# Bolt not compatible with Cablevision?



## AutoDestruct (Oct 7, 2002)

So, I took the plunge tonight and picked up a CableCard and a Bolt. I am on Cablevision (Optimum Online).

After an hour on the phone with Cablevision talking with someone who had no idea what a CableCard was, I was able to get the card working with the Bolt. As soon as I saw video for a minute, we ended the call.

Then, I start getting messages indicating that my cablecard and host have been revoked. Though, sometimes I get channels with video, and sometimes it goes out again.

I call back to Optimum and get a different person. He tells me he has a service announcement in front of him indicating that the Tivo Bolt is not compatible with Cablevision. I argue a bit and say it just has to be compatible with the CableCard, that's why we have these things, and he is steadfast that the Bolt doesn't talk correctly to Cablevision's cards.

Anyone here using Cablevision? Any similar issues? Thanks!


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## shihanjimb (Dec 2, 2015)

I have been using the bolt with Cablevision on long Island since it's launch day and it was a pain to get working but has been fine since. I had to get a tech to come out who determined that the reason I had cable card issues was because the signal was not strong enough due to an old splitter and bad cable. He re ran everything and got me working

Sent from my STV100-1 using Tapatalk


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## sluciani (Apr 21, 2003)

Had a slight issue getting my cablecard activated with the Bolt. First tech I spoke to only asked me for the serial # and I got some channels, but not all. Second tech asked me for the "PKK" ID, Host ID and serial #. After entering those, 5 minutes later I was getting everything in my package.


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## moveandstore (Oct 17, 2015)

I am a Cablevision subscriber, and I have a TiVo Bolt. Coming from using a Premier that had a cablecard (which I gave away to one of my relatives which uses it for OTA - since it is Lifetime), it was a easy process for me.

What I did was to go to the Optimum Store and swapped out cable cards so that the pairing was easy. There is a dedicated specialist on the phone (that is supposed to deal with cablecard issues) who helped me with the process. I called late at night, though. They suggested (since the store is closer to me) that I swap cards so there would be no issues pairing. It was painless, and in about 15 or so minutes I was up and running. No problems.

The only gripe that I have is that Optimum regrouped their channel line up to remove the redundancies from the SD channels & the HD channels. In other words, Channels 2 to 200 are all the entertainment channels. If you have a Samsung or a SA box, when you turn to Channel 2 (CBS), it is now in HD instead of SD. On the TiVo it is Channel 702. The 201 to 300 ranges are pretty much all sports programming. The 300 to 400 ranges are all the premium movie channels. I called Optimum and they said that all cablecard users will still be in the 700 - 850 channel range to get HD programming, and wouldn't be remapped in the near future. But strangely, some of the HD channels are in the 100 range - which was moved from the 700 range, like Velocity (HD) which was on 727 is now on 150. That's weird, because they could (in theory) move the rest of the channels to match the cable boxes. That is much more convenient.


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## AutoDestruct (Oct 7, 2002)

Thanks! I'll try following up with them again. From the two calls I made, they didn't seem to have a CableCard specialist.

BTW, is there an easy way with the Bolt to specify only HD channels? Or do I have to go through the list and manually pick them (ugh). I also didn't see any way to rescan for the channels - I was hoping it would provide an HD only option.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

You can select the channels fairly quickly. I can select five or six channels every second so it only takes a few minutes for me to de-select the hundreds of SD channels on FiOS. Or select the 150+ HD channels on FiOS,


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Removing them is best. Use the channel list for the easy ones and then the guide for fine-tuning.


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## DavidSTiVo (Jul 23, 2001)

Another Long Island TiVo Bolt owner here. Well, actually mine is out for delivery today.

Can I simply remove the CableCard from my Premiere box and install it in my Bolt? Does the card need to be swapped out, or can it be reconfigured over the phone with Cablevision?


