[Uncle_Steve]

Supposedly the Comcast cable guy is coming today for round 4 of the TivoHD/CableCard slamfest. As of right now, the TivoHD can receive all the channels except for the premium channels (HBO and Starz).

The current cable card is a Scientific Atlanta multi-stream card.

Can anyone report success receiving premium channels using Comcast with the TivoHD and an M-card? If so, was there some special incantations involved? Was a live chicken involved? (I want to be prepared and don't have any chickens right now.)

Thanks.

 

[Uncle_Steve]

The TivoHD (Son of Series 3) does support an m-card in multistream mode.

 

[Uncle_Steve]

I was referring to this statement by Slime:

"I'm going to get another M-Card on Monday and replace the two Cards that are in my S3"

Oh. Uh, maybe we both missed something.

 

[Uncle_Steve]

Well, the Comcast guy did show today and was a reasonable human being. He didn't get it to work, but at least he didn't BS me.

We tried a single stream card and the folks at the Comcast office weren't able to initialize it. We put the m-card back in, the guy at the office said it wasn't working either, but after about 5 minutes the display changed to AUTHORIZED and we were able to view all the regular channels, but still no HBO or STARZ.

So, he's scheduled to come back out Monday afternoon with another m-card. However, it really feels to me like this has nothing to do with the Tivo end of things.

(No chickens were harmed during the service call.)

 

[Uncle_Steve]

tivo->
messages & settings->
settings->
remote, cablecard & devices->
cablecard decoder->
configure cablecard 1->
cablecard menu->
sa cablecard cp info

shows:

auth status: cp auth recieved
info for pgm index 0-5:
ltsid:0x3 pn:0x4 cci:0x2
ltsid:0x4 pn:0x2 cci:0x2
....
verifykey status: OK

Is this what you're referring to? the two lines with 0x2 on then above? Should I call Comcast and ask them to "Validate" my card?

 

[Uncle_Steve]

Ah ha! I found the CCI byte on the Diagnostic Screen (same path as above but one level earlier at the leaf). And it is 0x02!

 

[Uncle_Steve]

Sigh! Comcast's last "hit" of the device resulted in disabling all but the local channels.

 

[Uncle_Steve]

In Alexandria, VA I'm running a THD with a single SA M-Card without any problems. I did have initial pairing problems, but a call to the headend fixed that. Most of the problems I have had with Comcast has been account related. By that I mean the account was not set up properly for the CC.

My instincts tell me that all of my cable card problems have been account related too. But tomorrow afternoon the cable guy will be back to try again.

 

[Uncle_Steve]

Well, the cable guy didn't show yesterday; however, during the conversation with the Comcast office, we asked for another hit on the cable card. This time it worked. The TivoHD now receives all the channels we're supposed to as far as I can tell (including premiums). We're not getting A&E-HD, but talking with other customers, that seems to be hit-or-miss anyway.

On this past Sunday, we upgraded from "digital starter" to "full digital" (or something like that). I'm guessing that upgrade changed some path through the software at the Comcast office allowing the correct signals to be sent to the cable card. That's strictly a guess of course. Some folks have reported success having their cards authorized at some top tier service and then having services removed one by one.

This does validate my assumption that there was nothing wrong at my end of the link.