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An End To Unencrypted Digital Cable TV and the HTPC
Talinom writes "AnandTech has a writeup on how ClearQAM appears 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.
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.
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.
I've got TimeWarner Cable in the Los Angeles area. As it stands I only get 3 EB channels and 2 Digital only channels in ClearQAM. And they keep moving analog EB channels to Digital only tiers and not offering them in ClearQAM either. Overall the number of channels you can get without their box has been reduced by at least 10 channels in the past 5 years.
These DTAs approved are only SD and are instead of CableCARD enabled boxes.
The fact is that the FCC doesn't allow operators to encrypt HD locals, which is not going to change.
So if you love SD, then I'm sad for you, but for the rest of us that have moved on to HD, there's nothing to see here, move along.
It is called ANSI/SCTE 52.
http://www.scte.org/documents/pdf/Standards/ANSI_SCTE%2052%202008.pdf
What you are suggesting is good enough for SD content, but for HD you will need a new capture card that can digitize HD signal coming via component video cables (analog hole). Hauppauge HD-PVR does the job, but its expensive.
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.
Why bother
Yep, have to agree. I haven't had cable in over eight years. I also use OTA, Hulu, and DSL. It just doesn't make sense to pay so much for cable to have a lot of channels I couldn't care less about just to have the very few I do care for.
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).
Comast at least doesn't charge for the first card (and their wording on fees for additional cards makes it sound like they are limited to charging $2.05/month/card).
http://www.comcast.com/customers/faq/FaqDetails.ashx?Id=2651
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.
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.
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.
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.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
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.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
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.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
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...)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Hulu Stargate SG 1.
Hulu Stargate Atlantis.
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.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
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 check into this a lot more before I get a newer TiVo box or pick up an HDTV.
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.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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.
I think you're mixing up issues a bit here. I'm not going to argue with your general point, but you're off track on some technical aspects. I'm going to give my impression of the operator's point of view. I am somewhat sympathetic to both sides of this issue. It will probably sound like I'm favoring the operator, but that's just because I'm responding to someone who is 100% against the operator!
I assume by "channel 40" you mean NTSC (SD analog) on EIA channel 40. It would appear that by "103.5" you mean MPEG program number 5 on a QAM (digital) carrier on EIA channel 103. But I can't be sure.
The information that tells your set top box where Discovery is is SCTE 65 SI data, generally carried on a low frequency QPSK Out-of-Band channel. (Atlanta is a Motorola market, in spite of being home to Scientific Atlanta!) These data aren't encrypted or obfuscated in any way. I'm not very familiar with TVs with clear QAM tuners, but I think that they just let you cycle through frequencies and programs using the PSI on the QAM. This is probably not the experience the operator intends for you to have. You may be happy with this scheme, but the operator probably feels that you are using a loophole to access the digital content.
There are any number of operational reasons to put channels on QAMs that aren't very convenient for channel surfing on a clear QAM TV. This is not a problem when using a set top box, because it uses a virtual channel map. This gives the operator the freedom to move channels to their own benefit without affecting customers . . . who are using set top boxes. (Or, since you're posting from Atlanta and talking about analogs being cut, DTAs. I'm guessing the "free" box that you mention is a DTA.)
From the operator's point of view, they have a perfectly good system that delivers basic and premium content to customers in a way that gives them a great deal of operational flexibility (and associated ability to profit). They may not necessarily feel that it is in their best interest to accommodate you in using the service in this unintended manner.
From a purely technical and capitalistic point of view, it probably isn't feasible for them to limit the design of the network to the capabilities of your TV. Additionally, they have a strong financial disincentive to limit their capabilities in order to support customers who do not want addressable gear. (And, therefore, cannot take any premium services!)
You have left programmers out of the mix. I imagine that there is considerable pressure from programmers to cease transmitting their content in the clear.
This has all essentially already played out in digital satellite. Practically everything is encrypted and you absolutely must have a set top box to receive their programming.
Incidentally, I don't subscribe to cable or satellite.
-AC
Working, but with a twist. Time Warner (through their attorneys in a response to an FCC inquiry spurred by a complaint by me) says they can give you a functioning Firewire port as per regulation 47 CFR 76.640(b)(4). *However* your machine must have compatibility with DTCP (Digital Transmission Content Protection). In effect another DRM scheme controlled much like CableCARD. The technology must be licensed from a company with no motivation to actually sell anything, and incorporated into secure boxes to be sold to the public. Few qualified devices ever make it into the wild.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
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.
Just another proletarian malcontent.
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?
Yes, the m-card will handle multiple signals, and there are some TiVO boxes that will accept it. But there are no PC-based solutions that work with it yet. The ATI tuners can use them, but you still need 2 tuners. Supposedly, there will be some multi-tuner cards coming soon.
