Official Time Warner Cable Thread

[NEisenman]

I just had my Series 3 installed yesterday by TWC in NYC. The technician, believe it or not, was pretty knowledgable, but there are still many problems.

1. We set up the cable cards during the guided setup process and the TWC tech called in the host ID numbers to activate them. Then during the rest of the setup the machine kept re-booting to update cable card firmware. This happened 6 times and a wasted hour.

2. Then we called TiVo who told us to do the set-up without the cable cards installed and then install the cable cards. After doing this we finally got through the set-up process, but no channels were coming though.

3. We rebooted the machine and went thought the guided set up process again. This time only the local channels (both SD and HD) were working along with TBS and some shopping networks. No other channels (ESPN, CNN, MSNBC etc... ) were working, including all the premium channels I bought and some local cable access channels.

4. There is just a grey screen. and when I did the signal strength the signals all came up strong, but still just a grey screen

5. I have a Pioneer Elite PRO-1110 Plasma.

6. My questions are these:
a) is it possible to receive some channels even if the cable cards either are not functioning or not set up properly?
b) has anyone else had a similar problem? I have searched the forum, but could not find an answer ... although I have read all the horror stories of set up problems ...
c) is this a problem that will be solved with new cards, or can a technician come out to re-install the cards?
d) could I do this myself? if so do I need to call TWC to set up the cable cards again, or talk to TiVo about the issue? (I have already set up a TWC person to come on Friday, but I am hoping to solve sooner.
e) i tried changing the settings on the video output and on the Pioneer, but no results ... is there something else I could try?

any help would be appreciated

NE

[hookbill]

I've got a problem right now with 3 channels now coming in. 2 channels I could care less about. One I do care about.

These are digital channels and at first I only had a problem with one channel. Now since September two more channels have gone out. I had a tech come out today and he could not fix it. He just wanted to put the cards in and out which caused the endless reboots. Finally he made a call and they said I have a bad TiVo. I said bull, this thing was working fine before you played with the cards (except the three stations). I then did the fix for the endless reboot and had him install the cable cards EXACTLY as the directions said. Wasn't easy, he kept wanting me to do this, do that but I had the cards and the remote and I said no. ;)

Finally we got the cable up and running and I told him it has to be a mapping problem. He made a call to head end and they said no, check all connections. He checked some connections then told me sorry, nothing else he can do. I told him that law requires them to make the cable cards work. He said he would talk to his supervisor.

So what's my next step? Wait for a call? Call TW and start asking for credits until it gets fixed?

[loonyboi]

Problem found.

I switched to component video and it works fine. So for whatever reason, the issue lies between the TiVo and my television (Sony 34XBR960).

I called TiVo, and they told me to check my television's HDMI settings. Which of course is silly because it has no such settings to check. It's also weird that I was able to use my Time Warner DVR for over a year with no problems via HDMI, and now all of a sudden I'm having them with the Series3?

Is this a known software issue? The person I spoke with refused to say that, insisting that it must be an issue with my television. This just seems like a nasty bug to me on the TiVo side, and not something with my TV.

[Kablemodem]

My intall started off on the wrong foot - no cable cards on the work order - but the guy came back in about 20 minutes with the cards. He had to connect to the house first and then connected to each of the rooms in which I will eventually have cable. The cable card install went fine but after the guy left I notice that I only get about 20% of the channels. The guy also brought a Moxi DVR which was included in my package but he couldn't get it to work. He said the signal was too weak and he would have someone come back another day with an amplifier. Could the weak signal be affecting the S3 as well? He split the room with the S3 before he split the other three rooms so that the S3 would have the strongest signal.

[martymar]

my complaint letter to time warner still haven't sent it yet but i sure will...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CableCARDs Complaint Letter.

I am a long time Time warner cable customer (since 2001) I have enjoyed good service up to the point I requested CableCARD installation for my newly acquired a Tivo Series 3 Digital Video Recorder this past Christmas. I set an appointment for January 3rd, in which i was charged $30.30 for the installation of the first CableCARD and $19 for the second. both CableCARDs were to be installed in the Tivo (it requires two cards for dual tuner functionality).

January 3rd the technician arrives at 2:30pm and the installation went smoothly but a little over a week later i was missing channels thus the problems began. I exchanged the Tivo for fear of having a defective unit, I called Time Warner on the 13th of January to help me resolve the missing channels problem after 2 hours of nowhere , they recommended to set an appointment for a technician to come out to initialize the CableCARDs.

January 18th the technician arrives at 4pm (incidentally the appointment was from 1pm to 4pm) only to tell me he has never heard of CableCARDs before and he is not the person to do this job, only a Time Warner “in house” technician can do the CableCARD initializations (or installations). At this point I'm very upset at having to wait the whole day for a technician to come help me only to tell me someone else has to do it. I call Time Warner again and politely ask for immediate assistance with the CableCARDs since the channels i was receiving were not even cable channels most were the local channels. I was not getting the channels I subscribed to. After another fruitless two hours on the phone , I consented to yet another visit (which meant losing my third day to get these cards turned on).

January 24th a rather rude technician (#3983) arrives at 9:45am to try and help me get CableCARDs instead he checks my cable connection and gives a sales pitch for using the Time Warner DVR as opposed to the Tivo with CableCARDs. I make it clear I fully understand the limitations of the technology behind the CableCARDs and I accept those limitations. He reluctantly calls dispatch to tell them i am missing some channels and requests instructions on what he should he do. The dispatcher asks for the CableCARD serial numbers and to wait for for ten minutes. Ten minutes pass and nothing happens then the technician (who seems to have no interest in helping me) offers me 2 solutions either add a Time Warner dvr box or get another appointment (for an allegedly higher level technician). This is totally unacceptable I felt like I was literally being pushed to stop trying to use CableCARD based devices. There was not any point in observing the technicians that I felt they really were trying to get the service up and running. In fact, it was more like they were hindrances to getting them working so that I may give up and rent a cable box. So the technician leaves saying wait another ten minutes if still no service make another appointment.

I called Time Warner to explicitly explain to them their legal obligation (as per the FCC) to fully support CableCARD customers and offer service equal to that of cable box rental customers. I have been out of cable service since the 13th and was told I would get a service credit for the loss of service. I have yet to receive the credit nor the service to date only a marathon of appointments. The next one is scheduled for January 29th. At this point if I cannot get proper assistance I will give up on the prospect for the CableCARD service and cable all together. I will also file a formal complaint to the FCC for poor and negligent service on Time Warner's behalf to a paying customer.


Sincerely Martin
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TWC NYC
Tivo Series 3
Sharp 32" AQUOS (CableCARD ready)

[pmiranda]

Surprise! TW-Austin quietly seems to have switched Versus(470) and Nick Toons (125) without any warning. The only reason I won't call them lying pieces of garbage for it is that they don't even list the channels that they switch anywhere official. Pretty convenient that it allows the lying CSRs to blame any cablecard problem on switched channels.
They also screwed up billing this month. Even though I have autopay they show last month's bill as unpaid.

Too bad the TiVo alternative is with HD-lite via satellite and a different incompatible future in MPEG4.
Maybe someday Grande will come to my side of Austin (or I'll move somewhere they have service).

[Starlamae]

oh crap, it's funny you mention this. i was going to go order a cable card for my s3 because TW's hd box will not allow me to receive any channels over 99 except for the local hd! i have the digital plus hd tier. i should be able to receive tnthd, espnhd, discoveryhd and fswhd (also other digital channels) with this package. i even exchanged the box for another, but still the same problem. they tried sending a tech over to fix it, but he had no clue what the issue is, so i said maybe i'll try the cable card route....but i guess that's not gonna work either after hearing your story. i live in chino, ca btw.

I'm learning as I go. I called a CSR after reading about these different problems and asked her if she could send me a 'hit' so I can watch the EMM's and they did go up as she hit the card, but no new channels.

BTW the final installer that came out insisted that my Tivo was bad and there was nothing more they could do and left. He was (at my request) sent out by a Supervisor. Anyway back to the call. She asked me if I had cablecard capabilities on my TV too and I looked and sure enough it's there.

So she had me remove the CC from the Tivo, insert it in the TV and she remarried it to the TV and sent a hit. Now I get no digital channels and only the local HD's whereas before I got most all the digitals and only 419 in HD.

She said, "well maybe it's NOT your Tivo" and scheduled my 8th technician in the last 7 service calls. SEVEN FREAKIN' SERVICE CALLS AND IT STILL DOESN'T WORK RIGHT!!!!!!!

The moral of the story is though if it works in your TV right, it should work in the Tivo right. So far neither have worked correctly. I'll update my Post after Friday with the results in the hopes that it will help somebody else in the future.

[mercurial]

My intall started off on the wrong foot - no cable cards on the work order - but the guy came back in about 20 minutes with the cards. He had to connect to the house first and then connected to each of the rooms in which I will eventually have cable. The cable card install went fine but after the guy left I notice that I only get about 20% of the channels. The guy also brought a Moxi DVR which was included in my package but he couldn't get it to work. He said the signal was too weak and he would have someone come back another day with an amplifier. Could the weak signal be affecting the S3 as well? He split the room with the S3 before he split the other three rooms so that the S3 would have the strongest signal.

Your problem is you got Kable Kards and the S3 only takes Cable Cards....


Seriously, from what I saw, the signal CAN be an issue with it seeing the authorization messages but I'd put better money on them not being properly authorized in the provisioning system.

[Stormspace]

Problem found.

I switched to component video and it works fine. So for whatever reason, the issue lies between the TiVo and my television (Sony 34XBR960).

I called TiVo, and they told me to check my television's HDMI settings. Which of course is silly because it has no such settings to check. It's also weird that I was able to use my Time Warner DVR for over a year with no problems via HDMI, and now all of a sudden I'm having them with the Series3?

Is this a known software issue? The person I spoke with refused to say that, insisting that it must be an issue with my television. This just seems like a nasty bug to me on the TiVo side, and not something with my TV.

Welcome to the world of DRM. You can thank your congressman for any issues you have using the HDMI ports on your TV and AV equipment. I predict that more people over the next few years will be using component connections over HDMI and that the whole HDMI interface will die.

[martymar]

So what do you guys think the reason is for the missing channels issue? is it just a matter of sending multiple hits?

---------------------------
TWC NYC
Tivo Series 3
Sharp 32" AQUOS (CableCARD ready)

[WSP]

[B]TW - Austin

It appears that sometime in the last week, TW Austin has moved KXAN-DT to switched video. KXAN-DT is the local HD NBC station. KXAN-DT is listed as part of the "Basic" lineup for TW in Austin.

In the past you could always receive the "Basic" services without a STB. Is this a franchise violation?

[WSP]

TW - Austin

Need to correct my previous post about KXAN. The problem is that the signal level for this channel is way down. They are sending a tech to adjust the signal levels later today.

[cableguy763]

They did not move KXAN-DT to switched video. So no franchise violation.

[Kablemodem]

Your problem is you got Kable Kards and the S3 only takes Cable Cards....


Seriously, from what I saw, the signal CAN be an issue with it seeing the authorization messages but I'd put better money on them not being properly authorized in the provisioning system.

I think you are right. I checked out the cable card screens and there was something that looked like an error message. I'm not at home and I don't remember exactly what it said. I took out the splitters and ran the line directly to the S3 so I don't think it is a signal strength problem. I also tried a component cable instead of HDMI but that didn't make a difference.

[Teeps]

Got my cards installed today. The tech that came (lucky me) had never done a TiVo. And, as stated many times in other posts, he wanted to slam both cards at the same time.

I remained firm that he please follow TiVo instruction sheet, which he did.

So in goes card 1, TiVo sees it, assigns a network id #; time warner tech calls it in. In a few minutes the card is reporting having received AUTH.

Test channels; no encrypted channels.

Then TiVo reports it's doing a firmware upgrade WTF??? Didn't see anything in the instructions about that.... TiVo screen says could take 40 minutes or longer.

I tell TW tech to leave me the other card and I'll wait out the upgrade. He agrees and leaves.

About 10 minutes later TiVo is finished with firmware upgrade.

I install card 2; call tech support (everyone on TW end very polite and were tripping over themselves to help) to get card to AUTH.

About 20 minutes later I am receiving encrypted channels, that I want, and all is good.
But only with card 2; card 1 still no encrypted stations.

THE BIGGEST PROBLEM NOW, IS TIVO CHANNEL GUIDE IS NOT ACCURATE...
I'll be calling TiVo later today.

Summary:
card 2 gets Speed, Verses, DiscHD. (important to me)
card 1 is only allowing analog stations
TiVo guide reports old TW lineup

[NEisenman]

an update to an earlier post ...

As suggested I had TWC send a signal (a "hit") to my cable cards. This did nothing the first time. I tried again the next day just in case another hit would work. This time 95% of the channels are coming in, although some drop out after a while, and still no ESPNHD. The technician is coming again today. Should I have TWC send another hit? Would that solve the missing 5%? Do repeated hits strengthen the connection? Should I have the technician change the cards?

OR ...

Should I leave well enough alone and not have the technician do anything?

is this a problem with the cards? or TWC's system, or TiVo?

Thanks

Nick

[JKay]

When I purchased my HD TV I had Comcast. I was able to tune the local network channel off basic cable with the QAM tuner in the TV. TWC took over the cable franchise about 3 months ago. I just did a digital cable scan with the TV and a direct cable feed. I was surprised that I am not getting any of the local networks HD feeds with the QAM tuner. I do get a few of the local networks digital secondary (junk) channels, but not a single one of the major feeds I use to get with Comcast.

[minckster]

THE BIGGEST PROBLEM NOW, IS TIVO CHANNEL GUIDE IS NOT ACCURATE... If you go to Settings > Channels > Channel List, you'll see a message on the bottom of the screen, "Press ENTER if this is the wrong channel lineup". Press Enter and follow the onscreen instructions and you'll repeat the part of Guided Setup related to choosing your channel lineup.

If you still have problems, you can select among TiVo's available lineups manually instead of following TiVo's Q&A about what channels you receive. Start the process outlined in the previous paragraph again, but watch carefully for another message on the bottom of the screen about pressing Enter (or some other key, my memory is fuzzy) to enter advanced channel setup. Once you get into that, you can pick each available lineup in turn and browse up and down the channels and their networks. Pick the lineup that most closely resembles what you actually receive.

Can someone help us out with some details about manually choosing a channel lineup? I'm feeling a bit lazy about repeating the channels portion of Guided Setup to get exact instructions.

[ksurgenor]

The install rep called me at 4:45 and said he had a job to finish up, that he was in the neighborhood, and would be over in a few minutes. I said he was early and that my appointment was from 5-8. My friggin fault that I wasn't home yet but he was early. My wife was here though. Anyway... of course he didn't show. I spoke with im at 7pm and he said he had another little job to go to but that he hadn't forgotten about me and he would be out tonight. Well low and behold it is friggin 8:45 and I have called the guy like 20 times and he won't answer his phone. I called TW and was on hold for 10 minutes then got disconnected. Again on hold for another 30 minutes I finally got thru and got dispatch to give him a call but they couldn't reach him. Got the sups name but I doubt it will do any good. I will try to leverage it into a bill credit or something. Hope he shows up tonite! I hate cable companies!

[ksurgenor]

Just got a call from TW... apparently the installer had a "family emergency". I went ballistic. The caller said that a supervisor was being dispatched to my apartment but that she didn't have an ETA. What the hell is wrong with companies that they friggin think they can screw around the little guy and expect it to be okay. I am going to get something for this.

[Kablemodem]

I think I remember a few years back there was a law that if the cable company doesn't keep an appointment you are automatically entitled to a credit. It may have been a CA thing.

[hookbill]

I think I remember a few years back there was a law that if the cable company doesn't keep an appointment you are automatically entitled to a credit. It may have been a CA thing.

Most of the cable companies do credit you something, but you have to ask.

[editedby]

Just curious, has any TWC New York Manhattan customer been able to cleanly install an S3? Time is running out on my free lifetime switch, but having read a few pages here, the situation seems dire. :^( ... {old school emoticon!}

edit begins:
Ok did a thread search, sounds like S3 installs are no longer as problematic as they were a few months ago ... but if anyone has any tips to smooth the way I'd appreciate it
TIA

[appliance]

Personally, I'd go ahead and take the plunge. That Lifetime Subscription thing is too valuable to pass by in my opinion. And, once I got my cable cards installed, I've had relatively few problems. That's not say I've had no problems, but I'd still say it's worth your time now.

[DrWho453]

Well, I finally got my cable cards installed today from TWC in Raleigh (I had hoped to have done after thanksgiving but I ran low on money so I am just now getting it installed. At least I had OTA HD). After getting past a couple of issues (one being the guy was running a cable directly from the outside cable box to my tivo and forgot to hook the end to the cable box so of course we couldn't get the card to authorize :rolleyes: ), the tivo looked like everything was up and running perfectly. We tested 280 (Discovery HD) and 291 (ESPNHD) and they came up with no problem. The tech left, I finished the guided setup and thought everything was fine. Well it turns out that I can get channel 204 (UNC and all of the UNC DT and HD channels) and 255 (CBS HD and all of its DT channels) and the channels above 255. However, I can not get channels 211-250 which is ABC HD and DT, NBC HD and DT, and FOX HD and DT. Tivo says that there is no signal. Well, the tech had to come back anyway because he left his cell phone charger so I asked him about it and he checked the lines and there is a good signal coming in for those channels. We tried going directly to the cable box outside again and still can't get it going. TW suggested running guided setup again. I didn't think it would make a difference but I decided I would do it again and see what happens. I let the cable guy go but the guided setup still did not fix the problem. Before I call TW again, anyone have any suggestion as to what the problem might be?

[alyssa]

First thought without really thinking about it,
have them try & reauthorize the cards. The tech doesn't have to come out, you can do this on the phone with a TW tech.

[Ariel817]

Well, I went through a two-week whipping to get cablecards out of TW in Arlington, TX... but they are in, finally... and I think working okay.

Anyway, I would say....here's the deal..... they have Grade-A techs and definitely NOT Grade-A techs.. if you work days and want an evening call.... oh, so sorry, too bad.

I did end up with Grade-A daytime (usually knock off by 3 PM) techs who stayed late and came at 5:15......... because by this time I'd bumped my complaints up to VP level through a great first-line customer service guy named Johnathon who not only cared, but cared enough to call from his personal cell phone a couple of times after his shift was over to check my status, and ran it up the flagpole back at his office the next day.

So....... my advice is... go ahead and take some time off work and see if you can get the knowledgable daytime techs.

Also, when you place the call, ask them to have spares on hand. They probably won't, although they are aware of the high failure rate they are also low stock on the cards in the warehouses. Still, try to insist.

And... good luck. Go with God. All that!

It eventually IS worth it.

[hookbill]

Well, I went through a two-week whipping to get cablecards out of TW in Arlington, TX... but they are in, finally... and I think working okay.

Anyway, I would say....here's the deal..... they have Grade-A techs and definitely NOT Grade-A techs.. if you work days and want an evening call.... oh, so sorry, too bad.

I did end up with Grade-A daytime (usually knock off by 3 PM) techs who stayed late and came at 5:15......... because by this time I'd bumped my complaints up to VP level through a great first-line customer service guy named Johnathon who not only cared, but cared enough to call from his personal cell phone a couple of times after his shift was over to check my status, and ran it up the flagpole back at his office the next day.

So....... my advice is... go ahead and take some time off work and see if you can get the knowledgable daytime techs.

Also, when you place the call, ask them to have spares on hand. They probably won't, although they are aware of the high failure rate they are also low stock on the cards in the warehouses. Still, try to insist.

