Hauppauge DCR-2650 - Day 1 - Moderately Successful

[sub]

A few minutes later (unlike my hour+ on hold each time I tried to get them to activate it) the card was activated again. And then I began testing channels, and miraculously, I could now get all of the channels I should receive! Plus, all but the premium channels (HBO & Showtime) are marked copy freely. Yeah!!!

Great. It's pretty nice when it's working ah?

[BrettB]

Great. It's pretty nice when it's working ah?

Seems pretty great so far.

[whurlston]

Plus, all but the premium channels (HBO & Showtime) are marked copy freely. Yeah!!!!

Could someone please convince my wife we need to move?? The only thing I get that's copy-freely is the SD versions of channels (except my locals and 1 or 2 others) and they are all available as clear QAM.

(So why am I working on a DCT plugin you ask? The OOB data for the next time some moron decides he would prefer SyFy to be on channel 108 instead of 23, of course.)

[pcostanza]

I think it's only a matter of time before we start to see less and less copy freely channels. Look at the revenue from series dvd's. On the other hand, most networks in the US allow you to watch the show the very next day for free (with commercial interruptions) but where they can get a dime, they will try.

[soccerdad]

Congrats on the sucess. It looks like most of my channels will be copy once.

I still have to wait for the TA support to know for sure. At that point, unless we can create a fairly clean hook to use WMC as playback, then I am not sure what I will do.

Anyway, have you had any issues with yours not getting access to the tuners or locking up when you try to launch channels?

I have been messing with stuff like having a show recording with WMC and then trying to use NPVR to watch a clear channel. At that point it won't use the other tuner and instantly locks up with a please wait message. If I kill the WMC recording and go back to npvr, I still can't get any channel to work. It requires a full system reboot to get npvr to be able to show me one of the channels.

The only reason I am messing with WMC at all is due to the copy flags knowing that I will have use both programs if I want to record and view everything I want.

[pcostanza]

I remember when I started testing dual cablecards back in Vista that someone from MS said that Media Center put a temporary hold on tv tuners and there were some problems but when the Fiji fix came out, it supposedly fixed that. It's possible that it will reserve a tuner it knows will be used in the near future but it sure sounds like MC is locking the tuner so it can't be shared.

[BrettB]

In some of my early testing with Media Center where I was watching live tv and just going from channel to channel (to check the copy protection flags), I had a few instances where Media Center would say that no tuner was available (even though both DCR tuners were available and it had just been using one of them). Most of the time, just exiting Media Center and restarting it would clear it up for at least a few more channels. However, I think that at one point I ended up having to go through the Media Center tuner configuration procedure to get it to see the tuners again. (Note, this was before I upgraded the DCR firmware, so that may make a difference.)

So far, since I've gotten it working with NPVR, I haven't used Media Center anymore--so I can't speak to trying to use both NPVR and MC at the same time (or roughly the same time) with the DCR. Since Comcast gave me 3 months of free HBO and Showtime when I got the CableCard, I will probably play around with MC to access those some. I'll pay particular attention to any problems/issues with mixing and matching.

[roy]

Since Comcast gave me 3 months of free HBO and Showtime when I got the CableCard

How did you get that?

What part of the country are you in? I'm just curious because I know comcast can vary in different areas.

Thanks

[pcostanza]

I asked Cox why new customers got such great deals and as a customer of 18 years, what would they offer me. I got a 2 year hold on all price increase and free Showtime for 2 years. I already have HBo for free (for life) for having phone, internet and tv with them.....something they no longer do.
With many thousands of folks cutting cable for the internet and other tv options, if you ask, you're likely to get something. Tell Comcast that you know of other Comcast customer across the US that have been given offers and you want one as well.
Worked for my mobile phone as well.

[BrettB]

How did you get that?

What part of the country are you in? I'm just curious because I know comcast can vary in different areas.

I'm in St. Paul, Minnesota. Before I only had "basic cable" ($7/month for primarily the OTA broadcast HD channels in clear QAM). (As an aside, the QAM versions of the channels was advantageous over just using OTA and the ATSC tuner because here the 6 major US broadcast networks HD channels are done on 3 clear QAM channels. So with 4 tuners, I could record all 6 of them at once with QAM vs. only 4 at once with OTA on their individual frequencies. Also, the basic service effectively didn't cost me anything because I get my Internet service from them, and they discount it by about $7/month if you have more than just Internet service.)

Anyway, with all of the video options, Comcast here has been aggressively marketing and trying to get more people to sign up for the "Digital HD" cable services. So they have had lots of different promotions. I ended up getting the 3 months of free HBO & Showtime, plus the first 6 months of the "digital starter package" are at basically half price (like $30 vs. $60 or so) and then the next 6 months are at $45 or something like that. Plus, the CableCards here are always free. I'm pretty sure that the package is supposed to include 1 set-top device, so I think that I can get a credit from them for "bringing my own CableCard device." I still have to check on that if it all works OK and I end up keeping it.

Also, some info regarding the copy protection flags: When I first got the CableCard activated Tuesday night, all but the clear QAM channels (so things like USA, TNT, MTV, etc.) were marked Copy Once. Hence, I couldn't successfully record and play them with NPVR. However, I did some searching on the Internet and found multiple reports that said that Comcast has a corporate-wide policy that only the premium channels (HBO, Showtime, etc.) are supposed to be marked Copy Once. All other channels are supposed to be flagged Copy Freely. And a few people had reported that they had initially found these non-premium channels flagged Copy Once, but once they reported to someone knowledgeable at Comcast, the flags got fixed and changed to Copy Freely. A couple of people stated that using a Comcast support forum on DSLreports (https://secure.dslreports.com/forum/comcastdirect) to make the report had been successful for them. So I made a report there on Wednesday afternoon. Thursday morning when the technician came and got their systems configured with the correct access info for my CableCard, I tested some of those channels and found that they were now flagged Copy Freely. And a little later in the day, someone from Comcast called me to see if I was still having the protection flag problem. I told him that those channels were now flagged Copy Freely for me. I don't know if the change in flags was just coincidence, was the result of my report Wednesday afternoon, or was the result of my CableCard being fully activated and configured for my package. (FYI, when I was getting the channels flagged as Copy Once, the CableCard was showing that I was subscribed to the channel. And I would think that for any given channel at any given time, the protection flags would be the same for all subscribers, but maybe not?)