Cox Arizona SDV Tuning Adapter Availability

[CoxTech1]

Attention Cox Customers in Arizona:

TiVo Inc. along with Cox Communications is pleased to announce the availability of a new device – the Tuning Adapter -- which enables TiVo Series 3, TiVo HD and TiVo HD XL devices equipped with a CableCARD to tune to channels that are delivered via Switched Digital Video (SDV), a new interactive technology.

The Tuning Adapters are currently only available in our Arizona, Fairfax County, VA and Fredericksburg, VA service areas.

Cox is constantly striving to provide customers with the best in entertainment and communications services. To this end, Switched Digital Video is being utilized in select areas, including the Cox Arizona system. SDV allows maximization of network capacity, enabling additional HD channels and entertainment options to be offered to Cox customers. To date, Digital Cable Ready (DCR) devices including TiVo Series 3 and TiVo HD devices equipped with a CableCARD have not been able to tune to channels delivered via SDV, as these devices permit only one-way communication to the cable network.

During the past several months however, Cox, along with the rest of the cable industry, has worked with TiVo to develop the Tuning Adapter, an external device that will allow TiVo Series 3 and TiVo HD digital video recorders to tune to channels delivered using SDV.

Tuning Adapters are now available and are being offered to Cox Arizona Digital Cable customers with a CableCARD in a TiVo Series 3, TiVo HD and TiVo HD XL digital video recorders at no charge.

Tuning adapters are easy to install. Self installation kits and Tuning Adapters can be picked up at our local Phoenix Metro and Tucson Cox retail centers, except our Queen Creek office.

If you have any questions, would like to have a self install kit and tuning adapter mailed to you or would like to schedule a professional install, please call Cox at 623-594-1000 (Metro Phoenix) or 884-0133 (Tucson).

Cox Communications

[will592]

I hadn't seen this update, and I called to ask when they were going to be available. Surprise, they 'just became available'! They told me I could come pick it up, but I asked if they could send it out. Sure enough, they said I could have it more quickly if I came to get it but they could certainly mail it free of charge! So, hopefully on Monday I will give an update on installation in Phoenix.

Chris

[kitano]

I picked up my tuning adapter today at the Cox store in North Scottsdale. It was the first one they had issued. The sales rep knew she had to enter the order into the system in a specific way but admitted she didn't know how to actually process the order. There wasn't a supervisor at the store to help so she told me to call tech support before I installed the adapter. I called tech support but the guy I talked to said the order was keyed in correctly. He also told me that my Tivo HD had to be using version 11.0 or higher of the Tivo system software to work with the adapter correctly. I verified that my Tivo was running at least 11.0 and proceeded to install the adapter. The physical install was pretty straightforward. Connect the coax cable from the outlet to the adapter, connect the provided coax cable from the adapter to the Tivo. Connect the adapter to the provided power cable and plug it into an outlet. Once you have powered the unit and pushed the power button, a green led will flash in the front of the unit. Next, I called the automated 800 number to activate the adapter. The manual says it may take up to 20 minutes for the adapter to be activated (the flashing green led will turn solid when the unit is activated). I waited for 20 minutes and then called the local tech support. The rep I talked to placed me on hold to check my account and within a minute the green led went turned solid. The rep told me that the order was not placed correctly (the original rep had missed a couple of steps) but she was going to send out a notice letting all of the reps know how to avoid the mistake in the future. After the led goes solid, you need to connect the adapter to the Tivo using a supplied USB cable. Once the connection is made, the Tivo displays a message that a tuning adapter is detected and to select okay to go the the Tuning Adapter diagnostics menu. (I forget the exact verbage.) In the diagnostics menu you have the option to test the cable channels, with the help of the rep I tested several of the SDV channels (mostly in the 130-140 range). They all worked perfectly! I just thought I would share my experience with the new tuning adapter. Apparently, besides being able to watch SDV channels, you can get some pay per view events by calling Cox to order. You are not able to using any of the Cox On Demand channels though.

