TiVo Community Forum banner
  • TiVoCommunity.com Ambassador Program Now Open! >>> Click Here

Official Comcast CableCard Thread!

3M views 9K replies 2K participants last post by  laria 
#1 ·
There seems to already be a lot of CableCard talk on many threads so in an attempt to keep them consolidated by company here is an official thread for Comcast, I just made this thread since I am a Comcast customer, if others want to make official threads for their cable companies go for it! Making one thread for each cable company should ease everyones diging through 100 different threads for cablecard info.

Some relevant info that I have read about comcast so far is the following:
-If you explain to Comcast that both cable cards are for one device people have been successful in no additional monthly charge, one user reported getting good success with calling comcasts 800 number and speaking with a cable card department
-Others have had good luck with going to their local comcast office and getting cable cards directly from them, this saves the installation fee and is quicker

Myself...I called Comcast and got the same spiel as most others have heard, free card for the first one and additional charge for the second of 5.95 (may not be exact, I didn't write it down) and installation charges for both the install of both the first and second cable cards of 20something bucks and 15something bucks. I realize now that I left out some details about my device that may have lead on to these extra charges, I am out of town now but plan on hitting my local Comcast office on Saturday and just trying to get them to give me the cards and I will do the install, or I will call back and try and speak to someone who understands and get the second (additional outlet) monthly charge dropped as well as the installation costs. BTW I live in the Chicago area since some people have experienced different things with the different areas of Comcast. Let me know your thoughts on my experience, what you have heard and try and keep comcast details on this thread so we can all have an easier time keeping up with what others have heard. Also post your region so we know which flavor of comcast you are dealing with.
-AJ
 
See less See more
#8,901 ·
I don't have a soldering iron and have never soldered before. But I'm thinking it might be worthwhile to give it a try--watched a video and it seemed doable.
Remember the first rule:

ALWAYS KNOW WHERE BOTH ENDS OF THE TIVO POWER CORD ARE AT ALL TIMES

There are several threads around here somewhere that deal with re-capping S3 platform power supplies, including lists of Digi-Key and Mouser part numbers to aid in replacement ordering.

As far as is known, the original S3 (the 648) has only one model power supply, whereas there are two models (neither of which is the 648 supply) which can be used in the HD (652) and HD XL (658), so be sure you know which supply you have.

Something labeled C301 on one board might be called C15 on another one, the important thing is to match the uF number and match or slightly exceed if necessary the V number.

That's microFarads of capacitance and the highest voltage across its leads to which the capacitor can safely be subjected.

If the original is rated at 16V, you can't use a 10V or a 6.3V, but if you can't find a 16 in stock anywhere, then a 25V at the same uF would be acceptable, although if the original is a 25, you can't use a 16.

They need to be rated at 105 degrees C (that's Celsius or Centigrade), not the 85 degrees at which general purpose electrolytic caps are rated, like all the ones in Radio Shack.

And they need to be what's called Low ESR.

(Low ESR caps are more expensive than regular ones, which has a lot to do with the shenanigans that got us into this "capacitor plague" mess in the first place.)

That means that electricity moving in and out of them encounters less "friction", which means that movement of electricity won't generate as much heat as it would in general purpose electrolytics with higher Equivalent Series Resistance.

Radio Shack has a thing that plugs into an electrical outlet and looks like a soldering iron with a squeeze bulb that's intended for removing solder, but you could probably use it to heat up the two things to be joined so that they melt the solder, which means you can use it for both phases of the re-capping job.

Use rosin core solder made out of lead and tin and nothing else. Use the size that's about as big around as half way between cooked and uncooked strands of spaghetti.

Observe polarity. There's a reason why electrolytic capacitors have one side marked with either a + or a - so that you know which lead is which.

I say side because there are also caps with end markings and one lead coming out of each end, but the kind you want has both leads coming out the bottom.

When you take out the old one, pay attention to which side went in which hole. You can see from the picture that the board is silk-screened with markings to indicate the - holes (which means by default the other hole is the + one).

