Most Hackable Coupon-Eligible DTV Converter? 479
An anonymous reader writes "So I've finally gotten my DTV coupons, now I have to choose a converter before the analog signals go dark. I'd like to get one that is hackable, but haven't had much luck finding information about the internals of the units available. My question is: What chipsets do the different coupon eligible converters use, and which one is the most hackable? It'd be great to be able to send my own MPEG stream and have it displayed, or to grab the raw stream out of the device."
Just stop watching TV (Score:3, Insightful)
There's really nothing on.
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BATTLESTAR GALACTICA!!!!
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Re:Just stop watching TV (Score:5, Insightful)
That's on TPB. Not everyone has access to US TV, you insensitive clod!
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The problem is that there is a show. You maybe get to see it when you're in the US, you may start to like it. Yet you come back home to your country and find out that it's not available. No network is showing it. Maybe you're in luck and you'll see it in a few years, when they got around to ruining it with completely inconsistant and/or ignorant dubbing. Maybe you'll never get to see it.
What should you do? You can wait, and see just how much they fucked up with the dubbing this time. If you want to see it i
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Isn't that on the verge of being finished anyway?
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I'm waiting for them to re-imagine Quark into a new TV series..
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I'm waiting for them to re-imagine Quark into a new TV series..
Probably turn Ficus into Mother-in-law's Tongue.
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Like he said, there's really nothing on.
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Paradox (Score:5, Funny)
It's kind of impossible to get a useful answer to your question on Slashdot... You see, if someone gives you a valid link to something that is actually useful, it gets modded up. It will immediately sell out, and you're back to square one. :-)
Um.. WHY? (Score:5, Insightful)
WHY would you want to waste your time even doing that? What's the point? There are DTV tuners on USB sticks that are likely easier to hack than some single-purpose hardware like these converter boxes!
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There are DTV tuners on USB sticks that are likely easier to hack than some single-purpose hardware like these converter boxes!
I have one of those DTV tuners on a USB stick. Where do I plug the TV into it? How can you "send your own MPEG stream and have it displayed" with it?
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There are DTV tuners on USB sticks that are likely easier to hack than some single-purpose hardware like these converter boxes!
I have one of those DTV tuners on a USB stick. Where do I plug the TV into it? How can you "send your own MPEG stream and have it displayed" with it?
By plugging it into your computer's USB port and streaming Media Center to your Xbox of course.
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Cool. Can you give me a link to the source tarball for this "Media Center", and schematics for an Xbox?
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Get a newer video card for your computer, THAT'S how! Even the cheap PNY Nvidia-based card I just bought recently has composite, s-video, and component video outputs on the back. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel!
Re:Um.. WHY? (Score:4, Informative)
The DTV tuners on a USB stick won't be as nearly free as the converter boxes would be my first guess... ;)
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Are they even free? Last I saw a pallet of them at Wal-Mart, the boxes had a price tag of $59, which is $19 out of pocket, plus tax.
Meanwhile, Newegg shows me a 1080i-capable USB dongle which works without ugly hacks for $29, and Ebay shows some for as little as $16 (shipped).
I'm not an expert in math, but the following seems to be true: If time is money, then $29 is a good deal. And even if time is free, then $16 is certainly less than $19.
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Sigh. After all these years, there are still slashdotters who don't grasp that "hacking" and "convenience" have nothing to do with each other.
HDHomeRun (Score:5, Informative)
Not quite what you asked for, and I don't know if you can use your coupon (I'm guessing not)... but the HDHomeRun [silicondust.com] allows you two capture MPEG streams. It integrates well [silicondust.com] with MythTV [mythtv.org]. It has an open source library [silicondust.com]. Pretty sweet little device in my opinion.
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Seconded, kind of... (Score:4, Informative)
I'm the happy owner of an HDHomeRun. It's a fantastic device, and I highly recommend it, but it's not a coupon-eligible converter. Normally, I would say to chuck the coupon aside and get it anyway, but the reason why the HDHomeRun isn't coupon-eligible is its lack of an RF output. You have to get the stream off the network, you can't connect it straight to the tv.
Now, I have a mythtv box connected to my TV, so that's not an issue for me. If you have a computer serving as a media center I most definitely recommend it, but if you just want the streaming as a bonus, and still want RF output, then it's not for you.
Again, this is not a criticism of the device. I absolutely love mine, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a way to stream unencrypted HD to their computers. Silicon Dust also has excellent forum support to help you set it up if you need it. However, if you want a converter box to hook directly up to your TV, this is not the device for you.
