I pay $16/month for a dual tuner HDTV DVR from Comcast. Could I buy one from eBay, turn in the one I rent, and then have my own tuner? Would that be stealing from the cable company as long as I pay my bill? Basically I want to stop paying for the $16 rental every month. I could recoup my costs in three months.

 

If it works then I don't see why it is illegal. It's no different than if you still used a VCR....remember those?

The problem is that I don't know if you will be able to use it as a tuner. Comcast may not allow it. And I don't know if you will be able to connect it to another cable box.

Also, if yours is like the one I have then you are paying about $8 for the DVR and $8 for HD. If you get your own DVR and it works, you will still have to pay for HD.

 

Comcast doesn't separate the DVR and the HD. It's one $15.95 charge a month. Unless of course, you're simply splitting up the $16 fee into two components on an equal basis.

I really don't even need the HD. Sure, I watch it whenever I watch TV, but since they took a lot of the shows that I used to watch off the air, I don't watch TV as much. Plus, a Master's Degree will cut down on the amount of time to watch TV.

 

We made our own dual tuner PVR via an old computer we had laying around just so we could stop paying the cable company to rent theirs (buying one would've cost just as much or more than making our own). We still pay our cable package, but not for the use of their PVR. We use Windows Media Centre and store pictures, videos, movies, etc. as well as watch TV through that computer.

 

Interesting. According to Comcast, I would still need to rent a cable card to use at $6 a month if I did that. Fucking bastards.

 

Yeah, I got a TV tuner in my new PC for that purpose, but AFTER it shows up I got the little piece of paper with the disclaimer that it doesn't work with DTV . You'd think that's something they'd tell you on the front end...guess not. Oh well, the VCR still works great for the three or four things I record a year.

gatrhumpy - you'll be fine with your own box so long as it receives/descrambles your cable signal. Not all cable companies allow aftermarket boxes to tune their signal (like DTV and the one in my PC). You can definitely get a standalone, no monthly fee DVR, but you might not be able to get your own DVR/tuner.

 

I think you can get them to remove the HD, keep your DVR and it will not be $16. I think I asked them about that because we though about getting a second DVR for our bedroom and we do not have an HDTV up there. Maybe I'm wrong, but I though they would separate it for you.

 

I think they still have to remotely authorize your new box, which they would be unlikely to do.

I've looked into this before (as a comcast customer) so I could get a box for a second TV, but all roads have led me to this answer...

 

You are going to jail...Sorry.

 

Cable cards are a pain, dont go for it!

 

If you buy a Moto box it is most likely it is stolen. As soon as you plug it in it will get pwnd by policy and it won't work.

If you buy something like a Tivo it won't work without cable card.

 

dont pass go, dont collect $200?

 

You said it!!! They have what I believe they call digital outlet fee, if they don't own the box, ie: serial # don't match or show up in their system your just SOL

 

Yeah, the associate said that most of the DVRs on eBay are stolen, and when the customer tries to hook it up, we have it in our system, and then they call asking, "WTF is going on?" LOL.

So either I have to build my own and rent a cable card at $6 a month, but then I have to build my own computer (which isn't a problem because I already have one built; I just have to add a Blu-Ray player, higher end graphics card, and DVR feature). Maybe one day I'll do this and sell my Blu-Ray player.

 

I believe avsforum.com has a lot of info on this.