Talinom writes "AnandTech has a writeup on how ClearQAMappears to be headed for an early death. From the article — 'At this point there's no reason to believe that cable companies won't deploy Privacy Mode across their networks, so it's a matter of 'when,' not 'if' this will happen. It goes without saying that if you're currently enjoying the use of a ClearQAM tuner to receive EB tier channels, you'll want to enjoy what time you have left, and look in to other solutions for the long-haul. At this pace, it looks like cable TV and computers will soon be divorcing.'"Update: 08/27 23:59 GMT by T: "EB" here stands for "Expanded Basic (cable service)"; Wikipedia as usual has a time-sucking, digressive, fascinating explanation about the tiers of cable TV service in the US.
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Actually there is a way and it is supposed to be provided by your cable provider on request by law if you are a subscriber. Just get a tuner that takes a cable card. What's that you say, your cable provider doesn't have that? well now is the time to start screaming to the FCC. Make the Cable companies follow the existing law.
I'm sure the cable company will be more than happy to provide you with a cable card if you need it. That'll just be an additional $9.95 per month rental fee for the additional outlet.
CableLABs, the guys that control cable card, refuse to allow pci/pci express cards to be sold to the public that accept cable cards. There is 1 model made by ati, but officially you can only buy it in a premade htpc from someone like Dell. The card even scans the dmi info of the bios to make sure it is an authorized system.
Also, the card only has Windows drivers.
Yep. That's exactly right. They're expensive, too, so in addition to the overpriced vendor-built and CableLab certified PC, you'll be paying an additional ~ $250 for the cable-card capable tuner. Don't forget you'll need 2 of them if you want to record one show while you watch another.
Which is why my home-built DVR only records HD from the local broadcast channels. SD still works out of the cable box, though.
I thought you only needed one m-card (which is apparently the follow on to the cable card but does multiple streams)? I'm new to this, but I thought I could take the m-card out of one of my comcast cable boxes once it was authorized and put it into another device like a TiVo? Now, I haven't tried it because I have an old TiVo and have to use the IR blaster - and there are all kinds of warnings plastered on the back of the comcast box about not removing the m-card, but it looked like it would work. I need to
>>>That'll just be an additional $9.95 per month rental fee
That pissed me off when Comcast did it to my TCM channel. For years I've had it "free" with my monthly service, and then suddenly they moved it to the digital tier (and without two months notice as required by law). I'm supposed to pay an extra $5/month (times three sets) to watch it. Bullshit.
This is what happens when you have a monopoly, and more importantly a government that is unwilling to regulate it. Perhaps it's time that Comcast got the treatment AT&T received in the 80s (broken-apart) and introduce choice for consumers.
Found an easy way around all this: Don't pay for cable. You're really not missing much but adverts anyways. If no one provides the service the way you want it, then do without the service, it's the only way to make em change.
CableCARD is dead. (You can tell because it was supposed to be integrated into TVs so that no set-top box would be required at all, but if you go to Best Buy or somewhere you'll find exactly zero TVs that actually have a CableCard slot.) Comcast and the other cablecos did everything in their power to sabotage it, and succeeded. Not only were there tons of "compatibility problems," but the cablecos constantly whined about how it didn't support bullshit like "On Demand." So now there's a "new" cable card standard called "Tru2Way" that's going to be available Real Soon Now (and if you believe it'll ever see the light of day, I've got a bridge to sell you...)
DVB-S cards can use smart cards to get premium (encrypted) channels as long as you have a subscription. They don't lock you out like cable does.
Unfortunately for American viewers, there is no legal way to do this. Although DVB-S is an international standard and widely adopted, current laws within the US prohibit using off the shelf hardware to decrypt the video signal. Doing this is considered signal theft.
Dish Network uses Nagra 3 encryption, as do some other providers in Europe. There are no legal conditional access modules available for this crypto system, so any use of these smart cards in devices other than what the provider supplies is considered theft, as well as a violation of the DMCA.
DirectTV uses it's own proprietary system and can only be legally used with their hardware.
This world is so absurd. I'm sorry, but if YOUR signal hits MY antenna, it's now my signal too. If your throw your ball into my yard, you better believe I'll keep it if I so desire, as you were the one who intentionally put it in my possession, so It must be ok. Encryption is irrelevant, if I can figure out how to read it, tough shit.
Classic DirecTV is not DVB compatible, although it looks like they are transitioning to DVB-S2. Also, the DirecTV smart cards are quite different than DVB CI cards.
You don't seem to understand the percentages, and how the big picture works.
Let me try to help:.0001% of your hardcore customers find a way around your DRM and you lose a few cents at most.. While the actual paying customers are locked in to their changes and continue to feed the beast that makes it harder to get around and buys more laws.
They really don't care if a few hardcore tech types get around it. Really they don't, since you end up viewing ads in the process anyway and STILL make them money..
On the other hand, I canceled my $120 since I couldn't get all the channels I wanted on my PVR (HBO, for instance). Now, I watch TV from Hulu and OTA. I switched to DSL as well. I hope others do as well.
