# No HDMI input on Bolt



## ERH (Dec 12, 2020)

We just moved and now we have this issue. Ordered cable [Spectrum] the installer came out saw the tivo box and said it would be a problem. He told me very few people worked with the cable card to set it up on their end. He was right, it took almost 2 hours on the phone for him to get it set up. Later I noticed a SD cable box was installed not a HD box as it should have been. Now I know why. The SD box suppled has a coax output to the Bolt. Works fine. When I asked about HD they said no problem just exchange your SD box. However I see that the HD box only has a HDMI output. My Bolt only has F type coax input. I looked on the net and see dozens of different boxes. I'm not tech savvy enough to understand if its possible to get a convertor of some type. And if I do will the picture be degraded so that it's not worth it. I'm sure others have had the same issue. What's the fix?


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

You can't do what you're trying to do.
You don't use a cable box with a Tivo Bolt, the Bolt gets a CableCARD and uses the coax from the wall and HDMI to the TV, there is no cable box anywhere in the picture.
In other words, with a CableCARD the bolt REPLACES a Cable box.


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## ERH (Dec 12, 2020)

dianebrat said:


> You can't do what you're trying to do. You don't use a cable box with a Tivo Bolt, the Bolt gets a CableCARD and uses the coax from the wall and HDMI to the TV, there is no cable box anywhere in the picture. In other words, with a CableCARD the bolt REPLACES a Cable box.





dianebrat said:


> You can't do what you're trying to do. You don't use a cable box with a Tivo Bolt, the Bolt gets a CableCARD and uses the coax from the wall and HDMI to the TV, there is no cable box anywhere in the picture. In other words, with a CableCARD the bolt REPLACES a Cable box.


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## ERH (Dec 12, 2020)

Thats what I told the Spectrum installer. He insisted that the box was needed. Last nite I ran the coax directly to the Tivo and got all the same channels as when the spectrum cable box was inline. However still no HD. Finally talked to tech support and first thing they said was "You need the Spectrum cable box with Tivo." So they are no help. At this point I need to look for a different cable company.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

ERH said:


> "You need the Spectrum cable box with Tivo." So they are no help. At this point I need to look for a different cable company.


Please add your location to your profile. There may be someone near you with local advice.

Also see:
What is the real deal with Spectrum
Spectrum Ending CableCard support?
Spectrum/cable card cust Service POSITIVE


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

ERH said:


> Thats what I told the Spectrum installer. * He insisted that the box was needed.* Last nite I ran the coax directly to the Tivo and got all the same channels as when the spectrum cable box was inline. However still no HD. Finally talked to tech support and first thing they said was *"You need the Spectrum cable box with Tivo." * So they are no help. At this point I need to look for a different cable company.


Yes, it has been determined that Spectrum is staffed by the clueless


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## AntiPC (Jul 22, 2005)

When I bought a TiVo Bolt and added Spectrum (old TWC) TV service in 2017, I just requested a cableCARD online. They sent it out via FedEx in a day or two, I put it in the TiVo box, and after a fifteen minute call to the number provided giving the CSR various numbers, it was working. It's worked ever since, and yes it's HD.

Spectrum.net

I understand you have to have a cable guy out to get things hooked up, but I've had better luck installing and activating cableCARDs myself.


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## ERH (Dec 12, 2020)

AntiPC said:


> When I bought a TiVo Bolt and added Spectrum (old TWC) TV service in 2017, I just requested a cableCARD online. They sent it out via FedEx in a day or two, I put it in the TiVo box, and after a fifteen minute call to the number provided giving the CSR various numbers, it was working. It's worked ever since, and yes it's HD.
> 
> Spectrum.net
> 
> I understand you have to have a cable guy out to get things hooked up, but I've had better luck installing and activating cableCARDs myself.


They had to come out it's a new home, so they ran the cable in. We had Fios in our old home and it worked fine with the Tivo. After reading some of the other posts about Spectrum dropping cable card service finding another provider seems to be best. The other cable company in the area is HTC I will have to check them out.


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## tommiet (Oct 28, 2005)

You need a tuning adapter... Free from Spectrum. Without the tuner adapter, you will only get SD channels. They can ship you one, but I think you will need help connecting it and getting it working. It has to be connected and authorized for you to get any HD and/or premium channels. 

Not to be rude... but it seems you have never used a TiVo before. Nothing has changed in this process for years. 

Good luck.


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## CinciDVR (May 24, 2014)

ERH said:


> The SD box suppled has a coax output to the Bolt.





ERH said:


> Last nite I ran the coax directly to the Tivo and got all the same channels as when the spectrum cable box was inline.


It seems the tech was using the SD box as a splitter so that both the SD box and the Tivo were receiving a video feed. You essentially confirmed this by directly connecting the coax to your Tivo and having it work just the same.



