dgz
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2010
- Messages
- 5,838
I write software that runs on some of these Arris STBs. My personal opinion is that they cost way too much for the hardware.
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I had already built a HTPC with a regular dual tuner card to replace my old analog DRV (Replay TV).
I mainly did this so we could record the local HD channels that where free at the time.
I can't get anything on a OTA antenna, so I'm stuck with Cable or Satellite.
When they required a cable box, I invested in a cable card tuner.
Once it was setup (and they finally managed to get their side setup correctly) it's worked pretty well.
Would not be a solution for most people, as COX offers no real support for Windows Media center.
Technically they support it, but they have nobody locally that knows anything about it.
I've been a Tivo user for over a decade now. The upfront cost is pretty startling, especially if you buy the lifetime service, but if you amortize it out, depending on the model you can pay it off in few years based on dvr cable box rental rates. and IMO Tivo is superior to almost all cable company provided dvrs that I have encountered.
So I suppose this is one way. And for all means, too each their own.
My way is Cox Cable for internet service at under $80 a month I think.
I do Amazon Prime mostly for the shipping and service, but the music and movie stream is certainly value added, that's about another $12 a month.
I was paying for Netflix, just dropped it again, $14 a month, I replaced it with Cinimax off of Amazon Prime for like $10 a month.
Then their is the cell phone plan from T-Mobile, "unlimited data", (which we all know isn't really unlimited), two lines for the wife and I, at a little over $100 a month total.
This is pretty much everything and it's all we need. I add and drop different services as the mood suites me. In a week or so, since I recently dropped Netflix again, I'll probably add Starz or something that has several movies and a series or two I want to see. Then I'll drop Cinimax and add something else. Evenetually Netflix will refresh their lineup and I'll go back to them a little while, catch up so to speak.
We can find almost any sporting even online to stream from somewhere, even the big ones like the SuperBowl.
So that's how I do it, one caveat, I do still purchase BluRays on occasion, still watch the old ones now and again.
No hidden "rentals" here.
We've been Tivo users for over 14 years, and cable card users since Series 3 release replaced the pathetic DVR rental we had for a painful month. Always bought the Tivo lifetime service as it pays off in a 2 years and the devices have lasted at least 5. Also bought a compatible cable modem as soon as I was able to find a good model at a sale price.
I...
Google fiber is sooooooooo much better. Not paying for their tv pkg, though. I'd rather pay for prime, hulu, netflix and watch the various free services (youtube, Pluto, etc). Anything else not available on those services can be acquired by other means. And with google fiber, you dont have to use their hardware. I dont need a modem, just connect my existing debian firewall (an UP^2 SBC) and I'm good to go. No non-user controlled hardware needed.
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Google has given up on new fiber builds as it was costign them too much.
Yup, lots of old ladies with phone rental fees, and sometimes for a phone they have tucked away in their closet because they (or someone else) bought them a different phone. Even though they stopped renting phones, they still charge. AT&T (Pacbell) did this with me and DSL service, way back when 1.5Mbps ADSL was like $79.99 a month, then it dropped to $39.99 a month, but do you think they adjusted pricing? Noooooo, so they happily charge more for the same service, and this isn't a promotional rate either that is the rate they charge. Should have taken them to small claims court, but knowing them they'd say that there was one iota of difference between the plans and say my old plan was grandfathered in.AT&T did this with home telephone forever...
You paid a monthly fee for service and a monthly fee for the phone and any additional lines....
You could BUY a phone and splitter but they would find out and charge you again for another phone.
That eventually went away but my parents paid monthly fees for a phone rental till the late 80s.
Fact.
Now the problem is for that voice line you have to rent their adapter at $6.50/month, and getting a voice line means you get all the local/state/fed taxes on telecommunications which here translate to just over $13/month, and unlike AT&T who gives you a free fiber gateway, Sonic rents one for $9.50/month, and the kick in the nuts is that you are committed to 1 year in which case the you basically could buy your own for cheaper or a similar cost and you still own it.
