[mythtv-users] HDHR Prime + Cablecard + MediaCom Experience

[Kenneth Emerson]

With the exception of actaully getting the physical card into my house
(what's a cablecard?) which took approximately 3 weeks, the
installation and activation went surprisingly easy with MediaCom.  The
only problem I had was in realizing that I didn't have a problem.
Looking at the Prime's web status page I saw that the CC had been
authorized but it said Activation: None.  From what I have read of
others' experiences, this seemed like a show stopper.  I made a call
to the service tech and he sent another init signal down to the card
and said it looked OK from his end.

When I tried tuning to some of my subscribed stations using Silicon
Dust's windows tools, it looked like the CC was working OK for me as
well.  Looking through Silicon Dust's forums, it seems that the
"Activation" doesn't mean the same thing for all head-ends.  The other
interesting point for me was that MediaCom was only interested in the
CC's serial number.  They did not care about the Host ID or the CC ID
(which may have something to do with pairing and activation?).

I have since recorded off of three of the channels that I frequently
watch via STB + PVR and they recorded OK from the Prime.  So I am part
way to the point of turning in my STB back to MediaCom.

My question to other users of the Prime is: Does anyone have some kind
of script or program that can scan the channels defined in my SD
lineup to see if they are copy freely or do I just need to start
recording something from every channel and see what works and what
doesn't?

-- Ken E.