New Cox Channels
Barrett writes:
Cox got three new HD channels yesterday, Feb 12. Unfortunately, it looks like those of us using cablecards without Cox set-top boxes are not going to be able to get these new channels, nor will we get any additional channels added in the near future. I’m using a multistream card with my TivoHD and had a tech come out today to try and get the card to register the channels. After an hour of reinstalling a new card, his supervisor informed him that the new channels would not work with cablecards, and that’s how it would be from here on out with any new HD channels from Cox.
Has hdtvok.com heard anything about this from Cox? Are any OKC cablecard users getting the new channels? I know they are working for Cox HD box renters.
Sounds like Cox is starting to deploy SDV with these new channels. Here is hoping the SDV dongle comes out soon. Of course it could all just be that the supervisor wanted to just say that since they are against cable cards to start with.
Not yet deploying SDV (but does help prepare), but as a matter of policy starting with the channels launched Tuesday, new HD channels will not be launched to CableCard. An HD receiver is needed.
Without launching new channels to cable cards, I suspect a mass exodus of persons with TivoHD systems to cable’s competitors.
Can someone please post what the 3 new channels turned on Feb 12th. are?
HGTV HD, Food Network HD, and Travel Channel HD
It is great to get more HD, but I would really like something with substance. Something like HD Net from Mark Cuban. I have called Cox many times about this particular channel and they act as though they have never heard of it.
Mark, I very much agree with wanting some channels with “substance.” These new additions have so many info-mercials that I don’t really count them as content at all. What’s next, Home Shopping HD? Yuck. I want Sci-Fi HD!
Directv will fix you up with Sci-fi HD
Also, the HDPPV channel from Cox was wonderfully turned off as of Tuesday as well. It showed up for a week, so the UFC event could be received in HD. Again, no love to wrestling fans who want to watch WWE PPV’s in HD, as we have one this Sunday and no HDPPV channel to order from.
CoxEmp: How exactly does failing to place the channels in the CableCARD map “help prepare” for SDV?
I’m guessing this is only a problem in Tulsa because I am able to receive all three new channels on my TiVo Series 3 in Norman.
If Cox is using SDV then I can see why this would be an issue until TiVo releases an external SDV tuner later this year. But if this is just corporate policy they will lose this long-time customer if they plan on doing any more of this.
As an aside, this seems like a huge sidestep of the mandatory CableCARD rules if a cable provider can just not let CableCARDs receive any channels.
I live in Norman as well and receive the new HD channels as well using a cable card. The difference being I have an LG plamsa TV with a built-in DVR. Is the problem only pertaining to Tivo users?
Not a Tvio thing. I have a Toshiba HD TV using Cablecard. I have been out of town and was disappointed when I didn’t see new HD channels. It was at this site that I read the first posting indicating that Cox wasn’t going to support adding the channels for CableCard users. What’s up with that?
Of course, 2 years ago when we first got our HD ready TV, we could get the HD channels without the Digital Subscription. I am pretty sure we just hooked the cable into the TV, and voila there the HD channels were. (After the refresh, of coure.
SDV is cool, it will free up quite a bit of bandwidth (Lots of new HD channels). I just hope the industry gets its act together and comes out with bidirectional cable cards soon.
RE: wierdo.
This is a very simplified explanation. You can’t do SDV with mono directional cable cards. SDV (Switching Digital Video) is a system that works like PPV. You don’t broadcast every channel to every house. If three or four people on your block are watching SciFi and no one is watching the popcorn channel, your cable company will pick some random unused channel and put SciFi on it. This channel only goes to your block. This way they only need to broadcast the channels people near you are watching (Broadcast is a bad term here). no waisted space for the popcorn channel. Unfortunately, Your cable card has no way to tell your cable company, “I want to watch SciFi.”
SDV could give cable space for as many HD channels as anyone could want.
@ralfthedog:
Yeah, that’s what SDV does. Great. Thanks for telling me what I already know.
Holding back the new HD channels from CableCARD customers doesn’t do a thing to help the deployment of SDV as far as I can tell, given that Cox doesn’t have SDV equipment in Oklahoma yet, and probably won’t for at least another year. The new channels are currently just like every other linear channel out there; broadcast into every home. So why exactly is it that they refuse to let me receive it, yet make me pay the same money as everybody else?
