Motorola 6412 Box

[tstatguy112]

I called my cable company about this box. Since I won't be at this address all the time (a vacation home) I would of like to purchase the box rather then rent it from them at $13.00 extra a month and I said I could get the same model as theirs. They told me I can't do this I have to rent. Can they do this, why should I have to rent from them. Should I talk to a person higher in the chain of command or is it just futile. Any help would be appreciated.

[Ratman]

In the USA... it's futile. Cable providers will only lease/rent boxes to subscribers.

[oman321]

Gotta lease the 6412 but what about this as a solution.

http://www.hometheatermag.com/pvr/704lg/

[Ratman]

That's an alternative... but be aware that this will only receive unencrypted digital cable channels.

[lassenloop]

I ran into similar problems with my local Adelphia office, after purchasing a DCT-6412. I found out that you can totally bypass the local office and call the national office and activate it from there. They did that to mine. Unfortunatly, the box I purchased was flagged as a stolen box by Comcast and so they didn't activate it. But the point is that they were willing.

At the sametime that I was going back and forth with my local office, I emailed the FCC b/c someone told me that cable companies are required to allow customers to purchase their own equipement, as long as it's compatible with the cable co. systems. While it turns out that that is not true, the FCC did say:

"Thanks for contacting the FCC. I appreciate the opportunity to respond.

At present, cable TV companies are not required to permit subscribers to
use a converter box that was obtained from a source other than the cable
company. The FCC is working on regulations that eventually will permit
consumers to obtain a converter box from a retail outlet and have the
box activated by the local cable company. These rules, however, are not
yet effective.

I hope that this information is helpful."


Also, you could buy a Cablecard DVR like the Sony DHG-HDD250 and pay $1.50 rent for the Cablecard.

http://www.etronics.com/product.asp?icatid=4549&stk_code=sondhghdd250&svbname=403

[jco]

why buy the box when you can rent, it just gives the cable company an excuse to give you bad picture or service and blame your box! I kept my leased box only about 8 months before switching to DVR box instead. that would have been a costly loss if the box had been purchased. I dont think buying box is smart idea unless its real cheap and they arent.

[lassenloop]

I paid $250 for the box and it costs $13 a month to rent the same box. So, at that rate, it would only take about a year and half to break even. I think $13 a month is pretty steep.

[oman321]

You paid $250.00 but you couldn't activate, so your already in the hole. $13.00 a month is cheaper than some areas and you could always upgrade/replace if necessary. Besides that's what most folks were paying monthly for TIVO boxes after paying to buy it.

[lassenloop]

I could upgrade if necessary, but cable companies usually use their boxes for about 5 years. So, the 6412 will probably be the best box available for quite a while. I got my money back from the credit card co. So I'm not in the hole anything, except the $13.00 that I've already paid and could have applied towards my own box that I get to keep.

[jco]

I paid $250 for the box and it costs $13 a month to rent the same box. So, at that rate, it would only take about a year and half to break even. I think $13 a month is pretty steep.
Your assuming owning your box will be as good as leasing. IT AINT.
Like I said, if you have any signal issues, the CATV company is totally
liable if its their box, but if you are using your own box, that can cause
issues with the CATV company because they can claim the problem is YOU
not them. Also with HD technology being so new and rapidly improving
by the month let alone by the year, I think its foolish "savings" to expect
to keep a box 5 years. Also, what if the box DIES? With lease you get another one FREE and immediately. with ownership you LOSE all your so called savings you were going to get. Bottom line, the amount of money
involved and the rapidly changing technology makes leasing the box better at this time IMHO. BTW, I get a HD box for only $9.95. I would NEVER buy with
such a low lease price at this time. I dont want to fight with CATV or chance it dying on me costing me money and even worse costing me downtime while
buying another one...

[lassenloop]

With Comcast and other cable companies driving the production of new cable boxes, I don't forsee a new box for several years. They have too much money invested in the 6412 to not keep it for several years. Look at the black digital boxes, like the DCT2224, those were around for 5+ years before the 6412 finaly came out to start replacing it. And the 2224s are still in service. So, in several years when the next great box does come out, I can just move my 6412 to the bedroom, which has an HDTV as well. Right now, if I want to rent a 2nd cable box the cost is almost 50% more than the cost of the 1st box. Greed....

So, the only way I can really lose buy buying my own 6412 is if Comcast were to throw away their investment and have something newer made up by Motorola (which I doubt). Or if my box were to fail or suffer some issues, which are not too likely.

