# SDV - Charter Communications



## jdmass

It's been mentioned in a couple of threads that Charter is moving to SDV, at least in my area (Massachusetts), and many have received letters about getting a tuning adapter installed. I figured that I'd start this thread for people to report on the results of their SDV tuning adapter install.

I had 2 tuning adapters scheduled to be installed today, and aside from the fact that the installer only brought one, and had to go back for the second, the install went quite well -- much simpler than a cable card install. Installation was simply a matter of connecting the coax and USB cables and calling the cable dispatch office to hit the adapter box.

When the USB connection is made, the Tivo sees the tuning adapter and from the Messages and Settings-->Account and System Information-->Tuning Adapter screen you can test for channels being received through the tuning adapter. My Series 3 responded immediately once the cable company hit the box and displayed channels in the test screen. My Tivo HD took a bit of time and the installer disconnected and reconnected the USB cable several times before the test screen finally was able to display channels. The tuning adapter LED should be solid green when it is in a ready state.

So far so good. The next step is to see what happens in February when Charter actually changes over to SDV


----------



## szwjunk

Thanks for this post - most informative. I should have read this before I posted my query in the other thread about whether or not Charter has to "hit" the box to kick it into life!

Thanks also for responding to my post in the other thread. I shall call the Tech and/or Charter tomorrow, and get this resolved.

Steve in Southborough


----------



## billneri

About two weeks ago my tuning adapter (I have a tivo series 3 with two s-cards installed) stopped working, i'm no longer receiving SDV channels from Charter on the Tivo. Charter rolled a truck to my house on Friday 10 July and told me I needed to swap out the two s-cards for m-cards. They didn't have them, so I had to set up another appointment. Over the phone Charter "hit" the tuning adapter but it didn't change anything. Is anyone else having this problem? I'm in Central Mass.


----------



## jdmass

I have the same setup as you: Series 3 and 2 s-cards (I also own a Tivo HD with 1 m-card, as well). Both of my boxes are still working fine. 

About a month or so ago, I did have a glitch where both SDV boxes started flashing their green LEDs (instead of solid steady state normal operation). I called charter and they were able to "hit" both boxes and everything returned to normal. This problem hasn't come back.


----------



## tmrfe

I just received a letter in the mail today informing me of the Charter SDV switchover in Southern California (Burbank, Glendale, etc). 

From the letter: "Charter has partnered with TiVo to identify you as a customer using a TiVo Cable Card device. Beginning on or after October 13th, you will need to install a tuning adaptor in order to continue receiving and recording all of your favorite channels."

Here's a couple of questions for the folks in Massachusetts and other areas where Charter's SDV is already in place: what channels (especially HD channels) were added after the transition? Have there been any noticeable changes in functionality, like a lag in changing channels? Is the video quality on the digital stations any better or worse? 

I just want to get an idea of what we're getting ourselves into out here.


----------



## coasterlb

Well I am in So Cal, Long Beach to be exact, and I started having problems with my Tivo. All my basic SD and HD channels come through on the m-card but not extended or premium. I was told by Charter on Tue that they were in the process of upgrading the system. I later found out by a Charter supervisor that they are upgrading to SDV and that might be the problem I am experiencing. Unfortunately I have not received any letter from Charter explaining this transition. I wont know for sure if it is just a cable card problem or SDV tuning adapter issue until Sun when the tech comes out. Either way, it has been a big pain in the a$$!


----------



## hecvil

it looks like i've lost my hbohd, cinemaxhd and showtimehd! and for some reason, it also looks like certain non-hd channels (bravo, for example) are also out...

my wife noticed it yesterday... is it gonna be a truck roll? charter seems like they never have a clue with the tivo. they always want to say, "well, our dvr wouldn't have this problem."


----------



## coasterlb

Basically for me, any channel above 31 is out (just shows a grey screen) except local sd and hd channels. I will let you know how my appointment goes on Sunday.


----------



## hecvil

heh heh. well, i just had two calls with charter. the first time i setup a call and was passed to a manager. when i mentioned the sdv and the tuning device, he grunted and hung up on me! no joke.

the second call i made passed me to a floor supervisor named chris in florida. he was understanding enough to give me $20 bucks off my bill and recommend that a senior tech be assigned to my truck roll, otherwise they wouldn't even know what to do.

he also gave me a suggestion that they might need to bring more than one tuner unit-- sometimes it takes trying out two or three units before it works with your tivo.

i still have my old hd box-- i was thinking of hooking it up in the interim-- but i'm worried i might lose my functional cable cards... wait, what am i saying?!?

let me know how it goes, fellow long beach resident!


----------



## GShort

coaster, I have the exact same issue. Just discovered it today. Set up an appointment for Wednesday.

I mentioned SDV early in the call, since I just got the notification letter in the mail yesterday stating the tuning adapters will be required after *October 27th*, but the guy I talked to wasn't familiar with it, and said, somewhat logically, that it says October, which is some time away.

Anyway, I'll be watching for results from your technician visit. 
Meanwhile, I'll call them back and request the adapter for the same service visit on Wed, since that is likely the fix.


----------



## coasterlb

Well turns out that I received a call from the technician that was suppose to come out. He told me that they have had a lot of cable card calls and ran out of cards. He asked me to check again to see if I still wasn't receiving the proper channels. He said he reauthorized the card and it might be working now. Well that did it.... I didn't have to remove the card/reinsert it or even restart the Tivo. I tried to get Charter to do this from the get go but the problem is that the people you talk to through customer service don't know what to do and they don't have dedicated technical support people for you to talk to- all they do is read off a troubleshooting script. Get the right person who knows what they are doing then you're problem is solved. BTW, I also got the letter from Charter about the SDV transition. He said I didn&#8217;t need to worry about getting an adapter until October and things should continue to work normally until that transition date.


----------



## GShort

I had an outage today for about an hour.. TV and Internet completely out. Called it in, it was a known outage. While on the phone I went ahead and added for them to bring me the tuning adapter so that will be done with as well. I'll just wait for Wed's visit, rather than try calling them and convincing the call taker what needs to be done.

I was hoping the channels would be back after the outage, but still missing.

They did try sending a couple of different signals to my card when I called the first time, but still no good.


----------



## hecvil

well, i called again in hopes that someone in the call center could escalate me to someone who could re-authorize the card. no dice. i guess i will wait till my Wednesday appointment and hopefully the guy can do it then...


----------



## ablickle

Did any of you guys get your problem fixed? I have had the same "no channels over 31" issue since July 22. After several calls and alleged card resets, still no luck. Last night the technician told me that his status page showed a problem with digital channels that has been going on for more than 180 hours in zip code 90802. 

I don't really want to stay home and wait for a truck roll, since it seems like a provisioning issue. Has anybody been able to get it fixed, and what was the solution?


----------



## GShort

Yes, Mine is fixed. Tech came out, made a phone call and requested an RF signal be sent. It was, and the channels came back. He said they were tying in a new node up north or something and that caused the problems on cable cards and some digital boxes. They are sending software updates to the boxes, but I guess the cards don't get the updates? Not real clear on that. 

Anyways, in and out in less than 10 minutes.

I asked why the callcenter folks can't send an RF signal, and he said they are centrally located nationwide. There is no more call center for Long Beach area. I guess the RF signal has to originate in the region.

Maybe ask them to just have the tech call for an RF signal to be sent without him actually coming onsite, and you can check it when you get home? Of course, if it doesn't work, it'll be another 4-5 days to reschedule.


----------



## ablickle

Thank you! That is very helpful! I will try to see if I can get them to somehow send the signal locally. Beats having to wait for the tech to come to my house... And if they do have to come out, maybe I can get them to bring the SDV adapter at the same time...


----------



## GShort

I tried to do that, too (adapter), when I called about an unrelated outage before my scheduled truck date... told them to add it to the already-open call, but the tech never go the message, so I'll still have to do that.


----------



## tmrfe

I don't know about the Long Beach area, but if you're in Burbank/Glendale/Pasadena area, don't bother scheduling your tuning adaptor install, yet. 

When I dialed the 888 number listed on Charter's tuning adaptor notice, the CSR was happy to set up an appointment for me. The only problem is that when the time came for the truck roll this morning, I got a call (I believe from the local Charter office) informing me that the tuning adaptors are not ready to be deployed in this area, yet, and the technicians have not been trained on their installation. The appointment will have to be rescheduled for early October.

The only bright spot was that, when I first made the call to Charter, the CSR offered me the HBO/Cinemax package for $1.00/month for a full year. So, if you're interested in that great deal, maybe now is the time to pretend you're calling about your tuning adaptor install.


----------



## cptlapcat

Yesterday, I got a call from a Charter supervisor for the Pasadena area and she said the are expediting the roll-out of the free Tivo tuning adapter. She asked when I would like it installed. I said "How about today?". Two hours later and after a very quick install my Tivo was up and running.

The installer said several people are in training and that about 20 units have been installed so far. I don't know if that is just his area or the whole area.


----------



## Resist

cptlapcat said:


> The installer said several people are in training and that about 20 units have been installed so far.


Training....what is there they need to train about? A tuning adapter has a power plug, coax in and out. They hook it up, call to get the box authorized and you are done. A 10 year old could do it.


----------



## dlfl

Resist said:


> Training....what is there they need to train about? A tuning adapter has a power plug, coax in and out. They hook it up, call to get the box authorized and you are done. A 10 year old could do it.


Well the two (Time Warner) installers I had could have used 5 or 10 minutes of "training". The TA was clearly not something they were familiar with. They fumbled around a couple of minutes and deduced how it had to be connected. I insisted we wait until we had a constant green light -- not sure they would have even worried about that otherwise. They had no idea what channels I was supposed to get on my service and thus obviously couldn't know which ones were SDV. After they left I deduced I wasn't getting nearly all the channels I should and the TA needed to be rebooted (and channels rescanned). They had no knowledge of the DVR and TA diagnostic screens and what to check there to verify TA operation. The TiVo instruction sheet that comes with new TiVos shortchanges these details too -- although the installers would have ignored it anyway if I hadn't been working with them.

There are two ways to re-initialize the TA/TiVo combination: Disconnect the USB cable (or) Power cycle the TA. I don't know if these are equivalent but the installers should know this. I've read that the order of connecting up the power, cable and USB connections can make a difference. Another training topic.

If you have a cable provider that actually takes TiVo installs seriously and trains their installers, feel lucky.


----------



## rainwater

Resist said:


> Training....what is there they need to train about? A tuning adapter has a power plug, coax in and out. They hook it up, call to get the box authorized and you are done. A 10 year old could do it.


What about USB? You forgot that. Installation of a TA is slightly more complicated than a regular STB. Of course training is involved for a brand new device that only works on 2 TiVo models.


----------



## rnowicki

Just got my TA in Pasadena yesterday. First truck roll the guys didn't bring a TA, said the work order just specified I needed cable cards. Second truck roll about an hour later was a single worker who had the TA. TA hookup was easy, but the blinking green light wouldn't go away. After several calls back to the office they finally figured out the problem was on their end. Apparently since I am running video and internet, the setup at the office is a bit different than for video only. Once we had the steady green light the tech left. He siad that none of the channels were being sent on SDV yet, but that would start up at the beginning of October.

The TA box itself is a rather large Cisco box, practically as big as a normal cable box that the cable company might deploy. Am I the only one that finds it ironic, that after all the trouble so many people went through to get the cablecard implementations in place and working properly, that the basic structure of the content delivery would change so much as to now require having a separate cable box anyway? I guess the bottom line is that no implementation is future proof.

Robert


----------



## dlfl

rnowicki said:


> .......The TA box itself is a rather large Cisco box, practically as big as a normal cable box that the cable company might deploy. Am I the only one that finds it ironic, that after all the trouble so many people went through to get the cablecard implementations in place and working properly, that the basic structure of the content delivery would change so much as to now require having a separate cable box anyway? .......Robert


Given the problems (i.e., reduced reliability) with SDV and TA's I would say it goes beyond "ironic"!


----------



## Resist

rnowicki said:


> Am I the only one that finds it ironic, that after all the trouble so many people went through to get the cablecard implementations in place and working properly, that the basic structure of the content delivery would change so much as to now require having a separate cable box anyway?


I hear you! I loved the fact that cable cards got rid of that big ugly box sitting above my Tivo. Now I will have another ugly box there again using my electricity. WTF?


----------



## shrike4242

I really really hope that when SDV rolls out to the St. Louis area, we don't have the huge Cisco 1520 TA and have something more reasonable in size, like the Motorola MTR700.


----------



## tootal2

shrike4242 said:


> I really really hope that when SDV rolls out to the St. Louis area, we don't have the huge Cisco 1520 TA and have something more reasonable in size, like the Motorola MTR700.


sdv is coming to st. louis?

i hope not. i record most shows from the antenna anyway


----------



## rainwater

tootal2 said:


> sdv is coming to st. louis?
> 
> i hope not. i record most shows from the antenna anyway


SDV is coming to most Charter markets by at least next year.


----------



## Polekat

Wow, I've been seriously looking at dumping my Charter DVR for TiVo but if I will have to have a big ugly TA sitting on top of my TiVo I may forget it.


----------



## Resist

Even if you have to get that big ugly Tuning Adapter, Tivo is a much easier interface to work with than any Charter DVR.


----------



## shrike4242

tootal2 said:


> sdv is coming to st. louis?
> 
> i hope not. i record most shows from the antenna anyway


It will at some point, though as we're their "headquarters" market, I would have expected it to start here first before anywhere else.



rainwater said:


> SDV is coming to most Charter markets by at least next year.


I'm betting it'll be before the end of the year out here, just as a guess. No facts behind it.


----------



## buzzword

tmrfe said:


> I just received a letter in the mail today informing me of the Charter SDV switchover in Southern California (Burbank, Glendale, etc).


Curious as to whether you've gotten yours installed yet or not. I'm in Glendale and called and made an appointment in July a few days after receiving the letter, and stayed home from work only to have the tech show up and realizing what I wanted tell me he doesn't have the equipment and they aren't doing those installs until October. Note what I wanted was specified on the work order.

The wording of the letter seemed ambiguous, it wasn't quite clear, did I need the install then because after mid Oct I'll lose channels, or do I only get the install done after mid October? I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Then, last week (the 20th) Charter called *me* on a Sunday no less, to tell me I needed to get this done asap, the change was coming, they gave me an appointment for the following Tuesday, again I stayed home, only to have the tech call this time, mid morning, to tell me he had a work order for two tuning adapters, "we're not doing that yet, I don't have the equipment" <sigh>

The Charter national center (from which appointments are made and farmed out) and the local branches or definitely not in sync on this one.

In any case the tech changed my appointment to the Oct 10th, he's expecting to have the adapters by then.

I don't know how anyone can run a business this way.


----------



## dlfl

buzzword said:


> ...........
> I don't know how anyone can run a business this way.


Not if the business depended on pleasing TiVo owners -- but it doesn't!

Because only about 0.5% of digital cable subscribers are TiVo users. We are a nuisance and can't make them money by ordering VOD or PPV.

It's hard to tell if the bad treatment is just negligence or purposeful. It really doesn't matter does it?


----------



## brettatk

Maybe I should start reading my Charter snail mail. I hope to not be a Charter subscriber by time they get around to switching down here.


----------



## tmrfe

After weeks of waiting and two failed appointments, I finally was able to get Charter to come out and install my tuning adaptor. I can confirm that the box is a Cisco STA1520. It only took the guys about 10 minutes to hook-up, from start to finish. 

The Charter techs seemed to know exactly what they were doing, for once. I asked if they had done any of these installations in the field already, and they responded, "Oh yeah, we've been doing them for at least three weeks now." That's interesting, considering I got a call last week from the local Charter office asking to reschedule my appointment for today, because they weren't ready to deploy adaptors yet. Hmmm.

Anyways, they said that as long as the green indicator light on the unit is solid and not blinking, the adaptor should be operating normally. If you lose power to the tuning adaptor, it takes about three minutes for it to resync with Charter. I tried unplugging and re-plugging the unit after they left, and yes, there's about three minutes of blinking before the light turns solid and the TiVo recognizes the adaptor again.

As far as new HD channels coming to the Glendale area, it looks like we won't be seeing anything until closer to 2010. So, until then, there is just an ugly (but necessary) cosmetic blemish sitting on top of my Series 3.


----------



## nobodygrrl

Charter installed my TA a couple of weekends ago. It's working fine (for the most part), though I still can't get VOD or anything like that. The tech said that it's not his problem and is probably due to Charter not pushing the new signals yet. He also said that we'd be getting 100 HD channels in November. (Riiiiiiiight.... we don't even have the East Coast HBO feeds or the Weather Channel).

For those of you who have the WD TiVo expander, MAKE SURE that you follow the disconnect procedure before the tech comes. I made the mistake of not doing it and lost a couple hundred hours worth of shows/movies.


----------



## coco361

Can someone please post the 888 number for Charter cable re this issue, i have been slowly losing my HD channels. I went to the local office in Alhambra, ca, these girls had no clues what i was talking about, they told me that Charter is upgrading their system and will not provide or support to cablecards ?!

Thanks


----------



## tmrfe

Charter Tuning Adaptor Questions and Installation Scheduling:

*888-487-7959*


----------



## coco361

Thank you, I called the 888 number and was immediately scheduled for an installation tomorrow. It feels nice to talk to someone who knows what they are doing; meanwhile the local office girls still have no clues and asked why didn't i just simply get a DVR from Charters. Well I am not going to pay $20/month for something that doesn't allow file transfers, and a tiny hard drive (40G) thats full with 5 movies.


----------



## GShort

Called this morning and got mine scheduled for tomorrow afternoon here in Long Beach. I'll update on how it goes.


----------



## GShort

Tech called and asked if all I needed was the tuning adapter... I said yep, thinking it would be a quick job. His reply was "We aren't doing those in Long Beach yet, probably not until the end of October sometime." 

So much for the letter I got 3 months ago saying the adapters needed to be installed by some date mid-October I think. Didn't keep the letter. I guess once channels disappear I'll know it's time to get the adapter?


----------



## buzzword

tmrfe said:


> It only took the guys about 10 minutes to hook-up, from start to finish.


10 minutes? Wow, I had mine (2 of them) installed this past Saturday (Oct 10) and it took the guy 6 hours!

He was at my place from 8am to 2pm, most of the time was spent waiting on the phone on hold with the central office.

Apparently no one know why they weren't working and they had to track down the corect people to look into it, it turns out there was a code entered incorrectly into the system.

They've both been working fine since then, and I haven't had any issues or noticed any difference in either picture quality or how the TiVo operates.

I was a little worried, but personally, I don't think the Cisco boxes are bad looking at all, plain black and unobtrusive, definitely better looking than the Motorolas.

It could have been a lot worse and been some ugly grey plastic thing with the front curved into some sort of wavy shape, I don't know who designs cable boxes but someone needs to tell them they should blend in with stereo equipment and not look like a videogame consoles designed for 12 year olds.


----------



## tmrfe

I agree that the Cisco tuning adaptor is not as obnoxious as it could've been, but it still is unfortunate that we basically need to have a cable box sitting on top of another cable box. I must've been really lucky with my install. They didn't even need to make a phone call. Communication with the home office was all handled by what appeared to be a web interface on the tech's smart phone.

As far as functionality, I don't believe Charter is actually activating switched digital video for customers in the Glendale area until today (Oct. 13) at the earliest. So, who knows what'll happen once this adaptor is really necessary. 

I know my adaptor has spontaneously restarted a half a dozen times over the past week and a half. I haven't noticed it the past couple of days, but, prior to that, I would walk by and see the box blinking and then the TiVo message would come up informing me that I now have a tuning adaptor connected. I'm hoping that won't become a regular "feature" of this adaptor once it's in everyday use.


----------



## buzzword

I haven't noticed any restarts. You're right though, the real test will be go live.


----------



## Steve28

Is there a way to tell when you're watching a channel over SDV?


----------



## r11roadster

Called the 888# and the rep stated that she had no info on when SDV is coming to this area and that the equipment isn't installed yet, there for I can't get the adapter installed yet. I saw mention that M-cards were required for this to work? is this true I asked the rep and she said I could just bring the S-cards to the office and they would swap them there. Don't want to do this unless I have to.


----------



## jdmass

r11roadster said:


> I saw mention that M-cards were required for this to work? is this true I asked the rep and she said I could just bring the S-cards to the office and they would swap them there. Don't want to do this unless I have to.


I've got an S3 with 2 S-cards and an HD with 1 M-card and they both work fine with their respective Scientific Atlanta SDVs. I'm in MA and have had this config since January, so unless Charter is doing something different in your area, the S-cards should be fine.


----------



## Unbeliever

I had mine TA installed the first week of August after a hiccup where they sent an untrained contract installer instead of a trained in-house installer. I moved from Pasadena to Altadena a couple of weeks ago and it was a simple as taking the hardware with me to the new place.

The problems I've had with it is that on occasion, Charter sends reprogramming info and/or the SDV control stream dies, and when that happens, it 'resets' the TiVo and brings up the "You've got a tuning adapter installed" screen and kills any recordings that may be going on. Fortunately they usually only occur overnight, and once the SDV control stream is stable, scheduled recordings occur normally even if the "You've got a tuning adapter installed" screen is up.

That is until last night. They decided to do it during prime time. Over 90 minutes of alternating blinking then steady then blinking SDV box. There were at least 15 resets on the SDV box. Killed at least one recording. I eventually pulled the USB connection between the SDV box and the TiVo so I could at least watch live.

Hey TiVo! Get rid of the "You've got an TA installed" screen and the corresponding reset.

--Carlos V.


----------



## rem

got my ta on saturday installed to work with my tivo s3 with no problems, though i did notice i was missing at least 1 channel (and it wasn't even an hd channel). then today, the green light started blinking. i called tech support and they had absolutely no idea what to do. so a tech is scheduled for tomorrow. i think i'll ask for the number that the techs call to sync up the devices. tech support is absolutely useless. i have charter communications in southern california.


----------



## fidracer

Unbeliever said:


> Hey TiVo! Get rid of the "You've got an TA installed" screen and the corresponding reset.


I couldn't agree more. This happens to me almost daily and the part that really sucks is that when you're in the middle of watching a recorded program, it forgets where you were. So when you navigate back to your program, rather than being able to resume playing, it just starts you over from the beginning. I hate this.


----------



## RonDawg

For the SoCal Charter subscribers, what channel(s) were added when you got a Tuning Adapter, or were switched to SDV?

I haven't gotten mine yet, and yet I am still receiving the channels that I have always had. I don't want to go through the hassles of a Tuning Adapter if the channels I like to watch aren't on SDV.


----------



## Unbeliever

RonDawg said:


> For the SoCal Charter subscribers, what channel(s) were added when you got a Tuning Adapter, or were switched to SDV?


Added: None.

Switched to SDV? I don't know. All the techs I've talked to as of 2 weeks ago say SDV hasn't been enabled yet. Did you lose any? Since you haven't, then they probably still haven't switched.

--Carlos V.


----------



## tim1724

I live in an area served by Charter's Alhambra office. It was a real pain to get a tuning adapter installed, but now that I have it, it seems to work ok. based on comments here I was expecting some huge box, but it is actually not too bad. It fits on a shelf right next to my hard drive. 

Getting the thing was a pain. 3/4 of Charter's customer service people have never heard of SDV or the tuning adapter, and even after you find one who does, when they schedule the installation you most likely will get some random contractor who a) doesn't know what SDV is, and b) doesn't have a tuning adapter anyway.

After several false starts (appointment where the guy never showed up, appointment with clueless guy who couldn't do anything, etc.) i finally got an actual Charter employee (as opposed to the usual contractors who can only install cable boxes) who managed to actually bring a tuning adapter with him.

He hooked it up and got it working w/o too much trouble (although he was on hold with their dispatch people for a long time until he could give them some info). But then we ran into a couple of problems:

1) Activating the tuning adapter deauthorized the cable box in another room. Wacky, huh? But apparently that's normal for the Alhambra Charter office, because he asked us to check any cable boxes in our house right away because he'd seen that happen before when installing tuning adapters. I'm glad he had us check, or we wouldn't have noticed until after he left.

2) It also deauthorized our cable cards. This was a much bigger problem. he repeatedly had the dispatch people try to hit the cards, but one of them just wouldn't get authorized, and even the one which was authorized didn't get all the channels.

The dispatch people had him swap the cable card in slot 1 with the one in slot 2 (a bad idea, given what I've read here before) and re-read the host IDs to him. Now both cards were unauthorized, and failed to get many channels at all. (But continued to get the HD versions of HBO and Showtime. go figure.) He had clearly never seen an original Series 3 TiVo (I had to tell him that the cards were in the back) but I guess he must have dealt with TiVo HD models, because he was pretty comfortable with the TiVo interface.

He decided that i needed new cablecards. Well, that obviously wasn't good. And of course he didn't have any on the truck. So we had to wait 40 minutes or so for someone else to show up with a couple of cards.

But once he put the new cards in (and then waited on hold with dispatch again for 20 minutes so they could hit the new cards) everything worked fine.

Last night the SDV tuning adapter and new cablecards worked just fine. Hopefully it stays that way. 

I managed to crash my TiVo when playing with the tuning adapter's diagnostics menu (I hit page down on the remote out of habit, and apparently you shouldn't do that while on that screen) but after a reboot it worked fine.


----------



## tim1724

oh, and to clarify, the alhambra office started moving channels to SDV at the beginning of October. (September 29 was the official date, but I didn't notice any until a few days later.) I was out of town for a week, and couldn't get the installation scheduled before my trip (mostly due to clueless people at Charter's customer support line), which is why I didn't get it installed sooner ...

At first it was only a few channels (G4 was the first that I noticed) but starting this week most of the non-broadcast digital channels are on SDV. I had a series of appointments over the past week to get the tuning adapter installed, and only some very careful juggling of shows between SD and HD feeds (because usually one would move to SDV while the other didn't) kept me from missing most shows during this time. I missed Californication on Sunday when all the Showtime feeds moved to SDV, but now I've got it scheduled to record later in the week, so I should be ok.)