Since they’re already linear channels, they can’t turn them off for everyone to free up space for SDV until they already have SDV working and ready to go. Combine that with the impending ‘tuning resolver’ that will allow TiVos (and other CE whose manufacturers are willing to issue firmware updates for) to tune SDV channels, which will be out long before we see SDV here in Oklahoma, and all I see is Cox capriciously denying me channels in an effort to get me to use their sub par box.
P.S. Nationwide, over 90% of all CableCARDs are installed in TiVos, so even if they want to argue that they don’t want to take away channels from people, they won’t have to. And even if the thousand or two customers in Oklahoma that have CableCARDs in devices other than TiVos have to be excluded, Cox is perfectly capable of letting some CableCARD devices receive the channels and keeping them from others, as is evidenced by their own CableCARD using boxes being allowed to receive the new channels.
I filed a complaint with the fcc and I urge anyone else with a cable card tv, tivo, or any cable card device to do the same. This was the point of cable cards and cablelabs to stop cable companies from forcing us to use their set top boxes and pay their high rental fees. Do not let Cox get away with this. They are refusing to send us the new channels simply because they can and blame it on the cable cards. If they were using SDV already that would be different but they are not.
Forgot to post link.
https://esupport.fcc.gov/sform2000/new_complaints.action?request_locale=en
I don’t think there is anything “illegal” cox is doing besides false advertising they advertise all you need to get free HDTV is a digtal REciever or CAblecard on their own commercials now where in the fine print does it say some channels not available on cablecard.
Just wanted to mention, I filed a complaint with the FCC then sent an e-mail to Dave Bialis who seems to be the head Cox guy here in Oklahoma (dave.bialis@cox.com). I sent this e-mail on Friday evening but I was a bit perturbed and forgot to include any contact/account information. Well, Saturday morning they tracked me down to get my contact information so they could “take care of this.” I did mention in the e-mail that I had filed an FCC complaint and maybe that did something or maybe it didn’t. I figure it can’t hurt if more people were to write him.
This entire situation seems to me like a direct circumvention of the cablecard “rules” so that they can sell more of their TERRIBLE DVRs. How this isn’t illegal I’ll never know. I would even be understanding if this were temporary while they rolled out new equipment but the word I got from the supervisor tech guy I talked to was “well, we might have something at some point.” Their entire attitude on it really infuriated me.
nurho83,
Keep me up to date and let me konw if they turn this on for your cable cards if they do I will send Dave an email myself that can’t just pick and chose which customers to turn this on for. Although I would be happy if they turned mine on
On a side note I don’t run a TivoHD instead I run media center with dual cable card tuners and I had to fight with cox to get them installed. They are cable labs certified and by FCC law they have to give me cable cards and activate them for me. I finally got them installed and working but I shouldn’t have had to argue in the first place.
Plucky, I envy you with your cable card enabled PC Tuners (I’ve got a monstrous HTPC doing OTA HD and standard cable as well). I just can’t talk myself into that yet. Soon.
I got a call from them today before noon. The guy said there was a technical issue which he didn’t fully understand but he thinks it’s something to do with the single stream cards. Take that for what you will.
He said there’s nothing they can do for me in the short term. He wanted to know if I would be happy with one of their HD DVR boxes. Well, no, not really but there’s no other option. So I’m getting another one of their boxes (ugggh) free of charge until the end of the year supposedly and hopefully at that point something more long term will be available. He even offered to roll a truck and install it free of charge but I told him I’m ok going and getting it. I have some serious equipment re-arranging to do before I can get it going. Where’m I going to put that thing?
nurho,
Yeah I have used htpc’s for over 5 years now but just got the cable card setup about a month ago and haven’t looked back. I know have 2 cable card tuners and 2 QAM tuners for local so a total of 4 tuners. I would highly recomend QAM tuner over OTA as it is more reliable to me. I have 2 xbox 360’s acting purely as extenders feeding the living room and bedroom. So the HTPC is just pretty much a headless unit in the office. I have over 3TB of movies and counting as well as tons of music cd’s and pictures. I couldn’t dare go back to a basic DVR.
