# Charter Letter Today - Tuning Adapter



## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

Today I received a letter from Charter saying Tivo customers in my area need to call them to receive information on obtaining a Tuning Adapter. 

I'm not very pleased about all this because I finally have other devices working perfectly with my Series 3 and I'm afraid it will all get messed up with a Tuning Adapter in the loop. Plus I really don't want another device adding to my electric bill, nor do I have an open outlet for it. I currently have 10 devices sharing one outlet via a UPS.

Am I over reacting?


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

You have no choice if you want to continue accessing your channels. Setup is mostly painless. They usually offer the tuning adapters about a month before they flip the switch so you should go ahead and schedule it so they can get it properly activated.


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

Well obviously I have no choice. They said beginning on or after July 15th it will occur. I am hoping they will let me install the tuning adapter myself and not have me waste a day waiting for one of their service idiots come to my house. 

I got my Series 3 Tivo so I would only have one box, instead of two and reduce my monthly Charter bill. Now I'm back to having two boxes again. And if I need more than one Tuning Adapter (for my other Tivo's), they will charge me.

I swear I am that close to canceling cable TV and going totally OTA or through the Internet. Used to be cable TV made it easy and inexpensive. I remember cable TV being like $12 a month with HBO. But not anymore!


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## brewman (Jun 29, 2003)

I'm with Charter and have had TA's active on my 4 TiVos for about 3 months, and while they generally work there are instances where I'll get an "unable to access channel" message for a short period of time. I'm fairly certain they'll want to send a tech to install the TA.


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

The tuning adapters are free and the install is free. The only thing i hate about the tuning adapter is that all my tivo sugestions stop about 1 week after charter installed them.



Resist said:


> Today I received a letter from Charter saying Tivo customers in my area need to call them to receive information on obtaining a Tuning Adapter.
> 
> I'm not very pleased about all this because I finally have other devices working perfectly with my Series 3 and I'm afraid it will all get messed up with a Tuning Adapter in the loop. Plus I really don't want another device adding to my electric bill, nor do I have an open outlet for it. I currently have 10 devices sharing one outlet via a UPS.
> 
> Am I over reacting?


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## Stuxnet (Feb 9, 2011)

tootal2 said:


> The tuning adapters are free and the install is free. The only thing i hate about the tuning adapter is that all my tivo sugestions stop about 1 week after charter installed them.


That's odd... I have 400+ suggestions... all w/TA installed. Maybe you should turn off "suggestions" reboot and then turn them back on (that's my Windows mentality at work - yes, I know TiVo isn't Windows.... it's something much worse, lol).


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

tootal2 said:


> The tuning adapters are free and the install is free. The only thing i hate about the tuning adapter is that all my tivo sugestions stop about 1 week after charter installed them.





Stuxnet said:


> That's odd... I have 400+ suggestions... all w/TA installed. Maybe you should turn off "suggestions" reboot and then turn them back on (that's my Windows mentality at work - yes, I know TiVo isn't Windows.... it's something much worse, lol).


It may depend on your provider and/or location. I believe some providers/locations prevent tuning of SDV channels for "unsolicited" selections, such as a TiVo Suggestion. I gave up cable digital television service awhile back in a cost-cutting effort, but I may be moving to a Charter provided area in the very near future, so I'm checking out relevant Charter threads here in TCF.

Not to veer too far off-topic, are you generally satisfied with Charter's service, quality, and pricing?


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## brewman (Jun 29, 2003)

tootal2 said:


> The tuning adapters are free and the install is free. The only thing i hate about the tuning adapter is that all my tivo sugestions stop about 1 week after charter installed them.


Here in Gwinnett County,GA the TA install was not free.


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## au_en_bear (Nov 11, 2003)

It is supposed to be free. I had the same problem in that there was a service call on my next bill after the TA was installed. Call CS and tell them you expect to get a credit for it. Worked for me.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Charter sent me a similar letter about a year ago, with a hard deadline of July 15th just like yours. I called immediately and setup an install. They came and installed them around the 1st of July and they just sat doing nothing for the next 4 months. Finally I said f*ck it and unplugged them. I figured when/if they ever flipped the switch I'd just plug them back in. Well they finally flipped the switch... yesterday morning.

My point is.. don't rush. Even without them the only channels I lose are some obscure digital channels and a few of the secondary premium channels. (i.e. Max Action, Starz Romance, etc...)

Dan


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## Ennui (Sep 2, 2008)

Cox here went to TA's early this year. I have three on my TiVo's (one Premier and two HD's) The TA's came with instructions and did not require a service truck roll, just a phone call. The TA's should be free. They are entirely for the benefit of the cable company. They provide no benefit for the end user.


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## Stuxnet (Feb 9, 2011)

Dan203 said:


> My point is.. don't rush. Even without them the only channels I lose are some obscure digital channels and a few of the secondary premium channels. (i.e. Max Action, Starz Romance, etc...)


Same here... Basically the low traffic channels, otherwise they'd be on 24/7, defeating the premise of SDV implementation. Of course if the low traffic channel happens to be your favorite, then you'll need the TA.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

Stuxnet said:


> That's odd... I have 400+ suggestions... all w/TA installed. Maybe you should turn off "suggestions" reboot and then turn them back on (that's my Windows mentality at work - yes, I know TiVo isn't Windows.... it's something much worse, lol).


Suggestions can be disabled by the head end. It is a part of the tuning adapter protocol to tell it the priority of the request. And the head end can deny it for suggestions. It sounds like a misconfiguration though. Otherwise the cable company must have way too many people on that node.


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## Stuxnet (Feb 9, 2011)

orangeboy said:


> I believe some providers/locations prevent tuning of SDV channels for "unsolicited" selections, such as a TiVo Suggestion.





rainwater said:


> Suggestions can be disabled by the head end.


Why would the cable provider know it was the TiVo pressing the record button, versus me?


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

tootal2 said:


> The tuning adapters are free and the install is free. The only thing i hate about the tuning adapter is that all my tivo sugestions stop about 1 week after charter installed them.


Yes I know the tuning adapter and installation is free, but the electricity to power it isn't. One reason why I like having cablecards is because then I don't have Charter boxes taking up shelf space and eating my electricity. Not mention it's just another box that can fail.

They are installing the tuning adapter on Monday. But because tuning adapters are new to my area, I anticipate the Charter tech that shows up probably won't know what he's doing and I'll have to school him.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Resist said:


> nor do I have an open outlet for it.


I just bought a one of these for each TiVo...

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10228&cs_id=1022808&p_id=5308&seq=1&format=2

and plugged both into my UPS. I figure the TiVo isn't much good running off UPS power if it can't tune the proper channel.

Dan


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> I just bought a one of these for each TiVo...
> 
> http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10228&cs_id=1022808&p_id=5308&seq=1&format=2


Never a good idea to have more plugs going into what a UPS is rated for. Not a big deal if those devices aren't on all the time, but my UPS has 8 outlets and the devices are on most of the time. That wall has only one electrical outlet to power my TV, surround sound receiver, sub woofer, cable modem, wireless router, Tivo, Slingbox, Ooma, wireless telephone base, XBox and Wii.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Your UPS is rated for a certain VA rating. As long as you don't exceed that rating you're fine. It doesn't matter how much you pull on an individual outlet. The TiVo and tuning adapter combined only pull about 70 watts.

Now whether or not your particular UPS can handle it depends on it's VA rating. I personally have a 1500VA UPS which runs three S3 TiVos, one S2 TiVo, three tuning adapters, a cable box, two eSATA expansion drives and a cable amplifier. I've test run it on battery and it lasts almost 2 hours.

Dan


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> I've test run it on battery and it lasts almost 2 hours.


You have a better UPS than I do. Mine only lasts about 30 minutes on battery, just enough time to shut things down properly.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

I have an even smaller UPS. It is to guard against brief power interruptions. For what I believe may be longer term outages, I turn the UPS off.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I actually have two 1500VA UPSes. The other one runs the TV, HT system and wireless network. We don't get a lot of outages here, so they're mainly to prevent things from going wonky during those little flashes, but I've had a few instances where I've continued to watch TV for a while during an extended outage.

