Charlotte, NC - Charter - Page 4

Sorry I've been late in answering this one - apparently AVS has not been too nice about notifying me when there's a new post!

I'm not 100% sure, as I know there's a filter on the line for basic only (base 20 channels) that might block out any of the others, but I do know what comes up for expanded basic and as long as that filter isn't affecting your digitals you should get the following

701-703 - Digital PBS channels
Local HDs
901-945 - Music Choice

All of these are not encrypted and should be able to be picked up by any TV that has a digital tuner. Be warned though some tuners will detect these by their EIA (frequency based) channel rather than our virtual channel map - so you may see them on completely different "channel" numbers!

There are rumors that soon going forward we might be have to do some sort of encryption on the digital music - but I'm fighting that one as not only is it alot of work, but alot of people enjoy using those for background music etc.

Another thing to watch for is Free Previews!
Whenever I open up a channel for free preview it's availible to all digital tuners, not just boxes - so for example if your a baseball fan then this Thursday the 12th (ironically my dad's birthday ) you should be able to tune to the 14 MLB game stations and watch baseball (or at least get the screen telling you the schedule)

Just an FYI Ladies and Gentlemen -

MLB Extra Innings will be on Free Preview this week starting on Thursday the 12th and ending next Wednesday the 18th - So if you don't have the MLB extra Innings package you'll be able to tune to 600 - 613 and check out all the games.

Reminder that Extra Innings is for Out of Market games only - so reguardless of if they are playing Home or Away you'll only see a back screen for any games featuring:

Atlanta, Cincinnatti, Baltimore & Washington DC

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&#post10683650

That's a pretty good description of most the updates for the 4.1 update from the moxi thread again we should have everyone here updated in no more than 10 days (hopefully within 3)

awesome news James thanks as always for your time !

I looked up your phone number from one of your emails and hit your box with the remote diagnostics - seems to be ok - I went ahead and reloaded the base software. I'm suprised last time they swapped out your moxi they didn't give you a DCT 6416 - personally they have a better picture quality but at the expense of the user interface (I'm not too thrilled with TV Guide's I-guide interface - it's functional but lacks the style and depth of the Moxi interface) It should hopefully be stable until the 4.1 upgrade at which point I'd expect better performance

hey james one more question, do you have any suggestions for how to get my mlb.tv 22.xx credit for 4 months? I sent in rebate form, and have called CSRs at least 3 times, they always say they dont deal with that and they will have someone call me. To their credit 2 outta 3 times someone called, unfortunately I was in a meeting both times. I will be happy to resubmit information if need be, but just wondered if you might have any "insider tips" thanks

http://www.charter.com/Visitors/Cont...px?contactus=5

I frequently get fowards from the corporate response team that answers the online message section at that link, so I know they tend to find the right people to resolve the issue - you might also get good response by using the online chat.

What market are you in? I might be able to get you a contact within the marketing group who knows more about the campaign and can help you out there


EDIT -
Scratch that, I just read back and realized to you told me you where in Lenoir!

Email me at firstname.Lastname@chartercom.com with your home phone number and I can pull up your account, talk with our area marketing rep and see what I can do

email sent...you're the man!

Thanks for the quick work, as usual James. You are on the mark! I got 4.1 today and notice a significant improvemnt (300%) on the menu. Wow! That's really quick. I have noticed some really nice improvements. The menu looks and works much better and fixes MANY issues i had (long title names, support for recorded items in the menus, time slot changes for semi-grid style look ups, ext hdd support and much more!)

Got to say i'm pretty impressed with the 4.1 software in the past 10 minutes i've been using it. I'm ready to go out and buy a HDD to attach. Probably some WD MyBook 250GB or so. Ready for the new FALL season.

James, have you done much testing with external drives? Are their any thresholds on size you're aware of?

