[mythtv-users] Is pchdtv3000 worth it?

[Brad Templeton]

On Fri, Jan 14, 2005 at 11:49:34AM -0800, Dan wolf wrote:
> You HAVE to get it before June, after that all cards will be
> restricted from what you can record.  This is the last model to have
> the ability to ignore the broadcast flag, so even if you are not going
> to use it, get it.  You will want it someday and they will be worth
> hundreds of dollars in a few years.  Its a good investment.

Actually, from my understanding this is going to be much more complex
than this.

It's actually pretty hard for a _card_ to follow the broadcast flag
rule.   What makes more sense is a _system_ that enforces the
broadcast flag rules, of which the card is a part.

However, to do that, the card does have to do one thing, namely
refuse to work with associated software that hasn't been blessed as
following the rules.   Or be a very smart card so the whole system
is in the card.

To do this, the card could, for example, only produce encrypted
streams when the BF is set.   Your could read from the card but
all you would get was encrypted data.  Unless your software had the
keys, it could not play it.   Your software would need to prove
it was "well behaved" to to keymaster in order to get a key.

That's actually tough, because software on an open PC can be
reverse engineered and keys extracted.   

And open source software is out of the question, unless it had
a locked, proprietary module for all playback or output of
video.

In theory, the card could be blessed and encrypt using the hdcp
protocols, and the software might simply stream out this data
to your TV, which if it's new, will have the HDCP keys inside.

I don't know what actual vendors are planning.

Another theoretical possibility would be a card that put out
encrypted streams, and you fed the streams back into the card
for it to feed out via QAM or ATSC or an encrypted protocol like
DTVLink or HDCP to your TV, where it decrypted
them.   I think that's supposed to be legal but the rules are
arcane.

However, even if this were made to work and were legal, in these cases
you can't do OSD, you can't do commercial elimination, cutlist editing,
preview windows and so on.   Plus the card now has to be a lot more
expensive compared to a raw demodulator/tuner.