Slow death of ChannelsDVR for cable subscribers has begun

Try thinking out of the box. I gave up Comcast and still have 95% of the things I had with them, as well as a bunch of things Comcast did not offer. There are one or two things I used to watch that are too inconvenient or expensive to watch, but overall, I have a lot more things to watch at $35 per month less.

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A few people here have explained the current state of life past the world of CableCARD, but I'll try and sum it up from my perspective as a current Xfinity customer. The world of cord cutting has made it completely obsolete and you need to let your CableCARD box go.

First, in my area Comcast has a virtual monopoly on Internet access simply because unless you live in a new area where AT&T has built out fiber to the home, they are competing against old copper lines that simply cannot compete against Comcast's hybrid fiber-coax network which offers gigabit speed.

With regard to your CableCARD setup, you are living in the last generation. The world has moved on and so should you. Let me try and explain.

When CableCARD came out it was a regulation that was put in place to try and break the hold the cable companies had with their set top boxes so people could get television services without having to lease expensive set top boxes but still be able to deal with the Digital Rights Management (DRM) that cable companies and content providers had to protect their streams from people stealing services. At the time, it made a lot of sense and hence you saw companies like HDHomeRun and even television manufactures supporting the CableCARD standard.

One of the main reasons why the mandate was abandoned was the world moved on from CableCARD. In fact if you think about it from a competition perspective, Comcast and all the incumbent MSOs (Cable companies) have more competition than they ever had with over the top streaming services with the likes of YouTube TV, Hulu, among dozens of others.

Further with the creation of AppleTV, Amazon Fire stick, and the dozen of other competitors even without ChannelsDVR, the ability to stream content from every network AND access all the previous seasons within applications is 1000x better than CableCARD boxes. In fact it's light years past the age when CableCARD boxes were even necessary which is why the government allowed the cable companies to stop supporting it.

The answer for us who absolutely do not want a clunky set top box with expensive lease fees is TV Everywhere (TVE). Comcast absolutely supports TVE and Channels DVR works with the TVE service from Comcast. There are some quirks which a previous poster mentioned around authentication issues that crop up once in a while where either you have to submit a ticket (or 10) to help Channels development team figure out what changed so the streams will work again or the other issue is making sure you do not enable Two Factor authentication on your Xfinity account because Channels will not be able to authenticate properly. Once in awhile Xfinity will wrongfully think Channels is trying to hack your account and reset your password which you need to change on their site then put the password back into your TVE account within Channels DVR server and all is well again.

The good news is Comcast is not going to disable TVE anytime soon. They have to have it to compete against the dozens of streaming services and they know it. Further the entire ecosystem of AppleTV and all the other players allow you access to the content by using authentication to your Xfinity TVE streaming account. Xfinity knows they cannot compete or stop the world of AppleTV Fire Sticks, etc.. and they are constantly losing their traditional cable TV services to cord cutters to the tune of tens / hundreds of thousands every year.

While it's true that we're not currently seeing 4k stream quite honestly for me, it's more than fine when it comes to getting all the cable stations I used to get over my set top box. Further with ChannelsDVR, the commercial skipping alone just blows away using a DVR on a set top box let alone the fact of the user interface over Apple TV is way better and you effectively have an unlimited DVR if you have a NAS to use with your storage vs. a fixed small hard drive on a unit like a CableCARD TV or Homerun.

So what I do is for my local stations, I have an HDHomerun that talks to my off-the-air antenna and that is one source within Channels, the second source is my Xfinity account and I added Pluto TV (500 channels) as a third source even though I don't find myself watching a lot from the Pluto streams. I technically have 10x the number of stations I ever had when I had a set top box whether it is CableCARD or traditional set top box.

There is one downside that I ran into and you should be aware of it. In some major metropolitan areas Xfinity has turned to metering the monthly bandwidth of their Internet access. I currently get 1.2 TB of bandwidth per month. I thought that because I was an Xfinity TVE customer I would be getting the streams within Comcast's network and it wouldn't count against my bandwidth cap, but it's not the case. The TVE streams come from remote autonomous systems (networks) and so the bandwidth you use for watching TV is metered against your cap. I have not run into a single month where I was up against my cap thereby getting charged more, but it is something to keep in mind depending on your situation. You can always pay more to Xfinity for an uncapped Internet package but of course they charge more per month.

Another point is you can stay with Xfinity for Internet access and use a different provider like YouTubeTV for your TVE if you aren't happy because as I mentioned both are going to count against your bandwidth cap (if you have one).

I can tell you I have Channels on all my AppleTVs, I can stream it to my PCs over the web interface, I can stream it to my iPhone from remote and access my DVR content and it just blows away the world of CableCARD on a standalone unit.

I hope this helps. Ditch that old CableCARD HDHomeRun and get on the TVE streaming train. It's a lot better IMO.

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I recently added two more cablecards to my Comcast account by contacting Xfinity Support on Twitter and having them mail them to me. I now have 3 cablecards and all are no extra cost. 2 Tivo Roamio Pros and 1 HDHR Prime.