----------



## rallykeeper

tim1724 said:


> I live in an area served by Charter's Alhambra office. It was a real pain to get a tuning adapter installed, but now that I have it, it seems to work ok. based on comments here I was expecting some huge box, but it is actually not too bad. It fits on a shelf right next to my hard drive.
> 
> Getting the thing was a pain. 3/4 of Charter's customer service people have never heard of SDV or the tuning adapter, and even after you find one who does, when they schedule the installation you most likely will get some random contractor who a) doesn't know what SDV is, and b) doesn't have a tuning adapter anyway.
> 
> After several false starts (appointment where the guy never showed up, appointment with clueless guy who couldn't do anything, etc.) i finally got an actual Charter employee (as opposed to the usual contractors who can only install cable boxes) who managed to actually bring a tuning adapter with him.
> 
> He hooked it up and got it working w/o too much trouble (although he was on hold with their dispatch people for a long time until he could give them some info). But then we ran into a couple of problems:
> 
> 1) Activating the tuning adapter deauthorized the cable box in another room. Wacky, huh? But apparently that's normal for the Alhambra Charter office, because he asked us to check any cable boxes in our house right away because he'd seen that happen before when installing tuning adapters. I'm glad he had us check, or we wouldn't have noticed until after he left.
> 
> 2) It also deauthorized our cable cards. This was a much bigger problem. he repeatedly had the dispatch people try to hit the cards, but one of them just wouldn't get authorized, and even the one which was authorized didn't get all the channels.
> 
> The dispatch people had him swap the cable card in slot 1 with the one in slot 2 (a bad idea, given what I've read here before) and re-read the host IDs to him. Now both cards were unauthorized, and failed to get many channels at all. (But continued to get the HD versions of HBO and Showtime. go figure.) He had clearly never seen an original Series 3 TiVo (I had to tell him that the cards were in the back) but I guess he must have dealt with TiVo HD models, because he was pretty comfortable with the TiVo interface.
> 
> He decided that i needed new cablecards. Well, that obviously wasn't good. And of course he didn't have any on the truck. So we had to wait 40 minutes or so for someone else to show up with a couple of cards.
> 
> But once he put the new cards in (and then waited on hold with dispatch again for 20 minutes so they could hit the new cards) everything worked fine.
> 
> Last night the SDV tuning adapter and new cablecards worked just fine. Hopefully it stays that way.
> 
> I managed to crash my TiVo when playing with the tuning adapter's diagnostics menu (I hit page down on the remote out of habit, and apparently you shouldn't do that while on that screen) but after a reboot it worked fine.


tim1724. I'm glad to see I'm not crazy. I believe I'm also served by Alhambra (we're in Pasadena) and have the exact same issue.

I had the tuning adapters installed in early September on both our Series 3 TiVos.

We don't watch a lot of live TV and had a huge backlog, so I didn't notice at the time that we were missing some channels. I'm not entirely sure we were missing them, though, and something may have happened since thin.

After some experimenting earlier this month, I figured out that 3 out of 4 of my CableCards are partially deauthorized. The partial deauthorization is the part I don't understand. We're missing:

- Cinemax (both HD and non-HD)
- DiscoveryHD
- ESPN (HD 1 and 2)
- Palladia
- UHD

Yet, I still get HBO and HDNet and a couple others in our packages.

Still waiting on a CableCard appointment. Hopefully, that will clear all this up.

Anyone have any insights as to whether this whole effort to switch to SDV will result in us seeing any new channels?


----------



## tmrfe

rallykeeper said:


> Anyone have any insights as to whether this whole effort to switch to SDV will result in us seeing any new channels?


I was told by the Charter techs that installed my tuning adaptor in Glendale, CA that there would definitely be new channels added to the lineup. The whole reason for rolling out SDV is to make more bandwidth available for additional channels. However, it sounded like it would be a few months before any new stuff would show up, and the techs had no idea what channels would be added.

For now, however, none of my channels in Glendale are being switched. I don't receive the Digital View package, but the tuning adaptor is currently unnecessary for the Expanded and Basic (Digital and HD), Digital and HD Premium, HD Ultra View, and Music packages.

It seems like Charter is all over the place with its deployment of SDV in the Los Angeles area. So, as for new channels, I'm not holding my breath that they'll arrive by the end of the year.


----------



## darkeyes909

Got the letter from Charter Long Beach, needed adaptor by Oct.
After going through the online help and three calls to Charter (none of them had heard of the tuning adaptor and told me Tivo would have to provide it) I got an appointment for install. I have had three appointments now, all to have a guy show up and not know what I was talking about. I called again, went through two reps (first put me on hold and hung me up) and talked to a install tech. He made me an appointment. Again, a guy shows up and knows nothing about an adaptor. Made another call, took over a half hour for them to find out what I was talking about and set up an install appointment. That day, when the time came, they call me and tell me they are not installing them yet, and to wait until the end of the year. 
Please Fios, come to my area soon.


----------



## madmod20061

darkeyes909 said:


> Got the letter from Charter Long Beach, needed adaptor by Oct.
> After going through the online help and three calls to Charter (none of them had heard of the tuning adaptor and told me Tivo would have to provide it) I got an appointment for install. I have had three appointments now, all to have a guy show up and not know what I was talking about. I called again, went through two reps (first put me on hold and hung me up) and talked to a install tech. He made me an appointment. Again, a guy shows up and knows nothing about an adaptor. Made another call, took over a half hour for them to find out what I was talking about and set up an install appointment. That day, when the time came, they call me and tell me they are not installing them yet, and to wait until the end of the year.
> Please Fios, come to my area soon.


This is my experience also in Long Beach. I am being told different things by different reps. One rep says they ran out of adapters, another says they never had them in the first place. Most of them have no idea what I am even talking about. One of them even suggested I just give up my TIVO and go with a Charter box. I am up to 4 cancelled appointments now. To top it off all my channels 32 and above stopped working tonight. Pay channels, etc... I was assured by the last rep who canceled the last appointment (it was for this afternoon) that this would not happen.


----------



## cableismylife

Series III TiVo with two cable cards.

Got the letter in August that warned we had to get the Tuning Adapter installed before October 13. Scheduled an install August 7th. Befuddled tech looks at the letter and says, "Oh we don't have those yet. Try us in September."

Called in September  got scheduled for October 2nd install of Tuning Adapter. They come to set it up.

A few weeks pass. Then we'd get "a tuning adapter has been detected" prompt every few minutes. Did the verification and re-boot routine.

Finally called to get the thing serviced.

Charter tech shows up today and says, "Charter didn't even have you listed as having a Tuning Adapter. Lemme set it up for you."

Says it's fixed.

Half an hour after he leaves, the same "a tuning adapter has been detected" prompt comes back. Re-booted both the TA and the TiVo. Still happening.

Called Charter just now to get a tech back out here. Was told a supervisor would handle the repair. This will be the FOURTH visit since getting the letter.

As someone else on this thread put it, "How does a business like this stay in business?"


----------



## madmod20061

madmod20061 said:


> This is my experience also in Long Beach. I am being told different things by different reps. One rep says they ran out of adapters, another says they never had them in the first place. Most of them have no idea what I am even talking about. One of them even suggested I just give up my TIVO and go with a Charter box. I am up to 4 cancelled appointments now. To top it off all my channels 32 and above stopped working tonight. Pay channels, etc... I was assured by the last rep who canceled the last appointment (it was for this afternoon) that this would not happen.


After 2 service appointments I am told that cable cards are basically dead in Long Beach and the adapter is needed for Tivos to work now. I don't really beleive them, but what can I do? The only problem is the adapters will not be available until January. I was told I can either wait it out and just plug my cable straight to my tv to get basic channels or "upgrade" to a charter DVR. I told them I would rather just wait it out. The rep on the phone said if I drop the Cablecard off at their office they will stop charging me. After this experience I am seriously considering looking into DirectTV.


----------



## tmrfe

madmod20061 said:


> After 2 service appointments I am told that cable cards are basically dead in Long Beach and the adapter is needed for Tivos to work now. I don't really beleive them, but what can I do? The only problem is the adapters will not be available until January.


CableCARDs are definitely still needed in addition to a tuning adaptor in areas like Long Beach where they are using SDV. This is a quote from TiVo.com support article on tuning adaptors: "CableCARDs are required for decrypting programming and for decoding copy protection on your channels. CableCARD(s) must be working properly before you can test the operation of a Tuning Adapter."

My Charter statement often includes updates about the Long Beach offices, so the Glendale and Long Beach offices must be associated in some way. Maybe you should tell your Charter guys to call Glendale and find out what they should be doing to get the CableCARDS working. Or maybe they have already started switching all of those channels and you'll just have to wait for the January tuning adapter deployment (which is stupid, since they've deployed the adapters here and haven't even started using switched channels, yet).

If you can't get this worked out, dumping Charter sounds like a good plan. Do you have the ability to get U-verse in your area? I've had good first hand experiences with it, and that way you don't have to deal with a mounted dish and a two-year commitment (or whatever) with DirectTV. Of course, you wouldn't be able to use your existing TiVo in any sort of normal capacity, so it's a mixed bag.


----------



## buzzword

buzzword said:


> I haven't noticed any restarts. You're right though, the real test will be go live.


Ok, I take this back, about 2 weeks ago I started getting restarts on a daily basis.


----------



## peezee

Currently, I have a SA 8300HDC in the living room im planning on keeping until it dies. I also own a Tivo HD-DVR. Anybody out there have any experience with having a leased cable box in one room and a tivo in another room? Will they conflict with each other?


----------



## RonDawg

You can have them in the same room, attached to the same TV, and have no conflict whatsoever.


----------



## rem

after having the tuning adapter installed for almost two months now, i'm getting almost daily reboots and cancelling my recordings when it does reboot. not only that, the quality on some hd channels is horrendous. i'm getting pixelation and audio drops to the point of making the program unwatchable on discovery, history, and showtime channels. these channels were rock-solid before the tuning adapter got installed. now i find that i have to program the non-hd channels of the programs i want to watch as backups just in case the hd version is unwatchable. if the point of the tuning adapter is to ease up on bandwidth usage, why is the picture quality (and audio quality, for that matter) worse now that there is more bandwidth available?


----------



## sharky777

rem said:


> after having the tuning adapter installed for almost two months now, i'm getting almost daily reboots and cancelling my recordings when it does reboot. not only that, the quality on some hd channels is horrendous. i'm getting pixelation and audio drops to the point of making the program unwatchable on discovery, history, and showtime channels. these channels were rock-solid before the tuning adapter got installed. now i find that i have to program the non-hd channels of the programs i want to watch as backups just in case the hd version is unwatchable. if the point of the tuning adapter is to ease up on bandwidth usage, why is the picture quality (and audio quality, for that matter) worse now that there is more bandwidth available?


Well same mine too. I live in So. Calif. It happened couple weeks ago. Charter technicians will come my house tomorrow for repair or replace that mofo TA also they will install cablecard and TA on my other new Tivo HD.


----------



## tmrfe

rem said:


> after having the tuning adapter installed for almost two months now, i'm getting almost daily reboots and cancelling my recordings when it does reboot. not only that, the quality on some hd channels is horrendous.


I had a recent experience with Charter that might be a clue as to your rebooting issue (see below). I, however, haven't noticed HD quality issues. About a year ago, I had pixelation/tiling and audio drop out problems on my S3. It turned out my signal was actually too hot (something that's usually only an issue for FiOS customers) and by attenuating the signal (either with a -10db attenuator or a -7db splitter) the issues were resolved. Look at the pixelation thread here to see if that might be related to your trouble.

Tivo HD Pixelation Troubleshooting

I just had a Charter tech at my place in Glendale yesterday to swap cableCARDs into my replacement S3 ( and no, Charter can't just do that over the phone ::sigh:: ). While he was setting everything up, he was surprised to notice that I had a tuning adaptor already installed, because there was no record of it in their system. He figured that's probably the reason the tuning adaptor was rebooting so often.

Once everything was connected and paired, I had an issue on roughly six different digital channels where the TiVo would tune the channel for a split second and then kick out to the uninitialized cableCARD screen. You can clear the cableCARD screen, but afterwards the channel is just black. After two hours of messing with signal strength and configurations, Charter admitted that they are in the middle of "switching channels all over the place" and that the problems should be resolved by this coming Tuesday. However, they admitted that they haven't made any effort to inform customers with cableCARDs that certain channels may be unavailable to them temporarily.

*So, if you are a Charter customer in Glendale/Burbank using cableCARDs and a tuning adaptor, be aware that certain digital channels may not tune properly until after 12/8/2009.* For me, the affected channels include TBS HD, TLC HD, Smithsonian HD, Cinemax HD, GSN, and Disney XD. Now of course, Charter's technicians could be completely wrong, and this might be problem that's only affecting me. I guess we'll know on Tuesday.


----------



## peezee

I live in the burbank Area and have waited 3 weeks now for a tech to come out and install the cable card(s) and tuning adapter. constant weekly cancelations due to techs not available. I even had one tech say i wasnt home (apt on 12/5/2009) when i was home the whole day and not receive one call from charter. All i want is for my tivo to be working in my second bed room. Sorry for the rant. How has it been for you guys? I can't wait for my tivo to finally be set up.


----------



## tmrfe

tmrfe said:


> *So, if you are a Charter customer in Glendale/Burbank using cableCARDs and a tuning adaptor, be aware that certain digital channels may not tune properly until after 12/8/2009.* For me, the affected channels include TBS HD, TLC HD, Smithsonian HD, Cinemax HD, GSN, and Disney XD. Now of course, Charter's technicians could be completely wrong, and this might be problem that's only affecting me. I guess we'll know on Tuesday.


Turns out the Charter techs were _mostly_ wrong. After a week of waiting, and two additional truck rolls, I now have all of my channels back. Here's what happened. When my cableCARDs were first installed in my replacement TiVo, they were not fully authorized by Charter dispatch. So, for some reason, they were able to tune all channels except a couple of specific HD channels. After continuing to push for the techs to try different cableCARDs I finally got two that worked completely. For the Scientific Atlanta M-cards, on the host ID screen it must say "Authorization Received" for the card to be fully functional. No one at Charter noticed that or had any idea to look for that message.

Remember that Tuesday deadline when "everything was supposed to be working". That day, I lost two more channels: TCM and HBO2. The reason for these missing channels was simple: Charter in Glendale has officially begun switching channels as of Tuesday. That's right, your tuning adaptors are finally necessary to receive the following channels: Disney XD, TCM, GSN, and HBO2. There may be more as well, but those are the ones I can confirm.

The techs I talked to had no information about any new channels in our lineup, except the same old, "Yeah, we should have new ones soon."

If you haven't noticed, dealing with Charter support is an extreme waste of time. One helpful tip: when you make an appointment with a Charter CSR on the phone, make sure to ask them to "put in the codes for cableCARDs and a tuning adaptor" in the appointment notes. Otherwise, the local office will just send any ol' tech, who may not have the equipment or training (ha!) necessary to deal with TiVos. That is, if they send a tech at all.


----------



## ballookey

Hey there - before I get to the point, I want to say what a big help these forums have been. My husband used to take care of all this stuff and I knew he frequented these forums. So after he went into the hospital and I had Tivo/Charter issues, I knew to come here and the information has been invaluable.

Anyway, we got our tuning adaptor from Charter in Alhambra, CA back in October. At first, it would restart once or twice a week and we'd get the "There's a tuning adaptor..." screen with the usual hassles: stops recording, drops us out of a pre-recorded show, have to start over. If it happens at night, nothing else gets recorded until we wake up and turn on the TV and tell it "Continue..." 

Annoying, but I put up with it. It just wasn't annoying enough to bother with technical support hell.

About 10 days or so ago, this started happening several times a day. Our Tivo was littered with partial recordings, and lots of shows were just not recorded if we didn't notice that the TA had reset.

In the past 10 days, we've had three tech rolls to our house including a marathon session of seven hours yesterday, a grand total of six TA's installed, and our cable cards completely shuffled, replaced, reshuffled, and replaced again (unnecessary).

The current TA has only been here for 24 hours, and it's so far reset six times.

It doesn't sound like there's a solution to this yet, or even any clue on Charter's behalf with regard to what's happening. They just bring another darn box. I don't know if Tivo needs to update the software, or if it's the TA's fault, but I hope it gets fixed soon because I'm tired of paying to not get my recordings and after having used Charter's DVR years ago, I'll never go back again. It's Tivo or books, so hopefully someone FIXES IT! (although, I guess my reading pile has been getting a little tall lately)

Thanks for your ear, guys. You're all the best.


----------



## sharky777

ballookey said:


> Hey there - before I get to the point, I want to say what a big help these forums have been. My husband used to take care of all this stuff and I knew he frequented these forums. So after he went into the hospital and I had Tivo/Charter issues, I knew to come here and the information has been invaluable.
> 
> Anyway, we got our tuning adaptor from Charter in Alhambra, CA back in October. At first, it would restart once or twice a week and we'd get the "There's a tuning adaptor..." screen with the usual hassles: stops recording, drops us out of a pre-recorded show, have to start over. If it happens at night, nothing else gets recorded until we wake up and turn on the TV and tell it "Continue..."
> 
> Annoying, but I put up with it. It just wasn't annoying enough to bother with technical support hell.
> 
> About 10 days or so ago, this started happening several times a day. Our Tivo was littered with partial recordings, and lots of shows were just not recorded if we didn't notice that the TA had reset.
> 
> In the past 10 days, we've had three tech rolls to our house including a marathon session of seven hours yesterday, a grand total of six TA's installed, and our cable cards completely shuffled, replaced, reshuffled, and replaced again (unnecessary).
> 
> The current TA has only been here for 24 hours, and it's so far reset six times.
> 
> It doesn't sound like there's a solution to this yet, or even any clue on Charter's behalf with regard to what's happening. They just bring another darn box. I don't know if Tivo needs to update the software, or if it's the TA's fault, but I hope it gets fixed soon because I'm tired of paying to not get my recordings and after having used Charter's DVR years ago, I'll never go back again. It's Tivo or books, so hopefully someone FIXES IT! (although, I guess my reading pile has been getting a little tall lately)
> 
> Thanks for your ear, guys. You're all the best.


I guess Charter might keep testing on all customers' TA in San Gabriel Valley So. Calif. before They are making changes to the channel line up, effective January 12 2010. Also they are adding 15 new HD channels including PRIME TICKET HD, USA HD, SCIENCE HD, LIFETIME HD, MLB HD, FX HD, BRAVO HD, ON DEMAND HD, TMC HD, NGC HD, CNN HD, CNBC HD, SYFY HD, VS HD AND GOLF HD. I have two TA in my rooms that randomly reboot almost everyday like your TA.


----------



## skycat

I'm in San Gabriel ares and I have the exact problem. The TA restarts a few times daily since late Nov.
I was gonna ask them to replace the TA, but now I've heard you guys are having the same problem even after replacing, looks like it's not hardware problem.
I hope this is because they are preparing and testing the new channel line up for next Jan and will be resolved after the roll out 



ballookey said:


> Hey there - before I get to the point, I want to say what a big help these forums have been. My husband used to take care of all this stuff and I knew he frequented these forums. So after he went into the hospital and I had Tivo/Charter issues, I knew to come here and the information has been invaluable.
> 
> Anyway, we got our tuning adaptor from Charter in Alhambra, CA back in October. At first, it would restart once or twice a week and we'd get the "There's a tuning adaptor..." screen with the usual hassles: stops recording, drops us out of a pre-recorded show, have to start over. If it happens at night, nothing else gets recorded until we wake up and turn on the TV and tell it "Continue..."
> 
> Annoying, but I put up with it. It just wasn't annoying enough to bother with technical support hell.
> 
> About 10 days or so ago, this started happening several times a day. Our Tivo was littered with partial recordings, and lots of shows were just not recorded if we didn't notice that the TA had reset.
> 
> In the past 10 days, we've had three tech rolls to our house including a marathon session of seven hours yesterday, a grand total of six TA's installed, and our cable cards completely shuffled, replaced, reshuffled, and replaced again (unnecessary).
> 
> The current TA has only been here for 24 hours, and it's so far reset six times.
> 
> It doesn't sound like there's a solution to this yet, or even any clue on Charter's behalf with regard to what's happening. They just bring another darn box. I don't know if Tivo needs to update the software, or if it's the TA's fault, but I hope it gets fixed soon because I'm tired of paying to not get my recordings and after having used Charter's DVR years ago, I'll never go back again. It's Tivo or books, so hopefully someone FIXES IT! (although, I guess my reading pile has been getting a little tall lately)
> 
> Thanks for your ear, guys. You're all the best.


----------



## rem

now my tuning adapter is rebooting 2 to 3 times daily. i mostly record programs from OTA HD signals, not a cable channel. but everytime that damn thing reboots, my recordings are cancelled. if the tuning adapter is for the cable channels, then it has no business affecting my OTA recordings. so it's not just a charter issue but a tivo issue as well. the very least tivo can do is release an update so that tuning adapter resets will not affect an ongoing OTA recording. i'm so pissed now that i might consider pulling the plug on the tuning adapter to insure that my recordings for the returning shows next month on network tv are complete.

so who do i rant to most? tivo or charter?


----------



## RonDawg

I've resisted getting a Tuning Adapter due to all the problems that have been reported by customers with Charter and other cable providers. Up until now it's worked fine for me.

It looks like as of today I've lost several of my digital SD channels, including some Discovery networks (Discovery Home, Military Channel, Science Channel) as well as DIY Network and VH-1 Classics.

Fortunately my favorite channel in that group, National Geographic, is still accessible, though for about an hour I wasn't able to tune it. 

My HD channels don't appear to be affected at all, and these are the ones I thought I'd lose first when Charter actually started to use SDV.

I'd set up an appointment but I am going out of town for two weeks, so I'll have to wait until I get back. I do have some recordings scheduled on NatGeo while I'm gone, and hopefully I'll have something to watch when I return.


----------



## if1995

i am a charter customer in the Alhambra area. I had my TA installed in late August, i must be pretty fortunate that my TA hasn't acted up until recently. 

since last week, i lost 3 HD channel: AMCHD, TNTHD, and Foxsport HD, so i am missing out all the NBA actions in HD.....

i called the tech support couple days ago, the tech guy tried to remote reset my TA and it did nothing. So we schedule an appointment for a visit the next day. Well, next day, the tech guy came over, and bascially told me that there is nothing he can do right now, it's system problem with charter and they are looking into it. also, he mentioned that he already visited 7 homes in the past week with the same issue in the Alhambra area.

should i demand to replace my cable card or just sit until the situation corrects itself (doubtful)? 

thanks


----------



## rallykeeper

Had my second visit from Charter about 10 days ago to fix both restarts and missing channels (on 2 out of my 4 CableCards). 

It seemed like it had been typically unsuccessful. Tech tried to install new CableCards, but he only had 3 with him and they were all bad. He gave up, rescheduled, and reinstalled my original bad CableCard. (As an aside, he was nice and apologetic).

However, once the tech left and the original CableCard re-acquired all its data, everything worked. 

No more missing channels and no tuning adapter reboots!

My temporary conclusion is that the act of simply taking the card out, un-pairing it with Charter (maybe by pairing a different card?), and then re-pairing it with Charter did the trick. 

Unfortunately, he hadn't known it worked at the time and he left without fixing the "bad" CableCard on my other TiVo. That TiVo's T/A still reboots and is still missing channels (on the "bad" CableCard only).

I have another appointment scheduled and I'm going to have the next guy go through the exact same process. 

Can't say whether this will work for everyone, but it's gotta be worth a try. 

If anyone else has success with this method, please post.


----------



## ballookey

> No more missing channels and no tuning adapter reboots!
> 
> My temporary conclusion is that the act of simply taking the card out, un-pairing it with Charter (maybe by pairing a different card?), and then re-pairing it with Charter did the trick.


That would be encouraging, but we didn't have any reboots on January 2nd either. Then on Jan 3rd it was back to its usual BS.

I had thought this was because a tech came out on January 1st and replaced the "tap" (no idea - this was because our Internet kept dropping out). For the 24 hour period following that work, our Tuning Adaptor which normally reboots four to eight times a day, didn't reboot ONCE. I thought OMG, they fixed it!

Then January 3rd, it rebooted like four times. Back to it's old shenanigans. And the Internet is still spotty. And our most recent bill is $25 higher than usual, which they say is because I "added" an HD package which I've had for like a year. Only now I've "added" it and I'm getting charged more.

Also, I noticed that we don't get USA HD or Bravo HD. Fantastic. I've had it with calls and I'm seriously considering DirectTV. I wanted FIOS from anyone who would supply it, but there's no one in our neighborhood yet. I'm so done dealing with the cascade of FAIL from Charter.


----------



## rallykeeper

I'd love to be able to report on the status of my tuning adapters, but apparently the channel switch didn't go very smoothly. As of the end of the day yesterday, Charter was reporting that there were service problems in my neighborhood.

We haven't had any service (on any channels) since 2 am on Wednesday. (The channels briefly worked on Wednesday morning for long enough for us to see that the channel numbers had changed to the new lineup).

Anyone else having similar issues in the Pasadena area?

Anyone have a working Series 3/Tuning Adapter setup in Pasadena?


----------



## feisty

I am in Arcadia, CA with charter and a Tivo HD. The Tuning Adapter is nothing short of a disaster for us. It reboots more times a day than I can count, I have lost all my new shows this week because the stupid thing won't tape anything until you click continue. It's completely a mess and unreliable and we have had 2 service calls with techs (mind you, they sent contractors BOTH times and we had to call and request a tech that actually knew WTF a TA was, wasting hours of time) and they can't fix it. They are supposedly replacing the line outside the house because they said the only thing they can figure is that the signal was a little too weak and might be worsening the reboot situation. They indicated it was a problem with Tivo's software. FM on the TA is version 801. 

I now have an unreliable HD Tivo that was working FINE before they foisted this stupid TA on me, I have a mind to just live without the channels they added and unplug it altogether.  I'm really unhappy with the implementation so far.


----------



## ballookey

I, um, hate to say this, but I got so tired of repeated tech support calls with no solution on the tuning adaptor front that we've put our Series 3 Tivo to the side for the moment and switched to Direct TV as of Monday. Charter in Alhambra have lost our business over this fiasco. Unfortunately our lifetime Tivo subscription and S3 are casualties for now. I can't say how much I regret this, but I couldn't continue paying for such awful service. I'm hoping we find suitable duty for the S3 because we really love it and hate to use the provider's DVR.

To recap: We were issued a tuning adaptor in October. It immediately was restarting a few times a week. I ignored it. Almost exactly over the Thanksgiving holiday it began restarting around eight times a day. Since then we've had no less than six calls to "regular" tech support, a call to some "special" tech support number, and four chat sessions online. The bill for the worst month of service I've received in 12 years as a Charter subscriber was ultimately $50 more than any other month in the past year even though I requested a discount for the crappy service and I called to have them deduct some nonsense they charged me for. Still ended up $50 higher than ever. They've replaced the TA a total of five or six times, and our cable cards erroneously about six times. They've replaced the tap once.

And from my review of these forums, there doesn't seem to be a clear answer as to what the problem is, or any solution from ANY cable providers. So while it sucks to lose the use of our Tivo, I have to say uninterrupted satellite feels luxurious. The Direct TV DVR box is no Tivo, but it is a lot better than the Charter DVR.

Sorry, I know this is a Tivo forum. I apologize for the non-Tivo content, but this is what the tuning adaptor has done to me. Maybe this was their plan, which is why I didn't even consider moving to the Charter DVR. If they're going to force me out of my Tivo, then they don't get my money. 

For posterity, all Charter had to do was tell me "Oh, we're so sorry. There's a known issue with the tuning adaptors and some users, including Tivo users. We are working hard with the hardware and software companies involved. We really value you as a customer, and as a show of good faith, we're giving you a discount of $x/month for x months while we resolve this issue. Or we'll give you x months of free Showtime and HBO."


----------



## madmod20061

At this point I would love to have some of the problems you guys are having. Charter in Long Beach, CA refuses to install tuning adapters. Every month it's the same thing. Schedule an appointment for installation, get a reminder call the day before, get a reminder call the day of, get a call from CS saying they have to cancel the appointment because the tuning adapters are not available in my area yet. I find it hard to believe that Long Beach, CA (a fairly large city) hasn't received their shipment of adapters when apparenly the rest of the country has. It wouldn't be so bad if the cable cards still worked on their own, but they dont (except for basic cable). It's to the point where I just took the cable card out and am returning it on Monday. At least with digital cable I can actually see the channels I am paying for. Just no HD stuff. 

