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Anon

Are we ever getting Picture-in-Picture again?

In live in Southern New Jersey, and we received the new guide last year and with that we lost the Picture-in-Picture function. I called Comcast and they said it might be reinstated in 2013, but I took that with a grain of salt.

As a big sports fan, I love the function as I like to watch two sporting events at once.

Anyone heard of PIP coming back to Comcast Boxes?

Thanks!

andyross
MVM
join:2003-05-04
Aurora, IL

andyross

MVM

I doubt if iGuide will support it. Whether or not X1 does or can support it, who knows. I don't know if it will be rolled out on the Cisco/SA equipment any time soon. Even with Motorola, it's only select equipment in select areas to NEW customers.

mikedz4
join:2003-04-14
Weirton, WV

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if you can get it directv has all those sports mix channels. Shows 5 games at a time that you can chose audio on.
Unfortunately they drill holes when installing so my apartment owner outlawed them.

beachintech
There's sand in my tool bag
Premium Member
join:2008-01-06

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Some TV's will let you do it. I set up a DTA and a HD Box for a customer with the DTA coming in on Coax and the HD box on Component. His TV would not to PiP with HDMI. That way he could tune the DTA to one game and watch the other in HD.
Russ6
join:2011-03-17
Houston, TX

1 edit

Russ6

Member

The following excerpt is from Comcast's Ted Hodgins, Sr. Director, Video Product Development - Navigation, in Media & Entertainment, "New Guide for Scientific Atlanta Cable Boxes" blog and explains why Picture-in-Picture (PIP) is not in the new guides. Please note the date and that the link at the end may no longer be valid bcause many of the older blog entries have been deleted.
quote:
Picture-in-Picture (PIP) functionality was a feature that was available with the previous guide on our Scientific Atlanta (SA) DVR cable boxes. I completely understand that this was a valuable core feature for some of our customers. I was disappointed that we were not able to retain PIP in this guide. Unfortunately, this unique feature could not be supported by the new guide given the goals and timing of this and future releases. Some televisions have a PIP feature built in. The new guide does not impact your television set's PIP functionality (if it has one). This link may help: »www.comcast.com/MediaLib ··· p_tv.pdf

You would need to also use the TV remote control to use and control the PIP display.

As with any business, difficult decisions are often made. PIP was only available in our SA/Cisco DVRs. The PIP feature impacted a small percentage of our SA customers and an even smaller percentage of our overall customers - most of which have never had the PIP feature through their cable box.

We did not make the decision to not retain the PIP feature lightly. The ability to keep this feature and incorporate it into phase one of the new guide would have significantly delayed this project and subsequent downstream projects even more - like the guide that we really want to get out in front of our customers later this year (and the guide that you personally want). PIP is not currently on our feature roadmap.

We also conducted extensive research around the importance of the PIP feature in the current guide and as a potential future feature in upcoming guides.

In our on-going customer research, PIP continues to drop in ranking of importance of features that the majority of our current customers (and potential customers) use or want. PIP was only ever available with DVRs in our SA areas (a very small percentage). I certainly understand that there is a passionate customer base for PIP. We also realize that there are some customers who will not be happy about this decision and even some customers who may choose another video service provider that offers the PIP feature.

A new feature that is available with the new guide is the Pause, Swap, Pause functionality, which allows a customer to pause a current program that they are watching (i.e. football game on one channel), swap tuners to another channel and watch the programming on that channel for five minutes, pause that channel and then swap back to the original channel (football game), which is still paused. Not meant to be a replacement for PIP, but a low tech full-screen alternative that may suffice in many cases.

Ted Hodgins replied to comment from Max | March 28, 2011 11:47 AM

»blog.comcast.com/2010/05 ··· nt-37924

mikedz4
join:2003-04-14
Weirton, WV

mikedz4

Member

swapping isn't the same. Comcast should offer "mix channels" like directv. I know they offer mix channels for nba, nhl and mlb but unlike directv you can't choose the channel the audio is from.
Russ6
join:2011-03-17
Houston, TX

Russ6

Member

said by mikedz4:

swapping isn't the same. Comcast should offer "mix channels" like directv. I know they offer mix channels for nba, nhl and mlb but unlike directv you can't choose the channel the audio is from.

In the SA/Cisco STB markets, Comcast does not offer any "mix channels" on the S25 or S26 Guides. I don't know if On-Screen Guide 2.0 has "mix channels."

mikedz4
join:2003-04-14
Weirton, WV

mikedz4

Member

they used to have something like mix channels but they got rid of them.
Russ6
join:2011-03-17
Houston, TX

Russ6

Member

In the SA/Cisco STB markets, the SARA Guide had Picture-in-Picture but there were no "mix channels." When the SARA Guide was replaced with the S25 Guide, the Picture-in-Picture feature was no longer there.
dragonphan
join:2011-07-28
Lafayette Hill, PA

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I live in Montgomery County, PA and I've never had P-in-P offered. Our remotes have the P in P buttons that never worked. Never made sense to me as to why. With a 2 tuner DVR, it should be a standard feature.
Joe12345678
join:2003-07-22
Des Plaines, IL

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also the HR34 can do PIP on the main tv hooked to it.