Cable Card is the alternative to equipment fees. Many cable companies are adding DRM to make the cable cards useless in all but Tivo devices and WMC (windows 7/8) or are eliminating them entirely in favor of IP delivery but at least in my section of Comcast territory-- most everything is available via cable card. Purchase an HDHomerun Prime and you can create your own open DVR system. Or put up an antenna capable of getting the local network channels and use an HDHomerun Quattro tuner. Use HDHomerun Premium and additional IPTV services for anything else that you must have.
This is why greed is a literal sin. It's self serving and self defeating.
MajicJack $20/year if you sign up for 5 years. NEVER had an issue.The telephone company kept raising the costs. COX started providing phone service, and the cost for the base service was less than the bundle discount so I signed up.
Over the years COX kept raising the costs, so I canceled the service with COX and switched to Ooma. $99 for the box, and a little over $4 per month which just covers the taxes. Already saved enough to pay for the box a couple times over. Unlike the phone company or COX, the $4 includes long distance calls anywhere in the country.
If Ooma starts charging too much, I'll drop them and add a line to my cell phone plan. My T-Mobile plan would only cost another $10 for the 4th line, and I can connect it to my home phone system (multiple handset system) using Bluetooth. The phone system base even has a USB connector to keep the phone charged
Cable Card is the alternative to equipment fees. Many cable companies are adding DRM to make the cable cards useless in all but Tivo devices and WMC (windows 7/8) or are eliminating them entirely in favor of IP delivery but at least in my section of Comcast territory-- most everything is available via cable card. Purchase an HDHomerun Prime and you can create your own open DVR system. Or put up an antenna capable of getting the local network channels and use an HDHomerun Quattro tuner. Use HDHomerun Premium and additional IPTV services for anything else that you must have.
If COX ever stops supporting the cable card on my Windows Media center, or tightens the DRM so I can't watch the shows on other computers in the house, I'll drop their cable service.
The telephone company kept raising the costs. COX started providing phone service, and the cost for the base service was less than the bundle discount so I signed up.
Over the years COX kept raising the costs, so I canceled the service with COX and switched to Ooma. $99 for the box, and a little over $4 per month which just covers the taxes. Already saved enough to pay for the box a couple times over. Unlike the phone company or COX, the $4 includes long distance calls anywhere in the country.
If Ooma starts charging too much, I'll drop them and add a line to my cell phone plan. My T-Mobile plan would only cost another $10 for the 4th line, and I can connect it to my home phone system (multiple handset system) using Bluetooth. The phone system base even has a USB connector to keep the phone charged
MajicJack $20/year if you sign up for 5 years. NEVER had an issue.
You can get that, or an adaptor that a regular phone can plug into. Dunno how well it works, though.Doesn't Magic Jack require the use of a computer though? I vaguely remember seeing the ads years ago, and it looked like some sort of dongle you plug in to your PC...
MajicJack $20/year if you sign up for 5 years. NEVER had an issue.
It's a DRM flag set in the digital transmission.
There are many flags that can be set, but the most common are "Copy Freely" or "Copy Once". If Copy Once is set, a DVR can record it, but it cannot be copied from that DVR to another system. If Copy Freely is set, once recorded, the file can be copied freely.
In order for the DRM protected modes like Copy Once to work, the system has to be certified to have working DRM. This is an expensive process, and as such, usually only your cable companies set top and DVR boxes, Windows Media Center and Tivo do it. The open source community generally tends to shun DVR as well, so they probably wouldn't implement it even if it were free.
On a system that lacks the certification, you can playback and record "Copy Freely" content, but "Copy Once" content will neither display nor record.
in 2015 all Fox channels (except the local affiliates) added this requirement to their contract as well.
Same here I have used Tivo since they launched.I've been a Tivo user for over a decade now. The upfront cost is pretty startling, especially if you buy the lifetime service, but if you amortize it out, depending on the model you can pay it off in few years based on dvr cable box rental rates. and IMO Tivo is superior to almost all cable company provided dvrs that I have encountered.
