TWC CableCARD Firmware Upgrade?

[MoreTorque99]

I use Time Warners cable card service on my Samsung DLP.  I currently have a Scientific Atlanta card.

Last night, when i turned the set on, it said "updating channel list" and then popped up an error message about how it couldn't get the channels and to call TWC.  I took the card out and put it back in this morning.  

After roughly 30 seconds of being in the TV, it now says "Cable Card Firmware upgrade in progress" and has blanked out the rest of the TV.

Is anyone else having this happen?

[JoeSchueller]

I'm home for the holidays and was looking forward to seeing my parents Samsung HLR with CableCard and comparing it to my HLP and D* HD service.

Unfortunately, I got here and found an abomination of a STB (Pioneer 3510) in my parents AV cabinet.  It is a POS - freezes whenever you hit guide on ESPNHD (but that is for another thread).  My Mom told the story of the installer trying 3 different cards and struggling to the point that he just stuck the $8/month box in their house.

Was there any trick to getting it going?  I called Samsung yesterday and they said that they don't know of any specific Cable Card issues and that the installer should just call them if he's having issues for help troubleshooting.  Of course, they claimed that 99.9% of Cable Card issues are with the provider.

So, does anyone out there have a working Cable Card setup with TWC and a Samsung HLR who can give me some insights to tell the next installer?

THANKS!
-Joe

[mhz40]

There are hundreds of working cards out there.  Many times there are problems with the TV's firmware that can be fixed via an upgrade by the TV manufacturer.  This is likely the case if your parents have never sucessfully installed a cablecard on this set.  If the card had been working with this TV before this, call in for a service call.
Yes, there is a bug in the 3510 that causes lockups when entering the guide while tuned to 720p sources, like ESPN 7 WITI.  To get around this, go into preferences on the STB and change the output format to only output 1080i.

Happy Turkey Day!

[JoeSchueller]

I did notice (after a lockup on Nemo last night) that it is a 720p problem.  Unfortunately the workaround you suggest will only make the already pretty bad PQ even worse because this is a native 720p display.  CableCard is certainly the optimum PQ solution.

I understand that TWC must have working cards out there, my hope was to find someone with this VERY popular set and a working card so I can help the TWC tech find the right combo to get things working for me.