[jshore]

Just got off the phone with Cox Arizona. Tech support transferred me to Sales, and the rep scheduled an appointment for this friday for a technician to come and install tuning adapters on my 3 tivo's for no charge. I was careful to ask if there was any sort of service fee for the professional install, and she said no. I'll report back to let everyone know how it goes.

ps on another topic, i did notice that the new HD channels that have been showing up in my Tivo guide for about 3 months actually became active this weekend here in Litchfield Park. My bedroom HD Tivo and guest bedroom Series 3 got them first, and after a restart, they also started working on my living room HD Tivo. So now MTV HD, Sci-Fi HD, Bravo HD, CNN HD, etc, all work, which is nice. (Hoping to catch Battlestar Galactica's three remaining episodes in HD!)

[cliffdwelling]

I am having a huge problem with Cox Cable in Tucson. They canceled a third time on me today. Yeah, that's right, three times I have made an appointment to install cable cards and they have an excuse everytime on why they can't get to me. I don't know what to do anymore. The first scheduled time they called after I had waited 2:45 minutes and said the tech didn't have the right card on the truck and needed to reschedule for the following day. The next day I waited an hour and called to make sure they were coming and they said that they did not have me scheduled. Today they didn't show and when I called after the two hour wait and asked why they couldn't make it, and the guy said they had tried to call( was home the whole time) and didn't get an answer so they canceled. I asked why they didn't just show up, they replied they didn't know if I had a Tivo or a TV that needed a cable card, and that they did not have a tuning adapter on truck. How hard is it to bring the right gear and install a card for my Tivo
I believe they are making excuses for some reason, and I can't figure out what the problem is and they won't give me a straight answer. What can I do? Help!!

[MickeS]

I am having a huge problem with Cox Cable in Tucson. They canceled a third time on me today. Yeah, that's right, three times I have made an appointment to install cable cards and they have an excuse everytime on why they can't get to me. I don't know what to do anymore. The first scheduled time they called after I had waited 2:45 minutes and said the tech didn't have the right card on the truck and needed to reschedule for the following day. The next day I waited an hour and called to make sure they were coming and they said that they did not have me scheduled. Today they didn't show and when I called after the two hour wait and asked why they couldn't make it, and the guy said they had tried to call( was home the whole time) and didn't get an answer so they canceled. I asked why they didn't just show up, they replied they didn't know if I had a Tivo or a TV that needed a cable card, and that they did not have a tuning adapter on truck. How hard is it to bring the right gear and install a card for my Tivo
I believe they are making excuses for some reason, and I can't figure out what the problem is and they won't give me a straight answer. What can I do? Help!!
I had similar experiences with them (showing up without calling me first even though they explicitly said they would, calling me first and not showing up because I wasn't able to answer). I think they are just incompetent.

Sorry to hear it though, but just make another appointment...

[PLazovich]

CoxTech 1 is this what they are telling me I need in Southern Arizona? I live in Sierra Vista and can not get a straight answer from the Cox people. They are switching all of us to cable boxes regardless of service. I want to use a card in my tivo hd but they said I need a convert is this it? Even if I do not have hd service?


Thanks Pat

[flloyd]

I just got my adapters yesterday from the local Phoenix Cox Digital Store. They are the Cisco STA1520 model.

As is typical with COX, the support staff doesn't know jack about setting them up, unless by happenstance you get the right tech to take your call.

The box is very easy to connect, however, it must be sent an authorization signal from COX, and, it must be told the ID of the cable card that it is to be associated with. In my case, I have 5 cable cards spread across 3 tivos (4 single stream and 1 multi-stream), and so there was plenty for them to scratch their heads over.

The first thing, of course, that they suggested is that they'll send out a technician. I politely told them not to do that because it was an obvious waste of time. The installer would undoubtedly end up doing the same thing that I'm doing, i.e. waiting on the phone for the head office to locate a tech-with-a-clue.

