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Spectrum and cable card

61K views 387 replies 73 participants last post by  michaelj3 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
I have a Bolt on cable card using Spectrum (Charter) as my provider. In inquiring about possibly changing packages, I was told that the current plans do not allow for cable card and that it is possible that Spectrum may obsolete cable card in the future. It sounded like more a matter of when than if. Or am I misunderstanding this? I love my Tivo and have had a Series 2 and HD prior to my Bolt. I hate the thought of losing it. I've resisted the lower prices and better offerings from Hawaiian Telcom because I wouldn't be able to use my Tivo.
 
#288 · (Edited)
Alright, I went through a dry run of the swap of the TA to the HSC and this is what I have to offer:

  • The HSC is huge, almost as big as the Edge is. Easily twice as wide as the TA is, plus deeper and a little higher. Ports on the back are the same, cable in + cable out + USB device port + AC port. AC adapter is a small AC adapter, not a plug-in adapter/wall-wart, so it should be easier for plugging it into a surge suppressor or UPS than the wall-wart is. It also comes with two RG-59 / RG-6 RF cables in the box, both Spectrum-branded, and a USB cable.
  • The HSC are supposedly pre-activated and the swap is done as a self-install, as the included instructions are to swap out the TA for the HSC and call them if there are any issues post-swap.
  • If you've received the email with the IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED, then the node your cable TV is connected to has been set with a swap date, which is a month/month-ish from the date of the swap. If you don't have the email yet, your node isn't scheduled for the swap yet and it's a node-by-node conversion. My guess is that they're working on smaller nodes first and moving to more populated nodes further down the swap. I don't have an email yet for that change.
  • When I swapped out the TA for the HSC, the TiVo saw it as a TA on its end. I didn't dig through menu settings after the fact to see what looked different from the TA being in place versus the HSC.
  • The HSC doesn't work until the high-split happens, though from the manager I spoke with said that there's a "soft-cut" that seems to be going in 5 days before the cut date in the email, which is when the HSC should be potentially ahead of the cut date.
  • When I had the HSC in place, there was an obvious "No channels are available" issue like what happens when a TA isn't present or isn't working correctly. Swapping out the HSC for the TA without making any other changes had channels work again like normal.
  • When the cut date happens, the TA(s) on the account are deleted since they're no longer useable. The manager said "the CableCards are deleted from the account", to which I questioned the point and they corrected themselves and said it was the TA(s) were the items deleted from the account.
  • TA(s) that are no longer in use have to be returned back to Spectrum, either at a Spectrum store location or a UPS Store location, though they will send out a return kit as needed if the options for the other two aren't available for the customer.
  • They think there may be a run-up on equipment as they get closer to the cut-over dates, so getting equipment sooner than later would be a prudent move IMO.

So, it sounds like equipment-wise, I'm good to go, I just have to wait out to get the email about the cutover date and then go through the motions with the swap of TAs to HSCs. For my relative that received the email that they sent along to me, as they have a date of Jan 16th, I need to find out how many HSCs they need and get those ordered. Once on-site, then it'll be checking to see if there is this "soft-cut" in the five day window before the cutover date with trying to swap from TAs to HSCs.
 
#204 ·
5 hours ago I got maybe that 12th exact same form letter e-mail that keeps moving the date out for me to accept their fantastic equipment.... this time to August 28. I've received at least a dozen e-mails from them and a dozen phone calls from them where the phone call goes to message and they rarely leave a message. Anyone who tells you it's imminent is lying to you. The e-mails don't come from anyone technical... they come from a Vice President of Marketing in Connecticut. The phone calls are marketing phone calls. Don't fall for it.
 
#211 ·
The e-mails don't come from anyone technical... they come from a Vice President of Marketing in Connecticut.
That is exactly who they must come from, i.e. someone who is actually responsible for communications (and for various reasons at Charter, that it the umbrella org responsible for such). No one else is going to be allowed to send you any official communications. It might not be what you want, but there are various legal and regulatory requirements involved that preclude others from making official statements that have not been vetted through the entire process. If you don't understand that, talk to your lawyer (as only your lawyer is responsible to you) who can explain the gory details.
 
#362 · (Edited)
Update since technician came today about CableCARD and HSC after receiving in and installing the HSC on Monday.

