Voom is gone?

[artmalkin]

I won't miss Voom if it goes.

I think Voom served a purpose when there was little HD content, but I would much rather see the rest of the most popular basic cable channels from the analog tier in HD.

 

[capt.video]

Is your Voom OK?; Yes or No?

I vote No not yet...if they are going to make a switch then CV should really make sure it works everywhere from day 1... should not have to make a call or email or are they taking lessons from the Microsoft book of how to do business ..."lets just put it out & take care of all the bugs later...WTF they will still be paying us.

 

[Hglenn]

I am on the Woodbury system in Bellmore LI. Does anyone know the effective date that area is being flipped to SDV? I can't find the card CV sent to me. Thanks in advance.

 

[blacknoi]

In north Jersey last night, some worked, some didn't.

The ones that didn't (mostly the higher ones, Rave, Game, etc) had a banner displayed that said either 'Service Unavailable' or 'Service Unauthorized' (I forget which, really).

So a signal is coming in - just seems like the channels are actually off.

(I have a SA8300 DVR - didn't try power-cycling it.)

Guys, here's the deal:

I believe if you get "not authorized" its cause you cable box might have lost its IP address. Naturally, your cable box needs to talk to the head-end to tell it to start streaming that VOOM channel on one of the available SDV slots.

Now the "Channel Temporarily Unavailable, Please try again later" is one that I see a LOT now, but in theory should NEVER see.

This means that they've ran out of SDV "slots" to send the channels in.

The idea of SDV is that the channels arent that popular, so they'll reserve, we'll say 8 channels worth of bandwidth, to broadcast 15 channels.

They figure that in any one head-end, no more than 8 out of those 15 channels will want to be watched by customers at the same time.

Problem is, if each of 15 houses wanted to watch a different Voom channel, only the first 8 houses tuning to their desired channel would get it. The other 7 would get "channel unavailable" since there's no bandwidth to broadcast it to you.

Now if you are house 16, and want to watch a channel that someone else already requested, then you are fine, the "slot" is reserved and the channel is already broadcasting.


Now tell me thats not messed up.?!?!??


Cablevision needs to re-evaluate the popularity of Voom, and assign it more SDV bandwidth.

 

[Delorean2006]

i got voom back, just to throw that out there

 

[dm145]

Guys, here's the deal:

Now the "Channel Temporarily Unavailable, Please try again later" is one that I see a LOT now, but in theory should NEVER see.

This means that they've ran out of SDV "slots" to send the channels in.

The idea of SDV is that the channels arent that popular, so they'll reserve, we'll say 8 channels worth of bandwidth, to broadcast 15 channels.

They figure that in any one head-end, no more than 8 out of those 15 channels will want to be watched by customers at the same time.

i doubt that is the problem

Problem is, if each of 15 houses wanted to watch a different Voom channel, only the first 8 houses tuning to their desired channel would get it. The other 7 would get "channel unavailable" since there's no bandwidth to broadcast it to you.

Now if you are house 16, and want to watch a channel that someone else already requested, then you are fine, the "slot" is reserved and the channel is already broadcasting.


Now tell me thats not messed up.?!?!??


Cablevision needs to re-evaluate the popularity of Voom, and assign it more SDV bandwidth.

i doubt that is the problem

 

[MergaTroy6]

SDV does not assign bandwidth to certain channels.

Switched Digital Video only broadcasts a channel when requested from the customer. This actually free up transmission bandwidth. rather than broadcasting 500 channels at all times when say only 200 are being watched, SDV broadcasts only the 200 that are being watched, freeing up more bandwidth for less compression or larger (HD) channels to be viewed on the network.

Specific channels are not assigned bandwidth based upon their popularity.

You are getting the "Not authorized" message because you have a marginal signal coming into your box. SDV requires a good quality signal to broadcast SDV channels because it requires a good amount of 2 way communication. Call up CV and they will send out a tech to fix your problem. Most likely a bad splitter or poor cabling.

 

[TJ KONG]

It's not only the VOOM channels, the quality of the picture has deteriorated on all channels, even the HD's. I have had an HD "cable card" for 3 years. I have been on the phone with them for 3 weeks, sometimes waiting on hold for 40 minutes. Apparently Cablevision cannot fix this problem, and all will need "Switch Digital Video" boxes. I have been with Suffolk Cablevision for over 30 years and they just play dumb. There running this like they run the NY Knicks, right into the ground.

 

[stevenl]

You can not view SDV channels with a cable card. Until tru2way is out and running, and your tv is tru2way compliant.

 

[milan2]

ok here's the deal with the voom channel sometimes working and not working. (the "Channel Temporarily Unavailable, Please try again later" message)

I had a Cablevision out to the house to install a new line. And while the tech was there I asked him about the whole Voom channel problem.

He said that its the signal that comes from Cablevision is not capable of handling a large amount of viewers on those specific Voom channels. And that Cablevision knows all about it, and they are trying to fix the problem.

He said its like bandwidth. Too many viewers results in slow down. But here on cable it just shows the message. he said for example if channel 777 handles 1 million viewers at once, and your 1 million and 1. your out. You get the come back later message. Thats why you can come back in 15 minutes and then it works. While he was at my house there was a couple of channels out, then 20 minutes later they were working. He said there was the same problem with a couple of Spanish channels in the Essex County area doing the same thing. But they worked on it and fixed it.

He even showed me the diagnostic screens for those Voom channels and they have completely different signals (not strength) coming into the box. They are on a totally diff bandwith freq. Its hard to explain but its different. I saw it with my own eyes. He said they need to move the channel freq. to the same as the other digital channels, and that would solve the problem. (this needs to handled by cablevision, which is obviously not on top of their list to do things) He said if enough people call about it, it should light a fire. He said they were getting tons of calls from the Spanish community complaining about those few Spanish channels that weren't working properly.