I also use Channels DVR TV Everywhere Xfinity to supplement the HDHR Prime because TV Everywhere gives me several HD channels that aren't available in HD on QAM tuners. FXM, Sundance, Reelz, Hallmark Drama, AHC.

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I am very happy with my Comcast 2 cable cards at no charge and a 5.00 credit for my 2 primes. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: and I never get not authorized when accessing my channels or have to reset a password so you tell me is TVE better than a Cable card. In my case no they are paying me to use the Cable cards.

Good response and your points are valid. Just don’t see being able to hold onto CableCARD is a long term solution

Yeah if they fail at some time, I will not pursue Cable Cards again... This DVR thing for me is more a hobby for me ...

I remember reading that Comcast will most likely support cable cards until like 2032 or something like that. The question is how many channels will still be QAM by then.

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Hmm, maybe this is why Comcast never requested me to bring my old cable card back to them when i cancelled their service about 8mo ago. It was the only hardware i had with them and i didn’t bother going out of my way to return it unless they told me to. 8months later it’s still sitting on the shelf lol. Probably useless now - but forget Comcast! Awful company!

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Actually, seeing ~940 Mbpos means the 1Gbit ethernet connection to your cable modem is the bottleneck. In our region (SF Bay Area) Comcast originally provisioned 'gigabit' service with a cap of 1200Mbits, but last year increased it to 1400Mbits (at least in my region). As usual, it's 'up to', and they don't guarantee anything.

If you have a Cable Modem with a 2.5 Gbits Ethernet link like the Netgear CM2000, you'll see the actual available download bandwidth. Yes, residential DOCSIS will always be asymmetric, upload will be a fraction of the download. Just the nature of the DOCSIS standard and how the cable company deploys it.

I run an automated Ookla speed test in the small hours of the morning - here's yesterday: Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test

(In the interests of full disclosure, I work at Netgear)

Until TVE has the same video/audio (more audio) quality as cablecard-driven sources, your otherwise great post is questionable.

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Like psperry, I ditched my Cable Card (2 HD Primes) and use antenna and TVE (HuluTV) and have no issue. Lost Hallmark Channel, but fortunately my wife was ok with that, otherwise we get everything else we watch.

Biggest hassle was that I had to port over the "house" line from the triple play package to our cell service because my wife didn't want to give up the house number (she gives that out instead of her cell to retailers, etc). Cut about $30 out of our savings, but still saving a decent amount by cutting the cord.

I have been using just TVE because I packed my Primes (moving) but the sound on TVE sucks on my Atmos sound system .. no way I ditch the Primes. Great sound is a big part of a Cinema system.

TVE is great as a last ditch fallback in case all Primes are in use but for the main system it is bearable but not great..

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Please reference any public source that explicitly states Xfinity will support TVE in the long term?

Has anyone on this thread suggested a standalone unit? HDHomeRun Prime is just another source for Channels, and all sources can do these things.

This is an objectively "wrong" opinion, lol. TVE is an intermediate solution (a hack if you will) by Channels (it's still in Beta - yes?) to work around the slow death of CableCard.

If you think TVE is better than a Prime with CableCard, you're clearly running a sub-par video and audio implementation where the differences aren't obvious. For those choosing the highest quality and audio, it's still a CableCard device (with parity achievable via streaming from a dedicated provider app).

This all assumes no DRM on the channels which is a different problem (that the majority of channels on Xfinity don't suffer from).

It's all good if you enjoy TVE, but please don't be spreading misinformation saying it's "better". Unless your only criteria is convenience, it's demonstrably not better. lol

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I guess I'm confused why this is a slow death for ChannelsDVR?

I just dumped Cablevision/Optimum and their CABLECards for all my Tivos and instead now have true 1GB (up and down) fiber with Frontier I stream Hulu+LiveTV and Philo, plus Pluto, Stirr, and SamsungTV with an Apple TV running ChannelsDVR. I get every single channel I got with Cablevision, including the live locals, as well as hundreds more for about the same price. I'm done with dealing with cable companies, their equipment and awful customer service.

If you can't ditch your cable ISP because they have a local monopoly, just get their best internet-only package, dump the cable, and do what I and thousands of others have done, and never worry about CABLEcards again. It's totally liberating.

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lol, it’s not. It’s a trolling headline.

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FYI, this can bring back those Hallmark Channels into Channels DVR: Frndly TV for Channels

errr - maybe if you forget 3 important words in it...

SSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :wink:

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When my Tivo stopped working, I decided to give up on Tivo and I returned my cable card. I use ChannelsDVR to watch cable channels. It is called TV Everywhere (TVE). Other posters here have mentioned it.

It's unfortunate cable companies are doing away with cable cards because it lessens the competition. However there are alternatives. Xfinity has a streaming app too. It's called Xfinity Stream.

40 up is high. It's about 6 for me.