Anyone have any suggestions on how to get an adapter when i'm being told they don't exist yet in my city? I'm considering swithing to U-Verse, but I've heard horror stories about them also.


----------



## pwrtrader

I have Charter Alhambra, CA and I&#8217;ve about had it with the TA here. I received the TA in late Oct of 09 and have nothing short of problems ever since. I get about 10-15 reboots daily and the wife is ready to chuck the remote through the TV. As with everyone, most of my recordings are cut off or missed all together.

So last night I just pulled the TA out of the equation and will just suffer with standard cable for now. I&#8217;ll still get HD on the locals which is about 75&#37; of my recordings.

I&#8217;m looking at Uverse here but like many, am not sure I&#8217;d want any picture quality issues. I&#8217;m also running about a 20MB download on the Charter High Speed internet which is hard to give up.

I may call charter and just give up cable and see what they offer for Internet. One thing&#8217;s for sure, this tuner adapter sucks big time.


----------



## sharky777

I have to patient with TAs as long as the Charter, Cisco and Tivo engineers are still working on the problem. TAs reboot indefinite hours due to the network server problem like when it disconnect from server, it reboot. Charter techs have nothing to do with TAs issue. I simply turn the TAs off and unplug the usb cable from TAs. It won't interrupt my recording shows however it only can recording on non-SDV channels. I may consider switching DirecTV with Tivo software feature in near future when it becomes available. U-Verse is too expensive and it probably won't record multi-HD channels at same time.


----------



## RonDawg

RonDawg said:


> I've resisted getting a Tuning Adapter due to all the problems that have been reported by customers with Charter and other cable providers. Up until now it's worked fine for me.
> 
> It looks like as of today I've lost several of my digital SD channels, including some Discovery networks (Discovery Home, Military Channel, Science Channel) as well as DIY Network and VH-1 Classics.
> 
> Fortunately my favorite channel in that group, National Geographic, is still accessible, though for about an hour I wasn't able to tune it.
> 
> My HD channels don't appear to be affected at all, and these are the ones I thought I'd lose first when Charter actually started to use SDV.
> 
> I'd set up an appointment but I am going out of town for two weeks, so I'll have to wait until I get back. I do have some recordings scheduled on NatGeo while I'm gone, and hopefully I'll have something to watch when I return.


While I was gone, several of my HD channels also disappeared, so I went ahead and scheduled a Tuning Adapter install.

At first the Charter CSR didn't know what a Tuning Adapter was (no surprise) but at least he decided to check with his supervisor rather than try to argue with me about it. He then said it would be a $29.95 install  but after I told him that the letter I got told me it would be a free install, he waived the fee.

The tech who came out today showed up right on time but seemed to be in a big hurry. He didn't even ask me where I wanted the Tuning Adapter, he just put it behind my A/V cabinet :down:

After he left, since I was not yet getting my missing channels I decided to undo his "work" and found a proper place in the A/V cabinet for it. I also did a soft reboot on the TiVo; it took a LONG time for the introductory video to come on, and I was nervous that it meant that it and the Tuning Adapter weren't going to get along.

Fortunately the video did come on, and my missing channels are back :up:

Now hopefully it won't do the repeated reboot that several have complained about. I'm also curious to see if the CCI flags have been changed, since several have complained about this when they got their Tuning Adapters.


----------



## keyzone72

RonDawg said:


> Fortunately the video did come on, and my missing channels are back :up:


Hi RonDawg,

Which Tivo are you using? I have a Tivo Series 3 HD :










According to the Charter tech's that came to my home here in Whittier, they've been unsuccessful in getting customers using this generation of Tivo properly working with cable cards and tuning adapters where all channels are coming through. They told me that they have experienced _*some *_success stories for Charter customers using newer generation Tivo HD units with a single front loaded cable card and tuning adapters.

Can you please share your setup? I've been searching these forums and have yet to hear of any Charter customers usings successfully a Tivo Series 3 with dual cable cards, Cisco tuning adapter and have all thier channels (SD and HD) come through without any problems.


----------



## vmarquez71

keyzone72 said:


> Hi RonDawg,
> 
> Which Tivo are you using? I have a Tivo Series 3 HD :
> 
> According to the Charter tech's that came to my home here in Whittier, they've been unsuccessful in getting customers using this generation of Tivo properly working with cable cards and tuning adapters where all channels are coming through. They told me that they have experienced _*some *_success stories for Charter customers using newer generation Tivo HD units with a single front loaded cable card and tuning adapters.
> 
> Can you please share your setup? I've been searching these forums and have yet to hear of any Charter customers usings successfully a Tivo Series 3 with dual cable cards, Cisco tuning adapter and have all thier channels (SD and HD) come through without any problems.


I live in Alhambra (I believe we are both serviced out of the same Charter office in Irwindale). I have two Tivo HD's each with one M-card and a Cisco tuning adapter and A Tivo Series 3 with two S-cards and a Cisco tuning adapter. The two Tivo HD's have worked fine for months now (with the exception of the random reboots of the Cisco TA's). I am getting all channels I am supposed to. The Series 3 worked fine with the TA and two S-cards, until a couple of weeks ago. Both S-cards suddenly tried to do a firmware update and never stopped. Charter truck roll showed up today and after four hours, different cards and a new TA, I am back up and running with all my channels (TA still reboots though). I spoke to the tech and told him that all of my TA's are randomly rebooting and he just said "you too". Apparently, he has replaced over ten TA's at various houses and has been unable to resolve the problem. He said that he has been telling managers in his office about this problem and they don't believe him.


----------



## sharky777

vmarquez71 said:


> I live in Alhambra (I believe we are both serviced out of the same Charter office in Irwindale). I have two Tivo HD's each with one M-card and a Cisco tuning adapter and A Tivo Series 3 with two S-cards and a Cisco tuning adapter. The two Tivo HD's have worked fine for months now (with the exception of the random reboots of the Cisco TA's). I am getting all channels I am supposed to. The Series 3 worked fine with the TA and two S-cards, until a couple of weeks ago. Both S-cards suddenly tried to do a firmware update and never stopped. Charter truck roll showed up today and after four hours, different cards and a new TA, I am back up and running with all my channels (TA still reboots though). I spoke to the tech and told him that all of my TA's are randomly rebooting and he just said "you too". Apparently, he has replaced over ten TA's at various houses and has been unable to resolve the problem. He said that he has been telling managers in his office about this problem and they don't believe him.


I don't think so you should know Charter engineer supervisor has Tivo HD with TA that it has similiar problem as everyone have. Charter techs have nothing to do with TA issues however the engineers are still working on between TAs and SDV servers.


----------



## sharky777

keyzone72 said:


> Hi RonDawg,
> 
> Which Tivo are you using? I have a Tivo Series 3 HD :
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> According to the Charter tech's that came to my home here in Whittier, they've been unsuccessful in getting customers using this generation of Tivo properly working with cable cards and tuning adapters where all channels are coming through. They told me that they have experienced _*some *_success stories for Charter customers using newer generation Tivo HD units with a single front loaded cable card and tuning adapters.
> 
> Can you please share your setup? I've been searching these forums and have yet to hear of any Charter customers usings successfully a Tivo Series 3 with dual cable cards, Cisco tuning adapter and have all thier channels (SD and HD) come through without any problems.


I have Tivo Series 3 with 2 S-cards that are working well but 2 M-cards have some compatible issues with most of Tivo Series 3 that is why my Tivo Series 3 killed M-cards several times. Make sure your S-cards receive authorization before the SDV channels can show up.


----------



## RonDawg

keyzone72 said:


> Hi RonDawg,
> 
> Which Tivo are you using?


TiVoHD, model 652, with a Scientific Atlanta M-card and a Cisco STA150 tuning adapter.


----------



## MinkyMomo

Just chiming in here. I have a TiVo HD with a Motorola M-card and Cisco TA that works reasonably well albeit with the occasional reboot. On the other hand, my Series3 (also with a randomly rebooting Cisco TA) had 2 Scientific Atlanta S-cards that were replaced last week because of the dreaded "Updating firmware" issue. Charter swapped them out with 2 new S-cards, and those worked for about three days until "Updating firmware" (re)reared its ugly head.

Today, Charter started by installing 2 SA M-cards. The cards were able to get authorized and picked up the channel list, but testing the channels on either one produced only a blank image and no audio. The tech then took out the M-card from slot 2, and we rebooted the Series3; eventually, we were able to get my channels, high-def and premium included. His supervisor told him that a Series3 needs an M-card plus an S-card, so we proceeded to go through 4 new S-cards, each of the which produced the "Updating firmware" message. Someone at base sent over a couple of S-cards which apparently had newer firmware, one of which went into slot 2. However, despite multiple hits, the S-card has yet to acquire authorization, so all I have on that tuner is basic cable. The saga continues tomorrow--apparently, their supervisor will come over to take a shot.


----------



## keyzone72

vmarquez71 said:


> I have two Tivo HD's each with one M-card and a Cisco tuning adapter and A Tivo Series 3 with two S-cards and a Cisco tuning adapter............ *The Series 3 worked fine with the TA and two S-cards*, until a couple of weeks ago. Both S-cards suddenly tried to do a firmware update and never stopped.


Hmmm.....

Well maybe my problem has to do with using a Tivo Series 3, a Cisco Tuning adapter and "M" Cable cards, as opposed to "S" cable cards. When I originally got setup with Charter back in September of 2007, *we had no luck* ever getting these "blue label" cable cards to work:








I finally got all my channels when they installed these "teal labeled" cable cards:








I have two of these "teal stickered" cable cards installed in both slots of my Tivo Series 3 and until this change to Switched Digital Video, all my SD and HD channels came through just fine.



vmarquez71 said:


> Charter truck roll showed up today and after four hours, different cards and a new TA, I am back up and running with all my channels (TA still reboots though).


vmarquez71,

So despite the randon TA reboots, you are successfully using a TIVO Series 3 with the Cisco TA and two S-cable cards? What do these cale cards look like? How are they labeled? Are they made by Motorola or Scientific Atlantic? I am not familair with these cards. If S cable cards are working for you, then I'll contact Charter and request these cards instead of the teal labeled Multi-stream cards I'm currently using.

Thanks everyone.

One more thing. My tuning adapter appears to be activated (solid green light) and does not randomly reboot. If I do have a technician bring out S-cable cards, I will monitor the behavior of the tuning adapter.


----------



## keyzone72

MinkyMomo said:


> ... On the other hand, my Series3 (also with a randomly rebooting Cisco TA) had 2 Scientific Atlanta S-cards that were replaced last week because of the dreaded "Updating firmware" issue. Charter swapped them out with 2 new S-cards, and those worked for about three days until "Updating firmware" (re)reared its ugly head.
> 
> Today, Charter started by installing 2 SA M-cards. The cards were able to get authorized and picked up the channel list, but testing the channels on either one produced only a blank image and no audio. The tech then took out the M-card from slot 2, and we rebooted the Series3; eventually, we were able to get my channels, high-def and premium included. *His supervisor told him that a Series3 needs an M-card plus an S-card*, so we proceeded to go through 4 new S-cards, each of the which produced the "Updating firmware" message. Someone at base sent over a couple of S-cards which apparently had newer firmware, one of which went into slot 2. However, despite multiple hits, the S-card has yet to acquire authorization, so all I have on that tuner is basic cable. The saga continues tomorrow--apparently, their supervisor will come over to take a shot.


OK, now I'm really confused. Please let me know the results of your truck roll. I don't know whether I should request two "S" cards to replace the two Multi-stream cards that aren't working, or some combination of "S and M" cards.

Hmmm... "S and M" cards. Kind of ironic that I am going through so much pain and torture and that the solution maybe more "S and M!"


----------



## keyzone72

sharky777 said:


> I have Tivo Series 3 with 2 S-cards that are working well but 2 M-cards have some compatible issues with most of Tivo Series 3 that is why my Tivo Series 3 killed M-cards several times. Make sure your S-cards receive authorization before the SDV channels can show up.


Hi Sharky777,

The M-cards in my Tivo Series 3 haven't allowed all my channels to come through with the Cisco Tuning adapter ever since the change to SDV took place. I'm glad to hear you're experiencing some bit of success with your setup. Can you tell me what the firmware is on your S cable cards? I have read on these forums that customers run into problems when thier S cable cards try to update their firmware. The firmware update apparently never completes and customers end up needing to request new S cable cards with the latest firmware (whatever version that might be).

Thanks.


----------



## MinkyMomo

keyzone72 said:


> OK, now I'm really confused. Please let me know the results of your truck roll. I don't know whether I should request two "S" cards to replace the two Multi-stream cards that aren't working, or some combination of "S and M" cards.
> 
> Hmmm... "S and M" cards. Kind of ironic that I am going through so much pain and torture and that the solution maybe more "S and M!"


I just got off the phone with the supervisor... He had me read to him the Host IDs for my Series3, and was surprised that they started with "0-160-...". He believes that they ought to be "0-350-..." (never mind that they've been 0-160 for as long as I remember), and said that Charter knows of an internal problem and that they have been working with TiVo to resolve it. Supposedly, a fix has been sent out to affected customers in Riverside county and that they were going to implement it tonight for San Gabriel Valley. The fix will take the form of a firmware update (here we go again!) sometime tonight. What he didn't tell me was whether this fix was going to be rolled out to everyone at large, or to TiVo users only, or to me specifically. He's going to call me back first thing tomorrow morning to check...

Keeping my fingers and toes crossed...


----------



## keyzone72

Hi MinkyMomo,

The Host ID's for my cable cards start with "0-350-..., " but right above it, it says something like "In order to start service for this device, contact customer service at PH#....". Keep in mind I have two Multi-stream cards and not S cards.


----------



## sharky777

MinkyMomo said:


> I just got off the phone with the supervisor... He had me read to him the Host IDs for my Series3, and was surprised that they started with "0-160-...". He believes that they ought to be "0-350-..." (never mind that they've been 0-160 for as long as I remember), and said that Charter knows of an internal problem and that they have been working with TiVo to resolve it. Supposedly, a fix has been sent out to affected customers in Riverside county and that they were going to implement it tonight for San Gabriel Valley. The fix will take the form of a firmware update (here we go again!) sometime tonight. What he didn't tell me was whether this fix was going to be rolled out to everyone at large, or to TiVo users only, or to me specifically. He's going to call me back first thing tomorrow morning to check...
> 
> Keeping my fingers and toes crossed...


Resolve to what? Cablecards or TAs? I thought they resolve on TAs issue due to constantly rebooting.


----------



## sharky777

keyzone72 said:


> Hi Sharky777,
> 
> The M-cards in my Tivo Series 3 haven't allowed all my channels to come through with the Cisco Tuning adapter ever since the change to SDV took place. I'm glad to hear you're experiencing some bit of success with your setup. Can you tell me what the firmware is on your S cable cards? I have read on these forums that customers run into problems when thier S cable cards try to update their firmware. The firmware update apparently never completes and customers end up needing to request new S cable cards with the latest firmware (whatever version that might be).
> 
> Thanks.


Both of S-cards firmware and hardware versions:
Hardware Model: 0600 Version: 0010
Bootrom Version: 115
OS Build: 2.3.149s2 (0) Mon May 2 2005, 1:28:42 PM EDT

also both of these cards received authorization.


----------



## MinkyMomo

sharky777 said:


> Resolve to what? Cablecards or TAs? I thought they resolve on TAs issue due to constantly rebooting.


He was referring to other Charter customers with TiVos not getting all the channels they were subscribed to...


----------



## MinkyMomo

I don't know if an update of any kind was actually pushed anywhere; when I got up yesterday, my single-stream card in slot 2 was still unauthorized and would not respond to the auth hit, so Charter went out and swapped it out for another multistream card. I now have 2 of those Scientific Atlanta cards with the TEAL label, both of which are authorized and decoding all the expanded basic, premium and high-def channels I'm subscribed to. As far as the tuning adapter is concerned, it hasn't rebooted yet, but then it hadn't rebooted that often before.


----------



## keyzone72

MinkyMomo said:


> I now have 2 of those Scientific Atlanta cards with the TEAL label, both of which are authorized and decoding all the expanded basic, premium and high-def channels I'm subscribed to.


That's great news. Maybe there's some hope for me in my area (Whittier, Ca). when you get a chance MinkyMomo, please respond to the private message I sent you.

Thanks.


----------



## shrike4242

My mother-in-law received a letter from Charter, indicating that she would need a Tuning Adapter starting at the end of the month. She lives in the Metro East area in IL, near St. Louis.

I called Charter and they didn't have a clue what TA they'd be giving her, which was ever so helpful. I asked them if I'd need one at the same time and they said that I wouldn't, though it would be needed sometime this calendar year. Once I get the letter, I should schedule my appointment to do it.

For those of you that have been getting TA's, what model(s) have they been providing?


----------



## RonDawg

shrike4242 said:


> For those of you that have been getting TA's, what model(s) have they been providing?


Cisco STA1520 here in SoCal


----------



## bidderman9

I am in St. Louis and got my letter from Charter. SDV will be required after 2/21


----------



## keyzone72

shrike4242 said:


> For those of you that have been getting TA's, what model(s) have they been providing?


The Cisco STA1520, which looks like this:


----------



## shrike4242

Thanks for the info, RonDawg and keyzone72. Looks like I have to find a spot for a 12" x 8" x 1.5" TA with all of my Tivos.



bidderman9 said:


> I am in St. Louis and got my letter from Charter. SDV will be required after 2/21


No letter for me, and my mother-in-law received hers over the weekend. If they're going to give me issues with the TA before I get the letter, then I need to get them to get off their backsides and get out to install mine, as I need five of them.

Time for a phone call to Charter, then.


----------



## shrike4242

Well, I called Charter, and boy was it a CF. 

For starters, the only date they have nailed down for the St. Louis area is Jefferson County, which is supposed to switch on 02/10/10. The rest of the area is "sometime in the future".

I asked them if I could get my TAs in advance of the SDV change and they said it would be no issue to have them installed in advance. From everything I've read around here, that seems to be the case.

I had multiple occurrences where they claimed that I wouldn't need my CableCards any longer, so I had to keep correcting them on that issue. 

After a couple of phone calls and working with a supervisor, he indicated that the TAs aren't even in the local warehouse for the area, and that once they're in, I should be getting a call to schedule the install of the TAs for each of my five Tivos. 

Also, as I didn't get a copy of the letter, they're sending me out one to make sure that I have it.


----------



## bkrodgers

Got my TAs in St. Louis today, and apparently I'm the first (successful) install so far in the area. He said they'd had some issues but had thought they had them all worked out, so he was sent out to try to get me up and running. It took awhile and some phone calls back to some experts at Charter, but they got it. Some of the issues were basic, like the TA wasn't recognized until the TiVo was rebooted, which they didn't have in their instructions. Part of the problem was that they'd been told the TiVo would immediately try to download the channel map for the new TA, but since they haven't enabled SDV yet it wasn't picking anything up. They concluded that was just an issue with what they'd been told to expect, not with the TA. There was also confusion at the head end about how to get the TA serial numbers in the right place, but once he called someone who knew more about it, they got it worked out and the TA picked up an IP address. He said I should be good to go, but he couldn't really test it until some SDV channels were rolled out. He said the light on the TA would be flashing until it found something. He suggested electrical tape to fix that. 

He said he didn't know what the 2/21 date on the letter was talking about (it does say "on or AFTER"), as there's no way they could actually start using SDV that soon. Just dealing with the TiVo customers by then wouldn't be likely, much less other preparations. He thought it could be much later in the year or it could be sooner, but didn't think it'd be 2/21. Though he also readily admitted they don't tell him everything.  My guess is that they're just trying to get people to move quickly.

So a long but ultimately uneventful process. Nothing really changes now except that I have one less outlet free on each TV's power strip. I just hope they can get everyone setup quickly so they can start using it to roll out some new HD channels.


----------



## shrike4242

bkrodgers, if you're set up with the TA's currently and there's no SDV, are they doing anything, or do you have them disconnected at the moment?

Sounds like the install went like the usual Charter boondoggle, completely full of problems until you get to the right person with the right information.

I guess I should call them back to get them to set up my appointment for the TA installs, since if they did your install, they obviously have the equipment on-hand.


----------



## keyzone72

Well after almost 2 months of no luck, it appears Charter Cable has fixed the technical issue that prevented me from receiving all the SD and HD channels in my subscription package. I went out of town on Monday (February 1st) and when I got back last night (Thursday February 4th), I turned on my TIVO Series 3 and am now able to see all my channels!!!  The Tivo in my bedroom still wasn't receiving the channels, but after disconnecting the USB cable from the tuning adapter for about 20 seconds and then reconnecting, the "acquiring channels" screen appeared for about 10 seconds, and then everything came through after going to "Live TV." I spoke with a Charter Technician and he informed me that "they fixed the problem," but was unable to tell me what exactly they fixed. I can now confirm that the setup below is working here in Southern California:










*+*

*2 x *









*+*










*+*










*=*


----------



## bkrodgers

shrike4242 said:


> bkrodgers, if you're set up with the TA's currently and there's no SDV, are they doing anything, or do you have them disconnected at the moment?
> 
> Sounds like the install went like the usual Charter boondoggle, completely full of problems until you get to the right person with the right information.
> 
> I guess I should call them back to get them to set up my appointment for the TA installs, since if they did your install, they obviously have the equipment on-hand.


They're connected, but not doing anything yet since there's no SDV. But when they do activate SDV, I should be ready to go. He said it should pull the new channel map and start using it without any intervention on my part. Though he also smiled and emphasized "should." 

He'd mentioned they'd been canceling these appointments since they were having problems. I also *thought* I overheard him on the phone saying they didn't have a lot of the boxes in the warehouse, but he could have been talking about something different. You might want to wait a little while to let them disseminate what they learned from my install as well.


----------



## jak146

I have charter in the Pasadena area and I was just about to breakdown and buy a TIVO HD until I saw this thread. I actually like the scientific atlanta 8300HD but it just started loosing my scheduled recordings and I have been through 3 boxes. Now I wonder if these errors started when charter switched to SDV? Anyway, I have read through the entire thread and I cant tell but does anyone have a sucessful setup with their tivo and the tuning adapter? I just dont have the emotional energy to invest into this if it just is not going to work. Thank you.


----------



## RonDawg

My post (#85) described a successful install despite a relatively uncaring tech.

Since that post, I have only discovered two issues:

1. Many previously un-copy protected channels are now copy-protected (particularly the Discovery networks)

2. Discovery HD seems to be heavily pixelated on occasion, which seems to be on Wednesday evenings around 6 PM. If I record the same show later, I don't get the issue. Other people have reported the pixelization issue as well, but on different channels; I don't know if theirs happens at a certain time or not.


----------



## jak146

I did see your post #85 but I wasnt sure if you had sucess since then. That is a good sign if you arent suffering from the rebooting issue.

Does anyone have a comprehensive list of what channels are being flagged with the copyright protection? I was really hoping to get the 2nd tivo to stream to my other tv.


----------



## rallykeeper

After just ignoring the problem for a few weeks by yanking my CableCards and investigating whether I could live without cable (it all came down to easily getting Daily Show), everything now seems okay. 

As a re-cap, I have two Series 3's with dual S-Card setups. Since September or so, I've been missing channels, suffering with reboots, and when SDV got fully switched on, lost my CableCards completely due to the "updating" process. Prior to September, I had no problems for the 2.5 years I've had my Series 3's with Charter.

On my last swap-out of CableCards, the Charter tech indicated that there were effectively three unrelated problems that have plagued TiVo installs in the Pasadena area over the past six months.

1. The Tuning Adapter install -- basically a lot of tuning adapters were either set-up incorrectly in the home or not correctly linked by Charter on its systems. My status: fixed!

2. A customer database change. I didn't get the details here, but he basically said that when they rolled over to a new customer database, some channels didn't get re-mapped for particular customers. This caused me to lose a bunch of channels even before SDV was turned on. My status: fixed!

3. The SDV switch. When Charter turned on SDV, the CableCards would go into the dreaded "updating" page after successfully working for a couple days. 

The TiVo CSR I spoke with indicated this was related to the Tuning Adapter pinging the CableCards too frequently and then the poorly set-up CableCards would fail. 

The Charter techs who visited my house (who I actually believe more) told me that it was a software bug on TiVo's side due to something unique in Charter's SDV implementation. They told me that TiVo was aware of the problem and was aggressively rolling out a fix to all Charter customers.

I never managed to document whether my TiVo software changed, but I can now say that everything works and has worked since January 28 (when I stuck the CableCards back into my TiVo). I get all my channels and the tuning adapter works well with no restarts.

Hopefully everyone else is starting to see success as well. 

What a big pain.


----------



## tim1724

So a week ago I got a phone call from Charter (Alhambra, CA office). They said they'd updated the firmware on the tuning adapter to fix the constant reboots.

Well, so far so good. It hasn't rebooted since. (It used to reboot 2-8 times per day.)

I still have an occasional problem where my TiVo ends up not recording something because it says it was unable to tune the channel properly. So far it's only happened on on HD feeds of HBO or Showtime. I'm not sure whether that was a coincidence or not. Luckily it's easy enough to reschedule those if needed. (but for some reason the TiVo won't do it automatically, the way it does when something isn't recorded for other reasons)


----------



## shrike4242

Supposedly, the codes to set up the TA installs for my area should be in Charter's computer system starting tomorrow. The equipment should also be on-hand, from the follow-up call I had with them earlier today. 

I'll call them tomorrow and get the install set up sometime shortly.


----------



## bkrodgers

BTW, for anyone interested, in St. Louis they gave me the smaller Moto TAs.


----------



## keyzone72

RonDawg said:


> Since that post, I have only discovered two issues:
> 
> 1. Many previously un-copy protected channels are now copy-protected (particularly the Discovery networks)
> 
> 2. Discovery HD seems to be heavily pixelated on occasion, which seems to be on Wednesday evenings around 6 PM. If I record the same show later, I don't get the issue. Other people have reported the pixelization issue as well, but on different channels; I don't know if theirs happens at a certain time or not.


I too have noticed that practically all my shows and movies are copy-protected on most of my channels. What is going on? Who determines what shows or channels are get flagged? Is it the broadcasting company or the cable channel company? Is there anything that can be done about this?

I have noticed some pixilation, but it's been too inconsistent on my setup to determine if its a constant problem.


----------



## shrike4242

bkrodgers said:


> BTW, for anyone interested, in St. Louis they gave me the smaller Moto TAs.


Nice to hear. I preferred the size of the Moto TAs compared to the Cisco 1520s, since that's an easier box to fit into a couple of places I have my Tivos.

I did call them again today, and it appears that they don't have clue one about getting the install set up. Supposedly, they will have the installs available to be scheduled for the Jefferson County area, though the SDV transition itself isn't scheduled yet. 

According to the rep I spoke with today, the SDV transition for the St. Louis county area isn't scheduled yet, as it was delayed. 

I just wish I could get my TAs installed and not have to worry about it, though Charter is being less than helpful about it.