Just talked with marketing - we are in the process of trying to get them back on ALL boxes

So far I have not tested at all - I've got two "Metal Gear" external Hd cases from www.newegg.com - but only a spare 20 gig to test with. I've seen people on the moxi threat mention 320s and 500s being added - so far I've not seen any thing in the 1tb (1024 gig) and up range but I'd be willing to Safely say you should be able to do up to 1tb (probably beyound)

Anyone got a 1tb or bigger IDE drive in Hickory they want me to test

Here's a heads up - I don't know if it's global - but someone's reported this to me and I verified it.

If the MLB/NHL sports package channels are configured as PPV they will no longer allow direct tune or menu based tuning during the games - even if the channel is authorized on the box (We are currently in a free preview so all boxes are authorized)

This only seems to affect 4.1 moxi users. I've contacted Digeo support and asked if we can convert these to regular channels (since you can't order them through the menu and if you don't subscribe you can't watch anyway) Hopefully we'll have this fixed before the end of the weekend in my market - however if you have the problem you'll definitely want to talk to the local office and find one of their tech support gurus as Call centers will likely see this is just a signal issue or authorization issue.

Again - if you're in the Hickory / Lenoir / Lincolnton / Morganton / North Wilkes (I don't believe Boone has the MLB package) area and you've just gone to 4.1 this is being worked on by your's truely.



*****Special thanks to BlackCap for reporting that to me!!!******

i think i understand your post, but I had no problems last night watching the mlb package (except for the bad signal quality problems I alluded to in the moxi thread) (perhaps something is going on with charter that you're aware of?) I navigated to the channel and watched a game. one thing I love about this is it now shows in the guide who is playing, w/o having to hit info everytime. Nice! Just thought i'd report to you.

i'm gonna go ahead and subscribe to this thread as well, thanks for linking me james (i like that name since it's my first name:-P) i too have pixelation when a lot of action or strobing is going on. my dvd's and ps2 games don't do it which tells me it's probably not the tv (though those are running in 480i and 480p).

james i'm having some trouble with my billing, i called yesterday and the lady who spoke english well enough to hear but didn't make any coherent sentences said something to the effect of trying to dispute with her higher ups about some charges on my bill. i was pretty upset since they had said when i upgraded to the HD tier that they wouldn't charge until the next month and that no one said anything about charging 24 bucks just to turn on HD service.

has anyone had similar problems with charter's billing? i usually end up calling them on a monthly basis to straighten things out and i'm tired of it:-(

It's in good shape today, Monday it was still doing it and I was told by Tribune it would be resolved by Midnight so I'm glad to see it was working last night

You should also be able to record games now - I was able to here (by schedule and manually)

I never like dealing with the call centers - at one point I was experiencing an outage and could not get directly to dispatch and so I called the call center... they did the usual "well we might be able to get someone out there next week" and I pretty much pointed out that I can have someone out here the next day - if my connection goes down and we have a major video issue I can't VPN into the Charter system and FIX the problem.

Another time I spotted a DNS server issue and tried to report it and they proceeded to put in a trouble call instead of passing the issue to our Operations Control.

When it comes to billing, it's so cryptic and archaic... really the only people who are going to take the time to explain it will be Local offices - afterall - we live here... we work here... As such we tend to have more invested in seeing our local customers get things fixed!

Sounds like you got pro-rated for the partial month on some services (they often lump it in with the current charge so you effectively paid for service from the install date through to the next billing date) - and honestly your best bet is to talk it out with a local CSR - I know we had a promo going on in June for adding HD tier and getting a new HD box - so you might want to mention that there was some sort of promo going on you were supposed to get.

Definitely see about getting a trouble call for your picture issues - that's almost always signal based - there was a big issue yesterday morning (and the evening before) with VIACOM networks (there was an issue - weather related with their uplink equipment in NY) -

Viacom networks include
VH1
MTV
Nickleodeon
HBO
Cinemax
Showtime

But that issue was resolved before 10am local time yesterday

eh... from my experience if it works don't mess with it... if it really starts to get on my nerves i'll call, one good example was the end fight sequence to the matrix revolutions when neo's fighting agent smith with all the rain and lightening. it was pixelated really bad. i tried turning off 1080i so it went to 720p and didn't change anything so i don't think it's the tv... might be but it seems to be pretty common from what i've read on here so far over the past few days. i appreciate your info james, it's nice to have someone to ask these questions that can comprehend what i'm saying and realize i'm not a total idiot when it comes to this stuff (i almost worked for prince telecom till i found out how awful they were...)

