Purchase cable boxes?

[amagab]

We have 2 DVRs and 2 regular digital boxes with OTW at home and are paying $50/month to OTW for them. This is ridiculous!

Anyone know the possibility of buying the boxes myself and hooking up to OTW? Does OTW allow it?

[GregLee]

Re: Purchase cable boxes?

I was going to say you can't, but I recall now that cable services are required to supply decoder adapters for those who want to use their own DVRs.

[Frankie's Market]

Re: Purchase cable boxes?

We have 2 DVRs and 2 regular digital boxes with OTW at home and are paying $50/month to OTW for them. This is ridiculous!

Anyone know the possibility of buying the boxes myself and hooking up to OTW? Does OTW allow it?

AFAIK, OTW will not sell any of their digital decoder boxes/DVRs outright.

You might find similar or identical cable boxes for sale on eBay. The problem is that digital boxes need to be activated by OTW for use on their system. And I can pretty much guarantee you that the folks at Oceanic will not oblige you.

I was going to say you can't, but I recall now that cable services are required to supply decoder adapters for those who want to use their own DVRs.

You can purchase 3rd party DVRs from outfits like TIVO. But you won't be able to access scrambled premium channels.

[pzarquon]

Re: Purchase cable boxes?

I was going to say you can't, but I recall now that cable services are required to supply decoder adapters for those who want to use their own DVRs.

This was "CableCard", yes? I wonder if those ever made it to mainstream adoption, let alone support by Oceanic. I steadfastly refuse to rent a box from them, which is why we still have analog basic service. And as noted in a separate thread, I'm looking at satellite options to remove that last vestige from our household.

There's also over-the-air digital TV signals, but I've always presumed I'm not techie enough to chase those down... if they reach our place at all!

[GregLee]

Re: Purchase cable boxes?

This was "CableCard", yes? I wonder if those ever made it to mainstream adoption, let alone support by Oceanic.

Yes, that's the term I was looking for. I hear that cablecards did come into use -- that was after I left OTW for DirecTV -- but with some limitations and rather grudging support from OTW. Here is a post about them from AVS Forum:

The Tivo HD basically replaces the Digital Cable box from Oceanic, so in theory Oceanic's HD channels that are part of "Standard" cable service are "available"...but it comes with a couple of gotchas.

With the exception of the local channels all of Oceanic HD channels are sent via SDV which means you need a CableCARD plus tuning adapter to receive them.
You can get the local channels in HD with a TivoHD without a CableCARD but will not have any program guide with the channels, adding solely a CableCARD will give you the guide for the locals in HD but not the other HD channels. You may want to give a tech at Oceanic a call about the cost and options that using a CableCARD and tuning adapter will give you.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...6#post18024506