Comcast Lineup change has killed my EPG

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jimanderson3

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Comcast Lineup change has killed my EPG

#1

Post by jimanderson3 » Fri Dec 08, 2017 10:37 pm

Comcast has made a wholesale change of all its HD channels here in Nashville. As of yesterday, my EPG now only shows SD channels and about 5 HD channels. What's my next step to get this fixed? TIA

delvirtud

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#2

Post by delvirtud » Fri Dec 08, 2017 11:18 pm

Same. Spent most of the night last night and now attempting to troubleshoot. You use the default Rovi EPG or EPG123?

jimanderson3

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#3

Post by jimanderson3 » Sat Dec 09, 2017 4:23 am

Hate to be a dummy, but how do I tell? I assume it's the default. I've been using the same software (Win7 MCE) and HTPC for years and never tweaked it. FWIW, I tried picking different Comcast areas outside of Nashville proper and all had the same truncated EPG. Is there a way to put in a support ticket with the EPG provider?

Space

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#4

Post by Space » Sat Dec 09, 2017 5:40 am

Send an email to lineup@tivo.com.

TiVo maintains the default guide data used by Windows Media Center.

Since TiVo devices also use this data, it is most likely already reported and will hopefully be fixed soon.

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#5

Post by jimanderson3 » Sat Dec 09, 2017 2:42 pm

Good info. Thanks so much!

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#6

Post by thereef510 » Sat Dec 09, 2017 5:14 pm

Also checking in from Nashville TN.

Two days ago, my HD channels totally disappeared from the EPG guide itself. I called comcast and they attempted to interact with the cablecard to no avail so they sent a tech out. The tech replaced a lot of my wiring, coax splitters, and and the cable card itself. I refreshed the hd homerun software and scanned in the new channel lineup, and it shows up on that program just fine. Reset WMC, and it still wont pick up any of my HD channels, except ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS. Even FOX is gone. So then I tried the HD Homerun plug-in for Kodi, and there, all the channels are available, but that is merely a workaround since WMC continues to be the most robust solution for watching live tv and DVR. So whatever is going on, it is definitely an issue with WMC.

jimanderson3

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#7

Post by jimanderson3 » Sat Dec 09, 2017 8:02 pm

Yes, the problem is not with your HDHomrun, cable card, or any of that. The problem is simply with the EPG that WMC uses. Your channels are there; they simply aren't mapped by the EPG. Hopefully the EPG folks (Rovi?) will update their guide soon.

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#8

Post by Space » Sat Dec 09, 2017 10:17 pm

Has Comcast done something similar to what CableVision did a while ago? Got rid of the higher numbered (HD) channels and made both SD and HD versions of a channel use the same channel number? This is done by having the rented cable boxes tune to the SD or HD version of the channel based on the type of TV you have attached to it (SD or HD) or a setting in the box itself.

This works fine if you have a cable company owned (rented) cable box, but if you have a third party device (such as WMC) then you need to keep the old lineup that has both SD and HD separately listed with their unique channel numbers (the guide provider needs to maintain two lineups, one with the SD and HD channels (for use by 3rd party devices), and one with the consolidated channel numbering (for use by the company owned devices)).

You can look up what lineups are offered on tvguide.com (which uses TiVo/Rovi data source) and zap2it.com/screenertv.com (which uses Gracenote data source) for your zip code and provider. In the past, Gracenote usually is more up-to-date on these lineup changes, so you can see on zap2it if they have two lineups now (one with the HD channels, one without), and compare it to tvguide.com (which probably only has the one).

In any case, it is up to TiVo/Rovi to work with Comcast, to make sure they maintain both the old SD/HD lineup and the new consolidated lineup.

If they are not doing this and they just somehow messed up your lineup, then this email was a waste of time... :-) (except that it is still up to TiVo/Rovi to fix the problem).

EDIT: One other thing you can do is use tvguide.com to quickly try different (nearby) zip codes and lineups to see if any of them still have the HD channels. If you find one, change WMC to use that same lineup until the problem with your lineup is fixed.

delvirtud

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#9

Post by delvirtud » Sun Dec 10, 2017 1:40 pm

The best thing to do at this point is to go ahead and make the jump to using EPG123. After years of avoiding having to do it, I finally did it. My guide runs smoother now, functions better and looks better all around. Screw Comcast, Rovi and M$ (though I am still using WMC). Since M$ has pretty much abandoned it, I wished they would open source WMC so the community could continue to make it better.

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#10

Post by newfiend » Sun Dec 10, 2017 8:16 pm

delvirtud wrote:The best thing to do at this point is to go ahead and make the jump to using EPG123. After years of avoiding having to do it, I finally did it. My guide runs smoother now, functions better and looks better all around. Screw Comcast, Rovi and M$ (though I am still using WMC). Since M$ has pretty much abandoned it, I wished they would open source WMC so the community could continue to make it better.
This^..
Forget Rovi.. It's a freaking mess. I switched to EPG123 awhile back.. (I'm fairly new to it) but it was the best thing I've added to WMC in some time. Highly Recommend the switch.

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#11

Post by slaingod » Mon Dec 11, 2017 4:12 am

So the same problem affected me in Nashville last week, fortunately was able to manually map a couple of important channels for the WAF. I am actually using EPG123, but the schedulesDirect data took about a day to catch up. It mostly fixed itself, though about a half a dozen of the channels I care about are still miss-mapped. Trying to figure that out now. Like I have two MTV's in the guide, but one of them is actually AMC.

Fox moved from 1006 to 1017 for the person who had the problem.

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#12

Post by thereef510 » Mon Dec 11, 2017 7:54 pm

well so today, the channel lineup changed. Previously I only had about 8 or 10 HD channels on my guide. Now I have about 100, including all the locals. But all the channels numbers are messed up (ie ESPN is now on 1205 but the channel still says USA-HD), there's no EPG data. And many of the HD channels themselves have no picture or sound.

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#13

Post by thereef510 » Mon Dec 18, 2017 12:21 am

So microsoft/rovi or whoever updated their servers and now we have our current channel lineup. I did sign up for EPG123 but i think i'll wait to subscribe later. thanks everyone for chiming in.

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