I canceled cable a couple of months ago because Comcast moved a bunch of basic channels to the scrambled digital lineup. Thanks to the digital tuner on my tv, I had previously received the expanded basic package with digital broadcasts and no cable box.
They offered me 6 months of discounted service when I called to cancel, but thereafter it would be $100+/month for the upgraded subscription and $14.95/month for the box to receive those previously very-very-basic cable channels. Comcast is offering free converter boxes in other markets so there may be more options for some people.
OTA digital is superb. It was a bit of a PITA to run an amplified antenna to my window for decent reception, but I'm getting almost 40 channels where OTA analog could barely pull in 2 before, so I'm feeling pretty good about it.
Hulu and various other sites are filling in the gap very nicely.
I wonder, tho, how those cable channels are dealing with the loss of viewers. I'm not going to kid myself and pretend that all of us who cancel cable because of this are more than a drop in the bucket, but there's got to be an impact from the channels disappearing from basic cable lineups. Cartoon Network, History Channel, etc. are now on a scrambled digital tier that fewer people can watch. What's their response to that? And how are advertisers reacting to the drop in viewers on those channels? 'Anybody know?
I doubt it'll have much direct effect on the pirates of the world(as it looks like the gimped the hell out off the crypto to make it run on super-cheap devices, rather than using the actually fairly tricky stuff that ordinary higher-end cable boxes use); but it is still bad news.
With computer hardware, cost is overwhelmingly a function of production volume(there is a floor somewhere, of course, you can't make free stuff through infinite volume; but the difference between mass market and niche gear is con
You can't watch live TV if you can't break it faster than that.
Unless I'm missing something, it should theoretically be possible to cache the stream and decrypt it on your own schedule. Would largely be invisible to anyone used to time-shifting the shows they watch anyways-- if I'm not planning to watch the new episode of [insert show here] until the next day after it airs, what do I care if it takes hours to decrypt?
It would depend, I would expect, on what layer they are encrypting. If N channels consist of N encrypted streams, being multiplexed onto the cable, then you could pull out and save a single encrypted string, for offline decryption.
However, if the encrypted is done after the multiplexing, you might not be able to pull out individual channels. You'd have to grab the whole stream, getting all N channels, decrypt it offline, and then pull out the channel you want. That space requirements for that could be prohi
Its almost certain that the encryption is done prior to multiplexing, done inside the transport stream at the packet level even. That's way it works now with full-blown cablecard encryption.
Plus, space requirements aren't that prohibitive, maximum bandwidth of a single qam channel is 38mbps - that's 2 to 4 HDTV channels depending on how much the cableco over-compresses their channels.
Encrypting after multiplexing would make it difficult for the provider to authorize individual STBs for individual channels.
Each channel typically has a different key, thus allowing the provider to ensure that you can only watch the channels you have paid for, with a high level of granularity. If you call and order another channel, they simply authorize your STB for the new channel on their back-office system, and then whatever entity distributes these keys puts another key in the list it sends to your STB.
I told my wife years ago that I wanted to cancel extended-basic cable ("EB") but she balked at missing Stargate. So, the deal was, I'd get her any Stargate series on DVD rather than pay $60 a month for digital cable.
It turns out it was never necessary since I get EB over QAM with my analog basic cable. I'm sure they want to kill people like me off. But if it comes to pass, I simply will let it slide and buy the shows on DVD. I hate to be one of those "I don't have a TV" snobs, but I don't want to pay $60 per month, which goes up $10 every few years. And I most certainly do not want to rent any equipment.
You can also rent the Stargate DVDs and save money, unless you want to keep a copy you can watch over and over again. I discourage P2P episode downloading.
I hate to be one of those "I don't have a TV" snobs, but I don't want to pay $60 per month, which goes up $10 every few years. And I most certainly do not want to rent any equipment.
I believe we have reached a point, where it is no longer "snobbery" to not want to be assraped.
Really, I am not "too cool for TV." I am not weaned from the glass tit. I'm not too smart to look down on that drivel. My time isn't worth too much to veg out in front of a TV watching mindless crap. (Does this sound like a snob?)
Anybody else struck by the fact that a broadcast DRM system, used by the notoriously grasping and controlling cable cartels, is referred to as "privacy mode"?
At this pace, it looks like cable TV and computers will soon be divorcing.
As part of the divorce proceeding, I and my computer have been separated from cable for some time. We've been hanging out with a new mistress, Online Video. I can tell you that the divorce is only a formal proceeding and we will be much happier once it has taken place.
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday August 27, @06:13PM (#29224673)
Hey, it's me, Cable. Remember me, you lying sack of shit? You still with that Youtube skank? You owe me $300, that's $60 a month for the past 5 months, and you'd better pay up, asshole. I don't care that you say you sent me a cancellation notice! I never got the papers, so you never sent them. Pay up or your credit rating gets it.
