Comcast cable card trouble

I experienced similar problems with my cable card from Charter Cable. Had them in a couple of times and never did resolve the problem. Each time I called with the problem i had the feeling they really didn't want to support cable cards. Kept pushing the cable box. I finally caved in and now have a HD cable box, another remote, and more cables running all over the place.

Really liked the card when it worked because of its simplicity. But it doesn't seem to be proven yet. I don't care about PPV or guide either.

You said you spoke to Sharp support did they offer you an upgrade for you firmware? This is a common problem for cable card failure.
One other thing to check would be to go into the cable card diag screen on your TV and look for a screen that list an EMM count that number should be above 40 for the card to pick up digital services.

What is EMM count?

EMM = Entitlement Management Messages and are used to provide authorizations to digital programming. Not knowing who you're cable provider is and who's technology they use to provide digital programming I could not comment on the number of EMM's you might actually see on a diagnostics page.

Some of my experiences with cable cards usually ned up with a need to upgrade the firmware on the Television itself. When you consider that the digital set-top manufacturers have been building digital set-tops for 10 years now and the TV manufacturers have only been at it for about two years, I would probably opt for having a digital set-top.

Good luck
Randy

Thanks Randy,

So who makes the "headends?" In my case I know that SA (Scientific Atlanta) is making both the set top boxes and the CableCARDs that TWC(Raleigh- central North Carolina) uses. I know that lots of people like to refer to the place where the headend is as "the servers." But what is simple block diagram for a cable provider's control center? Is SA providing server software running on a bunch of Windows or Linux boxes? Are there racks and racks of SA boxes at the headend?

--pixelswim

Well I started answering my own question on that last one... Yes, SA makes a lot of headend gear and software and I've been able to see and read a fair amount about it at the SA site. It's complicated... --pixelswim

About a week and a half ago, I stopped being able to receive Comcast Sportsnet Philadelphia in HD (channel 200) on my Samsung HL-S6188 DLP TV. It was working fine one night and the next night I just got a "weak or scrambled signal" message. Nothing else changed. When I press the channel down button from, I can see a frozen picture for about a second. When pressing 200 on the remote, even that doesn't happen. Comcast has been out twice with new cards to no avail. They claim it is my TV. Has anyone else experienced this or does anyone know what could suddenly cause this?