Why did you buy your tv and not get one from Rent to Own? If you rent your tv and it has a problem or bad picture you can just call RTO to come out and send you a new tv. I'm going to guess that it's b/c you think renting a tv is throwing your money away. Same reason I don't want to rent my cable box.

[oman321]

In the same year I went from the 5100, to the 6208 and then the 6412. In some areas comcast has been releasing a third gen 6412 as well with HDMI connection. It would seem they are investing in better and better technology. All I have to do is swap it out when it comes to my area.

[jco]

With Comcast and other cable companies driving the production of new cable boxes, I don't forsee a new box for several years. They have too much money invested in the 6412 to not keep it for several years. Look at the black digital boxes, like the DCT2224, those were around for 5+ years before the 6412 finaly came out to start replacing it. And the 2224s are still in service. So, in several years when the next great box does come out, I can just move my 6412 to the bedroom, which has an HDTV as well. Right now, if I want to rent a 2nd cable box the cost is almost 50% more than the cost of the 1st box. Greed....

So, the only way I can really lose buy buying my own 6412 is if Comcast were to throw away their investment and have something newer made up by Motorola (which I doubt). Or if my box were to fail or suffer some issues, which are not too likely.

Why did you buy your tv and not get one from Rent to Own? If you rent your tv and it has a problem or bad picture you can just call RTO to come out and send you a new tv. I'm going to guess that it's b/c you think renting a tv is throwing your money away. Same reason I don't want to rent my cable box.
no, I dont want to buy the cable box for reasons I listed, you are making assumptions that may not be true as being true. Even if I rent for 5 years
at $10 a month thats $600. But if I buy I have to spend money too and that may be several hundred too but when you buy YOU ARE STUCK with your box.
The cable company may not support it for 5 yrs, new features may come out that requires a new box ( NAMELY DVR BOXES). Etc. The technology is too new and out of control with cable systems and the boxes and features they will support. Its not fair to compare that to a TV because a TV is more stable, more universally supported, and with its multiple inputs isnt going to
be obsolete in 5 yrs but a CABLE BOX can go obsolete overnight if your CATV company chooses to change. Like I said, I would much rather rent than buy at $10 a month. My current DVR/RCVR box costs about $700 to buy. I am not going to buy something for $700 that I can get for $10 a month. That would take over 6 and half years to get your money back if you purchased it and 6.5 years is a long time in HD technology and whos to say it would even last 6.5 yeras and since the recorder is computer based, in only 2-3 years much better ones will be availble ( bigger hard drives) from cable company. I think you have a MAJOR flaw in your theory- and that is that these cable boxes will not be obsolete or less useful for at least 5 years. I doubt it seriously.
JCO

[lassenloop]

I have a DCT-6412 that I rent and they can be purchased online for $300 or less. I do not think that they will be replaced anytime soon. Even though newer technology can will be developed in that time. The media market is not quick to obsolete technology. In fact it's illegal for them to make technology obsolete once it's been introduced. They're required to continue to support it for a certain number of years. Beyond that, Comcast and other providers don't want to buy all new equipment. They want a return on their investment.

Their are flaws in the arguments presented against buying a box. Like assuming it will fail. Sure, failure is a possibility but not likely and if I worried about everything failing I wouldn't buy anything.


The fact is, I believe it to be more economical and benificial to purchase a unit and that's what I will do. I buy my cars, I buy my TVs, I buy my stereos and I don't like renting equipment.

Also, what if I were to somehow cause damage to my box? If I were to do so, my Cable provider would charge $500 to replace the damaged box. Yet, if I own it, I can replace it at the current market value at my leisure.

[jco]

There is NO WAY you can ever justify buying a $700 DVR for cash when you can lease
for $10 month. The numbers dont add up and we all know that by the time the 70 months were up to break even by buying the box would be woefully out of date in terms of storage capabilty. These use hard drives.....

[lassenloop]

I never said I would spend $700 on a DVR. I said $300 max. That's the going rate for the DCT6412.

[jco]

I have a DCT-6412 that I rent and they can be purchased online for $300 or less. I do not think that they will be replaced anytime soon. Even though newer technology can will be developed in that time. The media market is not quick to obsolete technology. In fact it's illegal for them to make technology obsolete once it's been introduced. They're required to continue to support it for a certain number of years. Beyond that, Comcast and other providers don't want to buy all new equipment. They want a return on their investment.

Their are flaws in the arguments presented against buying a box. Like assuming it will fail. Sure, failure is a possibility but not likely and if I worried about everything failing I wouldn't buy anything.