And in addition to the #10 Torx screws holding the power supply ciruit board down to the chassis, there's a #8 that screws in from the outside into the top of the AC input jack.

Basically, the biggest cap on the board, rated at 200V, should be fine.

The ones in the size range of those 5 in the picture (the two things on the left are inductors--coils--and the striped thing on the right is a resistor) are the ones you should replace on GP (so that you don't have to replace them later), including the ones on the other side of the heat sink(s), the little ones that aren't as near the heat sink(s) are probably okay as well.
 
#8,902 ·
No leaking is evident from the capacitors. There is one that is somewhat domed, circled in the image. Perhaps I need to get a power supply from weakknees, swap it out and if it has no effect on the tiling and sound dropouts, return it and get a new Roamio.

Forgot to say, the one that's bulged at the top? That means it's going/has gone bad.

The ones that are still flat?

That means you can't tell by looking whether they're okay or not, but as long as you have to replace that other one...

Great picture, by the way.
 
#8,903 ·
I just wanted to say how stunned I am that re-pairing CableCARDs is no longer like living Dante's Inferno.

I bought a TiVo HD in 9/07, and my woes with getting two working S-Cards were well-documented in this thread, eventually involving an escalation to Executive Care. In 1/11, when I bought a refurbished Premiere and replaced the dead drive in my TiVo HD soon afterward, I had to escalate again to get both those units working properly. AND THEN I dealt with months of billing nightmares because the tech swapped my two S-Cards for one M-Card, but I still had an old code on my account charging me for a card I no longer had.

A couple months ago, the drive in my HD died again. (Western Digital did a free warranty replacement, hooray!) I spent a whopping four minutes on the phone with Comcast via the dedicated CableCARD line, and it worked on the first try. I was shocked.

I bought a Roamio on Amazon last week. I moved the card from the HD to the Roamio, and called Comcast again. Same deal - four minutes on the phone, worked on the first try.

And now that the Roamio is up and running, I happily returned the card from the Premiere, because my new Mini does everything I need. Goodbye, $9.95/month Digital Additional Outlet Fee! :D
 
#8,904 ·
A couple months ago, the drive in my HD died again. (Western Digital did a free warranty replacement, hooray!) I spent a whopping four minutes on the phone with Comcast via the dedicated CableCARD line, and it worked on the first try.
How'd you do the OS reinstall (image, duplicate a backup drive)? I think the host ID would've been the same so wouldn't it have worked "out of the box"?
 
#8,905 ·
I just wanted to say how stunned I am that re-pairing CableCARDs is no longer like living Dante's Inferno.

...

I bought a Roamio on Amazon last week. I moved the card from the HD to the Roamio, and called Comcast again. Same deal - four minutes on the phone, worked on the first try.
Sadly, I found that it is still hit-or-miss. I moved a CableCARD from my Premiere to my new Roamio a couple of days ago, and I had to endure a gauntlet of something like 8 phone calls, several promised return calls and desperate lying reps who just wanted me to give up. The main story that I encountered, with many slight variations, was that the CableCARD team was recently denied access to certain options in the computer system related to billing. The upshot of this was that they were unable to remove existing pairings, because the original Tivo needed to be removed from the billing system before the existing CableCARD could be re-paired with a new device.

Of course, IF this had any truth behind it, it is completely ridiculous, but I am not sure that it had anything to do with the problem. The worst part for me was that the last low-level rep that I talked to was the worst of the "deperate lying reps" that I referred to. He seemed to have some sort of personal stake in convincing me that no matter who I talked to, he was giving me the "correct information", that the ONLY way to repair an already paired CableCARD was to go into the local Comcast office, and turn the card in, and get a new one. I wasted WAY too much breath on arguing with him about how absurd this idea was.

He eventually transferred me to a supervisor that didn't know a CableCARD from a Birthday Card. That person transferred me BACK to the CableCARD pairing folks, who assured me that they could help...until it didn't work...and then the rep told me the same thing about going into the office. Eventually, I was placed on hold, and she said that she "tried again" (about the 5th try between various reps, to my knowledge), and it worked. No explanation whatsoever was provided about what had changed. But, of course, I didn't much care after several hours of nonsense. Needless to say, it seems to be working fine now.