Dan


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

Either way, I don't have enough outlets, unless I add another UPS. Don't really want to do this because one UPS draws enough power, so two would be an even great power draw. All this little stuff eating electricity, ends up being a bid deal at the end of the month on my electric bill. One reason why I'm not happy about getting a Tuning Adapter, as I don't need one more box using power.


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

I just got a call from the Charter service tech, he said he would be a little late as he had to pickup some M-cablecards. I then asked, to be sure that he was installing the tuning adapter (which was the reason for the service call). His response was, "Tuning adapter? I'm not familiar with that". 

I have no words to describe my frustration with charter right now.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yikes.

Dan


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

Here it is 4:30pm and my service call was for 1-3pm and the tech still hasn't shown up. He had called me around 2:50pm and said he would be here in 5 minutes. When he never showed, I called Charter and they are now giving me the on time guarantee credit, plus some. Nothing is getting done today so I rescheduled for Wednesday.

Bad enough that Charter makes me wait around with a 2 hour window for the appointment. But then when the tech calls and says he's minutes out, yet doesn't show and doesn't bother to call me back, that's just adding salt to the wound.


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## viaumaster (Jun 22, 2011)

Charter is here right now with TA #2. Can't get either adapter to lock in on signal. Since the last install they've replaced something on the pole, replaced something in the outside box, replaced a splitter in my basement, replaced the ends on my old cable, ran a new line to my TiVo, and done a lot of head scratching. He just installed an in-house amp (whatever that is) even though they "try to avoid" using in-house amps. Still the light is blinking, mocking him unmercilessly. LOL


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

viaumaster said:


> Charter is here right now with TA #2. Can't get either adapter to lock in on signal. Since the last install they've replaced something on the pole, replaced something in the outside box, replaced a splitter in my basement, replaced the ends on my old cable, ran a new line to my TiVo, and done a lot of head scratching. He just installed an in-house amp (whatever that is) even though they "try to avoid" using in-house amps. Still the light is blinking, mocking him unmercilessly. LOL


Did he run a splitter to the TA and to the TiVo? Charter's official setup is to use this method instead of using the cable out of the tuner to the TiVo.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Resist said:


> ... I remember cable TV being like $12 a month with HBO. But not anymore!


Then you're obviously ancient like me!


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> Charter sent me a similar letter about a year ago, with a hard deadline of July 15th just like yours. I called immediately and setup an install. They came and installed them around the 1st of July and they just sat doing nothing for the next 4 months. Finally I said f*ck it and unplugged them. I figured when/if they ever flipped the switch I'd just plug them back in. Well they finally flipped the switch... yesterday morning.
> 
> My point is.. don't rush. Even without them the only channels I lose are some obscure digital channels and a few of the secondary premium channels. (i.e. Max Action, Starz Romance, etc...)


YMMV, and it depends a lot on the CATV system's growth plans. Here in San Antonio, it was more than a year and a half after SDV was deployed that the TA first came available (the second city anywhere in the U.S. where the TA was deployed). Meanwhile, TWC had added well over a dozen channels, all of which were SDV. Probably half the things that get recorded, or more, are SDV here in my house. AMCHD, TCMHD, several of the Starz, HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime HD channels, Discovery HD, TBSHD, USAHD, UHD, and quite a few others are all SDV.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Resist said:


> Today I received a letter from Charter saying Tivo customers in my area need to call them to receive information on obtaining a Tuning Adapter.
> 
> I'm not very pleased about all this because I finally have other devices working perfectly with my Series 3 and I'm afraid it will all get messed up with a Tuning Adapter in the loop.


Not so much. The TAs are not perfectly stable - they tend to lock up every few weeks or so, but rebooting them is easy. Most commonly, all that happens is you will lose your SDV channels. Occasionally, the TiVo may also need to be rebooted.



Resist said:


> Plus I really don't want another device adding to my electric bill


The TA's power consumption is minuscule. A few cents a month, at most.



Resist said:


> nor do I have an open outlet for it. I currently have 10 devices sharing one outlet via a UPS.


That's another matter. 'Sounds like you will need to get a power strip.



Resist said:


> Am I over reacting?


A bit, perhaps. I understand your distaste for the additional box and additional plumbing, though.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Resist said:


> I remember cable TV being like $12 a month with HBO. But not anymore!


Discounting the internet portion of my bill I still pay 10x that just for the TV part. And that's with a 2 year commitment discount. Without the commitment I'd be paying another $30/mo.

Dan


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

> The TAs are not perfectly stable - they tend to lock up every few weeks or so, but rebooting them is easy. Most commonly, all that happens is you will lose your SDV channels. Occasionally, the TiVo may also need to be rebooted.


If they have to be rebooted this much then it sounds like they are not stable.



> The TA's power consumption is minuscule. A few cents a month, at most.


Alone it's not much this is true, but I have many other energy vampire devices. So the Tuning Adapter just adds to the pot, making my electric bill that much larger.



> That's another matter. 'Sounds like you will need to get a power strip.


I already have a power strip, plus the UPS.


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

So another tech arrived today to install the Tuning Adapter. True to form he know nothing about a Tuning Adapter and after making some calls was told my area was not getting them yet. I had to explain to the tech what the Tuning Adapter is and what it does......freaking amazing! 

Pretty stupid of Charter to send me the letter saying I had to call and schedule the installation, yet my area doesn't have them to install.

Since this was the second day this week where I had to make arrangements to be home and nothing was done I called Charter support to complain. They took my information and gave me another credit. So at least that was something.


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## pbcanney (Mar 31, 2011)

ok. my 1st post.

I have an S1, an S2, a Premiere and a 2nd coming this week. 

I've also worked in the cable industry since 1985 (save for a 3 year respit with Echostar (Dish) from 97-99) I started as a tech and now.. much bigger important position with a desk and everything. 

I'm not a cable know it all. I joined here because although I get all my service comp, I just love the heck out of my Tivo's.

Needing a tuning adapter is good news. That means your cable company is going to SDV. Which is how we're getting 150 HD channels in my area. Gone are the days of $12 cable. $12/month was also the period of (up to) 36 channels. Whooppeeeee.....

The power supply for the Cisco tuning adapter is a 12v 1.2a power supply. yes.. pennies a month. But a T/A is needed for your 1 way Tivo/Cablecard paired combo to become two way. To send a request to select a channel (read as video stream). 

The main thing to keep in mind with 'troublesome' TA's and CC's is digital service requires a good (really really GOOD) cable service coming from the street to the set. The DIY connector repair crimped with garden variey pliers that would have worked back in the analog days aint gonna cut it anymore. Nor the splitter off the splitter off the splitter line runs. There should be ONE multi outlet splitter where the drop hits your house and seperate lines run to each device (tv or modem) from that splitter.

oh and "hi" I'm new here


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

orangeboy said:


> It may depend on your provider and/or location. I believe some providers/locations prevent tuning of SDV channels for "unsolicited" selections, such as a TiVo Suggestion.


The TA spec does call for the device to differentiate betweeen "demand" tuning requests and "speculative" tuning requests when submitting a request to the headend. While it would be definitely possible to simply set the hosts to unilaterally deny all speculative tuning requests, there have been no confirmed instances of a CATV system doing that. To my knowledge, all the cases where attaching the TA has been observed to eliminate all or nearly all Suggestions seem to be due to some bug, probably one in the TiVo.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Resist said:


> If they have to be rebooted this much then it sounds like they are not stable.


I thought I just said that. Expect to have to reboot or at least detach and re-attach the TA every six to eight weeks or so.



Resist said:


> Alone it's not much this is true, but I have many other energy vampire devices. So the Tuning Adapter just adds to the pot, making my electric bill that much larger.


It's even smaller compared to the rest of your bill. I have no doubt. If this functionality were to be included in the TiVo, it would increase its power consumption by about the same amount. It's not like you can get around the need for using the power.



Resist said:


> I already have a power strip, plus the UPS.


OK, so another one, or a larger one.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

pbcanney said:


> Nor the splitter off the splitter off the splitter line runs. There should be ONE multi outlet splitter where the drop hits your house and seperate lines run to each device (tv or modem) from that splitter.


