Vista - CableCard and Premium Content in Vista

Recently purchased Sony VGX-XL3 that includes the ATI OCUR support for
CableCard. Comcast installed the card and everything worked great... For 24
hours. Now machine refuses to play any HBO channels (HD or SD). MCE error
says to first try restarting machine. Did so (letting it run for 30 minutes
before turning on MCE to make sure that CableCard was fully up and running)
with no luck. Twice.

Next it says if problem persists, contact cable company. Tried resetting
CableCard remotely (after checking host and device number for match with
Comcast records) twice. Same issue.

A. Has anyone got this (eg ability to watch, record premium channels like
HBO) working?

B. Anyone else having same problems?

I know this is new, so I'm patient, but want to find out whatever I can.
Very little info from Sony or Microsoft on CableCard that I can find so far.
Comcast tech said I was the first Digital Cable media center he has seen as
well.

there is a newsgroup dedicated to OCUR/DCT support
microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter.digitalcable

do the channels start to play at all?
is there anything in the media center event log?

can you play OTHER premium channels OK that you subscribe to?

and yes, I've been recording and watching premium channels via cable
card.

please confirm that the installer reconfigured the TV Signal during
the install and selected the correct Comcast Digital lineup. You
might want to try reconfiguring this yourself (it won't impact the
pairing information).

What part of the country are you in?

On Wed, 2 May 2007 13:26:02 -0700, Curbnoise
<Curbnoise@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>Recently purchased Sony VGX-XL3 that includes the ATI OCUR support for
>CableCard. Comcast installed the card and everything worked great... For 24
>hours. Now machine refuses to play any HBO channels (HD or SD). MCE error
>says to first try restarting machine. Did so (letting it run for 30 minutes
>before turning on MCE to make sure that CableCard was fully up and running)
>with no luck. Twice.
>
>Next it says if problem persists, contact cable company. Tried resetting
>CableCard remotely (after checking host and device number for match with
>Comcast records) twice. Same issue.
>
>A. Has anyone got this (eg ability to watch, record premium channels like
>HBO) working?
>
>B. Anyone else having same problems?
>
>I know this is new, so I'm patient, but want to find out whatever I can.
>Very little info from Sony or Microsoft on CableCard that I can find so far.
>Comcast tech said I was the first Digital Cable media center he has seen as
>well.
--

Barb Bowman
MS Windows-MVP
Expert Zone & Vista Community Columnist
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/e...ts/bowman.mspx
http://blogs.digitalmediaphile.com/barb/

Barb,

First, thanks for pointing out the OCUR/DCT support link. Yep, the cable
installer did set up the signal and Digital Cable guide (with my help) and
everything worked fine. After 24 hours, for some reason, if I changed to the
premium channels, I would get about 1 second of picture and it would freeze.

After about 30 seconds, blue screen with the message (not verbatim) "No
signal detected for this channel. Please restart your media center and try
again. If issue persists please contact your cable operator".

Tried that several times. Tried resetting the tv signal and guide, all to
no avail. Also noticed that for some reason the MCE remote volume did not
work in MCE anymore either.

Talked to Comcast, got a very helpful person (who gave me his direct dial
number) and tried to work through issues. This was the first time he had
encounterred the digital cable (eg cablecard) enabled Windows Media Center.
Unfortunately to no avail.

Since it was a new pc with no real data on it, I did a full restore of the
image and all seems to be working properly now.

A few other details to add. Originally had the pc connected to Samsung DLP
via hdmi to dvi cable. TV says its hdcp compliant, but MCE didn't like it.
Switched over to component cables but took some conjoling to get it to
recognize and remember the component connection (eg after reboot, didn't see
the component connection, had to reconnect hdmi-dvi connection, reset
settings....). Finally needed to reinstall the NVIDIA driver for the video
card.

This may have "freaked out" the DRM between MCE and the CableCard (who
knows). When I rebuilt the pc, only connected component video from the start
and all was well.

I will keep you posted if this happens again! I was looking forward to
dumping the cable box and moving to the HD MCE as I use it on two other TV's
in the house and love the interface and features (much better than the
Comcast DVR).

"Barb Bowman" wrote:

> there is a newsgroup dedicated to OCUR/DCT support
> microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter.digitalcable
>
> do the channels start to play at all?
> is there anything in the media center event log?
>
> can you play OTHER premium channels OK that you subscribe to?
>
> and yes, I've been recording and watching premium channels via cable
> card.
>
> please confirm that the installer reconfigured the TV Signal during
> the install and selected the correct Comcast Digital lineup. You
> might want to try reconfiguring this yourself (it won't impact the
> pairing information).
>
> What part of the country are you in?
>
> On Wed, 2 May 2007 13:26:02 -0700, Curbnoise
> <Curbnoise@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
> >Recently purchased Sony VGX-XL3 that includes the ATI OCUR support for
> >CableCard. Comcast installed the card and everything worked great... For 24
> >hours. Now machine refuses to play any HBO channels (HD or SD). MCE error
> >says to first try restarting machine. Did so (letting it run for 30 minutes
> >before turning on MCE to make sure that CableCard was fully up and running)
> >with no luck. Twice.
> >
> >Next it says if problem persists, contact cable company. Tried resetting
> >CableCard remotely (after checking host and device number for match with
> >Comcast records) twice. Same issue.
> >
> >A. Has anyone got this (eg ability to watch, record premium channels like
> >HBO) working?
> >
> >B. Anyone else having same problems?
> >
> >I know this is new, so I'm patient, but want to find out whatever I can.
> >Very little info from Sony or Microsoft on CableCard that I can find so far.
> >Comcast tech said I was the first Digital Cable media center he has seen as
> >well.
> --
>
> Barb Bowman
> MS Windows-MVP
> Expert Zone & Vista Community Columnist
> http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/e...ts/bowman.mspx
> http://blogs.digitalmediaphile.com/barb/
>