Re: [PLUG] EXTERNAL: Re: Comcast going all digital for me

["Grabowy, Chris" <chris.grabowy@lmco.com>]

> ...you are at the mercy of the cable company.  In
> theory they can work great, but at any time some 
> of your channels could stop working, and your 
> only recourse is the legendary cable customer 
> service number.

So my limited understanding of cablecards...

Cablecards actually came out a long time ago.  The TV makers started making TVs that accepted cablecards, but the cable companies never really cared if the cablecards worked in those TVs for the obvious reason of making the customer rent a box instead.

Time passes no one cares about cablecards the TV makers stop adding that feature to their TVs.  So the FCC mandates that going forward all new cable boxes will need to use a cablecard.  Suddenly cablecards start working.  Tivo jumps on that bandwagon.

And so I have two Tivos that use cablecards and knock on wood, have been working really well.  I do not recall having ANY problems with the cablecard.  Again, the cable companies are forced to use cablecards in their own cable boxes...

So IMHO you should be fine using a cablecard...

BTW, cablecards are not required to be used by the satellite cable companies.  And IMHO, that's a huge loss for those companies, since I will never switch to them because of my Tivo investments.

Goodluck.  It stinks not having a good, reliable DVR...

-----Original Message-----
From: plug-bounces@lists.phillylinux.org [mailto:plug-bounces@lists.phillylinux.org] On Behalf Of Rich Freeman
Sent: Monday, August 08, 2011 12:50 PM
To: Philadelphia Linux User's Group Discussion List
Subject: Re: [PLUG] EXTERNAL: Re: Comcast going all digital for me

On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 12:21 PM, Grabowy, Chris <chris.grabowy@lmco.com> wrote:
> And I don't believe this was mentioned in any other email so far, the cablecard will give you the ability to record in HD.  Cablecards will allow you to record up to six channels at a time, that's assuming the device can handle that.
>
> This is a very interesting topic.  I look forward to everyone's responses.

I guess my biggest concern with Cablecard is the same as my concern
with QAM and Firewire - you are at the mercy of the cable company.  In
theory they can work great, but at any time some of your channels
could stop working, and your only recourse is the legendary cable
customer service number.

I've always tended to rely on using a tuner box and controlling that
box.  It is definitely a lot more kludgy, but it doesn't rely on
magical "do-not-copy" flags/etc.  Depending on your tuner you could
end up getting on-screen displays in your capture - usually there are
ways to minimize that.

Now, historically that would only work with standard def.  However, my
understanding is that you can now get hardware capable of realtime
mpeg-4 compression of HD from DVI/HDMI (perhaps going through a device
to remove HDCP first).  You will lose a little with the transcode, but
it will be HD, and you're immune to upstream provider tampering.

However, when it works clearly cablecard or QAM are simpler and
generally better solutions.

Rich
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