[mythtv] A new angle on High-Def Satellite capture?
luitjens at cs.utah.edu
luitjens at cs.utah.edu
Fri Mar 2 21:16:27 UTC 2007
DirectTV doesn't make the laws. They give DMCA take down notices to
places that develop this stuff but a notice doesn't mean it is illegal.
Unfortunately no one has bothered taking something like this to court in
order to see if fair use can apply.
Justin
Mark Buechler wrote:
> Um, this isn't a legal gray area at all. DirecTV has made it very
> clear it is quite illegal. Sites which discuss this topic in any great
> detail are very quickly closed down. Any software released is quickly
> squashed. This sort of conversation should really take place off of
> any MythTV list.
>
> - Mark.
>
> On 3/2/07, *Chris Hamilton* <chamilton at cs.dal.ca
> <mailto:chamilton at cs.dal.ca>> wrote:
>
> > The only thing I'm not so sure about is whether Directv is
> sending out a
> > standard DVB signal. If it is, there's plenty of DVB cards on the
> > market, and I'm thinking allthats needed is a user-space decoding
> > process which should be relatively trivial in the scheme of
> things. If
> > its not a standard DVB signal, then the plausibility of this
> angle is
> > murky. Does anyone know the answer here?
>
> The DirecTV signal is not standard DVB, but is closely related. Some
> older TwinHan DVB cards are able to be tweaked to process the DirecTV
> signal, and there is also a custom built card (I forget the name,
> check
> the forums at dvbn.happysat.org <http://dvbn.happysat.org> ) that
> can also handle the DirecTV
> stream. Thus, it is possible and is already being done.
>
> Presently, the creator of the custom DVB card (actually a USB based
> device) and another guy are working on creating a DVB loopback device
> that wraps the DirecTV stream to make it look like DVB-S standard. As
> such, MythTV would be able to natively handle the signal without
> difficulty.
>
> The only open question is the authentication. As far as I know, there
> are already people doing exactly this, involving an external
> (serial or
> USB) based interface to the smartcard, passing appropriate data and
> allowing the smartcard to provide the decryption keys.
>
> > So, what do you guys think? Any comments are appreciated. I'd
> like to
> > stress that I'm a legitimate, paying subscriber, and this idea would
> > only be able to work for other legit subscribers with a valid,
> active,
> > account card. Unfortunately I can't make the time to work on
> this. But
> > I'd like to spread the idea around, so if a talented programmer
> who has
> > the desire to make a big difference to a lot of people like me, (and
> > hell, make a stand against DRM) that the idea is available.
>
> Well, the entire thing is likely only quasi-legal. Unfortunately, all
> of the above pieces also make it only a small leap to illegally
> grabbing
> the signal. There are mechanisms of 'subscription' sharing,
> whereby one
> card is used to generate the keys/authenticate video for many
> different
> front ends. Couple this with the internet, and you can have
> geographically diverse people sharing a single subscription.
>
> So, technically feasible, and already working to some degree. I
> actually imagine it won't be much longer before you see a released
> version of the dvbloopback wrapper, and then you'll have Myth support.
>
> Regards,
>
> Chris
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