And... good luck. Go with God. All that!

It eventually IS worth it.


I am finding that in my area on the lower tier level you meet all kinds of resistance in regards to getting a problem resolved. They just recently changed the area that my techs come out of and I could see a different attitude in these techs. They were not as willing to help.

I had a problem not receiving 3 channels. The tech basically pulled my cards out, put them back incorrectly and I had to take over from that point to fix it. :mad:

He left saying it was a TiVo problem, too bad so sad. I thought not.

Fortunately I remembered a persons name who had fixed a cable card problem for me in the past. Even though I did not deal with her specifically I was able to find her. From that point on the whole level of service went from lousy to first class. I documented it on a thread located here (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=338064) .

The story is still not finished as I still have one problem channel but the amount of effort that this person has gone through over a 48 hour period was amazing. I'm hopefull that it will be resolved completely by Monday.

I believe that TW really wants to work with us on this. I think the resistance you find depends literally out of what office your tech comes from.

[pmiranda]

I can not get channels 211-250 which is ABC HD and DT, NBC HD and DT, and FOX HD and DT. Tivo says that there is no signal. Well, the tech had to come back anyway because he left his cell phone charger so I asked him about it and he checked the lines and there is a good signal coming in for those channels. We tried going directly to the cable box outside again and still can't get it going. TW suggested running guided setup again. I didn't think it would make a difference but I decided I would do it again and see what happens. I let the cable guy go but the guided setup still did not fix the problem. Before I call TW again, anyone have any suggestion as to what the problem might be?

What's the signal strength on those channels? If it's an authorization problem (easily fixed with a phone call to the right person), it will be just as high as channels you get.

[crazywater]

However, I can not get channels 211-250 which is ABC HD and DT, NBC HD and DT, and FOX HD and DT. Tivo says that there is no signal. Well, the tech had to come back anyway because he left his cell phone charger so I asked him about it and he checked the lines and there is a good signal coming in for those channels. We tried going directly to the cable box outside again and still can't get it going. TW suggested running guided setup again. I didn't think it would make a difference but I decided I would do it again and see what happens. I let the cable guy go but the guided setup still did not fix the problem. Before I call TW again, anyone have any suggestion as to what the problem might be?

I had exactly the same problem and I am in Raleigh as well. Only got the HD locals but not the premium HD channels. TW came back and checked outside and found the problem to be there. My TiVo said the signal strength was in the 90s for the channels I was not getting. So I think you need to get them back out there again to check outside, it wouldn't hurt if they brough extra cards as well.

[DrWho453]

Well, I finally got my cable cards installed today from TWC in Raleigh (I had hoped to have done after thanksgiving but I ran low on money so I am just now getting it installed. At least I had OTA HD). After getting past a couple of issues (one being the guy was running a cable directly from the outside cable box to my tivo and forgot to hook the end to the cable box so of course we couldn't get the card to authorize :rolleyes: ), the tivo looked like everything was up and running perfectly. We tested 280 (Discovery HD) and 291 (ESPNHD) and they came up with no problem. The tech left, I finished the guided setup and thought everything was fine. Well it turns out that I can get channel 204 (UNC and all of the UNC DT and HD channels) and 255 (CBS HD and all of its DT channels) and the channels above 255. However, I can not get channels 211-250 which is ABC HD and DT, NBC HD and DT, and FOX HD and DT. Tivo says that there is no signal. Well, the tech had to come back anyway because he left his cell phone charger so I asked him about it and he checked the lines and there is a good signal coming in for those channels. We tried going directly to the cable box outside again and still can't get it going. TW suggested running guided setup again. I didn't think it would make a difference but I decided I would do it again and see what happens. I let the cable guy go but the guided setup still did not fix the problem. Before I call TW again, anyone have any suggestion as to what the problem might be?

Well I think the problem may have been cable card 2 was not authorized. When I looked at both cards, card 1 was cp auth but card 2 was not but both cards could get the 280 and 291 but not the 211-250. I was going to call the cable company back today but sometime before 9:30 last night the second card go cp authorized and now 211-250 are working so hopefully I won't have any more problems although this morning the series 3 only got 3 minutes of the This old house program even though it shows a 30 minute bar when playing only 3 minutes was green. It had no problems getting ask this old house which came on later. I thought, ok maybe I lost the signal during that time, however as a backup I still have tivo 1 recording some of these shows and it got the full 30 mins so I don't know what happened. Oh well, I still love the tivo and at least I can get the CW 22 and myRDC in HD off the antenna since TW doesn't offer it on the cable.

[gmyles]

an update to an earlier post ...

As suggested I had TWC send a signal (a "hit") to my cable cards. This did nothing the first time. I tried again the next day just in case another hit would work. This time 95% of the channels are coming in, although some drop out after a while, and still no ESPNHD. The technician is coming again today. Should I have TWC send another hit? Would that solve the missing 5%? Do repeated hits strengthen the connection? Should I have the technician change the cards?

OR ...

Should I leave well enough alone and not have the technician do anything?

is this a problem with the cards? or TWC's system, or TiVo?

Thanks

Nick

Nick,

I have the same exact problem -- no premium (HBO) or HDNet channels showing, just the grey screen. I have TW in southern california (formerly Adelphia).

I also have a HD cable box, and all the channels are fine using the box.

Repeated re-authorization (once using the automated phone system, once over the phone with tech support) has not helped.

Any news on your end?

Thanks,
Greg

[gmyles]

I had no premium channels, no HDNet, etc, but other channels were working (Time Warner Southern California). Repeated reauthorizations ("hits") did not work.

While on the phone with TW tech support, I noticed in my CableCard setup in Tivo that in Conditional Access, "Auth" was "MISSING_PROGRAM_REKEY".

Searching for that term online, I found a mention in the "Official RCN CableCard Thread" where sysdude recommended to someone that "They have to 'hit' the cards again with a stronger signal".

I asked the tech to do that. She was reluctant, because they were taught that "initialization" (that's what they call the stronger signal hit) can "fry" your cards. But she tried it anyway, and IT WORKED!!!

Now Auth is "SUBSCRIBED" for both cards, and the channels are showing perfectly.

I spent hours on hold with tech support this weekend, and I hope this helps others!

Thank you, sysdude, whoever you are.

Good luck all,
Greg

[Kablemodem]

I had no premium channels, no HDNet, etc, but other channels were working (Time Warner Southern California). Repeated reauthorizations ("hits") did not work.

While on the phone with TW tech support, I noticed in my CableCard setup in Tivo that in Conditional Access, "Auth" was "MISSING_PROGRAM_REKEY".



I have the same error message on both cards. I am getting only about 20% of all channels and no premiums or HD channels. A tech is supposed to come today.

[gmyles]

I have the same error message on both cards. I am getting only about 20% of all channels and no premiums or HD channels. A tech is supposed to come today.
What is frustrating is that the techs can't do anything onsite! They can only call into the call center and double-check the numbers (card #, host #) and have them send out hits. And they wait as long on hold with their call center as we do!

Make sure to tell him about the stronger hit...

[superbad2002]

I was lucky (I think) and my cards installed quickly and easily. I love HD Tivo and can't go back now. :)

I am having intermittent problems with the Cable Cards, though, and I actually think this is a Tivo thing. I'll be flipping through channels, or going from one input on my tv to another and then back to HD Tivo, and suddenly the premium channels are gone. When I say no premium, what I get is basic cable (below channel 99) plus the local HD stations.

I reboot Tivo and everything is back. This happens frequently enough that it is a real pain, and you can't be sure it won't interfere with recordings (I've already missed one) since it happens suddenly without notice and the only fix I've come up with is a Tivo reboot.

Anybody else experience this or know of a fix? It is possible that when on another input (one of which includes a second Tivo S2) my clicking messes up my HD Tivo, but it doesn't really explain why the channels get dropped until a reboot.

Thanks!

Jim

[Kablemodem]

What is frustrating is that the techs can't do anything onsite! They can only call into the call center and double-check the numbers (card #, host #) and have them send out hits. And they wait as long on hold with their call center as we do!

Make sure to tell him about the stronger hit...

The guy who came out today was experienced with the S3 and he knew exactly what he was doing , although he arrived at 12:15 for a 8-12 apointment. He had the cards rehit, which didn't work, so he pulled the cards, reinserted them and had them rehit again. Card 1 worked right away, but card 2 didn't. He said card 2 always gives him trouble. After unsuccessfully hitting it a few more times he replaced the card and it worked after a couple of tries. I seem to be getting all my channels although I didn't have time to go through them all. They also replaced my DVR with a new one and it worked right away. The weak signal nonsense was just the original installer's excuse to cut and run. So, all is good now AFAIK.

[DrWho453]

Well I just ran into a problem last night. I recorded Heros and Sunstrip 60 last night from cable channel 6 NBC. Heros recorded with no problems, however, 20 minutes into Sunstrip 60, the tivo lost the signal. The screen went grey. The tivo was still recording CSI Miami on 255 CBS HDTV with no problems. I checked the cable cards and both still said CP Auth and I could not see any difference between what it said at the time and what it normally shows. The system diagnostic showed the tuner 0 was not tunned and tunner 1 was tunned to 255. Fortunantly, tivo series 2 was also recording the show on channel 6 and it got the entire show. I understand people have had issues with losing the HD channels but I can't figure out why I would lose the standard cable channel. Its not encrypted and what is strange is when the tivo stopped the recording at 11, the signal came back and I could watch the NBC news. I hope this won't happen to often, makes me afraid that I am going to miss something. I think this is what happened with this old house which I noted in a previous message.

[Kablemodem]

I've lost all my premium and HD channels and most of my analog and digital channels again. They don't show up on the DVR either, so it isn't a TiVo issue.

[derekcbart]

This morning the channel lineup conversion happened and, much to my surprise, TiVo got all of the new channel information correct on the first try after running Guided Setup again. I was very nervous about this and I had read some posts about it being a nightmare, but my experience was very good. Just FYI.

[Teeps]

SO FAR SO GOOD...

SEE THIS THREAD: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=4816848&highlight=TEEPS#post4816848

[abredt]

Love TiVo - BUT !!

Last night my TiVo-3 stopped recording "Prison Break" 46 minutes into the show. (8:00 to 8:46)

Then it recorded all of "24" (9:00 to 10:00) on the same channel.

No other prigrams were set to record at those times and I was not watching any programs. My connections are by component cables.

What a waste of money to have to record everything on my TiVo-2 in case TiVo-3 doesn't get it all. Any idea what's going on?

CB

[pl1]

Love TiVo - BUT !!Last night my TiVo-3 stopped recording "Prison Break" 46 minutes into the show. (8:00 to 8:46)Then it recorded all of "24" (9:00 to 10:00) on the same channel.Sounds like you may have been bitten by the EAS (Emergency Alert System). If this stupid thing comes on, it knocks your S3 out to live TV and the S3 does not know how to restart it's recording. Hopefully they will fix this.

[TiVolunteer]

Sounds like you may have been bitten by the EAS (Emergency Alert System). If this stupid thing comes on, it knocks your S3 out to live TV and the S3 does not know how to restart it's recording. Hopefully they will fix this.

It *may* have been the "Emergency Alert bug" but I think, more than likely, it is is the "Missing channels" bug that is described earlier in this thread (and elsewhere). I have seen the same type of situation as Abredt while watching something live (Yes, my wife and daughter still watch certain shows live -- at least I've got them trained to wait until 15 min after the hour and they skip through commercials).

We've had it occur on HD and SD, digital and analog, encrypted, and unencrypted. However, the common element in all instances was that it was a "mapped" channel that uses the Cable Card to get its mapping.

A recent instance occurred on an analog channel that is also mapped to another channel number (subject for a whole other thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=332252)). On our Time Warner Cable system, Disney is channel 53 (analog) but is also analog on channel 181 (same feed but mapped to two different numbers). My wife and daughter were watching a Disney movie live on Channel 181 when I hear a shout from across the house -- "Dad, the cable is 'messing up' again". I go into the family room and find that they are looking at a gray screen. I quickly ascertain that the other Series 3's are not having the same problem, and get them to move to the other room while I debug that one. I determined the following before the channel came back on its own (about 9 minutes)

a) The analog feed was still there because the other Tivo was getting it
b) The analog feed was still reaching the TiVo in question because it was still showing up on channel 53. The only problem was the mapping to channel 181.
c) The recording stopped at the point that the screen went gray but it still thought it was recording (red icon). It stayed that way until I forced a channel change. The recording that was left in the "Now Playing" stopped at the point it went gray not at the point I changed the channel.
d) Both tuners had the same problem.
e) Both Cable Cards showed Authorized.
f) Could not test signal strength because the channel in question was analog
g) Changing channels and then changing back did not fix it at least not initially.
h) The channel returned on its own after about 9 minutes.

I've had other instances in which the missing channel was Time Warners HD feed of local stations. Similar in some respects to what happened above but a few key differences
a) In those situations, it was only one tuner and not both.
b) In some situations, only a reboot cleared it. Or maybe we didn't wait long enough for it to clear on its own, but a reboot definitely cleared it. Other cases, they came back on their own.
c) Since those were digital, I could check signal strength. It is has been rock solid at 95-97 in all cases. Implies that it is a mapping/authorization issue again since the signal is still there (signal strength) and the HD feeds are in the clear.

Now that I've typed all that, Abredt's issue may very well be an Emergency Broadcast issue. It would be odd for the signal to come back right at the hour. Unless, there was a "chunk" of time missing (14 minutes) and he didn't catch the discontinuity (occurs in a commercial that you are FF through). In my situation above, the final recording would have been 1 hour and 51 minutes with a 9 minute chunk missing in the first hour. I guess a discriminating factor between these two situations might be whether the final minutes of the recording show the credits or it really stops at minute 46.

[superbad2002]

I think, more than likely, it is is the "Missing channels" bug...
Well, I appreciate all your typing because I'm convinced that is exactly what is happening to me as well. I never waited around to see if it comes back on its own though. Rebooting always fixes it but it doesn't give me confidence in my scheduled recordings.

So, any suggestions what to do?

[Stormspace]

I called today to take care of my bill (Issues with Adelphia rollover) and was told that the new TW billing rates wouldn't go into effect until after all the equipment in our area was changed out. It's supposed to be a significant reduction on our bill. :up:

I asked about the new digital boxes. Specifically, who makes them. The CSR stumbled in her reply so I offered. "My TiVo currently controls the Adelphia Scientific Atlanta box, I was asking about the equipment manufacturer to see if I'd have any problems." Also as soon as she heard TiVo she told me. Our boxes aren't compatible with TiVo.

Clueless or clued into the management party line?

[Kablemodem]

I've lost all my premium and HD channels and most of my analog and digital channels again. They don't show up on the DVR either, so it isn't a TiVo issue.

Suddenly everything started working. I am still missing 4 or 5 SD channels, but for the most part everything is great. Let's see how long this lasts.

[pl1]

Now that I've typed all that, Abredt's issue may very well be an Emergency Broadcast issue. It would be odd for the signal to come back right at the hour. To finish your thought. The reason it could come back one hour later (if we are judging this based on recordings only) is because the EAS will knock out whatever was recording and not recover. But if another program was scheduled to record at the top of the next hour, TiVo will follow it's normal recording schedule. That is where I came to the conclusion it was the EAS. This is precisely what happened to me the first time it happened to me. Now I know enough to press the record button after I see the EAS "IF" I'm in front of the TV at the time it happens.

[tivotivotivo]

Does TW santa monica (and your Tivo HD) get channel 409?

Channel 409 is the brand new Channel 9 but since I have not switched to digital HD yet I am unsure if 409 is on the regular digital or if with that number we are entering the dreaded Switched Digital (?) area that tivo hd can not get.

thanks,

http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_031140025.html

[calitivo]

Does TW santa monica (and your Tivo HD) get channel 409?

Channel 409 is the brand new Channel 9 but since I have not switched to digital HD yet I am unsure if 409 is on the regular digital or if with that number we are entering the dreaded Switched Digital (?) area that tivo hd can not get.

thanks,

http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_031140025.html

I'm in West LA serviced by the SM office. 409 is coming through on the S3 with no problems. The lineup is now reflecting it as well.

[radtom]

In San Antonio I was able to pick up 2 cable cards at the service center (no sweet talk or social engineering they just slid them over and added them to the list of equipment I have), install them and then call repair.

After getting past a rep that insisted I shouldn't have done that (my problem?) I spoke with a supervisor who had me going in 5 minutes. It is NOT a service call necessity and I have no idea why they want to clog up their service schedules with home visits. With my first Series 3, I had to explain to the tech what to do which is why I knew I didn't need them out a second time.

[Kablemodem]

TiVo added 409 to my list of channels I receive but I don't get a picture on that channel.

Edit: I get it now.

[randywalters]

I'm in West LA serviced by the SM office. 409 is coming through on the S3 with no problems. The lineup is now reflecting it as well.I'm just south of you (TWC South Bay El Segundo/Torrance) and even though TWC is advertising that they've added KCAL 9-DT on channel 409, it hasn't appeared in my guide on my S3 or my two SA8300HD DVRs. If i manually enter 409, i get the ??? and the channel does not change. Luckily i pull in 9-1 OTA perfectly :up:

[tivotivotivo]

I'm in West LA serviced by the SM office. 409 is coming through on the S3 with no problems. The lineup is now reflecting it as well.

thank you very much!

[112358]

I live in Manhattan and am planning on getting HDTV service from Time Warner Cable and upgrading to an S3. Do I have to do it w/ cablecards or can still just use a time warner digital cable set-top box? The cablecards sound great, but I would lose access to on-demand programming. ..

[tivotivotivo]

I believe you need to use it with cable cards if you wish to get digital cable and the tivo does not support access on demand programming.

:(

[david10595]

Yes this is one of the reasons why I'm debating whether I should go with an S3 or TimeWarner's DVR solution. With S3, I lose my on-demand stations (big no-no..). With TWC's DVR, I go back to a deluxe-VCR instead of the features that made TiVo famous.
:confused: What a dilemma... Has anyone made up their mind here in Manhattan?
Thanks

[pmiranda]

Since I had a lifetime S1 to transfer, I have a non-DVR HD settop and two cablecards for less per month than the TW DVR (edit: I'm in Austin, YMMV). I don't really care about on demand, but I had to do this to get switched channels. Unfortunately the settop I got was a SA3100HD, which doesn't output any video on HD channels, so I can't record the switched HD's. If A&E starts showing anything I care about in HD then I'll try swapping it for a 3250HD, especially since the 3100 doesn't have DVI or HDMI :down:

[SCSIRAID]

Yes this is one of the reasons why I'm debating whether I should go with an S3 or TimeWarner's DVR solution. With S3, I lose my on-demand stations (big no-no..). With TWC's DVR, I go back to a deluxe-VCR instead of the features that made TiVo famous.
:confused: What a dilemma... Has anyone made up their mind here in Manhattan?
Thanks

Why not do both.... Use the S3 where it excels and the POS where necessary.

[Mike Farrington]

Yes this is one of the reasons why I'm debating whether I should go with an S3 or TimeWarner's DVR solution. With S3, I lose my on-demand stations (big no-no..). With TWC's DVR, I go back to a deluxe-VCR instead of the features that made TiVo famous.
:confused: What a dilemma... Has anyone made up their mind here in Manhattan?
ThanksAs a TiVo owner, I've never seen the draw of OnDemand programming. I record everything I'd ever want to watch. While it would be nice to have PPV, I've found the cable company's selection of movies to be juvenile and they are never in a letterboxed format. For movies I'll stick to Netflix and perhaps a future purchase of an IPTV product.

