W.O.W. → SE Michigan WOW problem

This is an odd problem, or it seems to be to me. I guess I hope it's not and others have had it so I can find a solution.

Back in 2011 WOW informed me through snail mail and other ways there would be changes coming to my service while they changed over to 'all digital' cable TV service. In doing so they also stated there would be no interruption to my service as long as I had the cable running to a TV with a digital tuner or one using the WOW cable box.

Well, I never had a problem with the TV hooked up to the cable box but the other ones hooked right to the cable using the digital tuner on the TV have never worked right since.

Now I can't just hit the channel numbers (say, 61 for Fox News) to go to a certain channel. When I do it goes to what seems to be the channel but goes to a blue screen and says, 'no signal.' To go to the actual channel at that point I have to hit the channel up button and then it'll go to the channel I want.

It's like each channel has two channels only one has 'no signal.'

Also, it's not all the channels that do it. I have some HD channels like ABC, NBC... and so on, which when I hit those numbers it goes right to it.

It's been driving me crazy for a while now and they don't seem to care...Thoughts?

Thanks!

Ray

try a channel rescan...

Yeah, I tried that. It still does the same thing...

I noticed that one channel would be analog and the second channel was digital, I had to delete all the analog ones or i would get both of them when i changed channels using the up or down button. I did get a signal on both though.

clinton twp mi.

I think that is a function of the tuner design in the TV itself. I have a Visio TV that does exactly what you describe. I have an LG and Samsung that work perfect. Is it a "lower" brand TV?

This is absolutely correct. While we try to do our best to make the channels broadcast in a way the all TVs will like, it doesn't always work out. Some QAM tuners don't display the channels the same as others, so in some cases they will show up with just channel numbers, and in other cases you get the XX-XXX or XX.XXX or whatever. There's nothing we can do to correct this, as it's just the way the QAM tuner in the TV is designed to work.

Yeah, I have Vizio's. I guess I'm just stuck with this bad service from WOW because it seems I bought the wrong TV.

Guess my service was interrupted after all.

What a shame!

Does WOW plan to work on this problem?

It's not a problem with our service. It's just not possible to test every single QAM tuner out there to try to make them work. We provide the channels in clear QAM which very few providers do, but it's impossible to make them work with every piece of customer owned equipment out there.

Yep my Vizio is the same and my two samsungs work good.

Any way to tell from specs or similar which brands will not have this issuse?

So far from reading posts, Vizio - Problem, LG, Samsung - No. But maybe it can vary by model within a brand.

I have a lower end Samsung from 2 years ago that doesn't have the issue. I have a Sony that was top of the line 3 or 4 years ago and it doesn't have any issues. As well as a lower end Sony 2 years old, that is also fine. Also have a coby or Curtis can't remember off the top of my head that tunes properly, but gets horrible pixelization and audio cut outs. It is that tvs tuner because it works fine when I hook a Box up to it.

Tl:Dr everything from my low end crap to high end Sony is fine. There is a spec on how to broadcast that info. It starts with a q, not qam, qinfo, qsip, something like that. If a tv isn't implementing that properly it will have issues, Vizio is a decent brand, but they do have to cut cost somewhere, and as most people have boxes it makes sense to cut cost on the tuner.

I've had this problem and fixed it on my TV, though I don't know if all TVs will have the setting. When you do a rescan, be sure that you're only search for digital channels. My TV tried to search for both digital and analog. For a long time it picked up 2 of each channel. Eventually (when WOW sent out a notice that everything was becoming digital), the duplicate channels still existed, but had no content. Now that I've rescanned for digital only everything is back to normal.

Hope this works. My TV is a Sony.

I'll give that a try, thanks.

It's too bad WOW wants to put it on me, their customer, a shortcoming on their end. You either have a quality product or you don't.

When it went 'all digital' there was no mention of which TV's would work properly and which wouldn't. Just that there would be NO INTERRUPTION OF SERVICE if the TV has a digital tuner.

To the WOW rep, don't bother...

All else, thanks for your time.

The problem is you don't have a quality product with that Visio junk.

You can't blame WOW for this one.

warren3527 you should appreciate the fact that WOW! actually allowed you (and other customers) to use your own digital qam tuner tv VS making YOU rent the dta's (like Comcast). If you want that Vizio issue resolved, rent a dta, simple resolution.

+1

I recently exchanged my mom's stb with WOW. I picked it up at lunch time, made the exchange after work and returned it to her that evening. In the meanwhile she was watching a reduced line-up through her QAM tuner. No problems at all, except she couldn't watch any of her premium channels for the afternoon.

Well folks, I must say I don't agree and I see absolutely no reason to insult me or my equipment. I know Vizio isn't the best...

I've been with WOW for over 7 years now and they decide to change their service and I've supposed to run out and buy new TV's?

Maybe they could work it out so it works on my kind of TV too. It was stated, after all, there would be no interruption of service.
Flat out lie as they should know which tuners their product will work with and which won't. They are in the TV business if I'm not mistaken. If they are offering a product without knowing the needs of the market or at least warn the folks, that's bad practice.

Oh, just got my letter stating my monthly bill's going up ANOTHER $8 a month. What a deal, the quality of the product goes down and the fees go up.

Another example of greed running ramped.

I agree that WOW has had plenty of problems with tv service. But when it comes to clear QAM, WOW treats their customers better than any other provider. They have a clear QAM channel line-up available from their website and give rescan warnings whenever they are changing the line-up. Try to get clear QAM information from someone like Comcast or TWC. You'll be laughed out of the office. While UVerse and the satcos don't even have a non-stb option for their service.

Clear QAM is a HUGE plus for me as I only have Basic. Both my Sony TVs work just fine mostly, one better than the other. I do understand that the channel numbers are NOT a WOW issue. The fact they even have clear QAM is all I care about.