[mythtv-users] So confused. Firewire to STB - channel change script - mythchanger

Gary Buhrmaster gary.buhrmaster at gmail.com
Tue Mar 25 20:38:39 UTC 2014


On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 7:30 PM, Greg Woods <greg at gregandeva.net> wrote:
....
> True, sorry, I should have made that clear. But pretty much all of the
> content providers in the US are moving toward encrypting everything or
> nearly everything. Whatever is there now on your provider probably won't
> be there too much longer. Comcast where I live (Louisville, CO, near
> Denver and Boulder), even the local channels are now encrypted and you
> can't get anything at all over clear QAM (and presumably also Firewire;
> the latter does still work for changing channels, I use that with an
> HD-PVR 1212).

There is an important difference between transport encryption, and
content restriction marking (copy freely, once, never).  Yes, with
Comcast, everything is encrypted (to the premise), but Comcast, in
general, marks most content (exceptions noted) as copy freely,
which means firewire can capture it from the STB.  So can an OCUR
tuner (HDHomerun, Ceton, etc.).

Clear QAM, as you state, is going away in many markets, and
Comcast, having previously rolled out all digital service (a FCC
requirement to encrypt the QAM transport stream) was able to
do so rapidly (and either is, or is mostly, finished at this point)
after the FCC allowed MSOs to do so.


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