That letter says certain CableCards will no longer function.

It does not say that all CableCard support for all Optimum users is suspended.

 

That letter says certain CableCards will no longer function.
It does not say that all CableCard support for all Optimum users is suspended.

Well, its clear now that all Optimum Customers will lose Cablecard support.
(unless there are any with Cablecards other than Cisco/SA)

 

EDIT: Just spoke to customer service and they said that Optimum is dropping Cable Card Support. (No doing all areas at the same time though)

It doesn't say certain CableCards, it says My CableCard. If it was just a SA card then they would have given an option to get a Cisco CableCard. They're probably doing it by area, so while my TiVo will no longer be usable with Optimum in October, other users have either already lost service or will in the future.
If you'e right, then I'm sure they'll offer me another cable card when I call to close my account when they stop service.

 

VS pulling a card to ID it should the OP be able to use CableCARD diagnostics on his TiVo(s) to ID the 'branding' of his particular card and if he's actually going to be affected? It would certainly be interesting to know what a person should expect in the diagnostic screens to confirm yes/no!

 

This is probably the end of CableCARD support for all Optimum users with SA cablecards, although I'm waiting for a more public facing statement than the original letters.

Cablevision went with two conditional access solutions when they started digital cable (Originally iO Digital Cable from Cablevision, later Optimum TV). One was NDS, the other was Scientific Atlanta PowerKey. They saw that gave them flexibility to try Sony and Scientific Atlanta set top boxes, and to swap conditional access solutions without replacement (earlier Optimum cable boxes, ones shipped into the early 2010s, had a white plastic smart card inserted into the bottom right of the front of the box). Cablevision used NDS in some territory, Scientific Atlanta in others. Later on Optimum moved to Samsung boxes and gave up on having separable conditional access modules; what solution was used varied by service region. CableCARDs also followed: NDS in NDS territory. Scientific Atlanta in Scientific Atlanta territory.

NDS announced end of life for their conditional access in 2021. This meant that customers who still had boxes in Cablevision's NDS territory were swapped to Samsung STBs. NDS CableCARD users were switched to Scientific Atlanta CableCARDs. A migration and pairing/activation, but life goes on.

Now in 2024, Optimum is killing Scientific Atlanta equipment within the territory. This came in two steps:

1. Optimum killed support for SA set top boxes this month (August 2024). The apparent motivation for this is that all of the Scientific Atlanta STBs do not support codecs newer than MPEG-2. Thus, to get all channels onto MPEG-4 (or another more efficient codec than MPEG-2), the SA boxes had to be retired. This follows other moves to reclaim more bandwidth for internet, including putting switched digital video into much of the territory in 2021, and then subsequently provisioning internet downstream below 850mhz. People with SA Cable boxes were sent Samsung STBs to set up in their place.
2. Optimum sent a letter to many SA/Cisco (same thing, Cisco bought SA) CableCARD users saying that the CableCARD support would end in October 2024. This is undoubtedly due to the PowerKey date rollover bug, which occurs in November 2024. When the date rolls over, CableCARDs will stop working. Now suppliers have worked to salvage devices, and there is firmware for Gen2/Gen3 cablecards. (The Optimum SA boxes used a CAM smartcard on the front; they weren't the -C models that other operators had that basically put a cablecard behind a metal shield in the back.)

If point #1 didn't exist, Optimum would have a lot of incentive to implement the fixes in point #2 to fix the PowerKEY rollover bug. But with the boxes replaced for another solution in point #1, all Optimum has remaining at this point are the CableCARDs, which are a very very small subset of Optimum's TV subscribers. I would wager Optimum has decided that the cost of running the backend server/services and keeping troubleshooting of SA equipment ongoing when the only thing left are the CableCARDs and tuning adapters is more than these subscribers generate in TV revenue.

In terms of Optimum not pitching traditional STBs as replacements, my family, friends, and neighbors in the same service territory aren't being told to trade in their Samsung boxes (some had SA boxes replaced in the past couple months for Samsung), so Optimum isn't going IPTV only, at least not yet. But at the point where you're making CableCARD users migrate and you aren't suggesting traditional boxes, just IPTV based options, Optimum's long term direction is clear. I'm sure that if you called and asked Optimum would have no problem issuing you Samsung cable boxes.

I'm also not aware of Optimum using any other CableCARD manufacturer in the territory, but it's possible that in an area that was brought under Optimum when Altice reigned (Service Electric, Suddenlink) used an alternate CableCARD issuer, or that they have equipment dependencies in those territories where they are running SA STBs longer and have more incentive to fix the date rollover bug.

