Captions gone

Another thread on missing captions? Yep.

Captions worked, beautifully, for years. And then they didn't work.

I searched and read everything posted here in the past few years to figure out what's happening with my Series3: I toggled digital, I toggled settings on the Panasonic TV; I even replaced the HDMI cable between my Series3 and my HarmonKardon AVR. I have not completely reset the Tivo, not wanting to lose settings and other stuff but that's next.

This Tivo uses a Comcast CableCard.

I'm stumped. And while I'm by no means an expert, especially compared to some of the denizens herein, I'm not technically illiterate, either. I know that when expected behavior changes on a computer or a Tivo it's because the user changed something. They do not change by themselves.

But all I do is turn it on and off, so I wondered about cables, and I wonder if perhaps Tivo did some updating in the background that I don't know about it. Slim indeed.

I don't know where to go next. Anybody have some suggestions?

 

Hey Scott,

Yes, on everything- ANYthing coming through the Tivo whether live or recorded. Nada. And captions work just fine for anything coming from the AppleTV.

We have an older non-HD Tivo that is showing captions as expected, back in the bedroom.

I'm not completely sure on how captions work- or where they are generated, so troubleshooting is a bit of a crap shoot. If the Harmon Kardon unit is involved in decoding in anyway, it's a unit that is aging.

 

@shw: that's exactly what I was hoping to avoid, of course! But I'll do it if other ideas don't pan out. And I should have mentioned that I did try using component cables, which had no effect; but using the composite cables required me to use a different input on the HarmonKardon, helping to isolate the issue (I don't think it's the HK).

@scott: When I scroll down to the usual spot to invoke CC, the Tivo reports that captions are ON. And the only information displayed is

Closed captions are ON
This show has closed captions.
Press SELECT to turn them OFF.

(I don't think I've ever seen anything else on that particular screen except "OFF" when you press the select button).

I use Tivo app on my iPhone to run the Tivo (broke the peanut) but don't see what difference that could make.

Michael

 

So I switched out the units and the bedroom unit shows captions in the living room. By elimination looks like the TiVo is responsible.

One more query- I'm wondering if the CableCard has a role?

 

Well, looks like we've exhausted ideas- restarting is the first thing I did. I didn't do a 'reset', though, partly because it's a hassle to reestablish the settings but mostly because I didn't think it would make any difference.

Nobody else has chimed in on the question of the CableCard; in fact I'm not sure exactly where the decoding happens, but based on everything I've done it sure looks like it happens in the Tivo, which means my unit has a problem.

 

Until I have a better idea of exactly HOW closed captioning actually works, I'm thinking that a new setup is an hour of my life that might be wasted.

OTOH it's about all I have left to do.