# What is the extra box TimeWarner put on the back of my Bolt?



## npoore (Sep 28, 2005)

So, I just switched from DTV to TW.

They showed up with a cable-card to get the Bolt working.
They also put a "Local Tuner" box on the back of the Bolt.
Basically a small box 25% of the size of the bolt.
The TV cable goes wall > Tuner > Bolt.
The tuner connects to the bolt with the addition of a USB cable as well as the Coax cable.
The tuner is also powered from a wall-outlet (so the USB is not for power.)

What is this box?
What does it do?
Do I really need it?

Nick.


----------



## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Sounds like a tuning adapter to receive switched digital video (SDV) channels. You may not need it depending...


----------



## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

waynomo said:


> Sounds like a tuning adapter to receive switched digital video (SDV) channels. You may not need it depending...


Yeah it's a tuning adapter you probably will need because your cable provider is only providing some channels when it thinks you're really watching them. Tivos LOVE this for programs set up to pre-record. Good luck with that. Putting a lamp timer or something on the tuning adapter to force a reboot it once a week, or maybe every thirty seconds, may help.


----------



## ZombiE (Dec 17, 2005)

I have one on my Bolt from Cox. As waynomo said it tells the headend what channel you want to watch. From what I understand it's a way for the cable company to allow more channels in HD on their system.


----------



## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Switched Digital Video (SDV) uses the same basic technology as Video On Demand. They assign say 30 lesser watched channels to a block of frequencies that can only play say 15 of those channels at a time. When you, or someone on your node, requests one of those 30 channels it's dynamically assigned one of those 15 frequencies and then the headend reports back to box which frequency to tune. If the channel is already being watched by someone else in your neighborhood then it simply returns the frequency it's already on. On the off chance that all 15 frequencies are already being used the headend simply returns an error.

For this system to work the box needs to be able to communicate with the headend. The CableCARD spec does not allow 3rd party devices to communicate with the headend so TiVo and the MSOs designed the tuning adapter. The TiVo communicates with the TA via USB and it communicates with the headend. When it gets back the frequency it reports that back to the TiVo over USB. That way the TiVo itself never talks directly to the headend.


----------



## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

As the above posts say, it is a tuning adapter. If you want to know if you need it, just try unplugging the USB cable connecting it to the Bolt and see if any channels you care about watching become unavailable.

If you plan on using the Bolt with any Minis over MoCA, then you will probably want to rewire it with a 2-way splitter, rather than using the RF output on the tuning adapter.


----------



## 59er (Mar 27, 2008)

For TWC, the tuning adapter also determines whether to send HD or SD versions of the same channel.


----------



## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

59er said:


> For TWC, the tuning adapter also determines whether to send HD or SD versions of the same channel.


I've had TWC support people tell met that too. It may even be true, but a CableCard with no tuning adapter connected will perform exactly the same function.

If you don't care for the available SDV channels you can put the tuning adapter in your closet and have one less thing to fail. For me, "The Returned" on the Sundance channel keeps my Tuning Adapter out of the closet (so to speak).


----------



## HobokenSkier (Oct 14, 2015)

My Cisco TA on TWC has been pretty reliable for the last year. It is in a rack so runs cooler.


----------



## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

59er said:


> For TWC, the tuning adapter also determines whether to send HD or SD versions of the same channel.


That's incorrect. The CableCard alone is able to handle all the channel remapping.



HobokenSkier said:


> My Cisco TA on TWC has been pretty reliable for the last year. It is in a rack so runs cooler.


Mine seems to have become much more reliable also, to the point where I have stopped rebooting it every month. I'm thinking firmware updates pushed to the TA have made it more reliable.


----------



## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

tarheelblue32 said:


> That's incorrect. The CableCard alone is able to handle all the channel remapping.


True but when a TA is installed, the mapping is provided by the tuning adapter. In some instances, the mappings don't always match up so it is possible the channel mapping can be screwed up until the TA is installed.


