Does anyone have knowledge on if spectrum still offers these and if so how to get them? I have used their online chant and been told no. I’m seriously considering going this route if I can.
The word I saw in the tivo community forums is that spectrum is no longer issuing them.
FWIW, at least in my area, even when Cable Cards were offered, only the local channels had no DRM, all of the others had the CCI flag set. This was a holdover from their Time Warner Cable days, and sadly it never changed:
I know this doesn't / didn't apply to ALL Spectrum subscribers, but those of us who were previously with TWC, were definitely impacted. And subscribers previously on Charter with CableCards I believe, get all channels, even the premiums, without any CCI flags set!
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I my area, it depended on whether or not they had started upgrading my specific neighborhood to this new streaming box. After quite some time on the phone with a tech, they confirmed that my neighborhood was still supporting cable card (and/or old fashioned cable boxes which have a cable card in them).
Then I somehow got lucky enough for Spectrum to choose exactly the correct person to come in and get it going - a guy about my age who had extensive experience with cable card a while back but hadn't touched one in over 5 years. He did confirm that they do not carry cable cards in the truck at all any more so if you could convince them to ship it in advance that would get you half way there.
Persistence and patience is the key to getting them to send a truck, and a truck with the right person in it.
One more thing, in my region, like Fofer's, the only channels that are still listed as 'copy-freely' (what's needed to work cleanly, without a workaround) are the locals. I was on old Time Warner, if you are in a region that was previously Charter Cable you have a much better chance as everything but the premium channels being copy-freely.
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I tried this a year ago. I ordered the card and when it arrived you could see by the date it was several years old and used. It took a tech two visits to get it activated and once it finished scanning I found almost all of the channels were blocked. I returned the equipment to a spectrum store and they didn’t know what it was. It was a real pain trying to get it removed from my account. I would not recommend trying this. It was far too much trouble with no useable results.
Recent post on SiliconDust Forum. Some areas are also requiring high-split converters.
https://forum.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=397088#p397088
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As a classic Charter area user, I can say that DRM was being applied over a period of time. However it seemed to be without reason, as some HD channels were flagged but their SD counterparts were not; and vice-versa that some SD channels were flagged while the HD version was not.
I think across the board, non-DRM channels on Spectrum are quite long in the tooth. (Even with the HSCs, you will be unlikely to have a satisfactory experience.)
The best CableCARD experience is still with FiOS ... although you have to deal with Verizon/Frontier and their crappy customer service and poor infrastructure maintenance.
XFINITY/Comcast Cable Card does not DRM any Channels but the Premium ones Showtime/HBO for the Premiums I use ADBTUNER along with Firesticks to record them using XFINITY Stream. I have no Cable boxes and the Cable Cards are free. They also provide a Cloud DVR.
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The problem with Comcast/Xfinity though is that they're in the process of migrating everyone to a new unified distribution platform where all 1080i channels are converted to 720p, and most channels added over the past 5 years have been X1/IP only and not available on QAM tuners with CableCards.
Also be careful with cloud DVRs, many providers delete recordings from channels no longer available on their system. Like some CloudDVR providers wiped out all recordings from Circle after they shutdown their traditional channel at the end of the year.
I have 2 Primes with Cable Cards along with X1 and have no problems at all... They converted to 720P in my area years ago. With the offering of XFINITY Stream to all FireTV devices you have options how to watch.... Via Cable Card or Via the Internet. QAM was discontinued many years ago and the quality was lacking at best.
QAM has not been discontinued if you are still able to use your prime with a Cable Card. The Prime only works with QAM
I am talking about QAM that did not require a Cable Card which has never been available on the Prime Tuners.
Actually Clear-QAM (not encrypted and not requiring a cable card) was discontinued by Comcast/Xfinity a long time ago. Mpeg2 video was also discontinued by Comcast/Xfinity in favor of H.264 video (except for some SD channels) to allow more channels to be crammed together and make room for higher DOCSIS Internet speeds.
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That is what I was meaning when I said QAM forgot the Clear=
I believe the resolution was something like 528x480.
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Ah. Thanks for mentioning that. My last positive Spectrum [previously Charter] experience was a SageTV server with 2 primes/2 cable cards at my parent's house about 4 years ago - it was a glorious success. I wasn't aware they were slowly rolling in DRM. I was actually hoping that it would go the other direction where Spectrum [previously Time Warner] would start to omit the extra DRM restrictions and move towards what Charter had, but clearly didn't go that way.
Grrrr… as usual I am way late to the game.
I really wish there were a more cost effective way to do the HDMI for channels method
You could get a cheap usb/HDMI capture card and use NextPVR to run it
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I would LOVE LOVE LOVE more info on this...
please elaborate
Take a look here
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