Re:Seconded, kind of... (Score:5, Informative)
just sad (Score:2, Insightful)
perhaps you should throw out your coupon or give it to someone who can't afford to purchase one and missed getting a coupon. If you're looking to hack something you should use your own money to buy one and not mine.
Thank you.
Re:just sad (Score:4, Insightful)
It's just as much his money as it is yours. Not that the whole program isn't a boondoggle already.
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You can look at it as "as much his money as GP's".
I suppose, then, that we're saying that a tax dollar belongs equally to all U.S. citizens.
Which means that even if it's as much his as mine, it's still roughly 99.9999997% not his money; less than a penny of the value of the coupon is "his", outside the purpose of the coupon program.
I agree with GP's sentiment. The program exists for a reason, and geek hobbying isn't the reason. Buy your own toys.
Re:just sad (Score:4, Informative)
And how, again, is attempting to improve the functionality of the equipment somehow invalidating his claim to the money?
From the governments website itself.
Re:just sad (Score:5, Informative)
But the coupons aren't coming out of tax money, they're coming out of the license fees paid by Verizon for the 100 MHz of spectrum being taken away from the UHF TV band.
You could argue, I suppose, that it all comes from the US treasury and so it offsets taxes, but the linkage is quite strong, since the conversion to digital has enabled the extra spectrum to be leased, which brought in the funds to pay for the coupons to subsidize the converter boxes.
And yes, the conversion to digital really has enabled the band to be compressed. ATSC is more generous with adjacent channel allocation rules which allows the broadcasters to be packed in together tighter than was the case with analog. In particular, adjacent channels are allowed to be used by broadcasters transmitting from the same site. This is why channels 33, 34, 38, 39, 43, 44 and 45 will all be coming from Sutro tower post-2/17. You weren't allowed to do that with NTSC.
Re:just sad (Score:5, Informative)
If you're looking to hack something you should use your own money to buy one and not mine.
If he has an analog-only TV, he is entitled to a coupon. End of story.
The poor people who didn't act earlier are also entitled to a coupon, but not his coupon. Any problems that the program is having getting coupons distributed are due to government incompetence, not coupon recipients.
These coupons are paid for from the proceeds that the government made selling the old TV bandwidth. They compensate TV owners for the diminished value of their property resulting from the government action, so the coupon fund is not your money to begin with.
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Yes, everything is money that could have spent elsewhere.
If only you were in charge.
Which you aren't.
Possibly because no one cares what you want to spend the money on and you haven't convinced them to. I'm glad. I paid good money for a TV which would have stopped working after this transition and the fact that the government used part of the proceeds from selling off that spectrum on a program that provided me the money to retrofit my TV to work with the new system is appropriate to me.
You are just another
Re:Pffffffft...that's all of our money (Score:2)
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It's not your money or his money, it's Verizon's money. They bought a chunk of the 100 MHz of spectrum being given back from the UHF band, the coupons are coming out of that.
Republicans? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is this tagged republicans? Did I miss something?
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I was wondering the same thing. I'm pretty certain that, some days, the editors here at Slashdot are too busy having Obamagasms to realize that you can't blame Bush or the Republicans for every government ill.
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HDHomeRun (Score:4, Informative)
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Why bother hacking one when you can get an HDHomeRun...
It does have a $180 USD price tag though...
Seems to me as if you went a long way towards answering your own question.
Tivax STB-T9 (Score:5, Informative)
Netcraft Confirms it: Ask Slashdot is Dying (Score:5, Informative)
Sigh. Not your fault, but yours is the first post I've seen that actually tries to answer the question. To find your post I had to skim past 100 posts that say things like:
I swear, Slashdot conversations get more and more solipsistic every day.
Valid info (Score:5, Informative)
For the chipsets used, you can check the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_CECB_units .
But as to hackability, I seriously doubt that ANY of these unit are sophisticated enough to run a real OS with some hacking potential. If you're a hardware wizard, you might be able to do something, but I don't see the value in spending lots of time trying to hardware hack a box which costs $10-$20 out-of-pocket.
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The basic task involved for these boxes requires them to properly and fully decode the broadcast DTV signals, then (to qualify for the coupons) downsample the signal and reencode it as NTSC.
As a rule of thumb in hardware design, you make it as step-by-step debuggable as possible - Which in this case means planning for a tap after the decoding stage but before the downsampling stage.