----------



## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

rainwater said:


> True but when a TA is installed, the mapping is provided by the tuning adapter. In some instances, the mappings don't always match up so it is possible the channel mapping can be screwed up until the TA is installed.


That is true; I've had the TA and CC exhibit different HD/SD mapping when TWC was moving channels around. In my case the TA had the incorrect map for a couple of days but the CC was correct.


----------



## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Does it look like this?


----------



## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

npoore said:


> So, I just switched from DTV to TW.
> 
> They showed up with a cable-card to get the Bolt working.
> They also put a "Local Tuner" box on the back of the Bolt.
> ...


As others have said, that's a tuning adapter.

If you get a cable card from TWC you have to take one of those as well, but if you don't care about any of their Switched Digital Video channels you don't have to actually use it.

I've got 4 still shrink wrapped gathering dust in a corner.

You do have to use the cable card, though.

If you do use it, get a good splitter for the incoming cable and go from the wall to it and from one of its outputs to the TA and from the other output to the TiVo's cable tuner input, and ignore the cable output "nipple" on the TA.


----------



## tom42 (Sep 30, 2015)

tarheelblue32 said:


> As the above posts say, it is a tuning adapter. If you want to know if you need it, just try unplugging the USB cable connecting it to the Bolt and see if any channels you care about watching become unavailable.
> 
> If you plan on using the Bolt with any Minis over MoCA, then you will probably want to rewire it with a 2-way splitter, rather than using the RF output on the tuning adapter.


Any advantage using a 2-way splitter if I want to run Minis off of Ethernet instead of MoCA? The house is already wired for Ethernet.


----------



## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

tom42 said:


> Any advantage using a 2-way splitter if I want to run Minis off of Ethernet instead of MoCA? The house is already wired for Ethernet.


If you aren't using MoCA, then using the RF output on the TA will probably work okay. However, I would probably still avoid using it if possible. The Tuning Adapters seem to be very cheaply built and the internal splitter it uses is likely also very cheap. If you ever get any signal problems on the Roamio, bypassing the TA's RF output with a good-quality external splitter would be the first thing I would suggest doing to troubleshoot.


----------



## brewcrewfan (Jun 27, 2010)

Question on what someone said above in hooking up Tuning Adapter (TA). 

Currently I have my coax going from the wall into the my TA. Then I have another coax going out of TA into my Tivo. Why is this way wrong? Why should I have a cable from my wall into a two way splitter? Then from that splitter into the TA and Tivo?

Also can you recommend a specific two way splitter? Some of the splitters have different frequencies.


----------



## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

It is wrong because of the huge signal loss thru the TA. If all your channels still come in clearly, then your signal is still strong enough, and you have nothing to worry about. Otherwise, use and 2GHz splitter as you described.


----------



## brewcrewfan (Jun 27, 2010)

I honestly never knew the TA would create signal loss. 

Thanks!


----------



## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

brewcrewfan said:


> I honestly never knew the TA would create signal loss.


I have heard this is true for a Motorola TA.

The Cisco TA does not have any loss using the RF pass-thru, but the Cisco TA does block most MoCA signals.


----------



## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

I learned this the hard way on my Moto. Luckily I had software to measure it and track down the problem. I was seeing 5-6dB loss versus only 3 if I bypassed the TA with a splitter. Some in other threads insist a couple of dB isn't a big deal. But keep in mind that it's logarithmic and that just 3dB is a 50% loss. I've heard that Cisco isn't quite as bad, but still worse than a splitter.


----------



## npoore (Sep 28, 2005)

Does anyone in SoCal TimeWarner area know what channels the TA gives me access to.
I'm looking at my power logs, and the TA uses more power than my Tivo Bolt.

I've also had it lock up twice in the past couple of months.

Really trying to decide if I need it or not.


----------



## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

In case you don't get an answer, just unplug it and see.


----------



## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

npoore said:


> Does anyone in SoCal TimeWarner area know what channels the TA gives me access to.
> I'm looking at my power logs, and the TA uses more power than my Tivo Bolt.
> 
> I've also had it lock up twice in the past couple of months.
> ...