And now that the Roamio is up and running, I happily returned the card from the Premiere, because my new Mini does everything I need. Goodbye, $9.95/month Digital Additional Outlet Fee! :D
No doubt. Can't wait to drop off that other card. Next, I am waiting for a "Digital Tuner Fee". Seems the next obvious line of attack.
 
#8,906 ·
Anyone out there heard of CableCard shortages in the Atlanta area. Tried three different Service Centers within 20 miles last week , none had cards. Two took my name & number but never called back. Tried again this week, same story. Sent a note to we_can-help @ comcast. They asked for my TiVo model (its a Series 3 HD) as they said they do not support the new 6 tuner TiVo's ???. Got a reply 4 days ago that they are still trying to locate a card. It's been about a week and a half..still no card. Almost desperate to buy a service call, maybe the installers have cards..
 
#8,910 ·
Anyone out there heard of CableCard shortages in the Atlanta area. Tried three different Service Centers within 20 miles last week , none had cards. Two took my name & number but never called back. Tried again this week, same story. Sent a note to we_can-help @ comcast. They asked for my TiVo model (its a Series 3 HD) as they said they do not support the new 6 tuner TiVo's ???. Got a reply 4 days ago that they are still trying to locate a card. It's been about a week and a half..still no card. Almost desperate to buy a service call, maybe the installers have cards..
I've had the unfortunate experience of that before with my Elite. Having done it before, I just wanted a cable card to complete the setup myself but none of the centers in Atlanta had them in stock. The waiting game wasn't really working for me either. While the installers are not guaranteed to have cards as lpwcomp stated, it is more likely to get a card from a truck roll than to wait for the centers to call you with any urgency. In their defense, I was rather impatient and they did eventually call me, days after the installer had provided a card already... It all comes down to how long you are willing to wait.

Also, no problem at all with the new 6 tuner Tivo's and 2 of my cablecards are 7 yrs old at this point.
 
#8,911 ·
Atomic Taco.. None of the Service Centers I have been to have phone access nor email. Plus the HD has told be then no longer ship CableCards. Ends up the process is just to leave my name and number (done this 3 times) on a scrap piece of paper and hope they call when a card arrives.. It's a vicious circle.

Devx.. How much was that install, looks like $20.00 (1 product install) + $39.00 (Service call) in my pricing chart. . Also following is a cut/paste from the we_can_help people.. " Can you please provide me with the type of Tivo you have purchased as we do not support the brand new 6 tuner Tivos at this time. ". Go figure, hard to tell what real or not !! Only been 10 days, but I'm seriously considering a dispatch if it goes much longer.
 
#8,912 ·
Also following is a cut/paste from the we_can_help people.. " Can you please provide me with the type of Tivo you have purchased as we do not support the brand new 6 tuner Tivos at this time. ".
Do keep in mind that when a lot of businesses say they don't support something it merely means they haven't tested it and/or won't help you with any problems. It does not necessarily mean it will not work. For instance, my computer is only "supported" for up to 8GB of RAM but I've had 16GB in it since a week after I bought it.

Of course whether the model is officially supported or not is completely irrelevant to issues of card unavailability and its disingenuous to ask what model and then say its unsupported as if that explains why no cards are available.
 
#8,913 ·
Devx.. How much was that install, looks like $20.00 (1 product install) + $39.00 (Service call) in my pricing chart. . Also following is a cut/paste from the we_can_help people.. " Can you please provide me with the type of Tivo you have purchased as we do not support the brand new 6 tuner Tivos at this time. ". Go figure, hard to tell what real or not !! Only been 10 days, but I'm seriously considering a dispatch if it goes much longer.
It was a little over 2 years ago, but that price doesn't seem too far off. I didn't wait anywhere near 10 days. I think if you hold out, they will deliver but it obviously won't be timely. I didn't want to wait and play their game. It's possible I've been lucky but it's interesting that the centers struggle to keep any cards in stock meanwhile every tech that has visited me has multiple cards with them. I only know that because if a card seems as if it won't work (usually because numbers are being misread, watch out for this), they assume it's bad and start swapping cards like crazy to find one that "works".

