[mythtv-users] Comcast & Firewire STB's without 5C/Firewire equipment

[Mark Knecht]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 5:28 PM, Robert McNamara
<robert.mcnamara at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Robert McNamara
> <robert.mcnamara at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> 5) As for Firewire, the people at the counter called elsewhere to
>>> determine that the 1394 interface is not supposed to be enabled by
>>> default and can be disabled remotely if they find you are using it but
>>> not paying for it. To get it enabled you have to pay the additional
>>> $6.99 to allow the STB to drive a second digital device. She didn't
>>> know anything about FCC laws so possibly this is true or not true.
>>>
>
> Continuing to stew on this and become more angry for you, just so you
> know, there is *absolutely* no chance of them turning off your port as
> an individual.  Here's how it works on the headend.  There are
> profiles for each set of subscription types corresponding to each
> class of hardware.  When a box authenticates on the network, it checks
> that it's coming in from the right node, that it's authorized, and
> then it sends the profile corresponding to your box type and
> subscription lineup to your box.
>
> So, fiscally speaking, do you imagine they will find a headend
> engineer capable of writing said profile, and have him cobble together
> a brand new hardware profile for *your* box that will sit on their
> Management console just to download when *your* box connects so that
> they can punish you and disable one port?
>
> No.
>
> Not to mention the fact that there is *no* means of them telling you
> even have a cable plugged in to the port, let alone are capturing
> video with it.
>
> Grr!
>
> Robert

OK, that's good info, but temper it with the idea that by default they
*could* (I'm not saying 'do') turn off all 1394 outputs by default and
then only turn them on for people who call and ask, again using the
Phy registers to tell what's hooked up. Why they'd want to be so pissy
I don't know, and it seems that you've got great insight into how it's
actually done whereas I was only a lowly hardware engineer directing
the design of 15 engineers doing 1394 design. I know what the spec is
capable of - heck, my name is in one of them - but how companies use
them is up to people like you.

Cheers,
Mark