You may find the answer on DSLReports.
https://www.dslreports.com/forum/twc


----------



## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

Why not just make a list of all of the channels that you ever use, unplug the TA, restart the Bolt and try to tune them one by one.

They can change their set of switched channels at any time; I don't know whether they ever do.


----------



## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

This list is about six months old and is almost certainly incomplete, but it represents the SDV channels I found within the subset of channels I might ever want to watch. (TWC Westchester)

```
31 EVINE: Shop HQ 
  84 TW101: TWC Community 
 119 MTV2P: MTV2 West 
 120 VH1CLP: VH1 Classic (Pacific) 
 124 UP 
 127 CHILLER: Chiller 
 128 REELZ: ReelzChannel 
 130 NGWILD: National Geographic Wild 
 139 CLOO: Cloo 
 140 AHC: American Heroes Channel 
 143 NASA: NASA TV 
 145 ELREYP: El Rey Network (Pacific) 
 161 DIY: Do-It-Yourself Network 
 163 COOK: Cooking Channel 
 164 TW101: TWC Community 
 173 OWNPA: Oprah Winfrey Network (Pacific A Feed) 
 177 GSNP: GSN (Pacific) 
 178 RLTV: RLTV 
 179 LOGOP: Logo (Pacific) 
 180 DLC: Discovery Life Channel 
 182 CTRC: Centric 
 183 AFRCA: The Africa Channel 
 185 ASPRE: ASPiRE 
 186 YOUTOAM: Youtoo America 
 187 OVATION: Ovation TV 
 207 BLOOM: Bloomberg Business Television 
 208 CNBCWLD: CNBC World 
 209 BBCWDNA: BBC World News (North America) 
 210 AJAM: Al Jazeera America 
 214 TW101: TWC Community 
 221 CCTVNWS: CCTV News 
 253 BOOM: Boomerang 
 254 DJCHP: Disney Junior US (Pacific) 
 255 SPROUT: Sprout PBS Kids 
 256 BABY1: BabyFirst TV 
 262 NIKTONP: Nicktoons Network (Pacific) 
 266 DFC: Discovery Family Channel 
 285 MSCDM: Music On Demand 
 287 BETJ: BET Jams 
 288 MTVHIT: MTV Hits (U.S.) 
 292 FUSEP: Fuse (Pacific) 
 512 HB2P: HBO2 (Pacific) 
 513 HBOSIGP: HBO Signature (Pacific) 
 514 HBOFP: HBO Family (Pacific) 
 515 HBOCP: HBO Comedy (Pacific) 
 516 HBOZP: HBO Zone (Pacific) 
 519 HBO2 
 520 HBOSIG: HBO Signature 
 532 MOMAXP: MoreMax (Pacific) 
 533 ACMAXP: ActionMax (Pacific) 
 534 THMAXP: ThrillerMAX (Pacific) 
 537 5MAX: 5 StarMax 
 538 MOVIE: MovieMax 
 540 MOMAX: MoreMax 
 552 SHO2P: Showtime 2 (Pacific) 
 553 SHOCSEP: Showtime Showcase (Pacific) 
 554 SHOWXP: Showtime Extreme (Pacific) 
 555 SHOWBP: Showtime Beyond (Pacific) 
 572 TMCXP: The Movie Channel Extra (Pacific) 
 573 TMC: The Movie Channel 
 582 STZEP: Starz Edge (Pacific) 
 583 STZIBP: Starz In Black (Pacific) 
 584 STZKP: Starz Kids (Pacific) 
 585 STZCIP: Starz Cinema (Pacific) 
 602 ENCORP: Encore (Pacific) 
 603 ENCAP: Encore Action (Pacific) 
 604 ENCRBLP: Encore Black (Pacific) 
 605 ENCRCLP: Encore Classic (Pacific) 
 606 ENCSUSP: Encore Suspense (Pacific) 
 607 ENCWSP: Encore Westerns (Pacific) 
 608 ENCFAMP: Encore Family (Pacific) 
 609 ENCORE: Encore East 
 623 FLIXP: Flix (Pacific) 
 632 FXM: FX Movie Channel 
1232 METVNP: Me TV Network (Pacific) 
1353 NICJRHD: Nick Jr HD 
1355 OWNHD: Oprah Winfrey Network HD 
1356 SUNDHD: SundanceTV HD
```