I would fully expect nearly all of these units to require
Re:Valid info (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately, no. Most of them are system-on-chip, with the demodulation, decoding, and downsampling all done within a single chip.
The Channel Master 7000 and the DTVPal (based on a separate demodulator and decoder) have more options for hacking; the Channel Master box in particular was designed to have a digital audio output, which was scotched due to coupon box requirements. A few passive components restore the output, but it's muted; there's a JTAG port if you want to try your hand at firmware hacking.
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Parent is scored +5, and rightly so since it's the only useful comment so far.
To add, I also wondered the same thing. I bought the Zenith DT-901 (reported to be the highest-quality low-end DTV converter) and it's pretty darn spartan inside. Basically the only chip on the device is a SoC that handles everything, from the digital tuner to the analog output. I think there might have been some unpopulated JTAG headers, but other than that, there was nothing on the board to indicate that it is hackable. Even if
S-Video with Apex 502 (Score:5, Interesting)
If you have a TV or monitor with S-Video inputs, you'll get a better picture than using RS170 composite video (and much better than CH3/4 RF)
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First of all RS170 is black and white. You meant RS170A. Secondly, this myth about S-Video being oh so much better than composite is BS. Let me explain the big whopping difference between the two. S-Video sends the chrominance with associated burst on a separate channel from the luminance, which by the way is pretty close to RS170. On RS170A the sum of the luminance and chrominance signals are on one wire. I will admit that since everyone believes that S-Video is better that some engineers may have pu
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He's right. Unless the S-video source contains some extremely high-quality components and filters, you're better off with composite.
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It's not a myth. The myth I see is people spending big $$$ on a quality gold-plated monster composite video cable. Even the cheapest (shielded) S-video cable will produce a better picture. Just look at the setup menu text on any cheap DVD player. Text with fine vertical lines would look blurry and have bleeding colour with composite video, but be crisp with S-video. Hook up your computer to a TV via composite and S-video and tell me which picture is more readable.
I could see your point if we were talking ab
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Well... (Score:2, Interesting)
As far as using the output, there are ATSC converter boxes that can interface with the TiVo Series 2. Likewise, they could interface with anything that can accept composite or S-video and output IR signals.
Blonder Tongue makes ATSC demodulators that can work via Web or RS-232, but I doubt they're coupon-eligible, and like any professional AV equipment, the stuff is heavy, rack-mountable, heats up like a kiln, and will cost a li'l bit.
Your best bet is probably an ATSC capture device that works with MythTV. I
Dish Network (Score:2, Informative)
Check out the Dish Network box. I admit, I haven't had a chance to actually try to use one of these, but the video I've seen of them in use looks really similar to their set top box firmware. Could just be some sort of theme though...
Use the Component Video hole (Score:2, Informative)
Just make sure you get a converter box with Component Video out (also called YPbPr). Then you can use the Hauppauge HD PVR http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html to capture the hi-def video to a hard drive.
This is a solution that works for any HD settop box no matter what copy protection it provides, so long as it outputs component video.
Re:Use the Component Video hole (Score:4, Informative)
Dear Submitter: You got a coupon... for this? (Score:4, Insightful)
No offense, I think hacking a DTV converter is a neat idea, but I think you've unwittingly highlighted a major problem with the DTV coupon program. I think the program was generally intended to ensure that people in fixed/low income situations would be able to receive television signals after the transition. Instead, the majority of coupons have been redeemed by early adopters/geeks who generally do not need a dtv converter in the first place or would have been able to afford one without a coupon. In my experience, most of the people I know that need a converter did not even know about the program -- the only ones who knew about it were fellow techs who haven't had an analog TV in years.
Now we have people (most notably the Obama administration) stating that the DTV deadline because the coupon program is out of funds and those very people that program was designed for *still* do not have a coupon or a converter.
So my question is: if this is just some "for the fun of it" lark that you're going on with these DTV converters, don't you feel like it was at least slightly unethical (or at least a violation of the spirit of the program) to get a hand-out from the government?
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I think the coupon is the appropriate thing to do for people of all income levels. The government has changed the way that TV is being broadcast which makes older TV's unusable -- shouldn't they also
It's for TELEVISION, dumbass (Score:3)
Quality restrictions on subsidized DTV converters (Score:3, Informative)
Zenith DTT900 Teardown Photos (Score:4, Interesting)
In case any of you are interested, I took photos of my teardown of the Zenith DTT900 [nuxx.net], one of the first available DTV converters, available here: http://nuxx.net/gallery/v/acquired_stuff/zenith_dtt900/ [nuxx.net].
