Replacing Analog Cable TV

June 2, 2008 6:46 PM

My analog cable(vision) just dropped 9 channels--prices remain the same. It's time for a change.

I woud like to use another service. I would like to be able to record stuff on my computer. I am currently using a Hauppauge card on the analog signal, but can stand downloads from a proprietary box, I guess.

Is this possible? If so, who is best, or at least workable: FIOS, Dish, or DirecTV?

posted by hexatron to technology (10 comments total)

Why bother subscribing to TV and recording it when you can just connect to your local Usenet server and download the TV shows an hour after they're played? I do that (even though cable is included in my association fees), and it's much easier than doing it manually.

Of course it's questionably legal. But if I can record something for myself, why can't someone else do it for me?
posted by jrockway at 6:53 PM on June 2

Shows? All I do is get the bowlderized movies & chop the ads out of them.
posted by hexatron at 7:02 PM on June 2

If you want to keep it legal (and free), there's hulu, plus a lot of channels have streaming shows available from their websites. It really depends on what you want, though.
posted by phunniemee at 7:09 PM on June 2

DirecTV!
posted by Incognita at 8:12 PM on June 2

Analog is about to completely die. FCC mandate, yadayada.

All of the service providers you listed are either entirely digital, or will be soon. That means recording them will be a slight pain in the ass, unless you want to do a lot of manual recording. This applies to absolutely every cable provider in the United States.

That Hauppauge card is going to be relatively useless quite soon unless it has a digital tuner in it, and even then, you'll only be able to view unencrypted services. Both major players in the cable conditional access game have unbroken encryption schemes, so don't expect a workaround any time soon. Don't expect what you're trying to do to get any easier, either.

You CAN get the digital box and record the analog output. For some silly reason, recording the analog output is more legal than recording digital output. As of next year, that'll be your only option, and that will be temporary, as analog TV's are also being phased out. Temporary, in this case, is measured in years, not months.

It's a sad time for fair use and consumer rights. You're breaking the law by doing any of this, and so is jrockway. You don't lease the programming, you lease the mpeg stream. If your video isn't of that mpeg stream, it's not your video, and it's piracy. If the copy you download just happens to be from your service providor with the same compression settings and the same line noise, well, that's slightly different, but still won't hold up in court.

Great, now I'm sad. Way to go, guys.
posted by onedarkride at 4:17 AM on June 3

I absolutely love DISH. Been with them for about 8 years now for price, sirius radio, simplicity, and now DVR.

When it comes down to it Dish and Direct TV are both satellite, duh. I personally prefer the navigation and guides of Dish over Direct TV, also DTV (i believe) offers XM while Dish is Sirius but with the merger hopefully getting the last approval soon won't really matter.
posted by doorsfan at 5:58 AM on June 3

sorry forgot the question about recording on computer - not sure if you can but Dish does let you download from the box to an external source.
posted by doorsfan at 5:59 AM on June 3

Analog broadcast television is going to die. The FCC mandate has nothing to do with what cable TV does with their signals.

That said, TV is expensive. There are getting to be at least a couple of choices nowadays (dish, Fios and CATV), but they are going to be similarly priced. Just find a package that fits your needs, or adjust your expectations.

Or pirate it off of the internet. Seems like a lot of hassle, but maybe if it's only a couple of shows that you actually watch, the time spent might be worth it.
posted by gjc at 4:28 PM on June 3

A little late to this particular party, but if you have RCN in your neighborhood, their set top box is, at least as of last year, still sending its signals without encryption. I used to run a home theatre PC with a firewire connection to record the straight digital feed off the box, and could do pure HD recordings without any special hardware. It was glorious.

... until we moved to another town that did not have RCN. Now, I'm stuck back in Hauppauge analog hell.

fwiw, and to partially counter the pessimism of onedarkride, there is a slim glimmer of hope for hardcore HTPC nerds -- the Hauppauge HD-PVR, which will let you capture recordings over the component video ports of your set top box -- the requirements are such that you'll need a fairly new and beefy system to run the thing, but at least you can record digital channels from your cable or satellite provider without worrying about 5c encryption.
posted by bl1nk at 10:28 AM on June 5

gjc, actually, it does, but not directly. Cable providers aren't going to continue converting signals they receive from digital to analog. There aren't many satellites (I'd say any, but I'm not positive) that still broadcast analog, and the few services on the wire that ARE still being sent down the wire in analog are being switched over, as hexatron is seeing.

Reason: It's a waste of bandwidth.

1 QAM is: (assuming qam256)

1 analog service
10 digital services with full video
4-5 high-def video services with full video

Now, if you were a cable provider, would you choose one service with awful error correction, or 10 with less awful error correction?

However, the analog outputs from the cable boxes will be around for a while.
posted by onedarkride at 8:46 AM on June 7