[david10595]

Why not do both.... Use the S3 where it excels and the POS where necessary.
Well the whole idea was to get rid of one box also, space is precious in Manhattan :)

[Fofer]

I'm using a Series 3 with Time Warner. Got my Cable Cards installed yesterday, and so far, all seems well. :up: The S3 is what got me to switch away from DirecTV and back to cable. Fingers crossed it continues to work smoothly.

With regards to PPV events, is it just a matter of not being able to order from my remote and set top box? Would I be able to call Customer Service and order them (like I used to do with DirecTV?)

Not a big deal to me, as I've never been interested in PPV movies. I'm more curious about a live event, like Boxing or UFC. I've ordered 1 or 2 of them in the last 5-6 years.

Thanks for any replies.

[Fofer]

I live in Manhattan and am planning on getting HDTV service from Time Warner Cable and upgrading to an S3. Do I have to do it w/ cablecards or can still just use a time warner digital cable set-top box? The cablecards sound great, but I would lose access to on-demand programming. ..

For the record, while I waited the few days for the Cable Cards to feed my S3, I had TWC install their dual tuner HD DVR. Holy bag of crap, Batman! I seriously can't believe how horrific the user interface is on that thing. It's disgusting. As far as comparisons go, the DirecTV HR20 is much nicer. But neither of them are TiVo. :)

If Time Warner stopped working with the S3 for whatever reason (SDV or some other annoyance) I suppose I'd switch back to DTV, and settle with the HR20. Which isn't fantastic, but it's still pretty good. "Good enough," as it were. And hopefully, will only get better.

I just can't imagine using the TimeWarner box. It was depressing. And no, that's not just because I am "used" to TiVo. It was downright ugly and unintuitive.

I suppose, depending on the answer to my PPV question above, I could always just use their set top box for the few times a year I'd like to watch a PPV event.

[Kablemodem]

Thanks for any replies.

Nice avatar.


I took one look at the DVR interface and decided not to even try to figure it out. When I first got TiVo I had a good understanding of how it worked in 5 minutes. The DVR remote has more buttons than the cockpit of a 747.

I sit here waiting for my third TWC service call in a week. My S3 is working fine now, but the DVR gets no channels at all. Go figure. In all the years I had DirecTV I never once had a problem.

[Fofer]

My first TWC visit was a bust. They sent a contractor who not only didn't have Cable Cards, he didn't know what they were.

The second visit went pretty well, all told. Four TWC (not subcontractor) guys came out, and they ran a brand new wire from the pole to my house. Also gave me a new cable modem. And stuck around while I tested channels on both tuners. 2 of the guys were here for a few hours, and they seemed really committed to make sure everything was working right.

[Fofer]

Is there anywhere that I can find a NUMERICAL listing of the TWC channels and their names? Not the initials, but the full name, in numerical order. I was given a paper guide that has them grouped by theme, or on the back, listed A-Z, but I'd like to go through the list on the TiVo numerically. I can't even find anything on their web site.

[DeathRider]

Is there anywhere that I can find a NUMERICAL listing of the TWC channels and their names? Not the initials, but the full name, in numerical order. I was given a paper guide that has them grouped by theme, or on the back, listed A-Z, but I'd like to go through the list on the TiVo numerically. I can't even find anything on their web site.

Will this work (it is grouped, but seem to be in order...I'mguess =ing the station call letters)

http://www.timewarnercable.com/socal/channellineups/choose_lineup.html

[dm-mm]

Hi everyone,

For reference, my head-end is in New Philadelphia, Ohio.

I am the first Series 3 install in my local cable area (formerly Adelphia). I'm near Hookbill but not near enough to have benefitted from his experiences.

CCs: Motorla CableCARDs. One at version 4.21, one at 4.05

The TW supervisor I spoke with this morning told me the following:

- Our cable system is running the "Motorola format."

- For technichal reasons, TW is currently unable to pair cards with specific host IDs in my area. This is expected to change in 3-4 months when all existing Motorola equipment will be changed to Scientific Atlanta.

- My cards have my programming packages manually assigned to them and that the host ID makes no difference. This appears to be accurate as I am able to pull the card from the Tivo and insert it into my TV's slot and receive the correct packages on it. The host ID of the TV was not entered into their system.

I've had two technician visits but no digital channels yet. Signal strength is in the high 90's and analog channels are received ok.

The blue "Acquiring Channel Information" screen never goes away from the Live TV and Test Channels views when the cards are inserted.

CC Diagnostics screen information (for the same card):


TV (Channels working) TiVo (Not working)

- Network Setup -
LKC: 75.250 EMM:1 LKC: 75.250 EMM:1
Status: TUNED_STATE Status: TUNED_STATE
OOB Msgs:1131 (increasing) OOB Msgs:2955 (increasing)

Hunt Hunt

- Conditional Access -

Unit Address: both match Unit Address: both match
Encryption:DES Encryption:DES
Connected:yes, EnabledByCP:yes Connected:yes, EnabledByCP:no
Auth:SUBSCRIBED Auth:unknown
CA enable:possible CA Enable:unknown
ECM PID:0x0069 ECM PID:0x0000
Component PIDs: Component PIDs:
0x0050 0x0051 0x0667 0x0000 0x0000 0x0000
0x0000 0x0000 0x0000 0x0000 0x0000 0x0000
Host Validation:Unknown 00 Host Validation: Unknown 00
Copy Protection Key:Disabled Copy Protection Key:Disabled
CCI:0x00 CCI:0x03


Tivo support thinks that the cards are bad even though they work in the TV. Is it possible for them to work correctly in one device and not in another?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

DM

[T-Shee]

Hi everyone,

For reference, my head-end is in New Philadelphia, Ohio.

I am the first Series 3 install in my local cable area (formerly Adelphia). I'm near Hookbill but not near enough to have benefitted from his experiences.

CCs: Motorla CableCARDs. One at version 4.21, one at 4.05

The TW supervisor I spoke with this morning told me the following:

- Our cable system is running the "Motorola format."

- For technichal reasons, TW is currently unable to pair cards with specific host IDs in my area. This is expected to change in 3-4 months when all existing Motorola equipment will be changed to Scientific Atlanta.

- My cards have my programming packages manually assigned to them and that the host ID makes no difference. This appears to be accurate as I am able to pull the card from the Tivo and insert it into my TV's slot and receive the correct packages on it. The host ID of the TV was not entered into their system.

I've had two technician visits but no digital channels yet. Signal strength is in the high 90's and analog channels are received ok.

The blue "Acquiring Channel Information" screen never goes away from the Live TV and Test Chjannels views when the cards are inserted.

CC Diagnostics screen information (for the same card):


TV (Channels working) TiVo (Not working)

- Network Setup -
LKC: 75.250 EMM:1 LKC: 75.250 EMM:1
Status: TUNED_STATE Status: TUNED_STATE
OOB Msgs:1131 (increasing) OOB Msgs:2955 (increasing)

Hunt Hunt

- Conditional Access -

Unit Address: both match Unit Address: both match
Encryption:DES Encryption:DES
Connected:yes, EnabledByCP:yes Connected:yes, EnabledByCP:no
Auth:SUBSCRIBED Subscribed:unknown
CA enable:possible CA Enable:unknown
ECM PID:0x0069 ECM PID:0x0000
Component PIDs: Component PIDs:
0x0050 0x0051 0x0667 0x0000 0x0000 0x0000
0x0000 0x0000 0x0000 0x0000 0x0000 0x0000
Host Validation:Unknown 00 Host Validation: Unknown 00
Copy Protection Key:Disabled Copy Protection Key:Disabled
CCI:0x00 CCI:0x03


Tivo support thinks that the cards are bad even though they work in the TV. Is it possible for them to work correctly in one device and not in another?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

DM


FWIW,
My first S3 never worked reliably with any cable cards, despite Tivo CSRs pointing to the cards as the culprit.
They eventually caved and said the S3 needed to be replaced. It got replaced and is now running on the third set of CCs, the so called "problematic" ones, without any problems. (Knock on wood).

- It could be a bad Tivo, but I remember one of the cable techs saying that if the cards were ever installed and working in another device they could never get them to work in a Tivo, period. I thought it weird that he would tell me that, but I think he was intimating that the first two sets of CCs were probably "recycled", used, previously owned, etc. Previously Mangled by Software Updates.

Did these card start life in a S3? Were they new or "recycled" from somewhere else?"

[abredt]

Will this work (it is grouped, but seem to be in order...I'mguess =ing the station call letters)

http://www.timewarnercable.com/socal/channellineups/choose_lineup.html

I couldn't deal with the tiny print of that webpage, so I made an Excel document in numerical order for West Valley (San Fernando Valley) TW and typed in all the channels. I may be a bit compulsive, but I also entered notes as to which ones I get. Next task is to add notes for which channels do not get sound on the T-3.

Send me your email address if you want a copy of that document.

CB

[dm-mm]

Did these card start life in a S3? Were they new or "recycled" from somewhere else?"

One was brand new, one was recycled.

DM

[T-Shee]

One was brand new, one was recycled.

DM

Try pulling the recycled card, rebooting the S3 with just one card. If the lone card works, then you'll have some amunition to fire back at TWC about getting absolutely brand new, virgin cards. I had to be very specific about that with my Cable Co., and they eventually listened.

Hey, you're the customer, the paying customer. You're well withing your rights to demand working cards.

[dm-mm]

Try pulling the recycled card, rebooting the S3 with just one card. If the lone card works, then you'll have some amunition to fire back at TWC about getting absolutely brand new, virgin cards.

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried that combination and there was no change.

I had to be very specific about that with my Cable Co., and they eventually listened.

Hey, you're the customer, the paying customer. You're well withing your rights to demand working cards.

They've become a lot more responsive since I pushed the issue.

Based on what I've been told and seen, I'm afraid that the cards are operating in a mode that TiVo hadn't anticipated. I PM'ed TivoJerry. Hopefully he'll look into it.

DM

[Fofer]

With regards to PPV events, is it just a matter of not being able to order from my remote and set top box? Would I be able to call Customer Service and order them (like I used to do with DirecTV?)

Anyone?

[BruceShultes]

I was lucky (I think) and my cards installed quickly and easily. I love HD Tivo and can't go back now. :)

I am having intermittent problems with the Cable Cards, though, and I actually think this is a Tivo thing. I'll be flipping through channels, or going from one input on my tv to another and then back to HD Tivo, and suddenly the premium channels are gone. When I say no premium, what I get is basic cable (below channel 99) plus the local HD stations.

I reboot Tivo and everything is back. This happens frequently enough that it is a real pain, and you can't be sure it won't interfere with recordings (I've already missed one) since it happens suddenly without notice and the only fix I've come up with is a Tivo reboot.

Anybody else experience this or know of a fix? It is possible that when on another input (one of which includes a second Tivo S2) my clicking messes up my HD Tivo, but it doesn't really explain why the channels get dropped until a reboot.

Thanks!

Jim

As far as your loss of channels, make sure that both of your cablecards are fully authorized.

When mine were first installed, one of them was and the other one wasn't.

This meant that it all depended on which tuner was being used. All the channels were viewable on one and not on the other.

It is also possible that you are not receiving a strong enough signal from your cable company. I added a cable signal amplifier to my system and things have worked much better.

As far as your controller changing both your Tivo's at the same time, try setting each of your Tivo's to use a different Remote Address number.

By default, all Tivo's and their remote controls seem to be set to Remote Address zero. This is the universal remote address and it will change all Tivo's within range whenever it is used.

Note: When I tried to follow the instructions in the manual for this, I had problems. Even though it says to just cover the infrared sensor on one Tivo while you change the other, my remote was sending a strong enough signal that it still changed both Tivo's to the new address. I finally unplugged one Tivo while changing the other.

[derekcbart]

This morning the channel lineup conversion happened and, much to my surprise, TiVo got all of the new channel information correct on the first try after running Guided Setup again. I was very nervous about this and I had read some posts about it being a nightmare, but my experience was very good. Just FYI.
Well, maybe not.

This past weekend I went to the "To Do" list and noticed that it had no new episodes of any of my regular season passes set to record. It's February Sweeps time so I know that there are going to be new episodes. The channel numbers displayed for my season passes were the new channel numbers so that seemed to be find. I have my season passes to record "First Run" only so I decided to change to "Repeats and First Run". When I did this I noticed that the channel information displayed when TiVo sees a conflict was the old Comcast channel number. So, somehow, the TiVo is still retaining the old channel number information somewhere in its programming.

This was only an issue for season passes set for "First Run Only". All of my season passes for "Repeats and First Run" were in the To Do list. I then had to delete all of my older "First Run" season passes and re-enter them. Now they appear in the the "To Do" list properly.

It was very strange that it seemed to work with the new channel assignments for a week and then it got confused.

I just realized that the previous recording information was probably already in the "To Do" list so the TiVo was probably able to reassign those recordings properly, but it was unable to reassign the unscheduled recordings for some reason.

Just something to be aware of if you are going to be going through the TWC channel realignment.

[Monty2_2001]

In the Dallas area, TWC.. 790 and 795 are showing a black screen only. Anyone else having this issue?

[pmiranda]

With regards to PPV events, is it just a matter of not being able to order from my remote and set top box? Would I be able to call Customer Service and order them (like I used to do with DirecTV?)

I would assume they won't work even then, unless your cableco specifically says they support it. I can't remember the last time I saw an ad for a PPV event that said you could order by phone.

[pl1]

I would assume they won't work even then, unless your cableco specifically says they support it. I can't remember the last time I saw an ad for a PPV event that said you could order by phone.Since that was the only way you could get PPV in the old days, I just assumed they would have to grandfather that in for the original non-adressable boxes they handed out. Anyway, at Comcast, you can still call in your PPV. And sports packages must be called in. You can not order them by remote:

What is Pay-Per-View (PPV)?
Pay-Per-View (PPV) is a programming
option that allows you to enjoy special
events and movies right through your
television set. Ordering is easy using
either your digital set-top box remote
control (Digital Cable subscribers) or
by calling 1-800-COMCAST (266-2278)
(non-Digital Cable subscribers).

[dm-mm]

For reference, my head-end is in New Philadelphia, Ohio.
Update: Cards are now working. TiVoJerry had me ask TW to re-init the cards. When I left for work this morning, it was stuck on acquiring channel information. When I returned home tonight, it was working. Previous attempts at authorization had it stuck there for days.

The cable representative I spoke with this morning said that they were still working on my account but that it was billing related. (?)

Thanks to everyone with suggestions, etc. and especially TiVoJerry who took the time to look into this.

DM

[rudiger]

In the Dallas area, TWC.. 790 and 795 are showing a black screen only. Anyone else having this issue?

No, both channels are coming through.

rudiger

[Friedman]

Hi, I was just wondering if anyone's able to use their Tivo with Time Warner Digital Cable? I have a Series 2 Tivo and TW told me I would have to use their DVR if I switched to digital cable. Is there any way I can keep the Tivo and run the digital cable through it?

Thanks,
Mike

[Monty2_2001]

No, both channels are coming through.

rudiger

Was my problem, they didn't have the HD tier package on. Seemed on that it only affected those 2 channels, but I had them turn it on and they came back.

I'm just waiting for the inevitable day when most or all channels go off for good with SDV.

[mercurial]

The cable representative I spoke with this morning said that they were still working on my account but that it was billing related. (?)

Sometimes it takes them a while to work out how to hide the fact that they're charging you more for using less of their equipment... :p

[pmiranda]

Hi, I was just wondering if anyone's able to use their Tivo with Time Warner Digital Cable? I have a Series 2 Tivo and TW told me I would have to use their DVR if I switched to digital cable. Is there any way I can keep the Tivo and run the digital cable through it?
Mike

With a Series 2, you do have to use one (or two with the DT) of their set-tops to get digital channels (above 82). You do NOT have to use one of their DVRs with a Series 2.

You should probably check with a series 2 thread to find out more.

[Fofer]

Seems like I am receiving every channel I should, except for INHD2 (423.)

I like INHD (all HD channels are special to me, hehe) so I'm curious about this one.

Before I call and start running around in circles... anyone else receiving it?

[hookbill]

Seems like I am receiving every channel I should, except for INHD2 (423.)

I like INHD (all HD channels are special to me, hehe) so I'm curious about this one.

Before I call and start running around in circles... anyone else receiving it?

ROFLOL....They (InDemand, the company that owns INHD) stopped broadcasting INHD2 on 01.01.07. That could be why your not receiving it. :)

[mercurial]

Yep... They replaced our INHD2 with MTV HD... <sigh>

[hookbill]

Yep... They replaced our INHD2 with MTV HD... <sigh>

We did much better. They didn't replace ours with anything. :)

[Fofer]

ROFLOL....They (InDemand, the company that owns INHD) stopped broadcasting INHD2 on 01.01.07. That could be why your not receiving it. :)

Not sure why that qualifies for a "ROFLOL," but glad my question entertained. :p

Thanks for the reply. I'm a new S3 owner (just set it up last week and upgraded the drive last night.) I am also new to HD, so I'd have little way of knowing about the 1/17 INHD2 change. While I'd love to have the additional HD channel around, it's at least good to know that I'm not the only one missing it. :)

[Kablemodem]

Not sure why that qualifies for a "ROFLOL,"

Isn't that your last name? :confused:

:)

There is some great programming on those channels. Check out the Get Out! series. I think its on INHD. They also show previews of Howard TV.

[abredt]

Hi, I was just wondering if anyone's able to use their Tivo with Time Warner Digital Cable? I have a Series 2 Tivo and TW told me I would have to use their DVR if I switched to digital cable. Is there any way I can keep the Tivo and run the digital cable through it?

Thanks,
Mike

You need their digital box for digital channles and there's a gizmo (Infra-red remote commander) that goes from the TiVo-2 to the front of their box that tells their box to change channels.

If you want HD, there is a different TW box for that. It does not record programs.

The DVR that they are talking about is for HD TV and records like a TiVo but is far inferior as to what it can do.

I have all 3. Any questions? CB

[Fofer]

Isn't that your last name? :confused:

:)

There is some great programming on those channels. Check out the Get Out! series. I think its on INHD. They also show previews of Howard TV.

"Get Out!" is on HDNet. I'll check it out. HowardTV previews, too.

I also set up some recordings of "Geared Up" and "The Big Picture" from INHD (part of their "Mojo (http://www.mojohd.com/)" programming.)

[aymanme]

So there is good and bad for me .... The person they sent out to install my cablecards was a contractor. He was nice enough, but really couldn't do anything. I felt a little bad b/c after he put in the first card and waited on hold upwards of 30 minutes, he was ready to put the 2nd in and the CSR put him back in the queue! The first card didn't work anyway, so he put #2 in and it was in boat anchor mode as well.

So its been a couple of trips (with actual TWC techs) and neither cards works. I think the signal is ok, since 1) it was working with the 3200HD before and 2) The cards have authorized properly. However, they get no EMM or ECM messages so they can't get digital or premiums.

But the good news is that my antenna building skills are up to the challenge and so with a homemade antenna, I am getting and able to record OTA HD*

So my questions:
Do I need ot call and try to get them to send the initialize to my cards? I can't ever remember that coming up during the hours of their conversation on the phone.


(*yes I know I can get the local HD over cable, I built the antenna in the several days waiting for the cable cards to show up).

[pmiranda]

The cards have authorized properly. However, they get no EMM or ECM messages so they can't get digital or premiums.

