[mythtv-users] SiliconDust to Announce CableCard Product at CES [RUMOR]

Eric Sharkey eric at lisaneric.org
Mon Jan 4 20:09:20 UTC 2010


On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 1:57 PM, Ronald Frazier <ron at ronfrazier.net> wrote:
>> get virtually every channel I pay for (which is just about all
>> channels including premiums) over firewire.  There are some
>> exceptions, but the two notable ones are my local PBS affiliate in HD
>> and my CBS affiliate in HD.  A little unusual that I can get HBO in HD
>> over firewire but not public broadcasting.
>
> Even these are channels that are broadcast over the air and they are
> encrypted on firewire, then that is in violation of FCC rules.

I haven't seen a rule against 5C being used under any circumstances.

The FCC rules for carrying broadcast channels mandate no encryption on
the cable, but a cable box is quite capable of taking the clear QAM
signal and encrypting it over firewire.  It makes no sense for them to
do this, but I have a large number of clear QAM channels (basic cable)
which are unavailable over firewire.

> Contacting the cable company should get that problem resolved relative
> quickly from what I've heard.

Ha!

I had an exchange with Comcast about a year ago trying to get them to
spell out what they thought was supposed to be encrypted and what
shouldn't be.  It made no sense to me that they'd block The Food
Network in SD but allow it in HD, for example.

After a somewhat lengthy email volley, they basically gave up and the
support person said she was unable to determine what should be
encrypted or when.  (Of course, she helpfully pointed out in nearly
every message that I could record all of these channels if I would
just rent a Comcast branded DVR for ${random}/month where ${random}
seemed to be re-evaluted in every message...)

As far as I can tell, no one is really at the helm on this one.  Most
of the people running things on the ground are only vaguely aware that
firewire even exists, no one is checking that it's set correctly, and
what your STB actually does seems to be determined by uninitialized
variables.

 Eric


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