Re: [PLUG] Comcast encrypted Collegeville PA 2014-02-26 or so?

On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 9:27 AM, Ed Roper <ed.roper@golevelone.com> wrote:

I'm in Mont Clare, noticed my TV didn't get channels anymore either. Looks like the 'free ride' is over.

-----Original Message-----
From: plug [mailto:plug-bounces@lists.phillylinux.org] On Behalf Of JP Vossen
Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2014 12:04 AM
To: Philadelphia Linux User's Group Discussion List
Subject: [PLUG] Comcast encrypted Collegeville PA 2014-02-26 or so?

A few weeks ago on 2014-02-05 I noticed [1] that my HDHomeRun Config GUI says, for example: us-cable : 12 : 1001 0 (encrypted) *But*, live TV on the actual TV *did* still work without any kind of converter box or cable-card. And Myth started working again after a backend restart, but the "HDHomeRun Config GUI" did not.

Then on 2014-02-26 MythTV failed to record something on Comcast, and now TVs do not work either! All they say is "scrambled," even on broadcast and PBS.

So my guess is they turned the flag on around the 5th, but didn't actually start the encryption until the 26th (give or take).

So, anyone else seeing this? Or could it be some kind of "glitch"
(yeah, right)?

And BIG thanks to Louis Kratz for the 2013-11 "Comcast, Cable Cards, Antenna, and HD-Homerun Experiences?" thread, and to those who replied to that thread. Solely because of that, I did some prep work very recently, documented in http://lists.netisland.net/archives/plug/plug-2014-01/msg00022.html.
And now that has paid off big time!

Assuming this doesn't mysteriously clear up in the next day or two, I'll just dump Comcast and be done with them.

Thanks,
JP

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[1] I noticed HDHomeRun Config GUI saying "(encrypted)" while t-shooting. After power blips due to a bad UPS (ironically, not the huge ice storm), my Mythbackend failed to record 2 shows on Wednesday 2012-02-05. It tried, but got nothing. Live TV from Myth did not work either, but live TV on the actual TV *did* work. The "HDHomeRun Config GUI" could tune the LEAF antenna fine, but '/var/log/mythtv/mythbackend.log' gave me stuff like "DTVMux:
ParseTuningParams -- Unknown tuner type = 0xffffffff80000000". Some ixquick.com [2] searching turned up various potential timing issues with
0.25 (yeah, I never got around to using the Mythbuntu PPA. Real Soon Now. REAL Soon....). And it looks like a simple restart of the backend fixed that. MythTV Live TV and recordings both worked again, but the "HDHomeRun Config GUI" still did not.

[2] Not Google, and thanks to whoever it was at PLUG N in January who mentioned this. I've tried to switch to DuckDuckGo several times but their results didn't work for me, but I've switched 99% to ixquick.com and love it! Freaking "quotes work again!"

If you want to keep cable, going CableCard isn't actually much more expensive on a monthly basis (like $2) than the clear QAM solution, and definitely is less of a headache. I have had 0 problems with channels moving and no more issues with signal level mysteriously dropping, leading to pixelization.

TL;DR - Very happy with CableCard on a Ceton InfiniTV 6 ETH.

--Matt