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bought a Premiere, need FiOS CableCARD help

Discussion in 'TiVo Premiere DVRs' started by cuda74360, Apr 29, 2015.

  1. Apr 29, 2015 #1 of 10
    cuda74360

    cuda74360 Member

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    Jul 12, 2013

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    Hi,

    I bought a used Premiere 4 and Mini, to replace my old Tivo HD's. But I can't get it to tune any channels. I have Verizon FiOS, and they've tried to pair both of my existing M-cards with no success.

    I called TiVo, and he had me go to the Conditional Access screen and verified that the card was paired. But he says that I should also see AUTH, which isn't there. He says that this means the channels aren't being authorized. The Verizon rep was out of ideas, so a tech is bringing me a new M-card on Saturday.

    But I'm not sure that the M-card is the issue. Even un-paired, I can insert the activated M-cards into either TiVo HD and tune everything but HBO. Shouldn't I also be able to do the same with the Premier 4?
     
  2. Apr 29, 2015 #2 of 10
    rsnaider

    rsnaider Active Member

    2,698
    1
    Apr 25, 2002
    Long Island, NY
    You are correct. With FiOS an activated but unpaired card will work on most channels.

    HBO, Cinimax and few others need the card paired.

    If this card works in the older boxes but not the Premier it is likely the Premier might have a bent pin or two in the cablecard slot.
     
  3. Apr 29, 2015 #3 of 10
    cuda74360

    cuda74360 Member

    48
    0
    Jul 12, 2013
    Thanks for confirming. I used a flashlight and looked into the card slot, but don't see any bent pins.

    Are there any CableCARD compatibility issues with the Premier's like there is with the Roamio?
     
  4. Apr 29, 2015 #4 of 10
    JerryB01

    JerryB01 Member

    60
    21
    Feb 15, 2015
    Northern NJ
    FIOS technical service with respect to cable cards is hit or miss. Most reps don't seem to know what to do to get the card paired and authorized and frequently you need to just keep calling until you find someone who knows how to correctly setup a cablecard in their system. What worked for me last week was finally getting through to someone who knew what they were doing, explaining that the card was paired but not authorized and, as a result, I could see most of my channels but not HBO. As soon as I explained this, he asked me for the various cablecard and device id's, did some magic at his end and within 2 minutes my card was paired and authorized and I had access to all my channels.
     
  5. Apr 29, 2015 #5 of 10
    cuda74360

    cuda74360 Member

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    Jul 12, 2013

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    Agreed, and I wish I could get far enough to receive everything execept HBO... but I can't tune anything. Once the reps get the card paired, I can view the FiOS logo on ch 131, but still can't tune anything else.

    I wonder if I have a corrupted image. I did notice that the cartoon intro only lasts ~3 seconds before exiting out to TiVo Central.
     
  6. Apr 29, 2015 #6 of 10
    59er

    59er TiVotee

    602
    28
    Mar 27, 2008
    New York, NY
    The truncated start-up video is a bug in 20.4.6 (fixed in the newer 20.4.7 software), not a sign of any problem with the box.
     
  7. Apr 30, 2015 #7 of 10
    shamilian

    shamilian Member

    475
    14
    Mar 26, 2003
    NJ
    Make sure you have a good signal.
    Go to DVR diag screen and check the signal level on channel that tunes (131). It should read less that 100% and more than 70%.
    If 100% add attenuators to lower the signal level.

    It that is ok then check out tech from either twitter "verizon support" or
    dslreports "verizon direct" forum.

    If they can't fix it they escalate pretty quickly.

    I had a cable card pairring go bad when one of their system crashed.
    They had multiple databases go into inconsisten states...

    So a specialist team had to issue internal trouble tickets to correct the various databases. It was configured in one system but not in the billing system anymore. It took days for them to straighten things out. It only affected one cablecard/tivo. But they claimed my whole account was hosed until they fixed the database problems.
     
  8. Apr 30, 2015 #8 of 10
    cuda74360

    cuda74360 Member

    48
    0
    Jul 12, 2013
    Signal strength is at 67% on ch 131, and 0% on all others. The same coax gives me 100% on all channels when connected to my HD.

     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2015
  9. Apr 30, 2015 #9 of 10
    cuda74360

    cuda74360 Member

    48
    0
    Jul 12, 2013
    Thanks all who responded. I have officially given up and shipped the Premier 4 back to the seller this morning as a defective unit.

    I spent over 4 hours on the phone between TiVo and Verizon trying to get this to work. Simple fact is that the same CableCARD works fine when paired to either of my HD's, but cannot tune any channels in the Premier 4. I was told that they would send a tech with a replacement card, but if it ended up being a bad TiVo that I would be charged for the service visit... I don't want it that bad.


     
  10. Apr 30, 2015 #10 of 10
    rsnaider

    rsnaider Active Member

    2,698
    1
    Apr 25, 2002
    Long Island, NY
    Verizon makes it pretty easy to move cards around to test.

    If the card is active on your account it will work in any box as I have moved many over the years.

    It needs to be paired to get HBO and other channels but will tune most channels when 'active' on your account.

    When you do get a new card the magic words for Verizon is 'Manually Validate Set Top Box'. That gets the tech in the proper screen where you only need to provide the Cable Card Serial Number and the 3 sets of numbers on the Pairing Screen.

    I have called about a dozen times over the past few years and getting my cards 'paired' takes only a few seconds once the above is provided to the tech.
     

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