Tivo Jumped the Gun with new Comcast Lineup

[ronr2006]

Got a major channel lineup change from Tivo today that is to correspond to changes from Comcast. Comcast was to make the change on the Oct 13 (today's the 12th) and now they've rescheduled to the 22nd.

This is 81 channels added, 18 deleted, and 31 moved. A LOT of changes !

Mostly HD channels, including adding premium channels.

This is in San Francisco area (Richmond).

This is causing major programming conflicts and errors for the next 10 days.

What's the best way to get the message to Tivo?

RonR

[caddyroger]

You request a line up change but it going to take about 7 days to get changed.

[MichaelK]

you should probably set up manual recordings for anything important to you. I am under the impression that recordings by time/channel stay on the channel number and wont follow the call sign move that tivo thinks they are. (I HOPE so- we're getting out mombo change on the 15th supposedly (~40 HD moves and 50+ new HD) and I get that it's impossible for tivo to just make a flash change at the moment that comcast decides to change things....

what I dont get is why comcast doesn't "phase" such things in. I know that they can assign duplicate channel numbers to the same channel. They do it now to put HBO HD (and the other HD movie channels) both in the current HD cluster AND in the HBO cluster. So why would comcast flash change anything? For the ~40 channels moving why dont they give them the old and new numbers for a while (assuming like in my case that they dont interfere- here they are going to put all the HD in a new 800-900 range.)....

[TiVo Steve]

I've had the non-existant channels in my line-up for months now... I just keep checking to see when they actually ARE available.

[metaomni]

Got a major channel lineup change from Tivo today that is to correspond to changes from Comcast. Comcast was to make the change on the Oct 13 (today's the 12th) and now they've rescheduled to the 22nd.


I'm in Berkeley, got the same channel lineup change last night. Where did you see that they've delayed the rollout till the 22nd? I would imagine they're a little busy handling the typhoon right now, but I just want to see the source ;)

[ronr2006]

Info regarding delay initially found here and I contact Comcast and they confirmed:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=17340781&postcount=11834

[gastrof]

To even get TiVo to realize there's a mistake, you have to tell them here

http://www.tivo.com/setupandsupport/contactsupport/lineup_tool.html

In the past, they've managed to get things fixed within a few days, not a week.

[gastrof]

you should probably set up manual recordings for anything important to you. I am under the impression that recordings by time/channel stay on the channel number and wont follow the call sign move that tivo thinks they are. (I HOPE so- we're getting out mombo change on the 15th supposedly (~40 HD moves and 50+ new HD) and I get that it's impossible for tivo to just make a flash change at the moment that comcast decides to change things....

what I dont get is why comcast doesn't "phase" such things in. I know that they can assign duplicate channel numbers to the same channel. They do it now to put HBO HD (and the other HD movie channels) both in the current HD cluster AND in the HBO cluster. So why would comcast flash change anything? For the ~40 channels moving why dont they give them the old and new numbers for a while (assuming like in my case that they dont interfere- here they are going to put all the HD in a new 800-900 range.)....

Ummm...

Wouldn't this only produce the same type of mess that currently exists? Giving multiple channels the same channel number will throw off the TV listings, but it'd also totally confuse the TiVo as to what channel to tune to for whatever show it is you're trying to record.

[dd9]

Boston area Comcast has a bunch of new HD channels too in the 700 & 800 range. They are labeled with the channel name and are actively showing programs, but no guiide data. Been like this for about 3 weeks that I have noticed.

[MichaelK]

Ummm...

Wouldn't this only produce the same type of mess that currently exists? Giving multiple channels the same channel number will throw off the TV listings, but it'd also totally confuse the TiVo as to what channel to tune to for whatever show it is you're trying to record.

actually that's exactly what comcast does when they "flip the switch" and it IS screwy on the tivo (at least here where I live)

Here at my headend we had ~30- 40 HD channels last week. This week they added ~50 more and then put all the original HD and the new HD in the 800-900 range.

I suppose to allow people time to get used to the new channel numbers comcast left the old channel numbers in place for the old channels in the same place too. (and actually come to think of it HBO, SHO, MAX, STARZ HD already were duplicated in their clusters and then in the HD spot)

I always thought that tivo did season passes based on the channel call letters. But right now I have duplicate call letters- for example, the local fox, WNYWDT is on 161 and 805. And season passes DONT stray so the season passes on 161 dont record on 805 and vice versa. So tivo knows the channel number too some how.

I spent probably a couple hours total the past few days creating new season passes in the new range so that if/when comcast kills off the old channels that my season passes still work. (man I wish you could futz with season passes offline to reorder and delete them!)

It's a bit of a mess though for sure becasue I have some season passes for stuff on the old channel that are off for the year and wont come back for months- like "this week in baseball" so hopefully comcast keeps the old channel numbers around for a good long time. So as I remember to check the list I can move those left overs.

But I guess this is the "right" thing to do for the unwashed masses that dont have tivo and therefore have to memorize channel numbers. Also it would have helped out the OP so that it was a massive switch and hope that the tivo hits it at the correct time that comcast actually does it.

