Cox going all digital

[valnar]

I received a notice today that said this: http://www.cox.com/all-digital/cox-all-digital.cox

I already get digital (and analog) channels over my cable direct to my TV and to my HDHomeRuns, so I called them for clarification. It appears they are turning on encryption September 1st, so you'll need their boxes all around. So just as Sage is getting a new life, this is a death blow to me and probably anyone else on Cox.

I do have a single receiver of theirs for my HD-PVR + IR blaster, but that alone can't replace the other 3 tuners on the HDHR's that will go dark, not to mention my older NVidia DualTV's for analog backup.

I suppose I could get a HDHR+Prime and a cablecard from Cox, but since everything will be encrypted, does that mean it wouldn't work for Sage anyway?

Not sure what to do.

[KeithAbbott]

Encryption does not necessarily equal copy protection. The encrypted digital signal will contain a CCI (copy control information) flag, which will likely contain one of three values:

• Copy Freely
• Copy Once
• Copy Never

Any channels which are flagged as Copy Freely should work with an HDHR Prime with Sage.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by valnar

I suppose I could get a HDHR+Prime and a cablecard from Cox, but since everything will be encrypted, does that mean it wouldn't work for Sage anyway?

Just because it's encrypted doesn't mean that the CCI flag will not be "copy always". However, Cox is not know for having the most permissive CCI flags. I am on Cox Cable here in Oklahoma City and that's the only thing stopping me from buying a Prime. I know for a fact that Cox Cable has everything set to at least "copy once" except for the locals. And even some of the locals don't have a "copy always" flag.

I used to have my HDHR's hooked to cable but I discovered that I get a better signal OTA. I was noticing that I was getting some video corruption on our local network channels that was not detected as errors by my HDHR's that I can only assume were reception problems on Cox's end. I bought and mounted a sizable antenna in our attic and haven't had any reception issues since.

For cable channels we have a single cable box hooked to an HD-PVR. So other than a possible channel re-organization our SageTV won't be affected by Cox going all digital.

I looked up information about Cox's all digital transition and it appears that Oklahoma City will start getting notices April 2016. The one good upside of this transition is that all those analog channels will be able to carry multiples of digital channels. In the end it just means more possible content at better quality.

[valnar]

That's good to know.

Anyone with Cox want to chime in on using the HDHR-Prime to save my Sage setup from the dustbin?

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by valnar

That's good to know.

Anyone with Cox want to chime in on using the HDHR-Prime to save my Sage setup from the dustbin?

We have Tivo on Cox. I'm assuming since that's a cable-card system, the same copy protection flags would exist on HDHR as exists with the Tivos, which is any pay movie service. Otherwise, most things are still OK for copy, as I could use Tivo Desktop to access everything but movie channels, and then take them into VideoReDo for conversion. Not sure if the native files would play in Sage, as .ts files don't, hence why I convert for library use

[Mark57]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Just because it's encrypted doesn't mean that the CCI flag will not be "copy always". However, Cox is not know for having the most permissive CCI flags. I am on Cox Cable here in Oklahoma City and that's the only thing stopping me from buying a Prime. I know for a fact that Cox Cable has everything set to at least "copy once" except for the locals. And even some of the locals don't have a "copy always" flag.

I used to have my HDHR's hooked to cable but I discovered that I get a better signal OTA. I was noticing that I was getting some video corruption on our local network channels that was not detected as errors by my HDHR's that I can only assume were reception problems on Cox's end. I bought and mounted a sizable antenna in our attic and haven't had any reception issues since.

For cable channels we have a single cable box hooked to an HD-PVR. So other than a possible channel re-organization our SageTV won't be affected by Cox going all digital.

I looked up information about Cox's all digital transition and it appears that Oklahoma City will start getting notices April 2016. The one good upside of this transition is that all those analog channels will be able to carry multiples of digital channels. In the end it just means more possible content at better quality.

The OKC Cox digital conversion has definitely started and the channel drops start on may 17, 2016. I just installed my 4 mini boxes yesterday. Physically, it went OK, but I still had to call Cox to get them to do voodoo to my account to get my full content. After activation, reboots, and rescans, 12 channels wasn't getting it. (grin)

I'm actively trying to verify if I can get away with a HDHR Prime with a cable card for just the basic non-premium digital stuff. There's lots of info/opinions as to what the flags in OKC are for just the basic digital content. I'm not wild about buying a HDHR Prime just to learn it won't work.

I know you use a HDPVR, but that would require me to get a different control box from Cox at this point as we don't do PPV, etc. Like you, the majority of my recording is OTA via attic antenna.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by Mark57

The OKC Cox digital conversion has definitely started and the channel drops start on may 17, 2016. I just installed my 4 mini boxes yesterday. Physically, it went OK, but I still had to call Cox to get them to do voodoo to my account to get my full content. After activation, reboots, and rescans, 12 channels wasn't getting it. (grin)

I'm actively trying to verify if I can get away with a HDHR Prime with a cable card for just the basic non-premium digital stuff. There's lots of info/opinions as to what the flags in OKC are for just the basic digital content. I'm not wild about buying a HDHR Prime just to learn it won't work.

