If you are considering purchasing this cable box, or if your cable company tries to give you this box as part of your cable package, my advice would be to smile nicely and then politely decline.
For starters, this piece of electronic equipment already looks outdated, and yet we are in 2010. It is a remarkably large square box, dark grey in color (probably its only redeeming feature) and exceedingly bulky looking. When given by the cable company, it comes with no instructions! I could not believe this. I was told simply to plug it in and not worry about any of the buttons or ports. Again, to me this is unsatisfactory. What do the buttons do? What are the ports for?
The front of this box
does indeed have a plethora of buttons and both a square port and a card slot. As you have no instructions, it is impossible to say for sure what any of these are, except for the power button. One good thing is that the time sets automatically when the box is plugged into the power.
As to operation, it works ok most of the time. I am not sure whether the problem is the box or the cable company but there are two problems that seem to occur on very frequent occasions. The first is that very often the onscreen guide will just freeze. Quite literally, no matter what you press, it takes ages to change screen and displays a blank information screen or a ...
I am looking at my model 2300, but can not`see’ a portal I need. Does this model have an HDMI plug in portal? The flat screen TV has 2 HDMI ports. The 2300 has a port on the front that at first glance look like an HDMI port, but the HDMI cable does NOT fit - further examination shows this`port’ is`square shaped’
Any and all answers will be appreciated
Update:
I just noticed the port on front of box that seemed at first glance to be an HDMI port, but turned out to be a square port - what is the purpose of the square port on this model? Using the square port and an`entrance’, is there any`adapter’ existing that can be cobbled onto my 6 foot HDMI cable, with the result that that procedure will cause the HDMI CIRCUIT TO FUNCTION, AND ALLOW ME TO RECEIVE TRUE HD RECEPTION - The HDMI cable I purchased is labeled`Full HD 1080p - the front of the flat screen says 1080i - Am I in`sync’ or completely going down the wrong road?
Understand I am not a TV`geek’ and may be asking out of ignorance - Another interesting fact (maybe), I’m 84 years old - Should I just give up and contract this effort out to someone who knows what they are doing? Awaiting someone’s advice
No sir, it doesn’t have HDMI port. Here is the manual (pdf file):
The square port you see on the front panel is the USB port.