# Mcard from ebay?



## Jimbo687 (Dec 18, 2016)

I am w/ Frontier fios in Dallas and recently purchased a few m-cards off eBay. My Roamio was able to tune the basic channels and I called frontier and successfully had the card activated for my premium channels. Saves me $5 bucks a month. I tried the same thing in my Bolt and was unable to tune any channels (basic) at all. The cards off eBay were Motorola m-card from china. Anyone have any luck w/ self procured cable cards? I know I should just get them from Frontier, however they seem so clueless about cards after the Verizon to Frontier shift. Thanks for any input.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Jimbo687 said:


> I am w/ Frontier fios in Dallas and recently purchased a few m-cards off eBay. My Roamio was able to tune the basic channels and I called frontier and successfully had the card activated for my premium channels. Saves me $5 bucks a month. I tried the same thing in my Bolt and was unable to tune any channels (basic) at all. The cards off eBay were Motorola m-card from china. Anyone have any luck w/ self procured cable cards? I know I should just get them from Frontier, however they seem so clueless about cards after the Verizon to Frontier shift. Thanks for any input.


I think you would have to repair the card that functioned in the Roamio with the Bolt to verify that the second card that failed in the bolt is the issue.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Jimbo687 said:


> I am w/ Frontier fios in Dallas and recently purchased a few m-cards off eBay. My Roamio was able to tune the basic channels and I called frontier and successfully had the card activated for my premium channels. Saves me $5 bucks a month. I tried the same thing in my Bolt and was unable to tune any channels (basic) at all. The cards off eBay were Motorola m-card from china. Anyone have any luck w/ self procured cable cards? I know I should just get them from Frontier, however they seem so clueless about cards after the Verizon to Frontier shift. Thanks for any input.


Wow, most cable companies will only pair CableCARDS in their system (thus ones that they own). I'm amazed that you were able to get them to pair one for the Roamio.

I was using a Cisco/ScientificAtlanta eBay one in an HD in my son's game room to pick up just the open local networks that didn't require pairing (for when he was back home from college during the summers). That ability went away a few years ago when Comcast was allowed to encrypt everything.

Scott


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## Jimbo687 (Dec 18, 2016)

HerronScott said:


> Wow, most cable companies will only pair CableCARDS in their system (thus ones that they own). I'm amazed that you were able to get them to pair one for the Roamio.
> 
> I was using a Cisco/ScientificAtlanta eBay one in an HD in my son's game room to pick up just the open local networks that didn't require pairing (for when he was back home from college during the summers). That ability went away a few years ago when Comcast was allowed to encrypt everything.
> 
> Scott


I have had a tech guy decline to pair because it was not their card. My last call, the tech guy said I had 4 cards on my account. One Verizon card, one eBay card successfully paired to Roamio, and two eBay cards attempted pairing (unsuccessfully). My frontier bill still shows only one $5 charge for cable card. I will probably order another card from frontier just to get my bolt up and running. I can not get the last two cards to display even basic channels on the Bolt.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Jimbo687 said:


> I have had a tech guy decline to pair because it was not their card. My last call, the tech guy said I had 4 cards on my account. One Verizon card, one eBay card successfully paired to Roamio, and two eBay cards attempted pairing (unsuccessfully). My frontier bill still shows only one $5 charge for cable card. I will probably order another card from frontier just to get my bolt up and running. I can not get the last two cards to display even basic channels on the Bolt.


What you are describing with the basic channels not displaying sounds like they are all encrypted but that would not explain what you saw with the other card in the Roamio before pairing it. Where is the Verizon CableCARD that you are paying for?

Scott


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## Jimbo687 (Dec 18, 2016)

HerronScott said:


> What you are describing with the basic channels not displaying sounds like they are all encrypted but that would explain what you saw with the other card in the Roamio before pairing it. Where is the Verizon CableCARD that you are paying for?
> 
> Scott


The Verizon cable card is in my Bolt+(living room). Sold the Roamio and put the paired eBay card in my sister"s Bolt (working well w/premium channels they have). Now I am trying to get a good card for my extra Bolt in the bedroom. Still not sure why the Roamio could get the eBay cards working w/ basic channels and the Bolt could not. However, once the roamio got the basic channels working, I could then put that card in the Bolt and see basic channels. Maybe some difference between how the Roamio and Bolt see/ recognize cable cards. Kind of wish I would have held on to the Roamio for a little longer. Probably makes no difference in the long run. I am sure I will wake up one day and Frontier will have remove all cards except the one issued by Verizon (could take them a while to figure all that out though).


