Anyone else with an S3 in Southeast WI?

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I'm having a lockup issue with one channel on Time Warner in SE Wisconsin and I'd like to know of anyone else is having this issue.

The channel is 505, the HiDef CBS channel (WDJTDT).

When I say lockup, I mean the TiVo completely freezes. Video freezes, clock freezes, does not respond to the remote. The only thing I can do is unplug it and plug it back in.

I've gotten it to lock up playing back recordings from this channel - they lock up in the same place each time. I've locked it up watching live TV on this channel. I've tried it on both tuners. Other channels don't seem to have an issue. We watched the entire Super Bowl in HD (NBC) without a problem.

It will usually lock up within a few minutes, but it seems to depend on the content. Last night "Wheel of Fortune" locked it up within 3 minutes. This morning "Rachel Ray" didn't lock it up, but one of the commercials did. The same for "The Price is Right."

So if you have Time Warner in SE WI (Lineup is "Time Warner Cable - South") with an S3, and cable cards, please let me know if you have this issue or not.

Edit: My signal strength on this channel (and all channels) is 94 or so.

 

THANK YOU blasto3163. I was concerned that my TiVo was defective too, but I didn't want to jump through the hoops of returning it, getting the cable cards moved, etc.

Since I have a ticket open with TiVo, I guess there's a chance this will be solved, but for now I've just removed that channel from my lineup.

 

Oh, I know the service rep was wrong. After the call I tried setting the output to 1080i fixed and just using the S-Video out to my TV and it locked up. I'm pretty sure the service rep didn't know what the heck he was talking about because at first he couldn't figure out how I was even watching HD channels with a standard definition TV.

It may in fact be the scaler locking up, but the scaler is ALWAYS active because the composite and s-video out ports are always active no matter what you set your video out (component and HDMI) to.

It seems to have something to do with playback because I can record these channels fine, as long as the TiVo is playing back from another channel or from a previously recorded program. The TiVo locks up, however, when one of these shows is played.

My guess is that the channel contains garbage (invalid data in the stream) or some sort of valid data that the TiVo can't handle.

 

Feel free to point them to this thread if they need more data points. I have a service ticket open as well, PM me if you'd like the number. I'm not sure it will get us anywhere, but we don't have any other options at this point. I'd call WDJT but I'm sure they'd just laugh and say there's nothing wrong with their HD feed.

Interesting that you have problems with OTA 58-1 (the same channel - WDJT.) That seems to indicate the problem is with the channel itself, not Time Warner.

I was considering if it would be feasible to put up an antenna to get this station if they didn't have it fixed by the time I get an HDTV, but obviously that doesn't work either.

Ultimately, the problem is the TiVo. I could see the TiVo dropping the video and/or audio momentarily if there's something wrong with the feed, but there's NO way it should be locking up or rebooting.

 

Interesting that even when I pointed out the problem with the particular channel the CS rep didn't have any clue of an existing problem with that channel in this area.

 

Bumping this to let people know the "Spring 2007 Update" does NOT fix this issue. It took all of 5 minutes tuned to 505 to lock up my TiVo. It hasn't locked up once since I took 505 out of my channels I receive.

 

Bumping this to let people know that the "Fall 2007 Update" appears to have FIXED this issue! I just tried playing a saved recording that initially triggered my investigation - I've been saving it all this time. It played just fine through the first few minutes (usually locked up in the first few seconds.)

Tuning to 505 for the last few minutes has revealed no lockups (though CC seems a little borked, but that's minor compared to a full lockup.)

 

S3 works fine. Cable card install was uneventful, except that I had to call in and get the cards sent a "hit" after the installer left because she only tested with the in-the-clear channels. They've worked fine for the past year though.

TWC around here charges $2.50 each for cable cards. I had the DigiPic 1000 package for quite a while but got switched over to a "Watch & Surf Package" plus Digital Value Tier when I complained about the price a few months ago.

You don't need a digital package or cable cards to get the HD network channels. However, you do need a cable card to get guide data for those channels and I'm pretty sure they won't give you a cable card without a digital package.

There's a few digital channels that come up blank on the S3 with cable cards. I suspect these are SDV channels. I just went through all the channels and removed the ones the S3 can't tune (and added a few that TiVo thought were premium.)