Hey. I'm sorry, honey. I'm sorry I said those bad things. Look, I've been thinking... could we give it another try? I can offer you two months of free HBO? In HD? Come on, wasn't it good when we were together? Please. You're really important to me. I just want you back. I need you.
Fine. Fuck you then. You owe me $300 plus $60 for HBO. Cash will do nicely, if you ever want to borrow money ever again. I hope you get AIDS from Bittorrent.
I finally got tired of the $75/month, the cable box meltdowns every three months (Scientific Atlanta FTL), and the generally craptastic quality of over-compressed video from Brighthouse. Six months ago I told them where to shove it and never looked back. Now I get TV series on DVD from Netflix, occasionally catch a new show on Hulu, and use some good ol' rabbit ears to get my local channels (which look great in over-the-air digital, better than they ever did through the cable).
Screw cable. I'm done with paying for a raft of crap I don't need to subsidize their other businesses. And I'm certainly done with their obsessive consumer lock-in.
"Hauppauge's HD PVR that can redigitize the output of STBs for importing into a computer."
Widows7, sagetv, beyondtv and mythtv support HD-PVR. So either I will switch to HD-PVR, or install an antenna and pull the OTA signal. In anycase, I will not be paying compact for their crappy DVR
All this means is that the same techniques that HTPC users currently use for satellite will need to be used for cable as well.
You clip an IR transmitter to the front of your cable-box, and it changes the channels for you. The analog out on the cable box goes into the mythbox, and the mythbox goes out to the TV.
This is a pain in the ass, but not THAT much of a pain in the ass.
While I don't know how useful the 1394 port is for building home based DVRs, it's still a legal requirement (from what I understand, I'm not a lawyer) for the cable companies to provide. And you CAN complain to the FCC if they won't provide a box with a working port. And by all means, if they won't provide it, complain! The cable companies (and phone companies) really don't like people complaining to the FCC, and the FCC in my experience from days gone by where I worked for a cable company, takes complaints seriously. Assert your rights!
The Firewire requirement only applies to HD set-top boxes, which (of course) Comcast charges even more for. So those of us (such as myself) who want to be left alone to watch analog and/or standard-definition digital TV in peace using our perfectly good [digital]-cable-ready TV without a shitty box would not only have to get a box, but get the most expensive one ($10-$15 per box, per month)! Far from being a solution, it merely adds insult to injury!
Is this really a shock? Did people think that cable companies have any interest in user rights, hell if they could get away with just making you pay $50 to broadcast nothing but commercials they would do it in a heartbeat. People fell for the "oh look its shiny" HDMI push early on even though component was and is fully capable of 1080p. People fell for bluray even though it has much stricter content restrictions. Now we get to welcome our broadcast flag overlords. Hope everyone is happy...
On another note...Time Warner and Comcast announced plans to start trials of their TV Everywhere product which is basically an slingbox type service that will stream video on demand for a "nominal" fee. Of course some may see this as a way to get the sheep to accept bandwidth caps and show the govt they are "promoting" streaming video to cover their ass for the few brave enough to complain.
Most of us probably download most all our shows anyway, and with RSS it really doesn't take much effort to get everything you want. It'll help send a message to the cable companies, you'll save money, etc. The only catch is you're less likely to run across new shows by accident, but a little effort on the internet will give plenty of suggestions (e.g. look at number of seeds on a torrent). Cable is obsolete (sorta).
I loved analog cable, because it worked. Plug it into any tuner, and you can watch, record, etc. As a result of this, they got my money, month after month, for 8 years.
Encrypted cable is the reason they don't have me as a customer anymore. If I could be assured that stuff would just work, I would sign up, plug the cable into a HDHomeRun, and that would be the end of it. Or rather, that would be the end of it, except for the money that I would be paying them every single goddamn month.
Instead of that monthly money that they choose to not collect, I'm bittorrenting over Qwest.
Brilliant business model, Comcast. It just goes to show American business ingenuity: if you really don't want customers and are willing to do what it takes to prevent yourself from collecting revenue, there's always a way. Losing money might not be easy and the the best way to lose the most money and really stick it to your damned stockholders might not be obvious, but if you persevere, it's possible to do. Encrypted cable is the best solution -- the solution -- to the problem of excess cable TV revenue. Good job, boys.
The FCC mandates that if a cableco carries a channel that is broadcast over the air (OTA), then they can not encrypt their copy of it. The waiver is for the deployment of a couple of models of ultra-simple cable boxes (which, by the way, can't tune the full-blown cablecard encrypted channels) that just happen to have this DES privacy mode. Other cablecos, like comcast have been deploying similar boxes that do not have "privacy mode." But as far as I can tell, the waiver does not permit anyone to start encrypting the copies of OTA channels.
Seems to me that the result may be the reverse of what he predicts - that non-premium channels which are currently encrypted with the full-blown cablecard encryption like the digital versions of CNN, MTV, etc may get reduced to "privacy mode" encryption so that they can be more easily sold to more customers without as big a capital investment.