Everything is now back to working.

There is a known problem, on the back end, with the CableCARDs and HSCs showing activated to the support representatives when actually they are not. Technician showed both as being disabled in his mobile system.

Both the CableCARD and HSC were actually still disabled as, when the switch gets flipped for high split, it automatically deactivates and kicks the CableCARD off the account, but the back end was able to get it back on and working along with getting the HSC fully provisioned.

Also, with Motorola CableCARDs, when the switch flips, the CableCARD is getting recategorized as a Cisco card which doesn’t allow the representative to provision it because it won’t accept the Data ID since Cisco cards don’t use that in their provisioning like Motorola cards do.

The back end was able to recategorize it back to a Motorola card, and the DataID was able to be successfully provisioned back into the system.

New hits were sent, and everything came back alive as it was before.

On the CableCARD Decoder Diagnostics Screen under:

Settings → Remote, CableCARD, and Devices → CableCARD Decoder → CableCARD Installation → CableCARD Menu → Conditional Access

the following three fields should show like in the picture below:

Con = Yes
Val = V
Auth = S

If any of these show ? or a different value other than those above, then the CableCARD is not provisioned and enabled properly to take the authorization, and all channels, whether SDV or not, will display a V58 message.

On the Tuning Adapter Diagnostics Screen under:

Settings → Remote, CableCARD, and Devices → Tuning Adapter → Diagnostics

it should look similar to the one displayed below if signals are coming in properly.

Signal Strength should display a %, and Signal Lock, Program Lock, and Search Complete should all show as a Yes for all tuners. If these have a - instead, power-cycle the TiVo. They should change to a % and three Yes’s for all tuners

If -‘s are still showing then a strong enough signal is not being detected.

If it does show % and three Yes’s, and the CableCARD Decoder fields don’t show as described, then problem is the CableCARD not being provisioned and enabled properly in the controller system.

I hope this will help if any of you experience the same problem I had.

Everything is now working as before.

Computer Output device Flat panel display Gadget Personal computer

Computer Output device Personal computer Font Computer monitor
 
#363 ·
...Everything you said...
This is super-helpful! I've been away for a week, but last Saturday morning my Ring doorbell captured a dude with some coax cables and a box at my door (completely a surprise to me). I'm only assuming it was my HSC to be installed.

All your info gives me confidence that it will work in the end. :D

Funny thing, right now with my old TA and all, everything is still working fine. I almost hesitate to call them for an appointment.

Anyhow, if I have anything of value to report afterwards, I will be back here.
For the record, I am in Lexington, KY.
 
#78 ·
Charter has not yet stopped offering or supporting CableCARDs in any location, even if some CSRs don't know what they are (and if they do may try to convince you to select otherwise) and activating them can sometimes be a challenge (but nothing new there).

It is expected that there will be a time when Charter will stop offering CableCARDs (likely when they actually announce the end date for support in a location rather than this initial email which is just an encouragement to move to a different solution at a time most convenient for you). But today is not that day. And tomorrow seems unlikely too.
 
#254 ·
Just a followup - I was able to get the Cablecard and tuning adapter without any complaints, though a lot of incompetence. First appointment - (after reminding them) guy shows up and doesn't have the equipment. Says he can't even see that it's requested until after he is dispatched. Can't/Won't go get it and come back - reschedules it for 2 days later. Meanwhile we have zero cell phone data reception 1 bar at best - so no internet. He also refused to just give me internet to help out in the coming 2 day blackout. Said they have to do everything - or nothing. UGH Next guy shows - same thing - no equipment - no clue. After a long time calling in he gets a supervisor on the line and the super drives over with the equipment and they figure it out. Almost. Looks like TV - Internet is good - but of course Tivo has to run guided setup again to fully test it out. It came back hours later that the cablecard wasn't paired properly - so I got them on the phone and managed to talk through it. Finally working! They didn't give any indication that it wasn't a long term setup. Still holding on - though this tested my patience to the point I almost said forget it and just go with Spectrum internet and start YouTubeTV instead!!!
 
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#256 ·
Congrats!

Not that this will make you feel any better, but I don't remember ever having a successful cableco install with my TiVos (from either Comcast Xfinity or Verizon Fios). They never seem to be able to pair it properly upon installation and I have to spend hours on the phone with them after the fact. That is why I dread losing my cableCARD pairing and why I have a backup of the hard drive with the settings I need, ready to plug in the moment I have a problem.