ERH said:


> However still no HD.


What do you mean "no HD"? I looked up the Spectrum Rate Card for Longs, SC and there seems to be Basic, Select, Silver and Gold packages. Which package do you have? All seem to include HD channels. So when you say you have no HD, do you mean you can't tune an HD channel? Or do you mean that when you tune an HD channel, you get an SD picture on your TV?



tommiet said:


> You need a tuning adapter... Free from Spectrum. Without the tuner adapter, you will only get SD channels.


You absolutely don't need a tuning adapter to get HD channels. Tuning adapters are only needed to receive Switched Digital Video (SDV) channels. There are lots of HD channels on the Spectrum system that don't use SDV for their broadcast.


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

Getting in a little late here, but I just had a somewhat similar issue. I changed out the hard drive on my Bolt and needed to get the cable card re-paired. While doing it over the phone, it wouldn't work until I rebooted the tuning adapter. And meanwhile it would only tune SD channels. 
So what you need to do is get your cable card paired. Make the phone call. I had no problem with this. You will also likely need a TA. A lot of channels can be switched digital.

btw, just to be sure, are you certain that that “SD” box isn’t the tuning adapter?


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## ERH (Dec 12, 2020)

Thanks for everyone's input.
tommiet: I've used Tivo Bolt along with 2 mini's 4 yrs or so on the Verizon system. It worked just like it should, no issues. Router with the cable card that's it. No tuning adapter needed. CinciDVR: I was incorrectly identifying the tuning adapter as a sd cable box. The last cable system I used didn't use tuning adapters but they did have set top box. When I say no HD its because on the channel guide all but a couple of the channels are marked with a SD. All the channels in my package marked sd come in. The couple marked HD don't come in. Friday I was on the phone with Spectrum support and went through all their line tests, everything looks good to them. Going through the channel setup however only gives me Spectrum SD service. According to Spectrum, during channel setup I should be able to connect to a Spectrum HD service for my area. The service is there, Tivo just isn't seeing it. Spectrum said call Tivo, its their issue. Called Tivo, went through almost all the same tests Spectrum did. They couldn't explain why Tivo couldn't find Spectrum HD service during channel setup. Their best guess was maybe the SNR was to high so Tivo can't see the HD service. They felt all was good on their end so its a Spectrum issue. So Spectrum is coming out on Monday, I'll see what happens. 
UCLABB: You were right, I was incorrectly identifying the tuning adapter as a cable box. I'm going to mention about rebooting the TA, and pairing the card.


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

I noticed that the last time I did guided setup it was a bit different than in the past. In the past I think it used to just give you a few choices on the cable lineup. This time it asked if I received a specific channel- something like that. After confirming, it must have automatically chose the lineup. You may want to play around with that feature a bit to see if you can get another lineup choice. And again, a non paired cable card could throw some odd things at you. 
I hesitated asking about “SD” box and then thought, what the heck.


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## CinciDVR (May 24, 2014)

UCLABB said:


> In the past I think it used to just give you a few choices on the cable lineup.





UCLABB said:


> You may want to play around with that feature a bit to see if you can get another lineup choice.


@ERH - if you're not seeing all the HD channels that your lineup includes, I think @UCLABB's suggestion is probably your best next course of action.


ERH said:


> When I say no HD its because on the channel guide all but a couple of the channels are marked with a SD. All the channels in my package marked sd come in. The couple marked HD don't come in.


When you say the channels that are marked HD don't come in, what do you mean? Do you get an error message when you try to tune them? Do you just get a black screen?


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

CinciDVR said:


> @ERH - if you're not seeing all the HD channels that your lineup includes, I think @UCLABB's suggestion is probably your best next course of action.
> 
> When you say the channels that are marked HD don't come in, what do you mean? Do you get an error message when you try to tune them? Do you just get a black screen?


Yes, if the downloaded channel guide doesn't have but two HD channels, he has downloaded the wrong lineup. He needs to experiment when it asks during guided setup what a certain channel number is.


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## ERH (Dec 12, 2020)

CinciDVR said:


> @ERH - if you're not seeing all the HD channels that your lineup includes, I think @UCLABB's suggestion is probably your best next course of action.
> 
> When you say the channels that are marked HD don't come in, what do you mean? Do you get an error message when you try to tune them? Do you just get a black screen?


Black screen


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## CinciDVR (May 24, 2014)

ERH said:


> Black screen


Try unplugging the USB cable that runs from the Tuning Adapter to the Tivo. You should get a pop-up that says no Tuning Adapter is connected (at least I do on my Roamio). Click OK. Then try tuning an HD channel. If that doesn't help, try rebooting the Tivo with USB cable between the Tivo and Tuning Adapter still disconnected, and then try tuning an HD channel.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

ERH said:


> UCLABB: You were right, I was incorrectly identifying the tuning adapter as a cable box. I'm going to mention about rebooting the TA, and pairing the card.