That's not really practical in all scenarios. I have 4 TiVos in the living room, 3 of which are HD units requiring TA. I also have a cable modem up stairs in the office. So for me I'd need 8 lines coming out of the box on the side of the house and all of them would have to run 50'+ to their respective rooms. Not to mention that I'd some how need to get 7 of them to poke out of the wall in my living room. Instead I run one line from the box to two way splitter in a central location under the house. One leg goes up stairs the other to the living room. In the living room I have a 6 way splitter, with one output capped, 4 legs go to my TiVos the 5th is then split again 3 ways to feed the tuning adapters. I use an inline amplifier on the leg between the initial 2 way split and the living room to boost the signal enough that I get 90%+ signal strength on all of my digital channels according to my TiVo.

Dan


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## bensonr2 (Feb 4, 2011)

pbcanney said:


> ok. my 1st post.
> 
> I have an S1, an S2, a Premiere and a 2nd coming this week.
> 
> ...


Tuning adapters and SDV I don't feel are a good thing. I disconnected my TA a couple weeks after connecting it. It rarely needs to reboot but the problem is when it does reboot Tivo freaks out. You have to take action to ok the connecting of the tuning adapter. It happened to me rarely but it was super annoying never knowing if this might interrupt the recording of a show.

Luckily I discovered at least on my cable system that there weren't any important channels on SDV so I could live without it.

On Cablevision pretty much the only channels on SDV are the international channels, ie Indian, Chinese, Mexican etc language channels. And a handful of HD movie channels such as HBO Comedy. But the most popular HBO and Showtime channels were not on SDV.

The problem with SDV is if its a popular channel there is no reason to have it be on SDV because there will always be customers requesting that channel.

I have my TA adapter connected via coax to the Tivo but with the usb unplugged. The usb cable sits there ready for me to plug in if I ever discover there is a program on an SDV channel I want to watch. In 6 months I have never plugged it in fyi.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I'm hoping my local cable company uses SDV to offer more HD channels. As it is right now we haven't got a new HD channel in our lineup in almost 3 years.

If they added Comedy Central, MSNBC, A&E and FX then I would be able to get everything I watch in HD.

Dan


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

pbcanney said:


> ...
> Needing a tuning adapter is good news.


Not for all of us. Especially those of us who have analog SD equipment that works fine and changes channels when you push the button and not when it gets around to it, assuming it can find it and decides that it's "availible at this time" (recently had a "digital" cable box to play with--what a waste of silicon and steel. )



> That means your cable company is going to SDV. Which is how we're getting 150 HD channels in my area.


And if the shrinking percentage of analog cable channels that aren't worthless crap is anything to go by...



> Gone are the days of $12 cable. $12/month was also the period of (up to) 36 channels. Whooppeeeee.....


 Some of those 36 were scrambled pay channels, and some were left empty, some were "shopping channels", and many were a few hours of programming and the rest of the day's 24 hours were sold to people running infomercials, and of course as soon as "cable ready" TVs and VCRs that could tune those 36 channels without one having to pay extra for cable box rental became widely availible, popular channels like CNN were moved up above 36.

Cable companies finding new ways to screw us may be "progress", but that doesn't make it improvement.



> oh and "hi" I'm new here


Greetings and welcome.


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

bensonr2 said:


> ...it was super annoying never knowing if this might interrupt the recording of a show.


I don't know if that should be much of a concern. Once the channel is tuned, I would think the TA sits idle until the next SDV channel is requested. I have nothing to base this on; I gave back my cisco 1520 when I dropped cable awhile back.



bensonr2 said:


> The problem with SDV is if its a popular channel there is no reason to have it be on SDV because there will always be customers requesting that channel.


I don't know if I agree with that. If a system were 100% SDV, that would free up tons of bandwidth. For example, there could be a bunch of new children's programming on during the daytime if "popular" channels like HBO weren't provided as linear channels, which are probably NOT viewed during that time. Cartoons take a lot less bandwidth than high-motion live programming, because of mostly static backgrounds.

Perhaps lrhorer could set me straight here, but I'm wondering if SDV can be controlled at the distribution level as well. In other words, would someone on the East side of town be able to tune an SDV channel (without a TA) that was requested by some that requested that channel on the West side of town?


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

orangeboy said:


> I don't know if that should be much of a concern. Once the channel is tuned, I would think the TA sits idle until the next SDV channel is requested.


No. The host (in this case the TA) must periodically update the headend with the status of the existing tuning request, otherwise the headend processors will assume the stream is no longer required and terminate the stream.



orangeboy said:


> I don't know if I agree with that. If a system were 100% SDV, that would free up tons of bandwidth.


He's partially right, although he over-stated the case. A typical fiber node serves between 400 and 1000 homes. Take a quick glance at the Nielsen ratings, and you will see the lion's ahare of all programming being "watched" at any given time is on one of five channels - the broadcast networks. Note, however, while for the purposes of the Nielsen ratings there is no difference between analog, digital SD, and HD programming, in terms of the utilization on the CATV systems there is a difference. In particular, an individual watching an analog or digital SD version of a program is not watching the same stream as one watching the HD version. Thus, if a particular show has a 3% rating, it may only mean each of the three streams is only being watched by 1% of the potential viewing audience. If a stream's adjusted rating is above 0.1%, then the odds are some receiver somewhere in the node's service area is going to be watching it. City-wide, there probably is not any node at least one of whose constituency is not watching that stream. Now, 0.1% sounds like a small number, but it really isn't. The top rated show in America only gets 7%, which means it's HD stream may only be viewed by 2% or 3% of subscribers. If the #1 program is only being received by 30 out of 1000 households, then the #10 program is surely only going to be received by perhaps 3 or 4 households on a node. The #20 program may not be watched by any of the households on a given node. There is no question that the #100 program is going to be missing from lots of nodes around the city, no matter how popular the shows following or preceding it on the same channel might be.

The linear QAM modulators purchased by a majority of CATV systems serve 8 QAMs of programming. With the most common rate shaping, that's a maximum of 88 SD channels or 16 HD channels plus 8 SD channels. A compromise might be 14 HD channels and 36 SD channels. If the company broadcasts the most popular 14 HD channels and the most popular 36 SD channels on those 8 QAMs, then the remaining 500 or so streams are all without question going to be - for at least a significant part of the day - much less than 0.1% each in rating. This means that many of the nodes across the city will not be carrying any specific one of the channels. If node A is serving up Showtime Comedy HD but node B is not, then node B can use that same time slot to serve up Starz Comedy HD, for example.

As more and more channels become available (and the programming on the most popular channels get worse and worse), the trend toward more diverse programming and more diverse viewership continues rapidly. This means fewer and fewer streams will be "locked" on every node in the city. Any channel all of whose streams are not "locked" on every node in the city 24 hours a day is a reasonable candidate for SDV. Any channel viewed via VOD or via interactive means such as the popular "Start Over" must be SDV, whether its main feed is linear or not.

Most CATV companies are still broadcasting a number of analog channels. These eat up a tremendous amount of bandwidth. Even if the company shuts down all the analog channels, however, they are still limited to about 200 HD channels and about the same number of SD channels, none of then VOD or interactive. A properly engineered CATV system employing SDV with only a fraction of the same bandwidth can offer literally an infinite number of channels. Assuming 2 streams per QAM and 1000 homes per node, a node could hypothetically require an absolute maximum of 1200 QAMs - far more than any CATV system can deliver. The reality is, however, that most of the receivers by a wide margin will be receiving streams from a small group of channels, leaving only a few dozen unique streams to be delivered over and above the most popular ones.



orangeboy said:


> For example, there could be a bunch of new children's programming on during the daytime if "popular" channels like HBO weren't provided as linear channels, which are probably NOT viewed during that time. Cartoons take a lot less bandwidth than high-motion live programming, because of mostly static backgrounds.


That's not really relevant. The CATV company has to rate shape the channels on a static basis, the varying momentary content requirements notwithstanding. SDVs advantages lie in the fact the demands for a given node are unique and far less than the total demands for the entire city.



orangeboy said:


> Perhaps lrhorer could set me straight here, but I'm wondering if SDV can be controlled at the distribution level as well. In other words, would someone on the East side of town be able to tune an SDV channel (without a TA) that was requested by some that requested that channel on the West side of town?