Anyway, I'm just pointing out that the part that was the most challenging for you is not limited to Charter Spectrum. I'm not sure about Spectrum, but both Xfinity and Fios have an on-line tool to activate cableCARDs and that has never worked for me either. I wish it was an easier process, but then, the cablecos would have to WANT there to be! :)
 
#273 · (Edited)
Interesting that two sets of letters are going out.

One is vague, saying CC won’t work with some services, on an unspecified date, and urged you to get a discounted AppleTV.

One is specific, gives an exact date, and says your cc won’t work, period, unless you use their free replacement adapter.

Seems to me the vague letter is a preemptive strike to scare people into turning over their cc and the other is an actual solution for those who haven’t been duped and still have their card.
 
#8 ·
Thanks, everyone. I love my Tivo and my wife is mostly indifferent, but likes the ability to have at least the Netflix and Prime apps on it. She just can't get used to the idea of changing inputs to get to our Firestick.

When they pull the plug on the cablecard, I'm pretty resigned to the thought that I'll have to experiment with our only other cable provider, Hawaiian Telcom. For the price, they offer better internet speeds and my friends seem to be happy with the dvr performance. They've never had Tivo, so they can only compare it to Spectrum hardware. One thing that I'll be happy about is eliminating the dance to get the TA synced and the MOCA connection to my mini.
 
#31 ·
Thanks, Doug! I do have a Firestick and Roku. I'm making notes on what channels I need for what I record to see what all I'd have to subscribe to, to continue getting that content. It's probably cheaper to drop HBO and SHO and stream those. I mostly use HBO and have their streaming for free, since I currently subscribe to HBO.

I saw something online (maybe it was old info, at least I hope) that the Spectrum dvr only has one tuner. I cannot imagine that at this point, so I REALLY hope it's wrong if I take that route.

I really have to have tv as it's about the only thing that keeps me halfway sane with all I'm dealing with these days. I keep reruns of certain shows on hand for evening viewing. It's the only thing that gets me outside of my head, which is where I absolutely have to spend time each day. I pay them a lot of money each month and if there was a viable choice I would leave. Just for cable, landline, and internet, it's about $297 a month, having just gone up by over $20 recently. Thanks. Charge me more and take away some of the service.
 
#40 ·
It would be helpful if people who got the email mentioned what part of the country or what state they live in. This may or may not be rolled out to major cities for a while.
Central Kentucky here

In exchange, I'll point out a 'hidden' ATV4K remote feature I just love: You're watching a show, and miss a bit of dialog. Hit the mike button on the Apple remote and say "What did she say?" and the device will rewind 20 seconds, turn on closed captioning, play back that 20 seconds of rewound video, then turn off closed captioning. It's magical.
That's nifty. One of the reasons why I've kept going back to Roku is they, like Tivo, have an instant replay button right on the remote. You can also set it to only turn on captions during instant replay.

Agreed. Literally the only thing I can't get with YTTV is the failing Pittsburgh Pirates, now that they've added the Weather Channel.

I can always read about the Bucs losing the next day...
Same here but with the Reds. :LOL: And unfortunately there's still a few years left on the ACC's (pre-ACC Network) agreement with Fox/Bally Sports South.
 
#121 ·
I agree that the ballistics in most streaming apps are garbage compared to any TiVo. And that the TiVo remote is, quite possibly, the best remote design ever seen.

But then there's the fact that proper streaming 4K images and multichannel sound are so vastly superior to the compressed to hell twenty year old codec HD crap that cable sends out, it's no contest at all if you want high quality pictures and sound. Spectrum's 10 Mb/s MPEG content is just incredible trash. That's not TiVo's fault, but in the end that's what TiVo users get to watch in many markets.
 
