Interesting issue w/ parental controls on STB

[popechild]

We have parental locks put on certain rating levels on our cable box. Sometimes when Sage tries to change the channel to record something, if the cable box is currently on a channel showing a show that is blocked (for instance, a blocked show came on a channel after Sage had recorded something on that channel earlier), Sage will send the channel change, but the cable box will interpret it as someone trying to enter the parental unlock code, and won't actually change the channel.

At first glance, I'm not really sure if there's a good way around this, and it doesn't happen often enough to be that big a deal, but I figured I'd check and see if anyone else has encountered this problem, and if they've figured out a good way to deal with it?

[bcjenkins]

The new RC has a feature to send a key to the box prior to the channel number. I think it tries to channel up or something.. There is a thread on it relating to the addition of non subscribed channels.

B

[scoful]

How are you controlling your STB? I use MultiDCT and it will freak out on channels that aren't valid or OnDemand channels. It seems like MultiDCT is trying to confirm the channel change, but the cable box won't confirm it if it enters into some kind of menu. I would assume it would be the same with a parental lock.

Why are you using the cable box parental controls instead of Sage's parental controls?

[popechild]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

The new RC has a feature to send a key to the box prior to the channel number. I think it tries to channel up or something.. There is a thread on it relating to the addition of non subscribed channels.

B

I'll have to check this out. It sounds interesting...

Originally Posted by scoful

How are you controlling your STB? I use MultiDCT and it will freak out on channels that aren't valid or OnDemand channels. It seems like MultiDCT is trying to confirm the channel change, but the cable box won't confirm it if it enters into some kind of menu. I would assume it would be the same with a parental lock.

Why are you using the cable box parental controls instead of Sage's parental controls?

I could try the Sage controls, but up until this point the cable box has worked great. And I guess in the back of my mind I assume that as the kids get older, and more technologically savvy, that it'd be pretty easy to "get around" the locks on Sage compared to on the cable box.