The CATV company certainly can deliver different streams to their linear QAMs in one part of the city than another. This represents a significant engineering headache, however, for limited returns in capital savings. Given that ethnic considerations are by definition a minority issue, I suspect that by and large any geographically specific streams are going to be best served by SDV in any case. This is especially true since the decision to deliver a particular stream on a linear QAM rather than via SDV must be made on a channel by channel basis, not a show by show basis.

Eventually, all programming on CATV systems will be SDV. It's inevitable. It's also a very good thing, because "popular" content is that which by definition appeals to the lowest common denominator among all people. "Quality" content, however, is going to be consumed by a variable minority of the viewing audience as a whole. That, plus a choice of ay one of 1000 or so HD channels to record allows for the notion of "what I want, when I want" to become a reality. With any luck, it will also mean the demise of the broadcast networks and their $trillion a year gouging of the American public.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

unitron said:


> Not for all of us. Especially those of us who have analog SD equipment that works fine and changes channels when you push the button and not when it gets around to it


Don't you have a TiVo? Then why are you changing channels? I haven't changed a channel in 11 years. I haven't *watched* a channel in 11 years.



unitron said:


> And if the shrinking percentage of analog cable channels that aren't worthless crap is anything to go by...


You're countering your own argument, here. Since by your own estimate, analog channels are crap and becoming moreso, digital channels are by direct deduction the medium of choice.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> I'm hoping my local cable company uses SDV to offer more HD channels. As it is right now we haven't got a new HD channel in our lineup in almost 3 years.


You should complain to both your CATV provider and your local franchise authroity. How far you will get, I don't know, but a quiet wheel rarely gets the grease.



Dan203 said:


> If they added Comedy Central, MSNBC, A&E and FX then I would be able to get everything I watch in HD.


This is the current listing of HD channels on TWC San Antonio, ignoring On Demand and Pay-per-view channels:

103 Nickelodeon HD 
104 WOAI-NBC
105 KENS (CBS) HD 
106 KPXL HD 
107 KMYS (CW) HD 
108 KLRN (PBS) HD 
109 KWEX HD (Univision) 
110 KNIC HD (Telefutura) 
111 KABB-FOX HD 
112 KSAT-ABC HD
113 tbs HD
114 AMC HD 
115 The Science Channel HD
116 TCM HD 
119 MLB Network HD 
120 G4 HD 
121 NBA TV HD 
123 ESPNU HD
124 ESPN HD 
125 ESPN2 HD
126 ESPN News HD
127 TNT HD
128 A&E HD
129 The Discovery Channel HD
130 HD Theater
131 USA HD 
132 WE tv HD 
133 MTV HD 
134 Palladia
135 CNN HD
136 The Weather Channel HD
137 CNBC HD+ 
138 HLN HD 
139 TruTV HD 
140 Planet Green HD
141 ABC Family HD	
142 Disney Channel HD
143 Disney XD High Definition
144 Hallmark Channel HD 
145 Cartoon Network HD
146 CMT HD 
147 Food Network HD	
148 History International HD
149 TLC HD
150 Fox Sports Net HD 
151 MavTV 
152 Fox News Channel HD
153 Hallmark Movie Channel HD
154 Fox Business Network HD 
155 Animal Planet HD
156 Fuse HD 
157 National Geographic HD
158 Travel Channel HD
159 Fox Soccer Channel HD 
160 The Golf Channel HD
161 Smithsonian Channel HD 
162 MSNBC HD 
163 FX HD 
164 Universal HD
165 MGM HD
166 LMN HD 
167 HGTV HD 
168 Versus HD 
169 Speed HD 
171 Spike HD 
172 SyFy HD 
173 BET HD 
174 History HD
175 bio HD
176 Bravo HD 
177 Cookiing Channel HD 
179 HBO 2 HD 
180 HBO HD
181 HBO West HD
182 Showtime HD
183 Showtime HD West
184 Cinemax HD
185 Cinemax HD West
186 The Movie Channel HD
187 Starz HD
188 Starz West HD
189 Comedy Central HD 
190 Crime and Investigation HD 
191 Investigation Discovery HD 
210 DIY Network 
213 Investigation Discovery
215 Science Channel 
216 The Hub 
219 Discovery Fit and Health 
220 Planet Green 
291 Galavision HD 
292 DIY HD

All but about 15 or so are SDV. I count 92 in all.


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## brewman (Jun 29, 2003)

TA problems are not necessarily inherent to the devices. I've got 4 TiVos with 4 TA's (they've been active for about 4 months now) and haven't had to reboot them once. They will, occasionally, fail to tune a channel, but that generally clears within a few minutes. I will gladly accept that issue if the trade off is a substantial increase in the number of HD channels.


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## bensonr2 (Feb 4, 2011)

I still don't think SDV is ready for prime time.

When I had my SA cable box I would tune into the SDV HD movie channels I had rarely. But as rarely as I did tune into those channels I remember frequently getting the "channel not available". Usually if I came back to the channel 10 minutes later it would be view able. 

Its not the end of the world I agree but its still annoying. And my feeling is TV needs to be bullet proof. People want watching TV to be an experience without error messages. It needs to just work.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bensonr2 said:


> I still don't think SDV is ready for prime time.
> 
> When I had my SA cable box I would tune into the SDV HD movie channels I had rarely. But as rarely as I did tune into those channels I remember frequently getting the "channel not available". Usually if I came back to the channel 10 minutes later it would be view able.
> 
> Its not the end of the world I agree but its still annoying. And my feeling is TV needs to be bullet proof. People want watching TV to be an experience without error messages. It needs to just work.


Seriously, what's the point of having a TiVo if it has to tell some other device to tune in the channel, only to have that other device fail to have that channel ready when it's time to start recording?


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## bensonr2 (Feb 4, 2011)

I just thought of another possible SDV problem (though this one only affect users using a TA, ie Tivo users).

I believe a common problem among users of the 3 tuner Moxi box is that the Cisco tuning adapter will limit your box to 2 tuners even if your box has more. Though this only affected the Cisco TA and was not a problem for the Motorola. I did some research on the Moxi box on the AVS forum before purchasing my Tivo and I believe this was a common problem.

Now obviously the Tivo currently is only a dual tuner device. But apparently the 4 tuner version is coming (eventually) so this could affect the Tivo community soon.

And I very well could be wrong about this so please if anyone knows better then I please correct me.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

bensonr2 said:


> I just thought of another possible SDV problem (though this one only affect users using a TA, ie Tivo users).
> 
> I believe a common problem among users of the 3 tuner Moxi box is that the Cisco tuning adapter will limit your box to 2 tuners even if your box has more. Though this only affected the Cisco TA and was not a problem for the Motorola. I did some research on the Moxi box on the AVS forum before purchasing my Tivo and I believe this was a common problem.
> 
> ...


I believe the FCC mandated new TAs to support more than 2 streams are required some time later this year. This would only affect Cisco TAs obviously.


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

I am still amazed that my local Charter office and Tech didn't know anything about a Tuning Adapter.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

unitron said:


> Seriously, what's the point of having a TiVo if it has to tell some other device to tune in the channel, only to have that other device fail to have that channel ready when it's time to start recording?


Blame the CE manufacturers (that includes TiVo) for insisting they be allowed to produce UDCPs because they didn't want to spend an extra $15 per unit to make them 2 way, and the FCC for listening to them. Failing to require that all digital devices be 2-way was just stupid.

Or do you mean oversubscription of the bandwidth? That's the result of a poorly engineered system.

If on the other hand you fail to see the point of not wasting 98% of the bandwidth on the system and subsequently limiting the number of channels available to the subscriber, then I suggest you take a hike.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Resist said:


> I am still amazed that my local Charter office and Tech didn't know anything about a Tuning Adapter.


Why does that amaze you?


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

bensonr2 said:


> I still don't think SDV is ready for prime time.


Not at all. Hundreds of thousands of streams a day are served up via SDV QAMs.



bensonr2 said:


> When I had my SA cable box


The SA8300 is a horrid piece of @#%^. That doesn't mean the underlying technology is bad.



bensonr2 said:


> I would tune into the SDV HD movie channels I had rarely. But as rarely as I did tune into those channels I remember frequently getting the "channel not available". Usually if I came back to the channel 10 minutes later it would be view able.


