Tales of CableCard Woe - Sony VGX-XL3 Edition Curbnoise 08.06.2007 18:40:01 I bought the Sony VGX-XL3 about a month ago, and for the most part I am happy with it. The one exception is the flakiness of the CableCard anytime I have to reboot (and this is Windows afterall!). If you do a standard restart (like after installing an update) 1 of 2 things generally happens. 1 is that the OS doesn't see the ATI tuner at all. Don't need to say much more about that one. The second option is that the CableCard tuner is detected and intializes, but premium (eg HBO...) channels are not viewable. In the literature that came with the machine it stated that it can take up to 10-15 minutes for restricted channels to be available. Not so with a warm reboot. They never come back. Even a cold reboot doesn't bring the channels back from the dead (or the tuner itself if condition 1 above is experienced). Through trial and error I figured out that if I shut down for an extended (at least 20 minutes) period, boot up AND NOT TOUCH THE PC for another 15 or so minutes, generally all the channels return. Not a good solution, but it works. So I call Sony support, get routed to level 2 support and they tell me that this (extended shutdown...) is the preferred method for having the machine function as intended. When I pointed out that this is not a good answer for a $3,000 + machine, the tech told me she would refer it to engineering. Needless to say I have turned off MS recommended "Automatically Install Critical Updates" to avoid losing the tuner and any scheduled recordings that may take place between 4 am and when I notice and have 35 minutes to rehabilitate the machine. I just thought I would share this in case anyone is looking at buying this unit. Again, I like it alot and believe that they will probably work it out in time, but I also would have liked to know this going in. Does anyone else have this machine? Experiencing similar issues? What about one of the other cablecard equipped machines shipping from other manufacturers?