If you want to look into what's possible, the The Green Button forums has a lot of information, at least about using Windows Media Center. But if you plan to bring HD content into your PC, it's the only option, unless you only want over-the-air channels.
For me, the hybrid was the best choice. I get about 13 channels of HD from the local stations. I use the HDHomeRunner for that. Then I've got an "IR Blaster" hooked up to the cable box, and I can record/watch those channels in SD. I put all that together with less then $600 (not including the TV).
Note that FCC regulations prohibit encryption on the re-broadcasted local channels, so you'll always have clearQAM on those stations
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Netflix also streams to Macs now. Or as the other guy said pick up the $100 Roku box. The number of streamed content on Netflix seems to be going up exponentially; at first it was just a few movies. A couple of nights ago I added the first 10 seasons of South Park to my list just to watch 1 or 2 episodes per season (spooky vision!). Very good value.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
As someone who used to work as a TSR (Tech Support Rep) for Time Warner, I can tell you that your incorrect. Those CableCards were in fact one-way (passive). So being able to access channels that relied on switched-video technology, On Demand, or anything that required feedback of information back to headend would never work. I can't recall how many times I've been on phone with both frustrated customers and on-site installer techs trying to troubleshoot problems. Some issues could be resolved by "re-paring" the unique TV and cable card codes again, but most of the time it was the TV's fault. Either the QAM tuner in the set was crap, or the TV's logic board needed a firmware update. Any other issues that remained were traced to a weak signal or ingress on the line.
Basically, Comcast and Co did *not* sabotage the cable card. It truly failed because its implementation from the very start was just that BAD! While its true the cable card was just as expensive as having a nice Scientific Atlanta box, you at least got more channels and interactive programming (like on-demand) with that box. The theory was that they could make up for the cost over-all from the extra packages you might want to add-on later and on-demand movie rental fees. But over all, supporting the cable card was such a nightmare that it drove up the support costs for both TSRs and field techs. Naturally, they rose the rates on the cards, or just phased them out. Seriously, the cards were crap.
Life is not for the lazy.
Not only that, I am still analog on TV scene. Comcast is removing channels that are NTSC, to digital encrypted, but still calling it EB. Blaming the station for change. We just lost MSNBC.
Top it off, they are still showing in the NTSC listing that MSNBC is there at channel 81. But it is now digital and encrypted.
To me that is false advertising.
That's funny: you tell me I'm incorrect, then agree with me in great detail! For example, read my quote:
And your quote:
You see the similarity there? And my other quote:
And your corresponding quote:
I'd say my quote pretty much summarizes yours...
So anyway, thank you for taking the time to re-iterate my argument; it's nice to have someone from the industry validating what I said.
Of course, there is one tiny nuance to the issue you missed, though:
Have you ever asked yourself why the implementation was bad? I'll tell you why: because the people implementing it wanted it to be bad! And who implemented it, you may ask? Why, CableLabs of course, which is -- wait for it -- OWNED BY THE CABLECOS!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Hi, the article's author here.
It's called Privacy Mode because it was originally designed as a lightweight encryption mode to scramble Video-On-Demand transmissions, so that your neighbors couldn't eavesdrop on what you were watching. The specific implementation was based on the fact that it needed to be easy to encrypt to make things easy on the head-end, and there wasn't much concern about people breaking in to unscheduled transmissions. It was only supposed to be strong enough to keep people from poking around at what VoD customers were watching. Accordingly, you'll find a lot of amusing articles on the internet from around 2007 where people talked about peaking in on VoD transmissions, as Privacy Mode was not yet widely implemented.
Anyhow, Privacy Mode was later shoehorned in to use with DTAs, as being so easy to decrypt it would also be an extremely cheap way to add encryption to DTAs, and at the same time not require significant upgrades at the head-ends. And thus in spite of the fact that it's going to be used as a DRM scheme here, it's still called Privacy Mode.
easy to do on linux - just get a Roku and a vid capture card.
i just canceled cable. OTA+myth and Netflix+roku are filling the gap.
While I haven't read every cable TV franchise in the USA, the portion I bolded is probably wrong in most cases. Every franchise agreement I have read specifies that it is "non-exclusive"; i.e., any other qualified operator who comes into your town and who wants to set up a system should be able to get a franchise from the town. The issue is that, with a very few exceptions, the population density in a given area isn't great enough to make it profitable to run side-by-side systems, so the first operator in winds up being the only one. The only places I have heard of which had multiple systems available were a section of Manhattan Island (i.e., central New York City) and some places where people were so fed up with their service that a municipal system was set up to compete (which sidesteps the profitability argument). Note: IANAL, but I have served on a municipal Cable TV committee.
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
Strange, my 8VSB cards don't have any trouble with encryption and I don't have to pay an exorbitant monthly fee. :)
(bunny-ears for those unfamiliar with the acronym).