Viewing SDV on TWC (Los Angeles) and is there a list by area?

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Can a series 3 box with cablecards pick up an SDV channel if someone in the area has viewed it? How long would that last?

I have had my TWC (San Fernando Valley - Los Angeles) cabecards for just under a week in my new Series 3 and the channel lineup keeps changing.

When I first setup my channels, ESPN2-HD, TBS-HD and just about all the HBO/Showtime/TMC east coast channels flashed a "you need a digital cable box to get this channel" message, so I marked them as non-received.

I initially thought this was probably something to do with SDV since ESPN2 and TBS-HD wouldn't surprise me to be less popular channels. The lack of all the east coast feeds was frustrating, though, and hard to believe that they don't get routine viewing to justify a full time feed.

Well, tonight I wanted to record something on ESPN2, and just for curiosity I manually tuned to ESPN2-HD to see if there was a signal, thinking this might be popular, and if so, maybe someone else has requested it and I can pick it up. Well, sure enough, the feed wast there in all its ESPN2-HD glory.

So I then tuned over to TBS-HD, and it was suddenly playing now as well. Same thing for all the east coast feeds of the various movie channels.

So what's up with that? If these really are SDV unpopular channels, then why all of a sudden are a dozen of them that weren't available last week suddenly showing up? Could it be that they're not really SDV?

I saw another thread here from a month ago about not getting these same channels, but the answer was call and complain.

I'm more curious if my idea about SDV channels coming in and out for cablecards is accurate, and aso if anyone knows of a list of SDV channels by region that's available.

 

Nope, that's not the case here. Just to make sure, I am currently recording the movie Torque on TBS-HD (417) and the Utah Jazz NBA game on ESPN2-HD (425) simultaneously, so both cablecards are getting all channels.

I didn't see that in diagnostics, but I may have been in the wrong screen. Seems moot anyways, as I've confirmed with live recordings that both tuners/cards get the channels now.

I'm not going to complain, but I am leary of scheduling some recordings on these HD channels instead of the SD versions in case they suddenly disappear again.

:-(

 

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Yeah, I am grasping at straws and the SDV (someone in the neighborhood requested/tuned these channels tonight) seemed like a plausible idea on some levels.

If you're getting these channels now and weren't last week, that's consistent with my experience and it sounds like TWC flicked some switch someplace. For the longest time I didn't get ESPN2-HD even on my Scientific Atlanta box provided by TWC, while my friend in another zip code did.

I wouldn't bet my life on it, but I am pretty sure that in my otherwise painless installation, that channel 425 (ESPN2-HD) was the first channel that one of the two install guys checked when provisioning the cablecards. When the channel came in black, the second guy quickly said "he won't be able to get that channel, try another". Then they both were quick to remind me that with cablecards I wouldn't get "some" channels or any "on demand" stuff. So that put in my mind that ESPN2 was one of the channels.

I do note now that they got a black screen in provisioning, but I got a picture of the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR and the "you need a digital box..." message when tuning the channel later.

At any rate, about a dozen channels (2 HD and 10 HBO/Show/TMC/Starz) channels that I did not get last weekend are now tuning in just fine. I hope they stick around for a while.

;-)

 

Thanks. I'm definitely NOT mistaken about not having received those channels for the first week of having my cablecards, and others have posted similar experiences in this thread and others.

As far as SDV, as stated in previous message it was just a thought in trying to figure out what was up and asking if it was the possible cause.

What's your suggestion as to why multiple people would not receive the same certain channels, and then all of a sudden start getting them?

Thanks.