Time Warner Cable Tuning Adapter (ALL LOCATIONS) / Bugs & Issues

[dolfer]

Please list any issues you are having here. If this is not helpful or there is a thread that I did not notice, ignore this! ;)

I am going to assume that we all have the same unit? The Cisco STA 1520?

[dolfer]

Issue 1 / Stutter When Accessing Guide/Changing Channels

When accessing the guide I notice a brief stutter after a second or two when changing channels.

Time Warner Location: Cincinnati

[dolfer]

Issue 2 / Tuning Adapter Detected Screen Keeps Coming Up

Instead of seeing live TV or Tivo Central, I have now twice seen a message from my Tivo saying that Tivo has detected a Tuning Adapter. This is of course after I have already successfully installed adapter. I am assuming we should only see this message once.

Time Warner Location: Cincinnati

{UPDATE} This is a MAJOR ISSUE because besides ruining a recording, it can also pop up while you are watching a prerecorded show. This happened to me. It's massively annoying! Besides interrupting your show, you will need to obviously restart it, and even worse Tivo forgets where you were. So you have to FF to that point all over again. And apparently a single "reboot event" causes two such interruptions. {Update}

[dave13077]

I have 2 Tivo HD units with cablecards and a TA. One unit is fine but with the second unit every once in a while I get a "channel is temperarily unavaliable please press select to try to tune the channel again". If you mess with the menus in Tivo Central for awhile the channel comes back. If happens on The Fox Business Channel witch is a SDV in our area. Called Tivo support but they were unable to find a fix.

I only get the tuning adapter is dected screen upon a hard reboot.

[jpd31]

I have a Tivo HD with a TA and I get 1 - 2 second pixellation or video pauses only on the SDV channels. Non-SDV HD and SD channels, I have no problems. I replaced all cables in the house yesterday. No splitters except for a 4-way splitter at the cable entrance to the house. I get 100 signal on the Tivo HD Diagnostic, with 37 db. I even did the signal test on the Tivo HD and watched a SDV channel. It pixellated one time and the signal remained at 100. I think it is a TA issue. I have a TWC cable box and watch the same channel in another room, no issues, and signal is at 37 db on that box. The only cable I have not replaced is the one from the TA to the Tivo. I might replace that tonight.

[Xunaka]

I'd be interested to hear about any issues still happening with

Either the TiVo or the Cisco STA1520 Rebooting on a regular basis

Issues with SDV channels missing upon any lineup additions

Or any other general issues

If anyone has any issues, or specific information regarding them

[SCSIRAID]

Issue 2 / Tuning Adapter Detected Screen Keeps Coming Up

Instead of seeing live TV or Tivo Central, I have now twice seen a message from my Tivo saying that Tivo has detected a Tuning Adapter. This is of course after I have already successfully installed adapter. I am assuming we should only see this message once.

I see this one on both my TiVo's with TA's. The source is the TA rebooting. The second page of the TA Diags (go to TA diags and hit select twice) (at the bottom of that page) will show you when the TA last rebooted. You will find that it corrosponds closely to when you see the TA Detected screen. I caught it redhanded once... watching a playback which was interrupted. TA light goes to constant flash... then goes solid on and another TA Detected screen occurs (if you cleared the first one). I found that this issue repeated regularly every 3 days +/- 1 hour. That shifted right after I got the second TA (they touched my account?) and is now at a different time and occuring every 2 days.

The bad thing about this issue is that if you have recordings in progress when it occurs... they are stopped and not restarted and reguardless of their source (OTA, SDV, Linear).

I see this as both a TA issue and a TiVo issue... The TA shouldnt be rebooting every 2 to 3 days... and TiVo shouldnt be overreacting and killing recordings... at least not recordings from non-SDV and OTA channels.

Other than this issue... My TA's are working great!

[dolfer]

I see this one on both my TiVo's with TA's. The source is the TA rebooting. The second page of the TA Diags (go to TA diags and hit select twice) (at the bottom of that page) will show you when the TA last rebooted. You will find that it corrosponds closely to when you see the TA Detected screen. I caught it redhanded once... watching a playback which was interrupted. TA light goes to constant flash... then goes solid on and another TA Detected screen occurs (if you cleared the first one). I found that this issue repeated regularly every 3 days +/- 1 hour. That shifted right after I got the second TA (they touched my account?) and is now at a different time and occuring every 2 days.

The bad thing about this issue is that if you have recordings in progress when it occurs... they are stopped and not restarted and reguardless of their source (OTA, SDV, Linear).

I see this as both a TA issue and a TiVo issue... The TA shouldnt be rebooting every 2 to 3 days... and TiVo shouldnt be overreacting and killing recordings... at least not recordings from non-SDV and OTA channels.

Other than this issue... My TA's are working great!

{UPDATE} This is a MAJOR ISSUE because besides ruining a recording, it can also pop up while you are watching a prerecorded show. This happened to me. It's massively annoying! Besides interrupting your show, you will need to obviously restart it, and even worse Tivo forgets where you were. So you have to FF to that point all over again. And apparently a single "reboot event" causes two such interruptions. {Update}

This seems like a MAJOR ISSUE to me... I guess I wasn't affected yet because the reboots happened when I wasn't recording anything...

I guess we always have the option of disconnecting the TA until they have the kinks ironed out. The channels that I lose to SDV and that I gain by using the TA are not worth the hassle right now if I start losing recordings.

Hopefully this will get fixed quickly! A bit worried though since it seems to be a two party problem with both TW and Tivo...

[SCSIRAID]

This seems like a MAJOR issue to me... I guess I wasn't affected yet because the reboots happened when I wasn't recording anything...

I guess we always have the option of disconnecting the TA until they have the kinks ironed out. The channels that I lose to SDV and that I gain by using the TA are not worth the hassle right now if I start losing recordings.

Hopefully this will get fixed quickly! A bit worried though since it seems to be a two party problem with both TW and Tivo...

Well... from my viewpoint its not major... Ive only lost recordings once... But I understand your perspective may not be the same as mine. I couldnt give up the SDV channels though.... Im hooked! :D

[SCSIRAID]

I should probably also mention this too..... I can't say absolutely that it is due to the TA but the evidence does seem to be pointing to it.

When I installed TA on my S3... Suggestions stopped recording. About 2 weeks later I got a TA for my wife's THD... shortly thereafter she complained that her TiVo wasnt recording suggestions anymore. Ive had 2 suggestions record in about 2 weeks. Same for her.

Anybody else seeing this? There is another thread on this subject where it seems that all the people exhibiting it had TA's....

[jpd31]

I can't say if my TA is rebooting, but I have noticed that the TA is very warm. I wonder if the TA has a overheating issue that is causing the reboot?

[SCSIRAID]

I can't say if my TA is rebooting, but I have noticed that the TA is very warm. I wonder if the TA has a overheating issue that is causing the reboot?

Its too 'regular' to be something like that IMHO. My two boxes in two different rooms rebooted within 30 mins of each other yesterday.

[crazywater]

Not sure if this is TA related but here goes...

After the initial pain of installing the TA I am receiving all of the channels that I expected to receive. However, I have lost about 12 SD channels. When I tune any of these channels I get "Searching for signal...." message. After checking the DVR Diagnostics page I have discovered that all of these channels are at frequency 687000khz. I have passed that info on to the TWC tech I have been working with.

I have also experienced the reboot problem, I noticed the message being displayed on the TiVo twice now. I didn't know if was a reboot issue until reading it here.

[dolfer]

Just turned on the tele and was *again*greeted to the "A Tuning Adapter Has Been Detected" screen... ;( Lovely...

[SCSIRAID]

Just turned on the tele and was *again*greeted to the "A Tuning Adapter Has Been Detected" screen... ;( Lovely...

Perhaps you could check for what time it rebooted and keep a little log.... You will probably find a pattern to the times.

TA Diags... hit select twice... bottom of the page 'BOOTED" with time and date below.

[dolfer]

Perhaps you could check for what time it rebooted and keep a little log.... You will probably find a pattern to the times.

TA Diags... hit select twice... bottom of the page 'BOOTED" with time and date below.

Great tip... Thanks. Hopefully they will occur in the daytime when I am NOT recording anything. And hopefully, the issue gets fixed soon so I can stop worrying about it...

[crazywater]

Where are you located? What channels?

Raleigh/Durham (actually in Wake Forest). These are the channels;

Channels that will not tune;

8 – WUVC 687khz QAM256
23 – WGN America 687khz QAM256
32 - ESPN 2 687khz QAM 256
49 – Sci Fi 687khz QAM256
54 – TV Land 687khz QAM 256
58 – Fox News 687khz QAM 256
59 – HGTV 687khz QAM 256
60 – Food Network 687khz QAM 256
67 – TCM 687khz QAM 256
74 – Noggin 687khz QAM 256
98 – TV Guide no frequency at all...
359 – HGTV 687khz QAM 256
360 – Food Network 687khz QAM 256

[SCSIRAID]

Raleigh/Durham (actually in Wake Forest). These are the channels;

Channels that will not tune;

8 – WUVC 687khz QAM256
23 – WGN America 687khz QAM256
32 - ESPN 2 687khz QAM 256
49 – Sci Fi 687khz QAM256
54 – TV Land 687khz QAM 256
58 – Fox News 687khz QAM 256
59 – HGTV 687khz QAM 256
60 – Food Network 687khz QAM 256
67 – TCM 687khz QAM 256
74 – Noggin 687khz QAM 256
98 – TV Guide no frequency at all...
359 – HGTV 687khz QAM 256
360 – Food Network 687khz QAM 256

When you try to tune one of these... what does 'Signal Lock', 'Program Lock' and 'Tune Complete' indicate in DVR Diagnostics? All 'Yes'?

Both my tuners are tied up now or I would check it here but I know my wife has recorded stuff from WGNAmerica successfully with TA.

[crazywater]

When you try to tune one of these... what does 'Signal Lock', 'Program Lock' and 'Tune Complete' indicate in DVR Diagnostics? All 'Yes'?

Both my tuners are tied up now or I would check it here but I know my wife has recorded stuff from WGNAmerica successfully with TA.

Signal Lock and Program Lock are NO...I do not have Tune Complete, Search Complete is Yes.

[dolfer]

BIG GLITCH! While watching ER the "Tuning Adapter Found" screen popped up twice. I had to select "continue". Then had to restart program and FF back to appropriate spot. Each time the interruption happened I had to go back and restart the program from the beginning. Tivo seemed to have lost where I had last left off.

It seems like the TA is not ready for prime time. Sorry for the bad pun! But it's very appropriate...

I think I am going to go ahead and disconnect the TA for now before it messes up an important recording...

[Xunaka]

The firmware for the issue correction exist, however it's not released and is still being tested

(Rebooting problem)

[realityboy]

Is the reboot problem only sporadic? I checked the date on mine, and it hasn't booted since it was first hooked up two weeks ago. I have other problems though.

I've had no auto-recording suggestions for about a week, and my suggestion page is completely empty. It has the standard "as you give more thumb ratings suggestions will appear" message as it has when it's new. The series 3 is about a year old, and I've given lots of thumbs and triple thumbs even. There is always something it should be suggesting. This started about a week after adding the tuning adapter. Possibly it recorded what it had already scheduled, and then it stopped?

Every time that I reboot the Tivo or if it loses power and reboots on its own, it doesn't recognize the Tuning Adapter unless I unplug the USB from the Tivo and plug it back in. Then I get the Tuning Adapter is installed screen This hasn't been a problem yet, but if I am away when the power goes out it could be. The only good thing is that since it doesn't even know there is a Tuning Adapter present, the only channels I lose are SDV which right now in my area are still relatively few. Anyone else see this behavior? I'd hate to swap the TA since the rebooting problem seems a lot worse.

[pmiranda]

... When I tune any of these channels I get "Searching for signal...." message. After checking the DVR Diagnostics page I have discovered that all of these channels are at frequency 687000khz. I have passed that info on to the TWC tech I have been working with.

I have 4 frequencies that give me flaky SDV channels... they'll almost always tune in, but recordings have audio dropouts and heavy macroblocking. The same channels aren't always affected but HD ones are far worse and far more frequently affected than SD ones. I've complained about it to TW but never got a response. I'd chuck the TA and TiVo but there are only a couple SDV channels I watch so now I just double up on recordings and hope one will work.

[KeithB]

I'd be interested seeing two different things from a intermittent TA configuration:
1) a USB sniffer log of communications between the TA and the TiVo
2) a console/serial/diagnostic port output from the TA (if possible)

Does anyone have any photos / internals information on the Cisco TA?

[SCSIRAID]

BIG GLITCH! While watching ER the "Tuning Adapter Found" screen popped up twice. I had to select "continue". Then had to restart program and FF back to appropriate spot. Each time the interruption happened I had to go back and restart the program from the beginning. Tivo seemed to have lost where I had last left off.

It seems like the TA is not ready for prime time. Sorry for the bad pun! But it's very appropriate...

I think I am going to go ahead and disconnect the TA for now before it messes up an important recording...

The screen will pop up twice per reboot event... If you clear it when you first see it... it will return in a couple minutes once the TA is ready to rock and roll.

The first screen should happen when the led goes to constant flash. The second screen happens when the led goes solid again.

Did you happen to check the BOOTED time?

[SCSIRAID]

The firmware for the issue correction exist, however it's not released and is still being tested

(Rebooting problem)

Source? Tested by who?

[crazywater]

Hmmm... what is the signal level and SNR? All those channels are on the same QAM so there may be just too much noise or not enough signal to recover the channel. If you tune to a good channel what is the signal level and SNR?

Its very likely that the TA has nothing to do with this... with the possible exception of the RF passthru.

Here ya go...

11394
11395

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=11394&d=1235746053

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=11395&stc=1&d=1235746351

[crazywater]

And a good channel...

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=11396&stc=1&d=1235749923

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=11397&stc=1&d=1235749935

[dolfer]

I went ahead and disconnected the TA for the time being. For now SDV doesn't take away any of my main channels and the TA doesn't grant me access to any that I care about. Yet...

I would like to know about the firmware fix that XUNAKA mentions... XUNAKA how did you hear about this???

Sorta seems like we are beta testers once again...

[crazywater]

Well... the signal level doesnt look too bad... SNR is 34 which should be fine. Did you use the coax that came with the TA or a better quality piece?

The acid test is pulling the usb cable and retrying tuning 68... but I dont think Sling can do that remotely :D assuming you are currently remote.

Different Coax. I am remote but I have already tried that, when I pull the USB it does not tune in. It seems to be all of the 687000khz channels, or at least the ones that don't tune are all that frequency.

Even when the tech runs a cable from the tap outside through the front door to the back of the TA I still have the same issue...so I personally think its an issue on the street. I can tune all of these channels bypassing the TA but perhaps the signal was borderline before the TA and now with it its too weak.

If I leave the channel on for a long period of time, occasionally it tunes in but only for brief amounts of time. I had it on the TiVo signal strength meter one time and when it tuned in it went from 0 signal to 70 for a minute and then back to 0.

[SCSIRAID]

Different Coax. I am remote but I have already tried that, when I pull the USB it does not tune in. It seems to be all of the 687000khz channels, or at least the ones that don't tune are all that frequency.

Even when the tech runs a cable from the tap outside through the front door to the back of the TA I still have the same issue...so I personally think its an issue on the street. I can tune all of these channels bypassing the TA but perhaps the signal was borderline before the TA and now with it its too weak.

If I leave the channel on for a long period of time, occasionally it tunes in but only for brief amounts of time. I had it on the TiVo signal strength meter one time and when it tuned in it went from 0 signal to 70 for a minute and then back to 0.

So If I understand you correctly....

1) With TA completely in the loop... i.e. USB connected... RF going from the wall to TA in and from TA out to TiVo in... No Workie :mad:

2) With TA completely in the loop... i.e. USB connected... RF going direct from pedistal to TA in and from TA out to TiVo in... No Workie :mad:

3) With TA USB cable unplugged.... But RF still going from the wall to TA in and from TA out to TiVo in... Still No Workie :mad:

4) With TA fully removed... RF from wall to TiVo... Works fine... :D


If I have this right... It would seem that its a signal issue that could be a bad TA pass thru. Im surprised tech didnt try the cable from the pedistal to the TiVo and cable from wall to TA. I would expect that to work.

