FIOS, TivoHD and CableCards

[wkearney99]

Oy, you better have a lot of time free to deal with getting a TivoHD setup with CableCards. I've got two single stream cards now up and running in mine. But it took around 3 hours to get it that way. Most of which wasn't FIOS-related. The Tivo itself seemed to take quite a long time to 'understand' that the CableCards were working. This after the typical 45 minute guide download and setup. But when the setup didn't reveal any digital tuning we swapped the cards out to a CableCard equipped Pioneer plasma TV. The cards worked, one right away. The second one didn't work but sending a reauthorization brought it to life. Putting them back into the Tivo and rebooted didn't work.

Long story short, what seemed to 'jumpstart' the cards was doing a channel scan WITHOUT the cards being inserted. Once that completed, and the cards were reinserted the channels came up.

So now it's the usual adventure of setting up all the season passes again.

[andrews777]

My units got setup with cable cards and were fully running within an hour (or less) last fall. I had already been using my TivoHD's with OTA signals, so maybe that helped. I did have to do a reset and a bunch of steps. I also recall running through the reset part twice, but it worked quickly even with that. :)

The Verizon Fios techs installing things had to figure out which numbers were which, but that happened fairly quickly as well.

Brad

[wkearney99]

It wasn't an hour or less if you were repeating the guided setup. That alone takes 30-40 minutes. I didn't measure mine but it was /at least/ a half-hour. Compared to how a CableCard capable TV handles it, that's an awfully long time to be sitting there waiting. It would definitely help if Tivo sped up the initial process of authorizing the cards so a tech could complete that and get the heck out of there. The dial-in (or using the internet) part of the process isn't something that needs the tech to be present to perform.

I made a copy of the CableCards themselves (gotta love an HP all-in-one scanner/printer) so the tech could refer to that instead of hand-written notes. Worked too, especially since I used 'fit to page' zooming to blow up those tiny little serial numbers...

[andrews777]

I didn't use a clock, but it sure seemed fairly quick. :)

Brad

[GoHokies!]

30-40 minutes for guided setup + 10 minutes to get both cards installed, numbers written down and called in here.

If the techs know what they are doing, it's an hour or less project easily. You *should* (I think) be able to use "test channels" to verify that the CC's are working before redoing guided setup so that the tech doesn't have to sit through guided setup. My FIOS techs still had some work to do, so we went ahead and redid GS while they were there.

[wkearney99]

Yeah, had they actually brought the CableCards during the initial install it would've be possible to do some of it in parallel. Actually, in my case it wouldn't have mattered much as I handled installing the inside wiring in parallel to the tech getting the ONT setup on the outside wall. So by the time the coax was 'live' everything else was done. But for a typical setup, yeah, while the tech is off doing other inside wiring it'd be a good idea to have the customer babysitting the CableCard and Tivo setup.

You raise a good point about using the test channels. But the screens that are shown is not very informative. It's quite a contrast from the usually friendly Tivo screens. That and the FIOS verbiage for setup is somewhat different than what's shown on the Tivo (POD vs Unit number, etc). It would be good for both Tivo AND Verizon to have webpages that dealt with this.

And it's important to note, you MUST keep the CableCards in their original slot location. While I could use either card in my Pioneer TV, the Tivo required the cards to be in the sockets used to set them up. Apparently the way the TV uses the CableCards is somewhat lax compared to the Tivo (or the it's the upstream FIOS network, dunno). So while you're debugging the setup be SURE to put the cards back into their original slots. Otherwise it'd require being paired again (which only the FIOS techs can do).

I'll say this, the support rep at Tivo was very helpful in this process. It's just a shame he had to get tied up on the phone for a half-hour while the process slowly ground forward.