Charter is going all Digital! Help!

[brandypuff]

Just got a letter yesterday stating that charter will be going all digital in Oct and if i don't use a cable box on each of my 11 TV's, I won't be able to decrypt any channels rendering them all useless. Argh!

Let me explain. I only have basic cable and don't use cable boxes. I use 3 analog TV capture devices in my SageTV server for cable input and one for my attic OTA antenna.

Can someone tell me what this change will mean for me? Will i need cable boxes on all my TVs? Will i need new tuner cards that accept cable cards?

Will I still be able to record shows via SageTV?

What about the new Samsum LED TV I bought? Will that also need a Cable box or cable card? Will it even take a cable card?

Do I need to upgrade all my TV's to digital?

This is all very frustrating as i really don't want to add more electiricty grabbing crap to my household.

Thanks.

James
Berlin, MA

[KeithAbbott]

Your OTA should be fine. For the cable, your best bet (assuming Charter flags the channels as copy freely) would be to look into SageDCT and the corresponding hardware to connect to cable. However, if Charter does not flag the channels as copy freely, you would need to get one or more cable box/HD-PVR combinations. Probably also a USB-UIRT.

It sucks to be a cable TV consumer...

[KryptoNyte]

Do you use a SageTV extender at every television, or are most of your TV's just plugged directly into the wall coax?

[brandypuff]

i have 3 tv's with extenders so those will be fine. I'm trying to figure out a route for my other analog TVs since they aren't wired to my LAN.

I'm thinking about using a HD Homerun Prime with 3 tuners and a cable card to capture TV with Sage. I think Sage supports HD Homerun.

Either that or a Ceton but i think i read that Sage doesn;t support the Ceton boards.

I refuse to give up SageTV!

[rickw]

That's what I just did. HD HomeRun Prime w/ CableCard + SageDCT. The CableCard is free for a year and then $2/month.

It took several calls to Charter to get the card authorized, because it took that long to get someone who knew what I was asking them to do.

I donated to get the very latest version of SageDCT.

It's all working pretty good. I am have trouble tuning some channels. SageTV is reporting it as a device failure. Even though I can view the channel directly from the Prime using the QuickTV app. So I suspect it's the communication between SageTV and SageDCT.

Minor detail, but it also took me a while to get the guide data straighten out because I had customized/remapped some channels. Previously I was all analog with QAM channels and now I have a bunch of HD stuff I didn't have.


Rick...

[oddjob]

Go OTA it's free!

My cable bill was outrageous so I gave it up. only missing ESPN now, but I hear Internet tv blurbs about ala cart, etc. So maybe I can get it back that way.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

Your OTA should be fine. For the cable, your best bet (assuming Charter flags the channels as copy freely) would be to look into SageDCT and the corresponding hardware to connect to cable. ...

If the channels are copy freely you don't need SageDCT at all. I use a HDHomeRun Prime and an HVR 2250 to record copy freely digital channels.

[rickw]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

If the channels are copy freely you don't need SageDCT at all. I use a HDHomeRun Prime and an HVR 2250 to record copy freely digital channels.

Are you using a CableCard? I had my HDHomeRun Prime working before Charter's switch to digital without SageDCT, but I wasn't getting the upper channels (100's and above). After getting the CableCard I was able to view all the channels in my subscription.

Rick...

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

If the channels are copy freely you don't need SageDCT at all.

Then why exactly would anyone want to use SageDCT if it is not required to access copy-freely channels?

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

Then why exactly would anyone want to use SageDCT if it is not required to access copy-freely channels?

SageDCT is needed for Cable card even when channels are copy freely. SageTV has no native Cable Card support.

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

SageDCT is needed for Cable card even when channels are copy freely. SageTV has no native Cable Card support.

So tmiranda must be using his HDHomeRun Prime without a Cable Card? Just trying to understand if he is utilizing his HDHomeRun Prime in a way that the rest of us are unaware of...

[dgeezer]

Perhaps. I use my HDHomerun prime for clear QAM on time warner cable. I don't have a cablecard installed. I bought it thinking that the switch over to all digital encrypted was coming soon to my area of NC. I think that I would only get the locals in SageTV even if I had a cablecard on Time Warner. I believe that they flag all channels copy once.

[Tiki]

Yes, I think he is confusing "Clear QAM" with "Copy Freely".

The older HD Homeruns support OTA (Over the Air, with antenna), and/or Clear QAM digital cable.

The newer HD Homerun Prime supports Cable Card, or Clear QAM (when no cable card installed).

For a while, many cable providers were offering most of their basic cable lineups over Clear QAM (and if you had a newer HDTV, you could watch those channels without a cable box). However, over the last several years most cable providers have been scaling back their clear QAM to just the local channels, and more recently getting rid of it completely. They still use QAM, but it is encrypted, and requires either a cable box or a cable card tuner to decrypt it.

Once your cable box or cable card tuner decrypts the channel, there is still a broadcast "flag". The flag is just another piece of information that gets sent along with the TV program that specifies whether that show may be "copied freely", "copied once", or "copied never".

If it is "copy freely", Sage can record it and play it back (with help from the SageDCT software). If it is "copy once", Sage can't access it (but Windows Media Center, TiVo, and the DVR provided by your cable company can record and play it back just fine). Basically, if it is marked as copy once, the thing doing the recording and playback must use DRM to lock down the recording. If it is "copy never" (mostly used for Pay Per View events), then even your cable company DVR isn't allowed to record it - you can only watch it live.

The broadcast flags can be set on a per-show basis, but most cable providers seem to be setting it on a per-channel basis (so all shows on a particular channel have their flag set the same way).

Comcast and Charter are known to mark most everything as copy freely (Except for premium channels such as HBO and Pay Per View), so Sage works well with the Prime and SageDCT. Time Warner Cable (TWC) is known to mark almost everything as Copy Once (except for the locals like NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox). The smaller cable companies are hit and miss with their policies.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

So tmiranda must be using his HDHomeRun Prime without a Cable Card? Just trying to understand if he is utilizing his HDHomeRun Prime in a way that the rest of us are unaware of...

Sorry for the confusion. Yes, it's all QAM for me. My point (that I didn't make clear) was that just because your cable company is going all digital doesn't mean you need a cable card. You may, but you may not.