Time Warner Cable Tuning Adapter - The Carolinas

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They want you to have a box so you can buy PPV movies and events easily.

Most people don't realize they can get them to deduct the cost of a box from digital cable if they don't want it. Most CSRs have no idea it's possible to get digital cable without a box.

It also changes the calculations for using TiVo.

Right now I have 2 SA8300HDs which have a line item cost of $30(2 x 9.95 for DVR service + $10 for a second box). However, if I gave back both boxes I would save $40 a month because I can get them to deduct the price of the first box from the digital cable package.

If you go to TWCs website below you will see that "Navigator+ for first outlet" is 10.26. "Navigator+ for additional outlets" is 9.26 which is what I pay on my second DVR. Now they won't deduct that full price because you are getting a "discount" by subscribing to digital cable and getting the box, but they should deduct around $8 or $9.

http://www.timewarnercable.com/Carolinas/shop/pricing.html

I had an SD Series2, but when I switched to HD I went with the TWC offering because of the looming SDV problem(and because the TiVo S3 was $700). Now that the resolver is out and about I'm thinking about getting TiVo again which is why I'm following the thread.

 

Just installed by TiVo S3 and was told by TW that I had to rent two CableCards, install a tuner adapter, and update my service to what they are now calling their "basic" service which has 80+ channel and cost ~$80/ mo! Isn't this against the new FCC rules? Anybody else having this problem??

 

first no one here knows where you at ,and every twc has different rules. Example here in South Carolina: Basic Cable $55.95,franchise fee $2.44, FCC Fee 0.07,Cable Card $5.00, and tax $4.50.

 

Is anyone else in the Raleigh area having bad pixelation across all channels tonight?

I have 2 TA's, 1 S3 and 1 HD and am experiencing the same thing.

I've also been noticing that I can't tune into 262 or 267 9/10 times. I usually have to reboot the Tivo and Tuning Adapter several times for them to come in. The lock issues have been getting progressively worse over the months.

Calling into support only gets the usual reboot my cable box (??), power cycle my TV (??) and what is a Tuning Adapter.


Anyone else have any better method of getting support other than calling in?

 

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Working fine here... 262 and 267 tuned fine. Recording on 260 right now. What are your RDC and FDC signal levels in TA Diags?

TiVo pixelation on SDV channels is a known issue that is being worked. TWC's STB's do not exhibit it... just TiVo.

 

When it locks up again, I'll check. The wife gets angry when I muck with the TV's during her dancing shows.

 

This is the first time I've come back to visit the forum in a few months, and it was precisely this issue that drove my search. My TiVoHD requests something from the Tuning Adapter, the first few seconds of the SDV channel will appear (perfectly fine, too!) but then it loses communication with the TA and blanks the screen. I know it's lost comms with the TA because the TA Diagnostics screen always says "not available" whenever this happens. I upgraded to a better quality USB 2.0 cable (shorter, too) and the problem persists. Fortunately, this sequence of actions always recovers SDV:

• disconnect USB from the TA
• wait for TiVoHD to recognize the physical disconnect
• reconnect the USB to the TA
• wait for TiVoHD to see the physical reconnect

Of course, when I'm not home and a scheduled SDV HD recording fails due to the USB comms failure, I'm a very unhappy camper. I don't know whether it's the fault of the TiVoHD or the Cisco TA or both, and I don't care either. USB communications protocols have been around long enough that this should NOT be an issue from either device. The Broadcom 5354 SoC in the Asus WL-520gu wireless router had USB reconnect timeout issues which OpenWRT Linux developers worked around in 2007. I wonder if a similar issue is occurring with the Broadcom SoC in our TivoHD units?

 

Anybody in the Triad, NC area having trouble with their TA's this week? I've lost all my SDV channels on both of my S3's. I know we had some bad electrical storms while I was gone on vacation and the power went out, but I don't know if that had anything to do with it. This is the first time I've lost ALL of my SDV channels for an extended time period.

 

Can people tell me what type of Cable Boxes their Cable provider uses (what standard for two-way communication their Cable Provider uses). Cablevision of Woodbury Long Island, NY uses a Scientific Atlanta Explorer SA4250HD. I want to try and determine if there are different Firmware Versions for the Cisco TA for different Cable Systems. I was told this by a Cable Rep, but I have my doubts. I find it hard to believe that a Scientific Atlanta / Cisco system would need different firmware in their TAs.

