# Clear QAM on a new Bolt?



## stormtech (Mar 18, 2008)

I am very interested in doing the upgrade from my Premier with “all in” or lifetime package to the Bolt with the current promotion going on.

On my Premier I get 25 clear qam stations in beautiful HD.

I realize that the Tivo gets no guide data and the consequenses of that. My reason for upgrading is to future proof myself in case I want to upgrade and get the cable company’s cable card in the future. Right now I use it just for live TV - I use Hulu and CBS All Access (both commercial free) to watch what we want on demand instead of recording on the Tivo.

In my forum search I saw that a certain recent software upgrade for the Bolt will allow Clear QAM tuning but in the threads that I read nobody seemed to verify that it actually worked. Somethng about the Bolt not having the ability to do a channel scan?

Could somone please verify if I can get these 25 Clear QAM channels on the Bolt the same as I do now with my Premier unit?

Thanks!


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

stormtech said:


> In my forum search I saw that a certain recent software upgrade for the Bolt will allow Clear QAM tuning but in the threads that I read nobody seemed to verify that it actually worked. Somethng about the Bolt not having the ability to do a channel scan?
> 
> Could somone please verify if I can get these 25 Clear QAM channels on the Bolt the same as I do now with my Premier unit?


I can't say for sure but I believe if you pick the cable provider but don't use/insert a CableCARD it let's you do a channel scan, but if you have CableCARD installed you aren't given the option to do a scan. The tuner has the ability to tune any QAM channel, clear or encrypted, but sometimes clearQAM channels will have their physical frequencies moved around by the provider, which will require a re-scan. Because some channels use PSIP to map physical frequencies to virtual channel #s, after the rescan, the channel number displayed is the same, even though the physical frequency changed, so that confuses users into thinking the channel never moved, so why can't TiVo tune it.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

sfhub said:


> I can't say for sure but I believe if you pick the cable provider but don't use/insert a CableCARD it let's you do a channel scan, but if you have CableCARD installed you aren't given the option to do a scan.


That's the real issue. If you have a cable card installed in any TiVo a channel scan is not possible. The option is there, but selection gives an error. If I had a Bolt, it would be a real hard decision to pull that card just to test that option. I do have a Premiere without a cable card, and two Roamio with a cable card. I have one clear QAM channel and five analog (vsb) channels. I used a Sony DHG with a clear QAM system for a few years and no cable card. No guide either. And no mapping of channels since my cable feed used four digit channel numbers. To promise that a Bolt without a cable card can run a channel scan is not something I can do. But TiVo says it should work.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

JoeKustra said:


> That's the real issue. If you have a cable card installed in any TiVo a channel scan is not possible. The option is there, but selection gives an error. If I had a Bolt


To be more clear, I did verify it scans on Roamio Pro using 20.7.2.RC24. The part where I can't say for sure is on Bolt, which I didn't personally try.
TiVo Bolt without Cablecard at USC


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

sfhub said:


> To be more clear, I did verify it scans on Roamio Pro using 20.7.2.RC24. The part where I can't say for sure is on Bolt, which I didn't personally try.
> TiVo Bolt without Cablecard at USC


Ok, I tried this on a Bolt 500GB running 20.7.2.RC24

WITH CableCARD
Settings&Messages->Channel Settings
Channel List
Cable Signal Strength

withOUT CableCARD (withOUT re-running guided setup)
Settings&Messages->Channel Settings
Channel List
Cable Signal Strength
[Cable Scan]

Select [Cable Scan]

Cable Channel Scan: Notice
Would you like to scan for new channels?
While this process completes, any recordings scheduled to start
will be cancelled and networked devices that use this TiVo box will
be unable to watch live TV.
[Scan for new cable channels]
Go back

Select [Scan for new cable channels]

Proceeds to scan for new channels with a progress bar


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## stormtech (Mar 18, 2008)

sfhub said:


> Ok, I tried this on a Bolt 500GB running 20.7.2.RC24
> 
> WITH CableCARD
> Settings&Messages->Channel Settings
> ...


Oh man - thank you so much!!

Now that you have verified it for me for real I know what to do.

Sweet Karma coming your way!


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