Re:Why bother? (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't count on that.
Yeah, yeah, they're killing the analog broadcast because they need the frequency. Yeah, sure. In Europe, we're "ahead" of the times again, we got our digital boxes, our analog signals were shut down and the frequency ... well, did they find someone already to buy it? I dunno.
At least part of the reason to switch to the artefact-ridden compression-fest that digital TV is, is simply that it offers more chance to get some kind of DRM into the stream. And for this your chances to a hackable box decrease over time, when they find and patch more and more holes.
Older, hackable, boxes, i.e. the ones you buy now, might be grandfathered because they don't want this rollout nightmare to happen again.
Sold (Score:3, Informative)
2. I highly doubt that we'll be seeing DRM on broadcast television any time soon.
Re:Sold (Score:5, Informative)
Use of the broadcast flag or any other kind of DRM has been declared illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court, based upon their previous ruling that consumers have a right to use DVRs, VCRs, or similar devices to record & timeshift the programs.
Re:Sold (Score:4, Informative)
Something new, called Selective Output Control has been approved. This seems to be related to the HDCP (presumably HD Content Protection) already used with HDMI devices and displays. As I understand it, it can be used to restrict what quality of signal is available to any given display or other device.
Of course, remains to be seen how the courts will treat this.
Re:Sold (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/selectable-output-control-mpaa-s-new-control-tactic-t354786.html [videohelp.com]
-- the idea that a TV show should be able to disable parts of your home theater (for example, if MTV is worried that your Dolby sound outputs might be used to record the audio portion of music videos, they could shut down those outputs and only allow you to hear sound via the speakers in your TV).
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to engage in "selective output control" (SOC). If the FCC agrees, the MPAA and the movie studios it represents (Paramount, Sony, Fox, Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers) would be able to "turn off" any output plug they choose,
If I am unable to use my expensive surround sound speakers, and I'm stuck with the cheap speakers in my TV, I'm going to be very pissed.
Re:Sold (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why bother? (Score:5, Informative)
What are you talking about? There are no "holes" to be patched--MPEG2 transport streams are unencrypted. Though I don't doubt that content owners would surely love to impose DRM on broadcast content, it's simply not provided for in the ATSC specifications [stanford.edu] for MPEG2 over-the-air transport streams.
The infamous Broadcast Flag--the only element of DRM to have ever loomed over broadcast television--is dead and buried. Besides, none of the DTV converters currently available have any DRM-compliance built in.
Barring the highly unlikely event that Congress decides to modify the ATSC spec after tens of millions of TVs with DTV tuners are owned by consumers, there is zero chance of DRM becoming an issue with digital television programming.
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>The infamous Broadcast Flag--the only element of DRM to have ever loomed over broadcast television--is dead and buried. Besides, none of the DTV converters currently available have any DRM-compliance built in.
You must be using a meaning for 'dead and buried' that I'm not aware of.
If this were so, then there would be no way to turn it on. And if it were turned on, then nobody would looking at this flag. Neither is true. Otherwise, the Microsoft debacle (is that redundant?) would not have happened.
http [cnet.com]
Re:Why bother? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why bother? (Score:5, Informative)
At the time, I was recording from Comcast. They make extensive use of the broadcast flag, and ever DVD player I tried out obediently did exactly what it was told and refused to record when asked not to.
So, yea, the broadcast flag is alive and well, and used pretty much by all the service broadcasters (Comcast, Verizon FIOS, Time Warner, Dish, etc.).
But for for over-the-air TV, not only is there no broadcast flag, but re-broadcasters of local stations are banned from scrambling them.
Re:Why bother? (Score:5, Informative)
>>>At the time, I was recording from Comcast.......So, yea, the broadcast flag is alive and well, an
Comcast is not broadcast you twit. It's narrowcasting via a cable, and has nothing to do with what we're discussing (over the air broadcast).
Re:Why bother? (Score:4, Informative)
The broadcast flag only applies to OVER-THE-AIR ATSC broadcasts.
Cable systems are an entirely different story. Unlike the ATSC standards where the limit of DRM is the broadcast flag (which IS dead and buried), cable systems DO encrypt their signals and DO use DRM on 95%+ of their content, and most cable boxes force 5C encryption on their Firewire outputs and I'm guessing HDCP encryption on HDMI outputs (although most cable boxes currently available have component and not HDMI - this will probably change soon). About the only exception to the encryption on everything is that cable providers are legally forbidden from encrypting OTA broadcast feeds that they carry on their cable system. Cable (and satellite) DRM has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the ATSC broadcast flag.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Why capture? (Score:4, Insightful)
With the ever changing landscape. What would be a good worldwide capture card that would work for all standards both terrestrial and satellite that uses the PCIe x1 slot?
