Alright, so I’ve got this problem that has thrown not only myself for a loop but also 2 field tech guys and 1 phone tech gal as well.

I have a Mitsubishi WD-57831. It is one of the black diamond, 1080p, DLP rear projection TVs. We bought it about 3 weeks ago when we moved into our new house. When were looking further into its features we saw it has the capability of using a CableCard. How nifty right? Well it has turned everything into a nightmare. Whenever you turn to the CableCard input (ant1) it will say the card is initializing. Then when it is initialized it will sit at a black screen for about 10 seconds than switch to a blue that says “Channel off air or does not exist, try another one”. The funny thing is, is that the guide displays what channel is on (ABC, KTBZ, Comedy Central, etc.) but when you select it, it won’t show any picture but the blue screen. There is plenty of signal strength, all the channels are showing in the guide, just no actual TV picture. So here is a rundown of what we have tried.

We first received the CableCard from out Service provider (Bend Broadband based out of Bend, OR). They handed the card to us over the counter, said it was initialized, plug it in and you’ll be good to go. We bring it home, plug it in and nothing. We call Bend Broadband the next day and tell them that we tried to get it to go and no matter what we can’t get it to go. The guy looked into it and came back and said first off it shouldn’t have been handed over the counter to us in the first place, that a tech must install it. So he scheduled a tech to come out.

2 weeks later the techs arrive. We trouble shot the TV for nearly 3 hours trying to get it to work. We tried another Cablecard and it still does the same thing. We have tried other cable boxes on that input and it all works fine, just the Cablecard does not. We have tried resetting, hard resetting, re-initializations, everything we could think of. The only conclusions we have came to is that the TV is possibly a lemon.
Has anyone else had this problem? Is there an easy fix or is it just a bummed TV?

Also while I am on here I just remembered another deal with it that brings me to thinking it is a lemon. When we do a split screen between 2 inputs (Ant2 input and HDMI) and try to switch the Audio between the two of them the TV will let out a loud Twang sound, like when it turns on, Then it will turn off and the Timer switch will blink for about 20 seconds. After the 20 seconds when the light is done blinking you can than turn the TV back on. It will do that with any two inputs, tested that out as well.
Anyways any help, comments, ways of dealing with this would be helpful. If not, Thanks for reading my boring problem story! Haha!

Dave

We first received the CableCard from out Service provider (Bend Broadband based out of Bend, OR). They handed the card to us over the counter, said it was initialized, plug it in and you’ll be good to go. We bring it home, plug it in and nothing. We call Bend Broadband the next day and tell them that we tried to get it to go and no matter what we can’t get it to go. The guy looked into it and came back and said first off it shouldn’t have been handed over the counter to us in the first place, that a tech must install it. So he scheduled a tech to come out.
for reading my boring problem story! Haha!



"Bend Broadband" is where the failure lies. Even major cable companies have problems implementing cablecard. Small carriers such as Bend are sure to have even less understanding of the card encryption system.

1st thing. The TV has a "host identification", that needs to be paired with the "card identification". That is handled by the cable company, but only after the card is inserted to your TV and someone (you or a cable tech) read it to the "head end".

Your card is recieving data, such as you noted it recieves the channel name and whatforth, but just no actual video or audio data.
That means the TV and the card are working.
That also means the card is not autherized.
I have seen this several times before. Your cable company does not understand how cable card encryption works and how to properly autherize a card and a TV pair.

I see... Well I talked with the guy and he said he sets one of these up at least every other day and has never ran into the problem before but I have his personal number and I know how to get into the info of the card so I can relay the info to him. Also a side note is that we finally got a hold of tech support for Mitsubishi and they can only say that the brand of card doesn't work with the TV. The brand is a Motorola, not sure of a model, or if it has a model number even. Has anyone else had the problem of the Mitsubishi and Motorola Combo?

Oh and thanks for the Reply trapperjohnMD, I will give the guy a call and see what we can't figure out!

I see... Well I talked with the guy and he said he sets one of these up at least every other day and has never ran into the problem before but I have his personal number and I know how to get into the info of the card so I can relay the info to him. Also a side note is that we finally got a hold of tech support for Mitsubishi and they can only say that the brand of card doesn't work with the TV. The brand is a Motorola, not sure of a model, or if it has a model number even. Has anyone else had the problem of the Mitsubishi and Motorola Combo?

Oh and thanks for the Reply trapperjohnMD, I will give the guy a call and see what we can't figure out!

Mitsubishi works fine with Motorola cards. We have 1 setup in our showroom.

I agree with everything trapperjohnMD said.

Dont blame the installer tech tho. He probably doesnt understand the system.
I can understand your frustration tho. I worked on several cases nearly exactly the same as you are describing. I changed all kinds of boards in the TV. Finally to end up with the cable company deleting the customers account and setting it up properly.

Good luck

Awesome! Thanks for the reply Hipnotiq! I can see what you mean by the account not being setup properly. Well I will cross my fingers and give the tech a call back tonight and see if that will fix it!

Alright, well I have the CableCard in order to be fixed today, hopefully it will all work out fine. Thanks again for your responses! Another thing though is that the Split Screen deal that I brought up. A refresher on that is that whenever we have the TV in Split Screen we go to change the Audio from one to another and the screen will let out a "thwang" kind of a sound, like turning an old TV on after having it off for awhile. After it does that it turns off and then the Timer Light flashes for about 20 seconds or so and then once it turns off it will allow you to turn the TV back on. We have tried resetting multiple times and have turned it off, unplugged it for a day, Still nothing seems to fix it.

Another detail is that the two specific deals we are trying to Split Scree is the HDMI and Cable. The HDMI that we have is a DVI to HDMI so we have to carry over the Audio on the separate red and white into the HDMI Audio inputs. If we split screen it with either of the two inputs as a primary it does the same thing. Any Ideas?

We have talked with support with Mitsubishi for hours and they keep telling us Reset, Unplug, Start over, Etc. and nothing works at all. Then after telling us to unplug for 30 min. and call back the next person always wants to go through the same steps again even though we told them we already did that, 30 min. ago! I have worked in a call center before so I understand their procedures you have to go through with every call but come on, This is just ridiculous.

Anyways, again any help would be much appreciated!

Dave