Where to get a cablecard for the Premiere?

3598 Views 20 Replies 14 Participants Last post by JosephB, Jan 1, 2012

flo7002

Discussion Starter · Dec 20, 2011

Hi all, so I got a new Tivo Premiere off Amazon but now I need a cable card. I called the my cable company and they're not gonna have any available for another month or longer. (live in Bermuda, everything takes forever

) I was looking on ebay but not sure what model I need. All I know is that the serial number of the card has to start with PKJ. Can anyone maybe direct to a site or somewhere where I can find one?
Thanks!

1 - 20 of 21 Posts

Teeps

· #2 · Dec 20, 2011

flo7002 said:
Hi all, so I got a new Tivo Premiere off Amazon but now I need a cable card. I called the my cable company and they're not gonna have any available for another month or longer. (live in Bermuda, everything takes forever ) I was looking on ebay but not sure what model I need. All I know is that the serial number of the card has to start with PKJ. Can anyone maybe direct to a site or somewhere where I can find one?
Thanks!

I would ask cable co which cards can be used with their system.

flo7002

Discussion Starter · #3 · Dec 20, 2011

I called them, they don't have any, but said that the serial number just needs to start with PKJ, so I just need to figure out where to buy one? Are there any websites that sell them? A google search hasn't returned much...

BigJimOutlaw

· #4 · Dec 20, 2011

Any 'ol card won't work. The cablecard needs to be leased from the cable company.

kturcotte

· #5 · Dec 20, 2011

BigJimOutlaw said:
Any 'ol card won't work. The cablecard needs to be leased from the cable company.

I've heard about people in Canada purchasing and using their own cards. Might work in Bermuda too. I'd call the cable company, and see if you can speak to at least a level 2 tech. INSIST on it if necessary. Get the name of whoever you talk to. Then explain your situation, and ask if you purchase your own cable card, will it work on their system with your Tivo Premiere (Series 4). If they say yes, ask them EXACTLY what brands and models will work.

vvkm

· #6 · Dec 20, 2011

According to a source that I found on the internet you can buy the cable card from M & M Audio on Church Street. I cannot post links, google for Tivo in Bermuda.

zowwie85

· #7 · Dec 20, 2011

kturcotte said:
I've heard about people in Canada purchasing and using their own cards. Might work in Bermuda too. I'd call the cable company, and see if you can speak to at least a level 2 tech. INSIST on it if necessary. Get the name of whoever you talk to. Then explain your situation, and ask if you purchase your own cable card, will it work on their system with your Tivo Premiere (Series 4). If they say yes, ask them EXACTLY what brands and models will work.

If it's a system that generally uses Motorola hardware it might be possible. If it's Cisco/Scientific Atlanta, forget it. I wouldn't be asking such direct questions either

Search the Cogeco forum on digitalhomecanada for "Tivo" or "Ceton" and there are a couple of threads that explain how to social engineer a cable system into activating a Moto M-card from eBay as if it were a box.

Teeps

· #8 · Dec 21, 2011

zowwie85 said:
I wouldn't be asking such direct questions either

Why?
I see no implication of theft of service with his questions.
Whether you own or rent the hardware; the cable co still has to authorize them to work...

gamo62

· #9 · Dec 22, 2011

Try eBay. There are SA PKM802 cablecards. There might also be Moto cards on there as well.

kwajr

· #10 · Dec 22, 2011

have you hooked it up,you may be very suprised what you get with out a card:up:

zowwie85

· #11 · Dec 25, 2011

Teeps said:
Why?
I see no implication of theft of service with his questions.
Whether you own or rent the hardware; the cable co still has to authorize them to work...

The cable company in question is not in the USA and do not "have to" do anything whatsoever.

I'm not implying anything about theft of service. The default answer to any of the questions kturcotte suggests are 99.9% certain to be, "no, that's not compatible." It's easier to just get busy trying to social engineer an activation rather than get notes put on your account saying you've got some foreign-to-their-system (and country!) device.

Provided that the cable system in question uses Motorola equipment, I really think an approach like this is more likely to get a good result: http://digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=1354736&postcount=19 Much better to pretend you have a dime-a-dozen DCT2000 terminal rather than a scary, unknown cablecard

And if its a system that uses SA or Cisco gear - forget it. If the system doesn't purchase or configure their headend to support not only cablecards in general but also *that specific card* - it won't be able to authorize it.

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Teeps

· #12 · Dec 26, 2011

zowwie85 said:
The cable company in question is not in the USA and do not "have to" do anything whatsoever.

I was not saying that the cable co "had" to (by law or regulation) authorize a non owned card.
But that said owner obtained card, could not be made to work without the cable co authorization.

Either way the OP is at the mercy of the cable co, policy and practices, in his area.

trade

· #13 · Dec 27, 2011

Many cable companies active only its own equipment so no have sense obtain a cable card...

rocko

· #14 · Dec 27, 2011

If the cable co doesn't utilize cards in their set top boxes, chances are they won't support them at all. If they do have cards, you may be able to *cough*leverage*cough* a STB card.

angel35

· #15 · Dec 30, 2011

If you are with TWC. You have to get a card from them. No card from EBAY will work.

ajwees41

· #16 · Jan 1, 2012

zowwie85 said:
The cable company in question is not in the USA and do not "have to" do anything whatsoever.

I'm not implying anything about theft of service. The default answer to any of the questions kturcotte suggests are 99.9% certain to be, "no, that's not compatible." It's easier to just get busy trying to social engineer an activation rather than get notes put on your account saying you've got some foreign-to-their-system (and country!) device.

Provided that the cable system in question uses Motorola equipment, I really think an approach like this is more likely to get a good result: http://digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=1354736&postcount=19 Much better to pretend you have a dime-a-dozen DCT2000 terminal rather than a scary, unknown cablecard

And if its a system that uses SA or Cisco gear - forget it. If the system doesn't purchase or configure their headend to support not only cablecards in general but also *that specific card* - it won't be able to authorize it.

how do you know it's not in the US?

dianebrat

· #17 · Jan 1, 2012

ajwees41 said:
how do you know it's not in the US?

flo7002 said:
live in Bermuda, everything takes forever

From the OP, I believe that would be sufficient in letting me know they're not in the US.

JosephB

· #18 · Jan 1, 2012

All American cable companies require you get the card from them. Foreign..who knows. Some things that you have to be careful of, though: Make sure you get the right card (Motorola or SciAtl/Cisco). Whatever kind of boxes the company provides is the brand card you want. Second, it will have to have a firmware on it compatible with the cable company, and then finally they have to be willing to activate an arbitrary card number.

You may be better off waiting for them to get more in stock, to be perfectly honest.

zowwie85

· #19 · Jan 1, 2012

JosephB said:
Some things that you have to be careful of, though: Make sure you get the right card (Motorola or SciAtl/Cisco). Whatever kind of boxes the company provides is the brand card you want.

Not quite... Scientific Atlanta/Cisco has an embedded private key that was provided in bulk to the system who purchased the gear. To move it from one system's headend to the other you'd have to somehow get the private key exported from the original system and imported into the other. It makes it effectively impossible.

zowwie85

· #20 · Jan 1, 2012

ajwees41 said:
how do you know it's not in the US?

Reading the OP.

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