 2 minutes later I was called to counter. I told the lady I had a dead soldier, she asked my address, put the box in a pile with some others, went in back and brought out a new one, scanned it, handed it to me, and told me to have a nice day. Never asked what was wrong with it. I was in the store for less than 5 minutes.

I guess it is an 8240HDC. Works fine, no issues.

[DoubleDAZ]

I won't belabor this point, but that was my experience last year when I had to return a broken 8240 too. I wasn't as surprised because "my" only problem with them over the years was the long lines and one very snotty clerk. The thing that sruprised me most is that the customers she was servicing were all Hispanic, including her, and she treated them like dirt. I haven't seen her since, at least not in the W Bell Rd store.