----------



## rhroyse

I am over in the Alton/Edwardsville area of IL, and I am scheduled for them to bring out an additional 2 adapters on Monday that they didn't have with them for the first appointment last Monday.

When the tech brought out the ones he had with him, he had no more info about them. Mine are blinking amber right now also. I think so far, they are installed correctly on my Tivo, but I am having a problem with them on a Windows Media Center PC, but that is a different topic for a different forum...

It appears Charter isn't ready for the SDV deployment here in the STL Market yet, I just wanted to be ahead of the inevitable curve when the rollout starts. I am sure in classic Charter fashion, they will be out of stock for weeks once they flip the switch on SDV.

What I would really like to know is what channels they are going to add. My money is on converting the audio-only music channels to HD...


----------



## shrike4242

rhroyse said:


> I am over in the Alton/Edwardsville area of IL, and I am scheduled for them to bring out an additional 2 adapters on Monday that they didn't have with them for the first appointment last Monday.
> 
> When the tech brought out the ones he had with him, he had no more info about them. Mine are blinking amber right now also. I think so far, they are installed correctly on my Tivo, but I am having a problem with them on a Windows Media Center PC, but that is a different topic for a different forum...
> 
> It appears Charter isn't ready for the SDV deployment here in the STL Market yet, I just wanted to be ahead of the inevitable curve when the rollout starts. I am sure in classic Charter fashion, they will be out of stock for weeks once they flip the switch on SDV.
> 
> What I would really like to know is what channels they are going to add. My money is on converting the audio-only music channels to HD...


Good to hear that they've done your installs.

After calls on 02/10/10 and today (02/12/10), I think they're finally going to be ready to start doing install scheduling for the St. Louis county area. Supposedly, the equipment is their warehouses and the codes to set up the installs aren't in their computer yet, though should have been by now. From what I was told, the codes should be in the computer this evening, worst case tomorrow.

So, once that gets done, I'll be setting up my install for my five Tivo's and hopefully stay ahead of the curve. Like you said, they're probably going to be out of them starting when they flip the switch, so I'd rather go through this foolishness ahead of time before it becomes an issue.


----------



## jonja

<Apologies for the cross post in the pixelation thread. Just not sure if belongs there or under this one.>

On my Tivo HD, I get a lot of pixelation on just a couple of channels: SyFy HD and Cartoon Network HD. On Charter here in CT, I believe both are SDV channels. SyFy is almost watchable (and I don't just mean 'Mansquito III: Death from the Cesspool').

I have checked SyFy live and still see pixelation, exactly the same as what I see recorded...and I never see any errors (corrected or uncorrected) while it is live. I keep the signal strength between 87 and 93 on most channels, and SNR is usually around 35dB (never higher).

I don't get pixelation on any other channels. On those channels where I see a few errors (such as Home & Garden), the picture is perfect. Go figure.

Last November, I replaced the internal hard drive to help deal with this (a 1TB Western Digital, *exact* same hard drive used in Tivo XL) and got rid of my DVR Expander, but other than spending a lot of time and money, it did nothing for this issue.

Two days ago, I called Charter and they replaced the Tuner Adapter just in case. Pixelation is still going strong on SyFy. The technician swears it is not in the source, and I have been seeing this problem since last June when I first got the Adapter.


----------



## blybarg

I'm in the Granite City / Pontoon Beach area. Had my two Motorola TA's installed last week (two service calls after the first tech only brought one, typical Charter). First tech couldn't the TA to obtain an IP address. Second tech had both TA's refreshed by his counter part on the phone (the Charter mother-ship, I call it). Then both TA's obtained IP's and seem to be functioning correctly. Who knows when Charter is flipping the SDV switch in the Metro East?


----------



## RonDawg

jonja said:


> <Apologies for the cross post in the pixelation thread. Just not sure if belongs there or under this one.>
> 
> On my Tivo HD, I get a lot of pixelation on just a couple of channels: SyFy HD and Cartoon Network HD. On Charter here in CT, I believe both are SDV channels. SyFy is almost watchable (and I don't just mean 'Mansquito III: Death from the Cesspool').
> 
> I have checked SyFy live and still see pixelation, exactly the same as what I see recorded...and I never see any errors (corrected or uncorrected) while it is live. I keep the signal strength between 87 and 93 on most channels, and SNR is usually around 35dB (never higher).
> 
> I don't get pixelation on any other channels. On those channels where I see a few errors (such as Home & Garden), the picture is perfect. Go figure.
> 
> Last November, I replaced the internal hard drive to help deal with this (a 1TB Western Digital, *exact* same hard drive used in Tivo XL) and got rid of my DVR Expander, but other than spending a lot of time and money, it did nothing for this issue.
> 
> Two days ago, I called Charter and they replaced the Tuner Adapter just in case. Pixelation is still going strong on SyFy. The technician swears it is not in the source, and I have been seeing this problem since last June when I first got the Adapter.


I had a Charter tech at my house this morning as I was having trouble receiving Discovery HD and HD Theatre.

He told me that certain channels are more susceptible to signal issues than others. I don't know about your situation, but in mine the problematic channels were in the 77x range; I don't know if that is the actual channel number, or a remapped "virtual" channel.

Interestingly, he noted that the reason for the problems I have had with cable all these years was the way my particular unit was wired. My townhouse complex is two buildings. The main cable feed goes into the other building and is divided up five ways, one for each unit. But rather than send two feeds from that splitter through the pipe beneath the driveway to each unit in my building (mine and my immediate next door neighbor), whoever wired the place used only ONE cable which is then split when it gets to my building.

Even worse, per him the cable in the pipe beneath the driveway is NOT rated for underground use, and he feels that it has degraded significantly in the 3 decades since the complex was built.

For now he replaced a corroded connector and used a different type of splitter (for some reason the previous tech used a 3 way, not a 2 way, even though only 2 feeds were needed) to help improve the signal. He also contacted the local Charter office to have different techs come out and replace the cable beneath the driveway, and if possible to try to get two individual feeds rather than one.


----------



## rhroyse

Anyone heard anything new about the SDV deployment? I think I am going to call Charter today. I would love to know what the new channels are going to be.


----------



## shrike4242

rhroyse said:


> Anyone heard anything new about the SDV deployment? I think I am going to call Charter today. I would love to know what the new channels are going to be.


From the last conversation I had with anyone in the know, the whole SDV deployment is being delayed, and there's no ETA of when it's going to happen.

This was from a supervisor that called me last week when I was asking about when I could get my TAs ordered and installed.


----------



## bidderman9

Hey shrike4242 I recenctly had Charter install 2 SDV boxes and I am in the St. Louis area. Both of my boxes are still blinking amber and neither have an IP address. Just curious if yours are up and running yet. I think they are not ready to go yet


----------



## rhroyse

I spoke to them yesterday, they are still clueless as ever. Mine are still blinking amber also. However, I was able to get the new channel lineup out of them. I started out asking the customer service agent if there was a new one available, and by the end of the call, I had told him where to find the PDF on his own website. As I predicted, it isn't much to get excited about, at least in Metro East it sucks. 

WE NOW GET C-SPAN 3!!! YES!!! I had been waiting SO LONG FOR IT!!!

I knew this would end up happening with them. They are going to add a new technology which they will inevitably have problems with, and it will end up making the channels I actually do watch less available and stable because you can bet those tuning adapters will wig out once every so often and then my Tivo will miss a recording because of it... Then I will be PISSED!!!

-Rob


----------



## bidderman9

When the Tech was at my house he was telling me how alot of houses have physical filters on their lines at the box. It filters out certain channel ranges. Since Charter is re-arranging the existing channels, they are having to visit many homes to remove the filter because it will start to block existing channels. 

P.S. Don't fill up your DVR with that new CSPAN3 content


----------



## shrike4242

bidderman9 said:


> Hey shrike4242 I recenctly had Charter install 2 SDV boxes and I am in the St. Louis area. Both of my boxes are still blinking amber and neither have an IP address. Just curious if yours are up and running yet. I think they are not ready to go yet


I don't have them yet. They keep saying that they have their heads up their backsides about when it'll get done, so if you have yours, I may have to call and try to get the installs done again.


----------



## GISJason420

buzzword said:


> I don't know how anyone can run a business this way.


*Apologies if this seems like a uncalled for RANT /

They're idiots... They really don't care that much about their own network, They've actually got nationwide SNMP Strings which is so insecure! Not to mention multiple issues on their network, and reps and csrs that don't even have a clue what most of the things they need to know are...
They don't want to spend much on their own network let alone "secure" it even better than it is right now... They feel like they're not responsible to incur costs due to people committing ToS on their network, I know this due to the fact I've done several cable modems up for people with 3rd party firmwares / to help them diagnosis issues within their network setup. So now I'm pretty much being held accountable for their own stupidity and ignorance.Due to what some shady customers of mine did... I've ceased programming modems with 3rd party firmwares and stopped doing business in this town as I cannot afford to be held accountable for what my customers do with thier finished product... I mean WTF are they gonna come after me if someone kills someone w/ a modded Wii or what?! 
They're demanding 50k each modem they find in the system that's deemed to be "cloned" or stealing service... Even tho it wouldn't be hard at all to rid the network of these devices that users have apparently abused and used purely for ToS, right from the console at the CMTS / Headend, by just ENFORCING BPI+, tho wouldn't you think they owe it to their customers to do better and secure their network from malicious acts such as this? I mean these users are out there hoggin and raping resources off their network which I'm sure is causing some issues for legitimate subscribed users.. As well not enough bandwidth to go around one nodes that have a couple hacked modems on there. So yeah expect crappy quality HD Shows and crap to be recorded to your TiVo.

Seriously I urge everyone with a account at Charter to look elsewhere for service after their attitude towards their own network management skill as well trouble of servicing TiVo owners which I'm pretty sure is totally because they just spite us TiVo owners since they cannot rape us with their DVR Devices and charges...


----------



## bidderman9

I agree and would love to get rid of Charter, however, realistically, if I want to keep my HD TiVo, I don't have much of an option. Can't go Sat with HD TiVo, Can't go U-Verse. Unfortunately, they pretty well have me by the ....


----------



## GISJason420

bidderman9 said:


> I agree and would love to get rid of Charter, however, realistically, if I want to keep my HD TiVo, I don't have much of an option. Can't go Sat with HD TiVo, Can't go U-Verse. Unfortunately, they pretty well have me by the ....


hehe I know how you feel... I feel the same way but refused to let them hold me like that so I went on to Dish but now I'm feeling really really lousy cause Charter is looking good atm with the fact I could record 2 shows and still watch LIVE TV while they were recording but on Dish I'm restricted to just recording shows and no watching LIVE tv while a recording is going on cause the Dish DVR ties up our TVs while recording a show.... 

Really wish Comcast would just come in and take over... But doesn't look like it's gonna happen anytime soon in this town as the Charter here isn't franchised but privately owned...


----------



## RonDawg

Well, it looks like SDV is becoming unreliable for me as well. At first, what few problems I had I thought it might be related to "peak period" watching since it tended to occur around dinnertime on certain weekdays. However, it's slowly gotten worse, and as of midnight tonight I am unable to tune several channels, both SD and HD :down:

As much as I loved having TiVo over the last 9 years, I simply cannot accept this any longer, especially since Charter also decided to implement copy-once flags on many of the channels, thus negating TiVo's biggest advantage over other DVR's (TTG)  

So I have scheduled a U-verse install for next week. I still have 6 months left on my 3 year contract but I can still use it with OTA along with Amazon, Netflix, etc.

If U-verse doesn't work out for some reason, I also got a flyer with my AAA magazine showing a $19.99 offer from DirecTV for AAA members for 12 months, and only $24.99 for 12 months (including a free HD DVR Upgrade AND a free 2nd HD receiver) if I go with their Choice Extra package. If/when the much-discussed DirecTV/TiVo reunion happens, I'll dump U-verse and go with DirecTV.


----------



## bidderman9

A couple of Points here. If the DirectTV/TiVo reunion happens, you will not be able to use your retail TiVo. It will be a DirectTV DVR running TiVo software. Secondly, my understanding is that it will be more like TiVo Lite. Not full featured. No Internet Video downloads, no saving shows to/from PC, etc...

In Regards to UVerse, it is important to know that once you switch to UVerse you will get an IP phone. No more hard land line. No power, no phone. I did not like that prospect. I was always comforted in the fact that if AI lost power, I always had a phone. Maybe that is old school.


----------



## rhroyse

@RonDawg: Which market are you in?

I am in St. Louis, and so help me god, if they flip the switch on the CCI byte to prevent TTG transfers when they launch SDV, I am DONE.

Right now, none of the flags are set, and I can transfer anything I want from my Tivo to my PC.

The problem is, I am heavily invested in CableCard between my 3 Tivos and my 3 Windows PCs with CableCard tuners. I really enjoy not needing a box, especially in the kitchen with an HP all-in-one that is wall mounted.

My fear is that this Tivo announcement on 3/2 is going to be more of the same BS from Tivo & DirecTV, where we get a new HD Tivo for DirecTV, but it will be crippled. Actually, that is an understatement.

Right now, I am pleased with the Series 3. I can transfer shows, and I have my TV connected via HDMI. This enables me to also use the component outputs for my Slingbox. If I recall correctly on the original DirecTV HD Tivo, component was disabled when you used HDMI (when HDMI actually worked).

Thanks,

-Rob


----------



## RonDawg

bidderman9 said:


> A couple of Points here. If the DirectTV/TiVo reunion happens, you will not be able to use your retail TiVo. It will be a DirectTV DVR running TiVo software. Secondly, my understanding is that it will be more like TiVo Lite. Not full featured. No Internet Video downloads, no saving shows to/from PC, etc...
> 
> In Regards to UVerse, it is important to know that once you switch to UVerse you will get an IP phone. No more hard land line. No power, no phone. I did not like that prospect. I was always comforted in the fact that if AI lost power, I always had a phone. Maybe that is old school.


I am aware that my TiVoHD will not be able to be used with anything other than OTA and cable. That is why for the remaining 6 months of my 3 year contract, I plan on using it for OTA and also for Amazon/Netflix etc. For the first month I also plan on simultaneously recording programs on it and on my new U-verse box to compare picture quality.

I am also aware that if the new DirecTiVo implementation is anything like the old, I will not get all of the features of the standalone TiVo models. However, current DirecTV boxes offer their own version of Video on Demand, and I understand that MRV may be (or already has been) enabled with them. I probably won't get TTG, but Charter has largely broken that with their copy flags anyway.

As far as Amazon/Netflix, again I will have my TiVoHD for those duties for the next six months. If TiVo lets me have that $99 Lifetime upgrade (I bought my TiVoHD just before it became available) I will continue to use it; otherwise my PS3 can do Netflix and my Panasonic Viera plasma can do Amazon.

In addition to the SDV unreliability and the inability to use MRV/TTG due to copy flags, U-verse, DirecTV, and DishNetwork have more channels in HD than my local Charter affiliate. So I am getting the *worst* of both worlds; the unreliability of SDV without the benefit of added HD channels.

I already have U-verse Internet and Phone and have been very pleased with them so that's why I am giving them first shot at my business as a TV provider. I am aware of the downsides of VoIP but U-verse does give you a UPS for their Residential Gateway (their modem/router/wireless access point) in case of a power outage.

It's not true that U-verse automatically means you give up your POTS phone; a friend of mine who has U-verse Internet and TV still has his POTS line. I had to give up POTS because I could not get Internet alone and I still wanted to use my TiVoHD and thus could not use their TV service.

Once I get TV (and presuming I am happy with the service) I could theoretically ask them to remove the Voice service and go back to POTS, but of course I will incur an installation charge as if I moved to a new place. But I am actually quite happy with their Voice service and the features it gives me over POTS.


----------



## tmrfe

bidderman9 said:


> In Regards to UVerse, it is important to know that once you switch to UVerse you will get an IP phone. No more hard land line. No power, no phone. I did not like that prospect. I was always comforted in the fact that if AI lost power, I always had a phone. Maybe that is old school.


I'm with you on this. I like having a traditional landline along with a corded phone for emergencies. However, I was talking to an AT&T rep recently about switching to U-verse, and, according to him, the AT&T IP phone service includes a battery backup that lasts for several hours in the event of a power outage and allows you to make calls during that time. It sounds like they've heard the concern many of us have about losing phone service when the power goes out and have developed a workaround solution. I don't have U-verse yet myself, but that certainly made the idea of switching away from Charter a much more viable option for me.


----------



## RonDawg

rhroyse said:


> @RonDawg: Which market are you in?
> 
> I am in St. Louis, and so help me god, if they flip the switch on the CCI byte to prevent TTG transfers when they launch SDV, I am DONE.


I am in Southern California.

Prior to SDV, the only channel that I get that was consistently copy-flagged was Smithsonian. I do not subscribe to HBO, Cinemax, etc. but I would presume those are as well.

Occasionally a show here and there would show up as flagged; for example, when American Chopper would be aired on HD Theater, it would be flagged. A few other Discovery Network shows would be flagged as well, but not all of them.

Post-SDV, all the Discovery Networks are flagged, including HD Theater, and even the SD channels like Science and Military.


----------



## bidderman9

Anybody heard any news about the SDV in STL. My tuner is still sitting there blinking away...


----------



## bidderman9

Anybody heard any Updates?


----------



## r11roadster

Well I got my letter in the mail. Scheduled to get my adapters(3) in one week. Since we use Moto cards I presume we are gonna get Moto adapters(I hope). I live in the Greenville/Spartanburg area of SC. I'll post my horror story after they are done.

PS: the letter stated the transition will start April 15th.


----------



## bidderman9

Yes, I got a Motorola MTR700. I got 2 of them. They told me that I was "Lucky" that I got two for free. The tech rep said that they were told you only get 1 for free. If you wanted more, you had to buy it. 

My transition date came and went. Love that blinking amber light.


----------



## Jayboy3

r11roadster said:


> Well I got my letter in the mail. Scheduled to get my adapters(3) in one week. Since we use Moto cards I presume we are gonna get Moto adapters(I hope). I live in the Greenville/Spartanburg area of SC. I'll post my horror story after they are done.
> 
> PS: the letter stated the transition will start April 15th.


Got mine today in Greenville, SC. A vague sense of unease descends upon me.

What are my options here? I can't get HD on DirecTV (lot placement prevents view of satellite).

U-verse, but no Tivo?


----------



## Unbeliever

Now I'm having problems in Charter Altadena with any recordings on switched channels around the 5-6pm timeframe.

The recording fails with "signal unavailable" and later showings that same day get tagged with the 48 day rule. I'm not around when the recording happens, so I don't know if the TA is blinking, but considering the Tivo doesn't go into the "Tuning adapter attached" menu, I doubt it is blinking. When I show up later in the evening the tuner is on the correct channel.

Hmmm...now thinking about it, what does the recording history say when the CCI byte says to limit recording time? Does it say "signal unavailable" or something about the copy protection?

The two channels I've noticed so-far are BBCA and SYFYHD.

--Carlos V.


----------



## RonDawg

Carlos,

I don't live far from you and I was having the same problems, with any programs aired around dinnertime being particularly problematic, though as time went on it started happening at other times as well.

For me the channels with the biggest issues were BBCA, DIY Network, and most of the digital Discovery Networks whether in HD or SD. HD OTA's were fine, as were HGTV HD, TNT HD and TBS HD, and NatGeo. Any of the A&E Networks were mostly fine, though when I would record the first showing of Ax Men on History HD, a couple of times I got truncated recordings; this coincided with any SDV issues that were occurring with the above channels. If I scheduled Ax Men for a later time slot it would record fine.

When the channels were working, the only flags I found were Copy Once, nothing about automatically deleting the programs after a set time. Again these were almost exclusively found on Discovery Networks and BBCA, as I do not subscribe to any of the premium channels.

I do believe that it has something to do with capacity, as it seems to happen the worst when most people would be at home and watching TV and surfing the internet. The last Charter tech admitted to me though that his company really doesn't know what it's doing with SDV and they are constantly trying to fix one problem after another. 

For that reason, as well as the fact that Charter has not given me any more HD channels despite implementing SDV and all the complications that go with that, I will be dumping them at the end of the month.


----------



## Unbeliever

Unbeliever said:


> The two channels I've noticed so-far are BBCA and SYFYHD.


Add to that TNTHD. The first airing of Southland didn't get recorded with "No Signal" The channel was fine between the first and second airings, and when the 2nd airing and recording attempt came up, it only displayed 30 seconds of video for every 3 minutes of airtime.

Of course, as soon as Southland was done, it was back to normal.

FXHD recorded Justified just fine on the other tuner at the same time.

--Carlos V.


----------



## Unbeliever

Now it's getting worse. 

Had 2 shows that did not record tonight. The first showing at 7pm of Mythbusters had the "signal unavailable" recording history error. At 9pm-ish, The TiVo had Discovery tuned in, and it was clear. I set at 10pm recording of Mythbusters and went off somewhere else. I came back at 11:30pm to watch, and again, "signal unavailable."

I also had an 11pm showing of Spartacus recording, and the TiVo said it was recording it on the background tuner. I switched over and no channel. Displayed was the standard idle channel banner: "This channel is temporarily unavailable, Press select..." Pressing select didn't re-tune the channel. Killing the recording and pressing select didn't re-tune. Changing away and back didn't re-tune. Taking a survey of at least the HD channels had about 6 or 7 untunable channels, Discovery included. Discovery is popular enough that I doubt it gets switched off very often.

Rebooted both the TA and the TiVo and when fully initialized, the same 6 or 7 channels still wouldn't tune.

I'm sure this is a cable plant problem, but I don't know who to complain to first. I'm sure TiVo and Charter will point fingers at each other. I suppose TiVo's support tree will be quicker to barrel through.

--Carlos V.


----------



## Unbeliever

More info. 

A channel actually disappeared on me and became untunable while I was watching it. At the same time, I had the background tuner on a previously untunable channel and it came up when I switched over.

It is as if the TA is now a one-way device. It can query the mappings, but can't request a channel tuning.

I may mirror RonDawg and switch to U-verse. I don't want to, as I like TiVo too much.

--Carlos V.


----------



## RonDawg

Carlos,

Your recent experiences are mirroring mine, almost exactly.


----------



## r11roadster

Well aside from them showing up 2hrs late(surprise surprise) the install went uneventfully. I now have 3 devices that do no more than use power and blink. on the plus side they replaced all my splitters and put new connectors on all my cables. Asked when they were gonna turn it on they said they didn't know but that they had a few places turned on for testing.


----------



## fidracer

RonDawg said:


> Carlos,
> 
> Your recent experiences are mirroring mine, almost exactly.


Me too. I called Charter again to yell at them (4th time in 5 days) and got a very apologetic guy who said that they have been having major problems in all of California, particularly SoCal. He gave me a credit for the missed days of service. He said they are working on it and have received many complaints. He didn't have an ETA for when it will be resolved.


----------



## ScratchFury

I am in Anderson, SC which is serviced by the Greenville/Spartanburg area. I got the letter at the end of March that SDV would start on April 2010 and as a Tivo user, I need a tuning adapter. I called the number, and they set up an appointment for a tech to come out. He came out the next day and had no idea what a tuning adapter was. I showed him the letter, and he took a copy to back to show his boss since his boss had no idea what was in the letter either.

I got a call a few hours later and was told a box had be found in the warehouse and someone was coming out. The 2nd tech knew what the box was about. He had never installed one though and told me they only had a 5 minute class about it a while back. He was told that it should just plug in and work. He didn't know it needed a USB cable, so I had to point that out. The box just blinks. He knew that it shouldn't blink, so he started calling around. Everyone that would know anything about how the box worked would not pick up their phone. He got a hold of one guy that registered the tuning adapter with my account but that didn't change anything with the tuning adapter. My 2nd CableCARD stopped working though. The tech thought that maybe it was related to the tuning adapter. He said he was going to find out more and call me back that day. After hearing nothing for 4 hours, I called support and told them my problem. Apparently the guy the tech called deactivated my 2nd CableCARD. Support fixed it in like a minute.

So the guy never called back, and I just have a blinking box that doesn't seem to do anything. I'm waiting to read if anyone has gotten a non-blinking box in the GSP area or when I start losing channel before calling them again.


----------



## ajburgh

ScratchFury said:


> I am in Anderson, SC which is serviced by the Greenville/Spartanburg area.
> ...
> 
> He knew that it shouldn't blink, so he started calling around.


I'm in Greenville SC and got my Tuning Adapter installed this week as well. The yellow light is also blinking and just to make sure I asked the Charter Direct reps on dslreports about it. They say it will continue to blink until they switch on SDV in the cable headend (around mid April), so it should be ok.


----------



## ScratchFury

ajburgh said:


> I'm in Greenville SC and got my Tuning Adapter installed this week as well. The yellow light is also blinking and just to make sure I asked the Charter Direct reps on dslreports about it. They say it will continue to blink until they switch on SDV in the cable headend (around mid April), so it should be ok.


Thanks for the info. That makes me feel better. I unplugged and plugged the box in and checked around the settings in the Tuning Adapter Diagnostic menus and noticed it now says ENABLED_IDLE for the Upstream Modem menu. I guess that's a good sign since it didn't have that before.


----------



## r11roadster

Just out of curiosity is the adapter bound to a particular tivo? I am guessing no but kinda wonder. contemplating the Premier and was wondering if the box needed to follow the tivo it is connected to.


----------



## DrKnightArcher

Charter St. Louis - Actually Arnold - and SDV
An Installation Story

Received TIVO HD Premier and called Charter to arrange for Cablecard installation. I told the CSR I needed a "Multiplex card for a TIVO". Couple years ago the appointments are out two weeks, now they tell me they can have someone by tomorrow. Charge for a truck roll is around 30 dollars.

Guy shows up and is looking behind the TV for the place to put the card. I tell him its in the back of the TIVO. Guy says he was not told it was for a TIVO and will need a tuning adapter. 

"All new cablecard installs we were told need to have Tuning Adapters installed". 

I had never heard of this nonsense so came to this forum here and learned all about SDV while the guy is out waiting in his truck for another tech to bring him a TA. The guy comes back inside and proceeds to unpack and connect tuning adapter. The amber light on the Motorola flashes yellow, and he calls into the mothership to report the host ID, etc of the cablecard and the numbers off the TA. The card works immediately for about 2 minutes then getting "Channel not authorized".

Guy says I have to do a channel scan on the TIVO likely to get the channels in, which is incorrect as the TIVO diagnostic screen for Cablecards is telling me that I have no CableCard channels. Go to the Tuning Adapter diagnostics and appears Im getting a downstream signal, but it will not lock on and error messages have a lot of OOB in them. Installation guy never dealt with a TA so he has no idea what its for or what the flashing yellow may signify, though the book says "If flashes yellow, check incoming RF"

Guy calls in, rechecks numbers, after sitting here about an hour I send him home, knowing that last Cablecard install about an hour passed and things started working. I could get the card to work by taking it out and putting it back in. Ultimately I think there is a problem with the cablecard and call for a replacement card. CSR did not toddle me around too long before rescheduling a new tech for THE SAME DAY! Great. 