I know you use a HDPVR, but that would require me to get a different control box from Cox at this point as we don't do PPV, etc. Like you, the majority of my recording is OTA via attic antenna.

Since then we've actually dropped Cox cable TV. Now only using HDHR's with an in-attic antenna.

Would still be interesting to hear your experience though. I have doubt that you'd be able to get anything with a cable card beyond the locals. Traditionally, Cox is makes everything at least copy once except for the locals. The locals have previously always been unencrypted. Although with new FCC rules they are allowed to encrypt everything including locals.

[Mark57]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Since then we've actually dropped Cox cable TV. Now only using HDHR's with an in-attic antenna.

Would still be interesting to hear your experience though. I have doubt that you'd be able to get anything with a cable card beyond the locals. Traditionally, Cox is makes everything at least copy once except for the locals. The locals have previously always been unencrypted. Although with new FCC rules they are allowed to encrypt everything including locals.

Thanks. I'll keep digging. I hate watching stuff in real time. (grin)

[dinki]

We have Cox for internet. The digital transition finished here last month. We no longer get any video on the cable outside of Cox's preview channel for PPV (Cox 1 or something). Previously we got locals via Clear QAM.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by dinki

We have Cox for internet. The digital transition finished here last month. We no longer get any video on the cable outside of Cox's preview channel for PPV (Cox 1 or something). Previously we got locals via Clear QAM.

I guess I'll need to switch our TV's over to the antenna eventually. For the time being we've still been getting the analog and clear QAM channels.

[Mark57]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I guess I'll need to switch our TV's over to the antenna eventually. For the time being we've still been getting the analog and clear QAM channels.

I have a Channel Master 8 way amp in the attic that feeds the TV's and the Sage box. It works very well. That way Sage does not have to be running to watch OTA TV.

[dinki]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I guess I'll need to switch our TV's over to the antenna eventually. For the time being we've still been getting the analog and clear QAM channels.

Yes, this is the way it started: Roll out started and select analog channels have the screen saying "We're switching to all digital". A couple weeks later you see more analog channels drop off. I think it happened one more time until all that was left is analog locals and clear QAM channels. I thought for a while that they would keep local clear QAM channels but probably about three months after the channels started disappearing the local clear QAM channels went away.

[Mark57]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Since then we've actually dropped Cox cable TV. Now only using HDHR's with an in-attic antenna.

Would still be interesting to hear your experience though. I have doubt that you'd be able to get anything with a cable card beyond the locals. Traditionally, Cox is makes everything at least copy once except for the locals. The locals have previously always been unencrypted. Although with new FCC rules they are allowed to encrypt everything including locals.

Update: I did some playing around today and obtained a 1980's style success. Nothing elegant here.

Since this thread was last active, I've still needed a way to record one or two cable channels 5 or 6 times a year. (mostly football games on FS-1) I have Cox Expanded basic with the digital mini boxes. All my SageTV recordings are OTA now on HD Homeruns but I still have two internal WinTV-HVR-1800's installed in the Sage box. I disconnected the HDMI from the Cox Mini box and ran a coax cable from the coax out on the mini to the Analog Cable TV in on the 1800. I set up a source pointing TV Tuner and RF Channel 3.

It requires using the cable mini box channel changer to set the channel input but it does work. It's crappy analog quality, but it does record the content which is what we needed. Sends me back to VCR days. It's a pretty ugly solution and analog quality but this way I can do the limited recordings we need with zero extra $ spent for just a few recordings.

I tried the same method through the ATSC/QAM input but cold not get a viewable signal.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by Mark57

Update: I did some playing around today and obtained a 1980's style success. Nothing elegant here.

Since this thread was last active, I've still needed a way to record one or two cable channels 5 or 6 times a year. (mostly football games on FS-1) I have Cox Expanded basic with the digital mini boxes. All my SageTV recordings are OTA now on HD Homeruns but I still have two internal WinTV-HVR-1800's installed in the Sage box. I disconnected the HDMI from the Cox Mini box and ran a coax cable from the coax out on the mini to the Analog Cable TV in on the 1800. I set up a source pointing TV Tuner and RF Channel 3.

It requires using the cable mini box channel changer to set the channel input but it does work. It's crappy analog quality, but it does record the content which is what we needed. Sends me back to VCR days. It's a pretty ugly solution and analog quality but this way I can do the limited recordings we need with zero extra $ spent for just a few recordings.

I tried the same method through the ATSC/QAM input but cold not get a viewable signal.

Since I made this post Cox has now dropped all the analog channels and encrypted absolutely everything in our area. Still have no cable TV. We've been quite happy. The amount of money it's been saving us month to month has really helped.

[Mark57]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Since I made this post Cox has now dropped all the analog channels and encrypted absolutely everything in our area. Still have no cable TV. We've been quite happy. The amount of money it's been saving us month to month has really helped.

My analog channels are also gone (~20 miles East of you), yet to my surprise this method is working from the mini box. I have another TV connected directly without a mini box and It can't see a thing. So the analog output on the mini box is apparently decrypted.

Like you, I don't use the cable much and it's getting higher $$ all the time. I just need to record 5 -6 things a year.