Most likely, it was a flaky DVR, but barring that, it suggests a poorly engineered system. In order to make proper use of SDV, the CATV plant needs to be properly engineered so that the number of homes per node does not exceed a threshold where a tuning denial becomes likely.



bensonr2 said:


> Its not the end of the world I agree but its still annoying. And my feeling is TV needs to be bullet proof. People want watching TV to be an experience without error messages. It needs to just work.


That's fatuous nonsense. *NOTHING* is perfect. The CATV systems today, thanks to digital transmissions and fiber delivery to the node are many times more reliable than in decades past, but nothing, repeat nothing is failure free. More importantly, above all else TV needs to be affordable, and the cost of hardening a system skyrockets quickly beyond a certain point. If you want to pay $10,000 a month for a video feed that is guaranteed to deliver more than 99.99% reliability, then fine, go do so. Meanwhile, the rest of us will get along just fine with systems that only fail a few times a year and cost us already nearly more than we can afford.

We TiVo owners in San Antonio have been enjoying the very significant advantages and benefits of SDV for over 2 years. In that time, there have only been a handful of failed recordings, and there is no evidence that any significant fraction of those failures have been tuning denials. It's true the TA should be more stable - I objected to its design while it was being designed, but it is certainly not beyond being tolerable. Certainly the TiVo + TA combination is far more reliable than the Series I + STB solution, and vastly more reliable than the SA8300HD. It's also vastly more reliable than a bank of VCRs trying to record a few programs a week.


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> Why does that amaze you?


Because it was Charter that sent me the letter telling me to set up the appointment to have a Tuning Adapter installed. So their installers should know what it is.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> Blame the CE manufacturers (that includes TiVo) for insisting they be allowed to produce UDCPs because they didn't want to spend an extra $15 per unit to make them 2 way, and the FCC for listening to them. Failing to require that all digital devices be 2-way was just stupid.
> 
> Or do you mean oversubscription of the bandwidth? That's the result of a poorly engineered system.
> 
> If on the other hand you fail to see the point of not wasting 98% of the bandwidth on the system and subsequently limiting the number of channels available to the subscriber, then I suggest you take a hike.


I'm saying that if the tuning adapter doesn't work properly, it's rather pointless to have money tied up in something with which to record its output.

Now that I think about it, it's also rather pointless to be paying the cable company for not being able to deliver the channel you want when you want it.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

unitron said:


> I'm saying that if the tuning adapter doesn't work properly, it's rather pointless to have money tied up in something with which to record its output.


I've been using a TA for more than 9 months now. I think it has failed to tune a channel 2 or 3 times in that period (and those were for live tv, not recordings).


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

rainwater said:


> I've been using a TA for more than 9 months now. I think it has failed to tune a channel 2 or 3 times in that period (and those were for live tv, not recordings).


When you say failed to tune a channel, do you mean failed to move from the channel it was on to the one you wanted, or moved to it only to get a "not availible" message?


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Resist said:


> Because it was Charter that sent me the letter telling me to set up the appointment to have a Tuning Adapter installed. So their installers should know what it is.


You're discounting the incompetence of the average CATV employee.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

unitron said:


> I'm saying that if the tuning adapter doesn't work properly, it's rather pointless to have money tied up in something with which to record its output.


One does not record the output of the TA, but in any case this is a foolish statement. It's like saying it is pointless to go fishing because every cast of the line does not result in a fish being caught, or that it is pointless to eat pecans since every once in a while one comes across a bad one.



unitron said:


> Now that I think about it, it's also rather pointless to be paying the cable company for not being able to deliver the channel you want when you want it.


'More of the same nonsense. If the UDCP / TA combination failed to tune channels more often than not, or even on a regular basis, then there is cause for criticism, but because every once in a while a tuning request might be denied for a few minutes is not sufficiently poor service to consider it pointless. Rifle rounds occasionally mis-fire, especially under field conditions. Does that make it pointless for a soldier to carry a gun? Suggesting the availability of more than 90 HD channels is pointless just because one of them might be unavailable for a short time every once in a while is just foolishness.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

unitron said:


> When you say failed to tune a channel, do you mean failed to move from the channel it was on to the one you wanted, or moved to it only to get a "not availible" message?


The former is an internal failure of the host, most likely due to a lost button press. With Infrared remote control systems, such occasional failures are inevitable. The latter is due to the bandwidth on the node being currently completely in use by prior requests.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

lrhorer said:


> This is the current listing of HD channels on TWC San Antonio, ignoring On Demand and Pay-per-view channels:
> 
> <clip>
> 
> All but about 15 or so are SDV. I count 92 in all.


That's impressive! I wish we had that many HD channels here.

We still have 54 analog stations here eating up all the bandwidth, that's probably why we don't. I was hoping that they would use the SDV they just added to bring in more HD channels, but according to the Chater rep who hangs out on the AVSForum boards they have no plans to add any channels to my area as of a few weeks ago. 

Dan


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> You're discounting the incompetence of the average CATV employee.


It's not only the incompetence of the CATV employee, it's my cities local Charter office as well. Even Charter in general because they are the one that sent me the letter. And true to form, they never called me back like they said they would to let me know what's going on.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> The former is an internal failure of the host, most likely due to a lost button press. With Infrared remote control systems, such occasional failures are inevitable. The latter is due to the bandwidth on the node being currently completely in use by prior requests.


I was sure I asked that question of rainwater.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> Discounting the internet portion of my bill I still pay 10x that just for the TV part. And that's with a 2 year commitment discount. Without the commitment I'd be paying another $30/mo.


Yes, but I also remember paying $0.12 a gallon for gas. Now I have paid on occasion nearly 40x that.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> That's impressive! I wish we had that many HD channels here.


There's very little reason they should not. 'Not with SDV.



Dan203 said:


> We still have 54 analog stations here eating up all the bandwidth, that's probably why we don't.


That's no excuse. Here they still have 72 analog channels on a 750 MHz system. Even if your provider only has a 550 MHz system, that would still allow for about 29 QAMs or 58 HD streams. If 24 of those are linear, that still leaves 34 SDV HD streams, and as long as they keep their node areas small - under 400 homes, that should allow for at least twice that number of SDV HD streams. Cutting out a mere 6 or 8 of the analog channels will allow that number to possibly double. Upgrading to 750 MHz, although quite expensive would allow that number to explode.



Dan203 said:


> I was hoping that they would use the SDV they just added to bring in more HD channels, but according to the Chater rep who hangs out on the AVSForum boards they have no plans to add any channels to my area as of a few weeks ago.


That's inexcusable, if you ask me. Given what you say they charge, they should be delivering dozens of HD channels.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Well the rep over on AVSForum just replied to my second post and says they are now planning on adding 20+ new channels (didn't specifically say HD) by December. I wish they would do it sooner, but at least they're doing something. And if they fail to come through then my contract is up in February so I may just look into DirecTV or Dish at that point.

Dan


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> Well the rep over on AVSForum just replied to my second post and says they are now planning on adding 20+ new channels (didn't specifically say HD) by December. I wish they would do it sooner, but at least they're doing something. And if they fail to come through then my contract is up in February so I may just look into DirecTV or Dish at that point.


My guess would be some, at least, will be SD. With industry norm rate shaping, each QAM can serve 11 SD streams, 1 HD stream and 6 SD streams, or 2 HD streams and 1 SD stream, as I recall. (Or maybe it is 12 SD streams - I can't remember for certain.) There's not much point in leaving the extra SD streams unused - not an engineering one, anyway. Of course, contractual agreements with the broadcasters could easily have who-knows-what effect on the issue.


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

The issues with Charter continues.

So for the last few days my HDNet Movie channel has been pixelated with the audio cutting in and out. Only this one channel is having an issue, everything else is fine even the other HDNet channel. Charter sent out a tech today, which was a sub contractor for Charter. He determined that I needed a Tuning Adapter. I explained to him that just last June the local Charter office said my area isn't getting Tuning Adapter's anytime soon. But this tech stated that they have been installing them for some time now in my area. WTF Charter!!! I wish they would get their stories straight. So now because this tech didn't have a Tuning Adapter with him, I have to wait until tomorrow to get this resolved. This will be day 4 without this channel. This will also be the fourth time a tech has been at my home to deal with a supposed Tuning Adapter issue and I don't even have one installed yet! I swear I am about ready to drop their Cable TV service and just keep the Cable Internet.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> Yes, but I also remember paying $0.12 a gallon for gas. Now I have paid on occasion nearly 40x that.