----------



## 59er (Mar 27, 2008)

My TiVo simply will not tune any channels in HD without the TA. The TA tells it whether to tune HD or SD, so I know the TA isn't working when I lose HD pictures.


----------



## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

59er said:


> The TA tells it whether to tune HD or SD...


I'm pretty sure that's not true. It was back when TAs were introduced, but I read the TA specs. Also, my TA being dead only stops me from being able to tune switched channels, as expected (also TiVo complains about it periodically). It continues to tune and record all other channels and I practically never view SD channels (I'm certain that I haven't this year; I'm not sure about 2015, but I doubt it ).

I wonder if your provider has made all of their system's HD channels switched? It would be a bizarre and pointless thing to do.


----------



## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

mikeyts said:


> I wonder if your provider has made all of their system's HD channels switched? It would be a bizarre and pointless thing to do.


Kind of makes sense on a system with really limited bandwidth. You'd want to keep as many HD channels out of the stream as possible. But everybody would be watching them all the time, so they'd be in the stream anyway. So now I guess I'm agreeing with it being pointless.


----------



## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

mikeyts said:


> I wonder if your provider has made all of their system's HD channels switched? It would be a bizarre and pointless thing to do.


TWC has a few markets with almost all HD channels on SDV. It is probably overkill since all of the most common HD channels will be active anyways but it is probably much easier to manage that way.


----------



## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

unitron said:


> As others have said, that's a tuning adapter.
> 
> If you get a cable card from TWC you have to take one of those as well, but if you don't care about any of their Switched Digital Video channels you don't have to actually use it.
> 
> ...


Can you explain the splitter theory.


----------



## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

On some T/A's, its coax out port is weaker or problematic that may hinder the signal to the Tivo. If you split the wall outlet, one to the Tivo and one to the T/A, you bypass this issue. You can also bypass Moca going through the T/A to the Tivo with this scenario.

I've had no issues with the Cisco T/As but others have reported issues with it and more commonly the Moto T/A.


----------



## dwgdwg (May 19, 2016)

This is a very helpful thread!

Just ordered bolt/mini and picked up charter card and TA in St. Louis.

Will I regret it if I start out without the TA to see how things look? Like, will this confuse the TiVo guide as I switch back and forth between no TA and TA? Or cause other weird things?

I figure if I don't notice something missing then I am better off going straight to card. But if it makes for an inconsistent or flawed experience for my family, the project will have a lower success rating.


----------



## JCN (Feb 4, 2016)

foghorn2 said:


> On some T/A's, its coax out port is weaker or problematic that may hinder the signal to the Tivo. If you split the wall outlet, one to the Tivo and one to the T/A, you bypass this issue. You can also bypass Moca going through the T/A to the Tivo with this scenario.
> 
> I've had no issues with the Cisco T/As but others have reported issues with it and more commonly the Moto T/A.


Thanks for the explanation. The Tivo is getting direct information that is not needed with the T/A. And what is needed through the T/A is supplied through USB cable. Why have the T/A involved if there is no benefit and possible corruption. Is that correct.


----------



## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

JCN said:


> Thanks for the explanation. The Tivo is getting direct information that is not needed with the T/A. And what is needed through the T/A is supplied through USB cable. Why have the T/A involved if there is no benefit and possible corruption. Is that correct.


All that's going on in the TA is a passive splitter that feeds to the TiVo outlet and to its own electronics; the USB connection to the TiVo is where the TA does anything at all. (You can pull the plug on the TA and non-SDV stations will be come in just fine.) Apparently it's often a crappy splitter, so some people have better luck using their own in place of the one in the TA.

