SF Bay Area Comcast S3 User beware

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I'm confused how your suggestion of replaceable modules would resolve the current problem you are seeing. The current problem is a problem with identification information not matching which could happen regardless of whether the modules were replaceable. If you are referring to why the Data ID changes with certain actions, that is either a design choice imposed on TiVo or it is an oversight.

 

Its not related directly. I was just saying this whole cable card solution seems to be a very expensive process with lots of card swaps and service calls.

As a result I wouldnt be very surprised if Tivo and Comcast eventually walk away from the S3. However the S3 which was architected as a Lexus, would truly have had a better future if it was designed with replaceable sections. Maybe not.

They probably think just replace the whole with a middle of the road box.
The idea of the S3 was supposed to be expandable beyond Cable and they are trying to do that but a lot of times you need HW help like more disk/memory, improved tuners, ...

 

Its not supposed to be. It should be a question of plugging in cards, the head end programs it, and it works. That how it was for me.

Comcast are just incompetant and don't want cable cards, that's why I say bring on the integration ban. If their main revenue streem depends on cable cards, they'll get it right in a hurry.

 

The problem is TiVo cannot just design something on their own. They need cooperation from the cable companies in the form of externalized encryption. CableCARD is what the MSOs came up with, so that is what TiVo had to use.

My CableCARDs have actually worked fine from the beginning, even through the enabling of CPMS. These other problems are because of human error somewhere on Comcast's side. You can only do so much to mitigate human error through clever design. At some point you will depend on humans to configure the system, and in this case Comcast has not properly prepared their support people to handle the known problems that could happen with enabling CPMS. They even sent out a note that described the potential problems, so some parts of Comcast are fully aware of the problems that could happen. The problem is the people who know, didn't leave a phone #, and instead have you call into the main #, which has no clue what your problem is. It should get better over time.

 

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My cards failed again when I tried to look at HBO. The problem is really weird, in that the two cards were alternating enabled state as I tried to watch HBO. Then they both failed. I called Comcast and they enabled card #1 but not #2. Finally, I restarted the TiVo and it showed both enabled. But then after trying to watch HBO again, both cards went into the not enabled state. Comcast was able to get Card #1 enabled again, but not #2. I finally decided I need restart with two new cards and a guy is coming out tomorrow morning with them (hopefully). This truly is a messy problem--I'm concerned that these cable card problems are going to sink TiVo's efforts to ever have a cost effective HD box; it's starting to get to get even me, a long term TiVo fan with a teck background, thinking about getting one of those lousy Comcast Motorola boxes again.

 

I hear ya! I've lost channels several times since I got the S3, although this switch hasn't affected me yet. The S3 has been a high maintenance item for me too. In fact, I can't think of any device I've ever owned that has been higher maintenance. Actually I think DSL has been a bigger pain over the years but it has been pretty stable lately.

Don't give up. There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to have a decent S3 experience eventually. Get them to solve your Pixelization issues also. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

CSR said Comcast has a large problem systemwide with cable card pairings. They hired a company to do the pairings and apparently they were supposed to register all the cable card pairings. They sent out a signal to disable all card not registered and screwed it it up. Instead of disabling registered cards they disabled all cards in a wide area. The CSR claimed to be receiving hundreds of calls from cablecard customers. Who knows the truth here. He claimed they were working on it from Comcast central. probably tomorrow before premium channels are restored. At least I got one day credit.

Does anyone believe this csr?

 

It's 10:45 p on Thursday and I've lost HBO. I just got off the phone with Customer Service and they "know" about the issue but have zero ETA. This is one of the most pathetic f ups I have ever seen. They offered zero solutions and zero assistance other than a truck roll. This is their fault and I shouldn't have to miss work for their issue. Has anyone out there gotten a any decent fix/solution for this?