They should be able to just send hits and get you running, but I did have one card that simply needed to be replaced. A few months back one of my cards dropped out and I had to unplug it, have them un-pair, plug it back in, then re-pair it after the card info screen pops up, and it was fine after a few more hits after it had reach the "authorization received" state.
You should be able to resolve this with a half-hour phone call, unless they managed to stick you with two bad cards.
Also, make sure that they have your account balanced (same services on all cards/boxes) properly. This hasn't been a problem for me but on occasion something gets messed up on the billing end for other folks.

[jeblis]

I have an S3 tivo and TWC provided HD dvr in Austin. These are the channels I get on the TWC dvr, but not with the tivo. The only premium packages I have are showtime, and the HD tier. Ones that I'd like to have in bold.


This list may not be entirely accurate see cableguy763's comment below Updated 1 cable card was bad. This looks like a more reasonable list:


77 TW77 Local Programming
102 Disney West
111 Boomerang
125 NToon
261 Logo
274 TV Super Store
275 ShopNBC
277 Revenue Frontier
278 Men's Channel
279 Healthy Living
281 Beauty & Fashion
284 iShop
285 The Mall Channel
286 Resort & Residence Channel
287 America's Preview Channel

295 The World Network
348 News 8 Traffic Now
358 News 8 Non-Stop Weather
359 News 8 Non-Stop Weather en Espanol
408 News 8 en espanol
435 NDATV
460 Speed Channel
609 News 8 Non-Stop Weather en Espanol
629 La Familia
1639 FoxHD
1660 AE HD
1664 MTV HD


All on-demand channels

[cableguy763]

jeblis, there are a few problems here that you have incorrect. Let me point out a few channels that arent switched that you are not getting that need to get resolved. Send me a PM tomorrow and we can get these straightened out. You should be getting the following channels:

Showtime:
730-737
1617 Discovery HD
1656 Universal HD
1678 Showtime HD
ALL music channels
and most of the discovery channels

[LostInAustin]

I can confirm that the east coast feeds of HBO including HBO-HD are available to S3 users in Austin. The west coast feeds of HBO have never been available, and I suspect it's the same for the other premium channels, but I only subscribe to HBO. I don't know about the newer premium HD channels (Cinemax, Starz), but I wouldn't be surprised if they're SDV. It seems to be the trend that new channels are going SDV, but very few "existing" channels have been moved to SDV.

I'm not home at the moment so I can't verify all the channels on that list, but I know I get a lot of them. I also know some of them definitely are NOT available due to SDV (Speed for instance), but you should be getting a LOT more than you currently are.

[pmiranda]

I wouldn't think anything under 82 (ie 11 and 77) could be switched since they're analog channels, so you might just have a bad mapping for them in your cablecard. I think TW-Austin does switch the digital simulcast of many analog channels, as they're listed in this official switched listing I recently received. Also, when they started switching the simulcast of KLRU2, my cablecards stopped receiving it for a few days but I could still get it on a plain old TV. I also voted for individual digital channels I wish I got in bold.

-Analog Simulcast Channels (should still be available) -
6 CITY
7 Guide
10 Local
10 PACT1
10 SMGov
11 PACT
13 KAKW
14 KADF
15 ME-TV
16 CSPN2
17 TSTV
19 ACC
20 / 255 KLRU2
22 AISD
22 Photo
23 KCWX
31 / 201 HGTV RTE
32 / 209 Food RTE
42 / 101 Disney East RTE
44 / 355 News 8 Doppler Radar
45 / 350 TWC RTE D1
47 / 312 CNN Headline News
64 / 555 Tuner Classic Movies
74 / 219 Style
76 / 622 Galavision
77 TWC77
78 Infor

-Digital Channels-

102 Disney West RTE
111 Boomerang
125 Nick Toons
261 LOGO
274 TV Superstore
275 Shop NBC
277 Revenue Frontier
278 Men's Channel
279 Healthy Living
281 Beauty and Fashion
284 iShop
285 The Mall Channel
286 Resort and Residence
287 PREVU Channel
295 The Word Network
348 News 8 Traffic (I was still getting this last time I checked!?)
358 News 8 Weather
359 News 8 Weather Spanish
408 New 8 NonStop Sports

-Switched Sports Pak-

431 Fox Sports Atlantic
432 Fox Sports Central
433 Fox Sports Pacific
434 Fuel
435 NBA TV
438 CSTV
455 Tennis Channel
460 Speedvision
470 Versus (not on the official list, but I stopped getting it when Speed went switched)
490 Outdoor Channel

- Switched International -

601 CNN Espanol
602 Canal 24
604 DocuTVE
606 CanalSur
609 News 8 Weather Spanish
611 Toon Disney Spanish
612 Cartoon Spanish
613 Boomerang Spanish
614 Sorpresa
617 Fox Sports SW Espanol
626 TVE International
629 La Familia
630 SiTV
632 Infinito
633 HTV
634 Video Rola
635 Puma
636 MUN 2
640 CineLatino
644 Discovery Espanol
645 HITN
649 EWTN Spanish

-West-coast channels-

708 HBO WEST
709 HBOPLUS WEST
710 HBOSIG WEST
711 HBFAMILY WEST
712 HBCOMEDY WEST
713 HBOZONE WEST
714 HBLATINO WEST
723 CINEMAX WEST
724 MORMAX WEST
725 ACTNMAX WEST
726 THRILMAX WEST
738 SHOW WEST
739 SHO TOO WEST
740 SHOWCASE WEST
741 SHOW EXT WEST
742 BEYOND WEST
743 SHOW NEXT-W
744 WOMEN WEST
745 SHOW FAMILY WEST
748 TMC WEST
749 TMC XTRA WEST
761 Encore West

-Pay-Per-View Sports-

ESPN GamePlan:
901 Sport PPV-1
902 Sports PPV-2
903 Sports PPV-3
904 Sports PPV-4
905 Sports PPV-5
906 Sports PPV-6
NBA/MLS:
910 NBA
911 TEAM1
912 TEAM2
913 TEAM3
914 TEAM4
915 TEAM5
916 TEAM6
917 TEAM7
918 TEAM8
919 TEAM9
NHL/MLB:
930 Game 1
931 Game 2
932 Game 3
933 Game 4
934 Game 5
935 Game 6
936 Game 7
937 Game 8
938 Game 9
939 Game 10

-Switched Adult/PPV-

940 Playboy
941 Ten
942 TenBlox
943 Ten Clips

950-1490 All the on-demand channels

-Switched HD-

1639 Fox Sports HD
1660 A&E HD
1664 Music HD
1650 PPV HD Sports (not on the official list, but a good assumption)
1675 Cinemax HD (I find this surprising...new or just not popular?)
1684 Starz HD

Personally, I'm still voting with my set-top-box by having my old TiVo record lots of stuff off channels I want. I never realized how bad the picture quality was from it until I had seen Speed in glorious all-digital via HDMI!

[LostInAustin]

Hey, thanks for the list pmiranda! That looks much more accurate to me.

Just by browsing that list, I think Speed and the A&E/Music HD channels are the only ones I'm really "missing" ;) But I am curious/concerned how they'll add the "more popular" HD channels in the future (e.g. TBS-HD).

[int2str]

San Diego, CA - TWC here.
Same experience as Murray, quick and easy even so it was the tech's first Tivo...

[esa]

Here in Houston it's up to the individual to install and activate cable cards from Time Warner. About 18 months ago I got a cable card from them for my new Sony HDTV and although Time Warner gladly supplied a cable card after about 3 weeks of daily calls I finally gave up on getting them to activate the card. Clearly they did not want people using cable cards rather than their cable boxes.

For that reason, I was very hestitant to buy a Series 3 Tivo. Because I really wanted HD capability I finally called Time Warner and offered to pay them whatever they asked to come to my house to install and activate the cable cards. They said that coming to an individual's house for such a service is absolutely against they policy.

My desire for HD finally over came my trepidation so I went to the Time Warner store and got 2 cable cards. To my suprise and delight I found that TW has setup a special telephone line for cable card activation here in Houston and within a 1/2 hour after installing the cards I had HD service. What a surprise.

I attribute this group's efforts for Time Warner's getting themselves turned around.

Thanks

[George Cifranci]

It looks like Time Warner Columbus Ohio screwed up something this weekend during an upgrade. My CableCards in my TiVo Series 3 aren't working. Some channels are assigned incorrectly while others aren't working at all. A friend of mine (also in Hilliard) is also experiencing this. Anyone else?

I talked to a Time Warner rep last night and he said that they were aware of the problem and that it might not be fixed until Monday?

There goes a whole weekend of shows I can't record.

It also cause my S3 to go into the reboot loop so I just unplugged it until they are working again.

[cokyq]

I have been using a Cablecard (originally from COMCAST) in a SONY HDD500 for over 1 year w/o any problems. I also used a Motorola 6416 DVR. Both worked fine, but the Motorola was freezing 2-3 times a week and had to be disconnected from power and rebooted.

Because of the Motorola box issues, at Christmas I decided to replace the Motorola DVR with a TIVO S3. So I returned the Motorola DVR and ordered additional 2 cablecards for the S3. When they delivered the cablecards, one was damaged and not working. I Installed the good one (bottom slot) and no problems, all HD channels coming in great on the S3 and the SONY HDD500. The tech agreed to come back later with a replacement, but never showed up. Called Timewarner and after another week went by, another tech came in with a card.

I am subscribed to their Digital Tier and was receiving all HD channels, including 780, 790, 795 & 805 (which I just found out cost extra after 1/1/07 and are called the HD Tier). Apparently TWC was not charging me for the new HD Tier, so when the tech called in to activate the new card, he killed the HD Tier w/o my knowledge. TWC never sent me any notification of the cost changes.

Later that night when I went to watch Universal HD (805), it was dead. So was 780, 790, & 795, on all the CableCards (S3 and SONY)! I called TWC and was told these channels would cost me $3.00/month, so I said ok, reactivate them, and by the way, it would have been nice to tell me of the change.

When they activated the HD Tier (it took a few hours for all 3 cards to come up), channels 780 (ESPN HD) and 790 (inHD) are still dead on all 3 CableCards. TWC resent a hit to the cards but nothing.

I asked them to unpair the cards and re-pair them, but they told me they had to send a tech to look at it, the operator I spoke with said this was "new technology" and she had no training and was not familiar with Cablecards. None of the 4 techs that came to deliver my cards, had good knowledge on CableCards. Two had never even installed one! (I installed the cards and pulled up the diagnostics screens with the cards address).

I am frustrated. Yesterday my two cards were working fine! A new one was delivered, my HDTier cancelled w/o my knowledge and now they cannot activate all the channels on the HDtier.

Am I wrong in thinking a tech can fix this at home? There was nothing wrong yesterday. The new card was installed on S3 slot 2, and now they can get any of the 3 to work properly. In my opinion, the problem is not at home but at TimeWarner.

Does any good techs from TWC read this post? If so, can you comment and help me understand this problem?

BTW, to make it more insteresting, I cannot receive most of my non HD digital classic channels, like 203, NatGeo. Since I hardly watch nothing but HD shows, I never have worried much about it.

Seems there are CableCard issues out there, anyone has experience individual channel losses?

cokyq

PD. TVGOS on the Sony HDD works just fine, just a little pain to organize the channels in the order you want them. TiVO guide is fine, just wish they had a HD interface.

[hookbill]

I have been using a Cablecard (originally from COMCAST) in a SONY HDD500 for over 1 year w/o any problems. I also used a Motorola 6416 DVR. Both worked fine, but the Motorola was freezing 2-3 times a week and had to be disconnected from power and rebooted.

Because of the Motorola box issues, at Christmas I decided to replace the Motorola DVR with a TIVO S3. So I returned the Motorola DVR and ordered additional 2 cablecards for the S3. When they delivered the cablecards, one was damaged and not working. I Installed the good one (bottom slot) and no problems, all HD channels coming in great on the S3 and the SONY HDD500. The tech agreed to come back later with a replacement, but never showed up. Called Timewarner and after another week went by, another tech came in with a card.

I am subscribed to their Digital Tier and was receiving all HD channels, including 780, 790, 795 & 805 (which I just found out cost extra after 1/1/07 and are called the HD Tier). Apparently TWC was not charging me for the new HD Tier, so when the tech called in to activate the new card, he killed the HD Tier w/o my knowledge. TWC never sent me any notification of the cost changes.

Later that night when I went to watch Universal HD (805), it was dead. So was 780, 790, & 795, on all the CableCards (S3 and SONY)! I called TWC and was told these channels would cost me $3.00/month, so I said ok, reactivate them, and by the way, it would have been nice to tell me of the change.

When they activated the HD Tier (it took a few hours for all 3 cards to come up), channels 780 (ESPN HD) and 790 (inHD) are still dead on all 3 CableCards. TWC resent a hit to the cards but nothing.

I asked them to unpair the cards and re-pair them, but they told me they had to send a tech to look at it, the operator I spoke with said this was "new technology" and she had no training and was not familiar with Cablecards. None of the 4 techs that came to deliver my cards, had good knowledge on CableCards. Two had never even installed one! (I installed the cards and pulled up the diagnostics screens with the cards address).

I am frustrated. Yesterday my two cards were working fine! A new one was delivered, my HDTier cancelled w/o my knowledge and now they cannot activate all the channels on the HDtier.

Am I wrong in thinking a tech can fix this at home? There was nothing wrong yesterday. The new card was installed on S3 slot 2, and now they can get any of the 3 to work properly. In my opinion, the problem is not at home but at TimeWarner.

Does any good techs from TWC read this post? If so, can you comment and help me understand this problem?

BTW, to make it more insteresting, I cannot receive most of my non HD digital classic channels, like 203, NatGeo. Since I hardly watch nothing but HD shows, I never have worried much about it.

Seems there are CableCard issues out there, anyone has experience individual channel losses?

cokyq

PD. TVGOS on the Sony HDD works just fine, just a little pain to organize the channels in the order you want them. TiVO guide is fine, just wish they had a HD interface.


A couple of things. I think I have read that they use SDV in the Dallas area. That may explain why your not getting ESPN and INHD. If they are not on SDV then there could be another problem.

You mentioned many of your digital channels are also not available. Are you getting a message saying "channel not available"? If so, then you'll need a tech to come out. If your not getting that message then go to TiVo Central, Messages and Settings, Account and System Info and Diagnostics. Scroll down to you see your problem channel and take a look at the PID's. If your PCR and Video are not matching up, then that means there is a problem comeing out of the head end.

Now that is not going to be easy to fix because your going to have to find someone who knows how to reach head end and fix this. I had this problem and had it fixed but I kind of had a clue of who I needed to talk to in my area.

Hopefully it is just the cable cards but do check those screens I mentioned on the problem channels. Good luck.

[Kit_C]

Greetings,

I'm with Time Warner in the Poway area (North County inland), and had a very positive installation experience this morning.

I had an 8:00AM - 11:00AM window, and he arrived at 8:00AM sharp, with 2 SA cable cards. The installer had installed one Tivo last year for a beta tester, but said he has done many cable card installs.

He follwed the procedure, and was done in 30 minutes. We checked channels on both cards and everything looked OK.

Shortly after he left, both cards stopped working. Dispatch sent him back and he had the head end re-hit the cards, and now everything is working great.

I was braced for the worst, and was pleasantly suprised.

Kit

[George Cifranci]

For those with "Scientific Atlanta" CableCards can you check the BootROM and OS Build versions and post them on here? You can find those on the "CP Diag" screen under CableCard menu. You may have to do it a few times since the screen doesn't stay up long.

Mine is:

BootROM: 115
OS Build: 2.3.149s2 May 2, 2005


I am just curious if there is anything newer.

[stevereis]

A couple of things. I think I have read that they use SDV in the Dallas area. That may explain why your not getting ESPN and INHD. If they are not on SDV then there could be another problem.

I am on TWC in DFW and there has been no mention of SDV here that I have seen so far. Based on the latest channel guide PDF (http://www.timewarnercable.com/MediaLibrary/4/89/Content%20Management/Programming/pdfs/2007_NTexas.pdf), these are the HD Channels (besides locals and premiums):
(D = Digital Tier, HD = HD Tier)

D 755 DHD
D 770 TNT-HD
HD 780 ESPN-HD
HD 790 INHD
HD 795 HDNET
HD 805 UHD

HDNet & UHD were added recently in the clear but were supposed to revert to the HD Tier around the beginning of the year. I think they may have for a while but, as of now, they are still in the clear.

I have CCs in my TV and S3 but also have a Sony HDD250 w/o CableCard so I am able to verify these are in the clear. BTW, the TVGuide system the Sony uses is not accurate as they do not have listings for Richardson Digital rebuild. The best they have is for the Garland Rebuild, and those listings do not include HDNet & UHD.

FYI, You can keep up with DFW TWC stuff at the DFW Metro TWC forum at broadbandreports.com (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,16660665~mode=flat)

[stevereis]

...
When they activated the HD Tier (it took a few hours for all 3 cards to come up), channels 780 (ESPN HD) and 790 (inHD) are still dead on all 3 CableCards. TWC resent a hit to the cards but nothing.
...
BTW, to make it more insteresting, I cannot receive most of my non HD digital classic channels, like 203, NatGeo. Since I hardly watch nothing but HD shows, I never have worried much about it.
...


I just posted on SDV and the channels you should have in the clear. Based on what I am getting on my CC-less HDD250, ESPN HD and INHD are the only 2 channels not in the clear at this time so it looks like your CCs are not properly authorized. Since you also are not getting the other digital channels, they may have completely blocked you off the Digital Tier as well.

Good luck on getting this fixed. You could probably fix this without a tech if you could talk to the right folks. However, the 'right folks' seem to be unavailable to customers, only tech's have access.

My experiences were similar to yours. The tech that came to install in my TV un July was a contractor and it was his first day solo but I was able to help him through it. I got a contractor as well for the S3 installs this fall. One card came up properly but the 2nd took a few days to get authorized properly. I already had the HD Tier (returned the Mot 6208 box after I got the S3) so had no account issues like yours.

BTW, how did you get the Mot HD DVR if you were not on the HD Tier?

[chedlin]

If Time Warner cuts too many more channels they are going to loose me as a video subscriber. I might consider DSL as well just to take all my money from them.

I have only been on video since December when I got my S3. My cable internet has been continuous (at several addresses over the years) since '98 when they rolled out early bird services.

I may just use the S3 for OTA and my DirecTivo units for everything else.

On the cable card note, my S3 went out. It stopped receiving digital OTA and cable, but could still get analog. TiVo sent me a new unit (The day after I expect the refurb to arrive I got an email saying UPDATED: and indicating I would get a new unit. It was a retail packed box with cables, remote etc, but the return instructions specifically said not to include these). I called Time Warner and they re-paired my cable cards and everything worked instantly. They also seemed to have trained their reps on TiVo specifically.

[aymanme]

Thanks CableyGuy! You are like a superhero! My S3 is fully working now. And I can relegate the HDR112 to the darkest crevices of my closet!

[Frankenstien]

I just went through the CableCARD installation this past Friday. Despite two calls before the appointment, the tech showed up with 2 CableCARDs and an HD DVR.

The tech was very friendly and pretty sharp. Before hauling anything in he verified what he was supposed to do. I explained that I only needed the 2 CableCARDs installed in the TiVo. I gave him the installers instructions. He smiled and said, "This will be fun."

He went outside and did a quick check of the lines coming into the house, then we followed along with the instructions. The first card worked fine. He committed that he did several CableCARD intsalls on TV and always had problems. We moved on to the second card and it went smoothly.

