On Sunday, June 1, 2014 1:15:07 AM UTC-4, Ron wrote:
On 6/1/2014 12:59 AM, bob haller wrote:

On Sunday, June 1, 2014 12:31:43 AM UTC-4, IGot2P wrote:

On 5/31/2014 7:37 PM, trader_4 wrote:



On Saturday, May 31, 2014 4:33:19 PM UTC-4, bob haller wrote:



On Saturday, May 31, 2014 4:03:24 PM UTC-4, Higgs Boson wrote:







If I ever get cable again, I don't want to be held hostage to

big monthly rentals for Verizon's digital box.







Ditto on the cable card. It's the only way I know of to get

cable



without the cable company box.







What am I missing? We have cable and it is simply a coax wire that

comes



into our house that I have then run into a amp/distributor that

services



every room in our house (three floors)...no box or boxes anywhere.

This



is the way it was done when the home was built and it is still this

way.



Are the boxes just for recording (which we don't do) or what?



nearly all cable companies are encrypting all channels with a

addressable box.





News to me. I thought most cable companies were handing out DTAs.



I guess it depends on what you mean by "getting cable without the
cable box." What you're referring to generally only allows for viewing the
free local channels that you could get with an antenna. I took HB's
question to mean that he wants cable service that the more typical
cable customer would have, ie at least some of the many channels that
require decoding. But you bring up a good point, it depends on what you
really want. If it's just the locals, then as you say, they may be able to get
that with just a DTA, that the cable company probably doesn't charge for.
If they want a typical cable package that includes things like CNN, History
Channel, FoodTV, Comedy Channel, etc, then they either need a cable
box from the cable company or a Tivo or similar DVR, etc device, TV, etc
that will accept a cable card. The cablecard has to be obtained from
the cable company too and they charge a monthly fee, but at least with
Cablevision it's $3 a month less than using their cable box. And using
the CC with Tivo instead of DVR, saves another $10/mth, which is what
Cablevision charges for their DVR.

Another thing worth pointing out in this area, that I should have
pointed out before, is that AFAIK, the cablecards are oneway devices.
You can use them to receive any of the encoded channels that you're
paying for, but you can't use them for the on-demand, pay-per-view
type services that you can order up with the cable company's own
box/remote. That doesn't matter for me, because I never used that
anyway, but if you do, it's a factor to consider.





My company (Bright House) did last month. And Comcast (aren't they the

biggest cable company in the US now?) starting handing them out in 2010.