Re: [PLUG] Comcast going all digital for me

[Stephen Brown <sbrown@cubehost.net>]

On 8/6/2011 1:40 AM, JP Vossen wrote:

> I know I need a digital tuner and I was planning on getting an HD
> Homerun [1] Real Soon Now anyway. Based on reading the Comcast FAQs [3],
> and as expected, the 3 free "digital adapters" I can get will require a
> remote control to change the channel, which rather defeats Myth. More on
> CableCARDs, which we talked about here recently, below.
You probably will want to go with one of the solutions that has cable 
cards. I have had a few of the WinTV-HVR's, HdHomeRun's and TiVo's for 
many years - all of them stopped being able to tune anything that isn't 
available over the air or in the super-basic package when Comcast 
switched in our area. The TiVo HD worked fine once I had the tech 
install a Cable card. You can't pick the Cable Cards up @ your local 
Comcast bunker like cable boxes, they force you to sit around and wait 
for a tech to come out and install it your device because they have to 
"pair" the card to the device and call a bunch of IDs in to their 
support people before the card will work with the device.

On Linux, both the Ceton cards and the HDHomeRun Prime (when it is 
shipped) have the same issue currently in that depending on what flags 
the provider sets on the stream for encryption controls if they are 
permitted to stream it out of their device in the clear.
From http://www.cetoncorp.com/infinitv/support/linux.php "From the 
device webpage you can tune ClearQAM channels if you know the frequency, 
or if you have a CableCARD you can tune CCI=0 channels by channel number"

For Ceton or SiliconDust to get/maintain certification from Cable Labs, 
they can't let their devices provide the video stream without encryption 
to the computer. Both the Ceton Cards and the SiliconDust tuners have a 
few encryption modules to work with Windows Media stack only right now.

I have a number of the Ceton infiniTV 4's with cable cards and they work 
quite well on Linux. They can't tune PPV or Premium channels, but seem 
fine for everything we want to watch.

- Steve
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