Was that during a price war? In the early to mid 60s we once filled up at $.0.089, but that was during a price war and the usual price was somewhere around $0.25 to $0.35 per gallon.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> That's impressive! I wish we had that many HD channels here.
> 
> We still have 54 analog stations here eating up all the bandwidth, that's probably why we don't. I was hoping that they would use the SDV they just added to bring in more HD channels, but according to the Chater rep who hangs out on the AVSForum boards they have no plans to add any channels to my area as of a few weeks ago.
> 
> Dan


Only 22 analog channels left here, but 94 HD channels and _*NO*_ SDV. And Comcast has no current plans to implement it.


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

So now today my HDNet Movie channel is working fine and the Charter tech hasn't arrived to install the Tuning Adapter. I called Charter and they told me again that my area doesn't need an SDV (Switched Digtal Video Tuning Adapter). At this point I'm starting to think the tech from yesterday was confused about his terms and was actually talking about a DTA (Digital Transport Adapter) and that's what they have been installing in my area for a while, which is used for analog TV's to receive digital content. Why are techs such idiots? I should apply for a job part time as a Cable TV tech because apparently I know more about this stuff than they do.


UPDATE: The Charter Tech never showed up. Not that it's a big deal since I have my channel back and I really don't need a Tuning Adapter. Still it's the point that the guy said his boss was going to come to my house the next day and he never even put it in their system. Freaking idiots!


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

lpwcomp said:


> Only 22 analog channels left here, but 94 HD channels and _*NO*_ SDV. And Comcast has no current plans to implement it.


By employing SDV here, they have 82 analog channels, well over 100 HD VOD channels, and 96 full time HD channels, plus a couple of hundred or so SD channels. That, plus they offer things like "start over", which basically means they have many hundreds of "channels", mostly HD, being streamed on demand to customers. With no changes in technology, they can easily raise that 96 number to more than 1000, 10,000, or even 100,000,000 channels by only dropping 4 or 5 analog channels.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

lrhorer said:


> By employing SDV here, they have 82 analog channels, well over 100 HD VOD channels, and 96 full time HD channels, plus a couple of hundred or so SD channels. That, plus they offer things like "start over", which basically means they have many hundreds of "channels", mostly HD, being streamed on demand to customers. With no changes in technology, they can easily raise that 96 number to more than 1000, 10,000, or even 100,000,000 channels by only dropping 4 or 5 analog channels.


And the first time one of your TiVos misses a recording because they ran out of QAM frequencies on your node, you will scream bloody murder.


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## rrwcm (Dec 5, 2006)

I have 6 HD tv's, all with Tivo's. Charter implemented SDV here last spring and these Motorola tuning adapters are all crap! I've just about given up hope of this stuff ever working properly. I think the problem is that they're trying to grow the system too fast for their old cable infrastructure. The service tech's are nice guys but cannot seem to solve my problems. Has anyone else suffered these problems (lost channels - usually fixed by cold starting the tuning adapter)? Any advice as to how to get the attention of the proper level of Charter management?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I haven't had any issues with mine, but then again I don't really use any of the channels they put on SDV. They left duplicate copies of all the HD premium channels as non-SDV, so I still use those. I almost never record from any of the 100s of SD digital channels I have because I'm sort of an HD snob. And as of right now none of the HD channels are SDV.

Although the other night I was flipping through the digital stations as a test and I kept getting this weird gray popover message about the tuning adapter. However it only effected my Premiere because I tried the same stations on my other two S3 units and they worked fine.

Dan


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

lpwcomp said:


> And the first time one of your TiVos misses a recording because they ran out of QAM frequencies on your node, you will scream bloody murder.


First of all, no I wouldn't, in any case. Missing a recording is simply not the end of the world. Secondly, in a properly implemented SDV system, it will never happen. That's the whole point. There is no limit to the number of channels an SDV system can deliver. There are tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions of web sites out there available through the 10M or so pipe provided by your ISP. Has any one of them ever been unavailable due to the fact you only have 10M? Once the probability space for the node is smaller than the bandwidth delivered by the node, the node will never suffer resource starvation, at least hypothetically. In reality, outside prime-time hours a given customer might suffer a tuning denial once a year, depending on how stingy the CATV provider has been with fiber. Missing one show a year is one hell of a lot better than missing hundreds of them because the CATV system lacks the bandwidth to deliver them. Saying one would rather miss hundreds of shows a year on a continuous basis just to make sure one doesn't miss one on a highly random basis is just stupid.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

rrwcm said:


> I have 6 HD tv's, all with Tivo's. Charter implemented SDV here last spring and these Motorola tuning adapters are all crap! I've just about given up hope of this stuff ever working properly. I think the problem is that they're trying to grow the system too fast for their old cable infrastructure.


No, the infrastructure remains the same. From the Cable company's point of view, that is the entire reason for implementing SDV. Nothing has to change except for the modulators and the addition of a server farm back at the headend(s).



rrwcm said:


> Has anyone else suffered these problems (lost channels - usually fixed by cold starting the tuning adapter)?


That's a little vague. I have observed three basic failure modes:

1. The loss of SDV channels - usually alleviated by pulling the USB cable for a few seconds.

2. The loss of all digital channels - usually requiring a reboot of the TA, but sometimes fixed by pulling the USB cable.

3. The loss of all channels, even analog - always requiring a reboot of both the TiVo and the TA.

With three TiVos, I see one or the other of these failures about once every month and a half to two months, or about once every five to six months on any given TiVo.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> I almost never record from any of the 100s of SD digital channels I have because I'm sort of an HD snob.


Yeah, me, too, and no bones about it.



Dan203 said:


> And as of right now none of the HD channels are SDV.


Here it is over 80%. In fact, every HD channel they have added since the roll-out of SDV about 4 years ago has been put on SDV, and that is quite a few. For a while they were adding sometimes 2 or 3 a week.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

Saying that one would rather put up with the problems inherent in SDV to gain a bunch more crappy programming is just stupid.


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## rrwcm (Dec 5, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> No, the infrastructure remains the same. From the Cable company's point of view, that is the entire reason for implementing SDV. Nothing has to change except for the modulators and the addition of a server farm back at the headend(s).


Thanks for the reply. One of the technicians told me that my house was a bit too far from a distribution point (not his exact words). Do you know what he was referring to? My neighborhood was developed in the 70's and I don't think there is fiber here. Will copper support a large SDV system?
Thanks for sharing your knowledge!


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

lpwcomp said:


> Saying that one would rather put up with the problems inherent in SDV to gain a bunch more crappy programming is just stupid.


If it were all crappy, that would be true. TCMHD, MGMHD, ScienceHD, Hallmark Movie Channel HD, National Geographic HD, Disney XD HD, Plant Green HD, Encore HD, HBO Signature HD, HBO Zone HD, HBO Comedy HD, HBO Family HD, Showtime 2 HD, Showtime Showcase HD, ActionMax HD, 5 Star Max HD, StarzEdgeHD, Starz Comedy HD, and Showtime Beyond HD are all SDV, and none of them are the least crappy. (AMC HD is also SDV, and if it had decent video quality and didn't have commercials, it wouldn't be crappy, either.)


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

Comcast has most if not all (I don't feel like checking) of those channels w/o SDV.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

rrwcm said:


> Thanks for the reply. One of the technicians told me that my house was a bit too far from a distribution point (not his exact words).


A bit too far for what? Unfortunately, a lot of CATV techs are clueless.



rrwcm said:


> Do you know what he was referring to?


You will have to provide a bit more in the way of context for me to judge. If you mean "too far" for SDV, then he is either lying or clueless. The further from a node you are, the less SDV has to "struggle", as it were. The return attenuation goes down the further one moves away from the distribution amplifier. It's possible, however, he meant the SDV QAMs are way up high in the spectrum. While not unlikely, it doesn't really matter. A properly designed CATV plant will be able to deliver acceptable signals to every subscriber, no matter how far they are from the amplifier.



rrwcm said:


> My neighborhood was developed in the 70's and I don't think there is fiber here.