EDIT: To emphasize how small the footprint of CableCARD users is, Q3 2020 is the last time Cablevision/Optimum (Altice USA) was required to report CableCARD statistics to the FCC. At that time, there were 26,397 CableCARDs deployed in 17,174 households. Cable TV has generally been shedding users over the last four years. At that point, according to their financial KPIs for that quarter, Optimum had 3,382,600 residential video customers. Which means that 0.057% of Optimum's video customers at that time had a CableCard, or a little better of one of every 2000 households subscribing to Optimum TV having a CableCARD... no wonder they're not enthusiastic about supporting them.

 

So I'm a CableCard user in the Service Electric (NJ) area Optimum bought when the daughter of the original founder decided she didn't want the business any more. The Cable cards distributed by Service Electric were simple one-way (Moto) cards that worked just like their set-top boxes. Serial number in their system. This seems like the small DTA converters, Service Electric supplied, and Optimum still provides connections to other TVs that you don't want to spend 13 dollars on a set-top box. They know I have the 2 cable cards on my monthly bill but when I called about taking all of their equipment back, they offered me a monthly discount roughly equal to the monthly cost of my equipment. I think they really don't want Service Electric Equipment back.
We have always been treated as "outsiders" as far as Optimum is concerned. The state of NJ required Optimum to give Service Electric customers "discounts" to make the cost of Optimim equal to the cost of Service Electric for some period of time. I see some of my discounts are rolling off now.
As to their "solutions" the Optimum TV app doesn't work for me, it says I need to upgrade my service. I'm pretty sure that's because I'm a Service Electric outsider. The Apple TV solution doesn't work with the Optimum App for the same reason. I do have an Apple TV and I can use my TVAnywhere login on the individual apps to get most channels via streaming.
These streaming solutions remove the need for Optimum to provide hardware support in most situations (if they work).
For these reasons I'm going to ride my Cable Cards out until the bitter end.

 

Well for me it certainly will not be with Optimum. OTA doesn’t work for me either.

 

So for me, a tivo user for over 20 years with optimum, is this the end of my TiVo road?i

 

Just got the letter too, seems to be the end of TiVo. They offer streaming on the app or Apple TV.

 

Can't obtain a Arris or Motorola card?
It is only the Scientific Atlanta PowerKEY cards that are affected.

 

A card will only work if provided by your cable company. You can’t obtain your own.

 

New Article:
https://www.lightreading.com/security/altice-usa-s-powerkey-cablecards-will-soon-go-on-the-blink

Altice USA's letter to customers did not elaborate on why PowerKEY CableCARDs will become inoperable in October. However, the company confirmed that the situation stems from a broader issue that's poised to cause millions of older set-tops with PowerKEY security to go on the blink because their internal clocks will roll over in November 2024. The limitation of those internal clocks are due in part to memory limitations in the secure microprocessors that keep time.​

​

Vantiva, Synamedia and Adara Technologies have developed remedies that can salvage a sizable portion of those older PowerKEY devices. Adara, for example, has developed a way to spoof the controller time clock so that the underlying conditional access system does not time out. Adara CEO Joseph Nucara told Light Reading recently that an unnamed Tier-1 North American cable operator along with dozens of Tier-2/3 operators are working with the company to help salvage their PowerKEY devices.​

​

However, it's also clear that some operators, including Altice USA, are content to let PowerKEY run its course and instead ask customers to swap in new IP- and app-based streaming alternatives. Potentially disruptive, this rip-and-replace approach carries some risk as some affected customers might leave and sign up with a competing pay-TV service provider.​

​

In October I'm going to leave and sign up with a competing pay-TV service provider.

 

In addition to what's in the letter, you may be able to get their Samsung Cable Box (mo fee, DVR add'l fee). As you said, customer service isn't the best, but sometimes you get through to someone that knowledgeable.

 

Seems both Optimum and Comcast are saying a date in October related to CC.

 

Optimum is saying that all Scientific Atlanta CableCARDs will stop working in October due to the Nov 2024 date rollover bug, and they've strongly positioned towards IPTV streaming like Optimum Stream, Apple TV, mobile app, but renting Samsung STBs will be an option. They will not supply CableCARD from alternate manufacturers. In Optimum (Cablevision) territory where SA/Cisco cablecard is used, it's end of the line.

Comcast is saying October 24th they will no longer give new CableCARDs or replace existing ones when they go bad. That's a "if you want a new Cablecard, or your existing one goes bad & you want to exchange, too bad, so sad." It is not any end date for when existing CableCARDs activated in the field will stop working.

