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RKB_t
join:2012-05-02
Houston, TX

RKB_t

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New Guides for SA/Cisco Areas (Info from Ted Hodgins Blog)

The following posts are from Comcast's Ted Hodgins, Sr. Director, Video Product Development - Navigation, in Media & Entertainment, "New Guide for Scientific Atlanta Cable Boxes" blog:

»blog.comcast.com/2010/05 ··· xes.html

They contain information about the new Comcast guides for the SA/Cisco areas.
quote:
Hi Ted,

I know the current guide for the SA/Cisco areas is called S25 and the guide for Cisco AnyRoom DVR functionality is called On-Screen Guide 2.0. What is the name of the guide that will be released this summer for the SA STBs?

Will Cisco RNG STBs get this guide or will they skip it and only get On-Screen Guide 2.0?

Thanks,

Russ

Russ | April 17, 2012 4:05 PM

»blog.comcast.com/2010/05 ··· nt-45717
quote:
Hello Russ. The S25 name you referenced for this guide is not a customer-facing name but yes that is a name we use internally when referring to this version of the guide. You can see the S25p3 naming in the guide configuration menu. The next version of the guide coming out over the summer is labeled internally as S26.

For others, here is some inside baseball: The version number (S25, S26) of the on-screen guide for your cable box can be found in the guide's setup menu.

Press the Menu button twice on the silver Comcast remote control, select Setup, then Cable Box setup, arrow down to Configuration and 'Select to display' and press OK/Select.

The line immediately underneath the Review Configuration header will show you the version of the guide currently on your cable box. The first few characters (S25p3) indicate the guide code number. A change in guide code number on that box would indicate an update to the guide.

Don't worry. You will hear about the new guide from us in advance in a few different ways (other than having to constantly check your guide code number via the above)!

What area is getting which guide and when depends a lot on time, geography and hardware (cable box type) with a few moving parts to make it interesting.

To try and put it simply, most all Scientific-Atlanta branded cable boxes will be receiving this new guide (S26) regardless of where you happen to live. Some smaller quantities of older models of SA boxes (about 1% of our deployed boxes in SA-Cisco footprint) will get a guide update without the iTV applications.

In some areas (Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas, Minnesota and New Mexico), we plan to deliver On-Screen Guide 2.0 this year to the Cisco RNG series (RNG 100, 150 and 200) of cable boxes. Some of these areas may get S26 on their Cisco box first before getting On-Screen Guide 2.0. Other areas may go directly to On-Screen Guide 2.0 on newly deployed Cisco RNG cable boxes.

The deployment sequence, customer communication plan and employee training plan will take that into consideration as each market will be at a different stage of the On-Screen Guide 2.0 process.

Other SA/Cisco areas that are in states that I have not listed above are not currently targeted for On-Screen Guide 2.0 this year and some of those areas (that I have not listed) may get our On-Screen Guide 3.0 (also called the X1 guide) this year or next year.

The long term plan is to get all of our newest cable boxes (regardless of hardware manufacturer or geography) onto a common guide starting in 2013 to provide a consistent experience.

Ted Hodgins replied to comment from Russ | April 18, 2012 2:08 PM

»blog.comcast.com/2010/05 ··· nt-45967

djdanska
Rudie32
Premium Member
join:2001-04-21
San Diego, CA

djdanska

Premium Member

To be honest, with the site crash and all, i was expecting to see October 2010 on this post. Thinking maybe in 2013 they will see it. lmao.
RKB_t
join:2012-05-02
Houston, TX

RKB_t

Member

The following posts are from Comcast's Ted Hodgins, Sr. Director, Video Product Development - Navigation, in Media & Entertainment, "New Guide for Scientific Atlanta Cable Boxes" blog (see link in first post in this thread).

Ths is the first time that I hae seen the customer facing issues that should be resolved in the next SA/Cisco area guide (see underlined section).
quote:
Ted,
Based on your recent information here, am I to assume that Vermont, which is not on the list of several states scheduled to receive guide 2.0 this summer, means we will have to wait another year to see this upgrade and fix some of the remaining issues we are having with S25? Please clarify.

ButchSS | April 19, 2012 9:54 AM

»blog.comcast.com/2010/05 ··· nt-46078
quote:
Hello ButchSS. To be clear, all Cisco and Scientific-Atlanta cable boxes in all areas will be getting some sort of guide update and improvements starting over the summer.

