Comcast confirms: Yes, we’re encrypting basic cable now

[JazJon]

And sometime between Midnight and 5 in the morning today 6/11/2014 Comcast encrypted ALL of their channels - including the locals that are rebroadcast and all the basics that use to until last night be broadcast in the clear... So my 4 clearQAM tuners are now junk

Thanks Comcast for the heads up!... at least I have the 6 tuners on my Ceton... now I'm wishing I had got in on the earlier Ceton savings Too bad they don't have any fathers day discount...

Where are you located? I hope this doesn't happen to San Francisco any time soon. I just started to enjoy the all new XBMC BackEnd PVR that works seemlessly with Media Center. I only go into real Media Center when it's time to watch HBO stuff. (game of thrones, last week tonight, etc)

[werds]

And sometime between Midnight and 5 in the morning today 6/11/2014 Comcast encrypted ALL of their channels - including the locals that are rebroadcast and all the basics that use to until last night be broadcast in the clear... So my 4 clearQAM tuners are now junk

Thanks Comcast for the heads up!... at least I have the 6 tuners on my Ceton... now I'm wishing I had got in on the earlier Ceton savings Too bad they don't have any fathers day discount...

Where are you located? I hope this doesn't happen to San Francisco any time soon. I just started to enjoy the all new XBMC BackEnd PVR that works seemlessly with Media Center. I only go into real Media Center when it's time to watch HBO stuff. (game of thrones, last week tonight, etc)

21801 zip Eastern Shore of Maryland. Took them a while from the announcements but it looks like they are steadily rolling through their territories... Was annoying when the I turned it on after work and all the clearQAM channels gave me "This Channel is Encrypted" warnings. Asked wife if she had the problem in the morning and told me yes, the only channels she could watch were the kiddie channels (our encrypted ones like Disney Junior, Sprout etc)

[JazJon]

Is it Game Over (for XMBC MCE PVR) once Comcast turns Encryption on for ALL CHANNELS?
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=197657

"Just hype. Comcast encrypted mine about 6 months ago HDHomerun Prime with a cable card picks up all but the premium channels without problems. As long as they don't set channels as copy once or no copy there is no problem. The biggest issue is you will need a cable card tuner."

[smcmillan2]

Is it Game Over (for XMBC MCE PVR) once Comcast turns Encryption on for ALL CHANNELS?

Not by encryption, no. It will be game over when they start copy-protecting all content (as Brighthouse does with everything except the locals here in Metro Detroit). Currently nothing except WMC with CableCard has the approved DRM scheme to handle the copy protection. CableCard in other PVR solutions will continue to work with unprotected content.

Just as was stated in what you (mostly) quoted:

Just hype. You're confusing encryption with copy protection. Comcast encrypted mine about 6 months ago HDHomerun Prime with a cable card picks up all but the premium channels in XBMC without problems. As long as they don't set channels as copy once or no copy there is no problem. The biggest issue is you will need a cable card tuner.

EDIT: In the above I'm assuming XBMC MCE PVR currently works with a CableCard tuner, and that you are using one.

[JazJon]

Ah yes the old copy once / no copy flag deal, got it. It's been awhile since I thought about this and I got my facts mixed up. I almost forgot that local cable channels used to be available in Clear QAM.

[werds]

Ah yes the old copy once / no copy flag deal, got it. It's been awhile since I thought about this and I got my facts mixed up. I almost forgot that local cable channels used to be available in Clear QAM.

Yea currently for me there is only a handful of premium channels where the copy once flag is on. Most other channels are just encrypted although occasionally one of them will throw a copy flag incorrectly or a sporting event will carry one. Just annoyed by the encryption taking out 4 tuners. Although glad I at least have 6 tuners.

[slowbiscuit]

They sent us a letter well in advance of full encryption advertising the free DTAs for 2 years, surprised you didn't get any notice.

[mcewinter]

They sent us a letter well in advance of full encryption advertising the free DTAs for 2 years, surprised you didn't get any notice.

In most areas, they weren't encrypting local channels allowing one to use QAM tuners still to receive locals. QAM tuners have now been rendered useless for most of us.

[werds]

They sent us a letter well in advance of full encryption advertising the free DTAs for 2 years, surprised you didn't get any notice.

The use of DTA and going all digital was not directly connected to clearQAM, trying to remember when the DTA warning went out as that was definitely 2 if not 3 years ago in my area that they switched over. I remember because I ended up getting extenders for all those extra tv's after the dta's were no longer free.

They sent us a letter well in advance of full encryption advertising the free DTAs for 2 years, surprised you didn't get any notice.

In most areas, they weren't encrypting local channels allowing one to use QAM tuners still to receive locals. QAM tuners have now been rendered useless for most of us.

Yep exactly this, I was still able to pull in 11 useful local broadcast channels through my clearQAM tuners - since they were digital and not encrypted. Legally they werent allowed to encrypt the rebroadcast until this change in the FCC rules which came well after the digital change over and dta's

[blueiedgod]

They sent us a letter well in advance of full encryption advertising the free DTAs for 2 years, surprised you didn't get any notice.

In most areas, they weren't encrypting local channels allowing one to use QAM tuners still to receive locals. QAM tuners have now been rendered useless for most of us.

