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Thank you for this post. This was what I was trying to do research on to figure out how Charter is dumping Tivo / CableCard support and this is exactly what I was looking for. I assumed that QAM support was likely the issue, though the Charter reps I've spoke to over the phone don't have clue one about what changes are coming, when they're coming and how likely my Tivo EDGE units are going to be boat anchors as far as Charter is concerned. I know we kept hearing about the IPTV bridge option a number of years ago that Charter was working on as a post-CableCard scenario, though we all know where that likely ended up. Having them shift to IPTV makes sense and opens up that bandwidth for DOCSIS 4.0 and beyond.Exactly. Look at what Alaska's largest cable operator, GCI, is doing right now. And keep in mind that GCI is essentially a sibling of Charter, because they're majority owned by the same group that is Charter's largest shareholder (i.e. John Malone). In their largest market, Anchorage, GCI shut down QAM cable TV service at the end of April, forcing any customers still on that platform to migrate to their newer IPTV platform, Yukon TV (or drop GCI-provided TV service completely). Once QAM TV is shut down, a TiVo DVR (or any other CableCARD device) can no longer be used with that TV provider. GCI's QAM shutdown was done to allow the company to begin high-split upgrades to their DOCSIS network in Anchorage this summer. Their plan is to do this in all of their markets across the state between now and 2025, at which point they'll circle back to Anchorage and begin upgrading the DOCSIS network from version 3.1 to 4.0, which will allow even faster download and upload speeds.
Combine that with the fact that Charter just this spring invested a large sum to buy half of Comcast's Flex streaming video platform so that they could use it to provide 4K streaming devices to their own broadband customers starting in 2023. This tells me that, at least in some markets, we're going to see Charter shut down QAM cable TV and implement high-split DOCSIS in 2023. At that point, Spectrum TV will only be available in those markets via streaming (IPTV and/or OTT). And they'll use Flex streaming boxes/sticks as their preferred solution for those customers to access not just their own Spectrum TV app but also other video apps which can be downloaded and billed for through the Comcast/Charter app store (e.g. HBO Max, Disney+, Paramount+, Peacock, etc.).
My understanding is that Charter WorldBox set-top boxes (like Comcast X1 boxes) are hybrid IPTV/QAM devices, so they could theoretically still access Spectrum TV service even in areas where QAM TV has been shut down. But, of course, CableCARD devices like TiVo will not be able to make that leap.
So the bottom line here is that you should not expect your TiVo DVR to work with Spectrum TV by the end of 2023. Depending on where you live, it's certainly possible that it will continue to work with Spectrum TV, because (just as with GCI), it will take Spectrum some time to work their away around their entire footprint doing high-split upgrades. So you might get lucky and be one of the last ones to see Charter shut down your local QAM cable TV service in maybe 2025 or 2026. But there's no question that it's coming.
Since there's no Tivo product that covers ATSC 3.0 yet (or ever), over-the-air support on anything without an ATSC 3.0 tuner is likely to be another line on the horizon that causes the current equipment to be semi-to-completely useless.
The main thing I'm trying to get from Charter is trying to find out the when, so I can plan to be off of them by the time they drop CableCard support. By the end of 2023 could be Jan 1 or Dec 31, so I'd like to get things in order. With AT&T fiber now in my area for 500/500 pricing at the same price as 400/20 Charter service, dropping CableCards makes that a quicker decision to move.