Then, there is also the whole thing about exactly what privacy mode is for. Are these boxes simply just cable boxes or are they boxes that support switched video - where you only have one or two video streams coming into your home at any one time and the box is responsible for requesting what channel the head-end should send you. In that case, the "privacy" mode may be a way to keep your neighbors from seeing what you are watching - as they can do now with most on-demand shows which are transmitted totally in the clear via special semi-hidden channels that anyone can tune to if they know the channel number in use.
What the cable companies are most afraid of right now is people "Cutting the Cord" (i.e., people leaving the walled garden and getting their TV purely over the Internet). This will happen whether or not privacy mode is instituted. These companies are fighting the last war, which is generally not good for your long-term survival.
There is one advantage of broadcast media -- ability to get information to a lot of people without burning up large amounts of Internet bandwidth. It takes up a lot less bandwidth to do one 1024p HD channel on a dedicated line than streaming the same content to millions of viewers.
However, by end running around the Audio Home Recording Act with DRM, it only means technical viewers will find other sources for viewing, a market will be created for decoder boxes, or more people will end up hitting the P2P sys
Best of all worlds -- have broadcasters have a standard, well documented, streaming interface to a PC that requires nothing more than a cable, so people can use their PC as a TV or a DVR to their heart's content.
Advertisers: "Eww, people can timeshift with that!!" MAFIAA: "No DRM?! How will we protect helpless copyrights from dangerous pirates?!" Broadcasters: "So if we sell a cable box/service package to John Smith and he decides to switch to [competitor], then he keeps the box and uses it with them?!" Lobbyists^H^H^H^H Congress: "Ain't gonna happen. Not via a new law, anyway."
Mods and other speed readers, please be sure to notice the presence of the quotation marks -- these are not my opinions.
I have another suggestion: just get a Netflix membership. The cheapest level, which I have, is only like $7/month, and lets you watch all the online content you can handle. Unfortunately, it does require Windoze/Silverlight (anyone know how to run it on Linux?), but other than that, it's quite handy, and certainly much, much cheaper than your typical cable TV package.
It's pretty cool being able to call up any episode of Star Trek I want to see at the moment.
Personally, I just don't see the point in cable TV. There's so many movies I've never seen (Netflix has a large selection of foreign movies, which are really fun to watch) that I can easily spend all my entertainment time watching those, without ever going to a theater or watching live TV. The only thing worthwhile (barely) on live TV is local news, and that's free with rabbit ears. Wait, there's also some good stuff on PBS, which again is free with rabbit ears. And sometimes there's a decent show on network TV, like Lost, which again is free with rabbit ears. For other things, there's always BitTorrent.
How much time do you spend sifting through the crap? I watch about an hour of TV a night before bed. Stewart, Colbert, and the first half of Conan. By that time of night, I just want to veg. Trying to decide whether something is going to suck or not is way too much work for 11pm.
It is somewhat lacking in the pure entertainment aspect -- the writing isn't as tight, and the production values are clearly less polished. But it makes up for that, at least for me, in the... texture?
The phrase you're looking for is "snobishness." There are a few less-harsh synonyms you could use, but it's the same general feeling of "my choice is better than yours" that folk who watch community theater over a TV broadcast of the same play have.
I have Comcast digital cable in Atlanta. Currently, Comcast sends SD (480i) extended basic cable stations (e.g. Discovery) in ClearQAM, albeit on weird frequencies (e.g. channel 103.5 for the afore-mentioned Discovery). The set-top box is allegedly "required" not in order to do any decrypting, but rather merely to translate the channels to their "official" frequencies (e.g. channel 40 instead of 103.5). Now, what they're planning to do is to start encrypting those channels for no good reason.
There are several major problems with what Comcast is doing:
Comcast's boxes are the shittiest piles of garbage on the face of the Earth. When Comcast shut off the analog History Channel I tried them, but after going through three that would work for a while and then flake out I gave up and just did without until I figured out how to tune to History Channel via QAM (channel 82.7, by the way).
It's a blatant money grab: by turning on the encryption, Comcast is instantly forcing everyone to fork over an extra $5 or so per month, per TV (give or take the single "free" box Comcast "generously" "offers" with certain types of accounts).
It's a blatant power grab: with unencrypted QAM, there can be a free market for digital TV tuners (and "digital cable ready" TVs) -- a situation which is intolerable to the fascists running Comcast. This way, they control the only supply of devices that can decode the signals, which means that they can hold features hostage, lock out competitors, etc.
It's fucking absurd to begin with, because there's no legitimate reason whatsoever why I should have to have an extra stupid box with an extra stupid remote (that isn't compatible with my TV, by the way) when my "digital cable-ready" TV is perfectly capable, sans Comcast's meddling, of tuning the damn channels itself!
In other words, the situation that's developing now is exactly like how AT&T used to control telephone equipment 30(?) years ago: it's monopolistic, murderous to technological process, and should not be allowed!
