A final (I hope) update on the SDV issues I was having since Charter went to SDV back in May.
I made multiple phone calls and had multiple service visits to/from Charter Communications over the last three months, little by little I learned a lot. First and foremost, Charter's customer service is terrible. Not so much the people themselves, but the system they work within. Each time I called the 800 number, I got the call center. They could do only about 3 different things for me, set up a service call, email a supervisor somewhere, or transfer me to a supervisor, who ironically, can do the same things. At no point can you ever, ever talk to someone who actually lives or works near you, except the guy who shows up in a van. I was promised a phone call back from a technical guy who works on the system I'm on, but not once did he call. I had supervisors and local technicians promise to keep the ball rolling on the issue, and after 2-1/2 months of it, I was fed up. So, I got the corporate number for Charter, who interestingly, has a call center of some sort, with people who can actually dial a phone. Yep, Rhoda called me back multiple times! During the week or two I was talking to her, the problem magically resolved itself, working as it's supposed to. But, as before, I could not found out what changed, what was wrong, how it was fixed, or who fixed it. All I can say is that at the moment, it's working. I still get the blank screen if left unattended for long durations, but when it goes to record, it wakes the channel up and I don't miss recordings, and if I simply hit the select button from the blank screen, it wakes the channel up as it's supposed to. There's one wild card in this, Tivo. I had called them to ask about how it's supposed to work, and they confirmed my beliefs, I was promised a follow-up on that issue, but as yet I have not heard from them either. It's possible Tivo and Charter worked together behind the scenes and fixed the issue, since the problem may have been between the two. But the good news is the issue is fixed. I wanted very badly to be able to report back on what the issue really was, so that others having the same issues might be able to offer that suggestion to their cable company, and look really smart in the process, but to no avail, Charter's secret is safe from the web. And a follow up on another issue I'd had, a remote that would power on my TV AND surround system, since my basic remote didn't have the codes and wasn't a learning type. While I like many of the functions of the Logitech Harmony remotes, I wanted to wait for the Tivo QWERTY remote that was promised a while ago. Well, I got one within days of it being offered for sale. I like it a lot. It's smaller, but it's less likely to be held inverted as I often did with the old remote. It's much shorter than the normal remote, making reaching for buttons a little easier. As with any remote change, the button layout changed some, but I'm getting used to it. The QWERTY makes searches MUCH nicer, and the Bluetooth function makes it less sensitive to aiming issues, and it's also much snappier in it's response speed than the IR method. It's also a hefty little unit, very weighty, it has a good feel. My only nit to pick is the arrow buttons and the FF/Play/RW/Slow/Pause buttons are similar in feel (rockers), and I sometimes find myself on the wrong buttons. But the nicest part was after 10 plus years of Tivo ownership, my one remote now powers on the TV, Audio, and of course Tivo never sleeps. I can watch TV with only one remote ! It still didn't have the codes for the surround sound, I had to program it, but this also allowed me a tiny bit of customizing, in that I use my surround sound system/blue ray player as the media hub, and not the TV, so my TV Input button is now the surround sound input button, allowing me to jump to all the inputs and features of the HTIB/BD player, for which I still need that remote unfortunately, but that's generally rare compared to the Tivo usage. Glen ----- Original Message ----- From: "Glen Farney" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, July 05, 2010 7:18 PM Subject: [TiVo Central] New problems... > I've got a curious one, I think I know the problem, but I can't figure a > solution. > > I'm using my Tivo HD, had it for a few years, except for an occasional lag > or hiccup in recording, it's been pretty good. Upgraded to a 1TB hard > drive > a while ago and the recording irregularities seem to have gone away. I > used > it on analog cable for a long time, and upgraded to digital cable cards > (two > S cards) a year ago or so. Cable cards seem to work fine, once I figured > out what channels I really get, and turned off the HD channels since I > didn't have an HD set to watch them on anyway. Then I upgraded my tube to > a > nice LED/LCD HDTV and changed all my season passes to HD channels where I > could, OMG, why did I wait? So things were going fine, until..... > > Charter Cable recently went to SDV, lucky me. They came out and installed > the tuning adapter, a Cisco (Scientific America) STA1520. It works as > it's > supposed to. They also installed an M card, and that seems to work fine, > I > can record two digital channels at the same time with no issues. > > But here's the rub. Lately with so few shows to record, Tivo may not > actually change channels for a day or two, staying on one channel (in this > case, BBC America to record Top Gear or Dr. Who). The problem is after > about 12 hours, the video signal stops. Blank screen, Tivo reporting > "this > channel is not available" or something to that effect. If I change the > channel up, it works, and back down to the original blank channel, and > it's > back on. What I suspect is something has a time out built in, either the > tuning adapter or the switch at the cable company hub, and it stops the > channel after some amount of time, about 12 hours. When Tivo goes to > record > something on that channel, it doesn't have to change the channel, it's > already on the correct channel, but there's no signal, so no recording. > It > doesn't understand to change the channel and back again before recording. > > I've tried all the typical stuff, reboot Tivo, reboot the tuning adapter, > etc. I've talked to Charter a bunch of time and all I really get is > canned > answers, no one I talk to actually understands what SDV is or how it > really > works, only the troubleshooting guides they have on the computer. > > So, who knows these systems well enough to hazard a guess as to what is > actually timing out, if there is a setting change that perhaps Charter can > make to the tuning adapter, the hub switch, or even to Tivo to avoid this > issue. I have Tivo suggestions turned on so it would likely have recorded > something else during the dead time, there by changing the channel for me, > but it seems if you don't watch the suggestions for a while, it slows down > the recording of them to one or two shows a day, or less. > > Glen >
