Enraged Xfinity customer

[Jakesty]

So Xfinity has decided to no longer support the m-card, aka Cablecard for the HDPrime/TIVO.  I renewed my agreement with them about 3 weeks ago and about a week ago the card stopped working.  Went into the store and their comment was "yeah, they've sent out messages regarding the EOL of the card".   After my wife spent hours on the phone with their pitiful customer service, they're basically going to send me a box that has DVR abilities.
But I of course like control of my own content and don't need them preventing me from doing so.  

Is there any alternative to using NextPVR with Xfinity compatible hardware?  I'm really not wanting to go down the route of using emitters, but that's the only thing I'm aware of and this is like going back in time 15 years.

Is my HDPrime a boat anchor now?  Perfectly working and now useless.

(This after all this time I transitioned to Linux finally and it's super reliable.  I have some things to straighten out but now I'm completely PO'd about my cable service.  I don't have alternatives that I'm aware of)

[mvallevand]

The legislated requirement to support cablecard was dropped 5 years ago so maybe be pissed off with the FCC, you were luckier then some to get it this long. Small consolation I know. The reality is cablecard is analog coax delivery and with fiber and IP based delivery now it does make it harder for the providers to maintain.

We never had cablecard here in Canada so last year when my provider dropped coax for digital my 5 STB's were landfilll. I already had HDMI grabbers and blasters so it wasn't too much of a hit to switch over to using the digital receivers (they licensed the system here from Xfinity). I grumbled at first because my STB's had been paid off by monthly fees a while ago, but it turned out my package with TV, 1.5 Gb and 2 boxes was $100 a month less. We will see happens when I renew next year.

I don't consider grabbers a step back I always got DRM channels and now I get 4K.

Martin

[Jakesty]

What kind of "HDMI grabber" are you using? Are there multi tuner styles as well? I'm currently configured on a VM, which has been great. But if I have to go to a stand alone system to make it work, I guess that's the next best thing.

[mvallevand]

Before looking into grabbers you need to consider how you would tune your device. I have the 4 tuners and 2 tuner version of this https://www.iguanaworks.net/products/usb...ansceiver/ and they work well with Linux but I don't know what you are planning.

Martin.

[nobody]

You might try posting on https://old.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/ it looks like other people have had the cablecard repaired.

[hdpvr-doug8796]

you can also use chrome capture.

[Jean0987654321]

Get a couple of android tv devices, get some adb knowledge in your coffers, get a LinkPi and a HDMI USB Grabber. Best investment so far.

[Joram]

Before looking into grabbers you need to consider how you would tune your device.  I have the 4 tuners and 2 tuner version of this https://www.iguanaworks.net/products/usb...ansceiver/ and they work well with Linux but I don't know what you are planning.

Martin.

Apologies if it's too late to post in this thread, but what you wrote above dovetails with the discussion we've had here the last few days.

I don't have a clear mental schematic yet of how the HDMI capture setup would be organized, so I'm not sure why we would need a dedicated IR transceiver to tune channels: since the PC with NextPVR would be showing whatever the cableco digital receiver is tuned to (right?), wouldn't the cable company's remote be enough? I'm assuming that NextPVR would record only whatever the receiver happens to be set to, so what the receiver has tuned is what you see on the TV functioning as PC monitor.

Sorry for the noob question. No doubt I'm missing something here. My recent experience is on WMC setups where no cable box is involved (except for a CableCARD) and no OTA antenna which I'd rather steer clear of.

[mvallevand]

Yes the grabber will capture HDMI out for whatever being output. If you want to be there and manually change channels that is an option like digitizing VCR output. An IR blaster is typically used if you don't want to be there (you can see the tuning in the video I posted yesterday). Also many STB's now have a screensaver if you don't touch the remote in some period of time so even recording from a favourite channel might not work.

If you get a Hauppauge HDPVR 2 or Colossus device (reasonably cheap on ebay, Kijiji or FB marketplace) they have one IR blaster. You would need to research your STB to confirm it allows IR tuning and it still might not work with the Hauppauge blaster. The downside is you probably need an HDCP remover for these but they can give AC3 audio.

Martin

[Joram]

Martin, thank you for the patient explanation. With the help of that and some further reading here, I've learned that an "IR blaster" is used to enable automated channel changing on the STB via software, as opposed to manually on a handheld remote control. Old hat to the veterans here of course, but for me this was a new concept. At first I thought an IR blaster was simply a second, redundant, remote.

There's a lot to learn about this stuff.