How much longer until legacy cable is discontinued?

[wayner92]

I just saw a post on another forum of a Shaw customer in western Canada who is being forced to switch over from legacy cable to Shaw Ignite.

I imagine it is just a matter of time until that happens to Rogers customers as well.  Anyone have any insight into when this will happen in Toronto?

Why do I care? I purchased the older SA/Cisco boxes (SA4250HD, SA8300HD, SA3250HD) 15-20 years ago when they were available for purchase so I don't have to pay a monthly rental fee.  I have a few of them hooked up to a PC based server running SageTV  which uses a Hauppauge HD-PVR to capture the Component signal.  I imagine that the Ignite boxes will not have Component outputs so I will have to buy new capture device to capture HDMI signals, or get a HDMI-Component adapter. 

I also have my own networking hardware setup with Ubiquiti Unifi hardware and my Rogers cable modem is in bridge mode.  My understanding is that it is a little trickier to use Ignite TV with your own networking hardware since the TV signal is sent through the house on your LAN rather than your RF cables.

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[Biollw]

No trick with ignite TV to bridge the modem. All still works. Have mine bridged since day 1 with ignite TV and all apps work fine. LAN is good. I have a server and multiple PCs running and use several types of VPN on a daily bases.

Sorry Ignite boxes only have HDMI output. All other types of output is too old to support.

As a matter of the capture units, I jave no knowledge. Why would would capture TV when 99 % of content is available on demand and to download.

Good Luck

[wayner92]

Why capture TV?  Because it gives me more flexibility and I have full control over the video files.  And I can playback on devices that I bought years ago on my TVs.  So I don't have to rent boxes from Rogers.  And I can watch in other apps like Plex, Kodi, etc.

But the main reason that I continue to have cable is for sports.  I watch hockey, basketball, golf and rugby.  The streaming solutions for sports, even the streaming options from TSN and RSN, still have problems and are generally inferior to recording your own shows and time shifting on your own.

I can push one button and skip forward 2 minutes to quickly skip over commercials and half-times.  I can set up a plugin that will automatically extend games if they run long, etc.

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@wayner92 wrote:

1. Why capture TV?  Because it gives me more flexibility and I have full control over the video files.  And I can playback on devices that I bought years ago on my TVs. 

2. So I don't have to rent boxes from Rogers.  And I can watch in other apps like Plex, Kodi, etc.

3. But the main reason that I continue to have cable is for sports.  I watch hockey, basketball, golf and rugby.  The streaming solutions for sports, even the streaming options from TSN and RSN, still have problems and are generally inferior to recording your own shows and time shifting on your own.

4. I can push one button and skip forward 2 minutes to quickly skip over commercials and half-times.  I can set up a plugin that will automatically extend games if they run long, etc.

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1. If you watch mainly on a TV, you can do all that with IgniteTV connected to the TV via HDMI.  No need for the complexities of Hauppauge, computers, etc.

2. What matters should be the overall cost, box rental included if necessary.  Some people only rent one box and watch via streaming on a device or computer on other TVs.

3. You can get all the sports you mention on IgniteTV in high quality 1080P HD, or 4K for programming available in 4K.

4. With Ignite you can say "skip ahead 2 minutes" into the voice command, or any other segment of time you want.  There is also a one button 30 second skip ahead programmable.

5. It's possible to extend recordings by 30 minutes, or up to1.5 hours, or record the next programme.  IgniteTV is supposed to extend live events until they end, but that doesn't always happen.