Cox Lineup Changes

[dshorrosh]

Hello. Cox Cable just pulled a fast one, moving a day early to eliminate the 1000-and-higher channels from their lineup. I am trying to assign the lower version of those channels in the same order they were on, as they are now HD instead of SD, but each time I add, say channel 470 for The Weather Channel, EPG123 automatically selects channel 43 which is also TWC. This is happening on every channel that appears twice (or more) in the list. If I delete the lower one, the higher one is deleted - and vice versa.

Also, logos assign properly to WMC from MCL but now not to Kodi.

What is going on? Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks in advance.

[dshorrosh]

OK, I resolved the logo situation but the duplicate channel situation persists.

Thanks in advance.

[Space]

When a cable company makes this type of change, it generally does not affect third party cable devices. If your lineup from Schedules Direct has changed and it no longer has channels in the 1000+ range, you should try to search for a new lineup for your cable system that still has the 1000+ channels. If you cannot find it, then your cable company screwed up and needs to provide a lineup that can be used by third party devices (ie: not the cable box provided by the cable company).

What this change generally does is that the company supplied cable box will now do the mapping of the channels so that if you tune to (for example) channel "2", it will actually tune to channel 2 (if using a cable box set to SD mode) or channel 1002 (if set to HD mode).

The underlying channel map does not usually change at all, the SD version is still on channel 2 and the HD version is still on channel 1002.

Third party cable devices use this underlying channel map, not the map that has eliminated the channel above 1000.

Also, just to answer your question... When you select a channel in the EPG123 config GUI, you are not actually selecting the channel, you are selecting the "station". If that station is on more than one channel, then it will select/deselect both channels.

If that is what is happening, then both channels have been assigned the same station, for instance the HD version of TWC (which is a different station then the SD version of TWC).

NOTE: If you are using the cable company supplied cable box (with an IR blaster) with WMC, then you may be able to find another lineup on Schedules Direct that has just the < 1000 channels.

[garyan2]

Also, just to answer your question... When you select a channel in the EPG123 config GUI, you are not actually selecting the channel, you are selecting the "station". If that station is on more than one channel, then it will select/deselect both channels.

That is correct. I'm not clear on how you are wanting to change which channels are in the guide and using custom numbers, but when select channels to download in the configuration GUI, you are actually selecting the station which will include all channels and lineups that station is a part of.

From the epg123 website installation guide:

[dshorrosh]

Thanks for the replies.

Space - My rig is a Win7 HTPC with Ceton PCi and Cox-supplied cable card, so no other Cox-provided boxes or middleware. I get a 'no video signal on this channel' when trying to tune the 1000+ channel numbers, but the lower-channel instances work.

garyan2 - My understanding of how EPG123 actually works is pretty limited, but I think your point is there is only one 'real' channel with multiple paths. I deselected the 1000+ channels and both sets of 'new' channel numbers tune the signal, my issue is when I select one instance of, say, The Weather Channel, EPG123 selects *both* listed channels and they appear twice in the channel guide. So maybe I'm not understanding an additional step to link channels and then select just one?

Here's a not so good pic of what I'm seeing.

[garyan2]

So in the configuration GUI, when you select TWC on channel 470, you are not selecting channel 470. You are actually selecting TWC. So if TWC is on channels 470 and 43, you will get both. To not show either channel 470 or channel 43 in the guide, you will uncheck (disable) that channel in the client GUI and not the configuration GUI. This is one of the reasons I have the default sort in the configuration GUI to be by callsign, and not channel number. When you select/unselect a channel, you will see all channels that station is on be selected and deselected at the same time.

[dshorrosh]

Got it. All working now, thanks! And I learned something.

[Space]

When past providers have done the conversion from having separate channels for the SD and HD versions of a network to just having (seemingly) ONE channel for the network, they kept both separate channels (behind the scenes) and just had the cable box choose which one to use based on how the cable box was configured (in general, if the box was connected to an HDTV, it would choose the HD channel, if it was connected to an SDTV it would choose the SD channel).

Cox may be doing something different here. Perhaps they now only have HD channels and the cable box just converts those HD channels to letterboxed format for the SDTVs (which quite frankly, I always wondered why other cable companies didn't do, but probably due to legacy cable boxes and the costs of replacing them all)

If they are doing this, then I would expect you to have a lineup available that only has the low-numbered channels which have all the HD versions.

