• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Engineering Cable TV Question

B

Brian Bowers

If this post gets moved to another Discussion board, I will understand, as we normally mainly discuss radio engineering questions here. Since many of you have offered up so much helpful info to me in the past, I thought I'd throw this one out there.

I have Time Warner Cable at home. I have two Standard Definition boxes and one HD box. All of these boxes, along with my TVs, home audio system and computer, are on a zero switchover time UPS (with plenty of surge protection even before it), so they never lose power. I actaully have pretty decent power service at home. I'll maybe have one momentary per year. Sometimes I can go years without one glitch.

Even with that, I find myself constantly having to reboot these TWC boxes over and over. They all seem to differ when they need rebooting. Never do all 3 need a reboot at the same time. On average, each box requires a reboot about twice a month (the HD box especially). What bothers me most is, if this is so common to reboot these boxes, why not put a reboot switch on the front of them, instead of having to fish for the AC connection plug in the back of the box (at 2 AM in the morning!). What a pain. Except for the rebooting, my pictures are almost always perfect, with very little pixelation.

I'm sure if I called TWC with this question, they would probably want to send a tech over to the house to check out everything. If this is their outside infrastructure problem, I'd hate to waste time finding that out. As it is, they were in my house about 3 months ago, to install an amp for the signal, but I forgot to ask the tech this question - why all the rebooting. Some of those techs are sub-contractors, so I'm not sure, even if I asked the question, if I'd get a valuable answer.

I could understand if a pole mounted buffer amp (probably the wrong terminology for it) briefly lost power, as the signal travels from home base to my house, but then wouldn't all the boxes need rebooting? I'm sure I'm missing something here. I should also add that most of the rebooting actually needs to take place while I have been watching TV for a number of hours already, with no problems, then, all of a sudden, channels that were working fine a minute ago, are no longer working. Does communication just get lost, or TWC computers just get bogged down with so much activity on the system?
 
I don't know where you are, but it's very possible that they're doing upgrades to their network, and that's why "all the rebooting". The boxes have to sync with the servers on a continuing basis. It's part of the DOCSIS protocol used by most cable systems. There have been multiple upgrades to DOCSIS, and it may be that they're upgrading both their head end, and the ROM in many of their cable boxes to keep up.

If your boxes are more than a few years old, you might want to consider replacing them. They may simply not be capable of handling the version of DOCSIS now in use, and the "backward compatibility" is not as compatible as they might like. The reboot resynchs, and often downloads software updates for you boxes.

You can avoid rebooting by going to the T-W website, going to "Support", and using the chat feature. They generally respond MUCH more quickly than they do to phone support calls, and they can remotely boot all of your boxes, saving you the aggravation of getting at them.
 
I am aware when they are doing upgrades, as this usually takes about 45 minutes, is usually done after midnight, you are made aware of it just by looking at the converter box or TV as it is going through the process, and you can't watch any cable TV programs at that time, until it completes the process. One Standard Def. box is less than 1 year old, the HD box is about 3 years old, and the other SD box is about 4 years old (and gives the least amount of trouble and rebooting). The HD box is in the bedroom, so getting out of bed to log into TWC's website to have them reboot is just not worth the effort. I still doubt any of this problem is on my end. Anybody know the easiest way to get to TWC engineering, so I can inquire?
 
Your best bet is to talk to someone with your local cable company. Different cable companies use a lot of different technologies to provide service and without the knowing what your company is using, this would be an impossible question to answer. After reading your post I have more questions than answers. What digital cable platform are they using? Motorola/GI and Cisco/SA are the 2 major players, but there are others. What guide/ firmware are they running on the boxes? Iguide or maybe even something custom. How are they delivering service? Mp2, Mp4, ip streaming from a docsis cmts, traditional quam, switched digital video? Do they have a full local head end or are they using a HITS service?
I am more familiar with the Motorola platform, which is quite common. Usually a loss of signal will not lock up these boxes so I would not think that is causing it. Two things that I have seen lock them up is heat, the early DVR's needed to be well ventilated and didn"t like closed cabinets or other components stacked on top of them, and other thing that I have seen lock them up is firmware/guide bugs. The other issue that is common on these boxes is "key cueing" . This is when the box is still displaying video, but the does not respond to key presses on the remote or box for awhile. If you wait long enough, the box will start to process all the key presses it has received.
 
