Charlotte, NC - Charter - Page 10

I know I have been a broken record, but any word on WCNC being re-instated in HD, especially since the Olympics are starting in 6 weeks.

No definites yet, I'm rather dismayed as I clearly recall that we should have seen the first batch by now - hopefully fewer batches would mean more channels at a time... either that or *something* is gumming up the works

We echo the "dismayed" comment, CharterJames. The billing statement that came in this week doesn't mention anything on this, either. The wait until mid-July's bill is on. Thanks for at least being "eagle eye" on your end.

CharterJames,
Can you tell me when Avery Country will be getting any HD channels? Why is it we don't have any now? Thanks for any info!

- Johnny

Avery County is an older system and we're still working on brining up to the same bandwidth as Boone and Hickory, until then we won't have the bandwidth to support HD up there.

We are working on it, but it's a long and difficult process and I have no estimate of when that day will come (but from what I see it's our intention to get ya'll up to to par with Boone!)

Eyes open and ears to the ground... I should have a list of the 10 channels to be added... of course given this should have started already I'm wondering what the hold up

OK. Thanks for the info. It surely is hard waiting for technology to reach the outer parts of the world here in the mountains.

You have my sympathy... I know it's *got* to be fustrating when just 20 minutes down the way you've got Boone which has everything we've got down here in Hickory. I know when we acquired that system it wasn't as robust... but you'd think they'd let us get it up to par by now.

I did another round of pestering Marketing and Tech ops again to make sure they aren't forgetting about ya'll!

Here's the latest inside scoop

At this point I can confirm the following *should* be added mid Aug to all markets in our area that have HD (everyone except the Mountain City and Avery County Markets): Weather Channel HD, Discovery HD, The Learning Channel HD, Animal Planet HD

Also those markets should be getting HD VOD back underway in this area in Early September.


*****RED ALERT*****

I've been recently told there's been a change to how boxes are going out.

They are no longer going out "active" and require a refresh from our system to become active.

CSRs are supposed to give customers little slips of paper letting them know how to call in for a refresh, however we've had quite a few tech calls from customers who either didn't get or didn't keep the slip of paper.

Refreshes are also a good way of correcting minor issues with the box.


To refresh your cable box

Call our main customer support number @ 1-888-Get Charter
(that's 1-888-438-2427 for people like me who hate spelling out things on the phone)

Press 1 to Continue in English

Enter in your 10 digit phone number
(the phone number your Charter account is associated with)

Press 3 for Technicial Assistance

Press 1 to "Refresh your Cable Converter Box"

This will send a Refresh - which is the system's method of updating the box so it knows what it's authorized to show you.

Yeah, you said it!


Can you tell me what exactly it is that needs to be done to this system? Just curioius.


I certainly appreciate that and anything else you can do. Thanks so much!

- Johnny

Thank you for the update, CharterJames. It must be frustrating on your end to hear all of us complain and ask time after time "When are we getting more HD?". It's been 8 months now since the last round of full-time HD...now looking like it'll be 9 1/2 months if this round *should* be added. Add the lack of HD VOD which will be nearly 6 months before that's *supposed* to come back to us and it leaves Charter HD customers in this area with little to no confidence that the company is willing or is going to offer the HD services that its customers have been seeking. This doesn't speak for the help that we've received from you, though, which is above and beyond expectations.

And, it's happy 300th Post to me!!!

Avery County is a a 500 (550?) Mhz system - everything's designed to run under that signal level - unfortunately that means there's not as many frequency channels to send things down. (Boone and Hickory have about 250 mhz more)

as far as what needs to be done, I'm not entirely sure how complex it is... if it's just a matter of beefing up the headend or if we don't have a full Hybrid Fiber-Coaxial network in place up there... but I know they are trying to get as many systems to be as similar as possible so they are easier to manage.

The other good news is as more channels are migrated to digital, the more channels we can fit into a single frequency channel (thanks to digital encryption and compression) - which gives us more room to get more channels up there reguardless of what plant upgrades we do.

Of course the downside of this is if you don't use a box or cable card you'll start to see several channels from expanded basic disappear.

Happy 300

Hearing your problems is never fustrating, I have the same problems when I go home. When I'm not able to do anything about it - well that IS what fustrates me

I just do what I can, where I can and at the end of the day I hope I've left things better than when I found them.

The following message was received on my EPG This Morning:

"Reelz Channel will be moving to channel 173 on August 13th 2008. Also check your local listings for our new HD channels coming in August; services may not be available in all areas."

Sounds promising for new HD??? Reelz has already moved to 173 on the Asheville System (was simulcast on 156 and 173 for a time). Any new info, CharterJames?