New tech comes out, I tell him my story, he goes outside and states he has to talk to his lead tech because it may be a Tuning Adapter problem since its still flashing yellow. I had since figured out (thru here) that at least in my area they are not yet on SDV so it is likely going to continue to flash, and he comes back in and changes out the card. I tell him I have a S3 upstairs with 2 cablecards that has been working just fine for 3 years without a tuning adapter so I did not think the TA was the problem.

New card solves the authorization problem and channels come in fine now. TA still flashing yellow.

Guy then tells me that Im "one of the lucky ones". I ask why and he states the the lead tech reports that Im one of the last to get a Tuning Adapter. Charter has decided that Tuning Adapters are encouraging people to use TIVOs and not Charter DVRs so they are losing revenue on that, so are no longer going to be issuing them to customers. I find this hard to believe as they have not even turned on SDV as far as I can tell, and now they went from needing them on all new Cablecard installs to no longer issuing them within one day?

And what is the deal with everytime a tech comes out they all say the same thing: "First time I've done this". "First TIVO job I've done". Am I the only one in Arnold with a TIVO?

So, when they turn on SDV, I have one TIVO that will work, (though I unplugged the TA since its just sucking juice and making heat), a TIVO that will not work, and no TA will be distributed. Of course I think Charter is FOS when it comes to information distribution, but just wanted others to know my experience, as it seemed I knew more about TAs and SDV in 2 minutes here on the forums than the techs who work for Charter seemed to know or be told.


----------



## bidderman9

DrKnightArcher said:


> Charter St. Louis - Actually Arnold - and SDV
> 
> Guy then tells me that Im "one of the lucky ones". I ask why and he states the the lead tech reports that Im one of the last to get a Tuning Adapter. Charter has decided that Tuning Adapters are encouraging people to use TIVOs and not Charter DVRs so they are losing revenue on that, so are no longer going to be issuing them to customers. I find this hard to believe as they have not even turned on SDV as far as I can tell, and now they went from needing them on all new Cablecard installs to no longer issuing them within one day?


My understanding is that as a result of the FCC rules surrounding cablecards that they are going to have to supply you with a tuning adapter. In other words, they cannot prevent you from receiving channels just because you are using a cablecard.


----------



## ChinaBull

DrKnightArcher said:


> Guy then tells me that Im "one of the lucky ones". I ask why and he states the the lead tech reports that Im one of the last to get a Tuning Adapter. Charter has decided that Tuning Adapters are encouraging people to use TIVOs and not Charter DVRs so they are losing revenue on that, so are no longer going to be issuing them to customers. I find this hard to believe as they have not even turned on SDV as far as I can tell, and now they went from needing them on all new Cablecard installs to no longer issuing them within one day?


 This doesn't sound realistic, even for strategic reasons. The Tivo is one thing that will keep me on Charter and prevent me from wanting to jump ship to UVerse: The UVerse doesn't use the Tivo.


----------



## shrike4242

DrKnightArcher said:


> So, when they turn on SDV, I have one TIVO that will work, (though I unplugged the TA since its just sucking juice and making heat), a TIVO that will not work, and no TA will be distributed. Of course I think Charter is FOS when it comes to information distribution, but just wanted others to know my experience, as it seemed I knew more about TAs and SDV in 2 minutes here on the forums than the techs who work for Charter seemed to know or be told.


I know they're FOS when trying to figure out anything.

Since you're in Arnold, you're almost in my residential area, and when I called Charter to try and get my TA installs set up, they had no clue yet again about when it was going to arrive in my area. Every time I try to get the installs scheduled, they say that it's not going to transition in my area yet and they can't order the TAs.

Did they send you the correspondence in the mail about the transition or was it some other way you found out about it?


----------



## shrike4242

They continue to be FOS when it comes to any idea of when areas are switching to SDV. Once again, denied trying to order my five TAs.


----------



## r11roadster

DrKnightArcher said:


> Guy then tells me that Im "one of the lucky ones". I ask why and he states the the lead tech reports that Im one of the last to get a Tuning Adapter. Charter has decided that Tuning Adapters are encouraging people to use TIVOs and not Charter DVRs so they are losing revenue on that, so are no longer going to be issuing them to customers. I find this hard to believe as they have not even turned on SDV as far as I can tell, and now they went from needing them on all new Cablecard installs to no longer issuing them within one day?


Yea the guy's that came to do my TAs first tried to take my cards as "I no longer needed them w/TA" I said that that didn't sound right and they insisted. before they pulled the first another tech called one of they and they asked him and discovered that they were indeed wrong 'gasp'. then they stated that they were no longer issuing cards and that they didn't know what would happen if one broke. Didn't bother telling them that they had to give me one per FCC regulations.


----------



## willv28

Got my letter today that "technical upgrades" were being made to my local network here in NE CT. Yay, SDV. Hopefully I have good luck with it.


----------



## willv28

Already it begins. At least the guy figured out a letter was sent. He said the letters were sent out a week too soon and we don't have the boxes yet... Call back next Friday and they should be in and we can schedule a next day install.


----------



## ChinaBull

FYI - My Tuning adapter has been installed and is blinking yellow in preparation for the April 16 switchover. But I recently got a call from Charter that "Cable card or Tivo device" owners must exchange equipment. I presume they mean the cable card must be exchanged. But I already have an M card, so I have no idea what can be exchanged. I haven't called in yet.


----------



## DrKnightArcher

shrike4242 said:


> I know they're FOS when trying to figure out anything.
> 
> Since you're in Arnold, you're almost in my residential area, and when I called Charter to try and get my TA installs set up, they had no clue yet again about when it was going to arrive in my area. Every time I try to get the installs scheduled, they say that it's not going to transition in my area yet and they can't order the TAs.
> 
> Did they send you the correspondence in the mail about the transition or was it some other way you found out about it?


The only way I knew about it is from the installer. I had no other correspondence to indicate that SDV was something they were looking to do in the future. Of course, I tend to discard a lot of mail I would think is junk otherwise, so its possible I tossed a "special message from charter" as its usually just trying to upsell me stuff.


----------



## ajburgh

ChinaBull said:


> FYI - My Tuning adapter has been installed and is blinking yellow in preparation for the April 16 switchover. But I recently got a call from Charter that "Cable card or Tivo device" owners must exchange equipment. I presume they mean the cable card must be exchanged. But I already have an M card, so I have no idea what can be exchanged. I haven't called in yet.


I'm pretty sure that's just the "Communications" part of Charter Communications. I got the letter about the SDV change two or three times and at least one voicemail about this, even though I got the tuning adapter installed after the first letter. They don't seem to filter their mail and phone calls based on who's already done the update or not.

Same thing happened for the cable modem upgrade for faster internet, got several repeat letters that were sent after I had already upgraded the modem.

It's probably the same logic that keeps sending me about two offers per week to sign up for Charter Cable even though I've been their customer for over 20 months.


----------



## willv28

heh, of course I called back Monday to talk to them again. Of course the guy was right on top of it and I have a guy coming out tomorrow to install a tuning adapter. I was hoping to do it this week since I have most of the week off. He asked all the right questions too. Do I have 1 or 2 cable cards. Though I know what it's about he nicely explained what it's all about and quickly scheduled the service. Now the hard part. When the guy comes for the install, to move the 95 pound TV off the stand so we can plug everything in.


----------



## Unbeliever

Unbeliever said:


> More info.
> 
> It is as if the TA is now a one-way device. It can query the mappings, but can't request a channel tuning.


More updates.

I haven't had a manual tuning failure since the 'G' update, but I'm still getting "no signal available" failed recordings.

Twice now, I've caught the failed recording mid-program. When I cancel the recording (as it is useless) the TiVo re-tunes the channel and that tuning is successful, and the channel is re-tuned.

It's as if there is either one more bug, or Charter is low-priority listing recordings vs. manual tunings. And now it doesn't matter what time of day it is.

--Carlos V.


----------



## Bluesfan77

Got a phone call earlier this week needing to set up a time to do the TA install. I scheduled it for today, the tech that came out noticed it was for a Tivo and pointed out that they're not installing them on Tivo's as there have been issues and they're recalling the adapters as the Tivo's are working just fine without them. He stated that customer service hasn't "gotten the notice yet". He also had a letter that stated something about Tivo people being exempt.

I figure if the guy is wrong, I'll find out when I can't tune channels and then I'll request a TA, ASAP.

Anyone else hear about this?


----------



## willv28

Bluesfan77 said:


> Got a phone call earlier this week needing to set up a time to do the TA install. I scheduled it for today, the tech that came out noticed it was for a Tivo and pointed out that they're not installing them on Tivo's as there have been issues and they're recalling the adapters as the Tivo's are working just fine without them. He stated that customer service hasn't "gotten the notice yet". He also had a letter that stated something about Tivo people being exempt.
> 
> I figure if the guy is wrong, I'll find out when I can't tune channels and then I'll request a TA, ASAP.
> 
> Anyone else hear about this?


If they're doing SDV in our area then yes, he is wrong. Never heard of that myself. Sounds like another misinformed tech that thinks they have all the answers. It's possible that they don't work right, but they are needed. SDV requires two-way communication which the TiVo is not capable of doing. In our area Charter has already converted many channels to digital, but maintain the analog counterparts and the SDV is NOT activated yet. Of course the TiVo would work fine in this case, it's merely tuning into another channel, but when the SDV is activated, that will no longer work.

My install is set for tomorrow. Hopefully something like that doesn't happen to me. I've already had a call telling me they had to move my appointment because they didn't have the TAs yet. Then I had to reschedule again because something came up.


----------



## willv28

Ok, now +1 tuning adapter. We'll see how it works. The guy at first said they needed to remove the CableCARD, but then recinded that when he looked at my programming I subscribed to. It seems he almost thought the tuning adapter was "something I was just adding on".

For those in the area. I received a model Cisco STA1520. At least so far, no problems.

In addition. Of course the Charter guy asked "Why do you have a TiVo?" "Why do you think it's better than one of our boxes?" I said, well I have a Charter DVR in the bedroom. Guess why it's in the bedroom, less features, buggy, doesn't work right, prone to failure. Forgot to mention I upgraded it to 1TB storage, that would have put the air out of his balloon.

Also replaced cheap RG-59 cable that was in box he used to attach it with RG-6 cable.


----------



## ChinaBull

Charter did its switchover in my area last night - the blinking yellow changed to solid yellow. Operation looks normal; the tuner switches channels properly (a red light shows on the tuner when it switches).


----------



## r11roadster

ChinaBull said:


> Charter did its switchover in my area last night - the blinking yellow changed to solid yellow. Operation looks normal; the tuner switches channels properly (a red light shows on the tuner when it switches).


Ditto for my area too, Spartanburg SC. oddly my HD and S3 were both on the tuning adapter screen this morning but my premier was not though they all have the solid light. So where are all the extra Channels??


----------



## bubba1972

I got my phone message in St. Charles, MO that I had to swap out equipment. I have the truck roll scheduled for Friday. Do they just plug the adapter in and it magically works and starts flashing yellow, or does the tech have to dig through the menus to set it up?


----------



## ChinaBull

bubba1972 said:


> I have the truck roll scheduled for Friday. Do they just plug the adapter in and it magically works and starts flashing yellow, or does the tech have to dig through the menus to set it up?


 The normal sequence is to connect the adapter - may take a few minutes worth of coax connector work. Then plug in the adapter. The tech should call in the number (Network address?) from the tuning adapter into the head end. After a minute or 2 when the head end recognizes the tuning adapter the Tivo should pop up that it has recognized the tuning adapter. A good tech can do it in about 15 minutes per Tivo.

From that point on, it's flashing yellow until switchover day.

If the tech wants to do anything with the Cable card(s) in the Tivo, that's unnecessary and wrong. The Tivo and cable card(s) are not changed other than to double check working channels and validate tuning adapter and diagnostics.


----------



## 1idjack

I also got a call here in Saint Charles, Mo, that I "need to exchange my cablecards by May 4, 2010" to continue receiving digital channels. You and I both know that is incorrect; the phone # they gave was for "the tuning adapter center." The truck roll was scheduled for today. The installer called about the time he was to bring my two tuning adapters to say that they aren't installing these because the SDV rollout isn't happening yet. (But he promised they would call us to set up the install before the rollout--yup, just what I want, get a call, schedule an install, they call me to cancel, get another call, schedule another install, another call to cancel; lather, rinse, repeat)


----------



## willv28

1idjack said:


> I also got a call here in Saint Charles, Mo, that I "need to exchange my cablecards by May 4, 2010" to continue receiving digital channels. You and I both know that is incorrect; the phone # they gave was for "the tuning adapter center." The truck roll was scheduled for today. The installer called about the time he was to bring my two tuning adapters to say that they aren't installing these because the SDV rollout isn't happening yet. (But he promised they would call us to set up the install before the rollout--yup, just what I want, get a call, schedule an install, they call me to cancel, get another call, schedule another install, another call to cancel; lather, rinse, repeat)


I find just keep calling helps. Eventually you'll get someone know knows when what is supposed to happen when.


----------



## Bluesfan77

Well in my area we are now SDV and "shock, shock" I'm not getting all my channels. I had to have a conversation with two different support people before anyone would believe I needed the TA. They'll be out between 10 & 12. I'll make sure to have this page up so that I'm sure they don't mess with the cablecards, etc. I want this to be quick and painless.


----------



## Bluesfan77

Well as an update, they we running late on the 4th, so I had to reschedule to today (had to get to work on the 4th). Guy comes out. Doesn't bring TA. Claims they're not issued anymore. I insist that I need one. Have to demostrate that I'm not getting channels. He suggests connecting the cable box (that's connected to my S2) to the TivoHD, I explain it doesn't work that way. He calls his dispatcher to find out if it's possible to get a TA or locate one. She says they have them there. He just left to go back to "the shop" to get one. Lord help me.

I think I might insist on doing the install when he gets back so he doesn't "f" anything up!

Also, going to have this page loaded...

http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/133


----------



## Bluesfan77

I am up and running. I did the install myself to make sure things went well.

Install was over and done in less than 10 minutes.

Was a little shocked as it was the Motorola MTR700 (small box) vs. the larger Cisco STA1520.


----------



## Bill A.

Charter in St. Louis Area (St. Charles County) does not connect the Motorola MTR700 as shown on the TiVo site. The RF Out on the tuning adapter is not used. The cable is split with one connection going to the tuning adapter and one connection going directly to the TiVo. The yellow light will be on steady once the tuning adapter is properly Initialized. Charter Drawings available on request.


----------



## bidderman9

Bill A. said:


> Charter in St. Louis Area (St. Charles County) does not connect the Motorola MTR700 as shown on the TiVo site. The RF Out on the tuning adapter is not used. The cable is split with one connection going to the tuning adapter and one connection going directly to the TiVo. The yellow light will be on steady once the tuning adapter is properly Initialized. Charter Drawings available on request.


I know that the Charter Installers have been directed to add a splitter, but why? It is pretty pointless. Especially when the TA has an RF out. But then again most of the things that Charter does is pretty pointless. I am in the St. Louis area and my two MTR700's are blinking away ....


----------



## shrike4242

Bill A. said:


> Charter in St. Louis Area (St. Charles County) does not connect the Motorola MTR700 as shown on the TiVo site. The RF Out on the tuning adapter is not used. The cable is split with one connection going to the tuning adapter and one connection going directly to the TiVo. The yellow light will be on steady once the tuning adapter is properly Initialized. Charter Drawings available on request.


I can confirm this is how they did this for the one install I've seen recently in the Metro East. I have no idea why they'd do this arrangement versus the in-and-out on the TA.

I'd rather not have a number of splitters losing db's off my cable when they can just run it through the TA. I know whenever I get my install done, I'll have to ask them why they're intentionally weakening my signal.


----------



## bidderman9

shrike4242 said:


> I can confirm this is how they did this for the one install I've seen recently in the Metro East. I have no idea why they'd do this arrangement versus the in-and-out on the TA.
> 
> I'd rather not have a number of splitters losing db's off my cable when they can just run it through the TA. I know whenever I get my install done, I'll have to ask them why they're intentionally weakening my signal.


When they did my install, I specifically asked them not to use the splitter. Fortunately they did as I asked.

Does anybody know if they will be adding any stations as a result of SDV in the short term (in the STL area)?


----------



## ChinaBull

My Tuning adapter was working for almost a month. Tuesday, I happened to tune into "Lost" as it was recording. Luckily I did because the Tivo was recording blank space. All local HD channels were blank but all other SD and premium HD content was working. I called it in, and the only thing that worked was to reboot the Tuning Adapter. I suspect the Tuning Adapter either locked up, or the Tivo lost sync on one of the channel designations from the Tuning Adapter. Looks like the SDV interface introduces a new reliability problem.


----------



## Jayboy3

ChinaBull said:


> My Tuning adapter was working for almost a month. Tuesday, I happened to tune into "Lost" as it was recording. Luckily I did because the Tivo was recording blank space. All local HD channels were blank but all other SD and premium HD content was working. I called it in, and the only thing that worked was to reboot the Tuning Adapter. I suspect the Tuning Adapter either locked up, or the Tivo lost sync on one of the channel designations from the Tuning Adapter. Looks like the SDV interface introduces a new reliability problem.


This is happened to me now, as well. But rebooting hasn't worked so far. I've lost all HD local channels. Everything else tunes in.

And BTW, they installed me with the splitter, but explained at the time they were doing it. Said they had to.


----------



## Jayboy3

I just tried rebooting ONLY the TA, and it worked. When I rebooted everything (Tivo along with TA) it didn't work.


----------



## willv28

Jayboy3 said:


> This is happened to me now, as well. But rebooting hasn't worked so far. I've lost all HD local channels. Everything else tunes in.
> 
> And BTW, they installed me with the splitter, but explained at the time they were doing it. Said they had to.


Mine's not hooked up that way. I can't think of any reason it would need to be done that way...

I've had no problems after they reset the devices.


----------



## rem

hi,

two nights in a row now, i had scheduled two simultaneous recordings for each night. and each night, only one recording succeeded. the other was recording a blank signal. when i was checking tonight while the recordings were going on, i found that one channel had displayed the message "channel temporarily unavailable". what is even worst is that i am only recording channels that i get over-the-air. without the TA and cable cards, over-the-air recordings work perfectly. why are these equipment affecting over-the-air recordings?

anyway, along with that message, the on-screen advice was to press select to see if the channel comes back. so i did so and the channel did indeed show a picture. but then the recording, albeit blank, for that channel ended abruptly. i immediately press the record button to record the remainder of the show. but nothing happens. it refuses to record that channel. it's as if it was only capable of recording one channel at a time.

not being able to record the remainder of the second channel, i decided to wait until the other recording finishes up. then i started testing. to my surprise, i was able to record two channels again. so i have no idea what's going on. is it a cable card problem? or a TA problem? or is the problem with the S3 unit itself?

if anyone can point out where the problem is, please enlighten. this would not be a good case to call out a tech because as soon as i press "select" as the message suggests, i get the picture back and a tech would say that there is no problem. and i would not be willing to leave that blank channel as is for days until a tech can come out and see for himself.


----------



## tim1724

rem said:


> two nights in a row now, i had scheduled two simultaneous recordings for each night. and each night, only one recording succeeded. the other was recording a blank signal. when i was checking tonight while the recordings were going on, i found that one channel had displayed the message "channel temporarily unavailable". what is even worst is that i am only recording channels that i get over-the-air. without the TA and cable cards, over-the-air recordings work perfectly. why are these equipment affecting over-the-air recordings?


I have the same problem. sometimes when two things record at once, one of the tuners will stop working. Once it's messed up, it stops tuning anything until I reboot the tivo and the tuning adapter.

I think it's a tuning adapter problem. I also have a problem where the tuning adapter usually fails to tune channels around 6PM (why 6PM? I don't know) but when that happens it starts working again later, so that's a separate problem.


----------



## cptlapcat

Just wanted to let everyone know that I lost several HD channels yesterday just like everyone else. Today I unplugged the TA and much to my surprise when I plugged it back in all of the HD stations were back. 

I didn't eve have to reboot the Tivo.


----------



## jmbissell

cptlapcat said:


> Just wanted to let everyone know that I lost several HD channels yesterday just like everyone else. Today I unplugged the TA and much to my surprise when I plugged it back in all of the HD stations were back.
> 
> I didn't eve have to reboot the Tivo.


I've had my Charter Moto TA for 3 weeks and have had to reboot it once. This is about the same frequency as when I had a Cisco TA on Time Warner. Not really clear whether it's the TA, TiVo, or the head-end that causes the problem. Sometimes you have to just unplug the USB cable, wait, and plug it back in and sometimes you have to reboot the TA. Restarting the TiVo is seldom necessary.


----------



## Unbeliever

Found a new reason for missed recordings.

http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=451545

--Carlos V.


----------



## maebhan

I'm a Charter customer in southern California (Long Beach). I have a TiVo that uses a CableCard.

I started "losing channels" (getting the "Channel not available message" from TiVo) at the end of May.

Charter came out and installed a Tuning Adapter, and I will be fine for 3 or 4 weeks at a time, then the whole thing starts all over again. I've lost service no fewer than three times since then, and unplugging everything and restarting everything does not always solve the problem. I've had techs out twice (Charter charged me both times), and the problem isn't going away.

Is anyone else having this problem currently? Can anyone else get a straight answer out of Charter about why this is happening?

I've heard that there are problems with the Cisco TA's which is what they installed? Is there another option that is any better?


----------



## Ray Nagin

maebhan said:


> I'm a Charter customer in southern California (Long Beach). I have a TiVo that uses a CableCard.
> 
> I started "losing channels" (getting the "Channel not available message" from TiVo) at the end of May.
> 
> Charter came out and installed a Tuning Adapter, and I will be fine for 3 or 4 weeks at a time, then the whole thing starts all over again. I've lost service no fewer than three times since then, and unplugging everything and restarting everything does not always solve the problem. I've had techs out twice (Charter charged me both times), and the problem isn't going away.
> 
> Is anyone else having this problem currently? Can anyone else get a straight answer out of Charter about why this is happening?
> 
> I've heard that there are problems with the Cisco TA's which is what they installed? Is there another option that is any better?


Because Charter blows. You should be able to get them to waive the fee, have you tried askin the rep.


----------



## maebhan

I have. I spoke to a supervisor late last night and he said that he "wasn't comfortable" waiving the fee for the first visit until he had more information about the visit.

I pointed out that I had paid for two service calls to solve a problem that existed with their equipment, and asked him whether he thought that was appropriate or not which he didn't really have a response for.

I'm still having the same issue with several missing channels, but Charter is claiming that they're in the middle of an outage (that was allegedly 25 hours old last night around midnight), so there's nothing they can do.

I'm perfectly aware that Charter sucks, but with this TiVo my only other option is FIOS, which Verizon claims isn't available in my "area" despite the fact that the building next door has it.

Still, I have the contact number for a FIOS salesperson who has done work in another building in the neighborhood, and I'm powerfully tempted to call him and see what my options are, even if I haven't heard things much better about FIOS's customer service than I have about Charter's.

If something doesn't improve, I'm tempted to sell this unit and its lifetime warranty and go with DirectTv, because this whole pattern where I start losing *the same exact channels* every three to four weeks and Charter acts like I'm some delusional hysteric is getting really, really old.


----------



## ChinaBull

maebhan said:


> I started "losing channels" (getting the "Channel not available message" from TiVo) at the end of May.


 I'm in a different region, but I have had several incidents where various channels were lost. I was able to reboot the TA by powering it down, then 15 minutes later when it finished loading, the channels were back to normal.


----------



## jak146

I have been using my tivo HD with a Tuner Adaper on Charter in Southern CA since March and I probably need to reboot the TA at least once a week. I also experience unavailable channels frequently and I am constantly being asked if I wish to continue watching the channel and if I dont respond I loose the channel (as pointed out in this forum). What I dont understand is that I also have a Scientific Atlanta 8300HDC and I NEVER have a channel go out on me. I understand charter polls to see if someone is really using the stream so that it is not wasted bandwith but why dont they do this on the SA cable box?


----------



## CraigHB

You'd think they'd be using the same technology in their own boxes. The only difference would be the addition of a USB interface for the TiVo. So, if their own boxes don't have this problem, why does the tuning adapter.


----------



## jazzinlb

maebhan said:


> I have. I spoke to a supervisor late last night and he said that he "wasn't comfortable" waiving the fee for the first visit until he had more information about the visit.
> 
> I pointed out that I had paid for two service calls to solve a problem that existed with their equipment, and asked him whether he thought that was appropriate or not which he didn't really have a response for.
> 
> I'm still having the same issue with several missing channels, but Charter is claiming that they're in the middle of an outage (that was allegedly 25 hours old last night around midnight), so there's nothing they can do.
> 
> I'm perfectly aware that Charter sucks, but with this TiVo my only other option is FIOS, which Verizon claims isn't available in my "area" despite the fact that the building next door has it.
> 
> Still, I have the contact number for a FIOS salesperson who has done work in another building in the neighborhood, and I'm powerfully tempted to call him and see what my options are, even if I haven't heard things much better about FIOS's customer service than I have about Charter's.
> 
> If something doesn't improve, I'm tempted to sell this unit and its lifetime warranty and go with DirectTv, because this whole pattern where I start losing *the same exact channels* every three to four weeks and Charter acts like I'm some delusional hysteric is getting really, really old.


Good luck with all of that!

I had the same issue with Charter in Long Beach and had to get a hold of the Corporate offices in Missouri (I believe) to get a decent resolution. After I finally got both my SA 8300HD and TiVo HD to pick up the right channels (with little to no pixelation), then they claim that my wiring is bad and is emitting too powerful a signal!

Mind you, I have wired all of rooms to RG6 QS, but had to place most of this under existing carpeting. Long story short, I am currently out of the country, but your last post gives me pause that I will be having problems when I return next week.

All of my service fees have been waived, btw and they gave me one month of no premium channel charges due to their outage in the area. I really did start to get good service at the end of June, so something must have occurred in the meantime.

Last note, after the outage, they did finally replace my TA and that did seem to work. Have you explored that option with the "geniuses" at Long Beach Charter? Stick to your guns on this (hey, they screwed up my original DVR when coming out with me not there).

jazzin


----------



## pops_porter

I just got hte letter here in Western Wisconsin that I will need a TA started Sept. 5 and to call and schedule an appointment. I will start reading more of this thread but this most recent page of posts sounds pretty frustrated and buggy. Anyone have advice to make this go smoothly?


----------



## CheezWiz

Just got the letter in Middle TN.. 8(

Joy!:down:


----------



## pops_porter

Charter was at my house today for this. I have two questions for those that have the TA and they are working. Charter installed the Motorola version of the TA.

They connected it by splitting the signal and having one coax go to the TA and the other to the Tivo and then the USB to the Tivo. This seems unescessary and from reading previous posts it sounds like I would be okay without splitting the signal and having a coax from the wall to the TA and from the TA to the Tivo. Can someone confirm this is okay if I change it?
The Charter guy said he was taught to split it (I use taught loosely, he just had a guy tell him about it for a couple minutes he said and before today had never seen a TA)


My second question is that the Charter guy never did have to call in a number to Charter like with the CableCards. Did he miss a step or will I be okay when they make the SDV switch in my area? The Tivo popped up that it saw the tunning adapter and the amber light is flashing like it should. 
Either way, we'll see how it works once they make the switch. Who knows when that will be, the letter said Sept. 5, the Tech said Sept 5 and the lady on the phone last week said it was pushed back to Sept 21. We'll see!