As the late great Emily Littella once said:
"nevermind"


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## ERH (Dec 12, 2020)

CinciDVR said:


> Try unplugging the USB cable that runs from the Tuning Adapter to the Tivo. You should get a pop-up that says no Tuning Adapter is connected (at least I do on my Roamio). Click OK. Then try tuning an HD channel. If that doesn't help, try rebooting the Tivo with USB cable between the Tivo and Tuning Adapter still disconnected, and then try tuning an HD channel.


Thanks, that worked! The few HD channels that show up on my channel list now come in. Next is getting the Tivo channel setup to find the Spectrum HD source instead of SD. Thats for another day.


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## CinciDVR (May 24, 2014)

ERH said:


> Thanks, that worked!


What that tells you is that there's something wonky with your tuning adapter setup. Usually the CableCard tells the Tivo what frequency to tune to for each channel. When a tuning adapter is connected, it takes over telling the Tivo what frequency to tune to for each channel. Since you get a black screen instead of an error, it seems the tuning adapter is telling the Tivo the wrong frequency for HD channels.

You don't need the tuning adapter if none of the channels you watch use SDV. But if some do, then you'll need Spectrum to figure out why the tuning adapter isn't telling the Tivo the right frequency.


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## ERH (Dec 12, 2020)

Spectrum tech came out and helped. First of all he explained that SD on the cable guide and channels meant Switched Digital, not Standard Definition. So they are HD channels. I almost didn't believe him because he was the fourth person from Spectrum I had talked to about this, and he was the first to clear up what SD meant to Spectrum. I asked why were some channels marked with HD some with SD. His explanation was that Spectrum is just a middle man. Whatever they were supplied with from the broadcaster, is how it shows up on the guide. He did note the that the picture needed improvement and proceeded to cut back and replace all the cable fittings. This made a difference in the picture and internet signal. 
My next issue is getting the minis to work. The tech confirmed there is a signal on the line going into the mini, but I get the error message that their is no internet connection. With all these components, modem, tuning adapter, router, splitter, Bolt and minis I need help getting it set up. Any suggestions on where to look on this forum?


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## SteveD (Oct 22, 2002)

ERH said:


> Spectrum tech came out and helped. First of all he explained that SD on the cable guide and channels meant Switched Digital, not Standard Definition. So they are HD channels. I almost didn't believe him because he was the fourth person from Spectrum I had talked to about this, and he was the first to clear up what SD meant to Spectrum. I asked why were some channels marked with HD some with SD. His explanation was that Spectrum is just a middle man. Whatever they were supplied with from the broadcaster, is how it shows up on the guide. He did note the that the picture needed improvement and proceeded to cut back and replace all the cable fittings. This made a difference in the picture and internet signal.
> My next issue is getting the minis to work. The tech confirmed there is a signal on the line going into the mini, but I get the error message that their is no internet connection. With all these components, modem, tuning adapter, router, splitter, Bolt and minis I need help getting it set up. Any suggestions on where to look on this forum?


I'm assuming that the Bolt has internet and the minis are connected via coax. If so, just set up the bolt as the MOCA gateway and the minis as MOCA clients. The minis will get internet through the Bolt.


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## ERH (Dec 12, 2020)

SteveD said:


> I'm assuming that the Bolt has internet and the minis are connected via coax. If so, just set up the bolt as the MOCA gateway and the minis as MOCA clients. The minis will get internet through the Bolt.


Steve thanks for the information. This is the connection setup. I'm not savvy enough get a picture on here. I hope this description is understandable. 
Line in to 5 way splitter. 
Separate line to each mini. (2)
One line to another splitter.
From that splitter 
First line to modem
Modem to router with ethernet
Router to computer with ethernet
Second line to
Tuning adapter
From tuning adapter 
One line to Bolt
One USB to Bolt


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## SteveD (Oct 22, 2002)

ERH said:


> Steve thanks for the information. This is the connection setup. I'm not savvy enough get a picture on here. I hope this description is understandable.
> Line in to 5 way splitter.
> Separate line to each mini. (2)
> One line to another splitter.
> ...


What about Bolt to router with ethernet? You'll need that first.
Once Bolt is connected to internet, configure it to be a MOCA bridge in network settings, then configure minis to be MOCA clients in network settings.


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## ERH (Dec 12, 2020)

Ok, I see there is the open ethernet port on the Bolt. The router only has two ports, both are being used. This is a eero router came with the home as part of a smart package. I see there are ethernet splitters. I will get one and connect the router to the Bolt.