I had noticed that. In fact, I was on hold with a call center to report it and as I was waiting, they re-appeared. I was glad that it was something widespread and not just with my box or setup

Argh....I am very close to finally giving up on Charter unfortunately. These Moxi boxes have about caused a divorce in my household. The new reboot the other night has caused them to show the time 10 minutes different on the two different Moxis I have. Also, the update made it so I can not exit out of the channel guide on my Harmony remote now and even updating it didn't help.

No NBC HD, no HD channels like Satellite, stuttering video, slow menus, etc. Argh....what to do. The tech visits never fix anything either. We had Time Warner before we moved and never had a problem. It is completely these Moxi boxes.....

Unfortunately on the NBC that's more an issue with Bello and retransmission consent - While alot of customers prefer the Moxi menu, personally I feel the newer 6416 DVR not only gives a better picture, but given your issues with time, video and menu speed - it should fix that to. You should have the newer 4.1 guide which is faster on moxi - though a reset might have to fix the timing (it's odd that it went that far off -usually if updates on reboot and the controller hasn't gone wonky)

If you're 'bout ready to throw your moxi out the window, by all means, request a box swap - otherwise a reboot should fix the time.

- as usual I recommend comeing in to the local office if you have a hard time with the call centers - usually local staff can put in a trouble call and help people out.

So there is another hi-def DVR other than the Moxi box? I can take my boxes into my local office and get them swapped? If both are true I think I can persuade the wife to hold out one more week for these new boxes....


Thanks James!

james is there something going on with shotime? especially SHOHD? my dad couldn't get it out at his house saturday, but with all his problems going on with signal i thought it was an isolated event, then i get home last night and i don't have it either and instead of recording Crimson Tide it was recording "If you do not subscribe to this channel... blah blah blah"?

Yes, We went over to the Motorola DCT 6416 DVRs in Jan / Feb there's also the newer DCH 6416 - both work the same, but the DCH is the new OCAP box (it uses a cable card inside for decrypting channels rather than chips burned into the box's main board)

If you let your local office know you're having problems with the moxi and would like to switch to the other DVR type they should let you, especially if you've got a HDTV as the newer ones have a better picture.

I haven't seen any globals - I know last week there some issues with Viacom's feed equipment in NY - but that was resolved within hours.

hey james just a quick update, I was at my parents house (in hickory) over the weekend and thought of the free trial of mlb extra innings. They were having the same pixellation issues I am. I suppose it could be a case of both of us having low signals, (which we have in the past) but it's strange that at their house the only time I experience the pixellation was on the mlb, not on hboHD, espnHD etc. at my house 90% of the pixellation I experience is on those 600-613 or whatever channels. Is it not odd that those are the only chanels that are messing up and I don't have hardly any problems on the HD chans? If you think I should get a tech out I will, but that unfortunately means he comes out, checks the signal, says its ok and to "diagnose" the problem he would have to actually be here when the problems were occurring.

also anybody else in the HKY/lenoir area care to test it out tonight (assuming the free trial is still running) and report back? Thanks!

I've noticed a little during the preview from my office here - I'd have to say if your getting a little here and there and it's not affecting other channels it might be a feed issue - let me know if it persists and I'll try to start recording a few games on DVRs here to see if I can duplicate it

What do you mean feed issue, and is there a way to correct this on my end? It's more than a little here and alittle there too. Audio drops about once every 2 minutes, usually accompanied by a freezing/pixellating of video. It's pretty constant actually.

on that Vizio tv above the customer service desks? if so, that's the tv i have!

I have a Vizio myself, nice buy for the price (just wish our universal remote would work the input menu on it)

I'm lucky enough to have a moxi BMC 9012 and a DCT 6416 at my desk for testing - so frequently when I'm told there's an issue on a particular channel I'll try recording it to see if I can catch it