[mythtv-users] Seattle Comcast firewire not working as of today -- 5C?

[Steve Adeff]

On Tuesday 25 October 2005 16:05, Andy Alsup wrote:
> I talked to on CSR at Comcast, who said yes they do support Firewire,
> and it should be working.  After I explained the problem she said we
> wouldn't turn on Copy Protection, so it must be a Motorola problem.
> She told me to call Motorola...  So, I jumped through the hoop and
> called Motorola just so I could say I've been down that road if asked
> again.  Of course Mot CSR says they don't do anything with the copy
> protection, and its a Comcast problem.  I tell him I know, but I need
> more info to give Comcast because the CSRs don't know what system I'm
> talking about.  He couldn't give me any more data, only that (in his
> opinion) it is a firmware option that Comcast controls.
>
> So I call Comcast back and eventually get transfered to a CSR guy who
> at first told me that firewire was not supposed to work, but after I
> insisted, he looked it up on their knowledge base and confirmed that
> it IS supposed to work on the 6200.  Nice that they actually have that
> fact documented somewhere.
>
> Still, the CSR group doesn't have any contacts in engineering, and as
> far as he knew, no way to escalate to the guys who run the headend.
> He opened a ticket for me with Engineering and Construction group, so
> I don't know what that is, but it sounds like guys who dig ditches and
> run cable, not control software.  Still, he was very helpful which was
> nice.
>
> I'll see what comes from this open ticket.  I may have a trench
> digging truck show up in my yard as a result.
>
> The City of Seattle has a Cable Consumers hotline that says they will
> help follow through on issues for consumers.  I will call them and
> give this much info and see if they can help get the data to the right
> person.
>
> I knew this day was coming, so I may have to accept the fact that I'll
> get no more movies in HD.  As far as I can tell though, the 5C
> implementation is only supposed to cover very narrow content types
> like PPV, and certainly not block the local HD channels.
>
> At very least, I am going to push for a published list of channels and
> content types that Comcast agrees are supposed to be available on
> firewire without content protection turned on.  If there is a
> documented list, at least we have some way of knowing if they are
> being compliant with the FCC rules.
>
> Does anyone else in Seattle have personal experience to share?  Jarod,
> aren't you using firewire on one of your boxes?


So your getting 5C'd out of your local stations?

I can understand why my local Comcast 5C's the digital channels and pay-for 
channels( I hate it, but what can i do?), but the FCC could slap them around 
for 5C'ing OTA stations. Maybe call and ask to speak to one of their 
operations managers or engineers?

Steve