If you have a 2way splitter... you could try splitting the rf from the wall and run one cable to TA and the other to TiVo and leave TA RF output unhooked. That might work....

I deleted my other posts relative to this to unclutter this thread since its somewhat off topic.

[Xunaka]

Source? Tested by who?

The latest revision by Cisco has a fix for it, however it hasn't been released to any providers cause Cisco is still testing it. I haven't heard news of it getting to any providers for testing on an internal level yet.

[crazywater]

If you have a 2way splitter... you could try splitting the rf from the wall and run one cable to TA and the other to TiVo and leave TA RF output unhooked. That might work....

Huh? Are you saying that the SDV signals are sent to the TiVo via the USB and the TA-RF Out is simply a pass-thru for the non-SDV stuff?

[SCSIRAID]

Huh? Are you saying that the SDV signals are sent to the TiVo via the USB and the TA-RF Out is simply a pass-thru for the non-SDV stuff?

The only thing the TA provides to the TiVo is tuning resolution services and a channel map. TiVo asks the TA what frequency and PID the desired channel is on and TA tells it. TiVo is doing all the tuning and its cablecards are doing the decrypting. The TA also has an internal splitter/amp so you only need one cable connection and no external splitter to hook up the devices. You dont have to use the RF output of the TA to have things work. I have two cable feeds coming out of the wall. One is going to the TiVo and the other to the TA with the RF out of the TA capped with a terminator.

[crazywater]

Well...I'll give it a try when I get home. I will let you know how that goes.

[Xunaka]

So If I understand you correctly....

1) With TA completely in the loop... i.e. USB connected... RF going from the wall to TA in and from TA out to TiVo in... No Workie :mad:

2) With TA completely in the loop... i.e. USB connected... RF going direct from pedistal to TA in and from TA out to TiVo in... No Workie :mad:

3) With TA USB cable unplugged.... But RF still going from the wall to TA in and from TA out to TiVo in... Still No Workie :mad:

4) With TA fully removed... RF from wall to TiVo... Works fine... :D


If I have this right... It would seem that its a signal issue that could be a bad TA pass thru. Im surprised tech didnt try the cable from the pedistal to the TiVo and cable from wall to TA. I would expect that to work.

If you have a 2way splitter... you could try splitting the rf from the wall and run one cable to TA and the other to TiVo and leave TA RF output unhooked. That might work....

I deleted my other posts relative to this to unclutter this thread since its somewhat off topic.


The Tuning adapter act's as an active splitter it should not be causing any type of signal depletion between your original source and the TiVo unit, It may just be a bad piece of coax.. I'd also make sure its current grade RJ6

[crazywater]

The Tuning adapter act's as an active splitter it should not be causing any type of signal depletion between your original source and the TiVo unit, It may just be a bad piece of coax.. I'd also make sure its current grade RJ6

I have used two different cables with the same result...but will try another and also am going to try the split idea from above. It's curious that its only the 12 channels from my previous post, all on frequency 687000khz.

[Xunaka]

I have used two different cables with the same result...but will try another and also am going to try the split idea from above. It's curious that its only the 12 channels from my previous post, all on frequency 687000khz.

Do you have the same issue with no Tuning adapter direct Coax to the box? Because it sounds like a cable card issue more than a tuning adapter issue.
Digital cable travels over a 256 QAM network, if any of those QAM channels are not being interpreted correctly by the cards you're going to get blocks or issues like that with anything associated with the specific QAM.

[crazywater]

Do you have the same issue with no Tuning adapter direct Coax to the box? Because it sounds like a cable card issue more than a tuning adapter issue.
Digital cable travels over a 256 QAM network, if any of those QAM channels are not being interpreted correctly by the cards you're going to get blocks or issues like that with anything associated with the specific QAM.

Not on the S3 but in another room I have issues with the same channels...

[Xunaka]

Not on the S3 but in another room I have issues with the same channels...

There's really nothing you're going to be able to correct with this issue then, if its a multiple tv issue, it's probably in the upstream.. I'd call the issue in and see where it gets you.

[crazywater]

There's really nothing you're going to be able to correct with this issue then, if its a multiple tv issue, it's probably in the upstream.. I'd call the issue in and see where it gets you.

I've got TWC techs working on it...they have been out to my house the last few days. They currently are looking at the tap outside the house. There's painted red arrows all over my front lawn at the tap and at the box on the house...so I assume they are working on it.

[SCSIRAID]

The latest revision by Cisco has a fix for it, however it hasn't been released to any providers cause Cisco is still testing it. I haven't heard news of it getting to any providers for testing on an internal level yet.

My source tells me that Cisco has replicated the TA Reboot problem but does not yet have root cause.

[SCSIRAID]

The Tuning adapter act's as an active splitter it should not be causing any type of signal depletion between your original source and the TiVo unit, It may just be a bad piece of coax.. I'd also make sure its current grade RJ6

Yup.. Unless the TA is defective...

[Xunaka]

My source tells me that Cisco has replicated the problem but does not yet have root cause.

Well your source is wrong unfortunately.

Also if they have your lawn painted like that, they think that it's a problem with your underground, and are more than likely going to replace the drop to your home.

It's once you get a visit from engineering that, they'll tell you it's on a node or HE

[SCSIRAID]

Well your source is wrong unfortunately.

Also if they have your lawn painted like that, they think that it's a problem with your underground, and are more than likely going to replace the drop to your home.

It's once you get a visit from engineering that, they'll tell you it's on a node or HE

I think you are mixing up the posts... my comment was relative to the every 2 day TA Reboots....

There's no paint on my lawn..... :D

[Xunaka]

Yeah you're correct so the other guy can just reference that post.

[crazywater]

Do you have the same issue with no Tuning adapter direct Coax to the box? Because it sounds like a cable card issue more than a tuning adapter issue.
Digital cable travels over a 256 QAM network, if any of those QAM channels are not being interpreted correctly by the cards you're going to get blocks or issues like that with anything associated with the specific QAM.

Ok...did the splitter trick. No good. Changed coax, no good....It looks like TWC was here since there is no longer a temp drop running from the tap to the house, maybe they ran a new drop but I doesn't look like they dug up the ground unless it is in a tube that they can pull through....in any case I still have a problem.

[SCSIRAID]

Ok...did the splitter trick. No good. Changed coax, no good....It looks like TWC was here since there is no longer a temp drop running from the tap to the house, maybe they ran a new drop but I doesn't look like they dug up the ground unless it is in a tube that they can pull through....in any case I still have a problem.


But if you connect the TiVo directly to the wall RF outlet without the TA at all... you get the channels??? Right?

[crazywater]

But if you connect the TiVo directly to the wall RF outlet without the TA at all... you get the channels??? Right?

Yes..

UPDATE: ok...don't ask but now 58 & 59 tune in after hooking the TA back up again. Maybe what they did today took care of it. However I have seen it working and then stop later on so l will have to wait and see....

UPDATE 10PM: They are out again...

[dolfer]

If you are out there and are having the reboot issue where the "Tuning Adapter Detected" screen keeps coming up periodically, please make sure you post it here. Please mention which location you in. Thanks! Dolf

[crazywater]

I have seen the TA detected screen at least 4 times since receiving the TA. I am in Wake Forest NC.

Last boot was 2/27/09 @ 03:07am

[dolfer]

I have seen the TA detected screen at least 4 times since receiving the TA. I am in Wake Forest NC.

Last boot was 2/27/09 @ 03:07am

Thanks! *When* it happens while you are watching something let me know if your Tivo behaves the same as mine.

[Xunaka]

Thanks! *When* it happens while you are watching something let me know if your Tivo behaves the same as mine.

As I said, the reboot issue is a known issue on both ends.. and is being worked on resolving. The only difference in situations is there are 2 different situations occurring at the customers home.

A: The tuning adapter will show a reboot and you'll receive the tuning adapter connected screen

B: Your TiVo unit itself is rebooting and the tuning adapter is keeping it's connection.

The STA1520 latest firmware is meant for situation it's unknown if situation B would be resolved..

[SCSIRAID]

As I said, the reboot issue is a known issue on both ends.. and is being worked on resolving. The only difference in situations is there are 2 different situations occurring at the customers home.

A: The tuning adapter will show a reboot and you'll receive the tuning adapter connected screen

B: Your TiVo unit itself is rebooting and the tuning adapter is keeping it's connection.

The STA1520 latest firmware is meant for situation it's unknown if situation B would be resolved..

Situation A is what I have... every 48 hours regular as clockwork. :D

[dolfer]

As I said, the reboot issue is a known issue on both ends.. and is being worked on resolving. The only difference in situations is there are 2 different situations occurring at the customers home.

A: The tuning adapter will show a reboot and you'll receive the tuning adapter connected screen

B: Your TiVo unit itself is rebooting and the tuning adapter is keeping it's connection.

The STA1520 latest firmware is meant for situation it's unknown if situation B would be resolved..

Thanks Xunaka! Please continue to keep us posted. Do you work for Cisco, TWC, or Tivo??? ;)

Nonetheless, please keep posting updates as you get them. As soon as the firmware update is available, I will reconnect my TA and hopefully see my issues resolved.

[lrhorer]

I have 2 Tivo HD units with cablecards and a TA. One unit is fine but with the second unit every once in a while I get a "channel is temperarily unavaliable please press select to try to tune the channel again". If you mess with the menus in Tivo Central for awhile the channel comes back. If happens on The Fox Business Channel witch is a SDV in our area. Called Tivo support but they were unable to find a fix.
That message is the normal one encountered whenever a subscriber (on any platform) attempts to tune an SDV channel but all switched QAMs on the subscriber's node are in use. Now, aliasing is always possible, so this situation could be caused by some other request failure, but the most likely explanation is it is a genuine denial based upon depleted bandwidth. As the message suggests, simply press <select> and the channel should eventually be tuned, usually immediately. If you see this message very often at all (other than when the TiVo has been "idle" for a period of time), then it may very well be your CATV provider needs to re-engineer your local node, moving some subscribers to other nodes in order to reduce network congestion.

[majinbuu147]

does anybody know if the tuning adapter will update its firmware automatically through the line or if we can do it through the USB port in the front?

[SCSIRAID]

does anybody know if the tuning adapter will update its firmware automatically through the line or if we can do it through the USB port in the front?

It will be automatically maintained by the cable company.. just like they do with their STB's. The good news is that they wont 'power off' and have to be manually turned on after a firmware update like the STB's do... (per TWC Engineering anyway).

[crazywater]

My TA booted again last night at 2:38AM approx 48 hours since the last boot...at least its in the middle of the night when nothing is recording.

[Xunaka]

Thanks Xunaka! Please continue to keep us posted. Do you work for Cisco, TWC, or Tivo??? ;)

Nonetheless, please keep posting updates as you get them. As soon as the firmware update is available, I will reconnect my TA and hopefully see my issues resolved.


I'll have more information as it becomes available to me, I give you guys kudos I personally do not own a TiVo but you guys seem to persist through.

[chrisivc]

I should probably also mention this too..... I can't say absolutely that it is due to the TA but the evidence does seem to be pointing to it.

When I installed TA on my S3... Suggestions stopped recording. About 2 weeks later I got a TA for my wife's THD... shortly thereafter she complained that her TiVo wasnt recording suggestions anymore. Ive had 2 suggestions record in about 2 weeks. Same for her.

Anybody else seeing this? There is another thread on this subject where it seems that all the people exhibiting it had TA's....

I have noticed that if the channel isnt available when recording (black screen but tivo is recording anyways), i have noticed when i want to watch that program it is gone from the watch list because the tivo knows it was just black screen. I have had the TA lock up several times and my regular recordings (tivo shows on the front panel it is recording) are missing when i try to watch them later. The recordings not showing up later issue only happens when i see the channel was unsucessfully tuned and black is all i see.

I dont know if this is the TA or Tivo, i would be betting the TA since it is the device that is locking up.
-C

[dotBob]

I have similar issues with black channels. I get no error messages, but the supposedly tuned channel is black. If I change to a higher or lower channel, then change back, it doesn't always work. If I try changing channels a few times - for example, <channel up> 3 or 4 times, then back down to the original black channel - it works. The TA's LED is solid green the entire time.

[dolfer]

I'll have more information as it becomes available to me, I give you guys kudos I personally do not own a TiVo but you guys seem to persist through.

Thanks Xunaka... Looks like it could be luck of the draw. A friend of mine (in Cincinnati as well) has not had a single reboot since he installed it last Tuesday! Looks like I got a bad box. I plan on taking it back and getting a different unit...

As for persistence, I have yet to see a DVR that can compare! You certainly can't think the TWC HD DVR is a legitimate alternative?? ;) I use one of them at work and it is an absolutely dreadful experience. For someone who has never owned a Tivo, the TW box is fine. But once you have used a Tivo (especially since 2000) there is no way you can regress to a cable DVR.

[SCSIRAID]

I have noticed that if the channel isnt available when recording (black screen but tivo is recording anyways), i have noticed when i want to watch that program it is gone from the watch list because the tivo knows it was just black screen. -C

I have seen this only once.... I was looking at the TiVo using TiVoPlayList and noticed a program recording that was zero length. Went to 'live' and all there was was a black screen. Went into diags... good signal but program lock=no. Stopped recording and it disappeared. channel up, channel down and the pic was back.

I have had the TA lock up several times and my regular recordings (tivo shows on the front panel it is recording) are missing when i try to watch them later. The recordings not showing up later issue only happens when i see the channel was unsucessfully tuned and black is all i see.

I dont know if this is the TA or Tivo, i would be betting the TA since it is the device that is locking up.
-C

What do you mean by 'TA locking up'? Same as your first point where you know it recorded it but its not in now playing? If you ever catch a black screen recording again... i recommend you immedietly go into DVR Diags and find out what frequency and PID's it is tuned to. Then do the channel up /channel down and when you have a pic again, go into DVR Diags and insure that frequency and PID's are the same. That may help narrow down whose 'fault' it is. The TA may be giving bad tuning information or the TiVo may be tuning it improperly.

[Xunaka]

Thanks Xunaka... Looks like it could be luck of the draw. A friend of mine (in Cincinnati as well) has not had a single reboot since he installed it last Tuesday! Looks like I got a bad box. I plan on taking it back and getting a different unit...

As for persistence, I have yet to see a DVR that can compare! You certainly can't think the TWC HD DVR is a legitimate alternative?? ;) I use one of them at work and it is an absolutely dreadful experience. For someone who has never owned a Tivo, the TW box is fine. But once you have used a Tivo (especially since 2000) there is no way you can regress to a cable DVR.

I don't mind my 8300 OCAP, I can't really justify paying for a TiVo when I know that the cable card technology behind them is so terrible.

[dolfer]

Unless you work for TW, you *are paying* for the 8300! ~$10 a month! ;)

I'll take the inferior back-end technology to have access to what it's all about... the Tivo UI and responsiveness. When I use the 8300 it seems like the remote control first sends its signal to Mars, then back down to Earth, and then to the DVR. There's no going from a Tivo to that! ;)

[Xunaka]

Unless you work for TW, you *are paying* for the 8300! ~$10 a month! ;)

I'll take the inferior back-end technology to have access to what it's all about... the Tivo UI and responsiveness. When I use the 8300 it seems like the remote control first sends its signal to Mars, then back down to Earth, and then to the DVR. There's no going from a Tivo to that! ;)

Depending on where you're located there are advantages exclusive to the TW boxes (Start Over) (Caller ID on TV) VoD used to be, we'll see how exactly they plan to work that out.

But yes the TiVo does have some pretty good features, and is a good piece of equipment.. The STA1520 new firmware does address the tuning adapter rebooting exclusively..

No ETA on the release yet.