----------



## r11roadster

I unsplit mine with no issues YMMV. FWIW I waited till mine went active before I did the unspliting. As far as the no phone call, they should have made one. there are some #s that need to be read off a screen that pops up on the Tivo. don't know how they managed with out it..


----------



## shrike4242

I'm just curious if we go to SDV and we're using MoCA adapters with the cable signal going from the wall to the MoCA adapter, will we have signal issues splitting the split off to the Tivo from the TA? 

It would go like this:

Wall jack -----> MoCA adapter -----> Charter TA -----> Tivo

Would it make more sense to split it at the wall jack, running one line to the MoCA adapter and one to the TA and then from the TA into the Tivo?


----------



## bidderman9

pops_porter said:


> ....
> 
> They connected it by splitting the signal and having one coax go to the TA and the other to the Tivo and then the USB to the Tivo. This seems unescessary and from reading previous posts it sounds like I would be okay without splitting the signal and having a coax from the wall to the TA and from the TA to the Tivo.


I have the Cisco branded TA and mine is not split. I showed the installer the diagram that came with the TA. It did not have a splitter. I don't know why Charter is instucting their installers to do that. It is rediculous! Mine is working perfectly fine.

Oh, I forgot the other part. The installer cabled it up wrong. He put the out cable on the input and the in cable on the output. I figured it out after he left. Then everything synced right up.


----------



## pops_porter

bidderman9 said:


> I have the Cisco branded TA and mine is not split. I showed the installer the diagram that came with the TA. It did not have a splitter. I don't know why Charter is instucting their installers to do that. It is rediculous! Mine is working perfectly fine.
> 
> Oh, I forgot the other part. The installer cabled it up wrong. He put the out cable on the input and the in cable on the output. I figured it out after he left. Then everything synced right up.


Thanks everyone for the quick responses. The motorola quick start guide also showed it NOT being split and the guy said that he's just doing it the way he was taught.

I'm concerned that he never had to call in any data from the TA. If anyone knows what numbers should be called in I could start calling charter to see if they have all the data they need from the TA.


----------



## CheezWiz

So my Charter guy came and installed them in-line with no splitters. SDV is not active in my area yet so my Motorola TA's are just sitting there blinking. No channel map download or anything like that. Are the lights not supposed to turn green when they sync up?


----------



## jweek

CheezWiz said:


> So my Charter guy came and installed them in-line with no splitters. SDV is not active in my area yet so my Motorola TA's are just sitting there blinking. No channel map download or anything like that. Are the lights not supposed to turn green when they sync up?


Mine turned solid yellow when they went active.


----------



## pops_porter

CheezWiz said:


> So my Charter guy came and installed them in-line with no splitters. SDV is not active in my area yet so my Motorola TA's are just sitting there blinking. No channel map download or anything like that. Are the lights not supposed to turn green when they sync up?


Cheez, did your guy call in info off of the TA back to the Charter head end?


----------



## mrro82

Getting my tuning adapter installed today here in West Michigan. This should be a treat. I have a feeling I'll be doing the wiring myself which is fine by me.


----------



## ajburgh

I have a Tivo HD on Charter with Motorola Tuning Adapter. 

I've noticed that since TiVo's update to 11.0h the use of the Tuning Adapter has been a lot more stable. 

Before that update I would have to reset both the TiVo and the TA about once every 3 weeks because the TiVo would just start failing to tune to a lot of channels, causing missed recordings. It appeared to be tuning to different (old) frequencies than the TA was reporting for the channels. It has not done this since the 11.0h update. The basic TiVo to TA communication seems to be a lot more reliable.

This past week I noticed that Speed HD and Animal Planet HD had swapped places (my recording on Speed HD had recorded an AP show). I checked with Live TV on the Tivo and, while it said it was tuning Speed HD, it ended up receiving Animal Planet and vice versa. I verified with my regular cable box and that the channels were mapped correctly. After a reboot of Tivo and TA it was correct as well, so the channel map was fine. 

I wonder if the Tivo is caching the channel map from the TA somewhere and not seeing an update in the channel mapping. As far as I can tell it had no problem tuning to any channels and I didn't notice any other channels out of place but I didn't check them all.

Has anyone else noticed this happening?


----------



## ChinaBull

I haven't had the Tivo accidentally reboot due to the TA for several weeks, and I haven't noticed a case where channels disappear where I would need to reboot the TA to get them back. I don't know when 11.0h came down.


----------



## tootal2

He installed them then came back and said he needs to put a 3-way splitter in. Said it was a new thing they have to do. so everything will be done over usb.

Its blinking yellow since since sdv dont start till oct 15 on in st. louis mo.


----------



## shrike4242

Received my letter a couple weeks ago from Charter that they'd be starting SDV in the St. Louis area after October 14th. Tried to set up two different appointments for the TA installs and they didn't have the equipment either time. They're supposed to do it on October 9th, and I hope there aren't any equipment issues this time around. Costs them $20 for each missed service appointment.


----------



## bidderman9

I have Charter in St. Louis and my SDV has been up for months. I have a solid light on my Motorola unit. They don't need a splitter. They just need to send a hit to it.

P.S. Make sure they in cable to the in port and the out cable to the out port. The knuckleheads wired mine up backwards, that is why it never sync'ed up. I figured it out after they left.


----------



## elgibby

shrike4242 said:


> Received my letter a couple weeks ago from Charter that they'd be starting SDV in the St. Louis area after October 14th. Tried to set up two different appointments for the TA installs and they didn't have the equipment either time. They're supposed to do it on October 9th, and I hope there aren't any equipment issues this time around. Costs them $20 for each missed service appointment.


My first install attempt resulted in the tech walking in the door asking me, "So, what's the problem?" 
I said I don't have a problem. You're here to install two tuning adapters.
"Tuning adapters? For what?" he said.
Seems the call was booked as service rather than install. Trying again on Saturday. 
In the past 3 months I've had five scheduled appts. with Charter. Two, nobody showed up. One, nothing was fixed. One was the aforementioned service/install fiasco. And the one that had a positive result -- getting my Internet service working properly -- the tech blamed the problem on a bad installation a year ago. 
Yea Charter.


----------



## tootal2

shrike4242 said:


> Received my letter a couple weeks ago from Charter that they'd be starting SDV in the St. Louis area after October 14th. Tried to set up two different appointments for the TA installs and they didn't have the equipment either time. They're supposed to do it on October 9th, and I hope there aren't any equipment issues this time around. Costs them $20 for each missed service appointment.


They installed mine with no problems 2 weeks ago. and they didnt charge me anything. The install and tuners are free. I got the tuners installed soon as i got the sdv letter. sdv starts for me on 10-15-10

I had 2 sdv tuners installed


----------



## shrike4242

tootal2 said:


> They installed mine with no problems 2 weeks ago. and they didnt charge me anything. The install and tuners are free. I got the tuners installed soon as i got the sdv letter. sdv starts for me on 10-15-10
> 
> I had 2 sdv tuners installed


No, it didn't cost me anything, it cost *them *$20 twice for each missed service appointment for the lack of equipment.

I've checked with Charter and they supposedly have all the TAs that they need, so we should be good for my appointment on Saturday.


----------



## GlenH100

I got my letter in Decatur/Athens, AL on Friday 1 Oct and called for an installation. To my surprise, the CSR told me that they could have someone out on the next day. Saturday morning rolls around and a (Prince Telecom contractor) technician rolls up with a cable box. I explained to him that he was there to install a Tuning Adaptor for my TiVo. He saw Tuning Adaptor on the work order, didn't know what it was, and brought the box. He called his supervisor, who told him that they didn't have Tuning Adaptors yet. 

I called Customer Service back and related my problem. The CSR contacted someone at Decatur and said that there was a mix-up and that they actually had them and someone would be out later on Saturday to install it. When that window passed, I called in again and found that the appointment was scheduled for Monday. I talked to another CSR, who told me that they didn't have the adapters yet, but local dispatch would contact me to schedule installation when they arrived. No call. 

Fast forward to last Friday, 8 October. I was home all morning, but left for a service call around 1PM. I return home to a message on my answering machine that a tech was out to install the tuning adapter, but there wasn't anyone home. When I call in to Customer Service on Saturday morning to find out what is going on, the appointment system says that I have an appointment for Monday morning. I change that, as I'm not going to be here at the time they scheduled. If they make appointments without telling me that they are coming out, I can't be responsible for being here.


----------



## tootal2

Guess i was lucky to get them installed with only 2 phone calls. first time they did not show up. So i called them the next day and got them install the sameday. I got the tuners installed 20 days before sdv starts here.



GlenH100 said:


> I got my letter in Decatur/Athens, AL on Friday 1 Oct and called for an installation. To my surprise, the CSR told me that they could have someone out on the next day. Saturday morning rolls around and a (Prince Telecom contractor) technician rolls up with a cable box. I explained to him that he was there to install a Tuning Adaptor for my TiVo. He saw Tuning Adaptor on the work order, didn't know what it was, and brought the box. He called his supervisor, who told him that they didn't have Tuning Adaptors yet.
> 
> I called Customer Service back and related my problem. The CSR contacted someone at Decatur and said that there was a mix-up and that they actually had them and someone would be out later on Saturday to install it. When that window passed, I called in again and found that the appointment was scheduled for Monday. I talked to another CSR, who told me that they didn't have the adapters yet, but local dispatch would contact me to schedule installation when they arrived. No call.
> 
> Fast forward to last Friday, 8 October. I was home all morning, but left for a service call around 1PM. I return home to a message on my answering machine that a tech was out to install the tuning adapter, but there wasn't anyone home. When I call in to Customer Service on Saturday morning to find out what is going on, the appointment system says that I have an appointment for Monday morning. I change that, as I'm not going to be here at the time they scheduled. If they make appointments without telling me that they are coming out, I can't be responsible for being here.


----------



## GlenH100

tootal2 said:


> Guess i was lucky to get them installed with only 2 phone calls. first time they did not show up. So i called them the next day and got them install the sameday. I got the tuners installed 20 days before sdv starts here.


The letter I received stated that SDV will start on 30 October, but I spoke to someone on the phone (wasn't taking notes) who said that it wouldn't start until 14 November, so they still have plenty of time to do the installation. What appeared to be a simple task has been blown by the people on the ground, and perhaps by Charter Customer Service jumping the gun on when the TAs will be available.

I would have been perfectly happy to have scheduled an installation for two weeks out and fully expected that when I received the letter. I was somewhat surprised that the CSR stated that I could receive installation the following day. Up until the point that the tech arrived, everything went smoothly.

We'll see what happens tomorrow, though I may have to cancel if work takes me away from the house during their delivery window. If that is the case, I'll probably push it off to next Saturday.


----------



## elgibby

elgibby said:


> My first install attempt resulted in the tech walking in the door asking me, "So, what's the problem?"
> I said I don't have a problem. You're here to install two tuning adapters.
> "Tuning adapters? For what?" he said.
> Seems the call was booked as service rather than install. Trying again on Saturday.
> In the past 3 months I've had five scheduled appts. with Charter. Two, nobody showed up. One, nothing was fixed. One was the aforementioned service/install fiasco. And the one that had a positive result -- getting my Internet service working properly -- the tech blamed the problem on a bad installation a year ago.
> Yea Charter.


Well, the second attempt on Saturday went half well. Guy had only one of the two TAs, and he had to scrounge that one from another tech. He said the warehouse is closed on weekends (!! yet they sked calls!!) so he couldn't get another one. Now I have to sked a third appointment and waste another three hours of my life.


----------



## bidderman9

elgibby said:


> Well, the second attempt on Saturday went half well. Guy had only one of the two TAs, and he had to scrounge that one from another tech. He said the warehouse is closed on weekends (!! yet they sked calls!!) so he couldn't get another one. Now I have to sked a third appointment and waste another three hours of my life.


Wow, your install is going exactly how my install went. At least they are consistant.


----------



## shrike4242

Well, I had my TA install on Saturday, though I almost didn't. Had a call from the tech and he told me that he only had two TAs, not the five I needed for all my Tivos. He had to check with his warehouse and did manage to get all five that he needed still inside of the install window.

The complete install took about an hour, though he did end up splitting the signal that came out of each MoCA box and fed it into the TA and into the Tivo on each end of the split. I asked about the internal in/out split inside of the TA (Motorola MTR700s) and he told me that in an internal meeting they had on Thursday, they were told they had to do an external split of the signal. I have no idea why, though we'll see what happens then SDV goes live in the St. Louis county area.

So, as it stands, my cable comes out of the wall, feeds into the MoCA adapter, goes out of the MoCA adapter to the splitter, and then goes out of the splitter to the Tivo and the TA. As I know others earlier in the thread said that they can go without the splitter, I have no idea why he spent the time and effort to make custom cables (some of them much larger than needed) and run the splitter instead of the in/out on the TA.


----------



## GlenH100

I got my install today, on time. Same tech who came out last Saturday. It was his second Cisco STA1520 TA installation and he said that he didn't stick around the first one to see if it worked.

I must have bumped the power cord on my external drive when pre-installing a USB cable, because the TiVo wasn't happy when I turned the TV on, so we had to wait through a re-boot. I didn't plug the USB cable into the TiVo until after it had completed the reboot process, because I wanted to make sure I didn't have any problems with the external drive. 

When I plugged the USB cable into the TiVo (RF cables already installed by me while the tech stood and watched), nothing happened, so I navigated to the Tuning Adapter Diagnostics page. Tech was on the phone with someone to send the EMM hits. A few minutes after that, I went to the bottom of the Status Summary page under TA Diagnostics and got the "PowerKEY: Ready" message, so I assume it's working. I just checked it again and it now says "PowerKEY: Waiting EMM", but I'm not going to worry about it until they actually turn up SDV.


----------



## elgibby

shrike4242 said:


> Well, I had my TA install on Saturday, though I almost didn't. Had a call from the tech and he told me that he only had two TAs, not the five I needed for all my Tivos. He had to check with his warehouse and did manage to get all five that he needed still inside of the install window. ...


Wait! You're in STL too, and your tech called the warehouse my tech told me was closed on weekends? I don't know whether to laugh or go postal.


----------



## shrike4242

elgibby said:


> Wait! You're in STL too, and your tech called the warehouse my tech told me was closed on weekends? I don't know whether to laugh or go postal.


The prior tech I talked with about the install, which was a couple of weeks prior, said that the warehouse was closed. This tech I worked with over this past weekend, he didn't say it was closed.

Only difference was that the first tech was a contractor and the second one was an in-house Charter tech.


----------



## elgibby

Got my second of two TAs yesterday (Weds.). I wasn't home, wife supervised. Got a call at work from the tech telling me the screen was black, he couldn't get into diagnostics. Sigh. Got home and had to power cycle the TiVo. Somehow he KO'd it and had no idea how to fix it.


----------



## eziemann

SDV just went active in La Crosse, WI this week (I had TAs installed a month ago)
I noticed I was missing G4 and GSN since Monday so last night I scrolled through all channels to see what else was missing.
These are the first SDV channels I found:
Style, TCM, BET, GSN, G4, DisneyXD, GolfHD, Discovery HD
The odd thing is that the analog versions of Style, TCM and BET are still coming over cable but Tivo was only trying to tune the digital versions.

To fix, I called up Charter and went through the automated computer voice assist system. It sent a "hit" and the TAs went from flashing amber to solid amber.


----------



## tootal2

sdv is suppose to start today here. my tuning adapter is still blinking a way. I hope it works. I dont have any missing channels yet.



eziemann said:


> SDV just went active in La Crosse, WI this week (I had TAs installed a month ago)
> I noticed I was missing G4 and GSN since Monday so last night I scrolled through all channels to see what else was missing.
> These are the first SDV channels I found:
> Style, TCM, BET, GSN, G4, DisneyXD, GolfHD, Discovery HD
> The odd thing is that the analog versions of Style, TCM and BET are still coming over cable but Tivo was only trying to tune the digital versions.
> 
> To fix, I called up Charter and went through the automated computer voice assist system. It sent a "hit" and the TAs went from flashing amber to solid amber.


----------



## beaz08si

SDV went live here in the Eau Claire area about a week ago. Had it installed (first one he did, used a spliter..)about a month before it went active. The blinking stopped and i restarted the box and my tivo. Channels are still messed up; meaning what the channel description is does not match. Frustrating, screwing with my recordings. Also have HD channels that are listed and nothing comes up. Thinking about calling them.


----------



## innocentfreak

If it is a channel lineup issue search for user orangeboy on here. He has the link in his sig to report lineup issues.


----------



## au_en_bear

I got my letter on October 1st. Had install done Friday. Was expecting problems but got lucky and had Charter tech (not a contractor) show up. He knew exactly what he was doing and had everything he needed with him. He followed a printed set of instructions but the box did not respond as expected. The LED was off and the Tivo TA diagnostic screens did not "see" the TA. Tech told me he had seen this before and that it would correct itself once the SDV service was turned up. I was skeptical but agreed to just wait. The next morning the LED was blinking green and the diagnostic screens are filled out with data. I think the problem is the the instructions that the tech was following say to call and order a hit to the TA before the USB cable is connected. I think when a normal scheduled hit came done sometime overnight it fixed the problem since the USB was connected by then.

Now for the questions. The tech told me that SDV will only be used for channels that get very little use. He said that every time someone tunes to a channel that is on SDV that their system turns on that channel to the neighborhood for six hours. If that is true then how can SDV be of much use? All someone has to do is channel surf through the lineup and something has to fall on the floor. Does anyone know if Charter SDV really works this way? Does the TA only send a join command and no leave command to free up the bandwidth when no one is on a particular channel?

Has anyone with Charter gotten any new HD channels since their SDV went live? If so could you list what new channels you got after SDV was turned up?


----------



## tim1724

au_en_bear said:


> Now for the questions. The tech told me that SDV will only be used for channels that get very little use.


My Charter office (Alhambra, CA) uses SDV on almost every digital channel, as far as I can tell. It started out on just a few, but over time it expanded to pretty much all of them.



> He said that every time someone tunes to a channel that is on SDV that their system turns on that channel to the neighborhood for six hours.


6 hours? LOL. More like an hour, or maybe a half hour sometimes. Just wait for the lovely "press select to continue watching this channel" messages when watching live tv.



> If that is true then how can SDV be of much use? All someone has to do is channel surf through the lineup and something has to fall on the floor. Does anyone know if Charter SDV really works this way? Does the TA only send a join command and no leave command to free up the bandwidth when no one is on a particular channel?


The TA has to send "viewer is still watching this channel" or "viewer is recording on this channel" messages to keep the channel active.

But just wait.. the head end will ignore those and drop the channel anyway when it runs out of available bandwidth. (at least it does here, especially around 5-7pm when people get home from work and turn on their TVs or start using their cable internet)



> Has anyone with Charter gotten any new HD channels since their SDV went live? If so could you list what new channels you got after SDV was turned up?


hmm.. it was a bunch of them.. SyFy, Discovery, USA, etc. Still no BBC America in HD, though.


----------



## au_en_bear

tim1724 said:


> hmm.. it was a bunch of them.. SyFy, Discovery, USA, etc. Still no BBC America in HD, though.


Thanks for the reply. I was pretty sure the guy was just speaking rumors he had heard and no real information.

I already have the HD channels you mentioned so I will be interested to see what SDV actually does for us other than create problems.


----------



## VideoGrabber

tim1724 commented:
> _But just wait.. the head end will ignore those and drop the channel anyway when it runs out of available bandwidth. (at least it does here, especially around 5-7pm when people get home from work and turn on their TVs or start using their cable internet)_ <

Wow! That sounds *really* bad. How can you tolerate that? To me, that would be completely unacceptable, and would literally have me terminating my service in no time. This is the first time I've heard an actual report of this type of behavior, but it's certainly something that crossed my mind back when they first started talking about SDV as a solution to the bandwidth bottleneck.

The claim is that with SDV they'll have the capacity needed to service all the channels simultaneously that their subscribers require, without "wasting" bandwidth on those they don't. If the reality is that this is simply an economization method (where they screw over the fewest # of customers... "oops, sorry you missed your shows"), and they really *don't* have the needed bandwidth after SDV, then it's all a big con.


----------



## au_en_bear

The letter I got back in early October said we were going live on the SDV service on 10/31/2010. So now when I change a channel I see the blinking green LED on the TA go off for a couple of seconds and then the channel locks and the LED starts blinking again. 

When I check the TA screens through the Tivo debug menu it shows up and looks like it is online.

So my question is, What now? So far no new channels. I really like having the additional piece of equipment in my equipment stack for no apparent good reason. Does anyone know how long it usually takes for Charter to actually turn on SDV once the date is passed?


----------



## tootal2

they said sdv was going to start here oct 15 and it has not started yet. my ta has been blinking away for a month now. so it might not start for you for a month or longer.



au_en_bear said:


> The letter I got back in early October said we were going live on the SDV service on 10/31/2010. So now when I change a channel I see the blinking green LED on the TA go off for a couple of seconds and then the channel locks and the LED starts blinking again.
> 
> When I check the TA screens through the Tivo debug menu it shows up and looks like it is online.
> 
> So my question is, What now? So far no new channels. I really like having the additional piece of equipment in my equipment stack for no apparent good reason. Does anyone know how long it usually takes for Charter to actually turn on SDV once the date is passed?


----------



## shrike4242

Still no SDV out here in St. Louis, unless they flipped it on after I went to work.


----------



## bubba1972

It has been on in St. Charles for a week or two now. Found out because I lost channels. Realized the tuning adapter was unplugged. Works fine now, no issues at all.


----------



## dwarner

Just got a letter from Charter, offering a free TA lease and installation for my Tivo. 

A couple questions, if anyone is still reading this thread:

1. Will I still be able receive two channels simultaneously?

2. Will the switching delays finally break my live channel surfing habit?


----------



## tootal2

It will record 2 channels at the smae time with the sdv tuner.

I dont no about what it will do to channel surfing but it should be the same speed. sdv is not tured on here yet.

also i got my sdv tuner installed 40 days ago and charter has not tured sdv on here yet. i wonder when its going to start



dwarner said:


> Just got a letter from Charter, offering a free TA lease and installation for my Tivo.
> 
> A couple questions, if anyone is still reading this thread:
> 
> 1. Will I still be able receive two channels simultaneously?
> 
> 2. Will the switching delays finally break my live channel surfing habit?


----------



## Andrea4

So I got this letter from Charter saying that I could get a free install of a tuning adapter, instead of a cable card. I don't even have a cable card right now. I moved in with my sister, canceled my service and just didn't get a new cable card. There are a few digital channels I don't get, (my sister doesn't have any "extra" channels) but for the most part it works fine. Although the screen does freeze sometimes, sound kind of cuts out. Would a tuning adapter fix these things? Do I need it otherwise? I did call and I think they also said I could get a digital cable box. I would rather have that for the on demand stuff. Will it actually work with the Tivo now? I have a Tivo HD.


----------



## bidderman9

Did everyone notice the surcharge for local channels on this month's bill?


----------



## VideoGrabber

bidderman9 said:


> Did everyone notice the surcharge for local channels on this month's bill?


Yep. For me, it adds ~$10/year. But that's just the foot in the door. It could change at any time. I'll be keeping my eye on it.


----------



## brewman

I received a letter Nov 1 that SDV will begin in Gwinnett County, GA on Dec 7. I find the start date highly ironic.

I've ordered 3 TA's for my three TiVos (2 HD, 1 S3). Hopefully the install and operation will be painless. Meaning, I hope the technician has a clue.


----------



## Brad Bishop

I'm also in Gwinnett.

I asked: Can you just send me the TA or let me drop by and pick it up?

No, it has to be professionally installed. They need a highly trained technician to plug in the USB, COAX, and wall wart.

This is why I have limited basic with them. Every time I contact them it's always: We need to send a guy out!

It's idiotic.

I'm surprised they don't send a guy out to change channels for you.

What is really weird - I had Charter (in the same area) about 12 years ago and, for the most part, they were great. They're a pain to deal with now with no thought or logic behind their decisions. It's always: send a guy out.


----------



## nexter

I also received a letter stating that the SDV would go live on Dec. 7, called in to order the TA's and they sent a tech out this morning just to tell me that they do not have any in the warehouse...he called the warehouse manager and she didn't even know what it was or when they would get them...the tech told me he was told it won't take effect until July and for me to just call back and reschedule once the SDV change happens.


----------



## brewman

I asked if they had to roll a truck or if I could just pickup the TA's and install them myself. After being told they had to send an installer I asked if they could make sure to send somebody that knew what they were doing - the CSR couldn't make that guarantee :<

My appointment time was for 8-10 this AM. It's now 11 and no tech or phone call. I suspect this isn't going to end well.


----------



## eziemann

VideoGrabber said:


> Yep. For me, it adds ~$10/year. But that's just the foot in the door. It could change at any time. I'll be keeping my eye on it.


I just saw it as well for my next bill. I was curious about the charge and started a chat. Oh well, I guess Charter gets another $12/year for nothing.

TTD Adrian : The Broadcast TV Surcharge is a pass through reflecting charges assessed to Charter by the owners of local broadcast, or local network-affiliated, TV stations. While broadcast stations distribute their signals over the air using free spectrum granted to them by the federal government, they charge Charter significant amounts to carry their TV signals. These signals were historically made available to Charter at no cost, or low cost. However, the prices now demanded by broadcast stations have necessitated that we pass these costs on to customers. 
TTD Adrian : We actually sent a notofocation about this through mail on the month of September. 
TTD Adrian : I'm not sure why you have not received it. 
me: OK, I guess it got tossed along with all the other advertisements I get from Charter 
TTD Adrian : ok. 
TTD Adrian : Do you have any other questions? 
me: Maybe if they cut down on the weekly mailings we get for Charter phone, they could save $1 and not pass along the cost to me. 
TTD Adrian : I understand. I'll pass that suggestion over to our comments list viewable by management. 
me: Thanks ​


----------



## brewman

Just got off the phone with Charter. TA's are not in the warehouse yet for Gwinnett County, GA, but they're supposed to be receiveing them later today (famous last words). I rescheduled my installation for Wednesday.


----------



## innocentfreak

eziemann said:


> I just saw it as well for my next bill. I was curious about the charge and started a chat. Oh well, I guess Charter gets another $12/year for nothing.


My question would be to them is how do I drop these channels since you could get them free OTA.

I wonder if this also means they raised the price on the local only channels.


----------



## Brad Bishop

innocentfreak said:


> My question would be to them is how do I drop these channels since you could get them free OTA.
> 
> I wonder if this also means they raised the price on the local only channels.


After they didn't show today - no calls, I had to track them down to find out what happened. I finally just gave up. This is on top of other problems I've had with them. I took the cableCard back to the office on Breckinridge today.

Basically what I got from Charter was:
- expensive service
- "Send a guy out" - their answer for everything
- maybe he'd show or maybe he wouldn't

I don't receive the OTA signals all that well where I live. I can live without them - that's how bad Charter is. I'd rather do without TV altogether (well, I will be using Hulu + Netflix) than deal with them.

My TiVo has gone dark.