#224 ·
I am in St. Louis. I had a Spectrum technician out today to deal with some internet service issues. To my very pleasant surprise, he was familiar with TiVo and moca and cable cards, so we got into a discussion about what was coming down the pike. He told me that the new high-speed internet service was going to be implemented in Perryville, MO starting in 2 weeks. (For those of you who are unfamiliar, Perryville is in rural southeast MO.) As someone else mentioned, all of the old cable boxes as well as the cable cards will be obsolete. I asked him when he thought it might hit St. Louis, and he said that he doesn't know but what they were told is that Spectrum is bringing in huge contracting companies to work on upgrading the large service areas after Spectrum has done a roll out in the smaller communities. He anticipated it would be end of September for the St. Louis area but couldn't confirm that.

I have not received an email or letter from Spectrum in a week or so, so it will be interesting to see if I get any more.
 
#225 ·
I am in St. Louis. I had a Spectrum technician out today to deal with some internet service issues. To my very pleasant surprise, he was familiar with TiVo and moca and cable cards, so we got into a discussion about what was coming down the pike. He told me that the new high-speed internet service was going to be implemented in Perryville, MO starting in 2 weeks. (For those of you who are unfamiliar, Perryville is in rural southeast MO.) As someone else mentioned, all of the old cable boxes as well as the cable cards will be obsolete. I asked him when he thought it might hit St. Louis, and he said that he doesn't know but what they were told is that Spectrum is bringing in huge contracting companies to work on upgrading the large service areas after Spectrum has done a roll out in the smaller communities. He anticipated it would be end of September for the St. Louis area but couldn't confirm that.

I have not received an email or letter from Spectrum in a week or so, so it will be interesting to see if I get any more.
From what I've been told, as mentioned earlier, you're supposed to get an email and/or mailing that says "Call To Action" on it, which is supposed to be the advance notice for the change coming up the pipeline. If that happens or not, I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.

I'd be very curious to see what happens with the change for you, if any, when this two week timeframe comes and goes for the change in Internet service.
 
#242 ·
Well, if you guys recall, there's been rumors going around about this for a couple years. In the meantime, I have refused to buy new models and recently replaced a flaky roamio. Swapped hdd and cable card from old unit.
Of COURSE I had trouble getting cable card to register but the Spectrum tech knew what he was doing, did some kinda 'force' and it started working.
During chat, I asked him and he said the rumors in his world were no different than a year ago and still
"Sometime in future"
 
#248 ·
Just ordered new service with Spectrum starting 10/18/22 - we have to pay a $50 truck roll fee due to the house being connected to DirectTV - I assume DTV have taken over the in house cable wiring. It could be simple to switch back - but maybe not... I don't want to mess with it. (built in a planned development in 2014, so cable TV feed is likely in the street/panel) Ah, for the old days when the cable guy came out for free to get your business!!!!

The phone call took 40 minutes - this wasn't waiting to speak to someone - just the time it took to enter new service. That's INSANE - all you need is name, address, service type and appointment. geeesh. After a long long time on hold after asking them 3x to make sure the installer brings a tuning adapter and cablecard......... The answer finally was - YES - they will bring the tuning adapter and cablecard!

Granted, given the level of incompetency that takes 40 minutes to do something so basic - I'm skeptical they will do what's been asked for. We shall see. If they deny providing it on the install then it's Plan B - no more cable TV, no more Tivo. :-( Not ready for that day just yet.
 
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#250 ·
Granted, given the level of incompetency that takes 40 minutes to do something so basic - I'm skeptical they will do what's been asked for. We shall see. If they deny providing it on the install then it's Plan B - no more cable TV, no more Tivo. :-( Not ready for that day just yet.
Not ONCE while I was with Spectrum did they dispatch a tech who had any idea 1) what a Cablecard was or 2) what a TiVo was, despite the repeated assurances from the ordertakers that they would.

And two quick questions...where are you located and was your system originally Time Warner or Charter? Just curious as to how they're disassembling the Cablecard system, such as it was.
 
#253 ·
That's just it, no one knows. Not even Spectrum. I was told the other day they were no longer autorizing Cablecards and that they would continue to charge the (admittedly small) monthly fee for any outstanding. But I'd bet you could call right now and get a completely different answer. Whatever. :cautious:
 
#287 ·
I in the St. Louis market area and a few months ago got a letter stating I was going to get a shipment with new equipment. Didn't state why, didn't state what. Nothing ever happened with that as I never got anything.

I have two cable cards, and two tuning adapters by the way.