I've had no problem watching recorded shows from Fox Business and Fox News. I have the folder shared out on the HTPC, I can browse to it and play any recorded show I want.
Don't have HBO, so I can't test that.
That is worded in a very negative pigeon hold way.NO Company has your best interests at heart. They have THEIR financial interests always coming first.
We've been using Vonage for years. The experience has been pretty good. I can't complain.
I've had no problem watching recorded shows from Fox Business and Fox News. I have the folder shared out on the HTPC, I can browse to it and play any recorded show I want.
Don't have HBO, so I can't test that.
Well, nobody with Tivo or WMC will have a problem since those two platforms support DRM. Comcast is not enabling DRM on the Fox Business or Fox News channels. I think COX and/or Verizon Fios do though; Comcast only does this for the premium movie channels in my area. I dropped WMC when they refused to support it in Windows 10 so can only get channels that are DRM free.
We've been using Vonage for years. The experience has been pretty good. I can't complain.
Doesn't Magic Jack require the use of a computer though? I vaguely remember seeing the ads years ago, and it looked like some sort of dongle you plug in to your PC...
So I suppose this is one way. And for all means, too each their own.
My way is Cox Cable for internet service at under $80 a month I think.
I do Amazon Prime mostly for the shipping and service, but the music and movie stream is certainly value added, that's about another $12 a month.
I was paying for Netflix, just dropped it again, $14 a month, I replaced it with Cinimax off of Amazon Prime for like $10 a month.
Then their is the cell phone plan from T-Mobile, "unlimited data", (which we all know isn't really unlimited), two lines for the wife and I, at a little over $100 a month total.
This is pretty much everything and it's all we need. I add and drop different services as the mood suites me. In a week or so, since I recently dropped Netflix again, I'll probably add Starz or something that has several movies and a series or two I want to see. Then I'll drop Cinimax and add something else. Evenetually Netflix will refresh their lineup and I'll go back to them a little while, catch up so to speak.
We can find almost any sporting even online to stream from somewhere, even the big ones like the SuperBowl.
So that's how I do it, one caveat, I do still purchase BluRays on occasion, still watch the old ones now and again.
I dropped WMC when they refused to support it in Windows 10 so can only get channels that are DRM free.
That's odd. Maybe the contract with your local cable company hasn't come up for renewal yet.
If you have T-mobile they include Netflix on some of their Unlimited plans (T-mobile one/one plus)
I had originally looked at TiVO before i set up a MythTV server. The reason I decided against it was that - at least at the time - there was no way for it to store recordings to my NAS, and I wanted to make the most of the storage I had already bought.
Has this feature become available over time?
What I really want to do is have one device that supports the following three uses:
1.) DVR that can store to my NAS server
2.) Playback media files from my media library on my NAS server
3.) App compatibility for various streaming services.
I was looking at the Bolt, it appears to support 1, but not to NAS, and 3, but not 2. It's really tough to find exact feature lists of these things though.
My folks are part of a generation of channel surfers. They want to be fed content. The thing is they only want to watch old-timey content, so they end up paying through the roof for cable tv with old folk networks.
Does anyone know of any way to stream content that has lost it's copyright? I can imagine ras pi + some old time streaming service / old content database.
Man, copyright law sure is generous to content producers. Life of the author + 70 years. Jeez.
Thanks!
Thanks I'll definitely check this out!plex on a pi running 24/7 lol
Roku+ Pluto TV.My folks are part of a generation of channel surfers. They want to be fed content. The thing is they only want to watch old-timey content, so they end up paying through the roof for cable tv with old folk networks.
Does anyone know of any way to stream content that has lost it's copyright? I can imagine ras pi + some old time streaming service / old content database.
Man, copyright law sure is generous to content producers. Life of the author + 70 years. Jeez.
Thanks!