Cable filters and if anyone has used one before?

[NetTalk]

Cable filters and if anyone has used one before?

[TechStep]

Just finished reading some threads/posts so I decided to go ahead and post my experience. Just a little over 8 months ago now, literally the day before my second daughter was delivered, my oldest boy came into my office/dining room (no jokes please) with a grin like the Grinch on his face. He wanted me to buy one of those digital filters. He always has me paying $50 for his wrestling WWF stuff and I've also been known to watch a good boxing match every once in a while. Long story short, I got one of those cable filters for my Motorola DVR box in the living room WITHOUT, telling the kids or the old lady . I still make the kids ask to order stuff but when the bill comes there's no sign of anything, heh. Every month I squeeze about 30 PPV's out of it without having to clear the memory on the box. If I only order like 20-25 ppvs in a month, then I don't need to clear the box because it clears on its own every 30 days. I figured if it didn't work I'd just get my money back since they have like a year guarantee or somethin like that (had to check my bookmarks www.spam.com).


BTW, does anyone know what the Cablecard slot does?. I've never seen anyone who used theirs and I don't understand what it would be used for. Is it for the cable guy when it's being installed or something?


Thanks and God bless!


L. Macspammer

[Krankshaft]

The cablecard is like the SIM card on your cell phone it identifies the subscriber when the box authenticates to the cable network.

I had no idea you mean't that kind of filter.

Those high pass filters can land you in some pretty hot water if you're not careful. Purging your PPV history is not as easy as you would think either.

Check out this link:

http://www.digital-cable-filter-scam.com/index2.html

When I saw these online some years ago I did a little research.

Here is an important excerpt:

Every so often your cable company sends out a test signal to ensure your cable box is online. Because your digital cable filter prevents your box from sending information BACK to your cable company, your box will no longer be able to report back to your cable provider that it is online. When this happens several times in a row, eventually your cable company will shut off ALL of your digital cable television programming.

Here is one pertaining to erasing the PPV history cache:

After reading up on it and then experimenting on my own this is what I found: Even though your settings say 0, the information that you watched these PPV events is still there. This box is a computer. The information is not deleted, just moved to a temp folder as it were.

As long as the filter is on, the Cable Co. cannot communicate with your box.
When the Cable Co. cannot communicate with your box, they turn off your PPV feature, or even worse your cable all together.

Every PPV event that you "purchase" is date and time stamped.

When you remove your filter and re-hook your cable to the box, even though your settings say 0, you will let your Cable Co. again communicate with your box (computer) and give them the information of each and every PPV event ever watched through your box.

The more months that go by without being charged for your PPV, the harder it is to explain away. Is it worth the hassle anyway?”

These things aren't as bulletproof as you would think they are. I wouldn't advise anyone anywhere to use these things.

Maybe your cable company has different policies which allows this loophole that clears the cache and possibly they don't send confirmation signals. But be aware things can change at any time. If they do I hope you have a good excuse for the cable co .

Be careful out there.

[Per Hansson]

This is why it's much better with Satellite television
The signal can only go one way, which is towards you

[delaware74b]

True, per hanssn, but only halfway there. The problem with satellite, esp with DirecTV is your satellite boxes either have a phone connection or internet connection to authorize operation of the boxes. Also, pay per view requests are processed the same way as cable, a two-way connection, utilizing the phone or internet connection. Your on-demand across DirecTV is actually dowloaded through the internet, wife's shows didn't record cause the router forgot its settings after thunderstorm scrambled the router and DSL modem (D-OH!)

[ratdude747]

or do what i do and not do digital programming. analog cannot be drm'd like that. and its a lot cheaper, and since we have no lcd tvs in our house, its cheaper. we dont get ppv nor do we care about it. between tru tv, spike, discovery, msnbc, cnn, and tlc, were covered. espn is good too.

[370forlife]

Originally Posted by Per Hansson

This is why it's much better with Satellite television
The signal can only go one way, which is towards you

Ya except dish network charges us $5 a month for not having our receiver hooked to the phone line.

[Player2]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

or do what i do and not do digital programming. analog cannot be drm'd like that. and its a lot cheaper, and since we have no lcd tvs in our house, its cheaper. we dont get ppv nor do we care about it. between tru tv, spike, discovery, msnbc, cnn, and tlc, were covered. espn is good too.

