[mythtv-users] CableCard???

[Joel Ostheller]

Speaking from my experience as a hardware design engineer, and looking
into the publicly release cablelabs (tm) cable card reader spec... I
honestly don't know why this technology is not available in the Linux
world right now.

Before I started looking into it, I figured it had something to do
with the legal right of the cablelabs cable card reader... but guess
what... the physical hardware is your standard PCMCIA card... Nothing
special. Thus it is my belief that you could design a pcHDTV card with
an included PCMCIA card slot that could be used to descramble
encrypted cable signals that you legally paid for. The firmware may
have legal issues but as long as that wasn't developed by the same
people, who do they sue? no one...

I think the legal issues with the firmware would stem from the
hardware implementation. The spec has this handshaking mechnisim where
the cable company not only verifies the cablecard (tm) but the
hardware it is running in. From my limited understanding, the cable
companies keep a list of known cablecard (tm) approved products. Thus
the firmware would want to report a valid cablecard (tm) approved
serial number. I imagine one could acquire this serial number simply
by watching the data transaction between an already approved cablecard
reader device.

Anyways... getting to the point... This is not rocket science. I am
one who wants this feature for my Myth box. I am paying for the cable,
and I want it recorded in high def. I just finished moving so I have
not had a lot of free time for spare hardware design projects, but
this is one project that I'm just dying to get into. Unfortunately I
doubt I will be selling it to anyone... Any card I make will probably
just be a re-engineered HDTV card of some preexisting card (like the
pcHDTV card) with my added hardware mod....

for any other hardware design engineers out there who want to make a
buck... I'd love to spend a few hundred for a card like I described...
and I'm sure there are at least 2000 other in the community who would
also like this. so that would be 200x2000=400k for you pay pal
account. probably a Conservative number.

On 11/13/06, Greg Ferreri <gferreri at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm thinking of making the jump to HDTV in the next month or so.  So far,
> MythTV has been awesome and I'm planning on taking it with me when I make
> the jump, probably getting a PCHDTV card.  But there's one huge shortcoming
> -- I can't subscribe to any encrypted HDTV channels and expect to be able to
> watch them through my Myth box.  I've heard rumblings about the CableCard
> technology that will apparently allow devices to legally decode these
> channels... does anyone know whether MythTV will be able to work with these
> things???  It sounds like Myth could be dead in the water in a couple years
> without them.
>
> Greg
>
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>
>


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