 

Can anyone answer who told them that the TA firmware upgrade from version 070* to 080* and above was for the reboot issues that are described in the TA threads, or did the upgrade just happen to coincide with the resolution of the reboot issues? I have been getting conflicting information from my Cable Reps. and even SA/Cisco themselves

 

Firmware 0701 experienced reboots approximately every three days at my house. Firmware 0801 resolved this problem. Now it's TiVoHD's USB communications with the Cisco TA that are troublesome.

 

We have had SDV in my area for at least a couple of years and I have had a TA for a couple of months and yesterday I get a letter from TWC announcing that they are rolling out SDV in my area and listing the channels moving to SDV (which does not appear to include channels that were ALREADY SDV). Better late then never I suppose. It also offers a "solution" for people that have CableCards in devices other than Tivos.
I scanned the letter to pdf if anyone is interested in reading it.

 

Same for me in the Greensboro area.

 

After a good run with the TA, this week we're back to random problems.

Aside from just "no signal available"'ing FXHD this week, it also managed to drop the signal completely in the last 5 minutes of a SciFiHD and BBCA program.

 

Is the pixelization seen on SDV channels due to the TA (RDU):

• occasional pixelized blips in the signal, audio is fine
• completely pixelated, audio skips, unwatchable

I thought it was the former, as that's what I've historically seen. However, starting this weekend, I've seen the latter on multiple SDV channels (MLBHD, FXHD), and it's really annoying.

I thought at first it might be noise/too much signal due to the amplified splitter I installed a week ago, but splitting the signal back down to where it's at strength 50/SNR 30dB, and it still persists on some specific channels (while most others are fine.)

 

Per my last conversation with Tech Ops, they still dont know what is causing it. Cisco and TiVo are engaged and trying to figure it out. The problem doesnt occur with TWC's hardware... only TiVo. My guess is that there is something in the transport stream generated by the Cisco GQAM Edge modulators that is tripping up the TiVo.

One thing to note... for you, do the glitches seem to cluster around the top and bottom of the hour (right when you would expect others to be changing channels.....). That is what I see.

 

If they determine changes needed in the edge modulators or TA, what are the odds these changes will be automatically pushed throughout the rest of the TWC system? Or will users have to nag them?

 

No way to know.... Are you seeing the problem there in Ohio? Is your SDV system using Cisco GQAM's? Not all SA/Cisco Head Ends use a Cisco SDV solution... many are using Big Band Networks (such as TWC Austin).

I personally believe the 'fault' will lie in the TiVo software. This problem strongly resembles the pixelation issue that S3 (not the THD) had in the early days that impacted encrypted content that was fixed by a TiVO SW update.

 

Don't know what edge equipment our system uses.

I experience a relatively minor level of video and audio artifacts, with RS Uncorrected Errors always zero or very small. I wonder whether it's in the program signal or the equipment. I also occasionally experience failure to tune with Signal Lock = Yes and Program Lock = No. This is always corrected by just forcing a re-tune. If these problems stay at their current low level, I can live with them. But if a fix is found that improves the situation in the Carolinas, I would like to think it would be spread across the entire TWC system.

The real thrust of my question is how much can we rely on TWC to conscientiously distribute fixes throughout their system? I'm doubtful because these problems apparently only affect a small percentage of their customers, and I've already seen from personal experience that most of their personnel don't seem to have a clue about TiVo's or Tuning Adapters. My cableCARD diagnostics screens indicate an OS Build date in May 2006 (!). So I have to wonder if my TWC office has failed to push the updates. However, I'm reluctant to ping them about it -- I'm afraid they could make things worse if they start messing with it without knowing what they're doing -- given that my system is working "well enough" (not perfectly) now.

 

What I saw last night was pretty much constant up until 10PM, at which point it became garbled every few minutes randomly. Both RS values remained at 0, signal strength 100, SNR 37dB.

Earlier in the weekend, I didn't leave it on the channel long enough to see how long it lasted.