The TiVo then wanted to run through the channel setup. The tech said that he wanted to stay and make sure all the channels came in correctly. I finished the setup and we scrolled through the channels. Discovery HD and TNT HD were not coming in. He called in to check and was told that there was an area outage. So he said that the channels should come back by the end of the day. Sure enough that afternoon they were coming in fine.

So, I think the whole thing went very well and I am enjoying my new S3.

:up: :up: :up:

[BruceShultes]

For those with "Scientific Atlanta" CableCards can you check the BootROM and OS Build versions and post them on here? You can find those on the "CP Diag" screen under CableCard menu. You may have to do it a few times since the screen doesn't stay up long.

Mine is:

BootROM: 115
OS Build: 2.3.149s2 May 2, 2005


I am just curious if there is anything newer.

Both of my current cablecards show BootRom: 115 and OS Build: 2.3.149.3 May 10, 2006.

Note: When the first card install was attempted one of the cards was an older one with an OS Build date somewhere around Feb. 2005. That card was stuck with a message about updating it's firmware for over 24 hours, so I called my cable company back and asked them to replace it with another that had a build date at least as new as the one that worked.

[cokyq]

BTW, how did you get the Mot HD DVR if you were not on the HD Tier?

I got the Motorola box from Comcast over 2 years ago! The HD Tier apparently started on 1/1/07, but it seems many people are still not being charged for it (my brother lives nearby, he is getting the HD Tier yet TWC has not started charging him the $3/month). In my case, the tech that came to add the second card on the S3 was the one that killed the HD Tier w/o consulting if I wanted to keep them.

cokyq

[cokyq]

TWC CableCard update...

Time Warner Cable tech showed up last Saturday after the 5pm deadline - he arrived about 5:30pm. After I explained the problem, he took all the CableCards out, and got their serial numbers. We then proceeded to the pairing screens to obtain the host, data and unit addresses.

With this info, he called TWC central and spoke with someone who proceeded to un pair the card and re pair them. This fixed TIVO CableCard #1 and Sony HDD CableCard. TIVO CableCard #2 now actually displayed an image on channels 780 and 790, but only for a second, with the images remaining frozen on screen.

He pulled a new CableCard and replaced the CableCard in TIVO slot two, and called TWC central to pair. This solved the probllem. I am now receiving all HD channels in the Digital Classic and HD Tier. Took a whiile, but I am back in business.

[barronius]

Hello All,

I'm a bit confused by the switched/unswitched channels that you are referring to and the lists that are being posted. Is there a full list of channels posted somewhere that as a Series 3 user here in Austin with Time Warner I should be able to receive? I get quite a few channels but not as many as I got before I moved to the Series 3 and sent back the cable box. I'm not sure if the issue is bad cable cards or this switched issue you all refer to.

Thanks.

[stevereis]

I got the Motorola box from Comcast over 2 years ago! The HD Tier apparently started on 1/1/07, but it seems many people are still not being charged for it (my brother lives nearby, he is getting the HD Tier yet TWC has not started charging him the $3/month). In my case, the tech that came to add the second card on the S3 was the one that killed the HD Tier w/o consulting if I wanted to keep them.

That's right. Comcast just charged an extra $5/mo for the HD box. TWC kept the same billing when they took over. Now that I an boxless, I do not have that charge anymore. I also am not being charged for the HD Tier either. Maybe they only start charging when you make a change your subscribed services.

P.S. Glad you got the CC issues worked out. On my first CC, the tech forgot to write down the serial number and we had to take it out and get that info before he could pair. At the time, the procedures didn't have the tech write that down before inserting the card.

[JimWall]

I have two HD tivos working with cable cards.

The first install went fine but took about a half hour for the encrypted channels in the Cincinnati TW area to come through.

The 2nd Tivo HD install took three visits by techs.

The first techs (2 guys) said they have done this many times but simply were not organized. I was able to get all channels on both cards that were not encrypted. HD on 900+ was working. They gave up and said a backup tech will be out to troublshoot.
Backup tech came by in afternoon and tried to say the tivo was bad even though the TV he brought had the same problem with the cablecard that was in my tivo.

He also said to call TIVO and see what they say. TIVO said they need to bring out two new cable cards that have not been paired. Turns out that was bogus. Everytime a cablecard is removed and reinserted (even on the same tivo slot) a new host ID is created. That is what is paired with the SN and your billing (channels). Host ID and SN is needed to send the CP auth.

Two days later a 3rd tech came out. He was emergency replacement for the scheduled tech. He was also being bugged by his wife on cell who was freaking out that he told everyone she was pregnant.
I thought this won't work out either.

BUT DESPITE THAT He got everything to work and was very layed back about it and how easy it is.
I told him he needs to get other techs trained properly but being stupid is always a problem.

Steps:
1: write down SN of cable cards and which slot they are going in. Each time you pull them out the host ID changes!!!! Easy to get that wrong. The 2nd guy as confused about slot one and two.

2: Put in cable cards and write down the host id for each card and its cablecard(TM) id
It takes 10 to 30 minutes to download the eeprom or something like that.
Once that is done the unencrypted channels start coming in.

The CP auth screen will show an error until the "hit" is send from cable company office.
This is what took three technitions several days to get to work.

The SN and host IDs much be paired correctly by tech, entered properly by tech, entered properly at cable office.

3: Text host id/SN pairs to cable office to past into the computer. Hopefully there are no typos.

4: Downloaded with billing info to cable card for the CP auth show it is received.
If the auth is sent too soon it won't work and cable company may not get an error.

The guy who got mine to work pulled each cable card so they get a new host ID and did the procedure from scratch. Whatever was done with old host ID is gone! New unpaired cards are not needed.

For a while the CP auth didn't work and office insisted they had entered everything OK with no errors. Tech had them resave and set the auth agin after about 30 minutes and it worked!!
Assuming the first two tech visits and office staff did not do any typos.
There must be some kind of delay where sending the CP auth/billing/channel information too soon does not work but no error messages are sent back to cable company.
It the tech pulls the card out to check the Serial Number then new host ID must be entered at the cable company office.

I wish I could have been at cable company to see what happened on their end.
I think the software the cable company uses to setup cable cards and sent the CP auth and tie it to billing needs to be improved.
Maybe if they had a keyboard instead of phone keypad they would be better at entering the host id and SN.

[Mike Farrington]

JimWall, The HostID remains the same for each slot. The number never changes. Are you sure you're not talking about the "data" number?

[pmiranda]

Is there a full list of channels posted somewhere that as a Series 3 user here in Austin with Time Warner I should be able to receive?

Thanks.

You haven't seen one yet because there are still hundred you should get. The full lineup is here (http://www.timewarnercable.com/CustomerService/CLU/TWCCLUs.ashx?CLUID=231&Zip=&Image1.x=27&Image1.y=6&Image1=submit).
Take away the channels above 82 that are listed in this post (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=4858505&&#post4858505) along with any "on demand" or pay-per-view channels, and you have your answer.

/begin rant
I find it interesting that they added two HD's (A&E and Music - albeit as SDV) before they went switched on several existing channels, and now they're adding a bunch of on-demands. So much for the theory that anyone is getting anything out of the tradeoff. I think they would be better off investing in some decent DVR software (Passport instead of the SARA garbage) and making service revenue off of it instead of offering more stale shows "on demand" for free. You would think the fact that there are hundreds of customers in this area alone willing to spend $600+ and endure their substandard (compared to TWC Houston) installation process to avoid the SARA DVRs would convince them of this. If they cared about customer service, they'd give ALL their techs and CSRs the tools and knowledge they need to support cablecard.
/end rant

[Kablemodem]

Two days later a 3rd tech came out. He was also being bugged by his wife on cell who was freaking out that he told everyone she was pregnant.

BUT DESPITE THAT He got everything to work and was very layed back about it and how easy it is.

That guy clearly knows how to put things in slots.

[rjgibson0066]

I will keep searching, but would appreciate any advice on my install.

SOME DIGITAL CHANNELS, BUT NOT ALL (AND NOT MY FAVORITES)

I get all the regular (analog) channels and a few of the digital channels, such as local HD and Discovery HD. However, I don't get the normal digital channels, such as the Outdoor Channel, Speed, any of the premium movies channels (HBO and Showtime), and the some other HD channels (ESPN HD, IMHD). Both cards get and don't get the exact same channels.

Larry "The Cable Guy" had never done a cablecard install, however he was very accomodating and followed all the directions - although he had to go outside to make calls to activate the cards due to poor cell reception at my house - therefore I did not overhear him reciting the cards' serial numbers - but we both checked and doubled checked our written notes when installing the cards.

He left after "dispatch" told him it may take 1-4 hours for all the channels to download. However, it has been close of 2-3 hours and nothing has changed.

I did re-run of set-up, and did identify in the set-up process the second time, my premium channels (HBO and Showtime), however nothing changed.

Strangely, both before starting my second set-up process and after the second set-up process was complete, I received an error message saying there was a change to a cablecard and set-up needed to be re-run.

I didn't re-run set-up a third time because I saw this message before the starting the second set-up process, so figured that wouldn't be the solution.

Lastly, we only tried/used two cablecards as they partially worked. Further, I never re-booted (powered on/off) the TIVO unit since the install - which I will try shortly.

Any suggestions/help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Rob

[cableguy763]

Where are you located? That kind of information usually helps.

[radtom]

This has happened to me with both my series 3 installs. I call repair and they are able to check their settings and within minutes I get my missing channels. It was not a cable card problem, just something not set right when the card(s) was activated. Both times it was quick and easy. I am dealing with TW San Antonio.

[cokyq]

My cable provider is TWC and I am in the DFW area.

WHen I had cablecards installed on my new S3, I started missing channels because TWC moved HDNet, ESPN HD and Universal HD to a new HD Tier. They did not announce the change and it appears they only have been killing those channels when you call for service. Once I noticed the channels were missing later that night I called TWC and then they explained those channels now had an extra cost. When I told them to activate them, that is when the problem started.

When they activated the HD Tier, ESPN HD and HDNet would not come in. After several calls, they sent a tech over, who took the cards out, wrote down the serial numbers, Data and host addresses, called TWC central, had the cards divorced (un-paired), and then re-pairing them. This process resolved the problem in 2 of 3 cards. He exchanged the cablecard, re-paired and problem was resolved.

[cokyq]

In the Dallas area, TWC.. 790 and 795 are showing a black screen only. Anyone else having this issue?

Yes I did in Euless with channels 780 and 790. Tech came in and had to divorce the cards and re-pair them. Problem now solved.

[rjgibson0066]

Where are you located? That kind of information usually helps.

Dayton, OH

[A J Ricaud]

I'm a new TWC customer in So. Calif. I pre-wired RG-6 cabling to a central point inside my home and connected them to a powered CATV distribution system. I then ran a main line to TWC's interface box.

My install called for 4 CableCards (2 ea. for 3 S3s), 2 TWC DVRs and a set-top box. When the installer showed up yesterday , he only had 2 CableCards because he misread the order. Plus, he was completely overwhelmed by my setup.

He said it wouldn't work that way but agreed to try it anyway. He proceeded to do the install. He was surprised that the signal levels tested fine. He didn't seem to understand that my distribution system is essentially a lossless splitter, designed for CATV (Channelplus).

He said his boss would not let him insert CableCards in anything other than a TV, so I did it, per the Tivo directions. Both cards initialized just fine in the S3 and after re-running guided setup, everything was fine--all channels coming in.

I told him about this site so he can familiarize himself with TWC/CableCard experience is across the nation. He was very thankful. Today, a different, much more knowledeable installer installed the 2 CableCards in my second S3. gain, everything went fine.

I checked the cable signal levels from the S3s menu and got readings in the high 90s. So far, so good.

BTW, the CableCards are Motorolas.

[Fofer]

My install called for 4 CableCards (2 ea. for 3 S3s)

Wouldn't that be 6?

[A J Ricaud]

Wouldn't that be 6?

Whoops! Only have 2 S3s.

[rjgibson0066]

I will keep searching, but would appreciate any advice on my install.

SOME DIGITAL CHANNELS, BUT NOT ALL (AND NOT MY FAVORITES)

I get all the regular (analog) channels and a few of the digital channels, such as local HD and Discovery HD. However, I don't get the normal digital channels, such as the Outdoor Channel, Speed, any of the premium movies channels (HBO and Showtime), and the some other HD channels (ESPN HD, IMHD). Both cards get and don't get the exact same channels.

Larry "The Cable Guy" had never done a cablecard install, however he was very accomodating and followed all the directions - although he had to go outside to make calls to activate the cards due to poor cell reception at my house - therefore I did not overhear him reciting the cards' serial numbers - but we both checked and doubled checked our written notes when installing the cards.

He left after "dispatch" told him it may take 1-4 hours for all the channels to download. However, it has been close of 2-3 hours and nothing has changed.

I did re-run of set-up, and did identify in the set-up process the second time, my premium channels (HBO and Showtime), however nothing changed.

Strangely, both before starting my second set-up process and after the second set-up process was complete, I received an error message saying there was a change to a cablecard and set-up needed to be re-run.

I didn't re-run set-up a third time because I saw this message before the starting the second set-up process, so figured that wouldn't be the solution.

Lastly, we only tried/used two cablecards as they partially worked. Further, I never re-booted (powered on/off) the TIVO unit since the install - which I will try shortly.

Any suggestions/help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Rob


Bump - I am in Dayton, OH.

[cdp1276]

Anyone know the best process to move 2 TW CableCards from one S3 and get working in another S3? As in what to say to the CSR over the phone so I don't need a service visit and can do this quickly.

[moritzes]

Sounds like your account is not "balanced" -- i.e., TW has not told its computers that you are entitled to more than basic cable on your cablecards. Call up CS and ask them to balance your account.

[moritzes]

Sounds like your account is not "balanced" -- i.e., TW has not told its computers that you are entitled to more than basic cable on your cablecards. Call up CS and ask them to balance your account.

This was for rjgibson0066.

[rlay]

My cable provider is TWC and I am in the DFW area.

When I had cablecards installed on my new S3, I started missing channels because TWC moved HDNet, ESPN HD and Universal HD to a new HD Tier. They did not announce the change and it appears they only have been killing those channels when you call for service. Once I noticed the channels were missing later that night I called TWC and then they explained those channels now had an extra cost. When I told them to activate them, that is when the problem started.

When they activated the HD Tier, ESPN HD and HDNet would not come in. After several calls, they sent a tech over, who took the cards out, wrote down the serial numbers, Data and host addresses, called TWC central, had the cards divorced (un-paired), and then re-pairing them. This process resolved the problem in 2 of 3 cards. He exchanged the cablecard, re-paired and problem was resolved.

This is the same problem I have been living with for 6 months. I don't get the HD Tier channels on the S3 (HDNET, ESPN HD, and the recently added TNT HD, UHD, etc.) I was beginning to think that they were on a on the incompatible "switched" network... They claim that the systems have been changing ever since Time Warner took over Adelphia.

Do you know how they went about unpairing the cards? The dispatch never needed anything other than the serial number of the cards...even when I forced them to use the host ID, etc.

Since then, every time I've called they say that if the channels work on the Motorola box, then they are simply not compatible with the cable cards. There were a bunch of botched cable card installs at first, and when I finally got most of my channels I decided to live with it (given that I had a Motorola box upstairs).

With the ads for DirectV claiming 200+ HD channels in a few months, this issue might mean me switching if I don't get this resolved. Also, I'm getting a lot more over-the-air HD channels than what the cable company is providing (they only provide FOX...and I can get NBC, FOX, CBS, and some Mexican HD stations with a cheap Terk indoor antenna). I am contemplating putting in a big external anntenna to get them with less dropouts and even get a few more stations.

Should I ask them to swap the cable cards out? I had some bad ones originally. They ran out of stock at one point. We even went without digital channels for a while because of all these problems.

[cokyq]

rlay,

read my posts #1360 & 1371 where I explain my problem and how it was solved.

TWC would not let me provide the card serial, host and data addresses. THey sent a tech to do this. Glad they did, because he ended up exchanging one of the cards.

[Fofer]

With the ads for DirectV claiming 200+ HD channels
To be fair, I've heard "100+" and I've also heard that number includes all the locals for every region. IOW, you wouldn't have access to that amount of new HD channels. And now that there was some satellite explosion, apparently that may have put some crimp into the launch schedule, too.

[rlay]

To be fair, I've heard "100+" and I've also heard that number includes all the locals for every region. IOW, you wouldn't have access to that amount of new HD channels. And now that there was some satellite explosion, apparently that may have put some crimp into the launch schedule, too.

My sister today has over 50 HD channels coming through her DirecTV equipment, including locals and premium channels....even HD versions of MTV and other basic tier channels...plus more HD movie channels and PPV....Sure, there is an OTA antenna on her dish, but at least it's all integrated and working. I have only 4 HD channels coming through TWC+Tivo, 12 with TWC+Motorola box, and 5 more OTA (on the Tivo with a small indoor antenna). I thought getting cable was supposed to improve reception....and we are paying about the same as my sister for the "Ultimate" package.

Now the DirecTV ads say they're adding more HD channels...and I am stuck losing channels through TWC with SDV and the Tivo (or whatever the problem is). I've wasted too much time with TWC (at least 5 days waiting for techs and hours on hold with tech support, bad cable cards, etc.) trying to get the Tivo to get all available HD channels and getting nothing but "It's not our problem" from TWC after it's all said and done.

The Tivo user interface, the added cost of getting the dish installed & wired, and the bundled broadband are what's keeping me on the cable bandwagon. As things like the single cable dish and those additional channels get rolled out...it's going to be harder to resist switching....even if TWC is able to fix those 8 HD missing channels on the Tivo.

[hookbill]

My sister today has over 50 HD channels coming through her DirecTV equipment, including locals and premium channels....even HD versions of MTV and other basic tier channels...plus more HD movie channels and PPV....Sure, there is an OTA antenna on her dish, but at least it's all integrated and working. I have only 4 HD channels coming through TWC+Tivo, 12 with TWC+Motorola box, and 5 more OTA (on the Tivo with a small indoor antenna). I thought getting cable was supposed to improve reception....and we are paying about the same as my sister for the "Ultimate" package.

Now the DirecTV ads say they're adding more HD channels...and I am stuck losing channels through TWC with SDV and the Tivo (or whatever the problem is). I've wasted too much time with TWC (at least 5 days waiting for techs and hours on hold with tech support, bad cable cards, etc.) trying to get the Tivo to get all available HD channels and getting nothing but "It's not our problem" from TWC after it's all said and done.

The Tivo user interface, the added cost of getting the dish installed & wired, and the bundled broadband are what's keeping me on the cable bandwagon. As things like the single cable dish and those additional channels get rolled out...it's going to be harder to resist switching....even if TWC is able to fix those 8 HD missing channels on the Tivo.

Some things to think about. First, most of those HD channels are going to be mpeg 4 so that's compressed HD. That means quality loss. Second how much recording do you do on all those other stations. I do 97% of my recording on big 4 networks, two shows on the CW and usually at least one all year long on FX and HBO.

But if having all that is important to you, by all means switch. To be honest I would have switched just prior to the S3 release but I do not have a clear line of sight.

[cokyq]

From the junk mail I've been getting, it appears DISH has the bigger number of HD channels, not DirecTV. Cable certainly is way behind.

[rlay]

Some things to think about. First, most of those HD channels are going to be mpeg 4 so that's compressed HD. That means quality loss. Second how much recording do you do on all those other stations. I do 97% of my recording on big 4 networks, two shows on the CW and usually at least one all year long on FX and HBO.

But if having all that is important to you, by all means switch. To be honest I would have switched just prior to the S3 release but I do not have a clear line of sight.