The fact is, I believe it to be more economical and benificial to purchase a unit and that's what I will do. I buy my cars, I buy my TVs, I buy my stereos and I don't like renting equipment.

Also, what if I were to somehow cause damage to my box? If I were to do so, my Cable provider would charge $500 to replace the damaged box. Yet, if I own it, I can replace it at the current market value at my leisure.
Do you buy your own power generators? do you buy your own telephone network? Do you buy your own video programming ( all DVD) ? ( obvoiusly not, youre on cable). Point is that life is full of rental/leases/services and sometimes it does not make any sense to buy. And with the emerging HD situation, I personally dont think buying a HD cable box is the way to go at this point, they are too new, too expensive and the situation has not even begun to stablilized yet. There are FCC issues too that could change things too. I just dont like buying something that can become obsoltete and totally USELESS so quickly that costs so much. This is even more true with the integrated DVR/CATVHD boxes like what I have.....

[lassenloop]

The changing FCC issues are that they are currently passing legislation to require companies to allow customers to use their own equipment (i.e. STBs) if they chose. Meaning, soon you'll be able to goto Walmart and buy your own HD cable DVR if you choose.

So when that legislation passes and it becomes a lot easier to buy your own equipment and use it. There will be less incentive for cable companies to keep buying new boxes. As more and more people will be buying their own boxes.

[flyonthewall]

From my personal experience I would be hesitant to buy the 6412 - the hard drive has gone twice and I am on my 3rd box in 8 months. Not sure what it would cost to replace the drive yourself...

[justsc]

From my personal experience I would be hesitant to buy the 6412 - the hard drive has gone twice and I am on my 3rd box in 8 months. Not sure what it would cost to replace the drive yourself...
This is just one of the reasons why it's more economical and reasonable to rent/lease the box. Let the cable provider handle repairs, firmware upgrades, box upgrades, stock spares and parts, etc.

[Eldorado]

Leasing a DVR would be acceptable to me, as long as the cable company and manufacturer, in this case Comcast and Motorola would come out with a reliable bug free product. I do not enjoy looking forward to a recorded show just to find out that it didn't work properly again. Neither I enjoy sitting home another Saturday 10 to 2 or 2 to 6 to receive another scuffed, scratched beat-up swapped box to discover another bizarre bug on it to entertain everybody at HDTVoice with. Why don't we lease speakers, TV's, amplifiers and other equipment? Because given the choice, we'll want to assure we receive quality return for our investment. What makes us relinquish that right to Comcast eludes me.

[hammie]

I have had both Dish and Adelphia cable. In both instances, the STB's have had issues at one time or another and needed to be replaced. As a matter of fact, I have been having issues with my current Motorola 6412 STB.

I just had Adelphia here this week in regards to crappy picture/audio/SNR/AGC levels. The guy was extremely good and made sure all connections were clean and tight. He even replaced one of MY splitters with theirs since it was "low-end." Anyway, my signal strength to the box is "through the roof" in his words (+18-21db at the box). However, when the signal gets to my box (Moto 6412), tuner one is performing well (SNR=38bd, AGC 50%) and tuner 2 can barely get a lock on the carrier (SNR=21db, ACG=78% when it does lock). He said the tuner or internal splitter was going bad since I am good on one tuner and getting freeze frames on analog as well as digital and HD channels on the other tuner.

Now I need to replace it.

If I had owned it, and none of this was under warranty and they were $300 each, then I would would now be at $1200, or 4th STB.

I prefer to rent devices that do not have complete bug free designs (don't even get me on a Microsoft path :-)

-Lou

[lassenloop]

When the FCC requires cable companies to allow customers to use their own equipment and consumers start making the decision as to which box they want, the boxes will start being a lot less bug free.

Also, bugs in a box doesn't mean that the hardware is bad, it could be in need of a firmware upgrade or a clean wipe. I can pretty much garantee that your cable company did not toss the boxes you were unhappy with.

[adelphiaLA]

I plan to buy my own box, when it is available, hopefully in a year. I decided to rent until then. I thought about some options, but it would be $500. In a year I will get something that will work for all channels. And hopefully cost $300. I'm spending $13 a month right now.
I'm just waiting for those smart cards to come out.
I wonder if digital cable will charge a monthly fee even if it is required by law to broadast it, and will it be any less than the charge to rent a box.

[57U]

Are you talking about CableCARD? They are available in many (but not all) areas for a few $/mo, but have limitations. See the HDTV FAQ "Can I get digital cable" near the bottom.