[George Cifranci]

This might be obvious but I thought I would mention it anyway, make sure you remove the protective plastic film (if it wasn't already removed) that is on the Tuning Adaptor as it covers up a lot of the holes at the top of the unit. Not sure if leaving it on would cause overheating or not.

[dolfer]

Depending on where you're located there are advantages exclusive to the TW boxes (Start Over) (Caller ID on TV) VoD used to be, we'll see how exactly they plan to work that out.

But yes the TiVo does have some pretty good features, and is a good piece of equipment.. The STA1520 new firmware does address the tuning adapter rebooting exclusively..

No ETA on the release yet.

Thanks Xunaka... I was excited by the VOD announcement. But again, we'll have to wait to see how well it will work. My Internet connection tops out at 1.4 MBps so I am not optimistic...

Thanks for the info on the firmware. Please continue to keep us posted.

[jcderr]

I'm having a hell of a time with my TA. It works for a few days, and then stops until I reboot the whole Tivo. Sometimes it fails in stages (a channel here or there stops, to varying degrees), sometimes it just drops dead entirely. Once it dies, I start getting the "Hit select to try again..." bar. Reboot solves it. I've seen people talk about the "tuning adapter reboot issue" but I haven't seen anyone say just what the symptoms are. Is this it, and will the firmware update resolve it, or am I looking at a totally different issue?

EDIT: of course, it had to happen again 10 minutes after I post this, and now even a reboot won't bring it back...

[majinbuu147]

oh my gosh i wanna just throw the TA against a wall it crapped out 4 times in one show. please hurry with that update :(

[SCSIRAID]

I'm having a hell of a time with my TA. It works for a few days, and then stops until I reboot the whole Tivo. Sometimes it fails in stages (a channel here or there stops, to varying degrees), sometimes it just drops dead entirely. Once it dies, I start getting the "Hit select to try again..." bar. Reboot solves it. I've seen people talk about the "tuning adapter reboot issue" but I haven't seen anyone say just what the symptoms are. Is this it, and will the firmware update resolve it, or am I looking at a totally different issue?

EDIT: of course, it had to happen again 10 minutes after I post this, and now even a reboot won't bring it back...

The tuning adapter reboot issue is something I see about every 48 hours. When it happens, you will see a 'Tuning Adapter Attached' (something like that) screen pop up and the TA LED goes to 6 blinks mode. If any recordings are going on at the time it occurs, they are stopped and not restarted. If you clear the screen and go back to a show... in a minute or so the screen pops up again and the TA LED goes solid on.

TWC Tech Ops says Cisco has reproduced the problem and working to find root cause. That news is a few days old so perhaps they have found it by now.

Exactly what are you seeing in your situation?

[SCSIRAID]

oh my gosh i wanna just throw the TA against a wall it crapped out 4 times in one show. please hurry with that update :(

Can you be a bit more definitive on what 'crapped out' means exactly?

[SCSIRAID]

I saw a new problem this morning.... My wife's TA wouldnt tune any SDV channels but was otherwise working. The TA LED was on solid which should be indicating that its working fine. From TiVo, I couldnt get into TA diags.. as it indicated that no TA was present. DVR Diags (at the very bottom) indicated no TA present.. BUT... that a channel map had been received. Power cycling TA made no difference. Pulling the USB cable did NOT generate a TA screen and reinserting did NOT generate a TA screen. It certainly appeared that the THD interface to the TA was hung. Rebooted TiVo and problem was gone....

[dolfer]

oh my gosh i wanna just throw the TA against a wall it crapped out 4 times in one show. please hurry with that update :(

DO you have a Tivo HD or an S3??? Just curious. A friend of mine has an S3 and does *not* experience the reboot issue. I have a Tivo HD and *do* experience it.

Guys, if you post info on any TA issues, please not whether you have a Tivo HD or an S3.

Thanks, Dolf

[SCSIRAID]

DO you have a Tivo HD or an S3??? Just curious. A friend of mine has an S3 and does *not* experience the reboot issue. I have a Tivo HD and *do* experience it.

Guys, if you post info on any TA issues, please not whether you have a Tivo HD or an S3.

Thanks, Dolf

Interesting... on the same system? so it may be limited to certain service groups???

Both my S3 and THD do it... and within 30-60 minutes of each other...

[jcderr]

The tuning adapter reboot issue is something I see about every 48 hours. When it happens, you will see a 'Tuning Adapter Attached' (something like that) screen pop up and the TA LED goes to 6 blinks mode. If any recordings are going on at the time it occurs, they are stopped and not restarted. If you clear the screen and go back to a show... in a minute or so the screen pops up again and the TA LED goes solid on.

TWC Tech Ops says Cisco has reproduced the problem and working to find root cause. That news is a few days old so perhaps they have found it by now.

Exactly what are you seeing in your situation?

That's quite a bit different from what I see. If I'm watching an SDV channel when it starts crapping out, I'll get a brief video freeze frame (by brief, I mean anything from a few seconds to 10 minutes), then everything will start working again. But after that happens, that channel (and all other SDV channels) will simply not work at all if I change the channel. If I try to tune an SDV channel at this point, I get a black screen with a Tivo message that it could not tune the channel and to hit SELECT to try again. This fails.

The TA's LED stays on solid, and the TA diags say that the TA is working fine. Under Last Tune Attempt (or however it's phrased), it even claims that the last (failed) tuning attempt was successful. Power Cycle the TA has never resolved the problem; I have to reboot the whole Tivo, unfortunately. However, I'm now completely broken. I've tried all manner of hooking, unhooking, reseating, cycling, and on down the troubleshooting line, and it simply won't work.

[SCSIRAID]

That's quite a bit different from what I see. If I'm watching an SDV channel when it starts crapping out, I'll get a brief video freeze frame (by brief, I mean anything from a few seconds to 10 minutes), then everything will start working again. But after that happens, that channel (and all other SDV channels) will simply not work at all if I change the channel. If I try to tune an SDV channel at this point, I get a black screen with a Tivo message that it could not tune the channel and to hit SELECT to try again. This fails.

The TA's LED stays on solid, and the TA diags say that the TA is working fine. Under Last Tune Attempt (or however it's phrased), it even claims that the last (failed) tuning attempt was successful. Power Cycle the TA has never resolved the problem; I have to reboot the whole Tivo, unfortunately. However, I'm now completely broken. I've tried all manner of hooking, unhooking, reseating, cycling, and on down the troubleshooting line, and it simply won't work.

Video issues like freezing and stuttering are not caused by the TA. All the TA does is tell the TiVo what channel and PID to tune. The TiVo does all the tuning. What is your signal strength and SNR and RS Uncorrected value on the SDV channels and regular channels? You might want to try attenuation and see if that makes any difference. Also check DVR diags when you get a black screen and see if the tuner on the channel of interests shows 'Signal Lock' and 'Program Lock'. Both should be 'yes'.

[SCSIRAID]

DO you have a Tivo HD or an S3??? Just curious. A friend of mine has an S3 and does *not* experience the reboot issue. I have a Tivo HD and *do* experience it.

Guys, if you post info on any TA issues, please not whether you have a Tivo HD or an S3.

Thanks, Dolf

We got new firmware Wednesday that is supposed to address the TA Reboot issue.... cross your fingers.....

[dolfer]

We got new firmware Wednesday that is supposed to address the TA Reboot issue.... cross your fingers.....

SCSI, you aren't in Cincinnati! Does "we" mean all Time Warner Cable areas??? ;)

It's Friday night... Has your TA rebooted????

What version of firmware do you have now?

[SCSIRAID]

SCSI, you aren't in Cincinnati! Does "we" mean all Time Warner Cable areas??? ;)

It's Friday night... Has your TA rebooted????

What version of firmware do you have now?

My last reboot was the actual push of the new firmware on Wednesday at 4:56pm. Before that the 48 hour reboot was on Tuesday at 11:45am. So its been 2 days since reboot... Sooooooo.. Ill keep on watching.

Ill look into firmware levels in diags and see if I can figure out what has a very recent date.

[SCSIRAID]

Here is what I could find in TA Diags...

Under TA Diag page - Versions and MACs

SOFTWARE VERSIONS
PTV OS: Explorer1kg6 NGP OS
FLASH: STA1.0.0_1520_LR_F.0801
App(s): SARA v1.61.36.1

Also under TA Diag Page - Tuning Resolver

TA CONFIG FILE

Version 03/04@12:00:33

[jcderr]

Video issues like freezing and stuttering are not caused by the TA. All the TA does is tell the TiVo what channel and PID to tune. The TiVo does all the tuning. What is your signal strength and SNR and RS Uncorrected value on the SDV channels and regular channels? You might want to try attenuation and see if that makes any difference. Also check DVR diags when you get a black screen and see if the tuner on the channel of interests shows 'Signal Lock' and 'Program Lock'. Both should be 'yes'.

I left the TA unpowered for 5 minutes today, and when I plugged it back in, it "just worked." If/when it dies again, I'll check those.

[dotBob]

Here is what I could find in TA Diags...

Under TA Diag page - Versions and MACs

SOFTWARE VERSIONS
PTV OS: Explorer1kg6 NGP OS
FLASH: STA1.0.0_1520_LR_F.0801
App(s): SARA v1.61.36.1

Also under TA Diag Page - Tuning Resolver

TA CONFIG FILE

Version 03/04@12:00:33

My TA is apparently on older software still:

FLASH: STA1.0.0_1520_LR_F.0701
App(s): SARA v1.61.32.1

And curiously, the TA CONFIG FILE is showing:

TA CONFIG FILE
Version: n/a

.bob
TiVo HD

[realityboy]

I have a series 3 and haven't had the reboot issue with the TA. I haven't seen anyone else mention the issue of the Tivo not recognizing the TA after the Tivo reboots. Has no one had this problem? It's not as bad as the other problem, but it's going to be a problem for me if the power goes out at all.

[bobrt6676]

I have a series 3 and haven't had the reboot issue with the TA. I haven't seen anyone else mention the issue of the Tivo not recognizing the TA after the Tivo reboots. Has no one had this problem? It's not as bad as the other problem, but it's going to be a problem for me if the power goes out at all.

Last night my TivoHD rebooted twice while watching a recorded show. This is the first time my HD has ever rebooted itself. When it came back up the TA was "not connected" I unplugged the TA waited 30 sec. replugged. Tivo popped up the TA is now connected screen and all the channels were back.

[George Cifranci]

Question. On the Tuning Adaptor diagnostics screens which date would show when the TA last booted? I want to see if my TA has rebooted since I first connected it.

[SCSIRAID]

Question. On the Tuning Adaptor diagnostics screens which date would show when the TA last booted? I want to see if my TA has rebooted since I first connected it.

Its in the 'Status Summary'... second page at the bottom in the CLOCKS section. Just go to TA Diags and hit select twice.

CLOCKS
Booted: Wed Mar 4 2009
4:56:59 PM EST (0x.........)

If it had rebooted you should have seen an unexpected 'Tuning Adapter Detected' (or attached or whatever the word it uses.) screen.

[George Cifranci]

Its in the 'Status Summary'... second page at the bottom in the CLOCKS section. Just go to TA Diags and hit select twice.

CLOCKS
Booted: Wed Mar 4 2009
4:56:59 PM EST (0x.........)

If it had rebooted you should have seen an unexpected 'Tuning Adapter Detected' (or attached or whatever the word it uses.) screen.

Oh ok. Looks like mine has been up since I connected it on March 3rd. No reboot issues so far.

[bobrt6676]

Here I go again. Today just like yesterday TivoHD reboots while recording a program while watching a recorded program. Comes back up I start watching where I Left off. 5min later THD reboots again.:mad: Very frustrating. TA issue or THD issue??:confused:

[SCSIRAID]

Here I go again. Today just like yesterday TivoHD reboots while recording a program while watching a recorded program. Comes back up I start watching where I Left off. 5min later THD reboots again.:mad: Very frustrating. TA issue or THD issue??:confused:

Are you sure its the THD rebooting... (is it going back thru the into video with all the clips from CSI, Teletubbies etc)... or could it be the TA rebooting?? What you are describing fits the TA reboot issue... you see a Tuning Adapter Detected screen (TA led flashing 6 blink code) and 3-5 minutes later you see it happen again (TA led goes solid on).

[eliminator]

I'm in WNY/Amherst. I got a tuning adapter a couple days ago. Got it all hooked up. I'm having issues tuning SDV channels randomly. CNNHD, for example, works fine on minute but I can't tune to it the next. All SDV channels seem to be working at some time or another. I don't think its a signal strength problem. TWC says some other people have reported this issue and it is a problem with the Cisco firmware. Is anyone here having this problem?

[dolfer]

Since I disconnected my TA I don't know the answer to this. But what version of firmware does everyone have???? If you have been upgraded, can you please post the prior version and the new version numbers?

[SCSIRAID]

Since I disconnected my TA I don't know the answer to this. But what version of firmware does everyone have???? If you have been upgraded, can you please post the prior version and the new version numbers?

This is the version that seems to have fixed the reboot issue. Got it Wed 3/4.

SOFTWARE VERSIONS
PTV OS: Explorer1kg6 NGP OS
FLASH: STA1.0.0_1520_LR_F.0801
App(s): SARA v1.61.36.1

[dolfer]

This is the version that seems to have fixed the reboot issue. Got it Wed 3/4.

SOFTWARE VERSIONS
PTV OS: Explorer1kg6 NGP OS
FLASH: STA1.0.0_1520_LR_F.0801
App(s): SARA v1.61.36.1


Thanks SCSI!

Can anyone using Time Warner Cincinnati check their version and report back?

[bferrell]

I'll try to tonight.

[bferrell]

BTW, I have a pair of S3's, and I get the "this channel unavailable" from time-to-time, but no "t/a detected" and haven't seemed to miss any recordings, though neither seems to be recording suggestions, but that's an oft-complained about temporary glitch.

[bferrell]

SOFTWARE VERSIONS
PTV OS: Explorer1kg6 NGP OS
FLASH: STA1.0.0_1520_LR_F.0701
App(s): SARA v1.61.32.1

[eliminator]

I'm having problems tuning SVD channels randomly. Still on the old firmware in Buffalo, NY.

Tivo TA firmware number STA1.0.0_1520_LR_F.0701
SARA v1.61.32.1

[dolfer]

thanks guys for posting your firmware versions... Looks like we need 0801 like SCSIRaid has in Apex, NC!

[bobrt6676]

Are you sure its the THD rebooting... (is it going back thru the into video with all the clips from CSI, Teletubbies etc)... or could it be the TA rebooting?? What you are describing fits the TA reboot issue... you see a Tuning Adapter Detected screen (TA led flashing 6 blink code) and 3-5 minutes later you see it happen again (TA led goes solid on).

Yes definitly the THD rebooting going through the almost there to the intro video clips. It happened tonight for the third straight night. All three nights, a total of 6 reboots, I was watching a recorded show while recording a show. So, I have decided to unplug the TA for now to see if the THD reboots on its own.

1 hour after unplugging the TA, my THD has again rebooted while watching a recorded show and recording another show. I guess this proves the TA is not the problem. On to a different thread I guess.

[Xunaka]

thanks guys for posting your firmware versions... Looks like we need 0801 like SCSIRaid has in Apex, NC!


I have a few questions for anyone on .801, Has this issue fixed the reboot for you?

Also has it been able to address the problem with **Black** not grey screens when tuning to some channels; It would be a very specific issue those of you experiencing it will know what I'm talking about.


Any information on this would be greatly appreciated.

[SCSIRAID]

I have a few questions for anyone on .801, Has this issue fixed the reboot for you?

Also has it been able to address the problem with **Black** not grey screens when tuning to some channels; It would be a very specific issue those of you experiencing it will know what I'm talking about.


Any information on this would be greatly appreciated.

It has fixed the reboot issue for me. My 2 TA's rebooted on 3/4 when .0801 was deployed and havent rebooted since.

As to the black screen... Ive only seen that once and that was a couple weeks ago with the earlier FW (not sure what version it was... 0701 perhaps). When it happened TiVo reported Signal Lock - yes, Program Lock - no and was on an expected SDV QAM frequency.

