TWC Cable going all digital

[patrickaburrows]

Hi All,
As a long time user of NextPVR, I was horrified to learn that Time Warner Cable in Raleigh, NC (USA) is about to switch over to all digital cable signal with all subscribers requiring at least a DTA box for every TV set, which means the end of all analog channel signals. I just wanted to confirm what I already suspected, that this will be THE END of my home built DVR with Time Warner Cable as my provider. Also, if this is the case, anyone have any suggestions of what TV service (satellite, ATT Uverse, etc) I might be able to switch to so that I might be able to continue to use my NextPVR machine to continue recording TV shows? I have 2 Hauppage HVR1600's installed in each of 2 separate DVR machines and I suspect that they won't work with any TV service. I am certainly amenable and capable of switching to other tuner cards for other services, if anyone has any suggestions. I am so sad...

[johnsonx42]

Here TWC turned off analog over a year ago at least, but for a while the basic broadcast stuff (plus WGN and Disney) was still clearQAM so it was business as usual for me. Then about 6 months ago some of the clearQAM channels literally disappeared one night, and then a month or two later most of the rest were encrypted. Now all that's left oddly enough is Disney channel, I've no idea why they keep leaving that in the clear when literally every other channel is encrypted.

As shown in my signature, I just went with an antenna, but kept one tuner attached to the cable to get "Dog with a Blog" and "Star Wars Rebels" for my kids.

To get any form of paid cable channels, for the most part in the US you have to have a set-top box. Then you can capture the analog output with your HVR-1600's, or use an HD device like the HD-PVR or Colossus. It's certainly a bigger pain to setup, and less flexible than direct tuning.

For myself I long ago decided the antenna plus NetFlix, Amazon Prime and now Hulu (thanks to dhgb256) provide plenty of TV with which to waste far more of my life than I should.

[smajor]

For years I ran a couple of HD-PVRs with two Set Top Boxes for Time Warner's encrypted channels. I also have an HDHomeRun for the 19 or so clearQAM channels they still had. Finally at the beginning of the year, I had enough with their constant rate hikes. Packed up all their crap and went to their office and was going to cancel.

Since I live where there is exactly ONE over the air channel I could get, they talked me into keeping "stater TV" which is all the locals and a few others. Interestingly, no DTA box needed. At all. They fully acknowledged this in my area with no plans to change it. So my HDHomeRun is humming along and NPVR is still working for me. And the $17/mo cable bill really makes me smile.

We use other streaming services for everything else. I'd check and see which can still be seen in the clear connected directly to a HD set. It seems to vary quite a bit depending on where you are with Time Warner.

[mikeh49]

When Charter went digital in my area, all clear QAM channels were gone. I switched to a HD Homerun Prime network tuner that uses a cable card to allow the encrypted channels to be decoded. So, I went to the cableco office and asked for a cable card, and received the card and a tuning adapter since they went to switched digital video. The Prime supports the tuning adapter. The tuner and tuning adapter are installed in the equipment closet and the HTPC connects via the network. Fully supported in NPVR and the Prime has 3 tuners, so 3 programs can be recorded at the same time. Has been very reliable for me over several months. It took about an hour and two calls to Charter to get the cable card activated and everything working.

[johnsonx42]

oh, right, I forgot about cable card tuners (HDHR Prime and DCR-2650). The problem is that TWC is reported to be very bad about flagging pretty much every channel other than basic-broadcast as "Copy-Once", though I have no direct knowledge one way or the other. "Copy Once" channels work with Windows Media Center, since they have a CableLabs license, but are unplayable with any other software.

Does anyone know if you can see the status of the "Copy Once"/"Copy Freely" flag on an encrypted QAM channel without actually having a cable card tuner?

[ga_mueller]

Comcast here.

+1 for cablecard + DCR-2650, $20/mo basic cable cost (no charge for cablecard, no STB or TA), zero problems for a year, but best of all, no remapping clear QAM channels!

[kirschey]

Same thing happened to me and finally last November I switched to Verizon. I hate verizon, but the TV is OK. They killed TruTV HD just in time for the basketball. Oh well, but with the HD Home Prime it is OK. The hours spent remapping in the worst part.

[whurlston]

Does anyone know if you can see the status of the "Copy Once"/"Copy Freely" flag on an encrypted QAM channel without actually having a cable card tuner?

You need the cable card tuner (with a cable card) to see that information. It's delivered out of band so a non cable card tuner cannot see it.

[dgeezer]

I'm in the same boat here, Greensboro, except this means that I might have a year or 2 left before the switchover since we seem to lag behind the Raleigh area in everything else

My current setup, for the last 5 or 6 years, uses 2 Hauppauge 1600 cards for analogue cable and a HDhomerun digital tuner for the clear QAM locals.

My plan, when I first heard of this, was to go mostly Over the Air with cable for a few stations. I got one of the DTA boxes, an HDCP compatible splitter and an HDpvr for the few shows that we watch on the cable only stations. This is what we watch now on the analogue feed also using the Hauppauge 1600. However, I can't get the DTA box to connect without having a tech from Time Warenr come out. I just haven't bothered since the switch to encrypted digital seemed a ways off.

I have OTA working for the major networks to keep a simple setup with multiple tuners and simple hardware. This will keep these streams good quality and able to use comskip. Heck I can almost get WRAL from where I am, probably 50 miles to the west, with a homemade antenna in my attic. I am using an HDhomerun tuner and a homemade Gray-Hoverman antenna. The antenna is 2 pieces of 10 gauge copper wire 5' long, a balun, a piece of plywood 2'x4' and 2 sheets of aluminum foil. It works great.

[steve232]

Years with Comcast until all digital.

Now:
OTA 40+ channels using HDhomerun and PC cards
For Pay TV, I installed DishNet.
Using 2 Dual tuner boxes, I can record using using the video in on the PC tuner cards
That leaves the UHF remote to control sending the other two tuners output over the house wiring to all tv's.

Steve