[dshorrosh]

That's kind of what's going on here I think - they still show 2x occurrences of cable channels (not the 1000+ numbers tho) but supposedly both are HD, and from the server side you cannot select just one or the other. If both are left in the client side, they can both be selected and played from the WMC channel guide.

However, we also used to have 2x occurrences of local network affiliates (SD and the 1000+ version of the channel number for HD), and now there is just the lower version which supposedly is still HD even though my TV says it's only 720. Also, the digital 'extra' channels from local stations are suddenly tagged as DRM and cannot be played, so that's another issue.

Cox is not my favorite.

[dshorrosh]

Closing this out - the -DRM tag was fixed by editing the channels in WMC, they had no assigned source. The 720p thing is a different matter.

Thanks for the assistance.

[d00zah]

720p thing is a different matter.

Some networks broadcast natively in that format...

https://hd-report.com/hd-channels/

[dshorrosh]

I think I've been bamboozled - Cox isn't on that main page, and their online support won't answer the 720 vs 1040 question. I got 1040 before they consolidated their channel lineup, and now everything is 720.

I feel a service escalation coming on.

Thanks for the info.

[Space]

You can see which networks are in 1080i and which are in 720p here.

Another aspect is bitrate, which can have more of an effect on picture quality than resolution.

[d00zah]

Some networks broadcast in 720p, 'HD' & some in 1080i (1080p is considered 'Full HD'). All qualify as 'HD', in the broad sense, so if that was the question you asked Cox sales/support, no one "bamboozled". Cox only rebroadcasts the Network feeds it subscribes to. Network OTA would likely be no different. Welcome to 'HDTV' in the US.

[jachin99]

When a cable company makes this type of change, it generally does not affect third party cable devices. If your lineup from Schedules Direct has changed and it no longer has channels in the 1000+ range, you should try to search for a new lineup for your cable system that still has the 1000+ channels. If you cannot find it, then your cable company screwed up and needs to provide a lineup that can be used by third party devices (ie: not the cable box provided by the cable company).

What this change generally does is that the company supplied cable box will now do the mapping of the channels so that if you tune to (for example) channel "2", it will actually tune to channel 2 (if using a cable box set to SD mode) or channel 1002 (if set to HD mode).

The underlying channel map does not usually change at all, the SD version is still on channel 2 and the HD version is still on channel 1002.

Third party cable devices use this underlying channel map, not the map that has eliminated the channel above 1000.

Also, just to answer your question... When you select a channel in the EPG123 config GUI, you are not actually selecting the channel, you are selecting the "station". If that station is on more than one channel, then it will select/deselect both channels.

If that is what is happening, then both channels have been assigned the same station, for instance the HD version of TWC (which is a different station then the SD version of TWC).

NOTE: If you are using the cable company supplied cable box (with an IR blaster) with WMC, then you may be able to find another lineup on Schedules Direct that has just the < 1000 channels.

For cable card channels, cox is in the process of, and probably mostly finished with converting everything to H264 with DRM. For years I had cox with no DRM, even on about half of my premiums and then one day it all switched. They have been sending out letters to their customers saying that there would be changes coming to CableCard customers. What is funny is that they created test channels so you could check compatibility but they didn't DRM their test channels. Then when they actually make the change in your area, everything is DRM'd. I had this happen to me last week, and because I have moved on from WMC to Emby, I cancelled my cable subscription, and use Youtube TV with Channels DVR. So for cox the only options are pretty much TIVO & WMC.

[dshorrosh]

Some networks broadcast in 720p, 'HD' & some in 1080i (1080p is considered 'Full HD'). All qualify as 'HD', in the broad sense, so if that was the question you asked Cox sales/support, no one "bamboozled". Cox only rebroadcasts the Network feeds it subscribes to. Network OTA would likely be no different. Welcome to 'HDTV' in the US.

The 'bamboozled' point is in reference to having 1080 (not 1040, my fatfinger) prior to the channel reconciliation.

The Cox tech was polite and explained the cable card experts were gone for the evening, and he noted that my zip is in the first market they have done the channel reconciliation thus far, so to be fair they may be figuring a few things out and gauging market response.

720 vs 1080 is not the end of the world, and I'm not having any DRM issues now, but I don't think cable card setups are long for this world anyway.

And about the logos - they are in color on WMC, but most are B&W or grayscale on Kodi. Which is weird.

[dshorrosh]

I'm still in 720land but did get a resolution to the B&W channel logos - found the folder recorded tv folder in tempSWMC\imageCache and delete the channelIcons folder, it reloaded after restarting the service. Hey, I'm batting 667.