My understanding is that HDCP is not an issue as long as you're under 4K, I have both of my provider's Android TV STBs hooked to encoders and there's no handshake problem.
You can get up to 1080p output from your Spectrum boxes but you will only get stereo sound from all encoders and capture devices. There's ways to get your Spectrum channels directly without boxes and that's the route I would take with Channels. Search for Spectrum here, you'll see tons of posts about it.
There's ways to get your Spectrum channels directly without boxes and that's the route I would take with Channels.
Thanks so much for replying! Do you mean like through the Spectrum TV app on a streaming device connected to an encoder?
I'm still looking through Spectrum-related posts, but so far most have to do with TVE-related issues/topics. TVE is great to have, but it's only 720p for me.
is this the desired one? best buy and homedepot have them on sale and I figure I should diversify too
Yes.
Yep, that's the main route. But again the limitation is that you're only going to get stereo sound.
Cheap way to try this would be to have a streaming device that can run the Spectrum app, get a USB capture stick and then follow the USB capture thread to set it up. I have one of those and it works great, picture quality is excellent. ADBtuner project here may have support for Spectrum, not sure. I think that ah4c does as well as the HDMI encoder for native apps project. Fastchannels is also working on this and you don't need the Spectrum app for that (I think). Lots of reading!
You could also look into Prismcast here which has Spectrum support. No hardware needed but you do need to have a relatively modern PC to run it.
We are blessed to have many alternatives now that TVE is slowly going away. I have multiple sources for all of the channels that I like to watch.
A post was merged into an existing topic: ADBTuner: A "channel tuning" application for networked Google TV / Android TV devices
For those in the Northeast, this place has them on sale and will sell you basically the store if you ask nicely. They don't really seem to have a limit on how many they can sell, it's just how many they have. They aren't the first gen. Like that picture seems to indicate. They are the new ones. Just an out-of-date photo.
Unfortunately, they're just basically New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, with one Philadelphia location in PA. But I was able to snag seven from two of their locations, just buying them all at one and having to go to another one for the last one because the first one just didn't have more than six. Just basically walk into the store and be nice and ask. I just told them I was using them for nerdy stuff, and they didn't care. I believe they work off of commission, so they're happy to sell you things.
Just another tip: Best Buy, if you go in store, will sell you three if they have them. Just ask for three, basically, and they'll ring up. They just won't ring up for any more than three because of the POS system. But if you go to another Best Buy, you can potentially get another couple of units.
I've been in a P.C. Richard & Son a long time ago while working on the road. 
I only need 2 (well 1, but if you need 1 you'll probably need a 2nd.. lol)
I ordered ship to store from home depot, monday or tuesday. 
it's easier for me to track receipts since I buy alot of my DeWalt there.
Why not just get them on Amazon? $45
pretty sure they were full price yesterday for me. gotta love dynamic pricing 
They have a very hard limit on how many you can buy.
So if you want more than two, you can't buy more than two. With PC Richard, it was the same price as Amazon, but I could get a bunch. Same deal with Best Buy. They have the same price as Amazon, but you can buy three and then potentially go to another Best Buy and buy another three if you wanted while they're on sale for this price before they're discontinued.
Be careful with Xfinity. I just changed my internet plan and they disabled one of my two cablecards without me asking. Now they are refusing to activate it again because they no longer provide support. At least it is a reminder of why I'm moving away from all their services.
Try asking again on a good weather day mid week when you have a chance of getting somone that's not feeling rushed and that might have some sympathy.
Cablecards are on the way out across the board, it's not really a day of the week thing imo.
Yes cablecards are on the way out and for me they are no longer an option with Verizon FIOS. Before they went out, I was able to get assistance by being nice and finding and old customer support rep that was willing to help. Not all the reps were willing. He broke out his old paper notes and got me going.
That sucks, and this is the reason I refuse to make any updates to my current Xfinity cable or internet plans. I am probably paying more than I should be, but I'm just riding it out as long as they will let me.
Many years ago I was so happy with Tivo with cable card. Then the industry killed for lousy streaming services. I hate VOD unless its stuff I have on my server. Love grid guides and live channels.Tried all the services and now very happy with Spectrum Tv Lite which I got right after the buyout of COX. It has all the right channels to my liking. TVE works perfect now but a few channels Id like to pipe into Channels. One in particular is MTV Classics! I havent had this channel since the last decade and its even better now.
For this one channel Im having a hdmi to hls/ip encoder shipped today, its only $79 bucks on the Amazon Prime deals this week, No need for a expensive 4k one as MTV Classic is SD 4:3, as it should be. I hope I can integrate into channels DVR with ease. I dont plan on using Docker or any addons(too complicated - I dont have the time). Just a custom channel. If theres others who have been sucessful with this, please chime in!
Also- I have or tried and returned every iteration of the Fire Sticks and Onn Boxes/sticks (I use Apple TV), which one stays on just one channel flawlessly for long periods of time? I have adapters for Ehternet for them too. I also have the Tivo Stream 4K.
Which one is on sale right now?
Try SlickDeals, they will have better info on sales than this thread.