But anyways Cox told you exactly what they want to tell people I believe. There is no difference in a s-card and m-card other than the m-card can recieve multiple streams (2) off one card. I have m-cards in my htpc (even though I can’t take advantage of the 2 streams) and I still don’t get the new channels. They want people to use their dvr’s (I am shocked they are giving it to you free). Cable companies hate Cable card devices as they lose allot of rentals from them.
I was told by a Cox rep that no existing HD channels would be moved to SDV. I had called to inquire about the Food Network HD channel not tuning in - figured they had to reset my account (activate that grouping, etc.) to make it accessible (seemed to be a lot of that malarky as a “fix” in the days after I got my CableCard installed). The rep sounded a lot like ralf the dog above. Telling me what I already did know about SDV and sounding like he was in some advanced state of ecstasy, drooling over the increased bandwidth possibilities for Cox. I listened politely because I knew he would be of no help, all the while trying to decide if I want to go through the pain of moving to another provider who is more TiVo friendly.
Which leads me to this question: did Cox offer HGTV HD as a non-SDV channel before moving it into this bundle of SDV channels? I just got my HD setup at the start of February and TiVo reported a channel change for HGTV from 727 to its current spot at 737. Can anyone tell me if HGTV was available in HD on 727 prior to be moved into the SDV group? If so, it demonstrates that Cox - or its representatives - are playing fast with the facts. This issue is important to me as they are likewise not honoring inducements they made to win my business.
Well I am extremely aggravated now. I just got off the phone with a Cox representative. It took him about 15 minutes to find some internal documentation in his database that had a statement for CableCard users. He seemed to be reading the information, so I’m pretty sure he wasn’t making it up. Basically, the statement said the new channels added on Feb. 12th will not be available to CC users, nor will they ever be added to the CableCards. Additionally, no new HD channels will be made available to CC users in Tulsa. It all has to do with two-way communication with the cable box (CableCards are one-way). Sounds like they are talking about SDV and bandwidth optimization. I just love dealing with companies that like to play games. *Sigh*
I just got off the phone with TiVo, and they stated they are working on an SDV adapter, but they did not have an official release date yet.
Yeah they are flat lying. File a complaint with the FCC it is your only option. They are a long ways of from SDV.
Not quite your only option. I actually sent emails to the local ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates. I emailed all my congressmen. And I filed an FCC complaint.
Plucky, I was shocked at the offer of free DVR as well. At most I expected some piddly credit on my bill. Of course, I’m expecting them to try to screw me over on it at some point by charging me for some bogus charge because of it. I’m with you on writing the FCC. Plus, like minotaur said, any Congress Critter as well. I need to track down some of the “cable reformer” guys and e-mail them as well.
As to QAM and OTA, I originally had a pair of tuners (well, an HDHomeRun thingie) hooked up to QAM but the signal was too weak for the HDHR thing so I swapped it for OTA. I still have an occassional problem with ABC but I’m generally ok. I’d rather split two of my HD tuners to QAM and two for OTA but it didn’t work out and I don’t know enough about amplifiers to mess with them.
As for the S cards vs. the M cards, I’ll trust you on it. I know what they are in the most general sense but that’s about it. I can’t see them NOT upgrading their system for us CC users at some point or otherwise they’d be in the deep end with the FCC from what I gather. Even free that garbage DVR they have is just barely this side of worthless.
Murho,
I too run a hdhomerun for my locals in QAM if you signal wasn’t strong enough make cox fix it that simple. I called them and got them to up my signal to the hdhomerun as I bought it to get ABC reliably and couldn’t get it all on QAM after they came out no problems since. You should get all QAM channels hassel free per FCC law stating they have to provide them unecrypted and they do if you aren’t getting a good signal something is wrong on their side.
It is not a matter of cox upgrading their systems currently. Now when they do go SDV then all you will need is a cable tuner cable of cable card 2.0 or the tivo sdv adapter in your case. But currently they don’t need to upgrade anything they are just refusing to turn the channels on for cable card subs plain and simple.
Plucky,
The tech supervisor I spoke with mentioned something about Motorola didn’t have the multi-stream card available for their system. Said that all the systems are a bit different and that the cablecards are specific to the system. I’m not knowledgeable enough on the subject to refute or verify what he claimed.