Fast forward to this week I got a notification that they were going to be doing work overnight and we'd have a service interruption. Next morning everything looked fine, but I noticed that evening that my SDV (switched digital video) channels weren't working on either Tivo. Usually that just requires a reboot of the tuning adapters, which I did. I realized they aren't locking on anymore, just blinking yellow. I know high split is being worked on in the entire market, and I reached out to a Charter friend and he confirmed the OOB frequency the older cable boxes used for their provisioning and interactivity has been removed. At least in my area it did this week.

So it seems these tuning adapters are dead now. Everything else seems to still be working video wise except for the SDV channels. I followed the HSC converter link and entered my info there, so hopefully those will ship soon and fix that.
 
#295 ·
Looks like a HSC is just a tuning adapter on steroids.

A tuning adapter was basically a neutered cable box that requested the channel you wanted to watch which then got allocated one of the dynamic channels and TiVo tuned to it. I'm guessing a HSC is similar, except it has the ability to downconvert channels, in effect becoming a pretend SDV system. That is, TiVo asks the HSC to tune to a channel, and it internally downconverts it, then tells TiVo what channel it's on and TiVo then uses that information to tune its tuner.

Kinda like how in the old days if you had an old cable converter and a VCR and wanted to record something, you'd program the VCR to record off channel 3 or 4 and tell the converter to tune to a channel at a specific time and date. Except these days it's all automated and digital enabled.
 
#296 ·
Not really. What has happened here is the OOB channel that carried the forward data from the headend so the Cable Card and company owned STBs could operate has been eliminated as the frequency spectrum where they were located was repurposed for upstream internet. The OOB channel is now broadcasted at a higher frequency and the converter will tune to that OOB signal and rebroadcast it at frequency that the TiVo can tune to so the CableCard can receive its OOB messages and the CableCard can still function. Without OOB messages the CableCard will not function, and the TiVo will not be able to tune to any channel.
INVENTION DISCLOSURE (cablelabs.com)
 
#343 · (Edited)
I can now confirm that here in Central Kentucky (Lawrenceburg, Harrodsburg, other surrounding areas on our same headend, etc.) the switch just flipped for high split. I was watching tv when it all of a sudden went to all channels saying:

“This channel is not authorized. Contact your provider for more information. (V58)”

Our spectrum receivers work just fine so I called the CableCARD support line, and he said I literally witnessed the switch take place when all of the channels went to that message.

I had ordered my HSC device a couple of months ago, from that Spectrum HSC page mentioned here farther back, and he showed it would be here Monday by FedEx which I have a FedEx confirmation of this, too. He said it was already showing activated on his end, and it shows online in the account as being activated and ready, so he said once I hook it up, in place of the tuning adapter, everything will start working again with no need to call.

As far as the tuning adapter, he said I can take it back to our local store or ship it back.

He advised that as soon as the switch is flipped for HSC, in each market, all CableCARDS, in the given flipped market, will cease to receive the authorization until the HSC device is installed in place of the tuning adapter and no channels, whether SDV or not, will display until then.

I will try to report back on Monday after I get the HSC device installed as to whether or not everything goes back to working like usual.

The good news is that FedEx estimates it to be here by 8:40am to 12:40pm Monday so, as long as it comes before the evening, I should be able to get it installed and working before primetime tv to be recorded comes on.
 
#345 · (Edited)
Got my HSC in today, got it installed, and currently still no dice.

Called Spectrum, and they confirmed everything is properly activated and paired, the TiVo box confirms 100% signal strength along with the channel list showing received, and the light on the HSC is solid so it has acquired.

It still comes up with the V58 message where it acts like it is not receiving the authorization.

After refreshing all signals and authorizations and then power cycling everything still nothing so they are sending a technician out to look at it since everything shows it should work on their end, and signal strength is showing perfect according to the TiVo signal meter.

Spectrum said I did receive the correct unit so I’m going to let it set for a little while and see if maybe it might just take some time for everything to come back, but so far it has been a rough go as far as getting it to receive the authorization to let the channels display as that seems to be the only issue.

They were thinking it was an actual signal issue so they were baffled when I confirmed full signal, and that TiVo diagnostics screens show the OOB as being present, as they said it should then be able to hit the proper frequencies. I guess only time will tell, and if not, by the time the technician is supposed to come, then maybe he can make heads or tails of it.
 
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