Shaw Cable Again Blocks Firewire On Canadian Set-Top Boxes 257
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."
Can someone explain this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Always true in US (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm jealous that this is a story. Every cable box I've used in the U.S. encrypts data over firewire with the flag.
Comcast in Mass played the same games (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It's like quitting smoking. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I am Canadian, (Score:5, Interesting)
This doesn't do anything unless it is picked up as a major news story. I hate to say it but the whole age of "voting with your wallet" is dead and gone. To any major corporation you aren't even a drop in a bucket, so unless you're going to organize a massive action against them of at least 50,000 people or more, it is basically meaningless. Sure you stuck to your guns and you can sleep at night, but it isn't going to change their behaviour at all.
In Canada you need to start a facebook group get a couple thousand people to join it, mention it to the media and then you'll get results.
IANACL (Score:3, Interesting)
I am not a Canadian lawyer, but I'm wondering: How was Shaw Cable originally persuaded to drop the flag? Was it by a court order? In Canada, when someone refuses to comply with a court order, can the judge issue an arrest warrant for them? If it was dropped in an agreement with the CRTC, does Canadian law allow their federal officials to file felony charges for violating such an agreement?
Re:It's like quitting smoking. (Score:5, Interesting)
I replaced my cable subscription with broadcast HD (for sports, particularly the home team) and a two-at-a-time Netflix subscription, which worked out quite well.
Anyway, for some people television is as important a media as the Internet is for us here on Slashdot. There's certainly a lot more intelligent material on the Internet than on television, but face it, most people aren't using the Internet for that anyway. Television is a good way to turn your brain off and relax, which, in moderation, can be a good thing.
My guess is that, like the FCC, the relevant Canadian authorities have little care about this particular issue. Cable companies in the states don't blink when you cite the FCC. Everyone but a single tech at Cox claimed straight-faced that the FCC mandated no such thing. Either they haven't heard of it before, have never had anyone complain before, or simply hoped I'd go away.
(Incidentally, I made it very clear to the manager of the local Cox management why I was disconnecting my service and why I would encourage others to do the same. He didn't seem fazed and I never got any offers for reduced cost service.)
Re:Comcast in Mass played the same games (Score:4, Interesting)
but if I legally have a box, I ought to be able to get at the data I pay for.
And if you legally have a song you ought to be able to listen to it as many times as you please. And if you legally have a movie you ought to be able to watch it in every room in the house. And if you legally have a video game you ought to be able to use it on as many computers as you wish.
Media companies feel that since media has no inherent usage limitations (transportation, duplication, accessibility, etc.) they've got to limit it purposefully. It's scary (and I'm not saying that facetiously) for someone who grew up when a product had a serial number, an owner, a size, a weight, to suddenly be in charge of selling an ephemeral product with nothing but a production cost that must be somehow recouped.
Wait until the kids that grew up with broadband are old enough to approach venture capitalists, to lobby congress, to go to court. Then we'll see some change.
Re:I am Canadian, (Score:3, Interesting)
You'd be amazed at how quickly you stop worrying about what's on the TV anyway.
That's the most liberating decision you'll ever made. I stop watching tv a while ago and, while I still enjoy some shows, I find my tv free life saner. Every once in a while when I go see my dad, I am amazed on how lethargic people can became in from of the tube, especially when the commercials rolls in. A life without the constant bombarding of those is a much better life, simply put. When I watch them now, they don't work on me as much as before since I now find them deceitful and just plain stupid. You're gonna tell me "I already finds them stupid and borderline fraudulent" but trust me, live 6 months without tv and you'll see what I mean.
:P
You can call me a conspirationist all you want, but I am now of the opinion that publicity and certain tv shows (news and what is now passed as news) are great tools to hardwired individuals into a certain mindset and infuse various ideas and ideals into the populace.
You just won't get what people talk about at work sometimes
Re:HD PVR (Score:4, Interesting)
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....
Re:I am Canadian, (Score:2, Interesting)
... "voting with your wallet" is dead and gone. To any major corporation you aren't even a drop in a bucket ...
While I can understand the sentiment of what you are saying, and believe me, I sympathize.
However, that is *exactly* the attitude that the giant megacorps WANT us to have.
You DO vote with your wallet, constantly. And it may not seem like a lot, but making small sacrifices, and/or just being noisy about it CAN make a difference.
"One person can make a difference" is a truism, because none of us are really are "one person" we have a whole network of friends and contacts, and everything we do has a ripple effect.
Facebook, et. al., are tools, and sometimes I wonder if they are helping us (I hope they are), or are just making us (even more than we already are) tools of the corporations, by helping us forget that we do make a difference, even out here in meatspace.
Re:It's like quitting smoking. (Score:4, Interesting)
Mad Men is a brilliant depiction of early 60's life on Madison Avenue. Breaking Bad is riveting drama. And Rescue Me oscillates between balls-out humour and tragedy. I don't mind giving up three hours a week for the 16 new episodes each year of these shows. And, although in this post-literate world I doubt many realize it, most of Charles Dickens' classics were written as weekly serials that were eagerly awaited by his readers at the time.
At the same time, I enjoy spending time with my two teenage daughters watching The Simpsons and South Park. That's a communal experience where we share observations and thoughts triggered not only by the shows, but by the news breaks and even commercials.
I'll admit most prime time network fare leaves me cold (House is an exception), but there always seems to be something interesting on the "speciality" channels. Watching Deadliest Catch for example, made me much more cognizant of how exactly that king crab got on my plate. I've learned a lot about cooking from the Food Network. National Geographic and History channels both provide more depth to subjects which I previously knew only cursorily.
But here's the real thing: are you all brainless single-taskers? As I write this, there's a TV show playing next to me. I work at home, and I have both my computer and TV on pretty much all day. It doesn't seem to affect my ability to get work done.
And if I'm watching a set that's not near my computer, I usually have a book or magazine in my hand. Just last night, my daughters convinced me to watch "America's Best Dance Crew" with them. (My elder daughter spent 7 years in competitive dance before giving it up for soccer.) I was so proud of both of them. They paid attention while the different groups did their dance sets, listened to the judges' comments, and then both immediately turned away from the commercials and other drivel, and started reading the novels that were in their laps.
If your idea of watching TV is sitting with a remote in one hand, a drink in the other, and a bowl of chips in your lap, then I agree, get rid of your idiot box. But if you treat it as another, parallel, information source, and have some other useful content at hand, then TV can be entertaining, stimulating, and informative.
Re:I am Canadian, (Score:3, Interesting)
TV stations didn't stop showing SG-1, they were just several years behind the actual channel it showed on, which was sci-fi. Its called syndication and its basically like buying the generics. SciFi (or its new faggot name of syfy) shows the first run episodes, 5 seasons into it they start selling season 1 to other stations, then on the 6th season, they sell season 2 to the tv stations.
Screw cable, get TV from the internet... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's like quitting smoking. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, I watch the NBC Nightly News every day. Even though it's only about ~22 minutes without commercials, it's still very informative. I also listen to the Nightline podcasts, and read newspapers, though mostly on the weekends for several hours. (As for 'cable news', I often leave CNN on as background noise as I go to sleep, but usually buffer it up and FF through commercials and especially annoying blathering.)
This blind hatred towards TV and TV news is really annoying. Heck, I like a lot of 'dumb' reality shows, but I also watch a lot of documentaries.