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

DavidSTiVo said:


> Another Long Island TiVo Bolt owner here. Well, actually mine is out for delivery today.
> 
> Can I simply remove the CableCard from my Premiere box and install it in my Bolt? Does the card need to be swapped out, or can it be reconfigured over the phone with Cablevision?


Should work over the phone. But they can screw up unpairing from the old box so that it won't pair with the new one. So a card swap is more foolproof.


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## floorabove (Oct 26, 2015)

Question for the LINY optimum customers:

What is the monthly charge for the card?

And do the ridiculous box and remote rental fees go away if you are using Tivo?


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## Robbo1 (Oct 31, 2015)

For CT Cablevision, it's $2 per month for the card and the equipment rental fees go away when you return the box and remote. It is possible you get charged an "additional outlet" fee of $5 per month if you have more than 1 box (cable card or traditional STB) connected, but you might already be paying that. 

I will be replacing 3 SA8300HD DVRs with a Bolt+2 minis, which will save me $720 per year in equipment rental/service fees.


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## Robbo1 (Oct 31, 2015)

So got my new Bolt set up last night. It took about 40 minutes after plugging it in to update the Cablecard firmware before the cablecard activation screen popped up. Called Cablevision about 10:45PM and asked to speak to a Level 2 Cablecard specialist to bind a cable card. The CSR said she didn't need to transfer me and she would help me. She said she had to check some things on my account (and make sure I was being billed properly) and then walked through a checklist of a few questions -- Host #, device type, etc. Lo and behold in 10 minutes the Bolt was getting signals from both basic and premium channels. Way easier and quicker than I was expecting it be.


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## Robbo1 (Oct 31, 2015)

I had a problem over the weekend with channels 830 and 840 (Cinemax and TMC) having v52 errors. Following recommendations from other posts (citing problems with Cablevision and those specific channels), I unplugged the Bolt and re-seated the cable card. Afterwords I actually started getting v52 errors on more channels and pixelization on HBO and SHO. Turns out while dealing with the cable card, the coax connection came loose. Once I fixed that, all channels came in fine.


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## driverseven (Oct 11, 2007)

I've had 2 Tivo Series 3 HD boxes working with Optimum for 7 years and I remember the hassles I went through when I first set them up.

In the end, we determined the problem was the signal was too weak for one of the cable cards due to a long run inside the house. They ran a second line to my house from the street, and everything finally worked fine... that is, until a few weeks ago when one of the Tivo units died. 

I switched to the Cablevision DVR and a Google Chromecast for Nextflix. After a few weeks, I'm considering going back to Tivo -- it was such a better interface.

But it's not encouraging to hear that cable card installation problems still exist. I was hoping to be able to pick up a card and install myself. It's not clear if that would work.

One other nice feature that it appears only works with the Optimum DVR is OnDemand -- by any chance, is that supported in the Bolt?


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## razor237 (Feb 1, 2002)

Im central NJ, I Have two Roamio Pro's and now a bolt with the cable card from a Tivo Premiere took two calls, the first call they didn't unbind the card correctly and it appeared to work, i knew it would stop after a day since it was too quick on the phone. but a second call the next day got it up and working just fine. just had to have them vfy the serial number and host/ cable card id to me and once they saw that it was incorrect they did a full unbind and rebind to the correct Host id and then had to send a reset signal to the card and everything was up and running correctly now. 

I too had a tivo series 3 that took two S-Cards and boy was that a pain in the butt to get working , back in the day it was tech visits only took 3 of them and 6 cards with there high tier support to get the thing working but they did get it going and worked for years


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## Robbo1 (Oct 31, 2015)

Per my post #12 above, my experience went surprisingly smoothly (10 minutes on the phone with a CSR at 11PM). You just have to go to the Optimum store and pick up a new Cablecard first.

No Optimum OnDemand availability on the Bolt and have not heard anything about it being worked on.