What is your CATV provider? Just about every MSO and medium-to-large independent CATV system has built fiber. It isn't exactly a physical requirement that an SDV system be delivered over fiber, but a properly engineered SDV deployment does require the per-node distribution to be between 400 and 1000 homes at most. Except in a very small, very compact town, this would be extremely difficult without fiber.



rrwcm said:


> Will copper support a large SDV system?


CATV coax is aluminum, not copper. (Well, the center conductor may be copper or copper-clad aluminum.) It's not the medium, per se, that requires fiber. It is the fact each node's distribution must be limited in size. This would not be practical over coax. One would have to deploy a huge number of amplifiers and vast bundles of coax cables from the headend. Delivering several hundred fibers, each of an average length of, say, 5 miles, from the headend is not a horribly expensive or impractical proposition. Three or four fiber sheaths, each no more than 1/2" in diameter and costing $0.30 a foot will do it. Delivering hundreds of 7/8" CATV cables, each costing about $0.35 a foot and each with an average of at least 10 amplifiers costing more than $3000 each would be wildly cost prohibitive.

To be more specific, if we assume a hubsite serves 100 nodes each an average of 5 miles from the hub, we are looking at perhaps 50 miles of fiber at an average of $.20 per foot, or maybe $53,000 in fiber plus about $300,000 in fiber nodes. Compare that with 500 miles of coax at $.35 a foot or $924,000 in coax plus 1000 amplifiers at $3000 each. Ignoring strand, conduit, and labor costs (which are about the same), that's $353,000 for a fiber deployment out of a hubsite vs. $3,924,000 for the same distribution done in coax - more than a factor of 10.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

lpwcomp said:


> Comcast has most if not all (I don't feel like checking) of those channels w/o SDV.


So they may or may not be providing those channels at the expense of shutting down numerous analog channels, impacting those customers who do not have digital receivers. TWC hasn't shut down a single analog channel. Comcast has also been accused of rate shaping their HD content to 3 HD channels per QAM, which is considerably beyond the industry norm, at the expense of a considerable loss of picture quality.

The simple fact is no matter how one slices or dices it, a linear deployment wastes phenomenal amounts of bandwidth that never gets used by the consumers for no good reason whatsoever. Such a system is absolutely limited to no more than 233 HD channels for a 750MHz deployment unless the provider decides to deliver below-par video quality. Upgrading to 1000MHz is hideously expensive and time consuming, and only offers an additional 83 HD channels. That is without any VOD (which is not practical without SDV) and including all IPPV and specialty offerings. The same system, employing SDV, can offer thousands of channels allocating less than half the bandwidth.

With SDV it becomes practical for small businesses and even small clubs and organizations to have their own channel. A dive club or bowling league will be able to purchase their own channel to broadcast upcoming events or videos of the last club activity. Employers can purchase an encrypted channel to deliver important information for employees. Without SDV, such a channel can cost tens of thousands of dollars a month. With SDV, the price may eventually fall below $100. Interactive programming, like gaming, video shopping, or online voting is only possible with a deployment of something like SDV.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

I have to believe that you have a vested interest in SDV technology. Your last post sounded like a sales pitch. You continue to downplay any problems with SDV, that it does not increase the number of simultaneous channels that can be carried, that the more channels that are moved to SDV the likelihood that a given hub will run out of available channels increases drastically, that there are other options.

Yes, Comcast has removed analog channels. The only people seriously impacted by this are S2DT users and I am sorry about that but, IMHO, it beats SDV, which impacts _*everybody*_. Those analog channels aren't coming back. Are you actually suggesting that TWC isn't going to do the same at some point? In order to support your grand plan, they're going to have to recover that bandwidth somehow to add the additional QAM channels. They may just be waiting until the FCC mandate regarding DTAs expires next year. Look, I hate Comcast as much as the next guy. It's just that I prefer their solution to SDV.

The final paragraph in the referenced post is most telling. This is the TCF. Why the heck should anyone here give a rodent's posterior about what a small business can do or how an MSO can leverage SDV technology to generate more revenue?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> ... TWC hasn't shut down a single analog channel. ...


For you maybe, up here, not so much.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

lpwcomp said:


> I have to believe that you have a vested interest in SDV technology.


As a consumer, you bet your bippy I do, and I do not apreciate other people trying to limit my choices or impact my costs for spurious, idiotic reasons. Other than that, no I do not. I want the CATV company to be able to minimize their spending and hopefuly pass that savings on to me - at least eventually. I want them to be able to deliver a maximum of variety for a minimum of cost to me. I also am an engineer intimately famliar with the issues invloved and the impact, both short and long term, to consumers for deploying and not deploying SDV (or some switched transport medium). I do not work for a CATV company or any afiliate. Indeed, I do not like TWC in the least, not in small measure because they are a competitor to us in the telecommunications field. Mainly I dislike them, however, for their overly high prices, dishonest business practices, terrible customer service, and poor coporate environment.



lpwcomp said:


> Your last post sounded like a sales pitch.


A sales pitch calling for lower costs and more diverse services?



lpwcomp said:


> You continue to downplay any problems with SDV


I am frank about them. Any engineering decision, no matter what, involves trade-offs and compromises between competing resources. A horse and buggy have several distinct advantages over an automobile. There are lots of Mustangs on the road, but how many of them fill up on oats, rather than gasoline? The advantages of SDV far, far outweigh the disadvantages on a very large number of battlefronts.

On top of the limitations of SDV itself is the poor design of the TA. That design is the result of precisely the same sort of obtuse thinking you are bringing to this debate, but even with the shortfalls of the TA, the additonal features and massive amount of extra content provided by the TA are well worth it. I have three of them, and have had since they first were introduced. San Antonio was the second city in the Nation to get them. More than 80% of what they record would not be available without the TA. If 0.1% of that 80% get lost due to the TA itself, well boo-hoo.



lpwcomp said:


> that it does not increase the number of simultaneous channels that can be carried,


You haven't the faintest clue of what you speak. On a 100% digital 750 MHz system employing the industry norm rate shaping and full HD penetration, a linear system can provide exactly 230 HD and 115 SD streams simultaneously, including all IPPV and other video offerings. That's it, period. In San Antonio, for example, there are over 2400 fiber nodes (I just called an old friend of mine who still works for the CATV company to check). By employing SDV, the CATV company has, for a comparatively minor outlay in cash, increased that limit from 230 + 115 to more than 552,000 simultaneous HD streams and 276,000 simultaneous SD streams city-wide. Now, they have not purchased anywhere nearly that many modulators, yet, so they cannot at this point in time deliver that many unique streams, but that is the SDV limit for this system. It is more than 2400 times the absolute limit for a linear system. Smaller CATV systems have lower capacities, but then they also have smaller numbers of customers.



lpwcomp said:


> that the more channels that are moved to SDV the likelihood that a given hub will run out of available channels increases drastically


Once more you are completely clueless on this topic. Moving a channel from linear to SDV means at worst there will be no change in the bandwidth allocation. If at least one person on the node is watchng the channel all the time, then the stream remains on the node full time. If at any point in time throughout the day there is no one at all watching the channel, then if it is linear, it is simply being broadcast to no one, and the resource is being completely wasted. If it is an SDV channel, though, the bandwidth is cleared to be used by another video stream.

With a 100% SDV solution, the number of streams being broadcast on the node is equal to the number of unique programs being watched or recorded by the subscribers supplied by the node. Most nodes are limited to about 400 - 500 subscribers, but some systems stretch that to 1000. Let's use 500 for an example. Furthermore, let's assume that the average home has 2 DVRs with 2 tuners each. That is 2000 tuners. Now, if every one of those tuners were on full time and each and every one were seeking a unique data strream, it would require at least 666 QAMs or 4000MHz of bandwidth to service. If the CATV plant did have that much bandwidth or more, then it would be comletely impossible to ever encounter a tuning denial.

The fact of the matter, however, is that we know statistically there would never be that many streams requested. Indeed, the very time (prime time)when the number of active tuners is at a peak is the time when the fewest streams are going to be requested. During prime time, most tuners will be tuned to 1 of at most 20 different streams, leaving the rest of the bandwidth available for those outside the mainstream. Moving outside of prime time, the number of unique streams being requested will go up, but the number is still nowhere near the 345 streams the node can deliver. Of course, fiber and fiber nodes cost money, and so the CATV system is going to cut the margin as thin as it can. In some cases this has historically meant some systems have had too few nodes resulting in some objectionable level of tuning denials on some of the more obscure channels.