[Jcarrme]

I'm a TWC customer in Maine and just got a TA. It is rebooting about every 2 hours. How does one get the TA update?

[Jcarrme]

This is the version that seems to have fixed the reboot issue. Got it Wed 3/4.

SOFTWARE VERSIONS
PTV OS: Explorer1kg6 NGP OS
FLASH: STA1.0.0_1520_LR_F.0801
App(s): SARA v1.61.36.1

How did you get it? Was it downloaded by the Cable Company?

Were these not tested before they were given out to everyone?

Sounds like the ball was dropped somewhere...

[crazywater]

How did you get it? Was it downloaded by the Cable Company?

Were these not tested before they were given out to everyone?

I would imagine TWC or Cisco will push the new firmware to all TAs that are on .0701. You said you are in Maine and its rebooting ever 2 hours? Did you mean 2 days?

[Jcarrme]

I would imagine TWC or Cisco will push the new firmware to all TAs that are on .0701. You said you are in Maine and its rebooting ever 2 hours? Did you mean 2 days?


no, now it's every hour...

[SCSIRAID]

no, now it's every hour...

Do you have another USB cable you could try? When it reboots are you getting the 'Tuning Adapter Connected' screen or is something else telling you its rebooting?

[Jcarrme]

no, now it's every hour...



I just spoke with Time Warner Cable here in Maine. They have said an update is coming soon, but they don't know when -- maybe next week.

[s2krazy]

My Cableguy was here yesterday and back again today. Unfortunately no joy! He'll be back tomorrow with the super secret decoder ring and the number for tech support at Cisco. I want to point out that the technician has been great. I do not believe that any of the problems are related to his ability or willingness to try things. Oceanic in Honolulu

Channels that I'm not receiving:

1108 Fox Business Network HD
1116 CNBC HD
1210 HD Versus
1226 Fox Sports Net West High Definition
1323 Home & Garden Television High Definition
1325 Travel Channel High Definition
1329 Animal Planet High Definition
1331 TLC High Definition
1337 The Science Channel High Definition
1449 LMN HD
1455 USA HD
1554 FX HD
1557 Sci Fi HD
1605 Universal High Definition

[George Cifranci]

In my TA I have...

SOFTWARE VERSIONS
PTV OS: Explorer1kg6 NGP OS
FLASH: STA1.0.0_1520_LR_F.0701
App(s): SARA v1.61.32.1

My TA has never rebooted since I got it on March 3rd. But twice I noticed that I was getting the black screen (or blank channel). Today I noticed the TiVo was recording a show on SpeedTVHD and when I changed to that tuner the screen was blank (black). I stopped the recording, tuned away from the channel and came back and the channel was working fine.

[Jcarrme]

Do you have another USB cable you could try? When it reboots are you getting the 'Tuning Adapter Connected' screen or is something else telling you its rebooting?

I don't have another USB cable. When it reboots, I am getting that screen.

[SCSIRAID]

I don't have another USB cable. When it reboots, I am getting that screen.

Ok... you could go into TA Diags.. .hit select twice and look at the BOOT time near the bottom of the page. Is the boot time changing every time this occurs? If it is... that would confirm that the TA is actually rebooting. If it isnt... then I would suspect the USB cable. You might try reseating the USB cable several times.

[realityboy]

I have a series 3 and haven't had the reboot issue with the TA. I haven't seen anyone else mention the issue of the Tivo not recognizing the TA after the Tivo reboots. Has no one had this problem? It's not as bad as the other problem, but it's going to be a problem for me if the power goes out at all.

My S3 Tivo never recognized the Tuning Adapter after rebooting until today when I switched the USB slots and put the TA on top and the wireless adapter on bottom so now I'm not having any problems with my TA at all. Hopefully all the other issues will be dealt with soon.

I'm still not receiving suggestions, but this is obviously a Tivo issue and not a TA issue. I can tune all of the channels.

[Jcarrme]

Ok... you could go into TA Diags.. .hit select twice and look at the BOOT time near the bottom of the page. Is the boot time changing every time this occurs? If it is... that would confirm that the TA is actually rebooting. If it isnt... then I would suspect the USB cable. You might try reseating the USB cable several times.



yes the time of reboot is changing every time it occurs

[Jcarrme]

My S3 Tivo never recognized the Tuning Adapter after rebooting until today when I switched the USB slots and put the TA on top and the wireless adapter on bottom so now I'm not having any problems with my TA at all. Hopefully all the other issues will be dealt with soon.

I'm still not receiving suggestions, but this is obviously a Tivo issue and not a TA issue. I can tune all of the channels.

I tried switching USB slots and still rebooting...(sigh)

[SCSIRAID]

I tried switching USB slots and still rebooting...(sigh)

I think I would ask them to give you a new TA... or perhaps push you .801 firmware and see if that helps.

[jackmbernstein]

I have an issue where I am/was not getting two HD public TV groups encomposing ~20 channels AND Sundance. Everything else was fine. Time-Warner was clueless except for a hint to pull the USB and reboot the TA. This got me back reception, albeit poor, on the public TV group. I played some more and this problem is reproduced by adjusting/ touching the USB connection to the TA. The connection is loose and minimal motions to it knock out all stations or the selective group I mentioned. I plan on turning the TA in for another and making sure that the connection is solid.

Anyone else experience this?

[SCSIRAID]

I have an issue where I am/was not getting two HD public TV groups encomposing ~20 channels AND Sundance. Everything else was fine. Time-Warner was clueless except for a hint to pull the USB and reboot the TA. This got me back reception, albeit poor, on the public TV group. I played some more and this problem is reproduced by adjusting/ touching the USB connection to the TA. The connection is loose and minimal motions to it knock out all stations or the selective group I mentioned. I plan on turning the TA in for another and making sure that the connection is solid.

Anyone else experience this?

Is it possible that while you are messing with the USB cable you are also moving the coax cable around? Many have had issues with the el-cheepo coax cable provided with the ta. You might want to replug the coax or replace it with a better quality piece.

Moving the coax around would more likely cause a 'Tuning Adapter Connected' screen rather than a loss of channels. Loss of channels sounds like RF issue.

[Jcarrme]

I think I would ask them to give you a new TA... or perhaps push you .801 firmware and see if that helps.

I'm on my second TA and they have no info on the firmware upgrade...

[George Cifranci]

In my TA I have...

SOFTWARE VERSIONS
PTV OS: Explorer1kg6 NGP OS
FLASH: STA1.0.0_1520_LR_F.0701
App(s): SARA v1.61.32.1

My TA has never rebooted since I got it on March 3rd. But twice I noticed that I was getting the black screen (or blank channel). Today I noticed the TiVo was recording a show on SpeedTVHD and when I changed to that tuner the screen was blank (black). I stopped the recording, tuned away from the channel and came back and the channel was working fine.

Correction. I now have 801. I came home today after work and noticed that my TA had rebooted (it was on the "you have a Tuning Adaptor" screen on the TiVo. I first thought I had my first reboot issue that some have been talking about (mine hasn't rebooted since I got it on March 3rd), however I checked the version numbers and sure enough I now have FLASH: STA1.0.0_1520_LR_F.0801 and App(s): SARA v1.61.36.1.

We shall see if this fixed the blank (black) screen issue.

[dolfer]

Does anyone in Cincinnati have .0801 yet? If so, please let us know! Thanks, Dolf

[MomCatM4]

I'm in northern Warren County, near Dayton (sometimes served by techs out of Cincinnati and sometimes out of Dayton--go figure), and I haven't received 801 yet. A colleague of mine and I have both had issues of channels like USAHD, SciFiHD, etc suddenly not showing up (and failing to record). Only a reboot of the TiVo has resolved our issues. For me, it was particularly bad last weekend. I hope this update will resolve the issue!

Forgot to add--we both have S3 and I also have one HD...

MomCat

[Jcarrme]

I receievd an update to my TA today, hopefully this will solve my issues...

LOL, just as I finished writing this my TA rebotted. Oh well, I'm giving up and turning it back in and going to another DVR that doesn't require a TA

Is there something I need to do now that the upgrade has been made? I'd like to try it before I return this TA

[dolfer]

I receievd an update to my TA today, hopefully this will solve my issues...

LOL, just as I finished writing this my TA rebotted. Oh well, I'm giving up and turning it back in and going to another DVR that doesn't require a TA

Is there something I need to do now that the upgrade has been made? I'd like to try it before I return this TA

What city/state are you in?

How do you know you received the update? Did you verify that you have .0801? Does it give you a message?

Make sure everything is connected properly, don't use the cheapo coaxial cable TW provided, and do a complete restart of both your TIvo and TA. Then sit and wait and see if you get the "Tivo Has Detected A Tuning Adapter" message again. If you see that screen again, you still have the "rebooting" problem...

[Jcarrme]

What city/state are you in?

How do you know you received the update? Did you verify that you have .0801? Does it give you a message?

Make sure everything is connected properly, don't use the cheapo coaxial cable TW provided, and do a complete restart of both your TIvo and TA. Then sit and wait and see if you get the "Tivo Has Detected A Tuning Adapter" message again. If you see that screen again, you still have the "rebooting" problem...

I'm in Portland, Maine. I verified that I had 0801, I booted both and got the detection screen twice and it continued rebooting every hour.

[Jcarrme]

One thing that I did notice is that the USB connection is loose on the TA end, and it does not fit snugly into the port in the back of the TA. I have changed it and waiting to see if that works.

BTW , got a new TA and still getting a reboot...I'm beginning to wonder if the TiVo or cablecard is the problem

[Xunaka]

One thing that I did notice is that the USB connection is loose on the TA end, and it does not fit snugly into the port in the back of the TA. I have changed it and waiting to see if that works.

BTW , got a new TA and still getting a reboot...I'm beginning to wonder if the TiVo or cablecard is the problem

FYI

The .801 was released as a go by Cisco and is being released on a Division by Division basis after testing and provisioning is a go, so if you don't have it yet it should be coming depending on how your division is handling the issue.

Based upon what we have been able to see, all reboot issues should be resolved by this.

[George Cifranci]

.0801 doesn't seem to fix the blank channel issue. Last night I noticed my TiVo S3 was recording "Led Zep's The Song Remains the Same" on the HD Music channel Palladia at 9:00PM. I switched over to that tuner and it was blank. I let the TiVo record the whole show to see what happens. The program was deleted and in the history it said that it could not record the show because there was no signal. After the recording finished I went to that channel and it was working ok. This happened with 0701 as well.

[SCSIRAID]

.0801 doesn't seem to fix the blank channel issue. Last night I noticed my TiVo S3 was recording "Led Zep's The Song Remains the Same" on the HD Music channel Paladia at 9:00PM. I switched over to that tuner and it was blank. I let the TiVo record the whole show to see what happens. The program was deleted and in the history it said that it could not record the show because there was no signal. After the recording finished I went to that channel and it was working ok. This happened with 0701 as well.

I saw this exact failure mode once with .0701.... Discovery HD. DVR Diagnostics indicated Signal lock was Yes but program lock was NO.

If you see it again... id suggest that you go into DVR Diags when you have the black screen and check the frequency and PIDs and then recheck them after you retune and see if they are the same. That might provide a clue.

[dolfer]

FYI

The .801 was released as a go by Cisco and is being released on a Division by Division basis after testing and provisioning is a go, so if you don't have it yet it should be coming depending on how your division is handling the issue.

Based upon what we have been able to see, all reboot issues should be resolved by this.

Excellent news! Thanks for the update!!!!!!!! Hopefully Cincinnati gets it soon.

[George Cifranci]

I saw this exact failure mode once with .0701.... Discovery HD. DVR Diagnostics indicated Signal lock was Yes but program lock was NO.

If you see it again... id suggest that you go into DVR Diags when you have the black screen and check the frequency and PIDs and then recheck them after you retune and see if they are the same. That might provide a clue.

Ok thanks. I will check that next time it happens.

[Jcarrme]

FYI

The .801 was released as a go by Cisco and is being released on a Division by Division basis after testing and provisioning is a go, so if you don't have it yet it should be coming depending on how your division is handling the issue.

Based upon what we have been able to see, all reboot issues should be resolved by this.

I got the 0801 upgrade and it didn't solve the problem. I have determined that I had a bad TiVo. I removed the cablecard to see if the TA still rebooted and it did. Since this was my 3rd TA, logically the TiVo was then assumed to be bad. I have swapped out the TiVo and am testing it as soon as it is done processing with TiVo.

[Jcarrme]

As of today, 3/14, I have swapped out the TA (3 times), swapped out the TiVo, removed the cablecard, to eliminate that possibility, and I am still rebooting. The TA has the 0801 upgrade. TIme Warner here in Maine refuses to believe that they are the problem. They tell me I have that the signal coming into my home is the same as everyone elses and there is no signal problem, so my guess is they have a batch of bad tuning adapters. I have spoken to someone that has the TA wth TiVo and he has no problem. He was a beta tester for the TA and has never had a problem with it. So my analysis is that TWC has a batch of bad TAs. This decision is based on my 13 years as a computer programmer and using logic analysis to arrive at that decision.

[mikeyts]

The TA hasn't been released by TWC San Diego, but I've been participating in a beta test of the units since mid-January. I don't know what release I started with, but when they installed it, it took a few hours to start working, worked properly for a day and a half, then stopped working properly for the next month. (With the TA attached, I could tune switched broadcasts but not linear channels--I got some limited use out of it anyway).

On February 12th, they upgraded the firmware to .801 and it's worked fine since. I never saw the frequent reboot issue that people are talking about here. I've been told that they expect to upgrade the beta testers to a further release in about a week (they hope). It supposedly reduces USB traffic between the TA and TiVo and increases stability. I think that they're holding back widespread deployment of the thing until they can test that.

I did have a problem with noise from the TA interfering with my reception of a couple of HD cable channels. The noise was there if I ran the cable from the TA into the TiVo and even if I used an external splitter. I solved it temporarily by running a cable from a spare bedroom to the TA and leaving my TiVo hooked up as per usual. I'm going to check today to see if that went away.

[pmiranda]

I did have a problem with noise from the TA interfering with my reception of a couple of HD cable channels. The noise was there if I ran the cable from the TA into the TiVo and even if I used an external splitter. I solved it temporarily by running a cable from a spare bedroom to the TA and leaving my TiVo hooked up as per usual. I'm going to check today to see if that went away.

Hmm... I thought you had to have the TA installed serially between the TiVo and the cable outlet to work, but I guess that's not the case... I wonder if a separate cable run for the TA and the TiVo would solve my signal quality problem between 711 and 729 MHz...

[mikeyts]

My channels were 705 and 711, the CW and PBS affiliates, respectively. I just checked, and both are in a stream at 525 MHz. There may be a couple of SD digital channels wedged in there as well, but I watch very little standard def these days and probably wouldn't have noticed if one of them went dead. (I was following Skins on BBCA, but it hasn't started a second season as yet, so I'm not even recording that. The one channel that I do watch is Tennis and it's switched, possibly on a different QAM carrier every time I tune it). EDIT: I checked (when they installed my TA, they gave me a handy chart of the channels, printed in tiny little type, unfortunately sorted by subscriber channel number). There's nothing else on 525 except Channel 1 "On Demand Preview" and a couple of datacasting streams for the UpdateLogic (http://www.updatelogic.com/)'s UpdateTV service (a service for updating the firmware of television-tuning display and STB electronics over-the-air or over cable).

EDIT EDIT: I just checked and yeah, the interference is still there. I can't tune channels 1, 705 or 711 with the cable run through the TA, but I can tune them with the cable running directly from the wall into TiVo.

[yodasmurf]

I have a few questions for anyone on .801, Has this issue fixed the reboot for you?

Also has it been able to address the problem with **Black** not grey screens when tuning to some channels; It would be a very specific issue those of you experiencing it will know what I'm talking about.


Any information on this would be greatly appreciated.

I have .801 and am on my second TA. I cannot tune to any SDV channels, and simply get a black screen. I've escalated with TWC management. A supervisor is supposed to be coming to my home on Monday.