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## Okiesnipe (Sep 5, 2017)

I bought a used Bolt from Amazon. It came with a cable card installed (wonder how much that cost the previous owner ??). I ordered a card from Cox and after installation, I got a black screen with all the ID #'s and an 800 # to call Cox for activation. Completed in ten minutes !!

Didn't all this info come from the card ?? Is it not unique to Cox ?


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## real_goose (Oct 24, 2009)

I've been using an Ebay cablecard for years with FiOS. First with Verizon and now with Frontier. You do need a FiOS cablecard to get started. The disk died in my HD with the Ebay cablecard. I used a disk with a new image and was surprised when the HD could not pull channels with cablecard that had been in it for years.

But then I figured it out - I put an authorized cablecard in first to pull the channel mapping and then put the Ebay card back in. FiOS cards don't need pairing except for HBO (and perhaps some other premiums) which I don't have. I had to go delete all the other channels the authorized card mapped, since I can't receive those channels. But my experience is that that any changes in channels from FiOS get added with the Ebay card. Periodically I need to go in and remove the majority of added channels I can't receive.


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## real_goose (Oct 24, 2009)

real_goose said:


> I've been using an Ebay cablecard for years with FiOS.


On Friday I moved the 'real' cablecard to my new Bolt and put the Ebay card in the Premier it replaced. The old Premier is able to tune the basic cable (clear QAM) channels just as I would expect.


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## Jimbo687 (Dec 18, 2016)

Jimbo687 said:


> I have had a tech guy decline to pair because it was not their card. My last call, the tech guy said I had 4 cards on my account. One Verizon card, one eBay card successfully paired to Roamio, and two eBay cards attempted pairing (unsuccessfully). My frontier bill still shows only one $5 charge for cable card. I will probably order another card from frontier just to get my bolt up and running. I can not get the last two cards to display even basic channels on the Bolt.


Just an update to my original post. I ordered a card from Frontier (here in Dallas) and popped it into my Bolt. No channels, no nothing. After a call to Frontier, I did get it paired successfully. Since I have 5 cards purchased off eBay and could not pair "basic" channels (automatically in the Bolt), I tried an experiment. I borrowed my sister's deactivated TIVO Series 3 and it tuned all 5 eBay cards to the basic cable channels. Still not sure why the Bolt will not pair the basic channel automatically. The older units ( Roamio and older ) seem to pair cards easier - at least the basic channels.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Have you compared part numbers? I have two M-cards bought over the years from eBay. One is not seen by my Premiere and one shows as unpaired. The middle three numbers are the important part of the part number.


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## Jimbo687 (Dec 18, 2016)

JoeKustra said:


> Have you compared part numbers? I have two M-cards bought over the years from eBay. One is not seen by my Premiere and one shows as unpaired. The middle three numbers are the important part of the part number.


Part numbers are the same for the eBay cards w middle number being 002 (Motorola M-card). The one sent by Frontier said Aries or something like that - card in currently not in my possession.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Jimbo687 said:


> Part numbers are the same for the eBay cards w middle number being 002 (Motorola M-card). The one sent by Frontier said Aries or something like that - card in currently not in my possession.


The card that was recognized by my Premiere was -018-. The one that is ignored is -002-. Just an observation, no conclusions.


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## Jimbo687 (Dec 18, 2016)

JoeKustra said:


> The card that was recognized by my Premiere was -018-. The one that is ignored is -002-. Just an observation, no conclusions.


Thanks for info. My Roamio and Series 3 both recognized and paired the basic channels on all eBay cards. Why the bolt is unable ( tried on two different Bolts ) is unknown. Once paired by the older TIVO units, the cards work perfectly in the Bolt. By the way, all cards are able to be paired manually on the Bolt by Frontier tech support.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Jimbo687 said:


> Thanks for info. My Roamio and Series 3 both recognized and paired the basic channels on all eBay cards. Why the bolt is unable ( tried on two different Bolts ) is unknown. Once paired by the older TIVO units, the cards work perfectly in the Bolt. By the way, all cards are able to be paired manually on the Bolt by Frontier tech support.


Just to clarify, the eBay cards are not "pairing' in the S3 TiVo's. They are just downloading the channel map and displaying the unencrypted channels. It is interesting that this doesn't happen in the Bolt though.

Scott


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