[mythtv-users] Need advice: NYC = Scrambled Analog?

[IvanK.]

I live in Queens and I opted not to get their PVR box, because MythTV is so 
much better.

To confirm, yes you do need a cable box for both analog and digital tv, as far 
as Time Warner is concerned.

What I would suggest is this, take your SA8000 PVR box to the nearest TW 
office (there's one on 23rd st between park and madison) and tell them you 
want to switch back to regular digital tv (they call it dtv).  Get a SA2000 
or a Pioneer (forgot the model number now, will email it to you when I get 
home tonight) box, build the simple ir transmitter at 
http://www.lirc.org/transmitters.html and that's it.

My setup: two boxes (one SA2000, one Pioneer), one PVR250 (freestyle), one 
PVR350, one PCI serial port card from CompUSA, two simple ir transmitters 
(connected to the PCI serial port card, just to protect the motherboard 
serial ports in case my soldering efforts backfired), the ir receiver that's 
built into the PVR-350, three simultaneous lirc instances, custom compiled, 
that respond to the receiver and the two transmitters.  Everything works 
beautifully.

Oh, and I pay about $8 a month extra for the second digital box and I get all 
the premium channels on it that I get on the first box.  Not a bad deal.

IvanK.

On Friday 07 May 2004 03:06 pm, Z Rosen wrote:
> I currently have Time-Warner digital cable with their Scientific
> Atlanta Explorer 8000 POS PVR.  You'd think that after 3 years of this
> box being on the market they could have worked some bugs out.  They
> didn't and it forced me to say, hey I could build a better PVR.  So now
> that I've built my kick-ass MythTV box with multiple tuners I find that
> I can only view network stations.
>
> What to do...
>
> If I switch to analog service, T-W tells me that I'll still need a
> cable box.  Is it true that T-W NYC analog is all scrambled and/or is
> this just their way of getting more money by renting boxes?
>
> I've read on the list that some people in other locations with T-W
> digital were able to get analog channels as an add-on.  This doesn't
> seem to be available in NYC (at least its not advertised, anyone know
> differently?).
>
> Is there any feasible way to descramble the entire analog signal before
> it gets to the tuner cards?
> Is there any way to get this working besides getting multiple analog
> cable boxes and multiple IR-Blasters?
>
> I'd appreciate any help people can give, otherwise look for my MythTV
> box on eBay...
> -ZR