Repurposing Comcast cable box

April 19, 2012 1:51 PM

Can I use an old Comcast digital cable box as a digital converter box to connect an antenna to an old analog TV? If not, is there anything interesting I can do with it beyond ebay?
posted by pilibeen to Technology (4 answers total)

No. Digital cable boxes can only be used to deliver Comcast digital cable services to a TV. Without an active account with Comcast all the box will do is display a message saying something to the effect of "not authorized call xxx-xxxx for information." Technically Comcast boxes remain the property of Comcast. I'm not exactly sure why people on eBay buy these boxes as they won't be supported by any cable company. Maybe there's some haxxor group out there than can hack into them for free HBO or flash them to be able to place video from a hard drive.
posted by birdherder at 2:40 PM on April 19, 2012

Even if the box isn't locked out, digital cable uses a different encoding than over-the-air digital (QAM vs. VSB). I think the frequencies are different as well.
posted by ckape at 4:23 PM on April 19, 2012

Agree. Give it back to Comcast. It's useless.
posted by gjc at 5:50 AM on April 20, 2012

Ceremonial destruction. Preferebly by smashing, and then fire. Record and place on Youtube. Gain the respect of 10's of thousands of disgruntled comcast customers.
posted by Big_B at 9:24 AM on April 20, 2012