On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 6:47 AM, David Brieck Jr. <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dbrieck@gmail.com" target="_blank">dbrieck@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Thought I would pass this information along to help anyone who's on my<br>
cable system since I don't think there's that many of us doing<br>
homebrew PVR...<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Thanks for your report. I am also anxiously waiting for my HDHR Prime order from Woot. I already picked up my CableCard from the local comcast office ($1.10 per month). With comcast, I am wondering how many channels I will be able to record.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
I bought the HDHR Prime on Woot recently for $130 in hopes of<br>
simplifying my MythTV setup. Before making the purchase I called<br>
support at Blue Ridge Cable in PA to ask them about CableCard support.<br>
<br>
I was mainly interested in finding out if they make the channels<br>
anything other than Copy-Freely. Turns out no one used the words<br>
copy-freely or access-controlled at all in our discussions. They<br>
simply said that they don't do anything to the channels and unless the<br>
network did "something" the CableCard would decrypt them just like a<br>
cable box would.<br>
<br>
Not exactly a vote of confidence, but at $130, it wasn't that big of a<br>
risk (I could resell it on Amazon if it didn't work out).<br>
<br>
I picked up the CableCard yesterday and they also gave me an SDV<br>
adapter. Silicon Dust calls it a USB Tuning Resolver, but Blue Ridge<br>
just called it a switching box. Pricing for an HD cable box (non-pvr)<br>
and the CableCard are the same, so on my bill this is a wash (but I<br>
get two more tuners).<br>
<br>
I asked the resident techie who came out to explain things if I could<br>
record on three tuners with their M-Card and he said they only do two.<br>
Again, not very encouraging, but considering they never heard of an HD<br>
HomeRun Prime and had only ever had them installed in Tivo's and<br>
"computers" I was skeptical that they knew what they were talking<br>
about.<br>
<br>
The Prime came yesterday as well so when I got home from work I<br>
started unpacking and getting things setup so I could call in and<br>
activate the CableCard. They only recently started allowing self<br>
installs, so I was planning on a lot of pain on the phone. As<br>
instructed I did NOT hookup the SDV adapter because they said it can<br>
sometimes interfere with the activation process. After waiting forever<br>
on hold it took about 10 minutes for the CSR to get the information<br>
needed to activate the card.<br>
<br>
Oddly, they wanted the MAC address of the CableCard in addition to the<br>
HostID and CardID. I'm guessing that was just so he could find it in<br>
their system, but it took some time to figure out where that was in<br>
the web app on the Prime.<br>
<br>
After hanging up it took about 10 minutes for the activation to go<br>
through. Initially I didn't bother to hookup the SDV adapter because I<br>
figured just the crappy channels were on SDV. Turns out more than just<br>
a few channels were inaccessible until hooking it up and that cost me<br>
some time figuring out what was wrong.<br>
<br>
After hooking up the adapter and waiting for it to initialize (about<br>
10 minutes) I had to unplug/plug in the Prime because it seemed to<br>
lockup when tuning channels.<br>
<br>
But after that, success! I could tune all of my channels with MythTV<br>
and channels changes were really quick. I don't subscribe to any<br>
premium channels so I can't say if they are copy-freely or not, but<br>
everything else is great. All three tuners also worked without a<br>
problem.<br>
<br>
As a result I'm able to stop using a combination of PVR-250s, HDPVR,<br>
and an original HDHomeRun (with antenna). I'll also be able to<br>
re-purpose a slave backend and save the power bill from that as well.<br>
<br>
This is definitely the way to go if your cable company allows<br>
copy-freely on their channels.<br>
<br>
David<br>
<br>
P.S. If you're interested in any of my now unused equipment email me<br>
off list. I also have a brand new HDPVR Killer that I won't be needing<br>
now either.<br>
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</blockquote></div><br>