Just an fyi. Received my comcast bill today (central jersey) and the dvr fee has increased. First dvr in the house is $11.95 (was $9.95) Heres the real kicker. Additional dvrs in the house $16.15 each (was $9.95) My bill increased $14 just from dvrs not including the other rate hikes.

Mike

That sucks!

I'll have to check my next Comcast bill :mad:

Just an fyi. Received my comcast bill today (central jersey) and the dvr fee has increased. First dvr in the house is $11.95 (was $9.95) Heres the real kicker. Additional dvrs in the house $16.15 each (was $9.95) My bill increased $14 just from dvrs not including the other rate hikes.
My local '07 price list is not clear, but my educated guess is that the second DVR fee of $16.95 includes mirroring of Standard service.
IOW, before it was 'DVR $9.95' and 'Enhanced (Digital Starter) A/O $4.95', total, $14.90.
So, really the second DVR is $2 more like the first first DVR is.
Is that not correct?

What gets confusing is if you get 'Digital Classic/Plus A/O', which was $8.90.
Does it still exist?
If so, how much $ over a second regular box?
And how much over a second DVR?

Does 'Whole House Premium Access' for $5 still exist?

Sigh. Still worth it though, at least for the first DVR. And the more I get used to having a DVR, the more it'll be worth. I'd figure seeing the rental for an HD DVR go up to $20 a month within 10 years.

Sigh. Still worth it though, at least for the first DVR. And the more I get used to having a DVR, the more it'll be worth. I'd figure seeing the rental for an HD DVR go up to $20 a month within 10 years.
Well, here they include the first regular box in Digital service, which if itemized would be $4.15, (this is the price for a box for a la carte premiums), and then it would be $11.95 to upgrade to a DVR, so actual cost for DVR is $16.10.
(Areas that itemize all STBs will likely now be charging $15.95.)

Then add Franchise fees and taxes of over 11% here, and it is ~$17.90 total.
Do you still think the first DVR is still worth it? ;) :)

I got my bill yesterday with all the new charges. Made me ill. Can I just buy one of these boxes (Moto 6412) and not have to pay the $11.99 per month, or do they control the programming by serial number or something?

I got my bill yesterday with all the new charges. Made me ill. Can I just buy one of these boxes (Moto 6412) and not have to pay the $11.99 per month, or do they control the programming by serial number or something?I'm pretty sure you'd end up paying more for the 6412 if you bought it and then had to replace it in two years. I'm on my 3rd and 4th DVR in just about two years.

Interesting as Cox dropped the DVR price $4 in the upcoming year - from $9.95 to $5.95 iirc.

Well, here they include the first regular box in Digital service, which if itemized would be $4.15, (this is the price for a box for a la carte premiums), and then it would be $11.95 to upgrade to a DVR, so actual cost for DVR is $16.10.
(Areas that itemize all STBs will likely now be charging $15.95.)Then add Franchise fees and taxes of over 11% here, and it is ~$17.90 total.So basically the two boxes are the same price -- the first one just seems less expensive since part of the cost of it is paid for from the digital package price. Thanks for that clarification. It sure does make a lot of sense.

Do you still think the first DVR is still worth it? ;) :)Yes, definitely. It's the one we would use 99% of the time. A second DVR would be used so infrequently that it wouldn't be worth it unless it was a lot less expensive.

I got my bill yesterday with all the new charges. Made me ill. Can I just buy one of these boxes (Moto 6412) and not have to pay the $11.99 per month, or do they control the programming by serial number or something?The latter. In the United States, cable companies will not activate privately-owned STBs. As tluxon mentioned, however, you're better off paying the $11.99 per month, rather than buying a new $500 DVR every couple of years. (That's actually the going price on eBay, where they're sold for the Canadian market -- and that's $500 USD, not CND. They'd probably cost a lot more retail.)

In the United States, cable companies will not activate privately-owned STBs.

Your statement is not 100% true:

They do activate cable cards, so you can own your STB (like a series 3 TiVo) and have it activated, and pay your STB fee to TiVo instead of the cable company.
(but the cable companies still hit you up with extra fees for the cable cards...)

Well, while I can believe that my statement might not be 100% true (perhaps closer to 99%), it is true with respect to the TiVo Series 3. (I actually had one for a while.) The cable company does not activate the TiVo Series 3. You can just plug it in and go. No activation is necessary. If you want the program guide to work right, or if you want encrypted channels, you'll need CableCARDs installed into the TiVo Series 3. Again, the cable companies will not activate privately-owned CableCARDs. You'll have to rent them from the cable company.

