# So unplugged my Charter TA...and everything still works?



## treblah (Aug 22, 2005)

I had Charter installed a few weeks ago and the installer split the line into the TA and Bolt. I had not yet read that this was the correct way to do it so when I noticed it later I undid the split and ran the TA out to the Tivo in.

Fast forward to Sunday and the a few channels are pixelated and have glitchy sound. After reading I should have kept the splitter I decided see what happens if I just completely unplugged it. So I ran the coax directly into the Tivo and took the TA out of the entertainment center.

All of my HD/HBO/Cinemax/Showtime channels are working fine. All of the past 3 days of recordings are fine. And no more pixelation! 

I went though every HD channel that I get just to confirm. I had unselected all of the SD channels and did not check any of those.

Does anyone know exactly which channels actually require the TA? 

I'm in Greenville, SC.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I did this test as well a while back. It seemed to mostly effect SD channels. The only HD channels I could find that were effected were HD Movie Net and a couple of the sports channels.


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## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

and particularly Spanish channels. The only absent channels I miss by not having a TA are VH1Classic, NatGeoWildHD, and ElReyHD.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

I'm also on Charter in your market. Last time I checked, there were about 70, mostly foreign channels on SDV. If you do ever hook it back up, use a splitter. That makes a huge difference. 

I wouldn't hide all SD channels. We have quite a few local sub channels that are only SD. Out of our 700-ish channels, I keep about 30 SD ones in my lineup, mostly 175-199.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

Foreign channels and SD sports channels make up almost all of the SDV channels on Charter for me. Although at one point the NFL Redzone HD channel didn't work with the TA but last season it did.


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## three_green (Aug 24, 2004)

Unbelievably, my Tuning Adapter was causing my Bolt to lose its RF connection with the TiVo remote. The remote would constantly switch back and forth from RF to IR at random. I don't have line of sight to the Bolt, so it was extremely frustrating when the remote switched to IR. I called TiVo support and the tech I talked to said it may be caused by the tuning adapter. I didn't believe him. But sure enough, when I disconnected the tuning adapter - no more remote problems. I reconnected just to verify - and immediately started having the same problem. I was shocked that the tuning adapter was causing such a problem. 

So I disconnected the tuning adapter altogether a while back and just left it disconnected. I still received all my channels with no problems. And my remote worked fine. It was a no-brainer. And it worked like that for several weeks. But suddenly I started getting a black screen with no picture, and an error message on screen saying something like "HDMI not authorized". I discovered that I had recordings that were black screen and error message. So I reconnected the TA and immediately the black screen and error message went away and the picture returned. Then I tried unplugging power from the TA (to alleviate the remote issue) but leaving everything else connected, and that worked fine for several days. Then I started getting pixelated images. I plugged the power back into the TA and - you guessed it - the picture returned to normal. But this time the light on the TA blinked and it took several hours for the light to go steady and my pixelated image to return to normal.

I said all of that to say this - you can get along fine without the TA - for a while. But you'll eventually have problems and have to go crawling back to that lousy tuning adapter.


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## treblah (Aug 22, 2005)

Thanks for the all the replies. 

I'm going to keep it unplugged until I notice any issues but so far my experience has been much better after removing it from the equation.


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## celluloidlout (Jul 26, 2004)

treblah said:


> Thanks for the all the replies.
> 
> I'm going to keep it unplugged until I notice any issues but so far my experience has been much better after removing it from the equation.


Another Charter user here who ditched my TA due to weird issues.

In my area, it's mostly "foreign" channels...However, it's quite broad and includes El Rey and ASX. Both channels broadcast foreign programs but in English. 

I've never gotten the TA to work perfectly and so far, that's my only sacrifice.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

I think in the last 4 years my tuning adapters have went offline (or just rebooted) about 3 times. Otherwise, I have never had a single issue with them. I do hate the wiring mess it makes but I'd rather not deal with any issues it can create to have them offline.


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

three_green said:


> Unbelievably, my Tuning Adapter was causing my Bolt to lose its RF connection with the TiVo remote.


I am finding that the 2 USB ports on the Bolt do not behave the same. When I use the bottom USB port I get some strange rebooting issues when I reboot the Tuning Adapter, the Bolt reboots also, when I use the top USB port the Bolt does not reboot.

Try the top USB port with the Tuning Adapter and see if that makes any difference.


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

^^^^
Wow, TiVo even mentions this here:
https://support.tivo.com/articles/Known_Issue_Bug/BOLT-Reboot-when-plugging-in-tuning-adapter-USB

Workaround:
Make sure you are using the upper USB port on the BOLT for your tuning adapter.


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