Shaw Cable Again Blocks Firewire On Canadian Set-Top Boxes

WestCoastSuccess writes with this excerpt: "A year and a half ago, Canada's Shaw Cable began encrypting channels with the '0x02' flag. This flag has the effect of making the IEEE1394 (Firewire) output useless to customers who use third-party PVRs (such as the excellent MythTV, for example). After complaints to the CRTC and Industry Canada about this practice, the encryption flag was dropped on most channels and the Firewire connection again functioned. Until last night, that is."

I am Canadian,

[JaCKeL 1.0]

I am Canadien and I really want to be able to record my HD cable with my PVR. Where do I sign ? Right now Canadian cable company are working with these rules : 1. Block way's to record with third party PVR 2. Sell their really crippled and overpriced PRV 3. $$$ Seriously, what can we do ?

This will get cracked in approximately...

[palegray.net]

Oh wait, someone probably already has. That aside, it won't stand government scrutiny this time, either.

Re:Can someone explain this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone who knows more about the subject maybe explain what the incentive is for Shaw Cable to do this? I don't have enough knowledge of the subject and I suspect I'm not the only reader in that boat.

It's really quite simple (and, not surprisingly, outlined in TFA). By blocking digital output over the firewire port, Shaw is finding another way to lock consumers into using their own proprietary DVR/PVRs.

Re:Always true in US

[Anonymous Coward]

The article quotes an FCC ruling that they can't do that...

Re:I am Canadian,

[MartinSchou]

The original poster has already tried that route. He's willing to pay for a PVR that can record HD shows in HD quality - the company just isn't willing to provide one.

So, care to try again with a better solution for our ill-stricken friend?

HD PVR

[supun]

I battled with my cable company to get them to enable the firewire on my cable box. After a long battle, they did. However only the over-the-air channels were not encrypted. The rest, including the HD channels, were 5C encrypted.

Instead of playing their little game, I purchased a HD PVR from Hauppauge. It's a component (Y,Pb,Pr) input recorder. Now there is no way to block me, except by disabling the component output on the cable box.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Hauppauge_HD-PVR [mythtv.org]

Re:It's like quitting smoking.

[VitrosChemistryAnaly]

You *are* aware that the internet isn't just for facebook and youtube, right? In fact many people (heck, most people on Slashdot) use it as a *tool* to get work done. I just ssh'ed into the server at my lab so that I could check on a bioinformatics project that I have going on. For me, the internet is a tool that I use to be more productive, check Slashdot and to keep up on news without my TV

TV is pretty much only about entertainment and wasting time.

Re:Can someone explain this?

[soconn]

In Canada there is no cable card system, we are stuck with the providers boxes and they all suck. I'm with Rogers and their PVR forgets shows and refuses to play at times, I had a Tivo but when you move to HD you are SOL. The providers want you to stay with their system so you keep buying / renting their box... Firewire lets people break that link - thus they shut it down. Similar behavior can be seen on Rogers where they enable to do not record flag so that Windows Media center refuses to record some prime-time TV (even though the broadcast flag should not really exist in Canada).

Re:IANACL

[Shados]

The CRTC imposes monetary penalties in the form of fines for non-compliance with its rules. So if a complain is made, and the CRTC decides there are issues, fines are imposed for the duration of the violation, for example. I dont know the details of this particular case, but thats generally how it works. So its not a court order or criminal action or whatever... they just have corporations by the balls (well, wallet)

Re:I am Canadian,

[Pentium100]

I don't remember what the trigger was

I know what the trigger was for me - it happened when I realized that instead of watching TV series at the TV schedule (didn't have a VCR at the time), with commercials and being behind by a few years I could just download the TV shows I want (or was it when I found out that Stargate SG-1 had 6 or 7 seasons and the TV station stopped showing it at season 4?).

Re:It's like quitting smoking.

[yanos]

Yeah but at least your are seeking intertainment, rather than being spoon fed, like the GP said. It's a much more active brain state. If sometimes being on teh internets means reading interesting things, you're no really wasting your time.

Re:HD PVR

[ScrewMaster]

If there isn't, why don't they just turn the port off completely instead of sending data through it that nobody can use?

PR, I would assume. They can claim that they're making data available without actually making it available. "The port is active, but if people don't know how to use it it's not our fault."

Re:HD PVR

[Anonymous Coward]

The encryption on Firewire is like HDMI encryption. Licensed devices still work with it, like D-VHS decks. So yes, even if your Firewire is 5C encrypted, the cable company can say you can use it because it works with third-party consumer electronics.

The problem people have is they assume because Linux can't understand it, it's useless. The lawmakers and the lobbies would beg to differ, unfortunately.

Re:HD PVR

[tlhIngan]

Sure, they can. If your cable box supports it, they could enable analog output degradation and scale the analog outputs down to fractional resolution. There's only one way to record HDTV content that is guaranteed to be unstoppable: an HDCP stripper with an HDMI capture card....

Already solved. Hauppage HD-PVR, with a HD Fury 2 [hdfury.com]. The HD Fury 2 converts HDMI (up to 1080p, but the HD-PVR only does 1080i), WITH HDCP, to component video. It's designed for older TVs that have component video (or VGA) inputs to accept HDMI, but it works with an HD-PVR.

HDCP ensures that you can't get a degraded image unless the HD Fury's keys are revoked.

Might want to stock up on a few while they're still legal.

Re:It's like quitting smoking.

[n dot l]

I gave up TV a while ago and I don't miss it at all.

I did the same thing. We had 200 channels of satellite TV (Bell), but no more than three interesting things would be on at any given time, and nine times out of ten they would be reruns. So I cancelled my subscription, and it's been amazing how much free time opened up. It was certainly more than $length_of_show_I_like (even including commercials) times $episodes_per_season. All the time wasted turning the TV on a few minutes early to catch the start and then maybe watching just one more half-hour afterwards added up to lot more time than it seems.

Every once in a while, I'll watch the Daily Show or 30 Rock

You don't even need to give up watching the shows you like if you give up the cable/satellite package. You can get the few shows you really like online or on DVD. It's silly, actually, that I ever paid for regular TV. Given how overpriced it is, and how few of the shows actually have any substance to them, it is cheaper (at least in my case) to buy every show I like on DVD than it is to maintain even a basic cable/satellite subscription. And it's pretty easy to get the price down further by borrowing box sets from friends or renting (to say nothing of torrenting).

The best part, I've found, of getting shows on DVD is the fact that it's more fun to watch that way. First, you do it on your own time, so there's no anxiety about getting home in time to catch the start. Second, there are no (or at least fewer, if you're watching online) commercial interruptions, which I found make a huge impact in my enjoyment of the show.

Re:It's like quitting smoking.

[Weedhopper]

This, QFT and +1 means the same thing, at least the way I understand it. I see it a lot more on vBulletin. Just another way of saying 'agreed wholeheartedly.