Stupid comcast - won't let me set up STB on my own.

[philly_phenom]

I just called to request an STB for my HD-PVR. In the past, when I called for equipment, I just drove down to the local office & picked it up.

Now there telling me I need a tech to install it. There's no way he's going to install it (or even know how to install it) in this manner...

Anyone else have this problem?

[replaytv]

I found that comcast kiosk at local mall has better service and might wave certain fee with self installation and no tech.

Dan L.

[zaphod7501]

Comcast is known for "Nickel and Dime-ing" you to death with lots of little add-ons. It's also possible that their newer boxes have a cablecard in them to satisfy some open access rules (that are usually ignored by cablecos) and would actually need a tech.

Do you have a TV with Component inputs? (preferably an HD set) That would be the TV to set up their box upon. The HD-PVR has a loop through on the connections, so once the box is set up, (and they probably leave) you would just break the cable run and insert the HD-PVR into the loop. The device should be invisible to the cable company since it is an analog connection and no HDCP handshaking is present.

You just need to make sure they connect it using the Component cables and make sure you know how to change the output resolutions yourself. (480i, 720p, 1080i, etc) If your set, for instance, only has 480i component inputs, then you would claim that you're buying a new TV and don't want to pay for service calls to change from 480i to 1080i on the box when the new set arrives. You could also claim that you're saving any HDMI connections for your Blu-Ray, upscaling DVD, and HD-DVD player if they want to use HDMI because they require HDCP for full playback resolution and the cable box does not. You're naturaly going to be on your own setting up a Blaster or the recording/playback software anyway.

[philly_phenom]

I must have got a clueless rep, because I called back & got another person - and they told me to swing by today & pick up my box... go figure.

[whurlston]

I must have got a clueless rep

Can't be. I just find that shocking!

[philly_phenom]

Can't be. I just find that shocking!

I know, right

Anyway, I have the box now - now I just have to find time to set it up.

My sons birthday party is today, and then I have to head in for 3rd shift tonight & tomorrow night.

I hope I can find time, because I head out on travel for work on Tuesday & won't be back for a couple of weeks.

[thisisnotadrill]

i hope you get it set up as well. i have gotten mine working under a free trial version of sageTV but the feed from the HD-PVR is really touchy and i am looking forward to seeing if you get it working correctly under GB-PVR before I do and if so if the feed is as touchy as it is for me (getting choppy and then just cutting out until you restart the HD-PVR).

[zaphod7501]

You might try just a recording without viewing to see if it's a recording problem or a playback problem. This should give you a file that can be tested with different players also.

[thisisnotadrill]

I've been playing around with arcsoft's video capture because it was the easiest to use for testing purposes and it came with the HD-PVR.

In nine trials, the longest the a/v stream lasted before failing was ~4m15s, the shortest 1m15s, and the median somewhere near 2m15s. In all cases resetting the HD-PVR fixed the stream. I also tried seeing if it was just the video preview that was failing by capturing video through the program. The recorded video cut off at precisely the same time the preview video also failed.

unfortunately, I can't call hauppauge until monday.