You can watch and record HD channels from your cable company only. A satellite tuner is in the works and I believe is expected to be out before the end of the year.

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freaking sweet I will be ordering one very soon now!!! After i read the full topic and everyones problems of course. haha. Thanks for the quick answer.

 

JJ

you still have to buy the whole system from dell right you can't go out and get the cards seperate and build your own box right.

 

JJ

You have to buy a PC from a manufacturer that has the correct BIOS. You don't have to buy the tuners from Dell but they do sell them pretty cheap (relatively speaking). The only store that sells them separately is the Sony Style store and they sell them for $300 each! When you configure an XPS 420, you can get two tuners with a remote for $380.

HP also has a CableCARD capable PC but I think the XPS 420 is the best deal and cheapest available.

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Was wondering, has anyone recieved a xps 420 from the outlet that has digital cable support? They have some for 499.

I have one that works great! I posted some steps on how to find one that is digital cable ready on this thread:

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/241234.aspx

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I posted this on a new thread but thought it would be fitting to put it here too.

I just got an email with a coupon for the Dell Outlet for 15% off the purchase of a refurbished PC. As some of you may know, I went this route for my CableCARD setup and have had great success. You can't buy the ATI DCTs from the Outlet but you can usually find plenty of them on eBay and they are also available from Sonystyle.com. The coupon code is: W017V8S0?Q6FF1 Just copy and paste it into the appropriate section after you add the item to your cart.

Here is some information I posted on another thread about how to tell if a specific XPS 420 on the Dell Outlet has the proper BIOS so that they can be used with CableCARDs:

I think I've figured out how to tell if the PC has CableCard capabilities. First of all, I looked at the item number that I posted above. It is YN974. I'm pretty sure any XPS 420 that's in the outlet right now and only has 2GB of RAM is NOT capable of doing CableCard. I added one of these with 2GB of RAM and another with 3GB of RAM. The item number for Vista on the one with 3GB of RAM is YN974 (just like the one I ordered) and the item number for Vista on the one with 2GB is DT012. Also, Vista is listed further down in the list when it DOES have CableCard capabilities.

So, as far as I can tell, in order to determine if one can do CableCard you have to add it to your cart and then click on "Detail View" to look at the parts list and look for item number YN974.

Also I would recommend looking for one with at least a 256MB video card. They sell them with the 128MB 2400 Pro but I've heard there were some incompatibility issues and they stopped shipping brand new XPS 420s with that card and CableCARD tuners.

I received mine using this method and it was CableCARD ready and it's been working fine now for a few months.

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I bought one from the outlet with jhale83 info and everything worked out great.

Thanks jhale