# Bolt and Cable Cards



## drumdude (Dec 25, 2007)

I have been with DirecTV since 1995, but when they transitioned to HD and discontinued TiVo, I switched to Time Warner Cable (TWC). In 2009, I bought 3 TiVo HD's with wireless adapters and external hard drives. I spent one awful year struggling with the cable cards and participated in several threads on this forum to no avail. After a year of frustration, I gave up, sold all my TiVo's on eBay and returned to DirecTV. I swore I would never do business with TWC again. 
Fast forward to today. I just purchased a TiVo Roamio OTA to use in tandem with my DirecTV Genie HR44. My question is about the Bolt. I purposely did not buy the Bolt because I saw it uses Cable Cards which I absolutely cannot stand.  I spent so many hours on the phone with TWC being transferred from person to person who knew nothing about Cable Cards. One time a technician came out with a box of 100 Cable Cards and he could not find 3 that would work. The two he found only worked for a few days. 
Anyone out there using the Bolt on TWC with any success? Has anything changed in the last few years?  
I see TiVo well positioned with the oncoming influx of streaming and OTA programming. Hopefully they can stick it to the cable and satellite companies that handcuffed them in the past. :up:


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## ratinthekitchen (May 19, 2016)

I have a Bolt with cablecard and tuning adapter and it works fine. Cox, though, not TWC.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

The Bolt works with either CableCards or an OTA antenna. 

I don't have a Bolt, but I do have a Roamio Plus running with a CableCard and Tuning Adapter on TWC's network. TWC has gotten much better about CableCards and Tuning Adapters. The firmware on both has finally been updated to something that is relatively stable and reliable. Also, TWC has a dedicated CableCard hotline for CableCard pairing. The people who work at the dedicated CableCard line know what they are doing and they were able to pair my CableCard within about 5 minutes. It's been working great for almost 3 years now. I've only had to call them back once in that time to get them to send a hit to my card to get it to reauthorize my channels. I suggest you give TWC another try.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

Can you not simply add OTA to a Genie with an AM21? Why would you get satellite and cable?


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

mdavej said:


> Can you not simply add OTA to a Genie with an AM21? Why would you get satellite and cable?


Can't speak for him, but I do it for sports. The sports offerings with DirecTV are better than with FiOS, especially this little thing called NFL Sunday Ticket.


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## drumdude (Dec 25, 2007)

DirecTV won't support the AM21 anymore since AT&T bought them. My AM21 stopped working.


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