It really depends on what type of QAM tuners you have. Some are ClearQAM/ATSC and some are ClearQAM/EncryptedQAM. The first ones will work with an antenna, the latter ones will work with a CableCARD. So, they are not totally useless.

[mcewinter]

They sent us a letter well in advance of full encryption advertising the free DTAs for 2 years, surprised you didn't get any notice.

In most areas, they weren't encrypting local channels allowing one to use QAM tuners still to receive locals. QAM tuners have now been rendered useless for most of us.

It really depends on what type of QAM tuners you have. Some are ClearQAM/ATSC and some are ClearQAM/EncryptedQAM. The first ones will work with an antenna, the latter ones will work with a CableCARD. So, they are not totally useless.

I'm aware. I was speaking on topic.

[slowbiscuit]

They sent us a letter well in advance of full encryption advertising the free DTAs for 2 years, surprised you didn't get any notice.

In most areas, they weren't encrypting local channels allowing one to use QAM tuners still to receive locals. QAM tuners have now been rendered useless for most of us.

Yeah but they encrypted our locals last December and we got another letter advising us of that (and saying TVs would not work without boxes), and mentioning DTAs once again. We got a similar notice a few years ago when they digitized and encrypted expanded basic. I would be surprised if they encrypted the locals without notice but anything's possible with Comcast - I'm pretty sure it would be an FCC violation not to notify when doing the locals.

[mcewinter]

I'm not sure what the point is here. Comcast is encrypting local channels and rendered my/our QAM tuners useless. I purchased QAM tuners well before they sent letters out. Yes, I can take advantage of the ATSC portion of them but that isn't why I bought them. Werds had the same experience (see post #36). A lot of us invested in QAM tuners long before letters came out or even before they encrypted their signal at all as QAM tuners have been available for a while.

To offer perspective: Media Center has been availble since 2004. I was taking advantage of QAM with MCE2005.

[mcewinter]

I meant post #26.

<Mod can feel free to edit above post>

[werds]

They sent us a letter well in advance of full encryption advertising the free DTAs for 2 years, surprised you didn't get any notice.

In most areas, they weren't encrypting local channels allowing one to use QAM tuners still to receive locals. QAM tuners have now been rendered useless for most of us.

Yeah but they encrypted our locals last December and we got another letter advising us of that (and saying TVs would not work without boxes), and mentioning DTAs once again. We got a similar notice a few years ago when they digitized and encrypted expanded basic. I would be surprised if they encrypted the locals without notice but anything's possible with Comcast - I'm pretty sure it would be an FCC violation not to notify when doing the locals.

When they switched to digital I not only received SEVERAL mailings, I also received phone calls, it was linked to when you logged into your account on the comcast site, and I even got a flyer once. Back then it was a warning well stated and I was all fine with that. Wasn't a fan of them trying to obsolete my TV's (because all the tv's I had were digital capable and were pulling in all the basic channels that were already digital and just not encrypted at that time. Comcast used the digital change over as an opportunity to encrypt their basic channels in most if not all regions.

But being able to tune in the local rebroadcasts was at least a saving grace of the several QAM tuners that I had invested in loooong ago. Those tuners up until the other day were still heavy workhorses in our household, now I am down 4 tuners because of it And no I received NO mailing, just checked my comcast email and there were no emails there either. And considering I log in every month when I balance my checkbook to the comcast site I would have remembered if there was a warning about the locals getting encrypted. It's a crappy and self serving move on Comcasts part, which beyond the fact that I don't agree with their purported reasons for having to encrypt the local rebroadcast just annoyed me that it was a WHAM sudden occurrence with no warning...unlike when they made the digital switchover.

[slowbiscuit]

Check your statements prior to the encryption, they put notices in them. They know nobody reads these so it's a good way to sneak price increases and stuff like this through.

If you really didn't get any notice, file an FCC complaint just to force them to explain their actions.

[werds]

Hmmm I'll go back and take a look at the statements. You are right it is possible they slipped it in as an insert or something (my bill never changes so all I do is verify the line items). And since I don't get a paper bill it could very well have been an insert page that I didn't look at when in pdf.

[wayne1935]

Since Comcast is in the process of acquiring TWC, I thought I'd ask here about TWC and local encryption.

TWC has also encrypted local channels which 'bricked' our stick QAM tuners and we had to go with a cablecard for WMC. However, the cable from our modem directly into our 7 year old Sony HDTV gets the Starter/Basic tier (Starter is all we subscribe to) when plugged into the cable input on the TV - no guide data, of course. There is another input for antenna. They are different because on the cable input we get the local FOX on 8 (NTSC), 8.1 (720p) and 8.2 (480i). With the antenna we get FOX 23.1 (720p) and 23.2 (480i).

Has anyone experienced this with any cable provider?

Wayne

[DavidinCT]

Yea, they did mine last year, Loved the 4 Clear QAM tuners, never mind Analog channels for backup. At one point I had 12 tuners in my MCE machine, now down to 4

[mdavej]

A pair of Ceton ETH 6's would get you back to 12. But I've got something like 700 channels and can rarely find more than two things to record at the same time, much less 12. How do you find that many worthwhile things to watch?