 

My "truck roll" is this morning, so I'll let you know what comes of that. Hopefully two new cards will fix the problem. I've had the Series3 for seven months and it worked quite well up to the time of the latest software release. Since then, I've had more problems than my other four Series2s have had in their lifetimes. Terrible pixelization, the remote died and now the cable card problem. Not only that, the installation of the latest Series2 release seems to have created duplicate IP addresses which have impacted my wife's PC--for those of you who are married, you know how minor TiVo problems are compared to those of a furious wife.

 

Comcast truck scheduled to be at my place this morning...I'm having issues now that I'm sure are related to this fiasco.
The first install of my cable cards went well...why do I have a nagging feeling that this time it won't be the case???

 

I missed a Formula 1 race before because Comcast screwed up, and at the time, all they could do was give me 1 day credit. At the time, there was no real way of monetarizing the cost of missing a show so I just accepted it.

But now, with things like Amazon Unbox and ITunes, we know exactly how much we have to pay to get the missed shows from elsewhere. If everyone demanded reimbursement of the download costs incurred while the service was down, I'm sure Comcast would spend much more on maintaining their service.

 

Some of it might be true, but I think it is a matter of facts getting distorted as the information passes from person to person, like the telephone game.

I can tell you for sure they did not disable *all* cards in a wide area, because there are people in my area that have it working and not working. Mine work fine.

 

If what you missed is not available on VOD, maybe you can ask them for 1 VOD credit to watch something else, since what you wanted to watch presumably is no longer available to you.

 

That doesn't sound like a Series2 specific problem. Sounds more like a network config issue.

 

VOD and Series3 don't mix

 

Called this morning because HBO still out and guess what? Comcast has NO IDEA what I was talking about last night. They have no emails on an outage, no record of my call last night and they are sending a repairman out tomorrow to fix my "INDIVUDUAL" problem!

On Wednesday I had just turned HBO off on Directv as I transition to COMCAST. The only reason I am keeping Directv is for east coast SD stations. maybe I should turn HBO back on with directv and off with COMCAST

I had to argue with a supervisor to have the repairman tomorrow bring 4 new cable cards to fix my 2 series3 tivos. They initially said that since they didn't know what the problem was they want the tech to diagnose it. I told them that I KNOW what the problem is and I'm sure they want to avoid the 3 separate service calls it took to install each of my tivos. A supervisor sent a signal to all my current cards but said that is all the diagnosis they do from the central office. They insist on a tech doing diagnosis onsite. This is especially stupid since both my installs were fixed finally by some level 2 tech at a central location.

 

I'm in Milpitas, and as expected, the cable card with the Host Validation:Unknown lost the premium channels (CCI=0x2), and the one with Host Validation:Valid works fine. Called in, they said lots of people are having problems, they took the host/data number, I waited the required hour, and no change. Called again: they took the numbers again, and said that I should be getting a call from them today, else a truck roll on Tuesday .

Talk about FUBAR.

 

I've noticed most of this issues are with premium channels like HBO. Is there any known issues with standard digital cable channels?

I have a Series3 w/CableCards in Cupertino but I do not subscribe to any premium channels so I'm wondering if I should be worried.

 

I was hoping Santa Cruz would be spared the "Bay Area" problem... I wasn't so lucky... It must have flipped at some point last night for me, as a recording on HBO failed.

I've had 3 calls with Comcast so far this morning. The first call said it would be fixed in 10 minutes. Called back 15 minutes later. "Sorry, Sir. They originally told us that, but it's really an hour." Called after an hour "We sent the signal. Oh wait, we didn't send the signal. I'll send it now." I asked how busy the system was, and was told 15 more minutes for the signal to make it to my cards...

Still waiting...

 

Two part answer:
1) At least on the Santa Cruz system, it appears to be premium channels: Encore, Starz, HBO, Showtime. Interestingly, TMC wasn't impacted.

2) However, as was evidenced by this hiccup, at any point they can decide to turn on copy protection for any digital channel (i.e. the broadcaster could suddenly request copy protection, and Comcast would turn it on), and then you'd be impacted.