[mythtv-users] Comcast Equipment Update

[Greg Woods]

On Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 7:30 AM, Gary Buhrmaster <gary.buhrmaster at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 1:06 PM, Greg Woods <greg at gregandeva.net> wrote:
> > Comcast sent me a letter yesterday indicating that if I don't replace my
> > set-top boxes by Oct. 31, I might start losing channels.\
>

>From the responses in this thread, it seems that this may be just about as
bad as I feared. I am going to most likely lose my HD-PVR tuners which have
served me faithfully pretty much ever since the HDPVR-1212 was originally
released. There does not seem to be any way that I can be sure that my
replacement boxes will have component interfaces and a way to change
channels via firewire. (The latter issue could maybe be overcome with an IR
blaster)

Where I live, the only alternative to cable is satellite. Century Link has
TV service, but my particular neighborhood still has 1970's-vintage wiring,
they have never been able to deliver decent DSL speeds, so I doubt their TV
service will work either. I don't know if satellite provider boxes won't
have the same issues as the Comcast ones do, there's no way to know what
I'm going to get.



>
> What box do you currently have?
>

I've got three old Motorolas.  A DCT-6412 (a two-tuner DVR box), a
DCH-3200R, and a MORN150NR. All of these have component outputs and accept
channel changes via firewire (6200ch for the first two, mythchanger works
on the latter). At one point I actually used the DVR box as a Myth tuner
via HD-PVR and only used the DVR function as an emergency backup. Now I
just have it hooked to the upstairs TV (still used as an emergency backup)
and the other two boxes are hooked to the HD-PVRs.

>
>
>
> * In Comcast markets, except for the premiums, an OCUR
>   tuner is almost always the preferred solution for recording
>   content.  It works with the minimum of hassles.
>

I am beginning to think that the only way to save my MythTV system is to
get something like the HDHomerun Prime and a dedicated NIC to connect it
to. My major reason for hesitating there is that I really really hate to
lose those HD-PVR's; they weren't cheap and they are still working great,
so it's a big loss. I'm not worried about the expense of a cable card, as
it probably costs lots less to rent than the two set-top boxes I have now.
I have heard some horror stories about trying to get the damned thing
activated though; not looking forward to that. The money saved on equipment
rental will probably pay for the expense of a Prime before too long. So I
am seriously considering going that route, it just sucks to take the
financial hit of losing good working equipment and I'm not looking forward
to the headaches and down time of switching tuner types. But that's
probably what I'll do once I get over being pissed off about all this.


>
> * Local offices may (or may not) have any particular box
>   available to hand out.  They may try to satisfy your
>   request for a particular model (if they have it in the
>   back room), but they will not (and can not) get any
>   particular model.
>

That's mostly what I thought. When I got my old boxes, HDMI was just coming
into vogue and lots of people still had TVs with component and composite
inputs only. So pretty much every box they had, had componentand firewire,
so it didn't really matter which box they gave me. That seems to no longer
be the case (I suspect not by coincidence, the MPAA has been trying to kill
the analog hole for years).
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