[MichaelK]

Boston area Comcast has a bunch of new HD channels too in the 700 & 800 range. They are labeled with the channel name and are actively showing programs, but no guiide data. Been like this for about 3 weeks that I have noticed.

you should get the new lineup and report it at the tivo website and they will fix it for you.

[dd9]

you should get the new lineup and report it at the tivo website and they will fix it for you.

Isn't that something Comcast should be doing to address the issue to the masses rather than having tivo fix just my lineup ?

[MichaelK]

Isn't that something Comcast should be doing to address the issue to the masses rather than having tivo fix just my lineup ?

comcast "should" be telling tribune. And Tivo buys the guide data from tribune.

But since comcast isn't doing it you can either wait around till comcast does it or prompt tivo who will then prompt tribune who will then contact comcast and find out about the changes and what head end and zip codes are effected.

If you want to wait then have at it, maybe comcast will speak up, or maybe some other tivo user in your neck of the woods will start the ball rolling.

I guess it matters what comcast local person is supposed to do it.

In my case I saw in ad in mondays paper that on or about thursday that comcast was doing to do the change. I checked thursday around 8pm and still comcast hadn't put up the new channels. I forced a call on my tivo's around 11pm that night when i went to bed. When I woke up friday morning both comcast had turned on the channels and tivo had the proper guide data.

So whoever at my comcast is supposed to tell tribune did and did it far enough in advance that tribune pushed the data to tivo in time for thursday night calls. But from your example seems that's not universally the case.

One oddball is the TV ad said I'd have syfy HD and so tivo has that guide data. But the channel is blank. When i have time to spend 20 minutes on the phone and see what the deal is I'll call comcast and see if the channel really exists and if it's missing from my package or if my cards aren't authorized for it or what....

[davidmorgenstern]

Hmmm ... this note from Comcast doesn't mention San Francisco, where I got my notice yesterday (10/19). When will San Francisco get the upgrade? Anyone have actual info from Comcast? Of course, the document they sent doesn't say exactly when ...

[ronr2006]

Comcast finally made the change here in Richmond Calif (SF Bay Area) today. Tivo still has problems though with their channel lineup. Most of the premium channnels (HBO, SHOW, etc) are 3 hours off. Sigh...

[MichaelK]

sounds like it thinks you have the east coast feeds instead of the west. Someone hopefully reported it for you but if not there's a form on tivo's website (if you didn't already know)

[ronr2006]

I have reported channel problems to Tivo with no result.

I get HBO, SHOW, STARZ on HD and 3 channels each. One each schedule is OK but the other two each are 3 hours off (east coast).

I even repeated guided setup and still bad programming.

I guess I'll try calling Tivo... SIGH...

UPDATE EDIT: Just spend 33min on the phone with a Tivo rep and reported this problem. Maybe this will help fix the scheduling.

[tiassa]

BI have reported channel problems to Tivo with no result.

I get HBO, SHOW, STARZ on HD and 3 channels each. One each schedule is OK but the other two each are 3 hours off (east coast).

I even repeated guided setup and still bad programming.

I guess I'll try calling Tivo... SIGH...

RonR

Try the form at http://www.tivo.com/setupandsupport/contactsupport/lineup_tool.html
Tell them that they are running the East coast schedule for those channels and it should be the west coast one. That seems (to me) to be a fairly easy fix.

[ronr2006]

Try the form at http://www.tivo.com/setupandsupport/contactsupport/lineup_tool.html
Tell them that they are running the East coast schedule for those channels and it should be the west coast one. That seems (to me) to be a fairly easy fix.

Done that days ago...

[MichaelK]

Done that days ago...

it sometimes takes several days. The form I think says a week but the general consensus seems to be it's not that bad.

But if that's not working - you might get better and faster results dealing with Tribune directly at the zap2it website. If you set up a login and pick a local lineup there is a way someplace to report an issue with the linep. Since they are the one's tivo buys the data from if they fix it then it gets fixed on tivo too.

[ronr2006]

Thanks MichaelK.. I have gone directly to Zap2It and reported the incorrect programming (via email). I image that they, Tribune Media, have to fix this before Tivo can finalize a fix. Ron.

[MichaelK]

exactly- tivo just takes the data tribune hands them and then slices it up for each tivo and sends it along. They make no changes themselves. So when we report issues to them they just forward our concerns to tribune.

I guess the jury's out on if it's faster to go through tivo or tribune via zap2it. Tivo probably gets faster results then us since they are paying customer but getting them in the loop adds time rather than going to tribune.

I wish there was a quicker way to get tribune's attention. (But i get why it's all manual and not user driven- anyone who's ever tried to program a harmony remote knows how ugly a database gets when you let the public "correct" things unsupervised.)

[metaomni]

So is it just me, or are we getting some east coast video feeds on the HD channels (specifically, Comedy Central among others I think)?

[ronr2006]

So is it just me, or are we getting some east coast video feeds on the HD channels (specifically, Comedy Central among others I think)?

That's exactly the topic of the original posting...!

[ronr2006]

Looks like it's fixed. Received a Tivo update today with what appears to be the correct line up.

RonR