Changes Coming to Cox

[tghowe]

Cox in my area (phoenix) is going to MPEG4 and they graciously gave us notice beforehand. They provided a test channel (ch 1987) to test our devices, and I can see their broadcast on most of them (plex, hdhr, etc), but my WMC machine cannot tune to it. The EPG123 guide is updated and has the latest listings, but channel 1987 does not show up, so obviously WMC cannot tune to it.

How do I resolve this dilemma? Is my Win7 WMC setup finally doomed?

[garyan2]

You need to enable the channel in the client so that it will be available in your guide. If there are no guide listing, epg123 will disable the channel when it updates the guide if you have automatch enabled.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[stuartm]

In general MPEG4 works reasonably well for WMC so you are not necessarily doomed. Most of the WMC problems with MPEG4 are in the areas of protected MPEG4 channels and Intel display adapters and protected MPEG4 and extenders. The protected MPEG4 and Intel display adapter problem is an Intel driver/hardware problem, not a WMC problem. There is also a bug in WMC where tuning from a MPEG4 channel to a low-res MPEG2 channel can result in getting the sound but not video from the newly tuned channel. The tuning problem seems to depend on the parameters the cable provider is using when encoding their streams so you may or may not encounter it.

[dkm]

There is also a bug in WMC where tuning from a MPEG4 channel to a low-res MPEG2 channel can result in getting the sound but not video from the newly tuned channel. The tuning problem seems to depend on the parameters the cable provider is using when encoding their streams so you may or may not encounter it.

Was there ever a workaround for this posted somewhere? My search-fu is weak on this topic.

[stuartm]

I experience this problem with my Comcast cable service. Usually, if the very first channel you tune after starting WMC is a low-res one it will tune correctly. Also, it usually works if you have tuned to a low-res channel from a hi-res MPEG4 and it is showing black, to tune another low-res then tune back to the desired channel. Sadly, these aren't useful if you are doing unattended recording. Fortunately, I never want to record any of the low-res content anyway.