"to be announced"

[bubbastump]

I had my series 3 - HD Tivo cable cards installed last saturday and a block of channels is stating "to be announced". Cable says its a Tivo issue. Tivo says its a Cable issue. My cable provider is Cablevision in Clifton NJ. Does anyone have any suggestions. I have a $800 box that doesn't work and a $176 a month cable bill for channels that don't come in.

Shannon in NJ

[Gregor]

Do the channels that don't come in have guide data? Take a look at the channel list your cable company has and see if it matches what Tivo has.

[bubbastump]

no guide data. channels are selected in channel list. cable channels work. cable is here as we speak.

[CrispyCritter]

If you're getting a signal on these channels, but no guide information, then complain to TiVo. If you're not getting a signal at all, then it's Cablevision's fault (except in very, very rare circumstances). Check the Cablevision thread (look at the cable company list of threads that is in a thread near the top of this forum); there's undoubtedly others in your area who have had to deal with Cablevision.

[bkdtv]

Remember, you need to have wireless networking (or the phone line) setup to receive guide information. Guide information does not come from the cable provider.

[Gregor]

Guide data comes from Tivo. If all your cable channels work, it's not a cable problem.

Try looking at this screen to see if the cards are subscribed correctly:

Click:

Messages and Settings
Settings
Remote, Cable Card and Devices
Cable Card Decoder
Configure Cable Card 1
Cable Card Menu
Conditional Access

Under "Auth" (5th line down) it should say "SUBSCRIBED".

If it doesn't say SUBSCRIBED, the card isn't set up right. Use Test Channels to see what channels this card gets.

Check the signal strength. Low signal strength means some digital channels might not tune.

Repeat for Card 2.

Hope this helps.

[bubbastump]

I'm a tivo user since 2001. I have the new HD connected via ethernet. Most of the channels work fine. some don't. on the channel guide only. still states "to be announced" even after serveral reboots and repeated guided set ups

[Gregor]

If some channels work and some don't, two things come to mind. Either there's a signal strength problem (digital channels are much more fussy than analog on this) or the cable cards aren't subscribed correctly.

[CrispyCritter]

I'm a tivo user since 2001. I have the new HD connected via ethernet. Most of the channels work fine. some don't. on the channel guide only. still states "to be announced" even after serveral reboots and repeated guided set upsWhat you've told us is still ambiguous; we don't know what you're seeing.

1. If you tune to any station you're supposed to get, do you see the correct show?

2. If the answer to 1 is yes (from you've told us so far, we don't know it is yes), then it sounds like the only problem is channels that the TiVo doesn't have information for. If so, one thing to do is to check on www.zap2it.com for your zipcode and schedule, and see if that has the correct schedule. If it does, then the problem is likely that you have to make a different choice of schedule in guided setup. If it doesn't, then the problem is that TiVo (and Tribune/zap2it) needs to change their to schedule to reflect recent changes. Large numbers of franchises across the country changed their schedules in the last month, and TiVo hasn't caught up with them (I had 10 stations that changed on May 15, and it wasn't until May 26 that TiVo got correct guide info for them).

You can report needed schedule changes to TiVo.

Look at the TiVo support page here (http://customersupport.tivo.com/LaunchContent.aspx?CID=5A545F57-F407-4C4C-A420-C7988FE596C3). It gives debugging info, plus a link on which you can report missing channel info to TiVo.

[bubbastump]

PROBLEM FIXED! finally got thru to a CS tech at tivo that knew what she was talking about. the cable lineup needed to be changed to "extended network" to correct the problem. there is no indication of this anywhere in the manual or in the trouble shooting section of the website. specific instrustions had to be entered to get to the screen to change the lineup. no way to know so without tivo cs department.

[kido]

Could you post those steps?

[joe warner]

Guide data comes from Tivo. If all your cable channels work, it's not a cable problem.

Try looking at this screen to see if the cards are subscribed correctly:

Click:

Messages and Settings
Settings
Remote, Cable Card and Devices
Cable Card Decoder
Configure Cable Card 1
Cable Card Menu
Conditional Access

Under "Auth" (5th line down) it should say "SUBSCRIBED".

If it doesn't say SUBSCRIBED, the card isn't set up right. Use Test Channels to see what channels this card gets.

Check the signal strength. Low signal strength means some digital channels might not tune.

Repeat for Card 2.

Hope this helps.

You should get guide data even without a cable card (s) installed. You should get cable basic channels and their program data in the guide. I doesn't require a cable card to get channel data (only premium programming data is a card required).

[acshi]

Could you post those steps?

The post above was exactly what I needed to figure this out. To change the channel lineup, you need to go back through part of the guided setup again. Choose the "channel list" option from under the settings/channels menu, and then if you press "enter" on one of the channels (the screen listing the channel will have something at the bottom saying pressing "enter" will indicate the channel listing is wrong), then it will bring you to a screen where you can re-run that part of guided setup. When I picked a different provider (I had "comcast" selected originally, then I changed it to "comcast - xyz" (some other variant of comcast), it connected back to the service, and upon redownloading the guide data everything showed up the way I expected. HTH.

[DCIFRTHS]

Guide data comes from Tivo. If all your cable channels work, it's not a cable problem.

Try looking at this screen to see if the cards are subscribed correctly:

Click:

Messages and Settings
Settings
Remote, Cable Card and Devices
Cable Card Decoder
Configure Cable Card 1
Cable Card Menu
Conditional Access

Under "Auth" (5th line down) it should say "SUBSCRIBED".

If it doesn't say SUBSCRIBED, the card isn't set up right. Use Test Channels to see what channels this card gets.

Check the signal strength. Low signal strength means some digital channels might not tune.

Repeat for Card 2.

Hope this helps.

Gregor: Do you have Motorola CableCARDS?

The screens for Scientific Atlanta CableCARDs are different (on the Cablevision system in Westchester). After the Cable Card Menu, you have to highlight and select SA CableCARD CP Screen. Once you have entered this screen, look for CP Auth Received to verify if the card has been authorized. Repeat for Card 2.

[MasterCephus]

I have Charter out of Birmingham, AL and I have the "To Be Announced" in my guide data for just TNTHD. It used to work just fine, but about a week ago, it went to this. This is the only channel that does this.

Any ideas for a fix?

[MasterCephus]

Anyone have any ideas how to fix this for just one channel. This is getting frustrating...

[TallyLaddie]

"to be announced" when you actually get the channel is a TiVo problem. Send an e-mail to lineup@tivo.com and tell them what the problem is and, maybe, in a week or so, they will have it fixed. You will get a message on the TiVo stating that a lineup change has occured.