You can safely ignore the warnings from the comcast email reply. If you're activating a CC in a Series3 it's irrelevant.
 
#8,914 ·
Just a quick update One of the 3 Services Centers I visited actually called me back Fridaty afternoon saying they had a CableCard. Picked it up Sat, called activation number, the card would not connect. I broke off the call, and I double checked connections and setup, all was good. Called activation back got another person, provided same info, put me on hold about 5 mins and card activated while I was waiting. Asked what problem was and they would not say. Any way I'm now up and running, hopefully happy till next go-round.
 
#8,915 ·
Does anyone have a link to what the process is to move a cable card (m-card) from one tivo (a premier) to a new tivo (a roamio)?

Is it important to cancel it out before setting it up, or can one move it from the older tivo to the new one and then just contact tivo for registration?

Does one also have to contact comcast as well if the card is already active on my comcast account?

thanks for any links!
 
#8,916 ·
Does anyone have a link to what the process is to move a cable card (m-card) from one tivo (a premier) to a new tivo (a roamio)?

Is it important to cancel it out before setting it up, or can one move it from the older tivo to the new one and then just contact tivo for registration?

Does one also have to contact comcast as well if the card is already active on my comcast account?

thanks for any links!
You just move it to the new TiVo and then call your cable company to re-pair it with the new TiVo. You would only have to call TiVo if you need to authorize the new TiVo and establish service.
 
#8,917 ·
Does anyone have a link to what the process is to move a cable card (m-card) from one tivo (a premier) to a new tivo (a roamio)?

Is it important to cancel it out before setting it up, or can one move it from the older tivo to the new one and then just contact tivo for registration?

Does one also have to contact comcast as well if the card is already active on my comcast account?

thanks for any links!
I had a major hassle doing just that, but I just kept calling and being persistent with them, even when they told me that it could not be done without returning the CableCARD to the local office and getting a new one. It was quite a pain, and it took me a couple of days, but don't let anyone tell you that it can't be done.

Unfortunately, the only explanation I got when it worked was just that the rep had "tried again", and it worked. Not too helpful, I know.
 
#8,922 ·
Does anyone have a link to what the process is to move a cable card (m-card) from one tivo (a premier) to a new tivo (a roamio)?

Is it important to cancel it out before setting it up, or can one move it from the older tivo to the new one and then just contact tivo for registration?

Does one also have to contact comcast as well if the card is already active on my comcast account?

thanks for any links!
Remove the CableCard from the old TiVo, put it in the new one, and then call Comcast's CableCard hotline at 877-405-2298.

Just tell them that you've switched boxes; they'll ask you to provide them with the new box's Host ID, then they need to pair to the new box in their system.

Unlike Comcast's normal crappy support reps, the number above is to a dedicated team of CableCard specialists. I've had very good experiences with them in the past.

Good luck to you!

Joe

P.S. Be aware that certain models and firmware versions of CableCards have issues with Roamio and may only support four tuners. More info here under CableCard Troubleshooting
 
#8,923 ·
I don't know about your area, but here they immediately add an ADO fee to your account when you do that.
Remind me, ADO?

If they tried to pull that on me I'd just show them the pricing guide they have scattered around the place showing that CableCARDs cost $0.00/month.

Unless you're just picking up a new one and not dropping off the old one, then that fee would be legit until you turn in the old one.
 
#8,925 ·
Remind me, ADO?
Additional Digital Outlet.

If they tried to pull that on me I'd just show them the pricing guide they have scattered around the place showing that CableCARDs cost $0.00/month.
Which theoretically means that they shouldn't charge you until you actually activate it.

Unless you're just picking up a new one and not dropping off the old one, then that fee would be legit until you turn in the old one.
Not until you actually start using it. "Legit" and Comcast (or any cable co.) charges are only tenuously related.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top