I am interested in buying a cable descrambler box, but I am anxious about doing so because I am unclear as to the legality and I really don't want to get in trouble.
Why not just rent from Time-Warner NYC? I already do. I have a digital cable box, and pay for many premium stations. The box I want to buy would be a second box, for two purposes: to be able to watch and record at the same time (nearly all channels in NYC are scrambled and require a box), and to get better picture quality via analog, because some of the digital channels are overcompressed and look terrible.
So still, why not get it from the cable company? Well, first off, they won't sell it to me; they'll only rent it to me, and I am not that enthusiastic about raising my cable bill still higher on an indefinite basis.
But more problematic is that I'd like to have analog as a fallback for bad digital channels. But here's the bad part: They won't rent me an analog cable box. If I was an analog customer, they would rent me a second analog box, no problem. But if I'm a digital customer, they will only rent me a digital cable box. It's "policy." It's stupid.
So I want to buy a box, for legitimate reasons, but I am unclear as to what legality there is is around this. I understand that I'm supposed to be able to use my own descrambler if I'm paying for the channels, but since any descrambler I buy is likely to unscramble everything, such as PPV, it might still seem dubious if someone found out I had it and wanted to do something about it. So what is the risk of detection, and what is the risk of
legal trouble? Is there any way for me to really know?
I noticed that some vendors won't even sell to New York, for unspecified reasons (I asked one, and they didn't reply). I also have to say that most of the online vendors seem pretty sketchy, and don't do much to make me feel like I'm not in the shady neighborhood of the net.
Does anyone have any experience with this, or any advice to lend? Any insight would be appreciated!
Why not just rent from Time-Warner NYC? I already do. I have a digital cable box, and pay for many premium stations. The box I want to buy would be a second box, for two purposes: to be able to watch and record at the same time (nearly all channels in NYC are scrambled and require a box), and to get better picture quality via analog, because some of the digital channels are overcompressed and look terrible.
So still, why not get it from the cable company? Well, first off, they won't sell it to me; they'll only rent it to me, and I am not that enthusiastic about raising my cable bill still higher on an indefinite basis.
But more problematic is that I'd like to have analog as a fallback for bad digital channels. But here's the bad part: They won't rent me an analog cable box. If I was an analog customer, they would rent me a second analog box, no problem. But if I'm a digital customer, they will only rent me a digital cable box. It's "policy." It's stupid.
So I want to buy a box, for legitimate reasons, but I am unclear as to what legality there is is around this. I understand that I'm supposed to be able to use my own descrambler if I'm paying for the channels, but since any descrambler I buy is likely to unscramble everything, such as PPV, it might still seem dubious if someone found out I had it and wanted to do something about it. So what is the risk of detection, and what is the risk of
legal trouble? Is there any way for me to really know?
I noticed that some vendors won't even sell to New York, for unspecified reasons (I asked one, and they didn't reply). I also have to say that most of the online vendors seem pretty sketchy, and don't do much to make me feel like I'm not in the shady neighborhood of the net.
Does anyone have any experience with this, or any advice to lend? Any insight would be appreciated!
