[mythtv] [PATCH] Enable recording of encrypted channels withoutdecrypting them first.

[Raymond Wagner]

On 7/15/2010 16:33, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> On 15 July 2010 21:24, Johan Heikkilä<johan.heikkila at gmail.com>  wrote:
>    
>> 2010/7/15<wf_myth_user at online.nl>:
>>      
>>> My parents PVR5020(Echostar) does exactly this.
>>> It can record up to 4 programs at the same time encrypted or not.
>>> Each night at 3:00 it decrypts all recordings.
>>> If you watch a recording before it is decrypted it decrypts the recording
>>> while watching.
>>> All with original cam and smartcard from the provider.
>>> This is sold as a legal solution here in the Netherlands(Europe).
>>>
>>> If mythtv could work like this it would be a very very nice feature because
>>> it would give the multirec options much more use.
>>>
>>> Next question is, if you have a DVB-card with a Common Interface.
>>> Will the common interface be directly available to mythtv to pass a file
>>> true it.
>>>
>>> Wim
>>>
>>>        
>> I agree that it would be very convenient. There are occasions when my
>> smartcard is not available, e.g. it is removed and used with another
>> TV. This causes 0 byte recordings by Mythtv.
>>
>> Johan
>>      
> It should be doable.
> There is a switch between the tuner and the CAM.
> Data can go
> 1) tuner ->  CAM ->  PCI ->  File ->  display.
> 2) File ->  PCI ->  CAM ->  PCI ->  File ->  display.
> We just need to modify myth to be able to use option (2).
> The DVB api already supports both (1) and (2), but it appears that
> both (1) and (2) are illegal in the USA because CAM are only
> authorised to be in STBs and not PCs.
>    

Not quite.  (1) would be perfectly fine in the states, were it 
available.  Instead, we have CableCard, which is a full fledged DRM 
scheme.  It requires that the video be stored in an encrypted format on 
the disk, and remain in a protected path all the way to the display.