And that brings me to my final point: I really want to do everything I can to stop and/or punish Comcast for this. Is anybody planning to sue over it, and/or do you know of a class-action I can join?
Check out twinhan DVB-S cards for an alternative (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Check out twinhan DVB-S cards for an alternativ (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure the cable company will be more than happy to provide you with a cable card if you need it. That'll just be an additional $9.95 per month rental fee for the additional outlet.
Re:Check out twinhan DVB-S cards for an alternativ (Score:5, Informative)
Also, the card only has Windows drivers.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yep. That's exactly right. They're expensive, too, so in addition to the overpriced vendor-built and CableLab certified PC, you'll be paying an additional ~ $250 for the cable-card capable tuner. Don't forget you'll need 2 of them if you want to record one show while you watch another.
Which is why my home-built DVR only records HD from the local broadcast channels. SD still works out of the cable box, though.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Check out twinhan DVB-S cards for an alternativ (Score:4, Interesting)
>>>That'll just be an additional $9.95 per month rental fee
That pissed me off when Comcast did it to my TCM channel. For years I've had it "free" with my monthly service, and then suddenly they moved it to the digital tier (and without two months notice as required by law). I'm supposed to pay an extra $5/month (times three sets) to watch it. Bullshit.
This is what happens when you have a monopoly, and more importantly a government that is unwilling to regulate it. Perhaps it's time that Comcast got the treatment AT&T received in the 80s (broken-apart) and introduce choice for consumers.
Parent
Re:Check out twinhan DVB-S cards for an alternativ (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Check out twinhan DVB-S cards for an alternativ (Score:4, Informative)
CableCARD is dead. (You can tell because it was supposed to be integrated into TVs so that no set-top box would be required at all, but if you go to Best Buy or somewhere you'll find exactly zero TVs that actually have a CableCard slot.) Comcast and the other cablecos did everything in their power to sabotage it, and succeeded. Not only were there tons of "compatibility problems," but the cablecos constantly whined about how it didn't support bullshit like "On Demand." So now there's a "new" cable card standard called "Tru2Way" that's going to be available Real Soon Now (and if you believe it'll ever see the light of day, I've got a bridge to sell you...)
Parent
Re:Check out twinhan DVB-S cards for an alternativ (Score:5, Informative)
DVB-S cards can use smart cards to get premium (encrypted) channels as long as you have a subscription. They don't lock you out like cable does.
Unfortunately for American viewers, there is no legal way to do this. Although DVB-S is an international standard and widely adopted, current laws within the US prohibit using off the shelf hardware to decrypt the video signal. Doing this is considered signal theft.
Dish Network uses Nagra 3 encryption, as do some other providers in Europe. There are no legal conditional access modules available for this crypto system, so any use of these smart cards in devices other than what the provider supplies is considered theft, as well as a violation of the DMCA.
DirectTV uses it's own proprietary system and can only be legally used with their hardware.
It really sucks paying to loose control.
Parent
Re:Check out twinhan DVB-S cards for an alternativ (Score:4, Interesting)
Doing this is considered signal theft.
This world is so absurd. I'm sorry, but if YOUR signal hits MY antenna, it's now my signal too. If your throw your ball into my yard, you better believe I'll keep it if I so desire, as you were the one who intentionally put it in my possession, so It must be ok. Encryption is irrelevant, if I can figure out how to read it, tough shit.
Parent
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Classic DirecTV is not DVB compatible, although it looks like they are transitioning to DVB-S2. Also, the DirecTV smart cards are quite different than DVB CI cards.
Decryption on computer (Score:5, Funny)
If only there were some way to make a computer decrypt an encrypted signal...
Oh well, I guess that's game over.
!?!?
No, its not game over (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't seem to understand the percentages, and how the big picture works.
Let me try to help: .0001% of your hardcore customers find a way around your DRM and you lose a few cents at most.. While the actual paying customers are locked in to their changes and continue to feed the beast that makes it harder to get around and buys more laws.
They really don't care if a few hardcore tech types get around it. Really they don't, since you end up viewing ads in the process anyway and STILL make them money..
In the end, they win. Hell they already have.
Parent
Re:No, its not game over (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how the broadcasters and advertisers feel (Score:5, Interesting)
I canceled cable a couple of months ago because Comcast moved a bunch of basic channels to the scrambled digital lineup. Thanks to the digital tuner on my tv, I had previously received the expanded basic package with digital broadcasts and no cable box.
They offered me 6 months of discounted service when I called to cancel, but thereafter it would be $100+/month for the upgraded subscription and $14.95/month for the box to receive those previously very-very-basic cable channels. Comcast is offering free converter boxes in other markets so there may be more options for some people.
OTA digital is superb. It was a bit of a PITA to run an amplified antenna to my window for decent reception, but I'm getting almost 40 channels where OTA analog could barely pull in 2 before, so I'm feeling pretty good about it.
Hulu and various other sites are filling in the gap very nicely.
