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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."
About a year ago, they started flagging broadcast channels on the box, even though they also transmitted unencrypted on a channel you can get with a regular QAM tuner. Then about six months ago, they unblocked almost everything on the Digital Starter plan. Someone with pull complained to the FCC, but as I understand, it was under the radar. I would personally like to see someone start making some noise about this, just to keep the cablecos honest, and discourage them from reflagging stuff. I mean, I understand encrypting the signal to the box, but if I legally have a box, I ought to be able to get at the data I pay for. This look-but-don't touch nonsense really ticks me off.
3 years for me, but it's not as difficult as quitting smoking. The rewards are probably as great or greater than quitting smoking. The time freed up for living is the most mind blowing thing, not to mention being able to keep up with the core science stuff and getting back to being playfully curious rather than a spoon fed couch potato.
ideopath @ play
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.
I too gave up cable for precisely this reason: Cox wouldn't give me a box with working Firewire (despite angry phone calls to managers citing the FCC regulation that requires it here in the States). After a few weeks I decided that the cost of pursuing it further up the ladder and the cost of the service in the first place wasn't worth the quality of service, so I cut the cord.
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.)