Anyone have experiences with cable cards???

[oliver kuo]

I've got two cable boxes in my house already, but my technologically challenged family members (granny, uncle, mother) are always complaining about how difficult it is for them to watch tv with cable boxes, they never seem to remember how to change sources, or swith remotes to do things. Even after getting one of those sony lcd programable remotes, with programable macros, they still complain. So on our most recent TV purchase my dad and I decided we'd get a cable card to make life easier for them.

Well it seems cable card is making life difficult for me. When I first made an appointment for a cable card setup, I made it 2 weeks in advance, but the day before my appointment, they changed to the day after. I had to work and could not be home, my uncle was home. But his english was bad, and no one knows the custom wiring system in the house except me and my dad. So I come home, and the tech just left me a good length of coxial cable, and the cable card. I set it up myself, and have only prime time, and hi-def prime time channels, missing all others including basic cable channels.

After 3 days of spending an hour or so each day on the phone trying to get someone to activate the card, so I can get the rest of the channels we're paying for. I got 3 empty promises of "it'll work by tonite", and it never did. So I took another day off from work to wait for a tech today. Only to have him spend 2 hours on the phone trying to get someone to activate the card. After which he tells me the card I was given was never even in their records, and that he'll come back tommorrow with a working card. He had the nerve to stand there pretending to be taking down info waiting for a tip. Tips are earned not given, besides my uncle for some reason tipped the first tech, for doing nothing but dropping by and dropping off two pieces of equipment.

So tommorrow I'm taking another day off from work to wait for a tech. The crap time warner is willing to make me go through for my extra $8/month, its ludicrous considering our cable bill is around $200 a month after taxes, thats a freaking car payment right there.

Thats my rant, and if anyone is considering a cable card, and their proivder is time warner, think twice.

[eisforelectronic]

You do realize, once the card is configured and working, you will not have any interactive services at all? Not even the Guide will work.

[BRANDONH]

I've got two cable boxes in my house already, but my technologically challenged family members (granny, uncle, mother) are always complaining about how difficult it is for them to watch tv with cable boxes, they never seem to remember how to change sources, or swith remotes to do things. Even after getting one of those sony lcd programable remotes, with programable macros, they still complain. So on our most recent TV purchase my dad and I decided we'd get a cable card to make life easier for them.

Well it seems cable card is making life difficult for me. When I first made an appointment for a cable card setup, I made it 2 weeks in advance, but the day before my appointment, they changed to the day after. I had to work and could not be home, my uncle was home. But his english was bad, and no one knows the custom wiring system in the house except me and my dad. So I come home, and the tech just left me a good length of coxial cable, and the cable card. I set it up myself, and have only prime time, and hi-def prime time channels, missing all others including basic cable channels.

After 3 days of spending an hour or so each day on the phone trying to get someone to activate the card, so I can get the rest of the channels we're paying for. I got 3 empty promises of "it'll work by tonite", and it never did. So I took another day off from work to wait for a tech today. Only to have him spend 2 hours on the phone trying to get someone to activate the card. After which he tells me the card I was given was never even in their records, and that he'll come back tommorrow with a working card. He had the nerve to stand there pretending to be taking down info waiting for a tip. Tips are earned not given, besides my uncle for some reason tipped the first tech, for doing nothing but dropping by and dropping off two pieces of equipment.

So tommorrow I'm taking another day off from work to wait for a tech. The crap time warner is willing to make me go through for my extra $8/month, its ludicrous considering our cable bill is around $200 a month after taxes, thats a freaking car payment right there.

Thats my rant, and if anyone is considering a cable card, and their proivder is time warner, think twice.

From what I know about the card is that they are not quite completed, i.e. guide, on demand, pay per view all do not work. IMO I do not see any point in having one if the guide does not work yet..
But if you wish to keep it you need to run the setup again.
Insert the cable directly into the TV antenna "A" I think, change that input to Cable then scan for digital and analog channels.

[oliver kuo]

I understand that these things are one way only, thus ppv and on demand don't work. That doesn't matter, I mentioned I have 2 other tvs in the house with cable boxes, that do have on demand, and all those other 2 way goodies.

I know my rant was long, but if anyone bothered to read the 1st paragraph. We got this cable card for the sake of those technologically challenged in the house, for simplicity's sake.

My problem is this, the card was setup correctly, by me. When the scan was complete I only had prime time channels, and hi-def versions of the same prime time channels. I had NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS etc. But channels such as TNT, MTV, CT, CNN, BET, HBO etc were not working, the TV shows them as "NO SIGNAL".

In other words I currently have both digital and analog channels working, but only for prime time networks, not for any cable networks. The reason being a mix up by the techs of time warner, and it's costing me time, and hours at work.