You can use a Tivo without using paying for the service? I thought the box was useless without signing up for the program guide.

TiVo Series 2 and Series 3 DVRs will not work (fully) unless you have paid for service with TiVo.

As I mentioned earlier, you don't have to have Comcast activate your TiVo Series 3, but rather you can just plug it into your Comcast service and it will just work (bring in all the unencrypted channels) without Comcast doing anything extra.

But you still need to activate the service with Tivo to record/watch the unencrypted channels don't you?

Comcast sent a statement in my last bill that laid out the new prices starting Feb '07. HD-DVR service is stated to stay the same at $9.95. I'm in the Boston area though so the rate changes must vary depending on your location.

But you still need to activate the service with Tivo to record/watch the unencrypted channels don't you?With TiVo, yes; With Comcast, no. Just having Comcast service is sufficient, with regard to the Comcast side of things.

Now, I thought you COULD purchase your own Motorola DVR and hook it up through your Comcast service. According to the FCC, it is not illegal to own your own STB (read more here: http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/nrcb4009.txt). I'm researching buying my own through ebay now, seem to be in the $300 range, not $500. I am leery on the problems encountered from my research of these machines online.

BTW, by my Comcast bill, my monthly fee should drop $17 with use of my own box. $11.95 for DVR, $3.00 rental fee (I'm assuming for DVR), and $4.00 digital converter fee (in my digital plus package). Can anyone tell me any differently? $200+ per year for the box is steep, when I can buy one and be even in a year and a half it is tempting.

I've never had a Motorola DVR last even a whole year. The last 6412 went 2 months before the FF & RR functions failed, the one before that went 8 months before the remote control functions got so sluggish I had to turn it in and on my first single tuner model the hard drive got really noisy, probably was going to fail soon.

Glad I didn't have to buy all those :)

Now, I thought you COULD purchase your own Motorola DVR and hook it up through your Comcast service. According to the FCC, it is not illegal to own your own STBThe Motorola DVRs you're talking about don't have a CableCard slot, which is a requirement of the FCC regulations you referred to. Comcast in the United States will not activate Motorola DCT-series DVRs, nor are they required to do so.

DCH- series DVRs will be available soon, but Motorola isn't selling them to the public, so you could readily find that any you find for sale would be stolen merchandise. However, if there ever are legit DCH-seriec DVRs on the market, you could purchase those, and then try to get them working with a cable-company-provided CableCard.

I'm researching buying my own through ebay now, seem to be in the $300 range, not $500. I am leery on the problems encountered from my research of these machines online.

Comcast will not activate the box unless they install it, and from what I hear, those moto boxes on ebay are stolen, so I'm sure comcast also has a list of stolen box serial numbers and will come take it away if you call up and try to activate it, not to mention possible 'Receiving Stolen Goods' charges.

DCT-series boxes are available for sale in Canada. That's the source for many of the boxes. Here in the US, those boxes are doorstops. If you buy one, be prepared to resell it to someone living in Canada for probably a lot less than what you paid for it, because you'll get no use out of it yourself.

Thanks for all of the responses! I'm glad I didn't buy one of these online!!! So I guess the best alternative is the TIVO system? My Panasonic Plasma has cablecard and its own tuners, so I guess I could get a normal TIVO to use simply as a DVR/TVGuide? I would still be paying $12 a month though, minimizing my savings. No wonder TIVO is hurting financially, there seems to be no benefit!!!

I think it is pretty much a tie between buying a TiVo Series 3 and renting Comcast's own DVR. Neither is much better than the other.

I'm in Phila. and just hung up with comcast. Sick of prices going up. Here it is $11.95 1st dvr and $16.90 for the 2nd. Comcast said If I purchase my own HD DVR all I have to do is call them so they can activate/tag it, No additional fees. I'm keeping my 1st DVR, but to raise my 2nd 70% is crazy, That's over $200.00 a year. I haven't really looked into purchasing 1 yet except ebay, but reading these post just bummed me out, I figured I could just buy 1 for a few hundred and be done. Comcast's cable and internet are great but I'm sick of calling every few months asking why my bill is going up.

As a rule, Comcast won't activate private cable boxes in the United States. I'll be that you either got bad information or misunderstood what the agent said.