[mythtv-users] Comcast Cable encrypted channels

[scram69]

On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 4:32 PM, Jim Goddard<monkeys_typing at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I have a digital tuner/capture card Hauppauge HVR2250 that came with a
> remote and IR blasters.  The tuner card is working great in MythTV, however,
> I really want to use it to record the cable channels I am paying Comcast
> for.  Since my card has ATSC support only so far, I wanted to capture the
> ATSC stream coming out of my cable box, but tune using the IR blaster to
> control the cable box.  There is currently no way to supply an external
> channel changing script to MythTV using mythtv-setup for a DVB tuner.
>
> Comcast assures me that my cable box supplies an ATSC signal as well as the
> analog.  I have a Motorola DCH70 cable box.
>
> Ideally, I could just get a cable-card from Comcast, but this card does not
> have a cable-card slot, nor could I find any that do.
>
> Has anyone else tried this configuration, and could you provide advice?
>
> I would love to cancel the cable altogether, but I like a couple programs on
> comedy central and sci-fi.
>
> Thanks,
> Jim
>
Getting back to the original topic... In some coverage areas, Comcast
is rapidly switching over from analog to digital signals. For example,
here in the SF East Bay, I pay the "limited basic" rate of $14/month,
but can tune ~100 cable channels using my QAM tuners (combination of
HDHomeRun, Kworld ATSC, and an ATI HDTV Wonder).
You might visit http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/channels_us and
type in your zip code to find out what Comcast is already providing
via QAM.

Basically, as discussed in another thread here, Comcast wanted to free
up bandwidth, but was too cheap to provide encryption in it's digital
tuners for the non-premium subscribers.