[soylentcola]

That's also what I'd read. For a while I used a Hauppauge PCI card to get legit/paid cable into my HTPC. It actually still works for OTA digital TV but back then it was a godsend.

Even the built-in Windows Media Center gave me a better interface and tons of storage versus the junky old cable boxes for rent, but then they used confusion over the switch to broadcast digital to stop providing Clear QAM channels and move everyone over to digital encrypted cable boxes.

For a while I really wanted to buy one of those fancy Ceton cards that took a CableCard like a TiVo, but between the cost of the tuner card and the horror stories I read about getting $CableCo to support anything but a TiVo I just said screw it and stopped buying cable at all.