20 HD Channels Blocked :(

[jmtb02]

I have Cox in Orange County, CA and I recently got an M-CableCARD installed by Cox for my HD TiVo. After I found out that most of my HD channels weren't working, I assumed it was a technical problem so I called Cox to talk to them about the issue. They told me that "some channels do not work with CableCARD's" but some is 20 channels... including 2 SD channels that I don't watch but hey, it's still channels I am paying for.

I called them a second time to see if I could generate another answer, got the same answer. I then brought up the fact that it was a large amount of channels, whereas "some" seems like 3-4. They told me the same thing.

The channels I am missing consist mostly of non-local HD programming.

So what now? Am I getting yanked around by my Cable company? I mean, they didn't even tell me anywhere in the process of getting the cards would shut down most of my HD programming. I just feel like there is something wrong with this picture.

Thanks!

[dswallow]

What you're most likely facing is Switched Digital Video... search around here for those terms or "SDV" and you should get a lot of discussion on the subject.

There's a "tuning adapter" device that cable companies will be deploying, most likely later this year, that will work with TiVo to allow SDV channels to be tuned by the receiver. Until then, there's nothing to be done, unfortunately.

[Enforcer]

In other words, your cable company is and isnt screwing your around. I too face this problem and I can't wait till the "tuner" comes out. That way I can once again see my HD channels. The cable companies do SDV to squeeze more channels into their lineup and they dont care about the effect it has on cable cards.

[jmtb02]

Alright then, I'll just cross my fingers then in hopes that the problem gets resolved soon. I can handle watching SD but sometimes a heads up to these sorts of problems from my cable company would be appreciated.

Thanks for your help!

[RonDawg]

In the meantime, you may want to consider dropping your HD tier until the SDV tuning resolver comes out. No point in paying for service you can't tune into.

As a substitute, set up an antenna and get OTA locals in HD.