[Electronics-Talk] Spectrum 110 Box Audio and Volume

[Peter Donahue]

Good evening everyone,

 

                We recently upgraded our cable service to Spectrum as we
were legacy Time-Warner Customers. Spectrum has drug its feet where an
accessible set-top box is concerned but they finally released their 110
set-top box that includes the Spectrum Audio Guide. They also issue a Roku
device for customers wishing to have live TV on another device or on their
tv. We have both solutions in addition to Roku having been built into our
Sharp TV.

 

                The Audio Guide uses the same voice many iDevices use. It's
Voiceover's default voice. This very nice lady sure is better on the ears
than the voice of the Roku Audio Reader.

                Spectrum told us that the 110 box is now a standard issue
for all customers. Just as users of Apple and Android products have a
built-in accessibility solution all Spectrum Customers that receive the 110
box now have an accessibility solution included. This is a major step
forward for Spectrum and it's about time. However the 110 box is not without
problems. I've been told this by several Spectrum Technicians. On two
occasions when I turned the 110 box on in the morning after the tv was
turned on I got picture but no sound. A check of our sound system and
testing some programs via the Roku side of our tv indicated that all was
fine with the tv and our home theatre.

 

                When the problem happened the first time the technician who
came out said that the loss of audio was due to repair work being done on
their lines in our part of town. Interestingly enough this was after we lost
audio the first time. The day the technician came we had both audio and
video when the 110 box was powered on The same thing happened last Friday.
Like the first time we turned the 110 box on to discover that we once again
had audio and video. This time the technician replaced our 110 box and so
far we have both audio and video when it's powered up in the morning.

 

                Since the new 110 box was installed we also discovered that
we cannot increase the volume of some of our tv channels. Perhaps this
resolved over night. If not I'll be calling Spectrum for a fix for this
issue. Until then we'll use the Roku Spectrum App. Though the Roku voice
leaves much to be desired the Spectrum App itself is quite accessible.

 

                Another great feature of the 110 box is there's a way to
"Shut up" the speech when you've heard enough in much the same way you can
stop screen reader speech on a computer or iDevice with a command or by
pressing a key such as the "Control Key."The good folks at Roku would do
well to include a command like this in future upgrades of their Audio Guide
along with a 21st Century Voice that is more pleasing to hear

 

                Getting back to the Spectrum 110 box we're curious to know
if anyone else has this box and if they've had similar problems with audio
volume or the complete loss of audio when they turn the box on. We'll look
forward to hearing about your experiences.

 

Peter Donahue