----------



## nexter

brewman said:


> Just got off the phone with Charter. TA's are not in the warehouse yet for Gwinnett County, GA, but they're supposed to be receiveing them later today (famous last words). I rescheduled my installation for Wednesday.


Heh, same here but I'm in the LaGrange market...the techs told me: "Just wait till it stops working and then call us back, by then we would definitely have them"

Gotta love that attitude


----------



## tootal2

You got rid of cable becouse you didnt get a tuning adapter you dont need for a month ot more?



Brad Bishop said:


> After they didn't show today - no calls, I had to track them down to find out what happened. I finally just gave up. This is on top of other problems I've had with them. I took the cableCard back to the office on Breckinridge today.
> 
> Basically what I got from Charter was:
> - expensive service
> - "Send a guy out" - their answer for everything
> - maybe he'd show or maybe he wouldn't
> 
> I don't receive the OTA signals all that well where I live. I can live without them - that's how bad Charter is. I'd rather do without TV altogether (well, I will be using Hulu + Netflix) than deal with them.
> 
> My TiVo has gone dark.


----------



## Brad Bishop

tootal2 said:


> You got rid of cable becouse you didnt get a tuning adapter you dont need for a month ot more?


That is really the tip of the iceberg.

I've had spotty service from them since I moved to a Charter area 6 months ago. Nearly every dealing with them has been answered with: "We need to send a guy out.." So I'd waste time waiting for their guy to show up.

Even when I'd say, "Look - I can read the cableCard numbers off the screen just as well as he can. It's not like he's going to open up my TiVo and start soldering..." I'd just get: "Well send a guy out." So the guy would come out, read the numbers off the screen, and then say something like, "Oh, they can't authorize premiums on the weekends," or some other nonsense depending on the original request.

I had another problem where my cable (TV + Internet) would go out like clockwork every Monday morning around 9AM. Their answer: We need to send a guy out. Even after I explained, "Look - this seems like it's likely a problem with your box on the street or some hardware on your end for it to drop off like that for two unrelated devices..." Their response: "Can we interest you in home phone service?"

It just endless nonsense from them, fees, and 'we'll send a guy out'-crap. There's no thinking on their end (well, the CSR).

I finally just had enough with the TA deal. I'm tired of waiting around for their guy to show (or maybe not show - as with the TA).

I'll live without it. I have DSL now and while, technically, I'd prefer cable-internet for speed. I just don't want Charter hassle.

I had Comcast in another part of this city for about 5 years and never experienced any nonsense like this from them. Stuff worked. They didn't give me garbage answers. They didn't try to up sell me when I was calling with an outage or problem.

With regards to the tuning adapter:
- Why are they sending letters out when they don't have them in stock?
- Why can't I just pick one up and plug in the three wires myself (USB, COAX, and power - I think I can handle that)?
- Why not just send them out to customers via mail?
- Why doesn't customer service tell you: "Oh, we don't have them in stock right now. They're scheduled to arrive on <date>. Call back after then and we'll be happy to setup an appt," (if you must do the truck roll)?
- Why, instead, setup the truck roll when they have to product to professionally install?

None of it makes any sort of sense.

So a lot of people waste a lot of time and money, on the customer's side as well as Charter's side, because they insist on a truck roll and can't keep things straight.

Anyway, I'm done with them.


----------



## pops_porter

Brad,

Not to get too far off topic, but I had some of the same problems, the 1-888 number just wants to set up a service call with no logic being put itno what they are doing.
I had a signal problem on a few certain channels, after 2 wasted visits the contractor for Charter had no clue. We got a Charter Service Tech our that had an idea about the problem but in the end didn't fix it, as the problem came back a week later. Instead of starting over, (which is what the 1-888 number wanted to do) I went to my local office 10 mins away and requested Jason the service Tech come back out and look again. After a few visits and talked to the lady at the office a few times we got it fixed, but wow, it was a difficult process and took a few drives down to the office.

Re: the TAs, no one should need a real smart guy, it's pretty simple to hook up. The one thing I did have to do is, al of a sudden one day I lost a few channels, GOLFHD, and a few others, after a few days I realized something was wrong, had Charter send a signal and boom, the TA started working and I got all my channels. It has worked fine ever since.


----------



## bcooper367

I have two Tivo HD XLs. One with a single M-Card. One (the 2nd one I purchased / installed) with two S-Cards.

I received a letter from Charter stating that SDV would begin on 12/7. I called Charter on 11/8 and was told that they could have a technician install the tuning adapters or I could go the warehouse and pick them up myself (and self-install).

I'll try to stop by during lunch today. Based on some of the other postings, I'm sceptical. Charter has had absolutely horrible support for the CableCards (getting them activated, changing CCI bit so that incorrectly activated cards stop working, etc.). I don't have high expectations for the Tuning Adapter deployment.


----------



## tootal2

My letter fro charter said sdv would start on 10-15. its 11-11 now and sdv still has not started. also its a free install from charter so a self install wont save you money

also i have never had any problems getting cable cards or problems with cable cards with charter



bcooper367 said:


> I have two Tivo HD XLs. One with a single M-Card. One (the 2nd one I purchased / installed) with two S-Cards.
> 
> I received a letter from Charter stating that SDV would begin on 12/7. I called Charter on 11/8 and was told that they could have a technician install the tuning adapters or I could go the warehouse and pick them up myself (and self-install).
> 
> I'll try to stop by during lunch today. Based on some of the other postings, I'm sceptical. Charter has had absolutely horrible support for the CableCards (getting them activated, changing CCI bit so that incorrectly activated cards stop working, etc.). I don't have high expectations for the Tuning Adapter deployment.


----------



## bcooper367

I guess we need an operational definition of "problem." Each of my two CableCard installs took multiple truck rolls and many calls from the technician to the dispatch / headend to get them configured. Each of these visits caused me to stay home from work. I had to suffer through idiotic comments like "the Tivo must be broken" or "you should just use the Charter DVR." 

Once I got all the channels working, I didn't have any problems-- until Charter changed the Copy Controls on the premium channels (HBO, Cinemax, Starz, Encore, Showtime, Movie Channel). None of these channels word work because............you guessed it.......the CableCard was not properly setup at the beginning.

Basically, Charter doesn't install enough of the CableCards to have any widely distributed expertise. They really don't know what they're doing on most installs.


----------



## bcooper367

I went to the Charter office during lunch. I was told that the Tuning Adapter had to be installed by the technician. I called the 877 number on the letter and was told that a technician was in fact required. They apologized and didn't understand why I was told to pick them up for a self-install. 

They speculated that the HD DVR has a self-install option. As that is what they are promoting as a replacement of the CableCards, the customer service rep must have been confused.

Go Charter! haha


----------



## Brad Bishop

bcooper367 said:


> I went to the Charter office during lunch. I was told that the Tuning Adapter had to be installed by the technician. I called the 877 number on the letter and was told that a technician was in fact required. They apologized and didn't understand why I was told to pick them up for a self-install.


It's far too complicated for you to install. It requires plugging 3 separate plugs in - all of them different!

Semi-related: I think I'm just going to put my TiVo HD up on ebay. If I do go back to cable or satellite I'll just use their equipment. It's far too much of a hassle to try to go the cableCard route.


----------



## TBarclay3

I live in Smyrna, GA, and got my letter about the tuning adapter on Nov. 1st. Having had several bad experiences with Charter technicians, I was rather dreading the install (particularly after getting all of my Cable Card issues resolved several months earlier!) I was off work for Veterans Day and was able to get an appointment for that morning. I figured I would get technicians who were clueless about what Tuning adapters were -- but to my surprise, the two guys said they had done a "bunch" of installs and got everything taken care of in less than 15 minutes! They never had to call anything in (which normally takes forever) and just checked one reading off the Tuning Adapter screen on my Tivo Series 3 which showed a good signal. What a pleasant surprise! Now, hope everything works when SDV goes live in our area. (And hope we get a LOT more HD!!!!)


----------



## brewman

Well, to nobody's surprise Charter has managed to f'up my second appointment to get TA's installed. Once again, no tuning adapters available in Gwinnett County, GA.

Apparently, the TA's are trickling into the warehouse and Charter, the incompetent company they are, don't bother to allocate their stock (either in house or on-order) to customer installation orders. So the technician goes to the warehouse to pickup the TA's for installation and it's a total crap shoot as to whether there will be enough available to fulfill the order.

Idiots.

Update ....

My appointment was originally scheduled for 8-10 AM. I got a call from the technician at 3PM saying he had managed to find 3 TA's by calling around other technicians and scrounging. He just left and all three are hooked up and waiting for SDV to go live. 

Kudos to the tech for going above-and-beyond to get the job done, but my feelings about Charter and their business processes haven't changed - incompetent idiots.


----------



## Ras Jay

I was also surprised. I'm in Gwinnett County, GA and usually have had bad luck with Charter truck rolls. But yesterday an actual Charter Tech (not a contractor) showed up early and with two TA's on the truck!
I couldn't be present but my wife had no problems. When I got home, I discovered that he had also installed an amplifier, changed all of my coax connectors and changed all of my splitters. I might choose not to be there for future truck rolls if that's what it takes.

Jay

my sig is wrong. I have to update but i have an S3 and an HD.


----------



## thwart

Sometimes when a Charter Tech comes out to your house they can appear dizzy and confused. When this happens I just normally reboot him and wait for a series of beeps. If he doesn't beep within thirty seconds you might need a new Charter Tech as this one probably overheated due to bad ventilation. 

The best time to schedule an appointment with a Charter Tech is before lunch.


----------



## tootal2

Will sdv ever start? its been 2 months since i had the sdv tuner installed. and its still blinking. Did i really need to get the sdv tuner installed?


----------



## bkrodgers

tootal2 said:


> Will sdv ever start? its been 2 months since i had the sdv tuner installed. and its still blinking. Did i really need to get the sdv tuner installed?


No offense, but think about that. They're not going to turn SDV on until they have enough of the area on SDV capable equipment. So just because it's not on yet in no way means you didn't need to do it.

It's really not something to worry about. Nothing cool happens after they turn it on. If anything, all you'll notice are the downsides to SDV for now. It just enables them to possibly add more HD channels in the future.


----------



## bidderman9

bkrodgers said:


> .... It just enables them to possibly add more HD channels in the future.


Yes, I just got a notice that they will be adding the tennis channel to my sports package. I'll bet they spent a fortune to add that channel.


----------



## tootal2

4.1 says charter is updating there system late tonight and will have to rescan for channels if i dont have a cable box.

http://www.kmov.com/news/mobile/Cha...s-may-need-to-re-scan-channels-111151154.html


----------



## bkrodgers

tootal2 said:


> 4.1 says charter is updating there system late tonight and will have to rescan for channels if i dont have a cable box.
> 
> http://www.kmov.com/news/mobile/Cha...s-may-need-to-re-scan-channels-111151154.html


Since they're talking about it affecting only those people who connect their TVs directly to cable without a box, and specifically stating that it doesn't affect those who do, it probably is something unrelated to SDV.


----------



## tootal2

looks like noting happen. I have cable pluged in to my tv and my desktop to use qam and all qam channels still work.

Dont know what kmov was talking about



bkrodgers said:


> Since they're talking about it affecting only those people who connect their TVs directly to cable without a box, and specifically stating that it doesn't affect those who do, it probably is something unrelated to SDV.


----------



## IPingUPing

Just had 2 TA's installed in Smyrna GA. I am assuming since the light is still blinking yellow that SDV is not active yet. I asked the tech about 12/7 and he told me they delayed it until 1/2 because of the holidays. 

Question on the install. The manual that was left behind for the MTR700 (because I took it out of the box) says the Coax should go from wall to device to Tivo. They split the coax at the wall and ran separate legs, one to the DTA and one to the Tivo. Seems like that would add loss? Can I / should I take the splitters out?


----------



## pyrodex

IPingUPing said:


> Just had 2 TA's installed in Smyrna GA. I am assuming since the light is still blinking yellow that SDV is not active yet. I asked the tech about 12/7 and he told me they delayed it until 1/2 because of the holidays.
> 
> Question on the install. The manual that was left behind for the MTR700 (because I took it out of the box) says the Coax should go from wall to device to Tivo. They split the coax at the wall and ran separate legs, one to the DTA and one to the Tivo. Seems like that would add loss? Can I / should I take the splitters out?


Charter disables the RF out, I was told this by a local friend whom is a cable installer.


----------



## IPingUPing

pyrodex said:


> Charter disables the RF out, I was told this by a local friend whom is a cable installer.


Thanks for that. I didn't test going to pass through but I still might. I know a few folks who are familiar with cable plant stuff. I may ask them for an opinion on the best configuration for signal strength.

As of this morning, still a blinking yellow light, so I am guessing they did not enable SDV last night.


----------



## brewman

IPingUPing said:


> Just had 2 TA's installed in Smyrna GA. I am assuming since the light is still blinking yellow that SDV is not active yet. I asked the tech about 12/7 and he told me they delayed it until 1/2 because of the holidays.
> 
> Question on the install. The manual that was left behind for the MTR700 (because I took it out of the box) says the Coax should go from wall to device to Tivo. They split the coax at the wall and ran separate legs, one to the DTA and one to the Tivo. Seems like that would add loss? Can I / should I take the splitters out?


I have 3 TA's installed (Gwinnett County, GA) and had them installed without splitters (as shown in manual). No problems so far, but I don't think they've activated SDV yet.


----------



## bkrodgers

pyrodex said:


> Charter disables the RF out, I was told this by a local friend whom is a cable installer.


Not true on my two units. Pass through works fine. The installer originally did them with splitters, but said he didn't know of any reason pass through wouldn't work. He'd just been told to do them with splitters. I'm not sure the signal loss is a big issue, as is imagine the TA introduces some loss on the pass through as well. In fact it may have a similar splitter internally. I just think it looks cleaner, so I switched it.


----------



## pops_porter

Charter installed mine with the splitter, I switched one to the pass through like the manual and it works fine.

Also, once SDV started my light continued to blink and i was missing a few channels. I called charter, they "pinged" my account, sent a singal, and then everything started working just fine. Everything's been fine for a couple months now.


----------



## r11roadster

Can they even disable pass through? I have it wired that way and it works even with no power connected.


----------



## au_en_bear

All,

I had my TA installed last month and this month's bill has a $29.99 equipment install fee on it. I thought the original notice I got in the mail said it would be installed at no charge. I have already shredded the letter so I have no proof that it was supposed to be a free install. I called customer service and got no where with the moron first tier CS rep. 

Can anyone else confirm for me that the Charter letter you received said that the TA install would be no charge?

Also, has anyone else in the north Alabama area had an install and been able to tell if SDV is live yet? Mine appears to be working but the LED on the front does the fast 8 blinks followed by the long off time. I have not seen any new channels yet either. Any info appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Auenbear


----------



## lrhorer

Andrea4 said:


> So I got this letter from Charter saying that I could get a free install of a tuning adapter, instead of a cable card. I don't even have a cable card right now.


The TA does *NOT* replace the CableCard. It allows the Tivo to access SDV programming.


----------



## lrhorer

bkrodgers said:


> Not true on my two units. Pass through works fine. The installer originally did them with splitters, but said he didn't know of any reason pass through wouldn't work. He'd just been told to do them with splitters. I'm not sure the signal loss is a big issue, as is imagine the TA introduces some loss on the pass through as well.


It may, but if so a lot less than a 2-way spliter. At a bare minimum, I would expect them to have a Directional Couper in the unit. Cisco TAs actually have a little amplifier, so their output levels are higher than the input.



bkrodgers said:


> In fact it may have a similar splitter internally.


Unless the design engineer were totally brain dead, it wouldn't be a 2-way. I would expect a DC-9 or DC-12, which lose about 1dB and 0.5 dB, respectively.



bkrodgers said:


> I just think it looks cleaner, so I switched it.


Uh-uh. That signal is digital. Signal levels won't afect picture quality. In fact, nothing will affect PQ. That's one of the big advantages of a digital signal.


----------



## lrhorer

au_en_bear said:


> Mine appears to be working but the LED on the front does the fast 8 blinks followed by the long off time.


Then it isn't working. If it were, the LED woud be on solid.



au_en_bear said:


> I have not seen any new channels yet either. Any info appreciated.


You won't if the LED is blinking. Of course even if the TA were working, it would not imply thay had alread added channels. If you lose some channels, then it's pretty much certain they have added some SDV channels, because having replaced linear channels with SDV, your TIVo would no longer receive those channels.


----------



## bkrodgers

lrhorer said:


> Uh-uh. That signal is digital. Signal levels won't afect picture quality. In fact, nothing will affect PQ. That's one of the big advantages of a digital signal.


I wasn't talking about picture quality. I just meant it looks cleaner (visually) to use passthrough. One less cable and no splitter hanging off things.


----------



## tootal2

The sdv tuner is a free install where i live. I guess the installer didn't know it was a free install. you can call charter and complain and they might reduce your bill or give you free hbo.



au_en_bear said:


> All,
> 
> I had my TA installed last month and this month's bill has a $29.99 equipment install fee on it. I thought the original notice I got in the mail said it would be installed at no charge. I have already shredded the letter so I have no proof that it was supposed to be a free install. I called customer service and got no where with the moron first tier CS rep.
> 
> Can anyone else confirm for me that the Charter letter you received said that the TA install would be no charge?
> 
> Also, has anyone else in the north Alabama area had an install and been able to tell if SDV is live yet? Mine appears to be working but the LED on the front does the fast 8 blinks followed by the long off time. I have not seen any new channels yet either. Any info appreciated.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Auenbear


----------



## jweek

au_en_bear said:


> All,
> 
> I had my TA installed last month and this month's bill has a $29.99 equipment install fee on it. I thought the original notice I got in the mail said it would be installed at no charge. I have already shredded the letter so I have no proof that it was supposed to be a free install. I called customer service and got no where with the moron first tier CS rep.
> 
> Can anyone else confirm for me that the Charter letter you received said that the TA install would be no charge?


Got the letter, had the TA's installed, shredded the letter, got the install charge, called Charter got it credited back. Give 'em a call. Mine were installed 6 months ago, still blinking ..... sigh.:down:


----------



## tootal2

this is from the avs forum
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=19602159&posted=1

1/12/11  11 New HD Channels:

Versus HD (Expanded Basic): 731
FX HD (Expanded Basic): 732
Big Ten Network HD (Expanded Basic): 733
Speed HD (Expanded Basic): 734
Hallmark Channel HD (Digital View): 742
Cooking Channel HD (Digital View Plus): 743
VH1 HD (Expanded Basic): 744
MTV HD (Expanded Basic): 746
Spike HD (Expanded Basic): 747
ABC Family HD (Expanded Basic): 748
Nickelodeon HD (Expanded Basic): 749

Further, we plan to add 14 HD channels in March 2011 (No firm date released yet):

ESPNU HD (Digital View/Sports View): 737
Lifetime Movie Network HD (Expanded Basic): 738
CNBC HD (Expanded Basic): 739
MSNBC HD (Expanded Basic): 740
Travel Channel HD (Expanded Basic): 741
Disney XD HD (Expanded Basic): 750
Cartoon Network HD (Expanded Basic): 717
ESPN News HD (Sports View): 718
TruTV HD (Expanded Basic): 724
E! HD (Expanded Basic): 723
CMT HD (Expanded Basic): 722
Oxygen HD (Digital View): 721
HLN HD (Expanded Basic): 720
BIO HD (Digital View): 719


----------



## bidderman9

tootal2 said:


> this is from the avs forum
> http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=19602159&posted=1
> 
> 1/12/11  11 New HD Channels:
> 
> Versus HD (Expanded Basic): 731
> FX HD (Expanded Basic): 732
> Big Ten Network HD (Expanded Basic): 733
> Speed HD (Expanded Basic): 734
> Hallmark Channel HD (Digital View): 742
> Cooking Channel HD (Digital View Plus): 743
> VH1 HD (Expanded Basic): 744
> MTV HD (Expanded Basic): 746
> Spike HD (Expanded Basic): 747
> ABC Family HD (Expanded Basic): 748
> Nickelodeon HD (Expanded Basic): 749
> 
> Further, we plan to add 14 HD channels in March 2011 (No firm date released yet):
> 
> ESPNU HD (Digital View/Sports View): 737
> Lifetime Movie Network HD (Expanded Basic): 738
> CNBC HD (Expanded Basic): 739
> MSNBC HD (Expanded Basic): 740
> Travel Channel HD (Expanded Basic): 741
> Disney XD HD (Expanded Basic): 750
> Cartoon Network HD (Expanded Basic): 717
> ESPN News HD (Sports View): 718
> TruTV HD (Expanded Basic): 724
> E! HD (Expanded Basic): 723
> CMT HD (Expanded Basic): 722
> Oxygen HD (Digital View): 721
> HLN HD (Expanded Basic): 720
> BIO HD (Digital View): 719


Thanks for passing that on! I appreciate it!


----------



## tootal2

Will the new channels be sdv?


----------



## brewman

tootal2 said:


> Will the new channels be sdv?


The bandwidth has to come from somewhere. That's quite a few HD channels, and I wouldn't think they have that much unsed bandwidth laying about. I expect either those channels will be on SDV or other less popular channels digital channels will be moved to SDV to make room.


----------



## shrike4242

After the letter I was sent in late September about the need for TAs to support SDV, it's early January and still no notice of when they'll actually be used in the St. Louis, MO.

Oh, thank you Charter, for making such an issue of something that hasn't gone live in months after sending out a notice that it'll go live any time.


----------



## bkrodgers

shrike4242 said:


> After the letter I was sent in late September about the need for TAs to support SDV, it's early January and still no notice of when they'll actually be used in the St. Louis, MO.
> 
> Oh, thank you Charter, for making such an issue of something that hasn't gone live in months after sending out a notice that it'll go live any time.


What area are you in? It's definitely in use in parts of STL.


----------



## tootal2

Were getting 25 new hd channels you should be happy about that. I got my letter in september to.



shrike4242 said:


> After the letter I was sent in late September about the need for TAs to support SDV, it's early January and still no notice of when they'll actually be used in the St. Louis, MO.
> 
> Oh, thank you Charter, for making such an issue of something that hasn't gone live in months after sending out a notice that it'll go live any time.


----------



## tootal2

charter just added 11 hd channels and sdv will start soon. the channel list is wrong. but the channels are working. i think they have hallmark hd listed 2 times


----------



## shrike4242

bkrodgers said:


> What area are you in? It's definitely in use in parts of STL.


I'm in Southern St. Louis county and I've not seen any of my TA units doing anything at this point.



tootal2 said:


> Were getting 25 new hd channels you should be happy about that. I got my letter in september to.


I'm happy we're getting additional HD channels, though I wish Charter wasn't so scatterbrained about when they would be bringing SDV up and running. That, and their support reps have no idea when they'll have it running either.


----------



## tootal2

from Umatter2Charter

SDV is rolling out over the next 6 days now -Switched Digital Video (SDV) is launching starting on 1/11/11 thru 1/18/11. This is being completed node by node.



shrike4242 said:


> I'm in Southern St. Louis county and I've not seen any of my TA units doing anything at this point.
> 
> I'm happy we're getting additional HD channels, though I wish Charter wasn't so scatterbrained about when they would be bringing SDV up and running. That, and their support reps have no idea when they'll have it running either.


SDV is rolling out over the next 6 days now -Switched Digital Video (SDV) is launching starting on 1/11/11 thru 1/18/11. This is being completed node by node.


----------



## brewman

Is there any word on when SDV on Charter will be activated in Gwinnett County, GA? It was supposed to go live 12/7/2010, but so far just blinking yellow lights.


----------



## shrike4242

tootal2 said:


> from Umatter2Charter
> 
> SDV is rolling out over the next 6 days now -Switched Digital Video (SDV) is launching starting on 1/11/11 thru 1/18/11. This is being completed node by node.


Guess I'll keep an eye on my TAs and see if they stop blinking and start working. Otherwise, it's phone call to Charter time.


----------



## tootal2

shrike4242 said:


> Guess I'll keep an eye on my TAs and see if they stop blinking and start working. Otherwise, it's phone call to Charter time.


Has anyones tuning adaptor started working yet? I wonder how many homes there are per node?

They got the new hd channels fixed on tivo


----------



## Kunzorama

Charter installed a TA for my S3 in Northwest Michigan about two months ago. It took two truck rolls; first guy thought it was a service call and had no TA; second guy had a TA but had no clue. He was going to use a splitter to bypass the TA, but then agreed to follow the instructions I had printed out from the Tivo support site.

Since the install, I've had two phone messages, warning me that I need new equipment installed and I need to call them back. They must not know who's gotten TAs installed and who hasn't. On my most recent phone call in response to their message, they said they're going to start activating SD between 1/18 (today) and 2/1. So far, the TA is just blinking yellow. I'm looking forward to the additional HD channels, but a little fearful of account setup issues, missed recordings and additional lag time when changing channels. We'll see....


----------



## Andrea4

lrhorer said:


> The TA does *NOT* replace the CableCard. It allows the Tivo to access SDV programming.


Ok..so I would still need the CableCard to receive the few digital channels that I don't get? What exactly is SDV? Is there a charge every month for the TA like there is for the CableCard? I really just want a digital cable box so that I can use the ondemand.


----------



## Kunzorama

Andrea4 said:


> Ok..so I would still need the CableCard to receive the few digital channels that I don't get? What exactly is SDV? Is there a charge every month for the TA like there is for the CableCard? I really just want a digital cable box so that I can use the ondemand.


The TA box sits between your Tivo and the source of your programming (e.g., Charter's program distribution center) and lets Charter know that when you turn to channel 234 (for example), that somebody in your neighborhood (you) wants to watch channel 234 and they should start sending that signal down to coax to people in your area, so you can get it. I allows cable companies to offer more programs than they have capacity to simultaneously stream down the cable at one time, given that not every channel is of interest to anybody in your area at the same time. It also allows them to carry a lot more HD channels than they are currently offering. It wouldn't be necessary if we all had fiber connecting us to the program distribution center, but we're not there yet. Much better than heavily compressing the signal so that HD looks like SD!

There should be no charge for the tuning adapter (TA) - there's none in my area.


----------



## Andrea4

Kunzorama said:


> The TA box sits between your Tivo and the source of your programming (e.g., Charter's program distribution center) and lets Charter know that when you turn to channel 234 (for example), that somebody in your neighborhood (you) wants to watch channel 234 and they should start sending that signal down to coax to people in your area, so you can get it. I allows cable companies to offer more programs than they have capacity to simultaneously stream down the cable at one time, given that not every channel is of interest to anybody in your area at the same time. It also allows them to carry a lot more HD channels than they are currently offering. It wouldn't be necessary if we all had fiber connecting us to the program distribution center, but we're not there yet. Much better than heavily compressing the signal so that HD looks like SD!
> 
> There should be no charge for the tuning adapter (TA) - there's none in my area.


So the TA gives access to more channels basically? I don't have an HDTV though. Not really that concerned with HD channels.


----------



## brewman

Andrea4 said:


> So the TA gives access to more channels basically? I don't have an HDTV though. Not really that concerned with HD channels.


No the TA doesn't give you access to more channels, it gives you access to channels that don't have a permanently allocated frequency. The channels the cable company puts on SDV are only going to be available if you have a tuning adapter (or the cable companies converter box), and they may or may not be channels you care about. It's totally up to the cable company which channels they put on SDV.