[jcderr]

Video issues like freezing and stuttering are not caused by the TA. All the TA does is tell the TiVo what channel and PID to tune. The TiVo does all the tuning. What is your signal strength and SNR and RS Uncorrected value on the SDV channels and regular channels? You might want to try attenuation and see if that makes any difference. Also check DVR diags when you get a black screen and see if the tuner on the channel of interests shows 'Signal Lock' and 'Program Lock'. Both should be 'yes'.

I had SDV tuning die on me again today. Last time, I tried rebooting the TA, the Tivo, and so on, and nothing helped. However, when I left the TA unpowered for 5 minutes and _then_ turned everything on, it all came back up beautifully.

I have a single M Card. When I tune both tuners to non-SDV channels, I get Signal Strength around ~80, Signal and Program Locks YES, SNR 33dB, and RS values are both 0. If I tune to an SDV channel, everything is blanked out with dashes, and "Current Tuning Status" says "Not Tuned: Wrong Card State."

[SCSIRAID]

I had SDV tuning die on me again today. Last time, I tried rebooting the TA, the Tivo, and so on, and nothing helped. However, when I left the TA unpowered for 5 minutes and _then_ turned everything on, it all came back up beautifully.

I have a single M Card. When I tune both tuners to non-SDV channels, I get Signal Strength around ~80, Signal and Program Locks YES, SNR 33dB, and RS values are both 0. If I tune to an SDV channel, everything is blanked out with dashes, and "Current Tuning Status" says "Not Tuned: Wrong Card State."

OK.. wrong card state strongly suggests that TiVo is using the cablecard channel map instead of the TA channel map. Go all the way to the bottom of the DVR Diags and look at the last three lines... should be Tuning Adapter: Operational, Last State: Ready and Channel List Received: Yes. If not... the TiVo has lost communications with the TA. If it is something else... I would first try another USB cable... Is the LED blinking on the TA?

[jcderr]

Tuning Adapter: Operational, Last State: Ready and Channel List Received: Yes. If not... the TiVo has lost communications with the TA. If it is something else... I would first try another USB cable... Is the LED blinking on the TA?

LED: Solid
Tuning Adapter: Not Available
Last Status: Initializing
Channel List Received


Why on Earth would this fail, after each time it's fixed, only after several days of slowly degrading availability... basically, I get individual channels that start dropping and, eventually, the whole thing goes down? I can't imagine a USB cable would do that.

EDIT: and the TA, Last Status, and Channel List, as well as everything else on this screen, change/update when I turn the TA on and off, or unplug it, plug it back in, and so on. So it looks like it's at least talking.

Oddly, I found that TWC actually installed two cards in my TiVo; an mcard in slot one, and an scard in slot 2. I removed the scard, let it reconfigure itself, and tried again, but to no avail.

[Johnwashere]

I get "this channel is temporarily unavailable Please press select to try again...." on a lot of my SDV channels (at least 50%). Sometimes Il wait a while and some will come in and out, but theres a lot of channels that have never came in since Ive started using the TA (got it yesterday). Ive rebooted the TA and tivo a few times but still cant get many SDV channels to come in. My time warner boxes sometimes cant get the channel right but usually get it within a few seconds. I have firmware .801.
TW seems to think its just a temporary problem and the problem is not on my end... Im wondering if trying a different coax cable will fix this (I remember reading people saying the coax cable in the TA box is crappy), but im not sure if it will fix this problem or not.

[George Cifranci]

I get "this channel is temporarily unavailable Please press select to try again...." on a lot of my SDV channels (at least 50%). Sometimes Il wait a while and some will come in and out, but theres a lot of channels that have never came in since Ive started using the TA (got it yesterday). Ive rebooted the TA and tivo a few times but still cant get many SDV channels to come in. My time warner boxes sometimes cant get the channel right but usually get it within a few seconds. I have firmware .801.
TW seems to think its just a temporary problem and the problem is not on my end... Im wondering if trying a different coax cable will fix this (I remember reading people saying the coax cable in the TA box is crappy), but im not sure if it will fix this problem or not.

Well I probably have the same type of coax cable that came with my TA that you have and it seemed to me a decent quality cable with good connectors. Mine has been working fine with the exception of 2 times where the channel had no signal when the TiVo tried to record.

I know mine came with the piece of paper with a phone number to call if there was a problem so they could send a "hit" to the box to get it working. Have you tried that?

[Johnwashere]

Well I probably have the same type of coax cable that came with my TA that you have and it seemed to me a decent quality cable with good connectors. Mine has been working fine with the exception of 2 times where the channel had no signal when the TiVo tried to record.

I know mine came with the piece of paper with a phone number to call if there was a problem so they could send a "hit" to the box to get it working. Have you tried that?

Mine did not come with a piece of paper with a number. I usually get that paper with the TW set top boxes. I called in TW anyways to have the "hit" the box with activation (a few times actully) but this didnt do anything.

[jeffspam]

The cable is RG59, which should be fine for a short patch cable. But I did think at the time "hmm... you think they'd send out an RG6 cable". There's a signal strength meter under one of the tivo's menus. I don't know how accurate the meter is, but I suppose you could get a basic idea of how your signal is (though you'd need to dig through the diagnostic menus to get an idea of what your upstream signal is doing).

You know, I didn't get that paper with the phone number on it. Would someone mind sending it, either posting here or via PM? Thanks!

[Johnwashere]

I was told that these TAs didnt need to get activated, not sure if thats true or not. jeff, are you getting all your channels OK? I live in Dublin too (off of summit view) and many of SDV channels done come in.
I just checked my signal strength and Im getting 62 and 68 to jump around. Maybe this is whats causing my problems.
edit- my signal strength on a SD channel (like 8) is a 93, then the other tuner thats on a HD non SDV channel is jumping from a 68 to 75 a lot.

[SCSIRAID]

LED: Solid
Tuning Adapter: Not Available
Last Status: Initializing
Channel List Received


Why on Earth would this fail, after each time it's fixed, only after several days of slowly degrading availability... basically, I get individual channels that start dropping and, eventually, the whole thing goes down? I can't imagine a USB cable would do that.

EDIT: and the TA, Last Status, and Channel List, as well as everything else on this screen, change/update when I turn the TA on and off, or unplug it, plug it back in, and so on. So it looks like it's at least talking.

Oddly, I found that TWC actually installed two cards in my TiVo; an mcard in slot one, and an scard in slot 2. I removed the scard, let it reconfigure itself, and tried again, but to no avail.

Well... it would seem that your problem lies with the cableco... Could be a bad TA.. it could also be a problem with the reverse path to the node.

[KeithB]

I was told that these TAs didnt need to get activated, not sure if thats true or not.
The Tuning Adapter contains a cable modem and TWC needs to know the MAC address of the cable modem/TA at your house to identify/provision/talk to it.

[jeffspam]

jeff, are you getting all your channels OK?I haven't explicitly checked that I'm getting everything I'm supposed to, but I am getting DiscoveryHD, SciFiHD, Palladium, a few HD sports channels, and a bunch more. If you're still having problems, I'd call the TA rep @ TW and ask him to look into it. He told me that none of the CS reps currently have troubleshooting knowledge of the TAs, and that he should be the primary contact for the next week or two.

[realityboy]

The Tuning Adapter contains a cable modem and TWC needs to know the MAC address of the cable modem/TA at your house to identify/provision/talk to it.

I didn't have to do anything to activate mine, and I receive all my SDV channels. Maybe they got this info before giving it out?

[kmurchison]

I'm in WNY/Amherst. I got a tuning adapter a couple days ago. Got it all hooked up. I'm having issues tuning SDV channels randomly. CNNHD, for example, works fine on minute but I can't tune to it the next. All SDV channels seem to be working at some time or another. I don't think its a signal strength problem. TWC says some other people have reported this issue and it is a problem with the Cisco firmware. Is anyone here having this problem?
I had similar problems and it came down to two things:

1. Signal strength. I reworked my cabling to remove a -3.5db drop going to the TA/TiVo and this solved all of my problems on the "free" HD channels

2. One of my two CC was not provisioned properly which randomly prevented me from tuning "tiered" HD channels depending on which tuner was being used

[Johnwashere]

I haven't explicitly checked that I'm getting everything I'm supposed to, but I am getting DiscoveryHD, SciFiHD, Palladium, a few HD sports channels, and a bunch more. If you're still having problems, I'd call the TA rep @ TW and ask him to look into it. He told me that none of the CS reps currently have troubleshooting knowledge of the TAs, and that he should be the primary contact for the next week or two.

Yea Ive done many reboots and my tuner adapter still wont get some channels.

[dolfer]

Does anyone in Cincinnati have the .0801 firmware update yet? If so, please let us know!

Also, if you had the rebooting TA problem, did this update fix it???

Thanks, Dolf

P.S. I disconnected my TA and I am waiting until I hear that 0801 is out in Cincy! ;)

[Johnwashere]

Does anyone in Cincinnati have the .0801 firmware update yet? If so, please let us know!

Also, if you had the rebooting TA problem, did this update fix it???

Thanks, Dolf

P.S. I disconnected my TA and I am waiting until I hear that 0801 is out in Cincy! ;)

Im in Columbus and I got a TA a few days ago and mine allready had 0801 on it. Columbus got some of there TAs from Cincinnati too. Now if I could just got my TA to get all my SDV channels...

[SCSIRAID]

Does anyone in Cincinnati have the .0801 firmware update yet? If so, please let us know!

Also, if you had the rebooting TA problem, did this update fix it???

Thanks, Dolf

P.S. I disconnected my TA and I am waiting until I hear that 0801 is out in Cincy! ;)

Plug it in and see if it gets a fw push.....

[mikeyts]

P.S. I disconnected my TA and I am waiting until I hear that 0801 is out in Cincy! ;)At least keep it plugged into the cable (without the USB plugged into TiVo). That way, it'll get the update when they issue it and you can check from time to time.

[tgrad]

I had similar problems and it came down to two things:

1. Signal strength. I reworked my cabling to remove a -3.5db drop going to the TA/TiVo and this solved all of my problems on the "free" HD channels

2. One of my two CC was not provisioned properly which randomly prevented me from tuning "tiered" HD channels depending on which tuner was being used

I had my tuning adapter installed on Friday and I have had the same problem. It seems like at least 50% of the time I try and tune an SDV HD channel I get the message that it can not be tuned. If I try to go to any other SDV channel I get the same message. I can tune back to a non-SDV channel and then back and it works fine. Can't seem to tell if has to do specifically with one cable card. They both test fine when tuning the SDV channels.

Any thoughts?

[eliminator]

I'm in Buffalo/Amherst, NY. My tuning adapter was having major problems. Randomly not being able to change to SDV channels. At one point it seemed like channels weren't provisioned correctly. I rebooted a few times at one point and it was working perfectly for a few days, SDV channels included. I even recorded Planet Earth on the weekend for four hours with no problem. Today SDV channels are randomly not working (Can not be tuned at this time message) and even freezing the picture after 15 minutes or so. Very frustrating.

Edit: I'm still on 701.

[dolfer]

It seems as though that even after all of the delays the TA's are far from from being ready for primetime... I am keeping mine *unplugged* for the time being. I sure hope firmware updates will quickly correct these issues.

Luckily for me, I am not missing out on anything yet. I could really care less about any of the affected channels in the Time Warner Cincinnati area. However, when they start adding some new HD I hope the TA will be stable at that point.

[Johnwashere]

Luckily for me, I am not missing out on anything yet. I could really care less about any of the affected channels in the Time Warner Cincinnati area.

Your lucky. Here in Columbus there 70+ channels in SDV. Im missing a ton of channels still with my TA. I wish they would have delayed SDV before they got these TA's working properly..
Typical TW...

[SCSIRAID]

It seems as though that even after all of the delays the TA's are far from from being ready for primetime... I am keeping mine *unplugged* for the time being. I sure hope firmware updates will quickly correct these issues.

Luckily for me, I am not missing out on anything yet. I could really care less about any of the affected channels in the Time Warner Cincinnati area. However, when they start adding some new HD I hope the TA will be stable at that point.


Well.... for me... Here in Raleigh with .0801, TA is solid as a rock. Even with .0701 the only issues I have seen after weeks of use was the periodic reboots and one 'black screen' recording. And I really put it thru its paces... (>100 Season Passes). Other divisions may have head end configuration issues that are leading to problems... but the TA's themselves have passed the test with me.

[TroyB]

Your lucky. Here in Columbus there 70+ channels in SDV. Im missing a ton of channels still with my TA. I wish they would have delayed SDV before they got these TA's working properly..
Typical TW...

I just installed my TA yeserday and still had over 50 channels not tunning in. This morning i made a list of channels that when thuned to only resulted in a black screen, then a message saying "This channel is temporarily unavailable"

Called Time Warner and they sent out someone, after going through the usual "cable cards are stupid, why didn't I just get a cable box" routine and rebooting everything a couple of times he got a call from he said was a technician saying it was a billing issue that was the problem and was not letting the TA tune the channel. He said it was affecting everyone in Columbus area that had a TA and they were working on it.
I don't know whether to believe them or not because sometimes a channel will come in and sometimes it won't.

[realityboy]

It seems as though that even after all of the delays the TA's are far from from being ready for primetime... I am keeping mine *unplugged* for the time being. I sure hope firmware updates will quickly correct these issues.

Luckily for me, I am not missing out on anything yet. I could really care less about any of the affected channels in the Time Warner Cincinnati area. However, when they start adding some new HD I hope the TA will be stable at that point.

I'm in Dayton, but I'm pretty sure both would have the same software versions. I still have .0701, but obviously some things are different between the two areas because I have had no problems with my TA rebooting.

[dwgsp]

...he got a call from he said was a technician saying it was a billing issue that was the problem and was not letting the TA tune the channel. He said it was affecting everyone in Columbus area that had a TA and they were working on it.
I don't know whether to believe them or not because sometimes a channel will come in and sometimes it won't.

I believe it. I had a similar problem when I first got a TA. It turned out that my account did not have digital cable enabled, so I could only get some of the channels. The fix was to add digital cable to my account (no additional charge).

The funny part was that their computer system links digital cable to possession of a cable box, so they had to send me a box even though I did not need it. I hooked it up to a spare TV.

This was with TW Rochester. It would not surprise me if other TW divisions had similar idiosyncrasies.

/Don

[dolfer]

Still no one with .0801? in Cincinnati???? I guess I'll have to hook it up tonight and see what happens.

If 0801 is available would it receive the update immediately? Not quite sure how such updates work on the Time Warner side of things...

[mikeyts]

Still no one with .0801? in Cincinnati???? I guess I'll have to hook it up tonight and see what happens.

If 0801 is available would it receive the update immediately? Not quite sure how such updates work on the Time Warner side of things...As I said before you can split the cable externally between it and the TiVo and leave it connected (I'm getting some interference from the box on 525 MHz, so it's connected on a separate cable run in from another room and it works fine). You might actually be able to use its internal splitter--I'm pretty sure that its passive and that it never (intentionally) modifies the signal. If you leave it plugged in that way it will get the next firmware update whenever they make it without you using it and you can plug the USB cable from TiVo into it from time to time to check.

[SCSIRAID]

As I said before you can split the cable externally between it and the TiVo and leave it connected (I'm getting some interference from the box on 525 MHz, so it's connected on a separate cable run in from another room and it works fine). You might actually be able to use its internal splitter--I'm pretty sure that its passive and that it never (intentionally) modifies the signal. If you leave it plugged in that way it will get the next firmware update whenever they make it without you using it and you can plug the USB cable from TiVo into it from time to time to check.

Or just leave the USB unhooked. As you said.. the RF is passthru and not modified by the TA. Allegedly the TA does amplify it a bit.

[Grumock]

the Rf connector is just a passthru, & i think that the DB gain is only 3DB from it, so it should not cause any real issues.

[muya]

just a quick note. I have older wiring in my condo and had problems with sound and pixelation. i went to my local radio shack and picked up a bi-directional amplifier and it seems to have done the trick.

