[mythtv-users] FCC proposal

Eric Sharkey eric at lisaneric.org
Fri Feb 10 15:30:39 UTC 2012


On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 10:11 AM, Gary Buhrmaster
<gary.buhrmaster at gmail.com> wrote:
> For the independent "STB" equipment
> (the boxees) this is all about cost and
> market share.  It is not that they could
> not get their equipment cablecard
> compatible, it is that needing to get boxen
> cablelabs certification is expensive and
> has a long lead time (I think Ceton took
> around 18 months?).  I would not be
> surprised that with a cablecard the
> Boxee box would cost another $150,
> reducing its appeal, and lost future sales.

Right, and the "obvious" solution is to do away with that
certification process and instead have an open standard for internet
connected appliances to get decryption keys with the appropriate user
credentials, then the whole problem goes away.  E.g., a Comcast
customer with a Boxee box enters his Comcast username and password
into the box, the box then makes a secure ssl connection to a central
Comcast server, requests the decryption keys for the program it wants
to access, then (assuming Comcast correctly validates the account info
(and source IP?)) the decryption is done in software on standard PC
hardware.  No cable card.  The cable companies get truckless
installation/disconnection and Boxee gets access to all programming
without new hardware requirements.

The cable companies won't do it, though, because it means loss of
control.  There's no way to enforce Copy Once/Copy Never CCI flags in
this scheme.

Eric


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