[mythtv-users] HDHomeRun Prime SF Bay Area

[Robert McNamara]

Hi All,

Thought I would drop you a line regarding my experience today with the
HDHomeRun Prime (running master, but .24 is known to work).  In short,
I am gleeful in my enjoyment so far.  I got the package at work today
and stopped by Comcast in San Jose on my way home.  I dropped off one
of my set top boxes and said, "I was hoping I could trade this for an
mCard for my Tivo."  The woman at the desk knew exactly what I wanted,
and returned with a CableCard in a couple of minutes.  In all, the
most painful part was waiting for my number to be called.

I got home and set up the HDHomeRun Prime in Myth as with a normal
HDHomeRun.  I did make sure to go into "Recording Options" and set max
recordings to 1, which is necessary when using a cablecard (multirec
does not work, but 3x simultaneous cablecard recordings works great).
I then created a new video source and attached it to my HD-PVR (yes,
bear with me).  Because Myth presumes that the HDHR needs scanning,
Fetch Channels From Listing Source is greyed out.  I'll see what I can
do about this in the next few days.  For HDHR Primes, this logic
should actually be inverted.  So, I attached the empty lineup to my
HD-PVR and hit fetch channels from listing source.  I then detached
the lineup from my HD-PVR and attached it to the three tuners of the
HDHR Prime.  I went to try to watch TV and... nothing.  My heart sunk
as my hopes that Comcast set everything as copy freely in my market
disappeared.  I saw that I could tune my ClearQAM channels, but that
Myth indicated all the rest of the channels were encrypted.  Not
wanting to give up right away, I checked the tuner's web page, and it
showed:

Card Authentication	success
Card OOB Lock	success
Card Activation	None

More or less, this means that the card was working, but wasn't paired
and that the entitlement for my lineup hadn't been set on the card.  I
spoke to Jason with SiliconDust and he let me know to call the number
on the paperwork given to me by Comcast, rather than the number being
passed back to the tuner webpage by the cablecard.  That number was
1-888-270-6445.  The very first tech I spoke to (Thanks, Wendy!) was
able to assist me.  I let her know that I had a cablecard device, but
that it appeared the pairing had not completed, but that I had the
CableCard ID, Host ID, and Data # to give her so that we could get the
pairing done.  Very thankfully, she knew what she was doing, in spite
of saying she hadn't activated a cablecard in many months.  She was
unable to pair the card herself, but she said that was sometimes the
case and it often needed a supervisor's authorization.

She put me on hold, and within a few minutes, my F5-happy finger
showed me that the Card Activation was "success."  I pulled up Live TV
again, and lo and behold... all my channels, including HD channels,
were usable (with the exception of my two premiums, HBO and Starz).  I
was extremely thankful to her and felt lucky indeed to have avoided
the horror stories some experience with Comcast.

Now my only problem is.. what in the heck should I watch?

Robert
MythTV