Time Warner says cable cards can't get certain channels

[AntiGenX]

I just bought a Tivo HD. This morning Time Warner showed up to install my cable cards. The installation seemed to go pretty smooth. However, I noticed that certain channels won't work. These are channels that worked find on my Scientific Atlanta DVR. It's strange because they aren't, as far as I can tell, special channels. For instance:

HBO HD East (channel 410) works, but HBO HD Pacific (411) doesn't.
Most of the HD channels work, but some mysteriously do not. For MTVHD, FoodTV, HGTV, and TBS the HD versions do not work. Some simply have a grey screen, others have that and a message that says "Channel not available."

I had the technician call the office for me, but he was told that, "certain channels wouldn't work for technical reasons." My understanding was that cable cards could decode any channel, but couldn't do two-way services like pay-per-view, etc...

Has anyone else out there experienced this? Are they blowing smoke? Is there something that I need to ask them to do to fix it? Are there any real technical issues that would cause channels not to decode?


Thanks!

[Royster]

Tell them to tell it to the FCC and file a complaint.

[wo5m]

When I first got my CableCard from Time Warner I had the same problem. I called the support number and had them reauthorize my cable boxes and after that all the channels I subscribed to worked on the tivo. My guess is they just need to push the channel authorization to the cable card.

[FrodoB]

Or you could be in a region utilizing switched digital video (SDV), which TiVos are not currently capable of handling. There is a tuning resolver in the works with an ETA of Q2 2008 to handle such issues. I don't have Time Warner (and Charter doesn't, at least at present, use SDV), but I know a bunch of people on here have them and have reported that various TW regions use SDV.

[travisc77]

This is more than likely SDV issue. TWC in Corpus Christi has began rolling out SDV for certain channels (ESPN2, HBOP, etc). There's no way for you to get these channels until the SDV dongle is released (later this year? maybe?).

SDV (switched digital video) requires two-way communication, that's why the dongle is required.

Travis