Obviously its a cheaper, neater and less complicated setup if you use the TA splitter; I have a relatively strong signal and have had no problems connecting that way. But it would be the first thing I'd try if I had signal problems.


----------



## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

JCN said:


> Why have the T/A involved if there is no benefit and possible corruption.


If you want to view a channel which is switched, the TA is required. To tune a channel, TiVo has to know what frequency band contains the channel's digital video and audio streams and what the program number is for each of those (each band contains an aggregate stream with multiple channels in it).

On an SDV system a cable tuner sends a message back to the cable system asking it where to find the channel it wants to tune. When no one is watching a switched channel it might not be present anywhere on the wire in your neighborhood. If the requested channel's already on your segment of the network, the system returns its location; if it's not there, it allocates bandwidth for it in the available pool and places it there, returning its location to the requesting tuner. The problem is that CableCARD devices like TiVo cannot themselves talk over the coax to the cable system in order to request a channel; in any case, the specific protocol for this in use on your system is proprietary and possibly different from the one in use in other area cable systems. The Tuning Adapter is a device which receives requests from TiVo (or some small number of other compliant devices) over a USB connection via an open, standard protocol, which it then forwards to the cable system using its proprietary protocol. When it gets a response (via that proprietary protocol) it formats it into a TA standard message and passes it back to TiVo over the same USB connection.

The TA contains a splitter so that you can run the coax from the wall into it and then a single coax cable out of it into TiVo. As ej42137 says, it's often a crappy splitter. I myself split the cable before the TA and run one wire from the splitter into the TA and another into TiVo (and, in one room, a third into my cable modem).

If you never watch any of those switched channels then you can cut the TA loose. My TA needs to be restarted (not working right now) so I just poked around to see what I can tune without it. Almost everything that I might ordinarily watch is available without the TA; since likely someone in my local segment will be watching those channels at all times there's no sense in switching them. But the "extended options" are all switched. My package includes HBO and Showtime (I wouldn't subscribe to either except that any way of getting the things that I do want without them is more expensive ); the main west coast channel for each tier is not switched (HBO HD Pacific, Showtime HD Pacific), but all of the rest of each tier is switched (HBO 2, HBO Family, HBO Signature, Showtime 2, Showtime Extreme, etc). ESPN 1 and ESPN 2 are not switched but all of the other ESPN channels are. Most importantly for me, The Tennis Channel is switched so the TA is a necessary evil.


----------



## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

mikeyts said:


> If you want to view a channel which is switched, the TA is required. To tune a channel, TiVo has to know what frequency band contains the channel's digital video and audio streams and what the program number is for each of those (each band contains an aggregate stream with multiple channels in it).
> 
> On an SDV system a cable tuner sends a message back to the cable system asking it where to find the channel it wants to tune. When no one is watching a switched channel it might not be present anywhere on the wire in your neighborhood. If the requested channel's already on your segment of the network, the system returns its location; if it's not there, it allocates bandwidth for it in the available pool and places it there, returning its location to the requesting tuner. The problem is that CableCARD devices like TiVo cannot themselves talk over the coax to the cable system in order to request a channel; in any case, the specific protocol for this in use on your system is proprietary and possibly different from the one in use in other area cable systems. The Tuning Adapter is a device which receives requests from TiVo (or some small number of other compliant devices) over a USB connection via an open, standard protocol, which it then forwards to the cable system using its proprietary protocol. When it gets a response (via that proprietary protocol) it formats it into a TA standard message and passes it back to TiVo over the same USB connection.
> 
> ...


That's an excellent explanation of TA!

I had TiVo with Cox and having TA was a nightmare. Required resetting/ unplugging quite often. The more devices needed in the chain for a service to operate, the more complex and the more likely to fail.

I was happy to learn that Verizon FIOS did not require a TA. So far so good!


----------