As for the QAM, I’m thinking my signal strength is partly my fault. When the signal comes into the house, it gets split with one branch going to my cable system and one going to the cable modem. That’s their splitter. I had nothing to do with that. However, the one cable that comes to my TV area goes into a Monster 8 way splitter (actually recommended by the HDHR guys as a matter of fact). I hate splitting it that much but it’s necessary to feed all my tuners. How would jacking up signal strength affect that? Not my real area of expertise.
I finally got everything re-arranged and installed their lovely cable box. When I turned it on the only thing I got was limited basic (or whatever they call it, everything up to ESPN) and the HD networks. I called them up and after some work on it I now get…..channel 3, the Cox channel and nothing else. I’ve not tried the On-Demand service so not sure if it works. They offered to roll a tech to have a look at it but I need to pin down a good time for that. I may e-mail the guy in OKC that got me the box to see if they may be able to do something from there. I’m not hopeful.
I have m-cards from scientific atlanta in my tuners. The guy you talked to knew nothing or was just blowing smoke. M-cards are just simply for two streams instead of one has nothing to do with them not giving us channels
It is a signal issue trust me you should have line insurance from cox and they will stay there until they fix it. Especially if you are not getting all the channels either a signal issue or a bad box.
Plucky, what all channels do you get with QAM? Is it just the stuff you can get OTA (which is what I was getting I think)? I’m just wondering if it’d be worth the hassle.
Yes you get the locals in hd plus the 24 hour pbs feed (which is nice) and channels 3 thru 21 (in digital)
Hi, yeah I think they are just trying to hog tie us into believing that we may get more channels later when the dual channel cards come out. Its bogus! They are wanting to faze out cable cards completly. I just think the Government should step in and make them stop this monopoly type of mentality.
This latest thing they did with not supporting cable cards for newer channels is proof. Just how much more proof do ya need? I have cable card in my sony tv and it took me several tries just to get them to replace the first one that kept failing. I do have a signal booster on the cable. The cable guy said that they will be going to a two way card. I said ok but still to this day do not believe him.
I don’t know how to submit news but
I got an email from cox today saying that my channels (hgtv-hd,travel-hd,food-hd) would be available on my card cards tomorrow. I come home today to find them all there and live.
Thank you Cox for not denying us channels we are entitled too.
Thank you Cox. You are the best.
Well, It looks like the two way cable card thing was just a ploy and was wrong. I just checked my sony with cable card and guess what? The New channels were there! It seems that not letting us have those channels was an attempt to stop cable cards all together. I think if cox trys to do this again we should all speak up again, never let your guard down!
Enough said. Thanks!
Just read the forum and called my wife at home to have her tune-in Food Network HD. Glad to see it available on my TiVo HD box. I should have known something was up when my box wouldn’t receive most of the channels yesterday. That usually means it is time to restart the TiVo as Cox has sent out an update. When I had the Cox DVR for a week while I waited on my CableCard installation, I was told it should be rebooted nightly to keep up with the “updates.” With TiVo, the need to restart has been infrequent and only twice since February have I had to call to get Cox to reset from their end. Coincidentally, I had to get the Cox push when they added the trio of channels that are now available and then again a few days ago.
CoxEmp - if you are reading, can you give us an update on what has transpired over the last several weeks (channels not available and the real story as to why) and what we (TiVo and other non-Cox DVR customers) should expect as new HD channels are added? Thanks in advance!
bwana_bob,
What is the Cox push? I do not have TiVo.
Well, since I have been waiting so long for these channels all I can say is wow! I love the HD. They are all good, love Food and HGTV, but I am really enjoying TravelHD channel. Thank you again Cox for doing this and fixing the issue so your customer can enjoy this. Thank you again. L.A.
Hector with Cox Customer Service said that M cable cards are not available for Tulsa. Is Hector correct?
One more question. If you hook you cable straight from the wall to your HDTV receiver do you receive any HD channels without the use of a digital cable box? Is ESPNHD one of them, if any?
Never mind. I found the answer about a direct connect: “Yes you get the locals in hd plus the 24 hour pbs feed (which is nice) and channels 3 thru 21 (in digital)”