Three of my big four channels come in only in SD through TWC...and crappy SD on some as well (ghosting on ABC). I get FOX in HD through TWC, and it has drop outs (lines blotches on the screen during even still scenes). I get NBC, CBS, FOX, and occasionally ABC in HD through a cheap OTA Terk powered indoor antenna....all with a lot of drop out (and between 30-60% signal strength). I'm fairly certain if I put up a big outdoor antenna it will fix that (my neighbor has a DirecTV system with the antenna on the dish, and he doesn't have those problems with the OTA channels...he even gets PBS from San Diego). I live about 20 miles from the border, but I get a few Mexican stations strongly...and I even saw the Superbowl this year in Spanish, with a lot better quality than the locals and no dropout.

I don't understand why TWC doesn't broadcast the all the OTA HD channels in my area. If they did that, I probably would be more reluctant to change.

[SCSIRAID]

Some things to think about. First, most of those HD channels are going to be mpeg 4 so that's compressed HD. That means quality loss.

Quality loss??? HDTV's current comperession scheme is mpeg2. Mpeg4 in the same channel size/bandwidth provides BETTER quality than mpeg2. Mpeg4 is a more efficient codec than mpeg2. However, a provider may choose to keep the PQ the same and use mpeg4's benefits to reduce the bandwidth requirements and stuff more stuff into a given channel.

[hookbill]

Quality loss??? Current HD comperession scheme is mpeg2. Mpeg4 in the same channel size/bandwidth provides BETTER quality than mpeg2. Mpeg4 is a more efficient codec than mpeg2.

That is not what I hear from people locally receiving D*. They may have fixed it but I heard there were all kinds of problems. And the whole reason they went to Mpeg4 was to save on bandwith, so that can't be right.

[A J Ricaud]

That is not what I hear from people locally receiving D*. They may have fixed it but I heard there were all kinds of problems. And the whole reason they went to Mpeg4 was to save on bandwith, so that can't be right.

Most posts I have read involving side-by-side comparisons of Directv's HR10-250 (MPEG-2) vs. HR 20-700 (MPEG-4) indicate either virtually no difference in perceived video quality; or, a slightly better picture with the HR20--probably due to it being a newer product.

The problems you refer to are mostly related to the DVR itself, and not due to the MPEG scheme.

[SCSIRAID]

That is not what I hear from people locally receiving D*. They may have fixed it but I heard there were all kinds of problems. And the whole reason they went to Mpeg4 was to save on bandwith, so that can't be right.

There are multiple variables in play. Your statment that mpeg4 is poorer quality seemed to imply that you believed that HDTV is uncompressed or that mpeg4 was a poorer codec than mpeg2 which is not true. HDTV uses mpeg2 (ota and cable and most sat). The fact is that mpeg4 is a more efficient codec. That means that a given stream can be compressed more without quality loss or from another perspective, you can get better PQ for a given bandwidth. That gives the provider several choices as they move to mpeg4 from mpeg2. 1) Keep the quality the same but consume less bandwith and stuff more in the same 'channel'. 2) Keep the bandwidth the same and get better PQ. 3) a blend of 1 and 2. I dont have sat so I dont know what they are going to do. They could even reduce PQ even more if they chose to.

[rlay]

And did a bunch of resets.... I gained one new channel (TNTHD)! But they agree'd to send a "cablecard knowledge-able" technican out on Wednesday morning with some extra cable cards. At this point I am convinced that either the cablecards are faulty or there is something wrong with the pairing....and there is no SDV here (they don't offer on-demand in this area) If I can hack away at it with a phone support rep, and get an additional channel... there has got to be a way to get all of them.

I need to figure out how I'm going to mount a big outdoor antenna on the top of my two story house, and route the cable down. If TWC can get me the 5 missing channels, and I can get the major networks clearly with an outdoor antenna. I'll be satisfied for now....then if DirecTV truly offers 100s of HD channels, I'll consider the switch when that becomes a reality.

[cdp1276]

Anyone know the best process to move 2 TW CableCards from one S3 and get working in another S3? As in what to say to the CSR over the phone so I don't need a service visit and can do this quickly.

Everyone seems to run away from this question and never answer. But I went ahead and did this today. I thought I would tell you that of course the telephone CSR can only send an initialize hit to the cards. They can't do a repair and simply update my host ID's they have so I can receive the CP Auth. I just keep sitting in a "Waiting for CP Auth" state until they roll a truck. Because a technician is the only one that can talk to central ops where they update this.

How stupid is that and what a waste of money. Now I sit and wait for 5 days to get a technician out and I'm sure they will want to charge me. At least I can get the HD locals via the cards but anytime I hit any other channels that are in my package it pops up the CC diag box to tell me to call and activate the cards. What an oxy moron that is, because you can't call to do that in the first place.

[hookbill]

There are multiple variables in play. Your statment that mpeg4 is poorer quality seemed to imply that you believed that HDTV is uncompressed or that mpeg4 was a poorer codec than mpeg2 which is not true. HDTV uses mpeg2 (ota and cable and most sat). The fact is that mpeg4 is a more efficient codec. That means that a given stream can be compressed more without quality loss or from another perspective, you can get better PQ for a given bandwidth. That gives the provider several choices as they move to mpeg4 from mpeg2. 1) Keep the quality the same but consume less bandwith and stuff more in the same 'channel'. 2) Keep the bandwidth the same and get better PQ. 3) a blend of 1 and 2. I dont have sat so I dont know what they are going to do. They could even reduce PQ even more if they chose to.

Just based on your very reliable and knowlegeable reputation, I'll stand corrected. I guess I made assumptions based on comments I had read in the local AVS forum.

[SCSIRAID]

Just based on your very reliable and knowlegeable reputation, I'll stand corrected. I guess I made assumptions based on comments I had read in the local AVS forum.

Note that the only part of your post I took issue with was the mpeg4 being the reason for lower PQ... The rest of it is likely spot on. The buzz on sat is that they overcompress their HD streams. I doubt that their usage of mpeg4 will be to increase quality... I believe they will use it to add more content given their hard limit on bandwidth. Of course... thats just my opinion as i dont have sat and cant personally speak from experience on its PQ. I believe SDV is going to allow the cableco's to put a lot of pressure on sat.

[Fofer]

I believe SDV is going to allow the cableco's to put a lot of pressure on sat.

Ironically, SDV could also hurt the viability Series 3's... which will drive many of us back to satellite!

[rlay]

I did some fiddling with the indoor antenna, and with the signal strength indicators, I was able to place it optimally to receive most of the major networks in HD with the Tivo's tuners. It is kind of in an awkward location above the TV. My plasma looks like the Tivo Logo with a mohawk!...with the UHF portion pointing towards the wall. I have to see how it holds up in weather, but right now I'm getting between 50-90% signal on the majors in HD (FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS...in order of signal strength). During windy days I have tended to lose CBS & ABC....and have bad drop out problems with the rest. I'm wondering how much better I'll fair with an outdoor antenna.....if only TWC carried these signals.

[tivotivotivo]

Ironically, SDV could also hurt the viability Series 3's... which will drive many of us back to satellite!


and FIOS if verizon ever gets their stuff installed around my parts....

geez. its like 2 cities away from me now.

[rlay]

I did some fiddling with the indoor antenna, and with the signal strength indicators, I was able to place it optimally to receive most of the major networks in HD with the Tivo's tuners. It is kind of in an awkward location above the TV. My plasma looks like the Tivo Logo with a mohawk!...with the UHF portion pointing towards the wall. I have to see how it holds up in weather, but right now I'm getting between 50-90% signal on the majors in HD (FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS...in order of signal strength). During windy days I have tended to lose CBS & ABC....and have bad drop out problems with the rest. I'm wondering how much better I'll fair with an outdoor antenna.....if only TWC carried these signals.


Once the wind kicked up at nightfall... I was back to drops on all OTA channels, and even no reception on some.

Anyone have any experience with the S3 and antennas for OTA HD were the transmitters are 45+ miles away (over flat land farmland luckily)? How about self installation? Any good websites?

[cableguy763]

You know rlay, this is the Time Warner CABLE thread. Most of the people come to this thread because they have CABLE. Just thought I'd point that out. By the way, go here antennaweb.org.

[randywalters]

Ironically, SDV could also hurt the viability Series 3's... which will drive many of us back to satellite!I plan on keeping one cable DVR to augment my S3 so if SDV rears it's ugly head in my area i'm covered, but that's not necessarily a viable option for many folks.

[SCSIRAID]

I plan on keeping one cable DVR to augment my S3 so if SDV rears it's ugly head in my area i'm covered, but that's not necessarily a viable option for many folks.

That is my plan also... although I would have to get one again as I got rid of the one I had after I had the S3 for about a month or so.

[Fofer]

That is my plan also... although I would have to get one again as I got rid of the one I had after I had the S3 for about a month or so.

I returned mine on Saturday, since they were charging me $5 for the box itself and $10 for DVR functionality (or vice-versa, I think.) And I wasn't using it. The interface was horrendous and the remote was ridiculous. The new S3 has been fine, and if it turns out to not be fine in the future due to changes like SDV (and I stick with Time Warner anyway) then hopefully the box TWC offers then will be a ALOT better than the one I started out with!

More than likely, I'd switch back to satellite... Dish or DTV. Whichever is HDTV friendlier.

[jeni1888]

I am about to be a new TWC customer in Los Angeles. Do I need to order a digital receiver and cablecards or just the cablecards? Also, I am slightly technically adept, is it something I can hook up myself or should I ask the installation technician to do it?

Thanks much for any help.

[Fofer]

Just the cable cards... they'll send a TWC tech to install them.

[nataylor]

So I've got 3 Series3 units and I'm trying to install my cables cards (this is in Houston, so it's "self install"). Last Friday I picked up my 6 cards, which required going to 2 different service centers since the first only had 1 card.

After much calling to support, it seems that 4 of the 6 cards are no good. I got one Tivo fully set up with 2 working cards. I get all the channels I should. The other 4 cards have a lower firmware version than the 2 that work, so that's part of the problem. One of the cards just says "CA disabled" in the status screen when I try it in either of my other 2 units. Two of the cards just will not receive the authorization. They never change status, even though I had them send a hit several times. The last one gets authorization, but givens a message that's something like "PROGRAM_KEY_MISSING." It receives the digital channels that are broadcast int he clear, but not the encrypted ones. Oh well.

Of course, none of the centers near me will have more cable cards until Friday, so I have to wait until then and hope that they have 4 cards to swap out for my 4 bad ones.

[CharlesH]

The last one gets authorization, but givens a message that's something like "PROGRAM_KEY_MISSING." It receives the digital channels that are broadcast int he clear, but not the encrypted ones.I have Comcast, but when I got that status on one card, I asked the CSR send an "Initialize" signal to the card. This is a different kind of "hit" than the one they usually do, and I had to insist on that particular kind of hit. After a few minutes, it changed to the OK state (I don't recall the name, but it is obvious when you see it). YMMV with TW.

[nataylor]

I have Comcast, but when I got that status on one card, I asked the CSR send an "Initialize" signal to the card. This is a different kind of "hit" than the one they usually do, and I had to insist on that particular kind of hit. After a few minutes, it changed to the OK state (I don't recall the name, but it is obvious when you see it). YMMV with TW.
Ah, thanks for that info. I guess I'll try that one again tonight. Maybe I'll only have to swap out 3 cards. :)

[jeni1888]

Just the cable cards... they'll send a TWC tech to install them.

Hmm, the guy at Tivo said I need to get the receiver and the cards. But he also sounded like he didn't know much.

I'm trying desperately to decide whether to buy a TiVo or just use the TWC DVR. Anyone have any words of wisdom? I have a DirecTiVo now which I love but can't get southern exposure in my new apartment.

[nataylor]

I'm trying desperately to decide whether to buy a TiVo or just use the TWC DVR. Anyone have any words of wisdom? I have a DirecTiVo now which I love but can't get southern exposure in my new apartment.
If you're used to the TiVo interface, you'll want to kill yourself after using the TWC DVR.

[pkscout]

If you're used to the TiVo interface, you'll want to kill yourself after using the TWC DVR.

That's a wee bit strong. ;)

My wife got the TWC DVR (running Passport) after almost three years with a TiVo when our HDTiVo gave up the ghost while I'm living on the other side of the country.

She said it definitely isn't a TiVo, and it did take awhile to find all the screens, but she's mostly used to it now. The Passport software doesn't have some of the advanced features of a TiVo (wishlists, suggestions, etc.) but for basic DVRness it's not too bad.

My suggestion. Rent the TWC box for a month or two and see what happens. The experience may convince you that the S3 is really worth $800, but you won't know until you try.

[abredt]

That's a wee bit strong. ;)

My suggestion. Rent the TWC box for a month or two and see what happens. The experience may convince you that the S3 is really worth $800, but you won't know until you try.

Good idea !! I had trouble with TiVo3 at first, so having the TW DVD was a lifesaver (show saver.) I still have it because hubby prefers it for his programs.

[rlay]

And did a bunch of resets.... I gained one new channel (TNTHD)! But they agree'd to send a "cablecard knowledge-able" technician out on Wednesday morning with some extra cable cards. At this point I am convinced that either the cablecards are faulty or there is something wrong with the pairing....and there is no SDV here (they don't offer on-demand in this area) If I can hack away at it with a phone support rep, and get an additional channel... there has got to be a way to get all of them.

I need to figure out how I'm going to mount a big outdoor antenna on the top of my two story house, and route the cable down. If TWC can get me the 5 missing channels, and I can get the major networks clearly with an outdoor antenna. I'll be satisfied for now....then if DirecTV truly offers 100s of HD channels, I'll consider the switch when that becomes a reality.

So the technician came out today, and he insisted that the HD Plus Tier on the TWC system here in El Centro, CA channels does not work with CableCards. He claims to have done the install on TVs and Tivos with the same problem. Anyway... I convinced him to swap out my cards, and authorize new ones.... He did it in about five minutes, and as he predicted, the HD Plus tier channels did not show up (except for TNTHD which started appearing this weekend...which seems to continuously loop "Law & Order").

At this point I've pretty much decided to switch to another technology rather than having to deal with the TWC Cablecard limitations and lack of HD programming problems I've had since the beginning. My neighbor has over 15 HD channels now through his DirecTV system plus all of the major networks in HD through an outdoor antenna (but he had to tear apart his walls to get it installed properly). I will probably wait until DirecTV launches their new mpeg-4 based system, and I can confirm that I can use multiple units with a single coax cable and get more than the 5 HD channels I currently get thru TWC + the Tivo S3.....

I'm paying $50/month more just to have the three premium channels packages, another $15/month for the Motorola box that I'm using upstairs, plus about $5/month for the HD Plus tier that I can only use on their Motorola box....plus the basic cable charge of $50/month and a bunch of misc fees (although high speed Internet Access is bundled in)... my bill is $150/month with all the taxes and fees not to mention the $13/month for the Tivo service.. That would get me a great Netflix membership....or a lot of Amazon Unbox. My neighbor pays $100 for 3 DirecTV receivers (1 HD), and an HD DVR....and just about all the channels....

I have been frustrated with this whole experience. I feel like a jumped the gun too early on S3 + HDTV technology. I've paid a premium to be an early adopter. If I would have stayed with a Series 2, I'd have Tivo2Go and multiple networkable units...and basically the same programming choices I current have.

[BruceShultes]

rlay,

You will not be able to get DirecTV HD service through a single cable.

There are four cables from the satellite dish to the distribution unit that is usually mounted on the side of your house.

Then there are two cables from that distribution unit to each of the DirecTV HD boxes you have in your house.

I currently have the mpeg2 box (HR10-250), but from what I have read there is no difference in cabling requirements for the mpeg4 box (HR20-700).

[Cajun Man]

Howdy, I am another Rochesterian who owns an S3, and I am about to request a pair of CableCards -- and hi-def service -- from Time Warner. If TW cannot/will not provide all HD channels via CC, I will be filing a complaint with the FCC as well.

I will provide an update once I have upgraded my service...
I am happy to report that, thanks to TiVo's 8.1.1 software upgrade combined with a CableCard software upgrade deployed by TimeWarner, I am a satisfied customer here in Rochester NY.

Audio is now present on channel 1016 ("The CW"), and my premium HD channels (HDNET, HDNET Movies and ESPNHD -- channels 1050, 1051 and 1052) are no longer deauthorized once a week or so.

My only complaint? A few channels are not available via CableCard. Namely A&EHD, MTVHD and UNVHD. (Presumably these are being provided via SDV?) But now that the other issues have been resolved, I am willing to tolerate a few missing channels...at least for a few months. ;)

p.s. The one local HD channel missing from TW's lineup -- Fox -- was added a few weeks ago, on channel 1007.

[Peter000]

Last night, I turned on my TiVo and it said "Cablecard firmware update in progress." It said it would take approximately 40 min. I let it sit overnight, and it was still showing it as of 2 this afternoon, so I rebooted... for a few moments, my channels showed up, but then went back to the same message.

Anyone else with this issue today?

:sigh: Off to be put on hold.

[BruceShultes]

Last night, I turned on my TiVo and it said "Cablecard firmware update in progress." It said it would take approximately 40 min. I let it sit overnight, and it was still showing it as of 2 this afternoon, so I rebooted... for a few moments, my channels showed up, but then went back to the same message.

Anyone else with this issue today?

:sigh: Off to be put on hold.

When my cable cards were first being installed, one of them worked fine while the second was hung on "Cablecard firmware update in progress".

I checked the manufacture date on the cable cards and discovered that the one having problems was older that the one that worked. After I described the problem, my cable company just replaced the older card with one that had the same date as the one which worked.

Since then at least one firmware update has been done with no problems.

[smc]

Since I been kind of a voyager on this topic I thought I would share my experience with Time Warner Cable.

After receiving my Tivo I went down to my local cable office to pickup a couple of cards. I mean that’s what I thought I would do. But when I got there I was told that I had pay $29 to have someone come out and “plug” them into my Tivo! I just could not understand why I must pay someone to come out to “plug-in” two cards into my Tivo, after all I swapped cable boxes before. I ask the rep why can’t I just pick them up and try them myself, she said, “I don’t know you have to ask the installer”.

So I scheduled an appointment, she wanted me to take a 9am to 7pm weekday appointment but I said no, and told her I’ll wait till you can get me a confirmed time. She did and all was well, so I thought.

It stilled bothered me that I was paying $29 for a service I felt I didn’t need. After all how hard could it be to “plug-in” a card? And if it was hard it was because of their process/hardware not mine! So I filed a compliant with the PUC. Well two days later a lady from TW called and said she had my compliant and the she would waive the install charge, and that they would be out Thursday morning between the hours of 8 and 10am for the install.

TW changed the time to a 9am to 7pm appointment and didn’t tell me! After wasting a ½ day waiting for TW to show up, I called and ask to speak to a supervisor, I just wanted to make sure that the next appointment was scheduled correctly. I was told they were all too busy to take my call, that one would call me right back. After trying several times to get a supervisor on the phone, and each time I was told they would call back at least by 10pm, that’s when they go home. At 9:45pm I called back and was put on hold till 10pm then hung up on!

So on Friday I:

1. Called the corporate office to find out the fax number to the CEO and who I could contact in California
2. Wrote a letter and faxed it to Time Warner’s Customer Care Advocate
3. Sent a copy of the letter to the CEO of Time Warner Cable
4. Filed a complaint with the CPUC
5. Emailed the local franchise authority

By Monday afternoon I got three phone calls, two from their president office. They apologized to me and said they are putting in place a system by next month they will help prevent what happened to me. They also scheduled an appointment for today between 8am and 10am.