I wonder, tho, how those cable channels are dealing with the loss of viewers. I'm not going to kid myself and pretend that all of us who cancel cable because of this are more than a drop in the bucket, but there's got to be an impact from the channels disappearing from basic cable lineups. Cartoon Network, History Channel, etc. are now on a scrambled digital tier that fewer people can watch. What's their response to that? And how are advertisers reacting to the drop in viewers on those channels? 'Anybody know?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
With computer hardware, cost is overwhelmingly a function of production volume(there is a floor somewhere, of course, you can't make free stuff through infinite volume; but the difference between mass market and niche gear is con
Re:Decryption on computer (Score:4, Informative)
But the key changes every 2 minutes or so. You can't watch tv if you can't break it in much less than that.
Parent
Correction... (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't watch live TV if you can't break it faster than that.
Unless I'm missing something, it should theoretically be possible to cache the stream and decrypt it on your own schedule. Would largely be invisible to anyone used to time-shifting the shows they watch anyways-- if I'm not planning to watch the new episode of [insert show here] until the next day after it airs, what do I care if it takes hours to decrypt?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It would depend, I would expect, on what layer they are encrypting. If N channels consist of N encrypted streams, being multiplexed onto the cable, then you could pull out and save a single encrypted string, for offline decryption.
However, if the encrypted is done after the multiplexing, you might not be able to pull out individual channels. You'd have to grab the whole stream, getting all N channels, decrypt it offline, and then pull out the channel you want. That space requirements for that could be prohi
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Its almost certain that the encryption is done prior to multiplexing, done inside the transport stream at the packet level even.
That's way it works now with full-blown cablecard encryption.
Plus, space requirements aren't that prohibitive, maximum bandwidth of a single qam channel is 38mbps - that's 2 to 4 HDTV channels depending on how much the cableco over-compresses their channels.
Re:Correction... (Score:4, Informative)
Encrypting after multiplexing would make it difficult for the provider to authorize individual STBs for individual channels.
Each channel typically has a different key, thus allowing the provider to ensure that you can only watch the channels you have paid for, with a high level of granularity. If you call and order another channel, they simply authorize your STB for the new channel on their back-office system, and then whatever entity distributes these keys puts another key in the list it sends to your STB.
Parent
Not happening (Score:3, Interesting)
I told my wife years ago that I wanted to cancel extended-basic cable ("EB") but she balked at missing Stargate. So, the deal was, I'd get her any Stargate series on DVD rather than pay $60 a month for digital cable.
It turns out it was never necessary since I get EB over QAM with my analog basic cable. I'm sure they want to kill people like me off. But if it comes to pass, I simply will let it slide and buy the shows on DVD. I hate to be one of those "I don't have a TV" snobs, but I don't want to pay $60 per month, which goes up $10 every few years. And I most certainly do not want to rent any equipment.
Let me help you (Score:3, Informative)
Hulu Stargate SG 1 [hulu.com].
Hulu Stargate Atlantis [hulu.com].
You can also rent the Stargate DVDs and save money, unless you want to keep a copy you can watch over and over again. I discourage P2P episode downloading.
Re:Let me help you (Score:5, Informative)
We're sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed within the United States.
Hulu Stargate Atlantis. [hulu.com]
We're sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed within the United States.
Sigh!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I believe we have reached a point, where it is no longer "snobbery" to not want to be assraped.
Really, I am not "too cool for TV." I am not weaned from the glass tit. I'm not too smart to look down on that drivel. My time isn't worth too much to veg out in front of a TV watching mindless crap. (Does this sound like a snob?)
NewSpeak ++Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not Sad (Score:5, Insightful)
At this pace, it looks like cable TV and computers will soon be divorcing.
As part of the divorce proceeding, I and my computer have been separated from cable for some time. We've been hanging out with a new mistress, Online Video. I can tell you that the divorce is only a formal proceeding and we will be much happier once it has taken place.
Re:Not Sad (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, it's me, Cable. Remember me, you lying sack of shit? You still with that Youtube skank? You owe me $300, that's $60 a month for the past 5 months, and you'd better pay up, asshole. I don't care that you say you sent me a cancellation notice! I never got the papers, so you never sent them. Pay up or your credit rating gets it.
Hey. I'm sorry, honey. I'm sorry I said those bad things. Look, I've been thinking... could we give it another try? I can offer you two months of free HBO? In HD? Come on, wasn't it good when we were together? Please. You're really important to me. I just want you back. I need you.
Fine. Fuck you then. You owe me $300 plus $60 for HBO. Cash will do nicely, if you ever want to borrow money ever again. I hope you get AIDS from Bittorrent.
Parent
Kill your cable (Score:5, Insightful)
I finally got tired of the $75/month, the cable box meltdowns every three months (Scientific Atlanta FTL), and the generally craptastic quality of over-compressed video from Brighthouse. Six months ago I told them where to shove it and never looked back. Now I get TV series on DVD from Netflix, occasionally catch a new show on Hulu, and use some good ol' rabbit ears to get my local channels (which look great in over-the-air digital, better than they ever did through the cable).