At this point, I feel compelled to point out a fewtruths about tuning denials:

1. No tuning denial will ever occur if someone else on the node is already watching the channel. It will only occur if no one else on the node is watchng the channel. In general, this means it's only likely on a program that is about #200 or so in the Nielsen ratings. To use your terms, only the "Crappy" channels are ever going to suffer the issue.

2. They are least likely on scheduled channels. By far the most likely candidate for a tuning denial is a VOD channel, and even that is very rare on a properly engineered and properly operating CATV system. Since TiVos are excluded by policy from receiving VOD, a lost scheduled recording due to a tuning denial is very unlikely. A lost Suggestion is somewhat more likely. This is especially true since Suggestions not only have a potentially lower priority, but also are more likely to be on obscure channels.

3. A failed modulator is not an uncommon issue (more common than bandwidth starvation). With a linear QAM, everyone out of the hubsite - perhaps dozens of nodes and thousands of subscribers - will be without the all the channels - up to 12 of them - on the QAM. With SDV, the subs watching the channels when the QAM fails will encounter a brief interruption, after which the channels will be restored.



lpwcomp said:


> that there are other options.


There are, but all that have the same potential that SDV does have the same issues that SDV does, while those that do not have SDVs limitations sufer severe limitations that SDV does not. The issues and limitations are fundamental to whether the service is switched or not.



lpwcomp said:


> Yes, Comcast has removed analog channels. The only people seriously impacted by this are S2DT users and I am sorry about that but, IMHO, it beats SDV, which impacts _*everybody*_.


True enough (although Series I and S2 single tuner customers are also impacted), but it is the folks least able financially to cope with that limitation that are hit hardest by it. That said, I certainly am not personally sorry to see the analog channels go away, even though digital transmission suffers from far more issues than SDV in and of itself does. The point is, merely converting to digital only adds a comparative handful of extra channels and no extra features.



lpwcomp said:


> Those analog channels aren't coming back. Are you actually suggesting that TWC isn't going to do the same at some point?


No, that's not my point, at all. My point was, for a lot less cost that they ultimately will without fail pass on to me, they were able to deliver far, far more programming.



lpwcomp said:


> In order to support your grand plan, they're going to have to recover that bandwidth somehow to add the additional QAM channels.


Once again, you haven't a clue. First of all, there is no such thing as a "QAM channel". A QAM is a digital data stream. Several video bitstreams are muxed together into that data stream. Industry norm rate shaping places 12 SD streams, 6 SD streams and 1 HD stream, or 1 SD stream and 2 HD streams into a single 6MHz wide QAM carrier. More to the point, and which point you missed entirely, they don't have to add anything. The 400 MHz or so left over above the analog channels is more than enough to deliver several hundred HD and SD channels.



lpwcomp said:


> They may just be waiting until the FCC mandate regarding DTAs expires next year. Look, I hate Comcast as much as the next guy. It's just that I prefer their solution to SDV.


Why? Clearly you know almost nothing about SDV, and by your own admisssion you have no personal experience with it, so upon what, exactly, do you base this preference?



lpwcomp said:


> The final paragraph in the referenced post is most telling. This is the TCF. Why the heck should anyone here give a rodent's posterior about what a small business can do


This is a discussion about SDV and the Tuning Adapter. A discussion about SDV (or deciding whether it is good or bad) should have nothing to do with its capabilities? Did you even bother to think at all before posting that? Nevermind that quetion. The answer is obvious.



lpwcomp said:


> or how an MSO can leverage SDV technology to generate more revenue?


If they can generate more revenue, it is only because consumers have a greater demand for the available services. You also completely ignored the most impotant fact of the matter: the cost of each individual service should go down.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

unitron said:


> For you maybe, up here, not so much.


Yeah, that may be true. Here in San Antonio was one of the first deployments of SDV in the nation. The TWC execs in San Antonio (to their credit for a change) decided that no existing systems or channels would be impacted, so they left all the existing analog channels analog and all the existing linear channels linear, but all new chanels since then are SDV. That was about 4 years ago. Here in San Antonio, though, they had some unused bandwidth to play with. That was no doubt not the case elsewhere.


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

@ lrhorer

Great info on SDV. Thanks for posting all those facts and details.


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

So today I had to stop by my local Charter Cable office and while there I asked about tuning adapters. The rep said that my area does use tuning adapters, since around June of this year. I am about ready to blow my top! I swear, every Charter rep tells me something different. First back in June I get letter and they tell me to call and make an appointment to get a tuning adapter, then when the rep arrives he knows nothing about tuning adapters in my area. Then because I had a channel issue months later, a rep shows up and says I need a tuning adapter and that they have been installing them here for a while. Because he didn't have any on his truck he arranges it so someone would arrive the next day, of which they didn't. When I call Charter they tell me that I didn't need a tuning adapter for my area. And now today they say they have been installing them since around June. Aaaaaugh!

And the reason why I was at my local Charter office was to exchange an S-Cablecard for an M-Cablecard. They couldn't do that there and scheduled a truck roll for tomorrow. Freaking amazing! The warehouse is right behind them in another building and I have to wait another day for a truck roll. They said I wouldn't be charged but still. Funny, at this Charter office I can exchange cable boxes there but can't get a replacement Cablecard.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Resist said:


> So today I had to stop by my local Charter Cable office and while there I asked about tuning adapters. The rep said that my area does use tuning adapters, since around June of this year. I am about ready to blow my top! I swear, every Charter rep tells me something different.


Unfortunately, this is not uncommon in any technical industry these days. The number of people who actually know something about which they speak is vanishingly small, and the public's access to them is vanishing even faster.



Resist said:


> And the reason why I was at my local Charter office was to exchange an S-Cablecard for an M-Cablecard. They couldn't do that there and scheduled a truck roll for tomorrow. Freaking amazing! The warehouse is right behind them in another building and I have to wait another day for a truck roll. They said I wouldn't be charged but still. Funny, at this Charter office I can exchange cable boxes there but can't get a replacement Cablecard.


Welcome to corporate America, where arbitrary, poorly considered rules have replaced common sense.


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

The Charter Tech didn't arrive on time, so I called Charter and got $20 back from their on time guarantee policy. He had to try several M-Cards before they finally worked correctly. Then there were some issues with the Tuning Adapters. But all is working nicely now. 

I learned a lot about Cablecards that day. For instance, you can take a card from one Tivo to the other and it will still work. You just won't get any of the copy protected shows until the card is paired with that box. And if you are pairing them with a Charter tech on the phone, make sure they ask you for the host ID from the Tivo cablecard menu. I also don't need to keep my Tuning Adapters connected because I don't have any of the channels it is effected by, but that could change down the road so for now I will keep them hooked up. Kind of pisses me off though having all these extra boxes sucking up my electricity, as they seem to keep adding up.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

For me, my tuning adapter is transparent to me....

... until I can't tune in a channel. What happens is you tune in a particular channel, and all you get is black. No message, no nothing. Just black. Flip the channel away, then back again, and voilà, it tunes in.

Sadly, I have to do this channel change then back again very often. Worse, this happens quite often on scheduled recordings on my TiVo, but the TiVo doesn't know to do the channel away and back dance, so all that happens is my TiVo misses the recording.

If they were to fix that one problem, and redesign the tuning adapters to replace the stupid LED light with a LCD that could actually tell you what the status is in more detail, I'd be fine with SDV.


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## Applejack (Feb 9, 2006)

I just got the tuning adapter letter. Problem is we do not care about all the HD channels and premium services. We have antenna for the networks (beautiful picture) and the wife only watches a few channels like TVLand (75), FoodTV (61), and Lifetime (29). (Otherwise I'd cancel the cable.) We have a Tivo 3 with M-Card. Do I really NEED the tuning adapter, and potential headaches if all I have is Expanded Service with no super-duper services? Thanks for any input!


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

Applejack said:


> Do I really NEED the tuning adapter, and potential headaches if all I have is Expanded Service with no super-duper services?


Probably not, but it does open up the bandwidth for everyone else in your area if you use one.


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