[mythtv-users] can I buy my own digital cable box for use with Time warner digital cable?

[Robert McNamara]

>
> The Motorola DCH-3200 (and possibly others) has a CableCard -
> http://www.motorola.com/business/US-EN/DCH3200_US-EN.do?vgnextoid=bbec9e3eeed46110VgnVCM1000008406b00aRCRD
>
> I have it and it came with the CableCard pre-installed.
>
> --dejan
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>

Any box with a DCH prefix is an M-card (cablecard) enabled box.  The
trouble is that Motorola will not sell the boxes to individuals in the
US and even if they did, Comcast wouldn't activate them.  They will
issue you a cablecard, but the Motorola boxes contain none of the
programming to make the cablecard-box pairing possible on the user's
end (They are heavily geared towards being set up by policies sent by
the provider).  The closest you can come is a Cablecard capable Tivo
or a Cablecard tuner card under windows.  In reality, it's not really
getting you much, though, as it just moves all the STB logic onto the
cablecard-- cablecard is more or less a STB-on-a-card.  The boxes
ports will still always behave according to policies set by the
headend-- so having your own box, even if it were possible past the
options mentioned above, wouldn't buy you anything.

Robert