Time Warner Cable Tuning Adapter (ALL LOCATIONS) / Bugs & Issues

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I happened last night for me... I was checking to make sure SPEED was tuning in before F1 practice and I got the message on a black screen but it didn't tune in until I went up a channel and back down. Maybe it has a really long timeout on each attempt but I wasn't that patient.

As for splitting the signal before the TA, I hit upon that myself during the TA beta test when the amplifier in my first TA died and wouldn't pass through any signal on its output. The TA seems much more tolerant of poor signal, so I have a 3-way splitter feeding my two TiVos and a second splitter feeding the TA, TV, and HTPC. You'll always get good signal strength from the TA out (unless its dead), but for best signal-to-noise you want the least stuff between your TiVo and the curb. If you need an amp, put it as close to the curb as you can get.

 

I guess I was wrong about the fix. My Tivo Elite had a missed recording last night on a SDV channel. First one in a week though. This is a pesky problem indeed.

 

After a power outage the other night, the link to my TA crapped out and my Premiere was saying it was trying but couldn't tune anything. Rebooted the TA and it recovered flawlessly.

 

Does anyone in Austin know if TW has any Motorola Tuning Adapters in use, or are they all Cisco's?

 

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I believe that they are all Cisco, though that is based on information from a year ago.

 

I've only seen the Cisco boxes here, however the install instructions do mention the Motorola boxes: http://www.timewarnercable.com/texas/support/topic.ashx/CableCARD

 

I want to tell the Tivo community that the Elite would be the perfect Tivo DVR -- IF I COULD JUST GET THE GD TUNING ADAPTER TO OPERATE RELIABLY! Very frustrating. I truly have done everything. I checked every level replaced every cable. The Tuning Adapter/Switched Digital Video system simply cannot be made reliable. Time Warner here is and has done everything possible and so have I. The last thing I can think of is somehow swapping out the Cisco tuning adapter for a Motorola version. How could I discover if a Motorola tuning adapter is in my local Time Warner inventory? Who could I talk to that will even understand the issue and be willing to assist me?

 

I thought I read somewhere that TAs have to be certain brands and models depending on what they're running at the head end that the TAs have to talk to.

Otherwise it's like trying to use a DirecTV receiver on your Dish Network subscription.

Or BetaMax and VHS.

 

I'm pretty sure that's the case. Any given neighborhood (most likely an entire metro region) is usually either Cisco or Motorola. There are some other brands of Cableco set-tops, but they'll have either a Cisco or Motorola cablecard in them.

Dropping recordings seems to be inherent in SDV... it happened more often with my cableco DVR than it does now with my TiVos.

 

I have the Motorola's and they work great on the Series 3 and the regular Premiere. On the Elite I'm having the same issue you are. Dropped channels, dropped recordings, black screens. I'll be watching a program and everything is great and out of nowhere all the channels go dead. I've tried everything I know to do. I'm about to just give up on the whole Elite idea. This is the only time I've ever had an issue with Tivo's was when I got the Elite.

 

Does anyone know if TWC is still doing cable cards without TAs in Raleigh/Durham? All I am looking for is locals in HD with their broadcast cable package.

Thanks,
Ted

 

Highly unlikely that locals would be SDV as they're popular channels. You should be fine.

 

That's not radically different at all.

Both of those IP's fall in the same /18. That is only 16,384 IPs. I'm sure they serve at least that many customers in the cable hub site you connect to.

 

Cool. I am moving later this year, and I am not sure I want to stay with DirecTV because of the cost. With Tivo and Broadcast cable, I can just about cut my bill in half. Still not as good as antenna, but I seem to have bad luck with that.

Thanks,
Ted

 

If you're going out of state, I hope that the pain of leaving is offset somewhat by going somewhere with a better cable company than Time-Warner available.

 

Sadly, I am moving all of 3 miles down the road, so TWC it is. Another alternative is Dish Network with the welcome pack. I'll need to see which would end up costing less.

-Ted

 

I've got a cisco tuning adapter that is stuck blinking 3 lights ... which I believe indicates that it is downloading and installing software. Oddly, the other active tuning adapter is not doing the same thing ...

I can't seem to get it to do anything other than this blinking ... If anyone has any ideas ..... please feel free to post...

 

Well.. I *thought* I had waiting long enough before posting.. but apparently another 5-10 minutes more would have been even better. It seems to have resolved itself.

 

My most sincere sympathies, fellow TWC victim.

 

Every once in a while a small thing comes along that makes the day a little less foreboding.

Calling Time Warner Cable at 7 AM on a Wednesday because I've got a persistent flashy light usually isn't one of them.

"Hi! I think my tuning adapter needs an authorization hit."
"Okay. I can do that for you,"
(Wait, what? I don't have to convince someone to transfer me to CableCard Hell to get this done?)
".. and sent. Okay, you'll need to unplug and plug in your tuning adapter. You might need to do the data cable too."
"The USB one?"
"Yes. Sometimes it takes a little longer because it has to download changes or fresh channel list."

And 70 seconds later, I've got a solid light, all the channels back, and a happy TiVo again.

Who would have thought a TWC call could be that painless, effective, fast, and actually resolve the issue first time? Bernice wins the day.