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## driverseven (Oct 11, 2007)

Thanks for letting me know you were able to do a phone install of the Bolt cable cards. I really did not want to go thru that again.

So for me, it is coming down a choice between the Tivo interface vs. On Demand. It is nice to have On Demand -- old series on Showtime, especially. But it is ridiculous that you have to pay extra for HBO


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

driverseven said:


> Thanks for letting me know you were able to do a phone install of the Bolt cable cards. I really did not want to go thru that again.
> 
> So for me, it is coming down a choice between the Tivo interface vs. On Demand. It is nice to have On Demand -- old series on Showtime, especially. But it is ridiculous that you have to pay extra for HBO


If you have HBO and Showtime as part of your cable package, don't you get access to HBOGO and ShowtimeAnytime for free? If so, you can just get a Roku and then have access to all of the HBO and Showtime content on demand.


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## Robbo1 (Oct 31, 2015)

tarheelblue32 said:


> If you have HBO and Showtime as part of your cable package, don't you get access to HBOGO and ShowtimeAnytime for free? If so, you can just get a Roku and then have access to all of the HBO and Showtime content on demand.


You should be able to get HBOGo and ShowtimeAnytime which have much deeper catalogs than whats available on the respective OnDemand channels on your existing Chromecast.

There is some buzz that an HBOGo Tivo App is imminent and I would imagine SHO would not be far behind, but as of now both are vaporware.


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## driverseven (Oct 11, 2007)

I get access to HBOgo with an Optimum login but that's useful only for my computer. Not the big screen TV.

So then its Roku + Bolt. The goal of going with Tivo is to have that nice elegant interface back. And being able to have Netflix and Amazon Prime is a nice selling point. We used to watch Amazon on Tivo until it went away


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

driverseven said:


> I get access to HBOgo with an Optimum login but that's useful only for my computer. Not the big screen TV.
> 
> So then its Roku + Bolt. The goal of going with Tivo is to have that nice elegant interface back. And being able to have Netflix and Amazon Prime is a nice selling point. We used to watch Amazon on Tivo until it went away


David Zatz had pretty good info that TiVo had a HBOgo app coming soon.

http://zatznotfunny.com/2015-12/tivo-hbo-go/

Hopefully stuff will start to break after we get past the Holidays and CES 2016.


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## HobokenSkier (Oct 14, 2015)

driverseven said:


> Thanks for letting me know you were able to do a phone install of the Bolt cable cards. I really did not want to go thru that again.
> 
> So for me, it is coming down a choice between the Tivo interface vs. On Demand. It is nice to have On Demand -- old series on Showtime, especially. But it is ridiculous that you have to pay extra for HBO


Similar here lose TWC on demand but with VUDU for movies and tv (on the Roamio/Bolt) or an Apple tv or Roku and Netflix and Amazon I have great snappy alternatives.


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## Robbo1 (Oct 31, 2015)

Kindle Fire TV is another option for HBO/SHO. And once those are native on the TiVo, you can move the Firestick to a TV in another room and use the FireTV TiVo app to stream recorded content from your TiVo (as a mini-lite).


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## driverseven (Oct 11, 2007)

I have to wonder if an HBO Tivo app will be free to people who are already subscribing to HBO thru their cable provider. Its a valid question since Cablevision customers need to to pay another $5/month to access HBO On Demand thru the Optimum settop box.

The other premium channels -- Sho, Starz and Encore On Demand -- are available on the settop box at no charge -- only HBO requires the extra fee.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

driverseven said:


> I have to wonder if an HBO Tivo app will be free to people who are already subscribing to HBO thru their cable provider. Its a valid question since Cablevision customers need to to pay another $5/month to access HBO On Demand thru the Optimum settop box.
> 
> The other premium channels -- Sho, Starz and Encore On Demand -- are available on the settop box at no charge -- only HBO requires the extra fee.


HBO Go has always been free to all HBO subscribers.