I really hate their robo-attendant. There is no direct number for tech support so you have to wade through several menus and identification steps each time you call. They dropped me once and I had to go through it all again...

Finally, and I consider this perhaps the most important of all, is that most of the extra channels tuned by this adaptor are junk anyway. None of them are HD, and so I feel like a complete fool now for wasting two hours on it. I'm not even sure now if I want to bother setting up the other two boxes.

[steved64]

I've waited patiently for the tuning adapter, mostly not caring because the channels moved to SDV (so far) are ones I rarely watch. Now the tuning adapter is out I fully expect Cox will feel free to move anything or everything to SDV. Only then will I be glad to have the tuning adapter installed.

My experience matches what others have posted here. I got the letter on monday saying tuning adapters are ready. Picked one up at the Tempe office where the guy at the counter entered a serial number into my account and handed me a brown cardboard box with generic phsical hookup instructions and said "you're good to go". No indication that I would have to call for activation. I hooked it up and got the blinking green light, which Cisco's brief instructions say to "call your service provider" if that persists. By chance my call was answered by someone with a clue who completed the activation in a about 15 minutes. He made a few comments about what a disaster this rollout has been so far and thanked me for my patience. Hopefully they will improve things.

[alansh]

For those that didn't get an install sheet, the number for activation is 1-800-699-8151. This works fine if you have just one box with cable cards, but it may not be able to figure it out if you have more than one.

[ksalwitz]

I had not checked in for several weeks and was unaware that the TA's were available. When I realized they were ( and I never received any communication from Cox) I stopped at the Cox store on Cooper and Baseline on the way home today to pick up the TA. First mistake was that I did not receive an install guide from Cox, only the one that came from Cisco. Thanks to alansh for posting the 800 activation number, or I wouldn't have had a clue. I waited the pre-requisite 20 minutes, with little confidence that the rep got the order in correctly, and I was right. So I called Cox and waded through their "new" robo-service and got a live person who quickly corrected the problem. Unfortunately I managed to plug the USB cable from the TA into the network adapter plug the first time and couldn't figure out why nothing happened :eek:. After correcting this minor error ( hey it was dark back there! ) everything worked great! I have the NHL package and that came in with no problem. So overall the process is fairly painless, but don't expect the automated activation to work because they just don't seem to have given enough training to the folks at the Cox stores to enter the information correctly the first time.

[ksalwitz]

Well it seems that the TA worked ok for 2 days. Now I've begun to experience the dreaded dropped channels syndrome again! It seems that perhaps the m-card has crapped out again,but i'm not sure. My wife just called me at work to tell me that we've lost everything above somewhere around channel 44. :down::mad: Every time something gets fixed, something else seems to break down. Score another one for Cox.

[drey]

Got my TA working in Tucson, AZ.

As others have mentioned, Cox has no idea what TA is and how to initialize it properly. For me the procedure was to call 1-800-699-8151 and wait 20 minutes. After that I called support and they send the "initialization signal". We waited on the phone, and nothing happened.

After about 10 minutes representative went to talk to someone who has done it before, and as she has mentioned, she sent the wrong "signal" and had to send the right one. After that, I called 1-800 again and the light turned solid.

So that was the procedure for me. Hopefully it will help others as I'm pretty sure we all will run into situation where Cox representatives are lost when it comes to TA.

-- Andrey

[ksalwitz]

Well it seems that the problem was minor. The cable that was supplied by Cisco is bad and the stores were'nt supposed to be distributing them with the TA's anymore. The tech came in and within a few minutes noticed this and corrected the problem. I might point out that this is Josh the guy that seems to be the TiVo expert in my area (Gilbert/Chandler). He was training another guy this time (just like the last time he was here) and seems to know more about TiVo and the m-card and the TA than any other tech that's been to my house ( and i've had at least 5 ). While he was here he tweaked a few things and worked on the box outside and my internet speed is up noticably. So 1 for Cox!

:up::D