[GBK33]

if the RF is just a passthru, does it need to be connected to the TA at all? Whay can't I just bypass it?

[mikeyts]

if the RF is just a passthru, does it need to be connected to the TA at all? Whay can't I just bypass it?It very much needs to be connected to the TA. Where is the TA supposed to get information about tuning parameters of switched broadcasts to relay to TiVo? Out of thin air? The TA talks a proprietary, system-dependent protocol to the cable system over the coax, just like a leased cable box does, obtaining information on where to tune requested switched broadcasts and gives that information to TiVo through the USB connection, using an open standard protocol.

The TA needs to be connected to the coax from the wall, but TiVo doesn't need to be connected to the coax output on the TA. It can be connected to any other cable or an external split of the cable fed into the TA.

[livefromny]

I am constantly having the reboot issue. Dozens of times since installation. I'm on TW in Austin.

[dolfer]

I am constantly having the reboot issue. Dozens of times since installation. I'm on TW in Austin.

The TA is useless for me in Cincinnati... It remains disconnected. If you look through this post you can see me mention it SEVERAL times... ;)

A new firmware revision (.0801) might be the answer but as far as I know Time Warner Cincinnati is still on .0701.

Can you check and see what firmware version you have?????

If you have .0801 then I am going to be very concerned!

When this TV season winds down I plan on hooking it up again and seeing if it is usable. I am sure they are doing the absolute minimum (allowed by law or any agreements they made) to fix these problems...

Maybe they'll have it fixed in time for the 2009 Fall premieres???

[SCSIRAID]

The TA is useless for me in Cincinnati... It remains disconnected. If you look through this post you can see me mention it SEVERAL times... ;)

A new firmware revision (.0801) might be the answer but as far as I know Time Warner Cincinnati is still on .0701.

Can you check and see what firmware version you have?????

If you have .0801 then I am going to be very concerned!

When this TV season winds down I plan on hooking it up again and seeing if it is usable. I am sure they are doing the absolute minimum (allowed by law or any agreements they made) to fix these problems...

Maybe they'll have it fixed in time for the 2009 Fall premieres???

Have you raised heck with the enginnering dept?

[dolfer]

I am constantly having the reboot issue. Dozens of times since installation. I'm on TW in Austin.

One more thing... Do you have a Tivo HD or a Series3?

A friend of mine on Time Warner Cincinnati has a Series3 and does NOT have the reboot issue.

I have a Tivo HD...

If that's not the issue, then it could be simply a bunch of defective boxes are out there meaning you would just have to take it in for replacement.

[dolfer]

Have you raised heck with the enginnering dept?

Not yet! ;)

Currently I am not really missing out on too much by not having the TA...

However when they start adding more compelling HD channels into SDV then I'll start getting PO'd if the reboot issue has not been resolved.

I mean seriously... The TA's were delivered several months late to begin with and they still don't work properly???? C'mon...

All Time Warner wants is to make our lives as crappy as possible until we switch over to one of their MISERABLE boxes. I refuse...

[SCSIRAID]

Not yet! ;)
All Time Warner wants is to make our lives as crappy as possible until we switch over to one of their MISERABLE boxes. I refuse...

I really dont think that will be the case. I have worked with several TWC engineering folks and they have bent over backwards to help me and seemed to truly care about the quality of their product.

Its probably more likely that they dont realize that there is a problem. I would encourgage you to make sure they know there is an issue. I believe you will find their Director of Technical Operations will be very interested.

[s2krazy]

I noticed I had lost a channel or two, (Scifi and now Verses). I meant to look into this but am now really pissed cause I missed recording my Indycar race. I guess step one is a reboot of the TA? Anything else to try on a weekend?

[mikeyts]

I noticed I had lost a channel or two, (Scifi and now Verses). I meant to look into this but am now really pissed cause I missed recording my Indycar race. I guess step one is a reboot of the TA? Anything else to try on a weekend?If I split a cable between the TA and TiVo, either through the TA or by using an external splitter, I cannot tune channels in the QAM carrier at 525 MHz. As a workaround, I ran a cable in from an outlet in another room. I plan to get another TA from TWC and see if it has the same problem. I expect that it will not.

[pmiranda]

If I split a cable between the TA and TiVo, either through the TA or by using an external splitter, I cannot tune channels in the QAM carrier at 525 MHz. As a workaround, I ran a cable in from an outlet in another room. I plan to get another TA from TWC and see if it has the same problem. I expect that it will not.

I had the same problem in a different frequency band. Check all splitters and connections upstream. You can put the TiVo on a line from a booster amp, but the TA has to be able to talk upstream and most amps seem to interfere with that.

[f0gax]

San Antonio, TX

I've had the darn thing for a couple of months I guess (however long it's been since they were available, got it first day). Had some trouble at first, but then it pretty much stabilized.

Until this past week or so. Now, just about every day I have to reboot the TA. What's weird is that the problem only affects the SDV HD channels. SDV SD stations come in just fine no matter what.

And now, for the past hour, the little green light is blinking. Mocking me I think. Since I rebooted the TA, the Tivo, and re-seated all the cables.

I don't think it's signal or cable problem as I had to have a guy out a few weeks ago for a Road Runner problem that turned out to be shoddy wiring. He redid the cables from the ped to the box. Then tested all the cables in the house. Made new ones for the patches from the walls to the devices. And changed out any sub-standard outlets.

I know that if I call they're going to tell me to reboot the TA and the Tivo. Which of course I did to no avail. Then they'll recommend a truck roll. Which I do not have time for.

Should I ask for a new TA?

[ferjy Fangle]

Can anyone answer who told them that the TA firmware upgrade from version 070* to 080* and above was for the reboot issues that are described in the TA threads, or did the upgrade just happen to coincide with the resolution of the reboot issues? I have been getting conflicting information from my Cable Reps. and even SA/Cisco themselves:eek:

[dolfer]

When I first got the TA it was worthless because of the reboots... When the firmware update finally came out it resolved the problem. I don't know for sure but it definitely seems to make sense that the upgrade resolved the problem. I have been up for about 3 weeks straight now with no issues!

Can anyone answer who told them that the TA firmware upgrade from version 070* to 080* and above was for the reboot issues that are described in the TA threads, or did the upgrade just happen to coincide with the resolution of the reboot issues? I have been getting conflicting information from my Cable Reps. and even SA/Cisco themselves:eek:

[LuvNoize]

I just scheduled an installation for the first week in August with TW, in a suburb just north of Columbus, OH.

Does anyone know if you have to tell them that they need to provide the Cisco STA1520 or not? I don't want to have to wait for days to get my HD Tivo up and running...

I have had WOW for the last two years without issues in my current residence, no WOW where we are moving :mad:

[dlfl]

I just scheduled an installation for the first week in August with TW, in a suburb just north of Columbus, OH.

Does anyone know if you have to tell them that they need to provide the Cisco STA1520 or not? I don't want to have to wait for days to get my HD Tivo up and running...

I have had WOW for the last two years without issues in my current residence, no WOW where we are moving :mad:
Play it safe and tell them 1) it's a TiVo, 2) you need cable card(s), and 3) you need a TA. They should note it on the work order.

I just had an installation near Dayton, OH and they insisted they don't have m-cards, so I have to pay rental for two s-cards at $2.54/mo. So ask for an m-card (unless you have an S3 instead of an HD). The two installers barely knew how to hook up the TA, didn't know what channels I was supposed to receive and knew nothing about how to check cable cards and TA in the TiVo diagnostics.

I also fault TiVo for not telling you how to check these diagnostics in their "Instructions for Cable Card Installers". I even searched their support and found nothing of any value on this. If you don't read this forum, you are SOL.

EDIT: I finally did find instructions for using cable card diagnostics by diligent searching in the TiVo support documentation. I still say this should be spelled out in the sheet they send with the TiVo.

[dolfer]

Why can't they get this right????? ;(

After several weeks of reboot free viewing I started noticing the "Tuning Adapter Detected" screen crop up more and more!

Now it just messed up the ending of a show tonight.

Why can't this work!?!?!?

Also, can the Tivo be updated to resume recording after a reboot incident? One of the major annoyances of the TA reboot is that the Tivo doesn't *resume* recording.

Since it looks like TWC isn't going to have a stable TA any time soon, it might be a good idea for Tivo to figure this out.

Anyone else in Time Warner Cincinnati area experiencing reboots more often????

[Wpride33]

I was in the same situation as you: lots of reboots until the firmware upgrade, then in the last few days, I've been getting lots of reboots or required reboots to get rid of the flashing green light.

BTW, I'm in Milwaukee.

[sidsub]

I've been reading through this thread with interest. My problem has been of the TiVo rebooting spontaneously when the tuning adapter is connected. I think the TA reboots as well at times, but of course having the TiVo reboot is completely unacceptable. I had this problem happen with my first TiVo HD and first tuning adapter, and at that point I thought it was a bad TiVo. Replaced it, and it happened almost immediately. Then, by elimination, I realized it was the TA. So I replaced the TA and the rebooting stopped for a month. Then it came back with a vengeance... so this means two different TiVos and two different tuning adapters with the same problem.

When it starts happening, basically whatever I do on the TiVo can trigger a reboot... usually within a few minutes of use. The TiVo is a TiVo HD, while the tuning adapter is a TW-Austin Cisco STA 1520.

I'm about to give up and switch to satellite.

[dlfl]

Why can't they get this right????? ;(

After several weeks of reboot free viewing I started noticing the "Tuning Adapter Detected" screen crop up more and more!

Now it just messed up the ending of a show tonight.

Why can't this work!?!?!?

Also, can the Tivo be updated to resume recording after a reboot incident? One of the major annoyances of the TA reboot is that the Tivo doesn't *resume* recording.

Since it looks like TWC isn't going to have a stable TA any time soon, it might be a good idea for Tivo to figure this out.

Anyone else in Time Warner Cincinnati area experiencing reboots more often????
That does stink! (Old guy word that means "sucks").

Makes me feel very lucky (fingers crossed). I had CC's and TA installed 6 days ago and got the 11.0d update last night. My TA has been solid and no reboots of either the TA or the TiVo (HD). I'm in Englewood, which is northwest of Dayton. I get some video and audio glitches occasionally on some channels, although my RS uncorrected counts are always zero. In other words it isn't perfect, but good enough.

I know you have the latest TA software (801) as do I. So I have to think that differences in the hardware in our TWC nodes are the most likely explanation for your problems. Unfortunately TWC doesn't have much incentive to take ownership of the problem unless it affects their STBs, and I wonder if TiVo has the resources to debug it.

[dolfer]

Just noticed another reboot today... Maybe I have a defective unit. I am going to take it back and get a new one. I am tired of this!

[SCSIRAID]

Just noticed another reboot today... Maybe I have a defective unit. I am going to take it back and get a new one. I am tired of this!

How often is it rebooting? What are the RDC/FDC signal levels?

[dolfer]

How often is it rebooting? What are the RDC/FDC signal levels?

In the very beginning (on 701) it was rebooting daily. I got sick of it and disconnected it. When the 0801 update came out I reconnected it and had about a solid month of non-rebooting bliss. Then in the past couple weeks it has started rebooting again. Every few days. Enough to be annoying and enough to be a deal-breaker again since the Tivo can't resume recording after a reboot event.

Where would I find those levels??? In the TA diagnostics?

[SCSIRAID]

In the very beginning (on 701) it was rebooting daily. I got sick of it and disconnected it. When the 0801 update came out I reconnected it and had about a solid month of non-rebooting bliss. Then in the past couple weeks it has started rebooting again. Every few days. Enough to be annoying and enough to be a deal-breaker again since the Tivo can't resume recording after a reboot event.

Where would I find those levels??? In the TA diagnostics?

Bummer... Mine has been rock solid. RDC/FDC values are in TA Diags.

[dolfer]

Bummer... Mine has been rock solid. RDC/FDC values are in TA Diags.

SCSI,

My FDC values are: 119.00 MHz / -7 dBmV

My RDC values are: 11.00 MHz / 32 dBmV

Let me know if those are ok...

Thanks,
D

[dlfl]

Just for comparison, my values (with no TA reboots) are:

FDC: 107.0 MHz / -6 dBmV

RDC: 19.0 MHz / 44 dBmV

[SCSIRAID]

SCSI,

My FDC values are: 119.00 MHz / -7 dBmV

My RDC values are: 11.00 MHz / 32 dBmV

Let me know if those are ok...

Thanks,
D

Yes... they seem ok.

Mine are:

FDC 74Mhz / -1 dBmV
RDC 25Mhz / 47 dBmV

My RDC is higher because I have a distribution amp with an 8 way splitter plus another 2 way splitter and 3db attenuator 'in the way' of the reverse path. The TA has to shout to be heard ;>)

[dolfer]

Yes... they seem ok.

Mine are:

FDC 74Mhz / -1 dBmV
RDC 25Mhz / 47 dBmV

My RDC is higher because I have a distribution amp with an 8 way splitter plus another 2 way splitter and 3db attenuator 'in the way' of the reverse path. The TA has to shout to be heard ;>)

Thanks DFL and SCSI for posting this.

What levels are considered bad?

[dlfl]

Don't want to preempt SCSIRAID from answering this here but he has already spoken on the subject in this post on the SDV FAQ sticky thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=7378554#post7378554).

[legendarybc]

OK, so according to SCSIRAID,

"As to values... Tuner and FDC should probably be between -8 and 0 (considering the gain in the TA). RDC should be less than 50."

And the obvious question is, what can I do to fix these levels? Mine are:

Tuner -6
FDC -13
RDC 49

[SCSIRAID]

OK, so according to SCSIRAID,



And the obvious question is, what can I do to fix these levels? Mine are:

Tuner -6
FDC -13
RDC 49

Do you have a 'tilt compensator' installed somewhere? I wouldnt expect your FDC to be that much lower than your 'tuner' value. Your RDC is right on the edge of trouble. I would suggest that you call your cableco... you may need their help to sort this out.

Can you describe exactly how your cable wiring is situated starting where the cable enters your house? Where are the splitters? How many endpoints? etc etc....

[legendarybc]

Do you have a 'tilt compensator' installed somewhere? I wouldnt expect your FDC to be that much lower than your 'tuner' value. Your RDC is right on the edge of trouble. I would suggest that you call your cableco... you may need their help to sort this out.

Can you describe exactly how your cable wiring is situated starting where the cable enters your house? Where are the splitters? How many endpoints? etc etc....

Incoming cable from street-->2-way tap (for modem)-->4-way splitter

1:Terminated at splitter
2:Master Bedroom, feeds TiVo S2
3:Spare room, feeds QAM to DTV
4:Main room, split once again behind cabinet, 1 for TiVo S3 and 1 for the TA

While writing this post, I removed the splitter behind the cabinet. #4 now feeds the TA which in-turn feeds the S3. The levels are now:

Tuner -4
FDC -10
RDC 49

In any case, there are no amps, attenuators, or extra equipment. Signal strength at the TiVo is anywhere from 95 to 100, SNR's are usually 33 to 35. 99% of the time, no RS uncorrected errors.

My next experiment is to take the 4-way splitter out and see how that affects my TA levels.

[SCSIRAID]

Incoming cable from street-->2-way tap (for modem)-->4-way splitter

1:Terminated at splitter
2:Master Bedroom, feeds TiVo S2
3:Spare room, feeds QAM to DTV
4:Main room, split once again behind cabinet, 1 for TiVo S3 and 1 for the TA

While writing this post, I removed the splitter behind the cabinet. #4 now feeds the TA which in-turn feeds the S3. The levels are now:

Tuner -4
FDC -10
RDC 49

In any case, there are no amps, attenuators, or extra equipment. Signal strength at the TiVo is anywhere from 95 to 100, SNR's are usually 33 to 35. 99% of the time, no RS uncorrected errors.

My next experiment is to take the 4-way splitter out and see how that affects my TA levels.