Only problem is that's not gonna last for long. Analog broadcast is done, and the cable companies are migrating more and more channels over to digital. I haven't had cable for almost a year, but I've been told that Comcast only offers about 30 channels here in analog now. When I canceled my service in January everything up to 65ish was analog. It makes sense though, they can fit (if I remember correctly) about 10 channels worth of standard def programming in the bandwidth that one analog SD channel uses. Now if they would just use ClearQAM so the consumers aren't forced to 'lease' their box. I guess being a legal monopoly has its perks.

[Krankshaft]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

between tru tv, spike, discovery, msnbc, cnn, and tlc, were covered. espn is good too.

Haha you still have tru tv, spike, and tlc? Those were the first to get the analog axe last June on my cable network (the crooks at Cablevision) along with a whole list of others. They even moved the public access channels to digital which is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of.

I had to get a digital box last year.

I can see a time where the only analog services they offer are broadcast channels.

[Per Hansson]

ratdude747; there is no analog TV signals in Sweden anymore, all of it has been migrated to digital systems...

delaware74b; the sat providers in Sweden rely on a different scheme, no boxes can communicate back to them, they are not hooked up for two way communication (talking satellite only now)
When you order PPV you tell them your subscription number, and they add that to the satellite broadcast, so that your subscription can decrypt the signal for how long you order PPV...

[ratdude747]

well they did axe the country music channel and national geographic. but we did ironically get big ten network in for free. odd.

[370forlife]

Originally Posted by Per Hansson

ratdude747; there is no analog TV signals in Sweden anymore, all of it has been migrated to digital systems...

delaware74b; the sat providers in Sweden rely on a different scheme, no boxes can communicate back to them, they are not hooked up for two way communication (talking satellite only now)
When you order PPV you tell them your subscription number, and they add that to the satellite broadcast, so that your subscription can decrypt the signal for how long you order PPV...

With dish net, the satellite box has a little dial up modem that connects to the dish server and relays info back that way. Such as when you order a ppv show, it has to dial out, connect, confirm, and your good to watch your porn or whatever you ordered.

[PlainBill]

A couple of points bear pointing out.

1. This particular thread started as a rather clumsy attempt by a seller to promote his 'filters'.

2. Those filters are a much better deal for the seller (500% markup, no advertising costs) than they are for the cable subscriber who buys them (getting hit with 6 months of PPVs at one time - Yikes!!).

3. All of the various hardware and software methods of avoiding paying for PPV or other programming constitute theft of service. Now, we each have our standards, but if I'm going to steal, it's gong to be enough I can retire to Belize.

4. I'm as eager as anyone to save a few dollars (that and the satisfaction are the reasons I repair LCD monitors ). Sometimes you pay now, sometimes you pay later. Remember the guys who bought a smart card programmer, then got a letter from DirecTV demanding $5,000?

5. No, I'm not claiming cable or satellite pricing is fair. But if you don't like to pay $5.00 to watch a PPV movie, there is always Netflix or redbox.

PlainBill

[Krankshaft]

Geez you're right both the first and second user is scripted.

They're probably the same spammer they should be banned.

Dang I can't believe I missed that. The fact that both users only had one post should have tipped me off. I definately will be more wary with new users in the future.

Check this out:

http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/com...ml#post1680715

Even the users are carbon copies.

This guy really gets around:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Either he's got a bot doing this or he really has no life.

Now I see why forums use Recapcha to make these spineless assholes register manually.

[ratdude747]

omg! BAN THEM!

how in the hell did this happen?

[PlainBill]

Originally Posted by Krankshaft

Geez you're right both the first and second user is scripted.

They're probably the same spammer they should be banned.

Dang I can't believe I missed that. The fact that both users only had one post should have tipped me off. I definately will be more wary with new users in the future.

Check this out:

http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/com...ml#post1680715

Even the users are carbon copies.

This guy really gets around:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Either he's got a bot doing this or he really has no life.

Now I see why forums use Recapcha to make these spineless assholes register manually.

The first post struck me as strange, the second one rang the alarm bell. I reported it via the red triangle and was slightly surprised nobody deleted the thread.

FWIW, filters like these are available on eBay for under $10.00. If somone is going to get ripped off, it only makes sense to make the amount as small as possible.

PlainBill

[ratdude747]

considering that some of the google hits resulted in bad links, we arnt the first to bust them.

[kc8adu]

done.left open as a discussion came out of the spam.carry on folks.

[ratdude747]

added a thread to continue the discussion

so we can no longer look at spam every time we go to the thread.

[NxB]

If you want free PPV, you have to hack the box. Dish network is a bit easier as its usually a 1 way connection and you probably don't have to buy service at all.

The filters don't work unless you properly clear the box through JTAG and or BDM. If you can do that, no point in using a filter.