Screw cable. I'm done with paying for a raft of crap I don't need to subsidize their other businesses. And I'm certainly done with their obsessive consumer lock-in.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Some of us like to watch shows as they come out, instead of waiting one or more years for them to come out on DVD or praying Hulu will play them.
For most shows with any sort of following, a torrent is usually available within a couple hours after the live broadcast.
Will cross that bridge when we get there (Score:3, Interesting)
"Hauppauge's HD PVR that can redigitize the output of STBs for importing into a computer."
Widows7, sagetv, beyondtv and mythtv support HD-PVR. So either I will switch to HD-PVR, or install an antenna and pull the OTA signal. In anycase, I will not be paying compact for their crappy DVR
(right now, I use XP-MCE with HDHomerun)
Here is the spec for the encryption (Score:4, Informative)
It is called ANSI/SCTE 52.
http://www.scte.org/documents/pdf/Standards/ANSI_SCTE%2052%202008.pdf [scte.org]
Inflammatory headline much? (Score:5, Insightful)
All this means is that the same techniques that HTPC users currently use for satellite will need to be used for cable as well.
You clip an IR transmitter to the front of your cable-box, and it changes the channels for you. The analog out on the cable box goes into the mythbox, and the mythbox goes out to the TV.
This is a pain in the ass, but not THAT much of a pain in the ass.
"CS Docket 97-80" section 47 C.F.R. 76.640(b)(4) (Score:5, Interesting)
How does this effect the FCC requirement for 1394 ports to be made available?
http://www.1394ta.org/consumers/FCC_complaint.html [1394ta.org]
While I don't know how useful the 1394 port is for building home based DVRs, it's still a legal requirement (from what I understand, I'm not a lawyer) for the cable companies to provide. And you CAN complain to the FCC if they won't provide a box with a working port. And by all means, if they won't provide it, complain! The cable companies (and phone companies) really don't like people complaining to the FCC, and the FCC in my experience from days gone by where I worked for a cable company, takes complaints seriously. Assert your rights!
Re:"CS Docket 97-80" section 47 C.F.R. 76.640(b)(4 (Score:4, Interesting)
The Firewire requirement only applies to HD set-top boxes, which (of course) Comcast charges even more for. So those of us (such as myself) who want to be left alone to watch analog and/or standard-definition digital TV in peace using our perfectly good [digital]-cable-ready TV without a shitty box would not only have to get a box, but get the most expensive one ($10-$15 per box, per month)! Far from being a solution, it merely adds insult to injury!
Parent
Yet idiots welcomed HDMI and BD+ (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this really a shock? Did people think that cable companies have any interest in user rights, hell if they could get away with just making you pay $50 to broadcast nothing but commercials they would do it in a heartbeat. People fell for the "oh look its shiny" HDMI push early on even though component was and is fully capable of 1080p. People fell for bluray even though it has much stricter content restrictions. Now we get to welcome our broadcast flag overlords. Hope everyone is happy...
On another note...Time Warner and Comcast announced plans to start trials of their TV Everywhere product which is basically an slingbox type service that will stream video on demand for a "nominal" fee. Of course some may see this as a way to get the sheep to accept bandwidth caps and show the govt they are "promoting" streaming video to cover their ass for the few brave enough to complain.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
More importantly, name one thing that HDMI has prevented you from doing compared to, say, DVI which has none of your hated "teh DRMz!" in it.
Actually, it does. HDCP (the DRM part) works over DVI as well as HDMI.
Stop paying for cable! (Score:4, Informative)
Damn these people want out of the business (Score:5, Insightful)
I loved analog cable, because it worked. Plug it into any tuner, and you can watch, record, etc. As a result of this, they got my money, month after month, for 8 years.
Encrypted cable is the reason they don't have me as a customer anymore. If I could be assured that stuff would just work, I would sign up, plug the cable into a HDHomeRun, and that would be the end of it. Or rather, that would be the end of it, except for the money that I would be paying them every single goddamn month.
Instead of that monthly money that they choose to not collect, I'm bittorrenting over Qwest.
Brilliant business model, Comcast. It just goes to show American business ingenuity: if you really don't want customers and are willing to do what it takes to prevent yourself from collecting revenue, there's always a way. Losing money might not be easy and the the best way to lose the most money and really stick it to your damned stockholders might not be obvious, but if you persevere, it's possible to do. Encrypted cable is the best solution -- the solution -- to the problem of excess cable TV revenue. Good job, boys.
Overly alarmist... (Score:3, Informative)
The guy is somewhat confused.
The FCC mandates that if a cableco carries a channel that is broadcast over the air (OTA), then they can not encrypt their copy of it.
The waiver is for the deployment of a couple of models of ultra-simple cable boxes (which, by the way, can't tune the full-blown cablecard encrypted channels) that just happen to have this DES privacy mode. Other cablecos, like comcast have been deploying similar boxes that do not have "privacy mode." But as far as I can tell, the waiver does not permit anyone to start encrypting the copies of OTA channels.
