Are There Alternatives to Traditional Cable for WMC?

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misterpunn

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Are There Alternatives to Traditional Cable for WMC?

#1

Post by misterpunn » Thu Mar 01, 2018 4:48 pm

If this is in the wrong place, please move, and sorry!

Are there any alternatives where people can use a cable card or a cable card alternative to receive their TV or does WMC work with any other service other than cable? I am a Spectrum customer for internet and tv, but I am only remaining with Spectrum because I LOVE WMC and really that's just because I like having the ability to store a massive amount of recorded programs onto my external hard drive.

I have one digital box for my roommate, standard (slow) internet, the digital variety pass, and one cable card and my bill is now pushing $150 per month, so I am anxious to get out. Unfortunately, Spectrum is the only cable option in my area.

Is there a way for me to still have the "WMC experience" other than the traditional cable/cable card route?

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Scallica

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#2

Post by Scallica » Thu Mar 01, 2018 5:15 pm

You can use WMC to capture video from a satellite service using a component video capture device (Hauppauge Colossus). Talk to Venom51.
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DavidinCT

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#3

Post by DavidinCT » Thu Mar 01, 2018 6:04 pm

misterpunn wrote:If this is in the wrong place, please move, and sorry!

Are there any alternatives where people can use a cable card or a cable card alternative to receive their TV or does WMC work with any other service other than cable? I am a Spectrum customer for internet and tv, but I am only remaining with Spectrum because I LOVE WMC and really that's just because I like having the ability to store a massive amount of recorded programs onto my external hard drive.

I have one digital box for my roommate, standard (slow) internet, the digital variety pass, and one cable card and my bill is now pushing $150 per month, so I am anxious to get out. Unfortunately, Spectrum is the only cable option in my area.

Is there a way for me to still have the "WMC experience" other than the traditional cable/cable card route?
Do you get off air where you live ? If your looking to "lower" your bill, going to satellite signal might help a little but, once you start adding your channels, very limited.

You can take a 3rd party box (cable, Sat etc) and get a device that can import it in, with IR blasters to control the box... It does work but, One setup, One tuner. It will show limits very soon.

When your talking "alternatives", did you have something in mind ? Media Center can support almost anything you can think of..ALMOST.
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#4

Post by mdavej » Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:00 pm

Spectrum has a new, cheap, a la carte plan called Choice for around $30 that includes 10 a la carte channels plus all your locals plus one premium (i.e., HBO). That's a good way to cut your bill way down. I ran it for about a year when before they rolled it out for everybody.

Or do what I ultimately did and dump cable TV and replace with OTA (works with WMC or any number of cheap DVR solutions) plus a cheap OTT service. I use DirecTV NOW which has pretty much all my old cable channels for $35 and a cloud DVR (in beta). Saves me about $50/month for essentially the same content. At $16, Philo might even work for you if you're ok with the limited lineup.

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#5

Post by misterpunn » Fri Mar 02, 2018 5:52 pm

Thank you to everyone for the suggestions! I think I would like the streaming services, but the DVR is unfortunately a deal breaker. Yes, I know they have a decent amount of storage, but that storage is more limited and can be reduced at anytime, whereas my WMC recordings are "my" recordings and I'll always have them.

I didn't know you could use satellite with WMC so I'll look into that. I'll also take a look at that a la carte option, as well. When I went to Specturm's site, all they offered for current customers online was "here's our phone number. Give us a call to see what you have in your area."

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DavidinCT

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#6

Post by DavidinCT » Sat Mar 03, 2018 3:37 pm

misterpunn wrote:Thank you to everyone for the suggestions! I think I would like the streaming services, but the DVR is unfortunately a deal breaker. Yes, I know they have a decent amount of storage, but that storage is more limited and can be reduced at anytime, whereas my WMC recordings are "my" recordings and I'll always have them.

I didn't know you could use satellite with WMC so I'll look into that. I'll also take a look at that a la carte option, as well. When I went to Specturm's site, all they offered for current customers online was "here's our phone number. Give us a call to see what you have in your area."
Just some more food for thought. The BEST experience with WMC will always be a OTA Tuner, Cablecard with a dedicated tuner of some type.

Using a satellite recover or 3rd party box can be quirky but, DOES WORK. Just so you know. For each tuner, you'll need a 3rd party box (sat box, etc), you will need a HDpvr type device (A device to take video from the 3rd party box and import it in to the computer), and from WMC an IR blaster. This setup is needed for EACH tuner. When you change the channel, it sends an IR signal to your 3rd party box change the channel and show the video. Some se top boxes only use a RF type remote (some Dish models) they can not be used in this setup.

This presents other issues. SO if the 3rd party device shows it's own overlays (for example when you change the channel a menu comes up showing the show name), it will show BOTH the 3rd party box and WMC's. And it does take some tweaking to get right. Some times the IR code is going too fast or too slow. For EACH tuner (if you want at least 2), you need 2 3rd party boxes, 2 HDRPVR type devices and 2 IR blasters. Those HDPRV things used are around $60-80 but, new they are $100+ So there is an added cost for setup.

Like I said some food for thought...
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#7

Post by werds » Sat Mar 03, 2018 5:41 pm

DavidinCT wrote:
Just some more food for thought. The BEST experience with WMC will always be a OTA Tuner, Cablecard with a dedicated tuner of some type.
I agree with this part, my only concern is about ATSC 3.0 rollout and how it is not backwards compatible... granted for many people it probably won't present itself as a problem for a few years, for others it might come sooner than that... And I am curious if that will mean an end to OTA on WMC or if it just means new equipment to replace the ATSC 1.0 stuff... I don't know enough myself about it (sorry if this is off-topic, your comment reminded me about it).

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DavidinCT

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#8

Post by DavidinCT » Sat Mar 03, 2018 6:09 pm

werds wrote:
DavidinCT wrote:
Just some more food for thought. The BEST experience with WMC will always be a OTA Tuner, Cablecard with a dedicated tuner of some type.
I agree with this part, my only concern is about ATSC 3.0 rollout and how it is not backwards compatible... granted for many people it probably won't present itself as a problem for a few years, for others it might come sooner than that... And I am curious if that will mean an end to OTA on WMC or if it just means new equipment to replace the ATSC 1.0 stuff... I don't know enough myself about it (sorry if this is off-topic, your comment reminded me about it).
I work in a major TV station. I know of ATSC 3.0 fairly well. We are STILL a ways off (I've seen some documents on it)and with it there will be lot more to worry about than Media Center supporting it.

When it comes down to it, even when the change over happens, SOME compatibility will be in place. Cable cards should still be around for quite a while, just like cable boxes would (just like SD tvs were around for a long time after HD).

Truth be told, when it hits and if your into the Tech, part of the spec is 4K broadcasts, Windows Media Center in it's current form will not be able to handle it. I love WMC but, If we are being held back on a MAJOR TV upgrade because trying to keep WMC alive, it might be time to look towards other options.

Let's just hope some big dev steps in and adds/hacks a way to get the new formats for TV in WMC...
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#9

Post by mdavej » Mon Mar 05, 2018 4:28 pm

misterpunn wrote:When I went to Specturm's site, all they offered for current customers online was "here's our phone number. Give us a call to see what you have in your area."
Here's the Choice package I was talking about. They play up their streaming app, but it works fine with your current cable card tuners and WMC or Tivo (I've used it with both and much prefer the latter). I find that with on demand access, I record very little these days.
https://www.spectrum.com/choice.html

Another little caveat is they still hit you with about $10 in bogus fees like "broadcast tv" fee, etc. But it still comes out cheaper than most OTT services and still works with WMC. In any case, I had the Choice package for about a year and it worked out great for me. But OTA and OTT is working out even better and has far more channels for just a few bucks more. Since the bulk of my viewing is the big 4 networks, my traditional DVR (Tivo and/or Stream+ in my case, WMC in yours) still gives me full control over my recordings plus commercial skip. Using on demand for the other cable networks is no big deal to me given the huge cost savings I'm getting. If I wanted, I could DVR everything using PlayOn, but I haven't bothered with that. But that would be a good option for someone who wants locally stored recordings of everything.

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#10

Post by Rhody » Fri Apr 27, 2018 8:08 pm

mdavej wrote:If I wanted, I could DVR everything using PlayOn, but I haven't bothered with that. But that would be a good option for someone who wants locally stored recordings of everything.
I recently went back to look at PlayOn, and almost everything has been disabled. There are very few services left that play nicely with PlayOn. It's nearly completely dead.

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#11

Post by jachin99 » Fri Apr 27, 2018 8:59 pm

I think playon depends a lot of individual networks keeping their feeds healthy, and accurate. A while back I tried to watch a few shows off of network websites using my cable credentials, and it was really bad. I can see things like HBO GO working out ok with playon but not much else. Everyone seems to want you to have cable. The Amazon plugin for WMC has been updated since you started this, and the builtin Netflix still works. Those two cover a lot if your not an avid TV watcher. I like playon because its the only way to VUDU in WMC. There is also Youtube Leanback, which you can lunch from MC. Youtube offers live tv but I'm not sure if they let you view it through live TV. If you have Ceton MMC, and the amazon plugin then you can even order a show or movie from the amazon site (Which launches through the MMC APP on your phone) and play it in the WMC plugin. I haven't tested this but it sounds pretty convenient, and I bet it works.

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