[mythtv-users] Time Warner & Firewire

[Mark Knecht]

On 5/17/05, Brad Templeton <brad+myth at templetons.com> wrote:
> On Tue, May 17, 2005 at 09:13:26PM -0400, William wrote:
> > > Basically correct (with 'blessed' meaning that the device
> > > does some preliminary transactions to show it's compliant
> > > with the spec) but even once the data is sent from the DVD or
> > > cable box to the TV/monitor it's still encrypted as per the above.
> > >
> >
> > These difficulies are what is leading me to think about getting a hd dvr
> > from one of the providers. The local cable co is giving them away for the
> > same rental as a standard cable box. If its anything like a tivo the content
> > of the box should be available over the network connection for easy copying.
> 
> It is this decision which has this community justifiably up in arms.
> 
> As the systems are being architected, open source tools like MythTV
> can't compete with the box from the cable company, even though the
> software is free as in beer too.   For perfectly rational reasons people
> like you will get the cable/satellite provided PVR or other blessed
> PVR, reducing demand for the open source tools which in turn limits the
> number of people who will develop for them and test them and support
> them.
> 
> Yet here's were a lot of the innovation is coming from.
> 

Brad,
   I agree with much of what you say but, agree with it or not, the
folks that make the movies feel they have a right to protect their
content. They paid millions of buck to get the movie made and do not
want indiscriminate numbers of perfect digital copies being made and
given away. As I'm sure you know the ticket office returns for movies
in the States are on the order of a few billion a year. That's less
revenue than one moderate semiconductor company like AMD. The returns
from DVDs is far higher so without the DVD revenue the studios lose
money go out of business and we don't get movies in any format. As
long as Open Source tools continue to give all users the capability to
make perfect digital copies of any source material there is going to
be disagreements and issues like this.

   That said I expect that over time the cable boxes will get much
better about this. There shouldn't be any reason that I cannot make a
copy of news shows, high school sports events or other low revenue
generating shows for time shifting and I expect that cable boxes will
make this stuff available over time. In the mean time it's not
surprising to me that they take a somewhat draconian view and say all
or nothing.

- Mark