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## Robbo1 (Oct 31, 2015)

mdavej said:


> HBO Go has always been free to all HBO subscribers.


Although the cable companies can choose which devices they allow subscribers to access HBOGo on.

Comcast subs were unable to access HBOGo on Roku and Firestick devices for months and I believe still do not allow access via PlayStation.

Cablevision has (so far) been pretty device-friendly.


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## Kev639 (Mar 15, 2006)

I have been asked by my Mom to setup a new Tivo Bolt and 3 Minis for her at her new condo in Clifton, NJ - I'm from PA and have Comcast, so I am hoping some of you can help me with Cablevision - I know I will need to get a CableCard but the CV website talks about "Tuning Adaptor"? Does Mom need one of them too? 

Thanks in advance
Kevin


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## TeamPace (Oct 23, 2013)

Kev639 said:


> I have been asked by my Mom to setup a new Tivo Bolt and 3 Minis for her at her new condo in Clifton, NJ - I'm from PA and have Comcast, so I am hoping some of you can help me with Cablevision - I know I will need to get a CableCard but the CV website talks about "Tuning Adaptor"? Does Mom need one of them too?
> 
> Thanks in advance
> Kevin


I'm not familiar with Cable Vision, but I just set a BOLT on Time Warner and it did require both a cable card and a tuning adapter. If their site talks about needing one, you likely will. It may depend on rather CV is using the technology in your area for switched video. I'd tell you to ask the local cable co. but sometimes they aren't very knowledgeable. You may need to call a cable card hotline if they have one to get their advice. If you are picking up a cablecard locally then I would get the tuning adapter anyway. That way when you are setting things up you'll have it if you need it.


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## driverseven (Oct 11, 2007)

A few years ago I tried a tuning adapter from Cablevision and it did nothing.

My situation back then is that I had 2 TiVo HD units but we weren't getting all of the premium channels. i went thru the diagnostic on TiVo and saw that signal strength was weak on some channels. tHe tuning adapters made no difference.

The solution was for Cablevision to run a second line from the pole into my house -- the runs to each of the TiVo units inside the house was very long and after the split the signal was degrading too much.

Once the extra line was installed, I had no more problems and never used the tuning adapter.

There was no charge for this, by the way.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

A tuning adapter doesn't improve weak signals; it allows less used channels to share bandwidth so that your cable company can put more channels in its lineup. Without a tuning adapter you won't be able to receive any SDV channels; but usually these are the less popular channels so you might not care. On Time Warner Cable where I live the only SDV channel that I care to watch is the Sundance channel.

I remember seeing a thread where Cablevision customers were dealing with tuning adapters, so they probably apply to your situation.


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## pbug56 (Jan 27, 2008)

Does anyone know if Cablevision ever fixed the cable card 6 tuner problem? We've been stuck with using only 4 tuners since we got that TIVO.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

pbug56 said:


> Does anyone know if Cablevision ever fixed the cable card 6 tuner problem? We've been stuck with using only 4 tuners since we got that TIVO.


I was able to help a friend install Roamio Pro and all 6 tuners worked.

This was using an M-Card with NDS s/w version 3.92.17 Oct 07 2014 23:30:47


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## driverseven (Oct 11, 2007)

If you have a Bolt (the white unit) it has only 4 tuners.

You need a Bolt + (black) to get 6.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

driverseven said:


> If you have a Bolt (the white unit) it has only 4 tuners.
> 
> You need a Bolt + (black) to get 6.


I think he is talking about this problem:
Roamio Pro with Cablevision 4 tuner max M Card


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

pbug56 said:


> Does anyone know if Cablevision ever fixed the cable card 6 tuner problem? We've been stuck with using only 4 tuners since we got that TIVO.


This TiVo post lists the firmware versions needed for various M-Cards to support the 6-tuners in the TiVos.
https://support.tivo.com/articles/Troubleshooting/CableCARD-Not-all-tuners-are-working


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