third-party digital receivers

[miamicanes]

Is the ~$5 fee for additional digital receivers purely a rental charge for the box, or is it a programming fee that would have to be paid even if I owned my own compatible digital box?

If it's just a box rental charge, does a purchased box have to be cablecard compatible to authorize/descramble digital-but-not-premium channels (MTV-2, BBC America, etc), or will anything that supports the right standard (DVB? QAM?), work for non-premium channels? Or some combination of the two (ie, not scrambling the bottom tier of digital channels, but scrambling the upper tier in addition to scrambling the premium channels)

 

[rcbridge]

At this point in time you have to play along with the cable-co, if you purchase your own box they may not authorize it and if you use a box such as the LG (or any QAM capable box) it will only pick up certain channels. the price of such a box is still about $200 or more. That can be 3 or 4 years of rental fee. Some time in the future you will be able to own your own box!!
Cable cards on many systems are still at the early stages and you may not have some of the features of a rented STB.

 

[skakusha]

Getting a Comcast Cable Card Next Week!

I will let you guys know how this works. I have 2 HD DVR's now, but wanted to try the cable card since it is free.

I know that there will not be a guide, nor pay per view purchasing ability with the card.