Typically, the high demand channels aren't put on SDV because theres no real bandwidth gain if the channel is always being watched by somebody anyways so it's more than likely going to be the niche channels and PPV on SDV, but in the end it's at the whim of the provider.


----------



## shrike4242

Still nothing on having a live and active TA on any of my Tivos. As someone mentioned 02/01 as a date they're aiming towards, we'll see what happens next week.


----------



## au_en_bear

I have a Cisco TA that was installed in early November. It just sits there using power and fast blinking a green LED on the front panel, eight quick blinks on/off followed by a long off time then repeat. Repeated power cycles have not made any difference. I can see the TA from the Tivo diagnostic screens but I am not sure how to tell if the TA is actually doing anything.

I have noticed two SD channels that my TivoHD cannot tune but my Charter Scientific Atlanta STB does tune. All of my HD channels work on the TivoHD and the SA STB. Does it make sense that Charter would have enabled SDV and only have it affect two SD channels?

I live in Decatur located in north Alabama and would like to know if anyone else has a TA that is working.

Also, has anyone in north Alabama heard if we are supposed to get any additional HD channels. So far it appears that Charter has just wasted a bunch of their money and my time by installing the TA.

Any info is appreciated.


----------



## tootal2

I wonder what happen to sdv to. You can e-mail Umatter2Charter on avs or on facebook. I guess it will have to start when they add the next 14 hd channel this month.



shrike4242 said:


> Still nothing on having a live and active TA on any of my Tivos. As someone mentioned 02/01 as a date they're aiming towards, we'll see what happens next week.


----------



## au_en_bear

Anyone?



au_en_bear said:


> I have a Cisco TA that was installed in early November. It just sits there using power and fast blinking a green LED on the front panel, eight quick blinks on/off followed by a long off time then repeat. Repeated power cycles have not made any difference. I can see the TA from the Tivo diagnostic screens but I am not sure how to tell if the TA is actually doing anything.
> 
> I have noticed two SD channels that my TivoHD cannot tune but my Charter Scientific Atlanta STB does tune. All of my HD channels work on the TivoHD and the SA STB. Does it make sense that Charter would have enabled SDV and only have it affect two SD channels?
> 
> I live in Decatur located in north Alabama and would like to know if anyone else has a TA that is working.
> 
> Also, has anyone in north Alabama heard if we are supposed to get any additional HD channels. So far it appears that Charter has just wasted a bunch of their money and my time by installing the TA.
> 
> Any info is appreciated.


----------



## bidderman9

I do not have a Cisco, but I do have a Motorola TA. When the blinking stops and you get a solid amber they have brought it on line. On the TA diagnostic screen the adapter should also have an IP address.

In theory you should not notice any difference.


----------



## Ras Jay

I'm in Gwinnett County, Georgia. Had 2 TA's installed in November. Woke up this morning to a solid amber LED and an activation message on my TiVo's. Now to see what new channels they've added...

Jay


----------



## brewman

Ras Jay said:


> I'm in Gwinnett County, Georgia. Had 2 TA's installed in November. Woke up this morning to a solid amber LED and an activation message on my TiVo's. Now to see what new channels they've added...
> 
> Jay


I'm also in Gwinnett County with 3 TA's installed in November as well. Mine are still blinking. I'll call Charter later today to see if they're supposed to be activated.


----------



## Pundit

Ras Jay said:


> I'm in Gwinnett County, Georgia. Had 2 TA's installed in November. Woke up this morning to a solid amber LED and an activation message on my TiVo's. Now to see what new channels they've added...
> 
> Jay


This tallies with what one of the Charter folks on Twitter told me - she said SDV would be switched on for Gwinnett on Tuesday 2/8.


----------



## brewman

Charter in Gwinnett County Georgia switched on SDV 2/8 as noted by others. Some have had no issues, but apparently there's some nodes that are problematic. 

I've got three TA's and they're all still flashing yellow - and of course there's several channels I can no longer receive. Spoke with Charter Thursday night to no avail so they sent a tech yesterday. Nice guy who seemed somewhat knowledgeable about SDV and TA's. Apparently, some nodes are having problems and it's hit or miss whether your particular node's headends are configured correctly. 

The good news is Charter is aware of the problem and is working to resolve it. As of yesterday (Friday 2/11) around noon their CSR's aren't and so they roll a truck to have someone show up at your door to tell you "Yeah, we know there's a problem". The tech said to give them 24-48 hours to resolve the problem.


----------



## brewman

brewman said:


> Charter in Gwinnett County Georgia switched on SDV 2/8 as noted by others. Some have had no issues, but apparently there's some nodes that are problematic.
> 
> I've got three TA's and they're all still flashing yellow - and of course there's several channels I can no longer receive. Spoke with Charter Thursday night to no avail so they sent a tech yesterday. Nice guy who seemed somewhat knowledgeable about SDV and TA's. Apparently, some nodes are having problems and it's hit or miss whether your particular node's headends are configured correctly.
> 
> The good news is Charter is aware of the problem and is working to resolve it. As of yesterday (Friday 2/11) around noon their CSR's aren't and so they roll a truck to have someone show up at your door to tell you "Yeah, we know there's a problem". The tech said to give them 24-48 hours to resolve the problem.


They've fixed my SDV problem in Gwinnett County. Hopefully no more problems and more channels soon to come.


----------



## tootal2

When will it be switched on in st. louis. I wonder how much power i wasted by having the tuning adapter on for 5 months.


----------



## tootal2

My tuning adaptor came on today


----------



## shrike4242

tootal2 said:


> My tuning adaptor came on today
> 
> also tivo suggestions dont seem to be working.


My five TAs came on as well, though I'm not sure if there should be something more than the single amber light lit solid or if there's another light on it that should be lit as well.

I checked a couple of them this morning and one of them was lit solid amber with one indicator light and another one was blinking slowly red. Another one didn't have this behavior.

Is it normal to just have a single amber light on it, or should I be looking for some other state?


----------



## tootal2

shrike4242 said:


> My five TAs came on as well, though I'm not sure if there should be something more than the single amber light lit solid or if there's another light on it that should be lit as well.
> 
> I checked a couple of them this morning and one of them was lit solid amber with one indicator light and another one was blinking slowly red. Another one didn't have this behavior.
> 
> Is it normal to just have a single amber light on it, or should I be looking for some other state?


i think red only comes on when your changing channels.


----------



## Stuxnet

shrike4242 said:


> Is it normal to just have a single amber light on it, or should I be looking for some other state?


That's normal for the Moto TA on Charter.


----------



## Pundit

My Premiere XL arrived on Thursday and I had my truck roll for the M-Card and TA scheduled for Friday afternoon.

Everything got hooked up OK - but why does Charter tell their techs that the cable feed needs to be split and fed separately to the TiVo and the TA? The TA manual makes it clear as day what the correct wiring is.

Later that day I noticed that I some of my HD channels went missing, and would either need a channel change or a recycle of the TA to recover them, which was super annoying to say the least. But since yesterday when I was tidying up the wiring and having turned everything off and on again to install a new power strip, I haven't seen this problem again. Fingers x'd.

BTW I have a Moto TA.


----------



## brewman

Pundit said:


> My Premiere XL arrived on Thursday and I had my truck roll for the M-Card and TA scheduled for Friday afternoon.
> 
> Everything got hooked up OK - but why does Charter tell their techs that the cable feed needs to be split and fed separately to the TiVo and the TA? The TA manual makes it clear as day what the correct wiring is.
> 
> Later that day I noticed that I some of my HD channels went missing, and would either need a channel change or a recycle of the TA to recover them, which was super annoying to say the least. But since yesterday when I was tidying up the wiring and having turned everything off and on again to install a new power strip, I haven't seen this problem again. Fingers x'd.
> 
> BTW I have a Moto TA.


I've got three TAs and all use the pass-thru rather than a splitter. Works fine.


----------



## brewman

Now that Gwinnett County has SDV enabled is there any word on upcoming new channels?


----------



## tootal2

brewman said:


> I've got three TAs and all use the pass-thru rather than a splitter. Works fine.


I just wall mounted my 55" led-lcd tv and i cant find a way to hide the spiltter behind my tv. So might have try that.

also anyone else getting less tivo suggestions?


----------



## au_en_bear

au_en_bear said:


> I have a Cisco TA that was installed in early November. It just sits there using power and fast blinking a green LED on the front panel, eight quick blinks on/off followed by a long off time then repeat. Repeated power cycles have not made any difference. I can see the TA from the Tivo diagnostic screens but I am not sure how to tell if the TA is actually doing anything.
> 
> I have noticed two SD channels that my TivoHD cannot tune but my Charter Scientific Atlanta STB does tune. All of my HD channels work on the TivoHD and the SA STB. Does it make sense that Charter would have enabled SDV and only have it affect two SD channels?
> 
> I live in Decatur located in north Alabama and would like to know if anyone else has a TA that is working.
> 
> Also, has anyone in north Alabama heard if we are supposed to get any additional HD channels. So far it appears that Charter has just wasted a bunch of their money and my time by installing the TA.
> 
> Any info is appreciated.


Can anyone tell me if they have been able to get a Tivo HD working with a Cisco STA1520 Tuning Adapter. I have spent several hours on the phone with Charter and so far all I have is missing channels and a green LED on the TA that blinks 8 times fast, pauses and repeats. Does anyone know if there is a specific manufacturer's cable card that is required to work with the 1520 TA?

Thanks


----------



## Stuxnet

au_en_bear said:


> Can anyone tell me if they have been able to get a Tivo HD working with a Cisco STA1520 Tuning Adapter. I have spent several hours on the phone with Charter and so far all I have is missing channels and a green LED on the TA that blinks 8 times fast, pauses and repeats. Does anyone know if there is a specific manufacturer's cable card that is required to work with the 1520 TA?
> 
> Thanks


Can you receive the missing channels if you pull out the TA. If they're not SDV channels, you should have access. That should help point to the cause... I presume you've tried to reload your channel line up though your THD... If it's the TA, it's easy enough to swap the unit (ask for a Moto) and try again.


----------



## Beernutts

Stuxnet said:


> Can you receive the missing channels if you pull out the TA. If they're not SDV channels, you should have access. That should help point to the cause... I presume you've tried to reload your channel line up though your THD... If it's the TA, it's easy enough to swap the unit (ask for a Moto) and try again.


If he's on a CISCO system (which he obviously is since he has a CISCO TA) he can't use a Moto TA, and vice-versa.

Also, about the suggested recordings, check the other threads; it's been stated numerous times that it is a TiVo problem when it connects to a TA. TiVo corrected it on their Premiere line, but it's broken on S3 and HD TiVo's.


----------



## au_en_bear

au_en_bear said:


> Can anyone tell me if they have been able to get a Tivo HD working with a Cisco STA1520 Tuning Adapter. I have spent several hours on the phone with Charter and so far all I have is missing channels and a green LED on the TA that blinks 8 times fast, pauses and repeats. Does anyone know if there is a specific manufacturer's cable card that is required to work with the 1520 TA?
> 
> Thanks


Spent almost 4 hours Saturday morning with two different Charter contractors at my house trying to resolve my TA problem. Contractor was nice and worked hard. Replaced my cable run from the pole to the house and put new connections on every coax. Then he spent a couple of hours on the phone with Charter with them telling him that everything "looks good from their end" He tried changing the way the cable card and TA are "ordered" in the system and must have power cycled the TA 10 time, all to no avail. The really good part of the story is that both of the contractors admitted that they get no training from Charter on how to install the TA's and that it is always frustrating for them to install TA's. One of them said he knew of a Charter tech in Birmingham who knows how to get them working but they could not reach the magic tech since it was Saturday. So I still have a blinking LED, no SDV channels and a faint hope that one of the contractors will remember to call the guy in Birmingham Monday and get him to go into their system and fix my TA. I ain't holding my breath.

If anyone reads this and has any clue of what to tell the morons on the other end of the 1-888-GET-CHARTER number to get my setup working PLEASE reply to this. I am soooooooooooooo frustrated with Charter.

Thanks


----------



## brewman

au_en_bear said:


> ... The really good part of the story is that both of the contractors admitted that they get no training from Charter on how to install the TA's and that it is always frustrating for them to install TA's. ...
> Thanks


You've hit the nail on the head. The real problem is lack of training for not only the field tech, but more importantly the people provisioning the head-end. And it's not just Charter and the cable industry. How many of us have played CSR roulette with TiVo until we get somebody on the phone that can do more than read a script?


----------



## tootal2

You can e-mail umatterrcharter on avs charter st. louis forums. He helped me out. he works for charter.

Hes also on faceboot



au_en_bear said:


> Spent almost 4 hours Saturday morning with two different Charter contractors at my house trying to resolve my TA problem. Contractor was nice and worked hard. Replaced my cable run from the pole to the house and put new connections on every coax. Then he spent a couple of hours on the phone with Charter with them telling him that everything "looks good from their end" He tried changing the way the cable card and TA are "ordered" in the system and must have power cycled the TA 10 time, all to no avail. The really good part of the story is that both of the contractors admitted that they get no training from Charter on how to install the TA's and that it is always frustrating for them to install TA's. One of them said he knew of a Charter tech in Birmingham who knows how to get them working but they could not reach the magic tech since it was Saturday. So I still have a blinking LED, no SDV channels and a faint hope that one of the contractors will remember to call the guy in Birmingham Monday and get him to go into their system and fix my TA. I ain't holding my breath.
> 
> If anyone reads this and has any clue of what to tell the morons on the other end of the 1-888-GET-CHARTER number to get my setup working PLEASE reply to this. I am soooooooooooooo frustrated with Charter.
> 
> Thanks


----------



## duncan7

tootal2 said:


> You can e-mail umatterrcharter on avs charter st. louis forums. He helped me out. he works for charter.
> 
> Hes also on faceboot


I've had great luck getting help from the @Charter twitter team. No tier 1 nonsense, a couple back-and-forths (it is, after all, 140 characters) and they've gotten me a card hit or a tech call, often same-day. The last time, they escalated me to a non-contract tech who showed up with a Fluke and a roll of cable to stretch me new copper from the poll.

Not sure if that means I "matter," but my TV looks pretty good, thanks to them.


----------



## au_en_bear

Many thanks to everyone who made suggestions on the problem I had getting my TA working here in North Alabama. It has taken two weeks and 6 visits to my house by different techs but we finally have most of my channels working. Right now I am missing a single HD channel, CMYHD and I have one HD channel which has picture but no sound. Has anyone else run into a problem with audio not making through a TA?


----------



## tootal2

Only problems i have had is the tivo suggestions stopped working and and it keeps telling my guide info will run out in 7 days



au_en_bear said:


> Many thanks to everyone who made suggestions on the problem I had getting my TA working here in North Alabama. It has taken two weeks and 6 visits to my house by different techs but we finally have most of my channels working. Right now I am missing a single HD channel, CMYHD and I have one HD channel which has picture but no sound. Has anyone else run into a problem with audio not making through a TA?


----------



## brewman

au_en_bear said:


> Many thanks to everyone who made suggestions on the problem I had getting my TA working here in North Alabama. It has taken two weeks and 6 visits to my house by different techs but we finally have most of my channels working. Right now I am missing a single HD channel, CMYHD and I have one HD channel which has picture but no sound. Has anyone else run into a problem with audio not making through a TA?


This sounds more like a problem at the head end - not the TA or your TiVo.

The TiVo doesn't get audio or video from the TA; it only gets the correct mapping for the desired channel and then tunes to the specified frequency. If the head end isn't properly putting the channel into the assigned frequency then you can have audio or video isues. Of course, this also applies to the missing channels as well.


----------



## jgwyatt

I just randomly lost channels on my Series3 with a TA. After a little research, it looks like the amber lights that have been blinking on the front for the last 2.5 months means it was never connected/provisioned correctly. I think I will try the Twitter feed first thing tomorrow. Any other ideas for help in Birmingham, AL?


----------



## Kunzorama

I just had the same thing happen up in Northwest Michigan. I've lost about 18 channels that are all bundled together on some sort of "digital view plus tier". The Tivo troubleshooting guide leads me to believe that it's either a pairing issue (if the cards were never set up properly and they just started encrypting that tier) or a setup issue at the head-end. My wife placed a service call earlier this week, but wasn't able to get a second-level support person to step in -- as a result, we've got a truck roll scheduled for this afternoon. We'll see...


----------



## tootal2

The new hd channels start thursday. I hope they dont compress them to much. Why do they have to compress channels so much when they use sdv?


----------



## dpw

jgwyatt said:


> I just randomly lost channels on my Series3 with a TA. After a little research, it looks like the amber lights that have been blinking on the front for the last 2.5 months means it was never connected/provisioned correctly. I think I will try the Twitter feed first thing tomorrow. Any other ideas for help in Birmingham, AL?


I had this happen to me. I simply unplugged the TA adapter power plug and usb connection and within minutes, my channels re-appeared. I probably will have to do this every 30 days or so.

I am in bham also.


----------



## Kunzorama

Kunzorama said:


> I just had the same thing happen up in Northwest Michigan. I've lost about 18 channels that are all bundled together on some sort of "digital view plus tier". The Tivo troubleshooting guide leads me to believe that it's either a pairing issue (if the cards were never set up properly and they just started encrypting that tier) or a setup issue at the head-end. My wife placed a service call earlier this week, but wasn't able to get a second-level support person to step in -- as a result, we've got a truck roll scheduled for this afternoon. We'll see...


Happy ending -- at least for now! Contractor #1 showed up yesterday, had no interest in the Tivo troubleshooting guide, and decided to climb the utility pole in the back yard. Fortunately, while he was out there, he called a supervisor who was in the area, who was able to swing by. He found a problem in the way the tuning adapter was hooked up, reconnected things, turned the blinking yellow light into a solid green light, and we're now getting those channels once again.


----------



## ArmadaJim

Hi folks, I have been a proud owner of a series2 for many years, never had a problem. I went HD and got an HDXL loved it, then Charter decided to bring in the evil cisco box. I had unplug the cisco and reset tivo every few days because I would suddenly lose channels. Not just HD, I'd lose SD channels as well. Eventually we went to the Premiere XL, I thought maybe it was the tivo. New Tivo, New Mstream, and new evil cisco, guess what, NO CHANGE! I'm ordering a signal booster to try and fix the problem. I continue to get pixelation and eventually lost signal. I will also tune to a channel directly and get the message No signal or you are not authorized to get this channel. I channel up, then down, and now it comes in. I have had a Tivo HD box for 3 years I think, I have yet to see the superbowl in hd. Is there a fix for any of this???? Sorry if the post isn't clear, I've been typing all day and I'm a bit tired.


----------



## coasterlb

I have A LOT of problems with cable cards and tuning adapters- i am with Charter and I have 5 HD Tivos and each has had problems one way or another- sometimes it was the cable card other times the tuning adapter- it is really hard to tell what the problem is but you gotta get a technician that knows cable cards and they have to be paired up properly (provisioned) with the Tivo. I have probably had 20 + service calls in the last year alone- the only good news is Charter is getting their own Tivos soon so you could get one of theirs and I am sure they would work better and probably without a need for a TA.


----------



## lylegoldstein

Forgive me for being a newbie. I relocated to Burbank CA with charter for the last 7 months. After having beyond ridiculous problems with the Moxi Box that charter offerered (missing premium channels - a reboot would solve the problem for a day and then would lose the channels) and after maybe 20 service calls, everyone said it was the moxi.

I decided to get the tivo premiere. The tech installed the TA (cisco) and tuning card and was not to knowledgeable (he said i would have no problems getting on demand from charter!), he left. 

On the first day, several premiums have froze with the messages (problem with signal...trying again and eventually channel is temporary unavailable). I have attempted to record several shows to find they are Partial recordings as well.

I am having another charter tech come out tomorrow. I have really know hope at this point. Does anyone have any suggestions? Had the same problems?

Thanks in advance?

Lyle


----------



## pops_porter

lylegoldstein said:


> Forgive me for being a newbie. I relocated to Burbank CA with charter for the last 7 months. After having beyond ridiculous problems with the Moxi Box that charter offerered (missing premium channels - a reboot would solve the problem for a day and then would lose the channels) and after maybe 20 service calls, everyone said it was the moxi.
> 
> I decided to get the tivo premiere. The tech installed the TA (cisco) and tuning card and was not to knowledgeable (he said i would have no problems getting on demand from charter!), he left.
> 
> On the first day, several premiums have froze with the messages (problem with signal...trying again and eventually channel is temporary unavailable). I have attempted to record several shows to find they are Partial recordings as well.
> 
> I am having another charter tech come out tomorrow. I have really know hope at this point. Does anyone have any suggestions? Had the same problems?
> 
> Thanks in advance?
> 
> Lyle


Have you been able to figure out if the problem channels are your channels that are the SDV channels? If so, the tunning adapter might not be working right so its not getting a signal for those channels. May need to just have charter reset the TA and you could be good.


----------



## lylegoldstein

Can't say if they are sdv channels are not. They are regularly Starz channels and smithhd as far I can tell. I have since switched out the TA for another. and had 2 other service calls. Still same problem.

The channel cannot "hold" the signal. It will be fine for 15-30 minutes up to the point I will get the problem acquiring signal message will occur and then will be lost. Checking the channel later, it sometimes comes back sometimes not.

Lyle


----------



## pops_porter

lylegoldstein said:


> Can't say if they are sdv channels are not. They are regularly Starz channels and smithhd as far I can tell. I have since switched out the TA for another. and had 2 other service calls. Still same problem.
> 
> The channel cannot "hold" the signal. It will be fine for 15-30 minutes up to the point I will get the problem acquiring signal message will occur and then will be lost. Checking the channel later, it sometimes comes back sometimes not.
> 
> Lyle


At first I thought maybe a bad tuning adapter, but my SDV channels are mostly HD channels. Is the singnal level and SNR good for your higher up channels?


----------



## tootal2

anyone else having problems with season passes not working? I have change or delete and make a new season pass to get to record shows.


----------



## coasterlb

It's a crap shoot and honestly sometimes hard to say what the actual problem is. It could be the cable signal, the Tivo, the cable card, tuning adapter or some combination of the 4. Sometimes I will reset the cable card/ tuning adapter by unplugging them and putting them back in. I was told not to do that because the cards loose the pairing to the Tivo unit but it seems to work when my Tivo starts "acting up". I tend to get back the stations I was missing and recorded shows don't seem to get chopped short.


----------



## KetAlabama

I was a 12 year Tivo user and made the mistake of switching to Uverse in Birmingham AL over frustration with the tuning adapter and dropping channels. I now know what I suspected - that Tivo's DVR usability and features are head and shoulders above everone else - and want to go back to using Tivo. Which means going back to Charter. 

I had an HD Tivo and would be upgrading to a Premiere XL or maybe Elite. I tried skimming the 12 pages of post on the topic of Charter and the Tuning Adapters. But wasn't too clear if anyone has observed better performance with the Premiere or Premiere Elite and the TAs vs the older HD Tivo (it was probably 3 years old and worked great until the great TA debacle)?

Or if in the few months I've been gone Charter has cleaned up their act? I really really want to go back to Tivo and am almost willing to put up with multiple service calls to do it.


----------



## jmbissell

I am in Greenville, SC and have had Charter w/ TiVo HD for over a year. Once they got the right technician out to set things up, I have had zero problems w/ the multi-card and TA. In fact, the Motorola TA and Charter's setup has proven to be much more reliable than what I had w/ a Cisco TA on TimeWarner in TX.
Of course, since service varies from area to area YMMV.

I, too, would consider upgrading to a Premiere but a monthly fee of $19.95 just seems too much of a premium over the $129 yearly fee I pay for the HD. I don't know why TiVo has priced the Premier service higher esp. since they are losing customers left/right.


----------



## KetAlabama

Yes that is high for sure. Which is why I am considering just going with the Elite and sucking it up and paying the lifetime service. Although am concerned if that means more cable cards (for 4 tuners) and thus more problems! 

But I do miss my Tivo...


----------



## dpw

I am a Tivo user in Alabaster and for the most part, i have not had any trouble with my TA's for my premiere or Tivo Series 3 HD using Charter. My only complaint is the lack of HD channels and because of SDV, i cannot get certain HD channels when i want them. I also have my premium channels blocked so i cannot utilize MRV and downloading to my laptop. 

The initial setup was a big pain but so far so good after 6 mos.


----------



## TracySMiller

Lots of problems with my Tivo Premiere set up here in Kingsport with Charter Cable. Two tech visits and I finally got the Cable Card working, and now I can get the non-SDV channels, but whenever I try to tune the SDV channels, which is the vast majority of the HD channels here, I get "Channel not authorized" message. 

My TA is a Cisco STA1520. It is giving the 8 blink, pause, 8 blink, pause, etc. Several chat sessions to Charter getting them to reset my TA didn't accomplish anything. I've tried multiple reboots of both Tivo and the TA. Anything else I can try before I ask them for another tech visit?


----------



## JosephB

So far 2 weeks in with two TAs on Charter in Birmingham, AL so good. I did have to go three rounds with the local office to get them to self-install my TA, but I think after the Charter HQ got involved, the local Birmingham office of Charter should be a little more customer friendly


----------



## TracySMiller

Well, they scheduled another tech visit this Thursday. Anything you guys think I should do or talk to them about other than just show him the blinking TA and the "Channel not Authorized" messages on the SDV channels. I did notice that when I went into the Tuning Adapter menus that on one of the screens it mentions "Authorized: No; OpStatus: Disabled", and I'm guessing it shouldn't say that.


----------



## lrhorer

TracySMiller said:


> My TA is a Cisco STA1520. It is giving the 8 blink, pause, 8 blink, pause, etc. Several chat sessions to Charter getting them to reset my TA didn't accomplish anything. I've tried multiple reboots of both Tivo and the TA. Anything else I can try before I ask them for another tech visit?


The 8 blinks I believe specifically means the TA is not authorized, and probably means it is entirely a problem on the account, but I suggest you check the RDC power level. A very high RDC power level (I think the max is either 54 or 56 dBmV) may indicate an upstream problem. If the level is below 54, then the upstream path is working.


----------



## TracySMiller

They got it working today, remotely. I KNEW there would be no need for another truck roll. Glad to avoid that. All channels up and running now, got pyTivo and Streambaby working like a charm, and all is good.


----------



## Speed Daemon

I just sent the Charter tech. away with a "thanks but no thanks" after he told me that I'd be having to find room (and more wall wart sockets) for two SDV boxes before I could even think of getting HD through Charter. That's the last straw.

I've been more than patient and accommodating with Charter. Unfortunately Charter has returned the favor by first refusing to provision CableCards on move-in on three or four time consuming visits, and now muddying the waters with the "mandatory STB" scam. So _adios_ Charter! I'll be enjoying my HD channels via satellite, getting far better Internet data rates (and a POTS phone line for emergencies) from the local DSL provider, and the far superior VoIP of Vonage.


----------



## swaredoc

TracySMiller said:


> They got it working today, remotely. I KNEW there would be no need for another truck roll. Glad to avoid that. All channels up and running now, got pyTivo and Streambaby working like a charm, and all is good.


Do you know what they did to get it working? I am having the same problem with my Tuner Adapter.


----------

