My Tivo Does not Show the Right Channel.?

Question

I just got my girlfriend a tivo for christmas. On her cable box she can watch the oxygen channel, when she switches to her tivo box..all it shows is a black screen.

On her cable box all her extra movies channels work, 301 and up are all movie channels..hbo 2, hbo family etc...

on her tivo box these channels do not show up..instead they show usa, tnt,,tnn,,tbs..and other channels..

the funny thing is that her usa and tbs and tnt and tnn all show up on their regular channels as well (39, 41, etc..)

all her channels are correct except for these..why is it doing this? can anyone help?

Answer 1

First make sure your TV is set to tune cable not air channels in the TV menu.  Also make sure to auto program or scan channels (whatever you TV calls it) to setup all the channels it can receive.  AIR and CABLE use different channels for the channels numbered above 13.

Now for that new channel disambiguation called digital cable:

For the most part channels 2 thru 13 are always 2 thru 13.  And if you have cable tuning turned on in a TV or other device that watches or records TV on cable the channels 14 through 125 might be displayed correctly on all devices.  I say MIGHT because even since cable companies invented digital cable they have been doing funny things with numbers on cable boxes.

Where I live Channels 2 through 13, 14 through 48 and 50 through 74 also 98 are the same on the TVs connected directly to cable (no box) as they are on the box.  Channel 49 without the box is the cable channel guide and with the box is movie previews.  Channel 99 without the box is remapped to channel 1 with the box.  All the other channels are digital which mean they are remapped from any real numbering system for cable channels.  What does that mean?, Read on.

What is means is if you get one of these new HDTV or SDTV sets with the digital tuners built in for cable you may or may not see these extra non analog cable channels.  And if you do see these channels they are numbered with a decimal like 111.1 or 103.7 and so on.

Answer 2

There are two problems here: "channels like Oxygen appear black on TiVo" and, if I understand you correctly, "some channels (e.g. 301 = HBO?) are understood by TiVo's guide and channel info to be a wrong channel (e.g. TiVo thinks 301 is USA)." (These are fictitious examples.)

SOME CHANNELS CANNOT BE RECEIVED BY TiVo:

1) which TiVo does your girlfriend have?

The high-def models (Series3 and TiVoHD) use CableCards to give these TiVos direct access to all subscribed cable channels. (both analog and digital channels.) In this case, please ask a Yahoo! question again, and specify you're having CableCard/lineup issues.

All other TiVos need your cable/satellite box to access digital channels. I'll assume this is what your GF has; let's continue.

2) Is the cable box output (audio plus either S-Video or composite video) correctly connected to the TiVo's input?

3) Was TiVo set up to use the appropriate input?

Go to Messages & Settings > Settings > Video > Video Hookup, and ensure the correct input is selected. You can also go to Messages and Settings > Settings > Account & System Information > System Information, and double-check that one input has regular cable, the other uses the cable box. For example:

Program Source (1) Cable Box, IR

Source Input (1): Composite Video, L/R Audio

Program Source (2): Cable without Box

Source Input (2): Coax RF In

Or you could have set up your TiVo with the wrong channel lineup, which leads us to your other possible problem:

TiVo INTERPRETS CHANNEL nnn AS THE WRONG NETWORK

4) Check your TiVo's channel lineup.

Go to Messages and Settings > Settings > Channels > Channel List > Channels You Receive.

If the channel descriptions (for both analog channels, typically 2-99 or 2-125, and digital channels above that) are wrong, you need to repeat Guided Setup and pick the correct channel lineup: go to Messages and Settings > Settings > Restart or Reset System > Repeat Guided Setup. This will

NOT affect recorded programs, Season Pass recordings, WishList searches, or TiVo Suggestions.

Once you have the correct channel lineup:

For the channels from 2 through 99, you should have a choice of both "cbl" and "box". In most cases, you should only have "cbl" checked. The exception is channels in this range that only work with the cable box -- and for those only "box" should be checked. If you don't receive a channel (or you don't want a channel in your list, both should be unchecked).

From 100 and up, you should only have "box" entries -- and only check the ones you receive.