Some of the new features that are included in the summer release are listed below:

myDVR Manager: From the internet and the Xfinity TV app, customers can: set recordings, view/modify scheduled recordings, view completed recordings, modify series priority lists, etc.
»xfinity.comcast.net/mydv ··· /how-to/

Caller ID to the TV See who's calling, right from your TV and PC! Comcast Universal Caller ID takes the guesswork out of incoming calls. »www.comcast.net/callerid

Xfinity TV Application: The ability to use your iPad to change channels.
»www.xfinity.com/help/int ··· -tv-app/

HSN Shop-by-Remote: A convenient, new way to make HSN purchases simply by using your remote. »www.comcast.net/newguide ··· 0110.pdf

Request for Info: Know more, save more! Introducing an easy way to request valuable coupons and info from advertisers simply by using your remote.
»www.comcast.net/newguide ··· tion.pdf

Ready Remind and Ready Record: Now you can conveniently set program reminders or recordings directly from certain TV show and movie advertisements.
»www.comcast.net/newguide ··· cord.pdf

Several customer facing issues are also resolved in this release, including the following:

- DVR Boxes losing functionality of 15 second rewind and 5 minute skip back after being online for a significant period of time.

- DVR over-recording issues with New and Repeat episodes

- RNG 200s only: When watching live TV, pressing rewind may rewind all the way to the beginning of the buffer and bring the customer back to live TV.

- RNG 200s only: Audio /video occasionally cuts in and out after swapping channels.


Some areas will also have On-Screen Guide 2.0 available. Vermont is not currently targeted to receive On-Screen Guide 2.0 in 2012.

Ted Hodgins replied to comment from ButchSS | April 19, 2012 11:08 AM

»blog.comcast.com/2010/05 ··· nt-46085
RKB_t

RKB_t

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The following posts are from Comcast's Ted Hodgins, Sr. Director, Video Product Development - Navigation, in Media & Entertainment, "New Guide for Scientific Atlanta Cable Boxes" blog.

Two additional issues to be resolved in the S26 guide scheduled for release this Summer. This was a follow up post.
quote:
Hi Ted,

Will the following two issues be resolved in the S26 guide?

1) The Not Authorized messages that are displayed even though the channel is authorized (You mentioned that firmware changes were required to completely fix this).

2) Pass Through using an HDMI cable.

Thanks,

Russ

Russ replied to comment from Ted Hodgins | April 21, 2012 1:19 AM

»blog.comcast.com/2010/05 ··· nt-46323
quote:
@Russ, apologies for the delay in responding.

We have seen significantly reduced instances of the unintended Not Authorized screen as part of the software patch that was distributed to all of our SA-Cisco locations.

We have also worked with Cisco to make necessary firmware changes in the upcoming guide release. These changes have been shown to eliminate the unintended Not Authorized occurrences that have been observed.

The firmware update included in this upcoming release also has the HDMI cables working very well with the HD Pass-Through feature.

Ted Hodgins replied to comment from Russ | May 3, 2012 4:49 PM

»blog.comcast.com/2010/05 ··· nt-47826

mikedz4
join:2003-04-14
Weirton, WV

mikedz4

Member

According to marketing and ted weirton,wv won't see any guide updates this year which stinks as I was looking forward to guide 2.0 but maybe eventually I will get the interactive features like sports,etc being tested in florida.
I guess slowing deployment of guide 2.0 and the x1 box will allow better testing so there aren't as many bugs when it does launch but I would enjoy being a beta tester.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

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Haven't seen Russ in awhile. Anyway I wonder when the heck we're going to actually see the new update to fix the glitch we are seeing with cablecards showing the channel is not authorized on both cablecard equipped devices as well as the Cisco RNG200N models. This has been an issue for quite a long time.

mikedz4
join:2003-04-14
Weirton, WV

mikedz4

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russ is rkb apparently in 2010 someone else had the russ name so he had to use rkb for now
RKB_t
join:2012-05-02
Houston, TX

RKB_t to Mike Wolf

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to Mike Wolf
said by Mike Wolf:

Haven't seen Russ in awhile. Anyway I wonder when the heck we're going to actually see the new update to fix the glitch we are seeing with cablecards showing the channel is not authorized on both cablecard equipped devices as well as the Cisco RNG200N models. This has been an issue for quite a long time.

You won't see Russ until after the data recovery is finished, see
»Re: are we back?

The fix for the channel is not authorized message should be in the next release S26 scheduled for this Summer, see my previous post. It wouldn't surprise me if that release gets delayed again.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

Mike Wolf

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Oh so the patch that was suppose to be out by March got delayed?
RKB_t
join:2012-05-02
Houston, TX

1 edit

RKB_t

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said by Mike Wolf:

Oh so the patch that was suppose to be out by March got delayed?

I am not sure what patch you are referring to.

The previous patch that fixed (the truncated recordings, some of the not authorized issues and Pass Through except when using an HDMI cable) started being deployed at the end of October 2011 and completed being deployed around March 2012.
said by Ted Hodgins :
We have also worked with Cisco to make necessary firmware changes in the upcoming guide release. These changes have been shown to eliminate the unintended Not Authorized occurrences that have been observed.

The firmware update included in this upcoming release also has the HDMI cables working very well with the HD Pass-Through feature.
The next guide release S26 and firmware patch referrenced by Ted Hodgins is scheduled for mid 2012 (Summer). The guide release S26 has been scheduled for mid 2012 for about 9 months. I don't know how long the firmware patch has been scheduled for.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

Mike Wolf

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The patch I'm referring to is the one to temporarily alleviate the Cisco/SA RNG200N and devices with Cisco/SA cablecards installed that randomly incorrectly reports channels as not authorized after a number of channel changes in a short period of time. There is suppose to be a firmware update Cisco was working on to fix this issue permanently.
RKB_t
join:2012-05-02
Houston, TX

RKB_t

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said by Mike Wolf:

The patch I'm referring to is the one to temporarily alleviate the Cisco/SA RNG200N and devices with Cisco/SA cablecards installed that randomly incorrectly reports channels as not authorized after a number of channel changes in a short period of time. There is suppose to be a firmware update Cisco was working on to fix this issue permanently.

I think you misunderstood Ted Hodgins comments to you, but Ted was overly optomistic about the software patch significantly alleviating the current Not Authorized issue. The software patch has been deployed but the Firmware changes have not. The Firmware changes were scheduled for mid 2012 and still are scheduled for mid 2012. The Firmware changes will be made when S26 is deployed this Summer. The following quote is from Ted Hodgins to you from November 3, 2011.
said by Ted Hodgins :
Hello Mr. Wolf and thanks for your comnents and question. I am sorry to hear about the issue you are having with your Moxi and cablecard.

The software patch that we have started to roll out to the SA-Cisco cable boxes significantly alleviates the current Not Authorized issue on our cable boxes.

We did not make any changes to the firmware in this patch. Firmware changes to completely resolve this issue are included in an upcoming guide software release scheduled for mid-2012.

I will be able to update specific information as each area gets confirmed. All of our SA-Cisco customers will be getting this software patch. I don't have a confirmed timeframe for your location in New Jersey just yet.

The plan is to get the software patch to the majority of our Cisco-SA customers this year.

The software patch is now out to about 22% of our SA-Cisco customers including customers in TX, MS, LA and customers with RNG 150 and 150n boxes in MN.

Ted Hodgins replied to comment from Mike Wolf | November 3, 2011 4:05 PM

»blog.comcast.com/2010/05 ··· nt-41056

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

Mike Wolf

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Exactly, yet it's already May and there has been no status update and confirmation, and users with TiVo and Moxi and THPC's that use Cisco/SA cablecards are still affected. Also still don't know if the software patch mentioned in the post was even rolled out to my area.
RKB_t
join:2012-05-02
Houston, TX

RKB_t

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said by Mike Wolf:

Exactly, yet it's already May and there has been no status update and confirmation, and users with TiVo and Moxi and THPC's that use Cisco/SA cablecards are still affected. Also still don't know if the software patch mentioned in the post was even rolled out to my area.

The software patch has been rolled out to all SA/Cisco areas as far as I can tell. Ted explained how to tell if you have it by looking at the version numbers. It fixed the truncated recordings issue, allowed Pass Through except for using an HDMI cable and was supposed to help alleviate some of the Unauthorized channel issues. Most of the posts that I have read have said that the user can't see any major difference with the Unauthorized channel issues.

The main problem is with the CableCard firmware. That hasn't changed and won't change until later in mid 2012. The Firmware changes will be deployed at the same time that Comcast deploys the S26 guide.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

Mike Wolf

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I just hope that they don't break each other. »[DVR] DVR menu outage
RKB_t
join:2012-05-02
Houston, TX

1 edit

RKB_t

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said by Mike Wolf:

I just hope that they don't break each other. »[DVR] DVR menu outage

I didn't see any problems with the S25 guide in Houston like the ones described in the linked thread. According to Ted, he and his team are working on the schedule for deploying S26 so I don't think that was the "official start" for deploying S26. He usually announces when an area will get a guide update. The last time frames have been mid 2012 and June.

The menu system can be changed without updating the guide. Maybe, there was a problem with that. In the last few weeks, Houston added season and episode information to the program description in the guide.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

Mike Wolf

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Yeah I noticed that stuff as well. That's actually part of the program information because shows recorded prior don't have it.

andyross
MVM
join:2003-05-04
Aurora, IL

andyross to RKB_t

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In iGuide, the menus are downloadable. That is why you sometimes get a 'please wait' and limited functionality for awhile after a reboot. You can even force a reload by changing the language.

The season/episode stuff was added to the iGuide data about 2 months ago to all users. It also started showing up on Motorola's, along with the loss of about a day's worth of programming due to it taking up more memory.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

Mike Wolf

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When the boxes are downloading the iGuide data, just how fast is the connection between the box and the headend it is getting the info from? I'm assuming it's a broadband connection, but is it at the same speed tier I'm paying for with Internet blast 30 or is it the extreme 105 tier?

andyross
MVM
join:2003-05-04
Aurora, IL

andyross

MVM

If it's similar to the Motorola's, it uses what is called the OOB (Out-Of-Band) channel. It's typically either the 4MHz gap between RF4 and RF5, or an unused RF channel nearby. The datarate is rather slow. It's a low QAM or QPSK. That same channel is also used for:
clock
channel map (every few minutes)
near-term 6-8 hours data (probably every 20-30 minutes)
long-term data (maybe once or twice a day now)
menu downloads
firmware updates
OnDemand menus (dynamic)
OnDemand control (telling the box what frequency to tune to watch)
Network control (iPads, etc...)
RKB_t
join:2012-05-02
Houston, TX

RKB_t

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There was a thread that had this information before the Power Failure.

It works the same in the SA/Cisco areas.

I think the new RNG STBs and new guides that use Tru2way will have a faster download rate.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

Mike Wolf to andyross

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to andyross
Very cool and technical. So is that a yes?
RKB_t
join:2012-05-02
Houston, TX

RKB_t

Member

said by Mike Wolf:

Very cool and technical. So is that a yes?

said by andyross :
The datarate is rather slow.
It is not transmitted at your download speed, so that would be a no. It is transmitted on a repeated basis to every STB.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

Mike Wolf

Member

So then I'm guessing no one knows lol
RKB_t
join:2012-05-02
Houston, TX

RKB_t

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The following posts are from Comcast's Ted Hodgins, Sr. Director, Video Product Development - Navigation, in Media & Entertainment, "New Guide for Scientific Atlanta Cable Boxes" blog.

Use the following methods to determine when you wil get the new guide update.
quote:
Hi Ted,

What I believe is frustrating to most of the Cisco/SA customers is the lack of a plan, communication and execution. I have been trying for over a year to find out what the plan is. If you tell us its 2014, then it is 2014. Its the lack of a plan and communication that is frustrating. How hard is it to put a plan together and publish?

Tom

tom | May 6, 2012 8:42 PM

»blog.comcast.com/2010/05 ··· nt-47952
quote:
Hello Tom, my post below [Note: Link to a similar post »Re: New Guides for SA/Cisco Areas (Info from Ted Hodgins Blog) ] from May 1st outlines at a high level the plan that we have for our customers that have Scientific-Atlanta and Cisco branded cable boxes. We are scheduled to start delivering additional features and functionality over the summer of 2012.

Better communication is something that you will see as we get closer to delivering these new features in each area.

Typically notifications and announcements around products, channels and services are done via a combination of bill messages, e-mails, bill inserts, TV commercials, direct mail, box messages as well as this site [Note: continue to check Ted's blog].

Ted Hodgins replied to comment from tom | May 9, 2012 11:27 AM

»blog.comcast.com/2010/05 ··· nt-48119
miscDude
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said by Mike Wolf:

So then I'm guessing no one knows lol

Based off this information on the hardware capabilities, we are looking at about a 1.54Mbps data rate on that out-of-band channel which carries all the out of band data. This means that the guide data would only utilize a small portion of available speed.

»www.cisco.com/en/US/prod ··· eb7b.pdf

Mike Wolf
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rarely does this ever happen smoothly. Depending on which call center or web chat tech a customer gets, sometimes they have absolutely no idea the speed tiers Comcast offers. I've personally been told by techs that Comcast doesn't offer anything over 8Mbps or even 12Mbps for my area. When I politely inform them that I have Blast 30Mbps they say that is impossible and one even called me a dirty liar whom was later terminated. This becomes a problem when a customer is calling in about performance problems. It sounds like they have outdated information but they claim it is current until 2014. In contrast the North American call centers we have in Canada and the US are on the ball with their tech support stuff.

andyross
MVM
join:2003-05-04
Aurora, IL

andyross

MVM

We are talking about the OOB data rate used by the cable boxes, not HSI. Although, most HD boxes do also have DOCSIS modems in them, but are usually not used. I think the Tivo-on-Motorola used it, and it may also be used whenever True2Way is rolled out.

Mike Wolf
join:2009-05-24
Tuckerton, NJ

Mike Wolf

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ah ok awesome thanks for the clear cut answer andy.

mikedz4
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I'm glad Cisco areas are getting it. I've been told I won't see any updates this year unfortunately. Probably the mysterious case of the missing bandwidth lol.