Seems to me that the result may be the reverse of what he predicts - that non-premium channels which are currently encrypted with the full-blown cablecard encryption like the digital versions of CNN, MTV, etc may get reduced to "privacy mode" encryption so that they can be more easily sold to more customers without as big a capital investment.
Then, there is also the whole thing about exactly what privacy mode is for. Are these boxes simply just cable boxes or are they boxes that support switched video - where you only have one or two video streams coming into your home at any one time and the box is responsible for requesting what channel the head-end should send you. In that case, the "privacy" mode may be a way to keep your neighbors from seeing what you are watching - as they can do now with most on-demand shows which are transmitted totally in the clear via special semi-hidden channels that anyone can tune to if they know the channel number in use.
Cutting the Cord (Score:3, Informative)
What the cable companies are most afraid of right now is people "Cutting the Cord" (i.e., people leaving the walled garden and getting their TV purely over the Internet). This will happen whether or not privacy mode is instituted. These companies are fighting the last war, which is generally not good for your long-term survival.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There is one advantage of broadcast media -- ability to get information to a lot of people without burning up large amounts of Internet bandwidth. It takes up a lot less bandwidth to do one 1024p HD channel on a dedicated line than streaming the same content to millions of viewers.
However, by end running around the Audio Home Recording Act with DRM, it only means technical viewers will find other sources for viewing, a market will be created for decoder boxes, or more people will end up hitting the P2P sys
Re:Podcasts, Vidcasts, &c (Score:5, Insightful)
[big snip]
Best of all worlds -- have broadcasters have a standard, well documented, streaming interface to a PC that requires nothing more than a cable, so people can use their PC as a TV or a DVR to their heart's content.
Advertisers: "Eww, people can timeshift with that!!"
MAFIAA: "No DRM?! How will we protect helpless copyrights from dangerous pirates?!"
Broadcasters: "So if we sell a cable box/service package to John Smith and he decides to switch to [competitor], then he keeps the box and uses it with them?!"
Lobbyists^H^H^H^H Congress: "Ain't gonna happen. Not via a new law, anyway."
Mods and other speed readers, please be sure to notice the presence of the quotation marks -- these are not my opinions.
Parent
Re:Podcasts, Vidcasts, &c (Score:4, Interesting)
I have another suggestion: just get a Netflix membership. The cheapest level, which I have, is only like $7/month, and lets you watch all the online content you can handle. Unfortunately, it does require Windoze/Silverlight (anyone know how to run it on Linux?), but other than that, it's quite handy, and certainly much, much cheaper than your typical cable TV package.
It's pretty cool being able to call up any episode of Star Trek I want to see at the moment.
Personally, I just don't see the point in cable TV. There's so many movies I've never seen (Netflix has a large selection of foreign movies, which are really fun to watch) that I can easily spend all my entertainment time watching those, without ever going to a theater or watching live TV. The only thing worthwhile (barely) on live TV is local news, and that's free with rabbit ears. Wait, there's also some good stuff on PBS, which again is free with rabbit ears. And sometimes there's a decent show on network TV, like Lost, which again is free with rabbit ears. For other things, there's always BitTorrent.
Parent
Re:Podcasts, Vidcasts, &c (Score:4, Insightful)
How much time do you spend sifting through the crap? I watch about an hour of TV a night before bed. Stewart, Colbert, and the first half of Conan. By that time of night, I just want to veg. Trying to decide whether something is going to suck or not is way too much work for 11pm.
Parent
Re:Podcasts, Vidcasts, &c (Score:4, Insightful)
It is somewhat lacking in the pure entertainment aspect -- the writing isn't as tight, and the production values are clearly less polished. But it makes up for that, at least for me, in the... texture?
The phrase you're looking for is "snobishness." There are a few less-harsh synonyms you could use, but it's the same general feeling of "my choice is better than yours" that folk who watch community theater over a TV broadcast of the same play have.
Parent
Re:TV sucks anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
In his own mind, Booth was a patriot. Maybe thinking you are a patriot isn't always a good thing.
Parent
Re:badtitle (Score:5, Insightful)
I have Comcast digital cable in Atlanta. Currently, Comcast sends SD (480i) extended basic cable stations (e.g. Discovery) in ClearQAM, albeit on weird frequencies (e.g. channel 103.5 for the afore-mentioned Discovery). The set-top box is allegedly "required" not in order to do any decrypting, but rather merely to translate the channels to their "official" frequencies (e.g. channel 40 instead of 103.5). Now, what they're planning to do is to start encrypting those channels for no good reason.
There are several major problems with what Comcast is doing:
In other words, the situation that's developing now is exactly like how AT&T used to control telephone equipment 30(?) years ago: it's monopolistic, murderous to technological process, and should not be allowed!
And that brings me to my final point: I really want to do everything I can to stop and/or punish Comcast for this. Is anybody planning to sue over it, and/or do you know of a class-action I can join?
Parent