Is the cable modem drive by a 'tap' or a 'splitter'? You might try removing the CM tap/splitter and putting driving the CM from the 4 way splitter with the incoming cable directly driving the 4 way splitter. I would use the 'feed thru' capability of the TA instead of splitting and driving TA and TiVo independently.

There is some low frequency loss going on somewhere... perhaps the local node needs some calibration.

[bradenmcg]

Wow, happy I found this thread.

We have SDV in Mayfield Heights, OH (suburb of Cleveland).

Ever since getting the TAs, we haven't gotten any (or very few) recorded suggestions. My wife and I are both VERY annoyed by this.

That aside...

One of our two TivoHDs gets sporadic "macroblocking" / "pixelation" and sound drop outs. In an effort to troubleshoot, I have tried:

Swapped TAs between the units - no change
Swapped the actual Tivos between physical location (using the same cables)

What's more odd is that it only seems to happen more at our main viewing area, the living room. The other THD is in the bedroom and we don't watch it as often (except during sweeps, when it records so we can transfer downstairs to watch later). Didn't notice much or any before the TA. Don't have a splitter handy to bypass the TA although I'm planning on picking one up. I did just try swapping the cable that TWC supplied - it actually looked decent, may have been RG6, had decent snap-n-seal connectors on the ends. The swapped cable (between Tivo & TA) seems to have made a minor improvement in blocking but it's hard to say as it is intermittent anyway.

When I do have blocking, RS corrected and uncorrected errors DO NOT change - they are always zero.

FDC on TA: 75 mhz | level -4dBmV | s/n 28dB
QAM (currently): 573 mhz | level 0dBmV | s/n 35dB
RDC on TA: 21 mhz | power 55dBmV | retrans: 4

My cable plant is as follows:
Single RG6 quad-shield connected to feed from TWC in my attic (had to bribe the installer to get him to walk on my garage roof)
Feeds down makeshift cable run along with a bunch of cat5e and RG6qs for my upstairs TVs, down to the crawlspace
2-way splitter, one leg to cable modem
other leg to ChannelVision 8-way powered distribution amp (CVT-2/8PIA II). It doesn't have reverse amplification, but it also claims to not affect RDC transmission.

7 of the 8 ports on the CV amp run to a wallplate in my house (all rg6 quad), and anything that doesn't have equipment connected has a proper 75ohm terminator on the connection. This also goes for the unused port on the amp.

I'm ready to kill someone. The lack of suggestions is INCREDIBLY annoying as suggestions are really one of the main reasons to own a Tivo. By disabling them (however it has been done) they are impacting the features of my equipment. :mad: The pixellation is downright maddening, as it always seems to happen during the middle of important scenes or dialog, and every time it drops out it causes my audio receiver to have to re-train on the dolby audio too (we primarily watch HD channels, most of which are SDV in this market now).

Help? Please?

[dlfl]

bradenmcg,

I assume the FDC/RDC numbers you gave are for the "bad" TiVo. What are they for the "good" TiVo?

It's probably too inconvenient to do, but it would be interesting to run right from your splitter to the "bad" TiVo (taking the amp out of the chain).

How many A/V glitches do you get in a one hour HD program?

I find it very interesting that your RS error counts are zero even with glitches. Since your other TiVo does NOT have these glitches, it seems to blow the common belief that zero uncorrected errors means the glitches were in the signal itself.

[bradenmcg]

bradenmcg,

I assume the FDC/RDC numbers you gave are for the "bad" TiVo. What are they for the "good" TiVo?I believe similar, but I can confirm that in a bit here.

It's probably too inconvenient to do, but it would be interesting to run right from your splitter to the "bad" TiVo (taking the amp out of the chain).Actually it shouldn't be that bad, as all of my cable and the distribution amp are about 1 foot from the 2-way that feeds it and the modem. I should have enough slack on the line to be able to feed direct from that 2-way, bypassing the amp. It is a bit of a pain in the arse though. ;) I'd rather avoid it if possible because I don't think it's a signal problem.

How many A/V glitches do you get in a one hour HD program?It varies drastically. We watched an episode of Star Trek TNG (on the HD channel in standard def, lol) and it was intolerable. Easily once every minute or two for a while, but then it stops for a bit, and then continues again. Maddening.

I find it very interesting that your RS error counts are zero even with glitches. Since your other TiVo does NOT have these glitches, it seems to blow the common belief that zero uncorrected errors means the glitches were in the signal itself.Yeah, I've lost all faith in any of the error counters, because I'm clearly having problems but NONE of the signal diagnostics show anything of value. Makes it very difficult to troubleshoot or try to point a finger back at the cable company....


For what it's worth, I just pulled up the manual for the distribution amp, and I noticed that I screwed up minorly. Not sure how much (if at all) it affected. The DAmp has the ability to inject a private modulated video feed for security cams or whatnot. I'm not using this. The amp shipped with a rubber cap over the injection port and I never thought to touch it. I looked at the manual again, and while they don't explicitly mention this, one of the diagrams shows that an unused injector port should also have a 75ohm terminator on the end. I didn't have one on there until about 20 minutes ago... :rolleyes: I'd find it VERY strange if somehow the DAmp was picking up just enough interference on that unterminated, not-wired port to foul up the rest of the system, but I certainly can't rule it out entirely... yet.

Watching some SDV stuff on the problem location right now, haven't seen blocking yet, but I won't consider it "Fixed" until I am problem free for a few days, which I doubt will happen... :up:

[tj68]

Milwaukee TWC, TiVo HD with cable card. Works fine till Thursday. I lost most of the cable channel. Still have OTA and a few cable channel. The TWC tech installs a Cisco STA1520 TA and a new Mcard and still no cable channels. So I call TiVo support and the tech can not find a problem, puts me on hold. Comes back and asks to check signal strangth. It's 100 and she says too much signal strangth is the problem and try installing a low pass filter.

[tj68]

July 17th, 2009 lost channels. TWC tech comes and installs tuner adapter and a Mcard. Still missing cable channels only get the OTA channels plus a few cable channels. Talk to TiVo tech on the phone and she said the SDV channels have to much signal strength. I did find most of the channels to have 100% but a few missing channel have 94% signal strength.

Milwaukee Time Warner

Tim

[dlfl]

TWC Southwest Ohio. My signal strengths are in the same range and I'm not missing any channels -- I doubt that is your problem. Only difference is I have 2 s-cards.

[Kahless]

Hi everyone. I am not a technical expert on this matter about signal strength etc. TWC just did an upgrade of the cable in my HAH community. I once again have the blinking green light on my Tivo & tuning adapter. First comment regarding the tuning adapter. After TWC installed the MS CableCard in my Tivo, I picked up 1/3rd of the digital channels. The tech guy said I needed a Tuning Adapter. TWC wouldn't mail one to me, they wouldn't install one for me, I had to drive 50 miles to Columbus to pick one up and install it myself. It didn't work. Two of TWC techies came out a week later and found out that there is a sequence in installing the tuning adapter to get it to work. You have to turn it on with the cable attached but no Tivo. Then after a solid green light, connect the USB to the Tivo, then connect the wireless USB adapter to the Tivo. If you do it any in other order, the adapter doesn't work right. I originally had 55% signal strength on all channels. TWC must have done something because some problems started when it went to 100%. So I put in a splitter to knock it down and ran an extra line to my HD TV so I could bypass the Tivo. That knocked the signal strength down to 95%. It worked fine for 2 weeks then. Right now since last night, the tuning adapter has a blinking green light but I have all my channels. Rebooting the tuning adapter does nothing, still blinks green.
I also found either by accident or purpose that TWC inserts local advertisements at 480i on the HD channels. So when I try to fast forward through the commercials I get a black screen and have to "play" the commercial before I can fast forward again.

[dlfl]

Kahless,

What a mess! By comparison my experience with TWC has been good. However, I am not satisfied. I have A/V glitches in varying numbers and occasional failure to tune, plus occasional remote control lockups. There is nothing in my TiVo diagnostic screens to pinpoint a problem -- they indicate all is OK. I am caught in the middle. I know if I complain to TWC they will blame it on my TiVo's tuners and if I complain to TiVo they will blame it on TWC's signals. Adding insult to injury is the fact that TWC puts copy-once protection on all their digital channels except local broadcasts, which prevents MRV and TTG.

For the TiVo HD there is the fundamental problem that neither TiVo nor your cable co can take ownership of the task of delivering good viewing. The cable co doesn't even have an incentive to do so -- they would make more money if TiVo disappeared. And SDV plus Tuning Adapters just complicate things and make the overall system less reliable.

I'm just living with it because I like TiVo and I gather other digital cable DVR's are even worse. I'm hoping a better alternative will eventually be available -- maybe the (new) DirecTiVo (http://www.tivo.com/mytivo/directv-signup.html)which is supposed to come out next year(?).

[dwgsp]

I also found either by accident or purpose that TWC inserts local advertisements at 480i on the HD channels. So when I try to fast forward through the commercials I get a black screen and have to "play" the commercial before I can fast forward again.

My cable company also inserts 480i commercials, but I don't experience the problem that you're having. I suggest that you configure your Tivo to always output 720p or 1080i (which means that it will convert the 480i commercial to one of those resolutions), and see if the problem goes away. If it does, then it's likely that your TV is not handling the change in resolution from HD to 480i.

/Don

[KungFuCow]

Maybe someone here can help me out with this.

Since the analog bug was pretty much rendering my Tivo useless, I upgraded to digital cable and got a cablecard. Now I need a tuning adapter.

Problem is, I live in an apartment and cable is supplied through a bulk account. I cant order a tuning adapter online. CSRs dont even seem to know what tuning adapters are. Anyone got any insight on how I might be able to score a tuning adapter?

[dlfl]

Maybe someone here can help me out with this.

Since the analog bug was pretty much rendering my Tivo useless, I upgraded to digital cable and got a cablecard. Now I need a tuning adapter.

Problem is, I live in an apartment and cable is supplied through a bulk account. I cant order a tuning adapter online. CSRs dont even seem to know what tuning adapters are. Anyone got any insight on how I might be able to score a tuning adapter?
I assume you are sure you need a TA, i.e., TWC is using SDV in your area (?). If you're not sure check their web site for Switched Digital Video and the CSRs should also be able to tell you.

If you do need a TA you have to push it with the CSRs. They have to have TA's and have to supply them to you either by delivering one to you or having you pick one up at a store.

If you can't get anywhere with the CSRs and their supervisors, there is a TiVo CABLECard help line that I assume would be a logical place to try. I don't have it handy, so just go into TiVo support and hunt around.

One tip: the short coax cable that comes with the TA kits is notoriously bad, regardless of how nice it looks. If an installer is handy he can make up a new cable in a minute. Otherwise buy one.

[dolfer]

I finally took my TA into TW and got a new one on Friday. So far so good! No reboots... I really hope I just had a defective unit before...

I will keep everyone posted when I make it to a few anniversaries w/out a reboot.

[dlfl]

I finally took my TA into TW and got a new one on Friday. So far so good! No reboots... I really hope I just had a defective unit before...

I will keep everyone posted when I make it to a few anniversaries w/out a reboot.
Fingers crossed! I had to reboot my TA recently after one month in service. It was after an electrical storm came through so maybe that did it. It's on a surge protector but not a UPS, or the storm could have affected the cable system too.

Funny thing this morning. We have one TV on a direct cable input, so it gets the analog versions of the basic channels. All the channels froze at a fixed video picture with no audio for a long time this morning. Power cycling the TV brought back the same frozen image, so it wasn't something the TV was buffering (if it can even do that). Maybe it was some fiddling around TWC was doing in prep for their Aug 25 channel shuffle. It was OK later.

Our TiVo/TV setup had no problems during the same period, so it looks like whatever they did affected the analog channel versions only.

[pmiranda]

Maybe it was some fiddling around TWC was doing in prep for their Aug 25 channel shuffle.

What channel shuffle is this? Can you share any more about that? More HD's? More bandwidth for the ones we have?

[dlfl]

What channel shuffle is this? Can you share any more about that? More HD's? More bandwidth for the ones we have?
This is for southwest ohio (Cincinnati and Dayton areas). More HD's yes but more bandwidth per channel?-- I'd be surprised.

I believe everyone affected received a letter. There is a special web page on this but I don't have it handy right now. Unless you're in the affected area it would be meaningless to you anyway.

[pmiranda]

Oops, didn't notice we're in different areas. Good luck!

[dolfer]

This is for southwest ohio (Cincinnati and Dayton areas). More HD's yes but more bandwidth per channel?-- I'd be surprised.

I believe everyone affected received a letter. There is a special web page on this but I don't have it handy right now. Unless you're in the affected area it would be meaningless to you anyway.

Are you sure there are more HD's???? I don't think I rec'd the the letter? Or perhaps my wife threw it out! :mad:

I remember seeing something on a web site but it only mentioned shuffling stuff around. Which scares me! Hopefully our guide will get the changes ASAP! I don't remember any mentions of new HD.

[Grumock]

Maybe someone here can help me out with this.

Since the analog bug was pretty much rendering my Tivo useless, I upgraded to digital cable and got a cablecard. Now I need a tuning adapter.

Problem is, I live in an apartment and cable is supplied through a bulk account. I cant order a tuning adapter online. CSRs dont even seem to know what tuning adapters are. Anyone got any insight on how I might be able to score a tuning adapter?

I understand you are on a bulk account but when you upgraded is that account in your name? I would think that you can go to the your local TWC site & & fill out the order form for a TA. I think if you live in the Raleigh area they Fed-ex them to you.

[Grumock]

If you can't get anywhere with the CSRs and their supervisors, there is a TiVo CABLECard help line that I assume would be a logical place to try. I don't have it handy, so just go into TiVo support and hunt around.

I have tried that number in the past & they tell me to contact the local office it is an internal number & wont help you if you call them directly. they may however give you the actual URL to go to to fill out the form for the TA.

[dlfl]

This is in regard to the TWC Southwest Ohio channel shuffle coming 25 Aug:

Are you sure there are more HD's???? I don't think I rec'd the the letter? Or perhaps my wife threw it out! :mad:

I remember seeing something on a web site but it only mentioned shuffling stuff around. Which scares me! Hopefully our guide will get the changes ASAP! I don't remember any mentions of new HD.

First the URL TWC provided for info on this is:
http://www.twcinfo.com/
The linked page has a button to print out your personal lineup. You enter either your TWC acct # or your address. I tried it both ways and just got the page-not-found message. Smooth!

Sorry dolfer, I think you are right --- they are just shuffling. I guess I just generally expect their long term goal is to provide more HD. However that may not even be technically possible without squeezing the bandwidth on existing channels, or eliminating some of them.

How many decades do you think it will be before we can have FIOS ? How long before FIOS starts copy protecting its channels? Even with protection you still have the advantages of (1) generally superior PQ, (2) no TA required, and (3) more channels (although maybe not more channels per dollar).

[skasol]

No suggestions, My issue it's with no suggestions working with my 2 TA on my Tivo HD's, I get maybe about 2-3 suggestions a week, I have tried to reset them, etc but nothing seems to work.

This TA deal isn't very good it's definitely ruining my tivo experience.

[Grumock]

No suggestions, My issue it's with no suggestions working with my 2 TA on my Tivo HD's, I get maybe about 2-3 suggestions a week, I have tried to reset them, etc but nothing seems to work.

This TA deal isn't very good it's definitely ruining my tivo experience.

Not sure if you have tried what i am going to say but I will say it anyway. Unplug the USB cord from either the TIVO or TA, & then unplug the electric from the TA for about 5 seconds then plug it back in. Leave the USB cord unplugged. The light on the TA will be solid for maybe 30 seconds then start flashing. You must wait until the light stops flashing completely, unless it goes into a pattern of 6 blinks & then a pause. If it goes into that pattern then plug in the USB cord & the light should stop flashing. The Tivo should also automatically see the TA after this. If it does not, you may want to remove the wireless USB adapter if you have one, otherwise try the other USB port. If you have a wireless USB adapter, once you have the TIVO see the TA then plug it back in. 95% of the time this gets channels back in, unless there is something else going on at the site. Hope this helps

[KungFuCow]

I understand you are on a bulk account but when you upgraded is that account in your name? I would think that you can go to the your local TWC site & & fill out the order form for a TA. I think if you live in the Raleigh area they Fed-ex them to you.