(Again, these things generally have coin cell batteries in them. I can't tell you if the batteries in whatever Comcast has on the shelf is better than what's in yours, but if your Comcast CableCARD is very old, you may consider trying to swap it before that date. I'm not sure if replacing the battery fixes the issue, or if/when the battery in the cablecard dies, volatile memory is wiped and it stops working. Even then, Comcast may refuse to pair cablecards not already paired after that date. It's hard to say how this policy will be enforced on the activation/pairing end beyond them saying they won't give out new/exchange the physical CableCards effective October 24th.)

 

This is extremely depressing. Tivo has been the best technological product that I have ever used, and it just sad that we have to take a big step backward.

Does anyone know the exact date in October the CableCard will stop working on Optimum? The letter was not clear...is it October 1 or October 31? I just want to know how much time I have.

I am currently looking at Dish and their supposedly excellent DVR. We never watch any show live because we always skip over the commercials. A couple years ago, I had an Optimum cloud DVR when I initially needed a tuning adapter and Optimum didn't have any in stock. It was really terrible with a big delay between when you pushed a button and the DVR responded, so it was really frustrating trying to skip commercials. I do want to also explore YouTubeTV and Hulu but I fear their cloud DVRs will be equally poor at this task.

 

Does anyone know the exact date in October the CableCard will stop working on Optimum? The letter was not clear...is it October 1 or October 31? I just want to know how much time I have.

I've read that the date bug in the PowerKey Cablecard is "In November". I haven't seen an exact date. Optimum said October in the letter, but they may have just stated an earlier month that the Cablecard will no longer work.

 

From that article Vanita apparently has a fix but it would cost the operators money so perhaps they decided they do not want to pay for this fix considering the number of users.

Vantiva is "very far along with having a solution" for PowerKEY devices that use CableCARDs, Potts said. He stressed that operators with PowerKEY boxes in the field that haven't been alerted to the issue should contact Vantiva as soon as possible.

"The beauty about a CableCARD is that it's disconnected from the host [set-top], so all you have to do is get a message to the CableCARD. There's a way to basically reengineer how some of the
things work within PowerKEY so that it can handle this rollover date."

Vantiva also indicated that such fixes won't be free.

 

That is exactly it.

 

I’m still running NDS cards. I know they warned the cards were being discontinued a few years ago but I figured I’d roll the dice and see how long they work for. I wonder if these are affected by this date bug and whether they’ll finally stop working in November.

 

Only Cisco/Scientific America Cablecard effected.

https://www.lightreading.com/cable-technology/time-warp-could-cause-millions-of-old-powerkey-set-tops-to-go-on-the-blink

 

Been a TiVo Bolt owner for 7 years.
Sad to say goodbye 😥

 

Been an Optimum customer for even longer (30 years!) Wow!
Decided to start the process, called Optimum, said I needed to cancel the TV package as the Cablecard will stop working soon. (I'll go with either YTTV or Hulu). Transferred to Customer Retention. Said I wanted to keep Internet and Phone. Was told that if I break the Bundle, I loose the Internet credit and the fee will double (45 to 90), and no offers available.
Only other option I have is T-Mobile WiFi Modem ($50/mo), so I picked up the Modem from my local T-Mobile. Was doubtful it would work as I'm in a congested area, but 'good' signal and 400Mbps / 20 Mbps so far so good.

T-Mobile has a 15 day test drive, so I'll see how it goes and maybe I'll be saying goodbye to Optimum as well.

 

My early Bolt has been acting up lately. After October, I'll connect it to my antenna and see if I can make it do OTA. If I can't, I'll just drop it. If I it works, I'll take it to my place up north, possibly with one of my Mini's and run it as OTA there until it breaks. I'll also lose my SiliconDust HDHomerunPrime since that's Cablecard too. Sadly, that will make watching Mets games in high def a little harder.

I've already shored up my MythTV Infrastructure. It will do for a while but as far as convenience goes, it's no replacement for TiVo. I'll do some additional work to turn that into a self-hosted streaming service, possibly behind Plex or JellyFin.

To quote Doctor Strange, for TiVo, I think that we are "in the Endgame now".

 

I'll connect it to my antenna and see if I can make it do OTA.

If you look at the Model Number, you can tell if it does OTA or not. Also, if it has 6 tuners, it is cable only.

 

I am shocked people are not storming the proverbial Bastille over this! 1- Cablevision/Optimum for not supporting the cable cards anymore and 2- TIVO-For not anticipating this and coming up with a solution. They should have partnered with someone. Their interface is way better than most and they have a loyal following. I feel like I am being forced into something inferior. Due to pricing, I am thinking of dropping the cable part of Optimum and going with Hulu since they do skip commercials just not with the same granularity and also not with a single touch of a button. Very frustrating. We do plan on doing like others and riding this out until the bitter end and also hope for a last-minute solution. Keep the faith! LOL.

