[mythtv-users] Broadcast flag (tell me why myth users should care technically?)

Brad Benson bbenso1 at gmail.com
Sun May 8 23:40:34 UTC 2005


On 5/8/05, Endaf Jones <jonese at zener.com> wrote:
> Thank you Joe for your comments.
> 
> >Very simply: If the Broadcast flag becomes law, all ATSC recording
> >devices with Linux drivers will no longer be sold.  Your hardware
> >selection will GO AWAY.  That's why it is important, even to Canadians.

> The point I'm trying to say here is that, irregardless if our ATSC/DVB
> PCI card vendors honor the BF (Broadcast Flag) or not, does it really
> matter?  What would be the tangible difference it bit streams coming out
> of the cards?  Are they not simply passing the stream down to the OS and
> isn't it the OS (or perhaps the player) that needs to honor/control the
> BF legislation requirements instead?
> 
> Is there a whole other aspect of the BF concept that isn't being talked
> about?  Is the problem really going to be the application (storage and
> playback as in "MythTV") that needs to be BF compliant and not the hardware?

I think you're missing the point of the BF requirements.  You're right
that it won't matter if the ATSC/DVB cards honor the BF.  However, the
reason it won't matter is that, in order to honor the BF, the tuner
that decodes the broadcast stream will not be able to pass that stream
to an "unsecure" device or via an "unsecure" transport.  A computer
running Linux that allows you to save the stream to the HD, re-encode,
etc is considered "unsecure" by the legislation.  In addition, pretty
much any computer's bus is also considered "unsecure" because you can
take the data off of it.  So, it would be illegal to manufacture or
sell a PCI card that decodes the ATSC stream because the decoded
stream would then be output to the PCI bus which qualifies as an
"unsecure" transport medium.  Hence, BF = no PCI decoders available to
anyone in the US.  Whether or not the honoring of the BF would be in
software or hardware is completely irrelevant because you won't be
able to get the hardware you would need to decode the signal.

In other words, if there were no BF in the works, but every company
that manufactures ATSC/DVB capture cards suddenly stopped
making/selling them we'd be in the exact same boat as if the BF
legislation passed.  The ultimate problem for us is that we need
access to the hardware that decodes the signal and the BF would make
it illegal to make or sell that hardware for use in a standard
computer.  No decoder = no picture, however you slice it.

Brad


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