mrdeeno

I have HD cable service through RCN and a Motorola DCT6200 cable box. A friend of mine gave me a HD DVR Motorola DCT6412 Phase III cable box (looks exactly the same as the non-DVR box I have through RCN.

I hooked up the DVR box and everything worked fine and I was recording stuff to test it out. A day later, I lost all my premium channels (Showtime, Cinemax, etc...both regular and HD versions). I still have regular non-premium channels in both regular and HD. When i reconnect the non-DVR version, I get my cable channels back. Funny that this started a day after they were working fine on the DVR box. I have a feeling that it's because of some signal or ID number on the DVR box that is different from the RCN box which is why it is blocking the premium channels.

I planned on using the non-DVR version in my room and the DVR version in my movie room, but plan to change this around if I cannot find a fix (I would only record non-premium programs anyway, like TV series that I dont' have time to watch).

I know that RCN charges extra to rent the DVR box from them, and they also charge extra for an additional box for another room. Now since I have 2 boxes, one is technically mine and not rented, will they know or even care that I have another hook up and also that I'm using a DVR?

I know that when i was living with my aunt and she had the old-school regular cable, they charged a certain amount to hook up "extra" rooms...it was all bullshit because all it is was to go to the basement, find which cable goes to the room in question, and hook it up to the splitter.

doopstr

When you plugged in that DVR it contacted the mothership and then got pwned with policy. That box is not authorized on their network. I'm actually surprised that they didn't shut it down completly. BTW I don't even think they would authorize that box if you asked them. The reason being is that they would assume that its stolen either from them or another provider.

The reason I say it is stolen is because no one buys those things. They are all rented. Most likely your buddy didn't turn it in when he was supposed to.

I still can't figure out why people buy these things on eBay, I have never seen a way to hack them.

Doom878

I have 2 DVR's and on my bill I see charges for each one. I always thought if you had your own they would just change you the DVR outlet fee but not the rental. I have Comcast btw.

mrdeeno

That's what I was wondering...

My bill is set up differently...I have cost for the HD plan and internet, then I have equipment rental. I think the cost of having a HD receiver or a DVR is part of the rental fee, not part of the service fee.

mrdeeno

For all I know, this could be a canadian box since operate things differently in Canada. I doubt it, but who knows?

This is not originally my friend's box. He runs an electronics store, which is how he ended up with it and told me to try it out and keep it if it works.

But as far as I know, the box is working for non-premium channels, which is fine by me if until they do decide to blacklist it. They can't charge me extra for it, because the way the RCN plans work is that you don't pay extra for another connection (you only pay for 1 service plan) and the extra cost is in the rental price of additional units. and they can't just tack on an equipment rental charge if they did not provide the equipment. I'm also sure they can't trace the box back to my connection either...the only way they can tell is by matching the serial number of the box's signal to the address on the account, because all cable connections are daisy chained to the neighbors and everyone else with RCN/cable.

Doom878

You can always call your provider for a what if. Or post at www.avsforums.com in the cable section.

SiGGy

This is just simple provisioning...

The HD DVR isn't provisioned for all the premium channels... this is why it lost them when it got it's provisioning update via the cable network.

And you didn't get your channels "back" on your NON-DVR your provisioning contains access to those channels. That never went away...

Cable companies provision boxes based on their serial number. It's on the back of the box; if you want to use the DVR box legit call the cable company and have them add the box on to your account... in their system they keep track of your boxes. Then when you add/delete channels it sends the updates to all of the boxes they know about for you.