[mythtv-users] Building a database of cablecard encryption (CCI) details

Ronald Frazier ron at ronfrazier.net
Mon Aug 1 03:44:37 UTC 2011


On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 11:14 PM, Erik Jensen
<eriksjunk at laurelwoodart.com>wrote:

> I tried this out, and had a couple of oddities in my results.
>
> First, almost all unencrypted channels (tunable via ClearQAM) were
> reported as "Unknown / None". The one exception was reported as
> Unknown / Copy Generation Management System - Analog: "One Copy"
> (0x02). This channel is viewable over ClearQAM and FireWire, but not
> the Ceton.
> Second, all channel's to which I don't subscribe were reported as Copy
> Control Information: "Copy Free" (00)
>
> The fact that the Ceton falls back to CGMS-A for unencrypted channel's
> in my case means that the statement "if you can record it over
> FireWire, you can record it with CableCard" is not entirely true....
>

That's odd. I've only seen a copy protection other than CCI one time, and it
was only when I didn't have my cablecard install (running in QAM mode). One
of the channels that comes up as Copy Control Information: "Copy Free" (00)
with a cablecard comes up as Redistribution Control: "One Copy" (0x02) in
QAM mode. But I'm fairly certain that doesn't stop you from recording it. I
think it's just reporting what protection is present, but I believe the
Ceton will only enforce the CCI protections. Have you attempted to record
something on it?

Edit: hmmm, maybe that's not true. Here's some info from their support site:

http://www.cetoncorp.com/support/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/2/8/copy-protection-flags

It sounds like you will only see those other flags on unencrypted content.
However it sounds like the card will still enforce the other protections
even though the content is unencrypted. Strange.


The Unknown / None value comes up when the channel didn't seem to tune
right. Using the web interface for tuning, you've sometimes got to give it a
few shots just to make sure it goes through right (I'd hope the DRI
interface is a little more reliable than that, but I haven't got around to
working with that yet). I made a small tweak to the script that retries the
channel change later when it gets that error, but I haven't uploaded it yet.


As a side note, at the moment I'm particularly annoyed (more than usual) by
the whole DRM concept here. Suddenly today, whenever I try tuning any HD
stations, the Ceton tells me I'm not authorized for that station. It only
wants to work on the stations that are unencrypted. The last time I had this
sort of error, the authorization flags on my account weren't set properly
and a tech in the NOC had to fix it for me. I called support today and they
couldn't see anything wrong. I'll have to wait until tomorrow when I can
reach the tech in the support forum and have him investigate my account. So
for the moment, I'm stuck recording only SD content, which sort of annoys
me.


-- 
Ron Frazier
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