 

The Cisco/SA Cablecards have a date bug rendering them not able to decode the channels in Nov, so Optimum is dropping Cablecard support as the Cablecard are/will be broken. I read there is a fix being worked on but Optimum is not interested. As Optimum is/has moving to IPTV service, can’t really blame them for not wanting to spend time and money on a fix for the Cisco/SA bug.

I also wanted to just drop TV and keep Internet, but as this is breaking my Bundle, Optimum would up my Internet fee by double, so I’m dropping all of Optimum and moving to YTTV and T-Mobile Home Internet (the only other option in my area)

 

The short version is: times have changed. Technology has changed. And most importantly, how people watch television has changed. Many people have moved on from cable television to on-demand streaming services.

For those who continue to watch "linear television" (cable, satellite, or OTA TV and similar functioning streaming services like YouTubeTV), they often find the DVR offered by the service provider to be "good enough" for the limited amount of television they're actually recording and watching later. As good as TiVo? No, probably not, but "good enough" often wins.

It's simply not worth the investment for service providers to continue to cater to the absolutely minuscule number of remaining TiVo users. (It never was, if we must be honest.)

 

It’s a real shame TiVo never figured out the right formula to move to a streaming platform that incorporated something similar to their traditional TiVo user experience. The current streaming boxes (ie Apple TV, fire tv, Roku, etc) are all still very clunky and fragmented and the streaming providers like YTTV still fall far short of the TiVo experience. A sad day indeed. RIP TiVo from this 25+ year user

 

It’s a real shame TiVo never figured out the right formula to move to a streaming platform that incorporated something similar to their traditional TiVo user experience.

It could be that it is not possible to create the same TiVo DVR experience with a cloud DVR.

 

Dropped Optimum a few weeks ago. Looked at Hulu Live and YouTube TV for 3 days and decided on YTTV. Yes, TiVo was a better experience, but I'm getting used to YTTV and it will be a fine TiVo replacement

 

Yeah, we dropped Optimum earlier this year. Turned in 3 cablecards and the girls had no idea what they were. Had never seen them before. Replaced cable with YTTV and Frndly TV (History and Outdoor Channels). Stuck an antenna in the attic and converted the Bolts to OTA. Will still use them 'til they die.

 

Confirmed. I’m still running NDS cards without issue 3+ years later despite their warning that they would stop working on 4/1/21. I have the powerkey cards still sitting in their package figuring I’d swap them out when the NDS cards failed since most folks at optimum are clueless about binding and historically it always required several calls and support escalations to get them working. So if you never switched to powerkey cards, perhaps these cards will continue to operate.

 

Confirmed. I’m still running NDS cards without issue 3+ years later despite their warning that they would stop working on 4/1/21. I have the powerkey cards still sitting in their package figuring I’d swap them out when the NDS cards failed since most folks at optimum are clueless about binding and historically it always required several calls and support escalations to get them working. So if you never switched to powerkey cards, perhaps these cards will continue to operate.

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Wow. It will be interesting to see what happens with these. It would not surprise me at all if they continue to work, as I doubt they are looking to actively disable cards on their end. Of course, if you ever have an issue where you need to pair one of these old cards, they will almost certainly not help you.

 

Good news, maybe! The chief engineer at Optimum in Hendersonville NC confirmed that,
because they use Motorola cards, TiVo will continue to work here.

 

Good news, maybe! The chief engineer at Optimum in Hendersonville NC confirmed that,
because they use Motorola cards, TiVo will continue to work here.

Had you previously received a letter saying otherwise?

 

Just received this from TiVo

Attention TiVo Customer,

We are writing to inform you that cable provider, Altice/Optimum, has discontinued support of the CableCARD in your TiVo DVR, as of October 1, 2024. This is an Altice decision. The digital cable programming in your TiVo DVR will not function after October 24, 2024.

Please contact Altice/Optimum at 1-866-347-4784 with any questions or concerns. After speaking with Altice/Optimum, should you need to cancel your TiVo service you can do so by visiting Cancelling TiVo Service.

TiVo does offer a media streamer as an alternative to cable. This can be ordered online at TiVo Stream 4K.

Sincerely,

TiVo Customer Support
www.tivo.com/support

 

The digital cable programming in your TiVo DVR will not function after October 24, 2024.

Still working as of this morning.

 

Disgraceful Tivo to new buyers or when offering upgrades should have mentioned this possibility of no service. I was mislead and definitely would not have upgraded Tivo had I known. I am notw forced to end up with a useless Tivo Edge for Cable and forced to increase my optimum costs as there is no other C Card service provider in Northern NJ as I understand it.

 

AppleTV ... DirecTV Stream ... Don't look back.

Get an Apple TV and subscribe to DirecTV Stream. Optimum has done us a favor.