[mythtv-users] Silly Question

[R. G. Newbury]

On 04/03/2012 05:47 PM, Gary Buhrmaster wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 18:46, R. G. Newbury<newbury at mandamus.org>  wrote:
> ....
>> Ahh if only it were that simple in Canada. Rogers 'support' personel do not
>> know the meaning of the phrase 'cable card'. They think that it is some sort
>> of gift subscription that you would have received for your birthday......
>
> Queries to better understand the Canada situation:
>
> It was my (last known) understanding that no cable companies
> in Canada support CableCARDs (unlike in the US, there was
> never an FCC mandate forcing the issue, so the cable companies
> never made it available).  I also thought that prevented the
> (full) use of Tivos.
>
> Has that changed?

I don't know if Tivo's are usable here. (or not). You are correct that 
there are no mandates by the CRTC such as the FCC 'shall carry' rules or 
the cable-card requirement.

> That said, in Canada, I am also of the understanding that one
> can choose to purchase a STB and activate it (which, as I
> understand it, uses CableCARDs registered and locked to
> a particular provider, so you need to purchase a Rogers
> STB, or a Shaw STB, or a ...).
>
> Is that still true?

You can purchase your STB, but it must be one made for the partcular 
cableco, and might even be particular to a region. I understand that the 
Rogers Motorola boxes provided in the Maritimes are incompatible with 
the Ontario setup, which uses Scientific Atlanta boxen.

If you buy a used box, it must be 'de-registered' from the old users 
account before Rogers will register it to the new account. (I suspect 
that this was instituted to prevent people from selling their rented STB 
on ebay.ca...).

Rogers boxes do not, to my knowledge use a cablecard although it is 
possible that there a cablecard is mounted inside the box (much like 
your laptop has a SODIMM socket: it's there but you are not usually 
intended to fiddle with it!).

Even if there is a cablecard, the cablecos have no legal requirement to 
let you use your own card. Their card is paired with the hardware of the 
box, and both are paired to a users account. End of story...

Geoff