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Re:Why bother? (Score:4, Informative)
Though I don't doubt that content owners would surely love to impose DRM on broadcast content, it's simply not provided for in the ATSC specifications [stanford.edu] for MPEG2 over-the-air transport streams.
Actually, the ATSC spec does allow any abitrary types of packets to be inserted into the stream. These could be used for DRM authorization, etc. The ATSC spec as adopted by the FCC [atsc.org] is a more relevant link, as is the conditional access specification [atsc.org], which specifically deals with this sort of thing.
But, the FCC requires that the OTA broadcast be unencrypted, so normal MPEG-2 that is receivable by all will be there as long as the FCC controls the station license.
The upshot of this is that nothing prevents a station from sending a 480i MPEG-2 stream as the unencrypted one, and adding an encrypted MPEG-4 1080/60p stream for paying customers. At this point, only market forces (in particular, network affiliations) will keep this sort of thing from being the standard for OTA TV in the US.
Re:Why bother? (Score:4, Insightful)
The infamous Broadcast Flag--the only element of DRM to have ever loomed over broadcast television--is dead and buried. Besides, none of the DTV converters currently available have any DRM-compliance built in.
Not quite "dead and buried" - turns out that some broadcasters are using it anyway and some tuners are obeying it anyway. In fact, our buddy Microsoft is lead the charge. [cnet.com]
So, while the BF remains voluntary, that doesn't help the poor schmucks who get stuck with a system that has "voluntarily" given away their option to ignore the BF.
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Not quite "dead and buried" - turns out that some broadcasters are using it anyway and some tuners are obeying it anyway. In fact, our buddy Microsoft is lead[ing] the charge [cnet.com].
Not just Microsoft. The last time I tried to record a college football game from KLKN-DT, it was flagged "Copy Once". I could get neither VLC nor MPEG Streamclip on my Macintosh to play the resulting recording. I could however play recordings from the same game broadcast on KETV-DT that were marked "Copy Freely". Recording application was AVC Video Cap (which requires recompilation with patches to do delayed timed recording as of 2009, left as an exercise for the reader).
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mencoder will gladly strip that flag. run it through mencoder with no processing. it by default removed the evil bits.
I do this all the time with lots of streams I snag from Comcast QAM feeds. windows apps will obey the evil flags, I prefer to violate them.
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My "old-fashioned" analog Super VHS laughs at broadcast flags and records DVD-quality video to boot.
Re:Why bother? (Score:5, Informative)
At least part of the reason to switch to the artefact-ridden compression-fest that digital TV is, is simply that it offers more chance to get some kind of DRM into the stream. And for this your chances to a hackable box decrease over time, when they find and patch more and more holes.
Europe != the United States.
Listen. The word "switchover" is kind of a misnomer. We're not switching "over", we're just switching "off". We've already got digital signals and have had them for years. That's how people get OTA HDTV. The standards are defined, the signals are being broadcast. All we're talking about doing here is turning *off* the analog broadcast. The digital feed is a known quantity.
Digital broadcasts in the United States are much, much better than their analog equivalents. You won't be getting HDTV with one of these converter boxes, but you'll be getting the SD sub-channel, which has the advantage over analog of zero static. There is nowhere that anyone who watches analog TV can claim that. Personally, I don't see any compression artifacts at all on OTA digital broadcasts, HD or SD, although obviously the SD channels are lower in resolution than the HD ones. Over the air digital broadcasts, which is what these converter boxes are for, are actually the only way to get a full-bandwidth signal currently. (All of the cable and satellite companies molest the signal in various ways to maximize bandwidth.)
And there's absolutely no DRM on OTA digital broadcasts. The industry tried to add some by asking the FCC to mandate a "broadcast flag", but that went nowhere. OTA signals are DRM-free - some *may* have the flag in a vain hope that the receiving hardware will respect it, but no currently-produced receiving hardware that I know of does. And I doubt any of the stations bother even inserting the flag anymore.
Older, hackable, boxes, i.e. the ones you buy now, might be grandfathered because they don't want this rollout nightmare to happen again.
They're not "rolling out" digital. It's already here. All this program is supposed to do is help people who haven't already upgraded, even though they've had about ten years to do so already.
