FrankNBrew
join:2005-02-16
Royal Oak, MI
| reply to diskus
Re: Cable Card experience thread
I'm brand new here. Just stopped in to look for advise on my system. Here's my Comcast Cable Card story:
Bought a new Sony KDF-50WE655 a couple weeks back. Decided HD channels were a must, so I called Comcast and ordered it up. Installer came out and spent 3 hours trying to get the thing working.
A big problem here in Royal Oak, Michigan, is that Comcast sends our cable out over 2 cables. If you want all of the channels, you need a set top box. The box takes the signal from the appropriate cable as you switch channels. The cable card will only accept the signal from the coax plugged into the "cable" jack on the back of the TV. There's another coax input on the back of the TV set labeled "VHF/UHF". I tried plugging the other coax for the non-digital/HD channels into that jack, but I only get channels up to 13.
So here's what I have hooked up now. The digital/HD coax goes directly into the CABLE input. I can scroll through all of the channels, but over 50% of the channels are black, no picture or sound. The cable card is programmed to tell the TV these channels are there, but the signal is not there because it's on the 2nd cable. The 2nd cable runs through the VCR, and then into the VHF/UHF jack. To watch those channels I need to select the antenna input on the TV, switch the TV to channel 3, turn on the VCR, and select the channels through the VCR. Yeah, the picture sucks.
I'm not done yet. Intermittently, when watching HD channels, I get slight freeze up/pixelization(is that a word?)of the picture, like the cable signal gets slightly scrambled, and an error message pops up on the screen, with error code 161-4. It also advises to call the cable company. So I did.
The advisor told me to remove the cable card for 20 minutes, reinstall, and my problem will be solved. Yeah, right. Well I did it, and it didn't fix it. It happens about once an hour, and requires one button press on the remote to clear. It's no big deal, but it's annoying. So I called back, and they made an appointment to come out. I scheduled it for 4:30 today, to make sure I'm here. They showed up at 1:30, because they saw my wife was home, and knocked on the door. My wife explained the situation. They looked at the TV and said "You're lucky the cable card works at all. We can only get about 10% to work." And they left.
Sorry to be so long winded, and, if you made it all the way through, thanks for your time. Anyone have suggestions/comments, please feel free to share. And ifI figure anything out, I'll be sure to post. Thanks! |
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CableTool
Poorly Representing MYSELF.
Premium
join:2004-11-12
| I just left an escalation this afternoon where we installed 2 cable cards in December in two sweet plasmas.
She saw about 4-5 techs. One put an Amp on causing overdrive, one put a 3 way splitter ( only rated for 600mz )
After I took care of those I found out the account was in the wrong hub/headend in our system. After that was switched and a hit sent, BAM crystal clear, all channels.
The biggest problem with cable cards and areas is the warehouse. If you are in a DAC system as opposed to NAS there is a good chance that card isnt in the controller which means the controller cant see it to activate it.
Then you get a dummy card that gives you standard service, Music and maybe your highdefs, no digital programming though..
This might all sound greek if your not familiar with the system but if you are I hope it helps. |
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Grey Alien
join:2000-08-29
Pleasanton, CA
1 edit |  reply to FrankNBrew
deleted by poster |
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guywithsony
join:2005-06-26 | reply to FrankNBrew
do you get any program information when you select "display"? I sometimes see what show is on and how much time is left...but I'm not sure why it's not for every channel...do you have the same problem? |
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luquillo32
join:2005-05-02
Long Beach, CA
| reply to FrankNBrew
We have a lot of problems with sony kdf42we655 and kdf50we655.Tonight I spend 3 hours and two cards triying to make these cable cards work properly.I could watch Hbo for 10 minutes it would go away and say no sigal.These cable cards work well with 55 and 60 inch LCD but the smaller ones aways the same problems. |
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Stryker412
join:2005-05-24
Waretown, NJ
| said by luquillo32  :We have a lot of problems with sony kdf42we655 and kdf50we655.Tonight I spend 3 hours and two cards triying to make these cable cards work properly.I could watch Hbo for 10 minutes it would go away and say no sigal.These cable cards work well with 55 and 60 inch LCD but the smaller ones aways the same problems. I also have a 42WE655. I have had 5 tech appointments in 4 weeks. I FINALLY got them to admit that my TV needs a firmware update. I called Sony and they're coming out on Friday. |
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