That should signal the changes for the HD additions

Woohoo, CharterJames!!! Just got the flier this afternoon and the 4 HD Channels that you mentioned plus TBS HD are on the way for Aug. 13th. It's time to refine the HD Request List for the subsequent round...which will take place when? J/K

Take care,
PopWeaverHDTV

Ok, as of last weekend I've started seeing HD menus re-enabled in VOD here -So for those of you looking for your HD VOD I do believe the wait is over.

While offtopic for HD -
we are currently having issues with the premium Subscription VOD packages - if you're trying to order one you may receive an error 463 - We are working to resolve this ASAP and should have it fixed before the end of the day.

The issue came up as we are adding the new Disney package (Disney Family Movies I believe its called)

Hi CharterJames,

Any word on if the Asheville System is having its HD menus re-enabled in VOD? I've checked a few times since your posting and nothing is new in HD on VOD. Maybe I'm overlooking something? As always, thanks for the info!

I'll look into it - we had them showing up again here, so I assumed they were turned back on across the entire system (all of SC / NC / VA turned of HD VOD due to issues with our edge equipment) Ashville uses a different VOD system than we have here in Hickory - ya'll are actually part of the Greenville SC VOD system - but I've got contacts

For historical, I'll repost concerning HD VOD. It came back up last week for the AVL Thread. Albeit, the Premium HD VOD options haven't returned yet.

On a new note, we'll have to see whether any new full-time HD channels get swapped for the NBC Olympics HD Channels (756 and 757) after the Games are over with. Wishful thinking... And, does MHD being renamed Palladin make any difference on whether Charter continues carriage or do we get MTV HD instead?

Can't wait until the 5 new HD channels arrive on Wednesday (13th). Too bad, I'll be out of town when they arrive {(will hopefully be back on Thursday (14th)}.

And I'll post my gripe that was lost. It is a shame that both Charter and Belo don't care enough about their customers to settle their differences about the WCNC HD feed in the Hickory area. It is bad enough that it has been 20 months, but now we are missing out on NBC's Olympic coverage in HD.

Shame on Charter and Belo!!!

Depends on negotiations, if Palladin honors our past agreements with MHD, then we'll continue to carry it. If Viacom says "we'll give you MTV HD" instead we'll switch... hopefully they'll say "well, we want you to carry MTV HD to push our major branded channels, so why don't you keep Palladin and add MTV"

I'd like to see option three put out (the more channels the merrier!)

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. To make sure that I wasn't deprived of the latest HD additions, I did manage to catch Discovery HD at a friend's house in Raleigh tonight (no, didn't drive from Asheville just for this).

I was told by someone who was told by someone else that you can get the NBC main channel feed (with the Swimming and Gymnastics, etc..., not sure who the local affiliate is) through a "secret" channel in the hickory area. You need to have a TV capable of a digital and HD signal (i.e. i think your TV needs to have the HD decoder built in - HD ready not HD capable). If you run your coax into the tv (split it right before your moxi/moto box) and set your TV to use cable on this channel. Finally set your tv to scan the channels and save the channels with signal. Then turn to channel 106.2 (106.02). My Mitsubishi i had to plug the coax into the Ant-DTV connector in the back. Then turned the channel to 106.2 and bam! I have them Olympics in HD (not just Basketball, Soccer, Softball and Boxing either).

CharterJames is this something you can comment on? Or is this some inside secret?

i think you're talking about OTA HD channels, which are free and to my knowledge have nothing to do with charter....could be wrong though...

Possibly, however i don't have an Antenna and my TV's DTV setup is set to "Cable" not "Air" so it's not using the built-in antenna. But this is always possible. I found that i have actually 5 HD channels: ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and PBS. The NBC says "WXII 12" as the affiliate name.

It's no inside secret, but rather the requirements of Demographic Marketing Areas and Re-transmission consent.

North Wilkes is part of the the Greensboro DMA - as such they have access to these channels and they are part of their channel map

Hickory and Boone are part of the Charlotte DMA, as such they have access to the Charlotte channels.

Because North Wilkeboro is run from the Hickory operations, people in this area with QAM tuners can pick up both channels, but we cannot put them on the Hickory area channel maps due to DMA restrictions.

On the topic of olympics though, there have been 2 HD feeds NBC has granted us access to (without having to have an agreement to Bello)

Also, Fox Sports HD has been moved from the HD Tier to the HD Lifeline which means it should be Clear QAM from here on out

got the new hd channels, which are great btw...but the signal on them is horrible...I dont have problems with the "old" hd chans, but tlc hd and weather channel especially are unwatchable...anybody else experiencing this or is it an isolated signal issue?

Most likely a signal issue with those frequencies, HD tends to have less fault tolerance than Digital (and digital less tolerance than Analog) as such frequently when a frequency is re-used for a higher grade service some people will experience issues.

You'll probably need to schedule a service call - you can do this through the call center, or if you have difficulties with them, email me directly (first name.Last name @ CharterCom.Com) with the name your account is under, as well as the street address and phone number and I'll see if I can get something scheduled.