Using my information, the upgrade site shows "No upgrade required".

I guess Im going to have to call them.

[esjones]

This is for southwest ohio (Cincinnati and Dayton areas). More HD's yes but more bandwidth per channel?-- I'd be surprised.

I believe everyone affected received a letter. There is a special web page on this but I don't have it handy right now. Unless you're in the affected area it would be meaningless to you anyway.

I received a letter (I'm in Springboro -Warren County). Is everyone assuming that the lineup change has been communicated to TiVo and that the change will go smoothly, or should someone send TWC's lineup card to TiVo in advance?

When I first got my TiVo HD, I could not get an accurate channel lineup on it. I had to spend several days working with TiVo to document the lineup and have them create one for me. I can't believe I was the first one in this TWC service area to have the problem!

- Earl

[esjones]

No suggestions, My issue it's with no suggestions working with my 2 TA on my Tivo HD's, I get maybe about 2-3 suggestions a week, I have tried to reset them, etc but nothing seems to work.

This TA deal isn't very good it's definitely ruining my tivo experience.

Sorry to hear so many problems with the TA. I am in the TWC Dayton, OH service area, and have never had a problem, except, in the case of a power outage, I might need to reboot TiVo and TA multiple times to get everything back up and running.

- Earl

[dlfl]

I received a letter (I'm in Springboro -Warren County). Is everyone assuming that the lineup change has been communicated to TiVo and that the change will go smoothly, or should someone send TWC's lineup card to TiVo in advance?

When I first got my TiVo HD, I could not get an accurate channel lineup on it. I had to spend several days working with TiVo to document the lineup and have them create one for me. I can't believe I was the first one in this TWC service area to have the problem!

- Earl
I submitted a "heads up" guide data problem report to TiVo a couple of weeks ago. Since they don't have a fitting category, I just fudged a report and put the heads up in the comments portion. It would seem impossible for the guide data to change exactly in synchronism with the channel changes.

My installers had no lineup info, although the CSR that scheduled the install assured me they would. It was like pulling teeth to get TWC to tell me what channels were in my service.

I invite you to contribute to my digital picture quality survey thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=431103).

[dolfer]

This is in regard to the TWC Southwest Ohio channel shuffle coming 25 Aug:



First the URL TWC provided for info on this is:
http://www.twcinfo.com/
The linked page has a button to print out your personal lineup. You enter either your TWC acct # or your address. I tried it both ways and just got the page-not-found message. Smooth!

Sorry dolfer, I think you are right --- they are just shuffling. I guess I just generally expect their long term goal is to provide more HD. However that may not even be technically possible without squeezing the bandwidth on existing channels, or eliminating some of them.

How many decades do you think it will be before we can have FIOS ? How long before FIOS starts copy protecting its channels? Even with protection you still have the advantages of (1) generally superior PQ, (2) no TA required, and (3) more channels (although maybe not more channels per dollar).

Thanks for the link!!!!

Do you think we are going to have any problems with our guide data when this big switch happens???? They *should* be prepared...

As for new HD, hopefully they will add some later in the year. Although I do recall this is usually the time of year they would do it.

[dlfl]

Thanks for the link!!!!

Do you think we are going to have any problems with our guide data when this big switch happens???? They *should* be prepared...

As for new HD, hopefully they will add some later in the year. Although I do recall this is usually the time of year they would do it.
Got a mailing about this today, including a new channel lineup glossy brochure. I still can't get the "print your lineup" button to work on the twinfo.com page, after I put in either my account # or my address.

I wanted to verify that at least I wouldn't be losing any channels so I called. The CSR made reassuring statements that I wouldn't lose any and said I actually gain a couple. Not notable enough to even remember what they are.

She said the switchover is supposed to occur approximately between 2am and 6am on the morning of the 25th. I'm sure we will have to reboot our TA's and rescan the channels after that.

One thing I noticed, and the CSR confirmed, is they are now assigning more than one channel number to the identical channel! I presume this is enabled by SDV. An example is the Boomerang channel. This is so they can do their grouping by theme deal, the stated main purpose of the changes.

If this is the first time for multi-numbered channels, I sure hope our TA's can handle it.

[cpencis]

Above earlier, someone posted a link to SCSIRAIDs description of what good values should be found in the TA diagnostics screens for Tuner, FDC and RDC. I'm having black screen issues on my SDV (delivered yesterday) and I'm trying to diagnose. My RDC is 36 (less than 50 as suggested good above), my Tuner is 3db and FDC is 7db. SCSIRAID said that these should ideally be between -8 and 0... so what can I do to troubleshoot and fix?

-----
S3 w/TA
701 firmware - no reboot issues
Austin

[SCSIRAID]

Above earlier, someone posted a link to SCSIRAIDs description of what good values should be found in the TA diagnostics screens for Tuner, FDC and RDC. I'm having black screen issues on my SDV (delivered yesterday) and I'm trying to diagnose. My RDC is 36 (less than 50 as suggested good above), my Tuner is 3db and FDC is 7db. SCSIRAID said that these should ideally be between -8 and 0... so what can I do to troubleshoot and fix?

-----
S3 w/TA
701 firmware - no reboot issues
Austin

Your signal levels are pretty hot... I would attenuate 3-6db if you are having issues. Is your TiVo connected to the TA output? If so, you could use a two way splitter from the wall and drive the TA and Tivo from that spliter. You could even then add a 3db attenuator beyond that and still be fine.

[cpencis]

Your signal levels are pretty hot... I would attenuate 3-6db if you are having issues. Is your TiVo connected to the TA output? If so, you could use a two way splitter from the wall and drive the TA and Tivo from that spliter. You could even then add a 3db attenuator beyond that and still be fine.

I'm an engineer, but mechanical by trade... so I'm not afraid of doing this work, but by no means am I adept at it. I was on with a support tech who had me go through reboots after he hit the box a couple of times and said everything looked like it should be working from the TimeWarner side of things. They're rolling a truck for me tomorrow so we'll see what comes of that. If they still can't get this to work, then I'll look at tinkering with attenuation etc. Thanks for your advice.

[skasol]

Not sure if you have tried what i am going to say but I will say it anyway. Unplug the USB cord from either the TIVO or TA, & then unplug the electric from the TA for about 5 seconds then plug it back in. Leave the USB cord unplugged. The light on the TA will be solid for maybe 30 seconds then start flashing. You must wait until the light stops flashing completely, unless it goes into a pattern of 6 blinks & then a pause. If it goes into that pattern then plug in the USB cord & the light should stop flashing. The Tivo should also automatically see the TA after this. If it does not, you may want to remove the wireless USB adapter if you have one, otherwise try the other USB port. If you have a wireless USB adapter, once you have the TIVO see the TA then plug it back in. 95% of the time this gets channels back in, unless there is something else going on at the site. Hope this helps

I did all that with no luck, don't know what else to do. I have a solid light on my TA, I did what you asked, I also did what tivo has on their site, turn off suggestions, restart, turn suggestions back on.

Nothing 2 weeks in and I have 1 suggestion from last week.

[Grumock]

I did all that with no luck, don't know what else to do. I have a solid light on my TA, I did what you asked, I also did what tivo has on their site, turn off suggestions, restart, turn suggestions back on.

Nothing 2 weeks in and I have 1 suggestion from last week.

Does your TIVO ever actually see the TA? If not have you tried a different USB cord?

[dlfl]

....... Unplug the USB cord from either the TIVO or TA, & then unplug the electric from the TA for about 5 seconds then plug it back in. Leave the USB cord unplugged. The light on the TA will be solid for maybe 30 seconds then start flashing. You must wait until the light stops flashing completely, unless it goes into a pattern of 6 blinks & then a pause. If it goes into that pattern then plug in the USB cord & the light should stop flashing.......
The first two times I had to reboot my TA it worked the way your describe. Now (two incidents) the green light blinks forever (or at least longer than I'm willing to wait). I go ahead and connect the USB and all is OK.

[Grumock]

The first two times I had to reboot my TA it worked the way your describe. Now (two incidents) the green light blinks forever (or at least longer than I'm willing to wait). I go ahead and connect the USB and all is OK.

when it blinks for that "Forever" time does it go into a pattern of 6 blinks & then a pause? I know that the reboot of the TA can take some time for that light to go solid. Normally i walk away & get something to drink or eat & come back about 10 minutes later.

[dlfl]

when it blinks for that "Forever" time does it go into a pattern of 6 blinks & then a pause? I know that the reboot of the TA can take some time for that light to go solid. Normally i walk away & get something to drink or eat & come back about 10 minutes later.
OK I'm not waiting more than 2 or 3 minutes. However I don't think I had to wait anything like 10 minutes the first two times. BTW when I connect the USB it quickly goes constant green.

Can't be absolutely sure but I don't think it was in the 6-then-pause sequence.

Anyway, thanks for the info and I will try waiting longer the next time.

[Grumock]

OK I'm not waiting more than 2 or 3 minutes. However I don't think I had to wait anything like 10 minutes the first two times. BTW when I connect the USB it quickly goes constant green.

Can't be absolutely sure but I don't think it was in the 6-then-pause sequence.

Anyway, thanks for the info and I will try waiting longer the next time.

yeah if the green goes to blinking 6x then pauses it is just indicating that the USB is not connected.

[skasol]

Does your TIVO ever actually see the TA? If not have you tried a different USB cord?

the tivo does see the TA when I reconnected, what's weird is that I have 2 tivo HD's with TA, one downstairs and one upstairs, the one upstairs has 25 suggestions in 3 days, the one downstairs has 1 old suggestion from like 8/1/09. I tried doing all the steps described, I will try waiting longer for the green light to stop flashing because I only waited about 2-4 minutes as well.

thank you all.

[digs0]

Just wanted to share this technique from the TiVo support page (couldn't find a reference to it on a quick search of the forums -- apologies if it's been posted elsewhere). I used to unplug/replug either the USB cable or the power or both when my channels went out, but TiVo's support page (http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/148/c/123%2C130/r_id/100041)has an improbable but effective method that saves me from having to get my butt off the couch:

1. In Live TV, press CHAN UP twice.
2. Press the Live TV button to switch tuners (or press INFO to display the channel banner and select the other tuner).
3. Press CHAN UP once, and then CHAN Down once. You should now be able to see video.

I've used it a couple of times and, strangely enough, it's actually worked. Of course, this doesn't alleviate the frustration of having your TiVo cut off in the middle of a recording, but it's still handy.

[dlfl]

digs0,

Which TWC system are you in (i.e., your location)?

How often does your TA go "wonky" ?

What wonky behavior to you see other than losing a channel during a recording?

As the linked support page says:

If your cable provider installed a Tuning Adapter for your TiVo HD, TiVo HD XL, or Series3 HD DVR, and you see a gray or black screen when you tune to a channel, you can restore the video by changing the channel and then tuning back. To do this for both tuners:

Thus basically it's just forcing the tuner(s) to re-attempt tuning that does the trick. I occasionally get a blank screen when I tune to a channel, and almost always just doing a channel up/channel down will bring the channel in. If I look at the DVR Diagnostics screen info for the "blank" channel (before retuning) I find I have Signal Lock but no Program Lock.

That's a good find though. There's a lot of interesting stuff in the TiVo support pages, but it's not that easy to find it.

EDIT: Too bad TiVo didn't build a re-tune recovery sequence into the software. Seems like it should be possible. Of course, to cover the cost of coding and testing that they might have to increase the price a few bucks.

[rv65]

On Sept. 15 TWC Maine might deploy SDV on their moto networks for more HD channels. No Moto tuning adapter but it should be available soon after it's been deployed. The Moto tuning adapter is much smaller than the SA ones so it's not this gigantic box that plugs into the Tivo. Then again the SA TA isn't that big to begin with.

[dlfl]

...........As the linked support page says:

If your cable provider installed a Tuning Adapter for your TiVo HD, TiVo HD XL, or Series3 HD DVR, and you see a gray or black screen when you tune to a channel, you can restore the video by changing the channel and then tuning back. To do this for both tuners:

Thus basically it's just forcing the tuner(s) to re-attempt tuning that does the trick. I occasionally get a blank screen when I tune to a channel, and almost always just doing a channel up/channel down will bring the channel in. If I look at the DVR Diagnostics screen info for the "blank" channel (before retuning) I find I have Signal Lock but no Program Lock.

Last night I selected a channel I had probably never watched before. It didn't tune and four or five re-tune attempts still didn't bring it in -- Signal Lock but no Program Lock (from the DVR Diagnostics). After a minute or so I retried it and it tuned. This is the worst case of this type I've encountered.
One day the time will come when I ditch this system for something better -- hopefully sooner rather than later. But I want the TiVo DVR interface!

[sondhead]

I have firmware with 0801 in it... but it still reboots all the time. It's incredibly annoying. Any suggestions?

[Grumock]

On Sept. 15 TWC Maine might deploy SDV on their moto networks for more HD channels. No Moto tuning adapter but it should be available soon after it's been deployed. The Moto tuning adapter is much smaller than the SA ones so it's not this gigantic box that plugs into the Tivo. Then again the SA TA isn't that big to begin with.

I had not heard that I thought they were still just beta testing the TA in select markets. Did you receive notice of this change?

[anotherlab]

Is anyone seeing a tiling problem after connecting the tuning adapter. I'm getting intermittent tiling on some channels (A&E, SyFy), not not on others. I did notice that if I pull the power on the TA (but leave it connected), the tiling stops.

[Grumock]

I have firmware with 0801 in it... but it still reboots all the time. It's incredibly annoying. Any suggestions?

Just as a test. Try removing the wireless USB adapter & see if you are still getting the TA rebooting. If i am not mistaken the original problem was that the USB bus on the TIVO was not supporting two devices that were communicating constantly, that was when the 801 code was developed. Just test this theory & see if it stops for a night or two.

[lrhorer]

Sorry dolfer, I think you are right --- they are just shuffling. I guess I just generally expect their long term goal is to provide more HD. However that may not even be technically possible without squeezing the bandwidth on existing channels, or eliminating some of them.

No, no, NO! That's the whole point of SDV. With a properly designed CATV plant, the number of available channels is effectively infinite. It could be the shuffle is in preparation for implementing additional SDV QAMs, which would indeed increase the number of available channels by a vast amount. OTOH, some of the franchises (like here in San Antonio) inexplicably think shuffling channels is a good thing.

How many decades do you think it will be before we can have FIOS ? How long before FIOS starts copy protecting its channels? Even with protection you still have the advantages of (1) generally superior PQ, (2) no TA required
Within a decade, FIOS may have to employ SDV, as well, or else they may decide to eliminate their QAM feeds and deploy everything via IPTV. The former means a TA will be required for FIOS, as well. The latter means the TiVo as it sits now won't be able to receive FIOS.

and (3) more channels (although maybe not more channels per dollar).
This is false. Any linear scheme - such as the one FIOS employs - has a strictly finite number of channels. In the case of FIOS, it's about 1632 SDV channels or 272 HD channels plus 136 SD channels using the most common rate shapes in the industry. A good compromise between those two extremes might be 246 SD channels and 250 HD channels. An SDV system can ultimately offer an unlimited number of channels - tens of thousands of HD streams.

[lrhorer]

I received a letter (I'm in Springboro -Warren County). Is everyone assuming that the lineup change has been communicated to TiVo and that the change will go smoothly, or should someone send TWC's lineup card to TiVo in advance?
TiVo, Inc. has nothing to do with the lineup, and informing them will have little or no impact on service either way. Your CATV provider must send their channel lineup to Tribune Media in order for it to be incorporated into their database for your zip code.

When I first got my TiVo HD, I could not get an accurate channel lineup on it. I had to spend several days working with TiVo to document the lineup and have them create one for me.
They did not create it. They may have forwarded your info to either Tribune, your CATV provider, or both.