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## SteveD (Oct 22, 2002)

ERH said:


> Ok, I see there is the open ethernet port on the Bolt. The router only has two ports, both are being used. This is a eero router came with the home as part of a smart package. I see there are ethernet splitters. I will get one and connect the router to the Bolt.


I'm not 100% sure of your setup, but if the Bolt is not connected via ethernet to the internet, how are you getting guide data now? Is it using Wifi? What is the current network status shown on the Bolt?
I'm don't think you can use wireless on the Bolt to set up a MOCA bridge. You will probably need an ethernet connection at the Bolt.
Here is some good information, Guides|How To|Get Connected| How to connect to your home network and Tivo Customer Support Community


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## ERH (Dec 12, 2020)

Its connected by Wifi. ethernet, Moca are off. For me, this is tough to keep all straight. I had looked at those guides before but none seemed to mimic my needs. I'll try again now that I see the Bolt is getting info by Wifi. It looks like I will have to get the Bolt disconnected from Wifi in settings. Get a splitter or switch for the router to connect to the Bolt, Then connect to the router and change the settings to Moca. Then set up a Moca network. Looks like a piece of cake.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

ERH said:


> Its connected by Wifi. ethernet, Moca are off. For me, this is tough to keep all straight. I had looked at those guides before but none seemed to mimic my needs. I'll try again now that I see the Bolt is getting info by Wifi. It looks like I will have to get the Bolt disconnected from Wifi in settings. Get a splitter or switch for the router to connect to the Bolt, Then connect to the router and change the settings to Moca. Then set up a Moca network. Looks like a piece of cake.


Depending on the router/modem model it may have MoCA built in, just flipping it on could solve a world of issues for you including setting up the mini's


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

ERH said:


> Spectrum tech came out and helped. First of all he explained that SD on the cable guide and channels meant Switched Digital, not Standard Definition. So they are HD channels. I almost didn't believe him because he was the fourth person from Spectrum I had talked to about this, and he was the first to clear up what SD meant to Spectrum. I asked why were some channels marked with HD some with SD. His explanation was that Spectrum is just a middle man. Whatever they were supplied with from the broadcaster, is how it shows up on the guide. He did note the that the picture needed improvement and proceeded to cut back and replace all the cable fittings. This made a difference in the picture and internet signal.
> My next issue is getting the minis to work. The tech confirmed there is a signal on the line going into the mini, but I get the error message that their is no internet connection. With all these components, modem, tuning adapter, router, splitter, Bolt and minis I need help getting it set up. Any suggestions on where to look on this forum?


Just out of curiosity, where in your cable guide are you seeing SD and HD? My guide shows neither. Sometimes in the info


ERH said:


> Spectrum tech came out and helped. First of all he explained that SD on the cable guide and channels meant Switched Digital, not Standard Definition. So they are HD channels. I almost didn't believe him because he was the fourth person from Spectrum I had talked to about this, and he was the first to clear up what SD meant to Spectrum. I asked why were some channels marked with HD some with SD. His explanation was that Spectrum is just a middle man. Whatever they were supplied with from the broadcaster, is how it shows up on the guide. He did note the that the picture needed improvement and proceeded to cut back and replace all the cable fittings. This made a difference in the picture and internet signal.
> My next issue is getting the minis to work. The tech confirmed there is a signal on the line going into the mini, but I get the error message that their is no internet connection. With all these components, modem, tuning adapter, router, splitter, Bolt and minis I need help getting it set up. Any suggestions on where to look on this forum?


maybe this is something on TE4, but I doubt it. My guide does not show HD or SD. Often in the info it will show HD if the program is HD. And, HD is often part of the channel identifier, i.e., CNBCHD. I’m almost positive the guide would never indicate whether a channel is switched digital or not. Someone tell me I’m wrong.


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## ERH (Dec 12, 2020)

dianebrat said:


> Depending on the router/modem model it may have MoCA built in, just flipping it on could solve a world of issues for you including setting up the mini's


Ok I tried that and my Bolt doesn't have Moca built in. I'm getting a switch so that my router has more ethernet ports. Thanks anyway it was worth trying.


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## ERH (Dec 12, 2020)

UCLABB said:


> Just out of curiosity, where in your cable guide are you seeing SD and HD? My guide shows neither. Sometimes in the info
> 
> maybe this is something on TE4, but I doubt it. My guide does not show HD or SD. Often in the info it will show HD if the program is HD. And, HD is often part of the channel identifier, i.e., CNBCHD. I’m almost positive the guide would never indicate whether a channel is switched digital or not. Someone tell me I’m wrong.


This cable system show SD or HD on the cable guide, and on the banner across the bottom when you select a channel.


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