Re:Why bother? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because the digital signal simply breaks when static is encountered, as opposed to analog which degrades gracefully. Digital transmission does provide a lovely image, often better than cable, but only when the signal is strong; analog has a far wider reach, which is very important for anybody not in the middle of a city.
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yeah I tend to agree. I live in an apartment where my analog channels weren't perfect but were watchable (and audible), even with static. I get quite a bit of interference on and off and it's rather annoying when a digital signal cuts or has problems and the sound goes out entirely (even if the picture is just blocking)until it picks back up (sometimes the picture as well). It's quite a bit different than getting a bit of static (or even a big burst of static) in the picture and sound on an analog channe
Re:Why bother? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why bother? (Score:5, Insightful)
And it is gospel truth, in my experience.
I get many analog signals here with just a simple whip antenna.
I get exactly ONE digital station.
And I get exactly one station even when using an outdoor broadband amplified antenna.
A snowy analog signal provides a lot more information and is a lot more viewable than a black screen showing only "no signal" in tiny white letters. I'd call that a lot more graceful.
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To add to the anecdotes, I plugged in the converter box I bought today, and I'm missing several digital channels that I get perfectly over analog.
Oh, and the 4:3 signal output by the converter box has black bars on all four sides for almost every channel on my TV. I'll be conservative and blame the TV, though, since it's fairly ancient (relatively speaking).
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This is, of course, bullshit, at least in my experience.
But not in my experience.
We are in a valley with no line of sight to TV transmitters. Out analog TV signal is marginal. Digital TV works most of the time, but depending on the weather it can break up or just go dead. So then we switch back to analog, fuzzy but still watchable.
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>>>you'll be getting the SD sub-channel, which has the advantage over analog of zero static. There is nowhere that anyone who watches analog TV can claim that.
(1) I can. The stations within 20 miles of my house, NBC8, FOX43, CW15, and ION49 all appear without static. In fact, they look *better* than their digital counterparts (which are artifacted).
(2) I had to spend $200 on a new rooftop antenna since the old settop rabbit ears/loop antenna got next-to-nothing.
(3) Stations beyond 50 miles admitt
Re:Why bother? (Score:4, Informative)
Except static on OTA analog lets the signal still be somewhat watchable.
Poor reception on OTA digital = no signal at all.
Re:Why bother? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, but then you can only play VHS tapes. :-)
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>poor disadvantaged people
Well, from a relationship standpoint, slashdotters fit the bill.
And shush, you'll let the po-po know about his scheme.
Re:Coupons? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nope, the coupons were to mitigate the ass-pain caused by having to go out and buy one at all. There are still plenty of people who don't have satellite or cable, even though they can afford it, because they only watch the weather in the morning and the news in the evening or some such. To them it's an added expense for no added benefit; hence the ass-pain mitigating coupons.
Yes, there are still plenty of people, all 13 million of them. Of course, we should cater to those 13 million in the face of the other 313 million that DON'T use the analog frequency, which could be put to better use for THOSE people.
Yes, makes perfect sense - cater to the tiny minority to the detriment of the vast majority.
Re:Coupons? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Coupons? (Score:4, Insightful)
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There was a limit of two (2) per household.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmmm... a Slashdotter tries to get some use out of his analog TV, and you automatically assume he might not also have another TV in the house? How many TVs do you think the typical 'dotter (who is out of mommy's basement and qualifies for his own coupon) has? The coupon program wasn't for people who didn't have a single digital TV set. It's for people who have any analog sets using over-the-air tuners. The two are not the same thing.
Re:Probably hard to find now, but (Score:5, Informative)
Still, the best target for a hackable box would be one from a company that produces a more powerful box, especially if there's very little if anything to distinguish them from the outside other than open holes in the backplate. To reduce cost of production, they might just have parts and not the ports, or the parts may be installable by a technically skilled end-user.
A case in point was a TV with a remote that had no digit buttons. The traces were on the board inside, it would send the signals if a button would make the connection, and the TV would respond, but the remote just didn't provide the buttons and the holes were covered over. I also discovered an old 2-13 monaural VCR that would respond to the digit buttons of a more modern VCR's remote (button 1 was channel 2, 2 was channel 3, etc., and 0 was channel 11, but nothing would get 12 or 13).
Many early cable boxes would have had Firewire out if they'd just installed the ports, a couple standard chips to the board, and applied a patch to the firmware, and if it wasn't a felony to open and modify them people would have.