New S3, TWC Cable Card, Some HD channels work, some don't

[Interactive]

Had the TWC guy here the other day. Installed 2 CC's in about an hour. He had done several CC's before, just never seen the Series 3 Tivo. All seemed to be okay...a little back-and-forth with the folks on the phone...but eventually it seemed to be working. Claimed that office people needed to send down final program that would activate all the channels. Within 15 minutes we were in business....or so I thought....

I get all regular channels
I get SOME HD channels (Discovery HD, TNT HD) that work GREAT
I get 2 HD channels video only (MOJO, HDNet)

HBO - SD or HD - no go (still works fine on my DCT-64xx)
ESPN HD AND ESPNHD2 - no go (still works fine on my DCT-64xx)


The morons on the phone have been worthless so now they're sending a tech to my house again...somethign I don't really have time for. Isn't this a "programming" issue from the system side? If the CC's are recieving channels in digital/HD, doesn't that show they "work"??

Anyone seen anything similar to this?

[dtsfanohio]

oops same here! See my post.

[HDTiVo]

Get yourself up to the supervisor of engineering for your region to research the problem ASAP.

[Interactive]

Yeah....I was afraid of that. This should be so simple but it will take someone higher up the food chain to figure it out...

I've got a tech scheduled to be here Thursday but my hopes aren't high that he'll know any more than the last guy.

[jrm01]

I had a similar problem with Comcast; I was only missing one HD channel. I was able to resolve it by repeatedly calling Comcast until I finally got a CSR who recognized it as a programming error at their end and corrected it.

The fact that you are getting video, but not audio on two channels does sound like a different problem. How is your audio connected?

[drcos]

JRM, I'm having the same problem here in SW FL with Comcast, I'm missing most of my 'standard' digital channels. I get Encore and ENCP, but none of the Encore 'multiplex' channels, don't get G4,GSN,NFL,NIKTOON,MTV (damn :), but I do get DCKID and NIKP.

Two CSRs from Comcast last night (one on the phone and one online) think it's all four CCs (in two S3's), even after I explained the problem started in one CC and has spread to all of them.
All four cards look to be working normally in the CP screens (CP Auth Received), but on the channels that won't come in (the card will not unscramble), the ECM count remains at 0.

They have a tech coming thursday (tomorrow), but I would rather get it resolved without the truck roll.

Any suggestions (other than playing CSR roulette like in the heady days of Dish)

[Interactive]

I had a similar problem with Comcast; I was only missing one HD channel. I was able to resolve it by repeatedly calling Comcast until I finally got a CSR who recognized it as a programming error at their end and corrected it.

The fact that you are getting video, but not audio on two channels does sound like a different problem. How is your audio connected?

Yeah, I thought that was a little peculiar as well. Audio is connected via optical into my receiver. No audio problems on any other channels (in fact, audio seems better than DCT-64xx box...all in my head?).

[jurysch]

I posted about my problem in dtsfanohio's thread...

I have the exact same problem you do. I'm on TWC in Allen. From what you describe, our problem is exactly the same. I've recorded "Cathedrals of the Game" on MOJO several times only to receive no audio half the time, which means its the defective CableCARD that did that recording. I don't get ESPN-HD on that same card, and also get HDNet without any audio.

The only difference in my case is that one card works perfectly, but the other exhibits the same problems you describe. I'd be really interested to see what your resolution ends up being, because I'm completely sick of TWC's tech support. I know CableCARD support is low on their list of priorities, but man it's been ridiculous. The techs that come out don't know *anything* about the TiVos, I end up doing half the work for them.

The only thing I can say that makes the situation less troublesome is that I've found less and less stuff worth recording on MOJO and HDNet. I only really care about HDNet as a rabid hockey fan when we're in season.

[Interactive]

OK, I'm up and running since last Thursday's TWC tech visit. Within 30 seconds, the tech agreed with my assessment that this wasn't something requiring a visit...that the problem would be resolved with someone at the office. However, he was (like us mere TWC customers) also concerned that he wouldn't get to a phone rep that knew what they were doing. He went through 2-3 phone reps until he finally called his boss and asked him to escalate. I was busy trying to work during all of this so I wasn't able to capture the exact details of the problem....but it has something to do with "pairing" the cable cards. They had not been fully authorized during the original install apparently. (I admit to not really knowing much about the CC authentication model)

Bottom line, he spent 60 minutes trying to get to the right person...once he found the "cable card expert", the problem was resolved in 60 seconds (no kidding). All of this further highlights the need for some basic training and information sharing. How hard would it be to put together a basic trouble shooting guide for the reps? Even if they don't give a S*&^ about us paying customers, IT WOULD SAVE THEM THE MONEY THEY'RE SPENDING SENDING TRUCKS AND TECHS TO MY HOUSE! Morons...

I never thought I'd say that I missed Comcast....but I'm getting close.