Well three cable guys showed up, one of which was the supervisor. They installed the cable cards and all is well!

[cdp1276]

My only complaint? A few channels are not available via CableCard. Namely A&EHD, MTVHD and UNVHD. (Presumably these are being provided via SDV?) But now that the other issues have been resolved, I am willing to tolerate a few missing channels...at least for a few months. ;)

Yes, those are SDV and you can see them all listed here:

http://www.timewarnercable.com/rochester/products/cablecard.html

Shame you were having those problems. I've been up on the S3 with CableCard's here for along time without issue.

[jsshattuck]

I have a strange problem. In December I had 2 cablecards (SA) installed in my new S3. One card installed in CableCard 1 slot receives all stations, the one installed in CableCard 2 cannot display stations above 281. Since I rarely record stations above 281, I have sort of ignored the problem. I am deathly afraid that TW will screw up both slots if they come back.

We tried 6 cards in CableCard 2 slot, and none of them worked perfectly, some didn't display any HD channels, the best was one that displays the first 10 HD channels, but as stated none above 281.

Is it TiVo or the CableCard? Please advise!

[Fofer]

Yes, those are SDV and you can see them all listed here:

http://www.timewarnercable.com/rochester/products/cablecard.html


As a new S3 owner with TimeWarner, I can honestly say that is the scariest and most depressing web page I have seen in many months. :( :down:


This is the page for my area (SoCal (http://www.timewarnercable.com/socal/products/cablecard.html)) and it's not any more encouraging.

[Roderigo]

I have a strange problem. In December I had 2 cablecards (SA) installed in my new S3. One card installed in CableCard 1 slot receives all stations, the one installed in CableCard 2 cannot display stations above 281. Since I rarely record stations above 281, I have sort of ignored the problem. I am deathly afraid that TW will screw up both slots if they come back.

We tried 6 cards in CableCard 2 slot, and none of them worked perfectly, some didn't display any HD channels, the best was one that displays the first 10 HD channels, but as stated none above 281.

Is it TiVo or the CableCard? Please advise!
Unfortunately, your post doesn't provide enough information to start to figure out what's going on. When tuned to a problem channel, what does the cablecard screens say? What does the S3 diagnostics screen say?

Also, in general, channel number isn't a useful bit of debugging information for cablecards. All channel numbers are virtual, so if it's something signal or hardware related, the frequency of the channel is more important.

[Peter000]

Update on my cablecard problem... I futzed with it, and finally tried my cards one at a time in slot 1. Seems one of them just doesn't want to accept a firmware update and hangs. So right now I'm running with one cablecard until a service call from TW Friday afternoon.

It took me two calls to get a service call scheduled. WTF? The first call merely "escalated" my problem with a promise to "call me back." I'm really disappointed with TW lately. Basically I have no choice though.

And I'm pretty disappointed with the crippled CC service. It really wasn't worth it to get a TiVo.

[Cajun Man]

Update on my cablecard problem... I futzed with it, and finally tried my cards one at a time in slot 1. Seems one of them just doesn't want to accept a firmware update and hangs. So right now I'm running with one cablecard until a service call from TW Friday afternoon.
Just out of curiosity...do your CCs have a date printed on them? If so, would you mind sharing them?

I ask because I found that CCs with dates earlier than 2006 did not work with either my S3, or my CC-capable Sony TV. So after some initial trial-and-error over the course of two technician visits, I called TW back and specifically asked that the technician bring back CCs dated no earlier than 2006. This ultimately solved the issue.

Whether those earlier cards had slightly different hardware, or simply had older firmware, I do not know. Regardless, the newer cards solved the issue.

And I'm pretty disappointed with the crippled CC service. It really wasn't worth it to get a TiVo.
Once you get a pair of CCs that work, you might find that CC service is not so bad after all. :p

p.s. TimeWarner recently deployed updated firmware to field-deployed CCs here in Rochester, in case anyone is interested in such info. The software build date is now May 10 2006, while it was formerly May 2 2005 -- at least in the three CCs I have.

[George Cifranci]

p.s. TimeWarner recently deployed updated firmware to field-deployed CCs here in Rochester, in case anyone is interested in such info. The software build date is now May 10 2006, while it was formerly May 2 2005 -- at least in the three CCs I have.

Here in Columbus Ohio the Scientific Atlanta CC's that I have from Time Warner Mid-Ohio are the May 2, 2005's. I wonder what they changed?

[AgentMunroe]

Relatively happy with Cablecards in Rochester, NY, at least for now... It was like pulling teeth trying to get somebody to actually put it on a work order and schedule an appointment (including an entire "scheduled" appointment that they no-showed), but despite that and some minor troubles installing them the Series3 is happy for now, SDV be damned. (Helpful hint: If one Cablecard slot stops responding, reboot the TiVo. Also, if one Cablecard appears not to be tuning any channels, go into the diagnostics menu and futz around, then go back to the test area... that solved it for me.)

Quick question: Does anybody's S3 in Rochester pick up the digital simulcasts of the channels? I gather from this page on TW's site (http://www.timewarnercable.com/rochester/products/digitalsimulcast.html) I should be getting them, but I'm still getting record quality settings on basic channels (Discovery, Comedy Central, TBS, etc.). Does this just not currently work properly with the Cablecard, or is there something else at play here? EDIT: Woops, just realized it says right there on the Cablecard page that digital simulcasts are SDV only. Never mind.

Lastly, should I be recording locals OTA, or off cable? I'm thinking the bitrate OTA is higher, so I'm sticking with that... but if there's not much of a difference, I might decommission the antenna just to clean up the living room area a bit.

[BruceShultes]

OTA is a given person's decision.

I am a TW customer in Albany, NY. My OTA reception is much better that that from TW. There is less pixellation and less loss of sound OTA than on TW.

[stevenkriege]

I'm a new TWC customer in So. Calif. I pre-wired RG-6 cabling to a central point inside my home and connected them to a powered CATV distribution system. I then ran a main line to TWC's interface box.

My install called for 4 CableCards (2 ea. for 3 S3s), 2 TWC DVRs and a set-top box. When the installer showed up yesterday , he only had 2 CableCards because he misread the order. Plus, he was completely overwhelmed by my setup.

He said it wouldn't work that way but agreed to try it anyway. He proceeded to do the install. He was surprised that the signal levels tested fine. He didn't seem to understand that my distribution system is essentially a lossless splitter, designed for CATV (Channelplus).

He said his boss would not let him insert CableCards in anything other than a TV, so I did it, per the Tivo directions. Both cards initialized just fine in the S3 and after re-running guided setup, everything was fine--all channels coming in.

I told him about this site so he can familiarize himself with TWC/CableCard experience is across the nation. He was very thankful. Today, a different, much more knowledeable installer installed the 2 CableCards in my second S3. gain, everything went fine.

I checked the cable signal levels from the S3s menu and got readings in the high 90s. So far, so good.

BTW, the CableCards are Motorolas.

So if you setup basically the cable version of a powered multi-switch typically used for satellite whole-house distribution?

[BigMaxie]

Lastly, should I be recording locals OTA, or off cable? I'm thinking the bitrate OTA is higher, so I'm sticking with that... but if there's not much of a difference, I might decommission the antenna just to clean up the living room area a bit.


I think it's highly debatable. Some folks swear OTA is better, others see no difference. I really think it depends on how much of a videophile you are.

So your happy with your S3 even with SDV? That's good news there is a lot of paranoia around the forum these days because of SDV. I know Rochester is one of the areas that uses it full blown.

[A J Ricaud]

So if you setup basically the cable version of a powered multi-switch typically used for satellite whole-house distribution?

Yes.

[stevenkriege]

Yes.

What is the cable version of the multi-switch officially called? A really big splitter? I am just curious, as I didn't know this was possible with a cable connection.

[stevenkriege]

Hey all -

I just recently had my Tivo Series 3 HD DVR setup with TW cable cards, and I have a peculiar issues occuring. There are both SD and HD channels missing, even though they are part of my cable package. The channel is listed in the program guide, however when I select the channel there is just a black screen.

From what I have read, the issue seems to be specific to where you are located (TW coverage seems to be inconsistent). Anyone have this issue in the Los Angeles area?

[stevenkriege]

What does this have to do with the Series 3?

I have the same issue with the S3 and two TW Cable Cards. Both HD and SD stations.

[pkscout]

What is the cable version of the multi-switch officially called? A really big splitter? I am just curious, as I didn't know this was possible with a cable connection.

It's just a powered distribution center. Basically a splitter with power to amplify the signal back to a reasonable rate after being split so many times.

[Kablemodem]

Hey all -

I just recently had my Tivo Series 3 HD DVR setup with TW cable cards, and I have a peculiar issues occuring. There are both SD and HD channels missing, even though they are part of my cable package. The channel is listed in the program guide, however when I select the channel there is just a black screen.

From what I have read, the issue seems to be specific to where you are located (TW coverage seems to be inconsistent). Anyone have this issue in the Los Angeles area?

Your cards probably weren't authorized properly. Check the cable card diagnostic screens and see what they say.

[A J Ricaud]

What is the cable version of the multi-switch officially called? A really big splitter? I am just curious, as I didn't know this was possible with a cable connection.

This is the one I use; use Google to get the best price if you want one:

http://www.channelplus.com/product_detail.php?productId=57

[lggarrison]

Your cards probably weren't authorized properly. Check the cable card diagnostic screens and see what they say.

Can you give me an idea of what to say to Time Warner Cable to get my cable cards authorized?

My cards say something like "Waiting for CP Auth" which I imagine means "Waiting for cable provider authorization."

I've called them four or five times. They've replaced the cards three times. I've pointed this information out to each technician and they've done nothing but shrugged and told me to wait a few hours.

[Kablemodem]

They have to properly follow the installation instructions or else they will never work. The third installer they sent finally knew what he was doing and everyhting has been fine since then. A good installer will keep trying until the cards work properly.

[lggarrison]

Okay. Do you think I need the installer to come back? Or this is something I can do over the phone with a techncian?

[bferrell]

Should be able to do it over the phone, I did, but I had to ask for "third-level support", as they were (apparently) the only ones that could pull this off, FWIW.

Brett

[Dave42]

After reading many of the horror stories on this thread, I'm pleased to report a very pleasant experience with my CableCard installation.

After 13 years with DirecTV (my old RCA remote control still has a USSB channel lineup sticker on it) I switched to TWC because the Buffalo, NY NBC and CBS stations (which are not yet on DirecTV in HD) refused to grant an FCC waiver which would have allowed me to receive the network feeds from NYC.

I called TWC Customer Service twice and spoke to very knowlegeable and polite women. I asked for 2 CableCards and was told they required installation and would cost $4.95 each per month. Still cheaper than the DVR rental and DVR service, though.

I was given a 1-3PM window, and the tech arrived at 2PM. He asked where the TVs were, and I told him both cards were for a TiVO. He looked a little worried because he had only done a couple of CC installs, and never in anything but a TV.

I showed him the installation sheet that came with the S3. We followed the instructions exactly and made 2 phone calls. While he had to explain the situation to two different people who know nothing about the TiVo, all channels were up and running within 30 minutes from when he arrived.

It would be nice if the S3 provided some progress indicator when you insert the CC in the slot. When they say it will take a "few minutes" for the MMI screen to appear, they mean it!

The tech thanked me for the help. He said his previous CC service call had taken him 3-1/2 hours.

Thanks to all of you for sharing your experiences so we can all benefit from them!

--Dave

[abredt]

After reading many of the horror stories on this thread, I'm pleased to report a very pleasant experience with my CableCard installation.

I called TWC Customer Service twice and spoke to very knowlegeable and polite women. I asked for 2 CableCards and was told they required installation and would cost $4.95 each per month.
--Dave

Dave - Look into your info from TW and see what the price says cable cards should be. I'm with TW West Valley (L.A.). After I called them, they reduced it and credited the install charge to appologize.

[Fofer]

Dave - Look into your info from TW and see what the price says cable cards should be. I'm with TW West Valley (L.A.). After I called them, they reduced it and credited the install charge to appologize.
And what *should* they be?

I'm going to call but would like to be prepared first.
This page says $1.75 per month:
http://www.timewarnercable.com/socal/products/cablecard.html

...but I think my bill says $6.95?

[mercurial]

If you get it decoded, let me know. I have 4 CCs for my S3s and then two digital boxes (for my S2DTs) and with all the cable tiers we get plus Roadrunner.. plus digital phone... I need a team of international negotiators to decipher my bill...

[SCSIRAID]

If you get it decoded, let me know. I have 4 CCs for my S3s and then two digital boxes (for my S2DTs) and with all the cable tiers we get plus Roadrunner.. plus digital phone... I need a team of international negotiators to decipher my bill...

Here is a spreadsheet that works for TWC Raleigh....

[Kablemodem]

Josh, my office charges $1.75 for the first cable card and $4.15 for additional cards.

[Dave42]

The Western New York web site quotes $4.95 each as the correct price, I'm afraid.

It's strange how inconsistent TW is.

--Dave

[hornblowercat]

Josh, my office charges $1.75 for the first cable card and $4.15 for additional cards.

Cheap, mine just went to 2.50 for the first card and 5.25 for the second.

[abredt]

And what *should* they be?

I'm going to call but would like to be prepared first.
This page says $1.75 per month:
http://www.timewarnercable.com/socal/products/cablecard.html

...but I think my bill says $6.95?

OOPS - forgot to put in the price they said. It's $1.75 - as you found.
CB

[Jchfilms]

I checked the time warner cable website and then called the sales department. The website states that I cannot purchase HD cable tv services without buying their (TW) HD digital receiver or HD DVR. I called to speak with Time Warner and they informed me over the phone that cablecards do not work with HD signals. They are trying in effect to force me into buying a receiver or DVR from them only. I called Tivo and spoke with customer support, I send a complaint to the FCC electronically, and I'm leaving this post as well. I just feel so frustrated by these big corporations that have no conscience. I want a series 3 tivo to record HD but from what Time Warner Cable represents on their website along with what they say on the phone, I can't use a series 3 Tivo for HD. SO why should I buy the Series 3 if it doesn't work. Has anyone else had this problem? Is Time Warner lying to me? What should I do?

[Fofer]

I checked the time warner cable website and then called the sales department. The website states that I cannot purchase HD cable tv services without buying their (TW) HD digital receiver or HD DVR. I called to speak with Time Warner and they informed me over the phone that cablecards do not work with HD signals. They are trying in effect to force me into buying a receiver or DVR from them only. I called Tivo and spoke with customer support, I send a complaint to the FCC electronically, and I'm leaving this post as well. I just feel so frustrated by these big corporations that have no conscience. I want a series 3 tivo to record HD but from what Time Warner Cable represents on their website along with what they say on the phone, I can't use a series 3 Tivo for HD. SO why should I buy the Series 3 if it doesn't work. Has anyone else had this problem? Is Time Warner lying to me? What should I do?

Where are you located? Rochester, by any chance?

http://www.timewarnercable.com/rochester/products/cablecard.html

You may be the victim of "SDV." :(

[Fofer]

Josh, my office charges $1.75 for the first cable card and $4.15 for additional cards.

This is so weird. The SoCal page says it's $1.75 for the first CableCard, and some undetermined price for additionals: ("An addtional fee may apply for each additional outlet.")

http://www.timewarnercable.com/socal/products/cablecard.html

But I am on the phone now with them, and they are telling me something totally different. At first they tried to say the "additional fee for each additional outlet" was why I was being charged $6.95 for each. I had to explain, slowly, what "each additional outlet" actually meant for them to understand the discrepancy. Bizarre, let me tell you...

Now they are telling me they will charge me $0 for the first, and $6.95 for the second. Still, it bothers me that this is different from what their website says, and what other SoCal customers (like KableModem) are being charged. Sure, it's only $1.05 more per month, but I'm bored, and it's the principle, you know?

I'm tempted to cut my losses, though, and just accept their "offer..."

:rolleyes:

[Kablemodem]

On my bill the additional outlet fee is included in the charge for the second card. What stinks is I'll be paying an additional $8.30 for my second S3.

[davecramer74]

Time warner says SDV by years end. More HD!

http://www.tvpredictions.com/tw030907.htm

We will be rolling out Switched Digital Video (a new transmission technology) by the end of the year and that will allow us to offer a lot more channels. So to see the DIRECTV ads that tell consumers that they will have three times the number of channels as cable is not a factual statement...Competition is one thing but Time Warner was not prepared to accept that. I'm 100 percent confident that we will have as compelling a HD lineup as DIRECTV.

[hornblowercat]

Time warner says SDV by years end. More HD!

http://www.tvpredictions.com/tw030907.htm

This is just such a friggin joke. No way is TW going to roll out SDV to everyone in a year. How do I know that? They just bought all of Adelphia along with Comcast. In the deal they have actually acquired some of Comcast customers while Comcast has acquired theirs.

All these different cable systems all stem from smaller cable companies. No way can they do this by end of year.

And why is it that you continue to go around spreading the SDV fear into everybody. Is this your mission?

[davecramer74]

And why is it that you continue to go around spreading the SDV fear into everybody. Is this your mission?

I posted it means more HD channels! How do you know your not getting more channels in hd?? Im sorry you fear SDV, i welcome it. Anything that means more HD then woohoo! I just wish comcast would make similar announcements.

[hornblowercat]

I posted it means more HD channels! How do you know your not getting more channels in hd?? Im sorry you fear SDV, i welcome it. Anything that means more HD then woohoo!


Cut the bs, dave. That's not what you're about and you know it. You know just as well as I do what SDV means. And it doesn't mean more HD channels for S3 users. I've read enough of your threads to know where your coming from. Why you've decided to sing this hip hip hooray song I don't know, but I don't believe your serious.

[davecramer74]

I posted a good read off tvpredictions.com. Whether you like the news or not, i dont care. Anyway you look at it, its great news. Its more HDTV. Especially with the new mass market tivo boxes coming out. Your sig is right, it doesnt mean the end of tivo. Im excited about their new boxes. Hopefully they do vod, etc.

[hornblowercat]

I posted a good read off tvpredictions.com. Whether you like the news or not, i dont care. Anyway you look at it, its great news. Its more HDTV. Especially with the new mass market tivo boxes coming out. Your sig is right, it doesnt mean the end of tivo. Im excited about their new boxes. Hopefully they do vod, etc.


I read the article. I apologize for suspecting your motives. I also wonder is this the same davecramer? :)

She does mention using VOD for additional HD which could explain a quicker addition of HD channels without using SDV. That still wouldn't mean more additional HD channels for S3 users.

[davecramer74]

Well, my tune has changed with tivo stating they are doing new hardware and new hardware at a reasonable price. thats good news for s3 early adopters. If these new boxes do handle 2 way coms, you can get one for half of what you paid for your s3 and have the best of both worlds. A tivo with a bigass hard drive and a tivo for whatever you cant get on sdv. id be pretty damn happy now if i was an s3 owner. theres no reason to fear sdv now, your going to have an alternative and it will be a full blown tivo product.

[Fofer]

Well, my tune has changed with tivo stating they are doing new hardware and new hardware at a reasonable price. thats good news for s3 early adopters. If these new boxes do handle 2 way coms, you can get one for half of what you paid for your s3 and have the best of both worlds. A tivo with a bigass hard drive and a tivo for whatever you cant get on sdv. id be pretty damn happy now if i was an s3 owner. theres no reason to fear sdv now, your going to have an alternative and it will be a full blown tivo product.

