[mythtv-users] My falling out with comcast: they're "banning" direct connections

[Eric Sharkey]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 4:32 PM, Wes Hardaker <wjhns176 at hardakers.net> wrote:
> "F.B. Parker" <fbp.mythtv at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> The knology tech came out a couple of weeks ago and installed a
>> cablecard in my hdhr prime, which I bought so I could get rid of the
>> crappy knology hd dvr/set-top box.
>
> I suspect if I had a prime with a cable-card I probably wouldn't have
> the issues I did.  It's more the stupidity that got me to leave, rather
> than the technical barriers to make it work [and the $$s I'd have to
> spend to make it work when it *was working*].

To be fair, Comcast does has a legitimate problem with theft of
service.  Even here on this list we've seen people practically
bragging about how they get free TV by only signing up for internet
access.  These are the people who are ruining it for everyone.  Now
that cable card technology is widely available and not particularly
expensive, I don't blame them at all for wanting to encrypt
everything.

To be doubly fair, it's obvious that Comcast hasn't actually encrypted
everything.  If you have a non-cable card TV that can receive the
channels, there's no reason why your HDHR couldn't receive them, too.
I would guess that something happened to degrade your signal strength,
and your one TV has a more sensitive tuner than the rest of your
equipment.

You should be able to scan using the hdhr tools and see the signal
strength and encryption status for each channel, even if you can't
decrypt the channel.

Eric