>>>What digital cable platform are they using? Motorola/GI and Cisco/SA are the 2 major players, but there are others. What guide/ firmware are they running on the boxes? Iguide or maybe even something custom. How are they delivering service? Mp2, Mp4, ip streaming from a docsis cmts, traditional quam, switched digital video? Do they have a full local head end or are they using a HITS service?<<<

Sorry, I don't have answers to those questions.

>>>Two things that I have seen lock them up is heat, the early DVR's needed to be well ventilated and didn"t like closed cabinets or other components stacked on top of them<<<

I will admit that the HD box, which is not a DVR box, locks up the most, and has something sitting on top of it, covering at least half of the top. It is not in an enclosed cabinet though. Thank you for bringing that up. I will try and reconfigure, so that that box can breathe better. I should know better.

>>>The other issue that is common on these boxes is "key cueing" . This is when the box is still displaying video, but the does not respond to key presses on the remote or box for awhile. If you wait long enough, the box will start to process all the key presses it has received.<<<

Maybe that is more of what I am experiencing. Next time this happens, I will give it some more time to respond.
 
I have a Motorola HD DVR and experience the "key queuing" all the time. Seems to be worse when the hard drive is getting full. But there is an LED on the front panel that flashes every time a remote command is received. If that LED stays on after a key press and nothing happens, I know the box has received the command and is queuing it. Once the box gets done doing whatever it was doing internally, it will execute the command. Frustrating but at least that LED gives a little clue to what's happening.
 
There are two technologies used by most cable providers - DOCSIS and MoCA. DOCSIS is the delivery system to the house, and MoCA is the delivery system within the house. Both allow delivery of voice, video, or data via cable RF. Both have been through multiple iterations, and are upgraded regularly. Your cable provider may be upgrading its outside plant, or MoCA's internal delivery options, and either could require a reboot of the set-top box if it's extensive enough.

Or, it could be heat, bad power (these are computers), static electricity, signal loss, humidity, voodoo, etc.
 
They've never had the software working the best on them. Another thing to check for is heat, as cable boxes are essentially computers especially if it has a DVR hard drive in it. Those boxes really should have an exhaust fan like a desktop. What brand/model of cable boxes do you have, around here Scientific Atlanta boxes seem to be standard issue even though most are refurbished.
 
The HD box (Scientific Atlanta Explorer 4250 HDC), which has no DVR, seems to give me the most grief. 2/3 of the top of this HD box is uncovered, but even with that, if I needed to completely uncover the top 100% (which ultimately I would like to do), I would have to buy a new TV stand just for that, as every spot is taken. Even in standby mode, the box runs pretty hot (97 degrees F, while the SD boxes run 91 and 88 in standby-thanks to my infrared temperature gun). Looking over the long list of cooling fans on Digi-Key's website, I found a small quiet one which I will purchase and lay on top of the HD box. If that doesn't help, I will probably purchase the new stand.
 
Brian Bowers said:
The HD box (Scientific Atlanta Explorer 4250 HDC), which has no DVR, seems to give me the most grief. 2/3 of the top of this HD box is uncovered, but even with that, if I needed to completely uncover the top 100% (which ultimately I would like to do), I would have to buy a new TV stand just for that, as every spot is taken. Even in standby mode, the box runs pretty hot (97 degrees F, while the SD boxes run 91 and 88 in standby-thanks to my infrared temperature gun). Looking over the long list of cooling fans on Digi-Key's website, I found a small quiet one which I will purchase and lay on top of the HD box. If that doesn't help, I will probably purchase the new stand.
Click to expand...

Many of these boxes have a USB port on them, not sure what the point of it is. But since the port has 5v power you can get a USB powered fan like a laptop cooling pad and try that. Or you could use the switched 120v outlet on the cable box, that way the fan only runs when the box is on.
 
cheap suggestion put an plug in timer on the boxes meant for table lamps and have it turn off at like 3am then back on so everyday you geta freshly rebooted box. my linksys router with tomatoe allowed me to schedule rboots and that seamed to improve my networks realialibility
 
Interesting note, I turned off the HD box the other day, and immediately it started rebooting itself. I've never seen that before. Too bad they couldn't write something like that into the OS.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom