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bob_p

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#21

Post by bob_p » Tue Dec 29, 2015 5:26 pm

The issue isn't that Comcast isn't supporting cablecards - it's that the first line of technical support doesn't appear to have the training or the tools needed to provide full support.

For example, there was a time when you could use Comcast's phone system to send a refresh signal to all of your Comcast equipment, including cablecards. This often resolved any problems - without having to talk to any of Comcast's technical support staff.

With my latest loss of subscription for one of my cablecards, not only can you get their automated system to send the refresh signal, it now appears they've removed that ability from their first line technical support.

If you have a cablecard problem and you can get to the group that actually supports cablecards - you're more likely to get your problems resolved, though there's always a risk that they'll tell you to go to a local store and exchange your cablecard, if they believe the card itself is having problems.

So far, they haven't cared what type of "customer-owned" device has the card. They seem more comfortable with TiVo - since there are more of those.

What they will not do is step you through how to use the cablecard on your customer-owned equipment. If you're having problems with TiVo, WMC, a cablecard TV, SD's HDHomeRun View, ... - then you're on your own - which is reasonable.

Plus, while they are charging $10 per month for each cablecard, they then give you a $2.50 per month credit for customer owned equipment (why not just make things simpler, and charge $7.50?).

While it's costing me more for the cablecards - and support is a little more challenging, all of our Comcast cablecards are working - and we continue to watch TV the way we want - with our equipment - with Comcast - and also have the benefits of the new X1 service, which gives us access to all of our subscribed channels through browsers and Android (for us) devices at our home.

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Crash2009

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#22

Post by Crash2009 » Wed Dec 30, 2015 1:27 am

I don't think their automatic-over the phone-refresh signal worked very well. I don't know for sure, but it seemed to hit the STB's but not My Devices

Keep looking for your LOCAL CableCard Department phone number. Since finding mine, 1 call, they speak English, no forty questions, and they get it right on the 1st attempt.

The FCC says they have to pay you 2.50/card, so they do. If they billed 7.50 instead of credit -2.50 the FCC would be on their tail. They are just like the taxman. example: taxman owes me 500, I owe taxman 400. Write them a letter and suggest subtract the 400 from the 500, and send me a hundred. No, we send you the 500 after you pay the 400. Go figure.....

Are you getting protected channels in your Browser's, Droids, and IOS's? Starz, Cinemax, HBO, Showtime?

bob_p

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#23

Post by bob_p » Wed Dec 30, 2015 5:36 pm

When I'm at home, my browser and Android devices get to stream all of the live channels - including premium & copy protected programs - plus I can also stream any recordings I've made, along with access to Comcast's On Demand streaming service.

Away from home, Comcast places limitations on what I can access - though still provides quite a few of the live channels (unfortunately the local sports channel for the professional teams is blocked from streaming outside of the home).

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#24

Post by mdavej » Wed Dec 30, 2015 5:59 pm

HBO Go, Showtime Anytime, MAX Go, etc. all work fine for me anywhere on earth as long as I have wifi. I can get other content from my DVR with Remote Potato. Crash, I'd imagine you'd use Team Viewer with similar results.

As for cards, my Ceton ignores restart commands from the cable company. You can see this clearly in the log.

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#25

Post by bob_p » Thu Dec 31, 2015 1:42 pm

Yes, we do have multiple applications that we can use today to get access to live and recorded TV.

WMC coupled with Remote Potato or Plex provide access to recorded TV - anywhere. And Remote Potato also provides access to the WMC recording rules and program guide.

And, there are apps to provide streaming for an increasing number of channels.

But if you want to watch live TV, options are more limited. Remote Potato can provide some support for live TV, though I've had difficulty getting that to work reliably. On your local network SD's View app can also access live TV - but won't work across the Internet.

Comcast's X1 browser interface and app provides access to live and recorded TV - in a single app, and they've done a pretty reasonable job in allowing users to access their X1 services and channels (including on demand) on a home network, with some restrictions for access away from home. Of course, this comes with limitations - that most WMC users will likely find difficult to accept - such as restrictions on navigation during playback.

I have both SD and Ceton tuners - and Comcast has been able to "refresh" the authorization of cablecards in both devices - without having to do a "reset" - and that usually clears up any "not authorized" messages. I usually try to reboot all of my devices as a first step when encountering a problem - and that usually doesn't fix the problem - and I then call Comcast to send a signal from their end.

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Crash2009

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#26

Post by Crash2009 » Fri Jan 01, 2016 1:09 am

I've been giving Win10 and ported WMC a bit of a workout for the last 3 weeks.

Plain old Remote Desktop shows the guide and you can record, schedule or make adjustments. Haven't figured out how to get video yet.

Had some good success with TeamViewer.... Live or Recorded "Protected" to LAN or WAN using TeamViewer. Navigation and Quality need some work, but hey, Black Sails in my back pocket is pretty cool, and so is the cost.

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 974#p99974

No Joy with Echo as of yet, some have got XB to work.

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#27

Post by mdavej » Fri Jan 01, 2016 1:27 am

None of that is unexpected.

You'll never get video with RDP or get Echo to work, so may as well give up on that front. Post Win 7, Xbox is the only extender that works.

The Team Viewer thing was a good find.

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Crash2009

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#28

Post by Crash2009 » Fri Jan 01, 2016 1:48 am

mdavej wrote:You'll never get video with RDP or get Echo to work, so may as well give up on that front. Post Win 7, Xbox is the only extender that works.
Why?

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#29

Post by mdavej » Fri Jan 01, 2016 2:03 am

You'll have to ask Microsoft why they made RDP in Win 8.x/10 incompatible with every extender except Xbox. But this has been known since Win 8 was in beta and has not changed. Technically it actually does work with Echo somewhat, but you get no GUI, so it's pretty useless.

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Crash2009

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#30

Post by Crash2009 » Fri Jan 01, 2016 2:27 am

mdavej wrote:You'll have to ask Microsoft why they made RDP in Win 8.x/10 incompatible with every extender except Xbox. But this has been known since Win 8 was in beta and has not changed. Technically it actually does work with Echo somewhat, but you get no GUI, so it's pretty useless.
I have been doing a little digging to find out exactly "Why". Could you join me over here sometime?

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... =97&t=9509

mdavej

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#31

Post by mdavej » Fri Jan 01, 2016 5:26 pm

Thanks for the invite, but I don't really have anything else to add. I have no Echoes, no HTPC, no WMC, no Xboxes, no Teamviewer, no RDP, nothing. I'm only here to satisfy my curiosity.

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#32

Post by bigjohns97 » Mon Jan 04, 2016 2:15 am

bob_p wrote:Yes, we do have multiple applications that we can use today to get access to live and recorded TV.

WMC coupled with Remote Potato or Plex provide access to recorded TV - anywhere. And Remote Potato also provides access to the WMC recording rules and program guide.

And, there are apps to provide streaming for an increasing number of channels.

But if you want to watch live TV, options are more limited. Remote Potato can provide some support for live TV, though I've had difficulty getting that to work reliably. On your local network SD's View app can also access live TV - but won't work across the Internet.

Comcast's X1 browser interface and app provides access to live and recorded TV - in a single app, and they've done a pretty reasonable job in allowing users to access their X1 services and channels (including on demand) on a home network, with some restrictions for access away from home. Of course, this comes with limitations - that most WMC users will likely find difficult to accept - such as restrictions on navigation during playback.

I have both SD and Ceton tuners - and Comcast has been able to "refresh" the authorization of cablecards in both devices - without having to do a "reset" - and that usually clears up any "not authorized" messages. I usually try to reboot all of my devices as a first step when encountering a problem - and that usually doesn't fix the problem - and I then call Comcast to send a signal from their end.
you might want to try emby, you can do both from the same app. :D

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#33

Post by jer » Wed Jan 27, 2016 4:05 pm

I too have encountered the ~$10 CableCARD fee from Comcast. After going back and forth with them since November, they finally lowered the fee to 89cents. I'm wondering if anyone else had this experience. I was ready to visit my U.S.Senator's office to see if there was any help from that direction.

It really is a regulatory issue...just think if they wanted to charge $25 and then $35 and on and on, just because you want to use some piece of equipment that isn't part of their network (think Bell Systems-AT&T divestiture and Consent Decree.) What would stop them since they are the only CATV providers in our area?
WMC
Win7 Pro
ROKU 4
HDHomeRun PRIME
Harmony 350
Keyspan TSBX-2404

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#34

Post by DarkKaplah » Wed Jan 27, 2016 10:37 pm

bob_p wrote:Confirm a similar situation here. I have 5 cablecards (1 for a Sony XBR TV with a built-in CableCard tuner, 3 HDHRs and 1 Ceton). When I recently had a problem with one of the cablecards, the only way Comcast could get my cards working again was to shift me to the new price schedule - which jumped the per month per card costs to $10 - minus the $2.50 discount for customer-owned equipment.

With Microsoft's phaseout of WMC support underway, I'm evaluating options for a WMC replacement - SD's DVR project, Comcast X1, TiVo and possibly JRiver (if they can come up with another way to fund their DRM project). The increase in monthly CableCard costs ($7.50 per card) will have an impact on the financial comparison between the options - though what's of greater importance is to find a replacement with at least the same capabilities we've been using as WMC - and, as of today, not sure if we're ready to embrace any of the other options (and their respective constraints).

What's unfortunate is that while Comcast is increasing the pricing on CableCard - they are also providing less support. Last week one of our cards lost access - and it took several calls and an hour on the phone to find someone who could send a refresh signal to the card. Evidently they removed that option from the normal technical support interface - and the issue had to be elevated to 2nd tier support before someone could send a refresh signal to the cablecards.

Comcast really wants to encourage customers to move off the old cablecard equipment (including their own STBs) and onto the newer X1 technology (which doesn't use cablecards). And by increasing the cost of cablecards to $7.50 per month - they've made a cablecard cost much closer to the cost of getting X1 clients.

When I'm finished testing SD's DVR software - I'll likely turn off two of the cablecard devices - and return those cards - saving me $15 per month. But while I'm testing SD's software (and anything else others might come up with as a replacement), I'll pay to have extra cablecards - so I can run WMC and the alternative devices separately.
Holy Carp Bob how many people are in your house that you need 12-14 cable card tuners?! :shock:
You'd probably be better served by dumping the one on the TV immediately and instead using a media center extender of some sort. If you have a spare 360 go that route, but if you don't want to deal with multiple remotes in the bedroom and if your sony supports HDMI-CEC you might want to use a raspberry pi running OpenElec and install ServerWMC on your mediacenter. The Pi has HDMI-CEC support so you don't need to have any Pi specific remotes. The one that drives your TV will drive the Pi.

I got rather creative with my setup when I was at the height of my mediacenter days. Here's the setup I had:

1: Infinitv4 PCI-e tuner with cablecard from WOW.
2: Hauppauge 2250 hooked to a roof mounted antenna. This pulled in all the basic ATSC channels
3: Xbox 360 extender hooked to the home theater.
4: Mediacenter directly hooked to the main room TV

I wound up with 4 cable card tuners and 2 atsc tuners. I then had to manually merge the ATSC channels with the equivalent from WOW. This was a royal PITA. In the end I wound up just removing the 2250 and sticking with the cable card.

If you're looking for a replacement, and you're not using specialty channels like HBO check out mediaportal. They have a different take on how to record channels. Aparently instead of recording just one channel they can use a tuner to record all channels on the same MUX. As such it's possible to record far more than 2 channels with a dual tuner device. Media portal can be used as a Kodi backend allowing you to use inexpensive raspberry pi devices as extenders. Unfortunately almost every PC based DVR won't support encrypted channels like HBO. Only WMC had that trick. The only other device that has the ability to use these channels would be Tivo. A high end tivo with 8 tuners and multiple Tivo minis (aka extenders) would probably suit you well. You'll get the multiple tuners you need but cut down the number of cable cards. Tivo minis show up on Woot every so often for $60-$100. Also keep an eye on slickdeals.

Do everything you can to put the screws to comcast. 8-) Hope this helps.

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#35

Post by bob_p » Thu Jan 28, 2016 1:13 pm

To support recording and live TV viewing and ensure no tuner conflicts, we probably need between 6 to 8 cablecard tuners (which would be 2-3 3-tuner HDHRs or 2 4-tuner Cetons). WMC is pretty efficient in sharing tuners between WMC and extenders and live & recordedTV; the new SD DVR software may use a separate tuner for each instance of live TV viewing or recording - so if we went that route, we'd need more tuners - to ensure a recording wouldn't fail due to lack of tuners.

Because we do watch premium channels (primarily for their series - not for movies), we'll want to continue to have DRM support - which means either using WMC or TiVo's new Bolt/Mini combination. It appears the SD DVR software is going to fall far short of a viable WMC replacement (at least with their initial release), so it doesn't appear to be an option for us to consider, at least right now.

If JRiver had been able to secure funding for their DRM project, that could have been a 3rd choice.

The Bolt looks like a strong alternative - providing a pretty complete WMC replacement, with a few exceptions - such as "semi-automatic" commercial skipping (we have automatic support using WMC with comskip) and no official TiVo support for offline viewing on Windows devices (when we travel). And the Bolt has advantages over WMC and other options by providing integration between the WMC functionality, major streaming services and access to Comcast's On Demand programming for the Bolt or Minis.

It will be interesting to see if any new options come out of the FCC's proposal to provide a more (unspecified) environment and encourage development of more alternatives to the expensive cable/satellite DVRs and STBs.

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#36

Post by scyto » Sat Feb 13, 2016 8:06 pm

mdavej wrote:You'll have to ask Microsoft why they made RDP in Win 8.x/10 incompatible with every extender except Xbox. But this has been known since Win 8 was in beta and has not changed. Technically it actually does work with Echo somewhat, but you get no GUI, so it's pretty useless.
Hehe I can tell you that, firstly it wasn't a change in RDP it was a change in wether MS would issue the certs to allow extenders to sign their streams - this is integral to play ready and protecting content. I think MS made strategic decision to just eol MCE extender program (I.e. No new code) it's also possible they were worried about being on hook if there was content breaches from 3rd party device. But my best guess is that it was just the decision to stop investing and sunset MCE.

PS I used to be on the RDP team...

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#37

Post by mdavej » Sat Feb 13, 2016 10:34 pm

I hear you. But if no certs for content protection, why can I still watch all protected content on my Echo from an 8.1 WMC box? It works fine except for the GUI. The only thing they're protection is the guide. So whatever they did to try and stop it, they didn't do a very good job.

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Crash2009

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#38

Post by Crash2009 » Sun Feb 14, 2016 12:44 am

scyto wrote:PS I used to be on the RDP team...
I have been hanging out over at the MDL site lately. We have been experimenting with WMC in Win10. One of the more recent mini-experiments was to RDP into Win10, and watch WMC live/recorded from an RDP session initialized in Win7. Non DRM channels work pretty good. DRM Live or Recorded plays for a few seconds then craps out with Display Driver Error.

Any interest in participating in the experiment?

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 50#p101550

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#39

Post by mikey1273 » Thu Jul 07, 2016 7:59 pm

I don't get why they were charging you a $10 HD fee if you are using your own cable card device and none of their boxes. I have heard this charged to enable HD on their basic packages on company equipment. I have a HomeRun Prime ONLY at home and I have no such charge on my bill. I have Comcast in York ,pa

my bill lists Xfinity Internet Plus for $77.95 (Limited Basic, HBO, StreamPIX, digital comverter and Performance internet) I don't have a converter
Cable Card service $0.00
Broadcast tv fee $5
Customer owned equipment -$2.50
tax and local franchise fees.

NO HD technology fee and I receive the HD version of everything in my package that is available.

I am concerned about what is going to happen when M$ stops supporting win 7 and the guide data in 2020. then I will need to move to X1 or Tivo Bolt. I would like something that will do my Netflix and ripped show and movies with live and recorded tv like WMC does. I doubt that exists in one device or software package.

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Crash2009

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#40

Post by Crash2009 » Thu Jul 07, 2016 9:10 pm

mikey1273 wrote: I am concerned about what is going to happen when M$ stops supporting win 7 and the guide data in 2020. then I will need to move to X1 or Tivo Bolt.
You can move to X1 or Bolt if you like. WMCv12 works fine in Win10, including protected channels. For the guide, many have been dumping ROVI and moving to EPG123

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