Renting Set Top Boxes From Cablevision (to rent, buy, college)

[peabodyn]

I currently rent 6 set top boxes from Cablevision for $41.70 per month - that's $500.00 a year.

Does anyone know of a way to either buy the boxes or use another box that is less expensive?

[qlty]

This is LI NY nothing is cheap.Perhaps you could practice birth control ( 6 boxes??)

[nuts2uiam]

Originally Posted by qlty

This is LI NY nothing is cheap.Perhaps you could practice birth control ( 6 boxes??)

Now that is certainly a helpful response to a good question.

[peabodyn]

Originally Posted by qlty

This is LI NY nothing is cheap.Perhaps you could practice birth control ( 6 boxes??)

Three adult sons - two completed college and masters programs starting their professional careers, one in college and doing well.

Thanks for your helpful response.

[dapanza107]

From what I remember, since CV is all digital, you are REQUIRED to NEED a box DIRECTLY from CV in order to watch their programming (except of course, for the OTA channels like 2,4,5,7,9,11, and so on).
It sucks, but that's the game you play, when you have Cablevision...

[Spanky25]

Originally Posted by peabodyn

Three adult sons - two completed college and masters programs starting their professional careers, one in college and doing well.

Thanks for your helpful response.

Nice to see your children becoming productive in society, rather than living off the "system" (getting free cable).

[MiddleIslander]

If you're a little technically inclined you can get away with a lot of magic... and get rid of some TV's! There are cablecard tuners such as the SiliconDust HDHomeRun which will allow you to view/record 3-8 digital cable channels at once in full HD, and stream cable tv to laptops, ipads, iphones, android devices, windows media center pc's, mythtv, and other such things. Many of these devices can be connected to a TV with a cable, so you're really missing out on nothing!

Or you can get CableCard compatible set top boxes such as TiVo. You have to rent the CableCard from CableVision for a low fee.

[bubbathedog]

As much as I think LI is a brutal value, these craptastic set-top boxes are required for digital TV all across our fine land. Since the carriers all but own the FCC, it's a raw deal here and everywhere. There's no getting around it and yes they are costly.

Fios also requires a box per tv.

The cablecard tuner sounds promising, I will look into and update this thread.

[useasdirected]

Originally Posted by peabodyn

Three adult sons - two completed college and masters programs starting their professional careers, one in college and doing well.

Thanks for your helpful response.

Good that they're doing well, however they can help contribute to the bills. You raised them for 18 years, now its time they started giving back. When I lived at home, I was paying rent, helping pay the bills, mowed the lawn, did work around the house.

It was my way of saying thank you for all that you did for me. And no, they didn't ask me for money, I did this on my own.

[kayfouroh]

I don't think he came here asking for parenting advice.