I presume you're talking about this article:
http://www.tvpredictions.com/tivohd030807.htm

Why wouldn't you be able to put a bigass hard drive in the new (reasonably priced) TiVo?

I don't want two TiVos. I want one Now Playing list that displays everything, regardless of source.

[mercurial]

Well, my tune has changed with tivo stating they are doing new hardware and new hardware at a reasonable price. thats good news for s3 early adopters. If these new boxes do handle 2 way coms, you can get one for half of what you paid for your s3 and have the best of both worlds. A tivo with a bigass hard drive and a tivo for whatever you cant get on sdv. id be pretty damn happy now if i was an s3 owner. theres no reason to fear sdv now, your going to have an alternative and it will be a full blown tivo product.

And where was that stated?

[Fofer]

I posted a link directly above yours, merc... but there's nothing concrete in there. Just regret over pricing and missed opportunities, and an expressed goal for a cheaper box to come out soon.

I'd like to get an official word/strategy from TiVo on the SDV issue.

[davecramer74]

Why wouldn't you be able to put a bigass hard drive in the new (reasonably priced) TiVo?

well your hd is twice the size of mine stock is what i meant.

[davecramer74]

I'd like to get an official word/strategy from TiVo on the SDV issue.


What is the word you are looking for, cable card 1.0 does not support 2 way coms. Its been stated over and over here that S3 will not handle new cable cards.

I was going on the assumption that this new tivo will in fact support the new cards. If they didnt, id be amazed.

Two proposals exist for enhancing the CableCARD standard. Both are designed to add support for two way features whose operation details the CE and cable company representatives could not agree on in time for inclusion in the CableCARD 1.0 specification. These two way features include ordering Pay-per-view via remote, Video On Demand, advanced electronic programming guide information, and Switched Video services. These features are not available on existing CableCARD 1.0 enabled products.

[Jchfilms]

Where are you located? Rochester, by any chance?



You may be the victim of "SDV." :(

I live/work in Venice California. The TW sales person stated" I don't recommend the cable cards, they are unreliable. You must purchase and lease a TW HD Digital receiver or TW HD DVR to receive HD signals. I think that sounds like a monopoly. What should I do?

[davecramer74]

I live/work in Venice California. The TW sales person stated" I don't recommend the cable cards, they are unreliable. You must purchase and lease a TW HD Digital receiver or TW HD DVR to receive HD signals. I think that sounds like a monopoly. What should I do?

thats a sales person trying to get you to use their STB. As for living ini venice, i think verizon is going to be knocking on your door if they havent already. Id be going FIOS if i was you.

[Fofer]

I live/work in Venice California. The TW sales person stated" I don't recommend the cable cards, they are unreliable. You must purchase and lease a TW HD Digital receiver or TW HD DVR to receive HD signals. I think that sounds like a monopoly. What should I do?

That sounds like an uninformed TW sales person.

I am in L.A. and my S3 is getting all the HD that TWC (currently) has to offer:

http://www.timewarnercable.com/socal/products/cablecard.html

[Teeps]

I live/work in Venice California. The TW sales person stated" I don't recommend the cable cards, they are unreliable. You must purchase and lease a TW HD Digital receiver or TW HD DVR to receive HD signals. I think that sounds like a monopoly. What should I do?


Look around at the houses in your area, do you see tv antennas? If the answer is yes. Just connect your S3 to an OTA antenna and get all local hd channels right from Mt.Wilson for free. If you want other stations like Sports or Movie stations you will need cable cards.

I have TW here in Torrance, and have had a few problems with cable cards. Currently I am experiencing a missing channel problem in the digital range above 125... Hope to get that fixed today.

Oh yea, it's helpful to include your location in your profile.

[Teeps]

10MAR07:

Out of the blue the Speed Channel (and many other digital stations) has disappeared from cable card #1 again.

What really pisses me off about this is, even after the 8.1 update, TiVo is still not smart enough to use the cable card/tuner combo (in this case card 2) that gets the station.
And, it couldn't happen last week has to happen during Daytona Speed Week!!!!
I almost missed the "Live Supercross" broad cast because of this!

I'll be trying my previous fix below and hope it works.


Ditto the problem for me too.

I don't remember seeing anything about "digital rebuild", but now that you mention it, that is what I have.
So I will look again today.

Thanks,Tp


I finally got the right channel lineup.

I continued to answer the "what's on this channel" question "I don't know, try another" until TiVo said they had the lineup narrowed down to 4.

I selected Torrance Digital Extended REBUILD and that did the trick...

Oh joy, now I can season pass and record SPEED, and (in HD) DISCOVERY!

27JAN07:

I found out the hard way that if both cable cards are not receiving "ALL" the expected channels. Tivo is not smart enough to record from the card that does recieve the the channel.

It tried to record from SPEED ch, but from the tuner/card that was not working.

I did get both cards to work by:

1. Unplugging TiVo.
2. Removing the cards.
3. Restared TiVo (W/O cards, had to do guided setup.)
4. Insert Card 1, (and did guided setup again.)
5. Insert Card 2,
6. Called Time Warner to "hit" both cards again.
Had to tell the lady at TW 3 times it was a TiVo.
Finally she agreed to send the hit.
Waited about an hour.
7. Ran guided setup again.

Viola, all expected channels are now working... So far.

[hornblowercat]

10MAR07:

Out of the blue the Speed Channel (and many other digital stations) has disappeared from cable card #1 again.

What really pisses me off about this is, even after the 8.1 update, TiVo is still not smart enough to use the cable card/tuner combo (in this case card 2) that gets the station.
And, it couldn't happen last week has to happen during Daytona Speed Week!!!!
I almost missed the "Live Supercross" broad cast because of this!

I'll be trying my previous fix below and hope it works.

It has been my experience that from time to time certain channels seem to become available that I don't pay for. For example the NBA channel was available and I'm not suppose to get that. I've also seen things (not on the S3) where Showtime on Demand became available even though I don't subscribe to Showtime.

Have you checked your list to make sure you're suppose to receive Speed?

[pl1]

It has been my experience that from time to time certain channels seem to become available that I don't pay for. For example the NBA channel was available and I'm not suppose to get that. I've also seen things (not on the S3) where Showtime on Demand became available even though I don't subscribe to Showtime.Have you checked your list to make sure you're suppose to receive Speed?Sounds like Free Previews to me.

[DrWho453]

Is anyone else on the TWC raleigh experiencing problems with sound on channel 155 FoxReal? Its not a major problem for me since I have no reason to ever watch that channel but ever since it showed up as an additional channel, I have never been able to get audio on that channel. I was able to get audio by selecting the additional audio and selecting the second MPeg2 audio. The same day I got this channel, I also got the CW HD 222 channel except for the first couple of days, the video was blank but it started working on the third day so I thought maybe the sound on 155 would be fixed but to this day, I have no sound on 155 unless I switch audio selection. Again, this not a big deal to me since have no intentions of watching it but it just seems if the channel is available, there should be audio as well. :)

[SCSIRAID]

Is anyone else on the TWC raleigh experiencing problems with sound on channel 155 FoxReal? Its not a major problem for me since I have no reason to ever watch that channel but ever since it showed up as an additional channel, I have never been able to get audio on that channel. I was able to get audio by selecting the additional audio and selecting the second MPeg2 audio. The same day I got this channel, I also got the CW HD 222 channel except for the first couple of days, the video was blank but it started working on the third day so I thought maybe the sound on 155 would be fixed but to this day, I have no sound on 155 unless I switch audio selection. Again, this not a big deal to me since have no intentions of watching it but it just seems if the channel is available, there should be audio as well. :)

Yup... Me Too... already corrosponded with TWC execs on it.

What are you trying to receive it with? TWC Cable box or cablecard device?

[DrWho453]

Yup... Me Too... already corrosponded with TWC execs on it.

What are you trying to receive it with? TWC Cable box or cablecard device?

Using Series 3 with two cable cards

[SCSIRAID]

Using Series 3 with two cable cards

Duh... I should have figured that... For a minute I thought I was in AVS forum instead of Tivo... so dumb question on my part...

[jacksonian]

What is the word you are looking for, cable card 1.0 does not support 2 way coms. Its been stated over and over here that S3 will not handle new cable cards.

I was going on the assumption that this new tivo will in fact support the new cards. If they didnt, id be amazed.
That's a GIGANTIC assumption and one that has no basis in any information anyone has seen. Please tell us if you have such information, otherwise, prepare to be amazed.

Don't get me wrong, if TiVo comes out with a new box that will do 2-way, I'll buy 4 of them right now.

[pmnick]

I've been having problems with my Scientific American Explorer 3250 HD cable box unit. For some unknown, seemingly random reason, it powers off in the middle of the day. It happened today (3/11) between 4 and 5 p.m. I know this because everything before that time recorded, but everything after did not.

I know that the boxes will shut off in the event of a power failure, which is why I've connected my TiVo and cable boxes to a battery backup. But does anyone know why it would shut off like this in the middle of the day?

I use IR blasters to change channels which, of course, is useless if the box is off....

Is this something that Time Warner is doing in an attempt to induce people to purchase their DVRs? Are there any other boxes out there that don't have this problem?

[hornblowercat]

I've been having problems with my Scientific American Explorer 3250 HD cable box unit. For some unknown, seemingly random reason, it powers off in the middle of the day. It happened today (3/11) between 4 and 5 p.m. I know this because everything before that time recorded, but everything after did not.


I know that the boxes will shut off in the event of a power failure, which is why I've connected my TiVo and cable boxes to a battery backup. But does anyone know why it would shut off like this in the middle of the day?

I use IR blasters to change channels which, of course, is useless if the box is off....

Is this something that Time Warner is doing in an attempt to induce people to purchase their DVRs? Are there any other boxes out there that don't have this problem?


Simply take your box back to TW and get another one. It won't cost you anything. I have an HD non DVR box and I have no problem with it.

Not everything is a cable conspiracy. Just some things. ;)

[pmiranda]

Is this something that Time Warner is doing in an attempt to induce people to purchase their DVRs? Are there any other boxes out there that don't have this problem?

I've had this problem before when they're rolling out updates to the boxes. It could just be you've got a bad box.

Because of this, and occasional power losses, I turned on the setting in the cable box that allows it to power on with any number entered on the remote. I haven't had any lost recordings on my series 1 since I did that.

[davecramer74]

That's a GIGANTIC assumption and one that has no basis in any information anyone has seen. Please tell us if you have such information, otherwise, prepare to be amazed.

well i wont be amazed, i wont be buying one. it would be stupid of them to release a new one that doesnt support those features.

[pmnick]

I've had this problem before when they're rolling out updates to the boxes. It could just be you've got a bad box.

Because of this, and occasional power losses, I turned on the setting in the cable box that allows it to power on with any number entered on the remote. I haven't had any lost recordings on my series 1 since I did that.

I've been trying to find such a setting, but no luck. Could you check your box and let me know where to locate it? Thought I searched everywhere, but in my anger (....) I might have missed it.

Thanks!

[huskyla27]

I am going to be downgrading my HD DVR from time warner(It sucks) and getting just standard box from time warner los angeles. I want to buy a new tivo series 2 box. Is set up and reliability pretty good for using tivo with the Time warner boxes? I used to have replay tv and it rocked, but Tivo finally won me over. Thanks for the help

[pmiranda]

I've been trying to find such a setting, but no luck. Could you check your box and let me know where to locate it? Thought I searched everywhere, but in my anger (....) I might have missed it.
Thanks!

You might not have it. I actually have an old SA3100HD... no wonder I don't remember seeing it when I had a 3250 a couple years ago. :o

[AgentMunroe]

So I signed up for HBO and Showtime about a week ago - none of the channels are SDV, and they all work fine on the TW HD DVR - but only on one out of my two cablecards. Situation is as follows:

Cablecard Slot 1 - Gets all channels (digital tier, HD tier, all Showtimes, all HBOs)
Cablecard Slot 2 - Gets digital tier, HD tier, but not Showtime or HBO

Looking at the Scientific Atlanta CP screen on slot 2 shows "CP Auth Received", a high ECM count but 0 on EMM. Both are non-zero on the CC in slot 1.

I already tried a "reset" of the cable boxes through the automated phone system - this did seem to affect the Cablecards as it sent the TiVo into "Acquiring Channels" mode, but didn't seem to actually help. My current belief is that the Cablecard is functioning fine, but it's either not being authorized by TW or isn't picking up its authorization, and I'd really like to avoid an appointment with a new CC. Should I try going through the "eject both cards, insert one at a time and run through guided setup each time" routine, or is that not likely to help my situation? If I call them, is there one thing in particular I should ask them to try?

It's especially frustrating because I'm sure if anyone over there knew what they were doing, it would take about 5 minutes to fix - but I have zero confidence in TW actually doing something properly with cablecards. Any help would be appreciated.

[SCSIRAID]

So I signed up for HBO and Showtime about a week ago - none of the channels are SDV, and they all work fine on the TW HD DVR - but only on one out of my two cablecards. Situation is as follows:

Cablecard Slot 1 - Gets all channels (digital tier, HD tier, all Showtimes, all HBOs)
Cablecard Slot 2 - Gets digital tier, HD tier, but not Showtime or HBO

Looking at the Scientific Atlanta CP screen on slot 2 shows "CP Auth Received", a high ECM count but 0 on EMM. Both are non-zero on the CC in slot 1.

I already tried a "reset" of the cable boxes through the automated phone system - this did seem to affect the Cablecards as it sent the TiVo into "Acquiring Channels" mode, but didn't seem to actually help. My current belief is that the Cablecard is functioning fine, but it's either not being authorized by TW or isn't picking up its authorization, and I'd really like to avoid an appointment with a new CC. Should I try going through the "eject both cards, insert one at a time and run through guided setup each time" routine, or is that not likely to help my situation? If I call them, is there one thing in particular I should ask them to try?

It's especially frustrating because I'm sure if anyone over there knew what they were doing, it would take about 5 minutes to fix - but I have zero confidence in TW actually doing something properly with cablecards. Any help would be appreciated.

Ejecting and going thru setup is very unlikely to help. Call the cableco and tell them to 'balance' your account. Your cablecards dont have the same 'entitlements'. Balancing fixes this. Given that its TWC, your local TWC website may have email addresses for your local execs. If you get no joy with the normal path, you could send your problem to your CS Exec and that might help get it fixed. It works great here. Our CS exec is great and very helpful.

[mercurial]

Ejecting and going thru setup is very unlikely to help. Call the cableco and tell them to 'balance' your account. Your cablecards dont have the same 'entitlements'. Balancing fixes this. Given that its TWC, your local TWC website may have email addresses for your local execs. If you get no joy with the normal path, you could send your problem to your CS Exec and that might help get it fixed. It works great here. Our CS exec is great and very helpful.

/changing the topic

I still get more pixelations than I'd expect after they re-did my splitter and installed an amp. Better but more than I'd think. And it's across two S3's so I don't think it's the TiVo. You think our local CS exec would be receptive if I contacted them about it or just try to blame my TiVos? I've been dreading calling normal CS and trying to find someone who'd understand the issue.

[jacksonian]

Ejecting and going thru setup is very unlikely to help. Call the cableco and tell them to 'balance' your account. Your cablecards dont have the same 'entitlements'. Balancing fixes this. Given that its TWC, your local TWC website may have email addresses for your local execs. If you get no joy with the normal path, you could send your problem to your CS Exec and that might help get it fixed. It works great here. Our CS exec is great and very helpful.
I agree. I've had a couple of occasions where my HD pack got knocked off one or both of my cards. I called TWC and they can balance the account and hit the cards. I've had them tell me that they can't do that and try to send out a tech, but then a supervisor has called me the day of the visit and taken care of it over the phone.

[gascantx]

Hello,

I am a TimeWarner customer in Austin and I have two Tivo Series 2 DVRs. I would like to purchase a S3 Tivo but I want to know exactly what HD channels I can get with the Tivo S3 and TWC-Austin. Can someone in Austin who has an S3 Tivo and used TWC-Austin provide me with a list of HD channels that I would be able to receive?

Thanks,
Chris

[hornblowercat]

Hello,

I am a TimeWarner customer in Austin and I have two Tivo Series 2 DVRs. I would like to purchase a S3 Tivo but I want to know exactly what HD channels I can get with the Tivo S3 and TWC-Austin. Can someone in Austin who has an S3 Tivo and used TWC-Austin provide me with a list of HD channels that I would be able to receive?

Thanks,
Chris


I'm not trying to put you through any extra work but I have trouble using the search feature in this forum. However I would suggest you try searching in the S3 forum on SDV and Austin. I some someone had a complete list of what you can get and can't get with the S3.

[pmiranda]

Yep, in the "Official Time Warner" thread there are several of us in Austin that have S3's and CableCards. The only HD's I know you won't get are the two new channels, A&E HD and Music TV HD, and the HD video-on-demand (which never had anything worth watching when I did have a TW box). I don't subscribe to premiums so I just get TNT, Discovery, and all 4 locals in HD.

In non-HDs, I posted a list somewhere in that thread about what you can expect. Only channels I'm missing are Speed and one of the cartoon channels (the Disney one I think).

[Dave42]

My S3 has been working flawlessly for the last week, except for one problem. All of a sudden, the MMI screen for one of the cablecards popped up on the screen while we were watching a recorded program, as if the CC had been ejected and reinserted. I just canceled out of the screen, and it reappeared a while later. I checked both tuners using the "Live TV" button and found that the S3 was trying to record some show on the ToonDisney digital channel but the channel was only appearing intermittently. I don't care about recording childrens' programming, so I just deleted several channels from my lineup. Although all seems to be well now (and all of my scheduled recordings have been fine), should I be concerned about that CC?

[MisterClown]

Yep, in the "Official Time Warner" thread there are several of us in Austin that have S3's and CableCards. The only HD's I know you won't get are the two new channels, A&E HD and Music TV HD, and the HD video-on-demand (which never had anything worth watching when I did have a TW box). I don't subscribe to premiums so I just get TNT, Discovery, and all 4 locals in HD.

In non-HDs, I posted a list somewhere in that thread about what you can expect. Only channels I'm missing are Speed and one of the cartoon channels (the Disney one I think).

I live in Austin and I was going to see about getting CableCards. However I think I will just keep getting the HD over the air. All I care about are the locals, and actually I can get CW (the new WB) in HD over the air, and for some reason Time Warner Austin does not carry that channel in HD.

Thanks you saved me a lot of effort.

MisterClown

[RogerRub]

LA area: Called tonight at 10pm, and they're coming out on tuesday. $25 install fee, $1.75 a month for the card. They said they had no way in the computer to tell the installer to bring 2 cards out at the same time, so I'm supposed to bug the installer guy when he arrives and see if he has an extra on him.


Is there a Time Warner store near you? In NY, they let us walk in and pick up what we want.

[MisterClown]

Is there a Time Warner store near you? In NY, they let us walk in and pick up what we want.

I know that here is Austin, they do not allow you to pickup cable cards and install them yourself. You must pay the fee to have the truck come to your home.

It makes no sense to me that Time Warner does not have a consistent policy for this across the board.

[sdurgin]

FYI from the Los Angeles Times:

"Time Warner Cable Inc. forced out its chief cable guy in Southern California on Wednesday, but you may not want to throw that help number away just yet.

Roger Keating, head of Time Warner's regional office since 2003, was done in by an avalanche of complaints about Internet and e-mail outages, TV channel lineup changes and pressure to sign up for digital service. Customers were most annoyed by maddeningly long — and sometimes futile — waits to reach a human by phone."

Complete article:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cable16mar16,1,1853301.story