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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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
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"?
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.
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.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
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.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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.
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?
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.
Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
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 considerable). If clearQAM gear is widely useful, out of the box, by nontechies and nonpirates, it'll be available in substantial quantity, from a variety of vendors, in a variety of configurations(PCI, PCIe, expresscard, usb, little network appliances, etc.). Same goes for supporting software. Larger market=lower cost per copy and/or greater developer effort per copy.
If clearQAM becomes effectively useless without h5x0r skills, hardware to suit will disappear from nonspecialist shelves soon enough, who would want the support headache? There'll still be new-old stock and chinese pirate hardware vendors and things; but it will be more expensive and not as good. If you are really unlucky, you'll even have to deal with DMCA flavored challenges that such tuners, sold outside of fully locked-down systems, no longer have any substantial non-infringing uses.
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 systems for content.
One compromise -- if Joe User wants to watch Fox News on their media box, let them. Advertisers benefit because Joe User will see their ads on the machine. The broadcast place benefits because advertisers may target Internet-savvy users more, thus more income from that.
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.
"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)
In fairness, the FCC requires the equivalent of the channels that you would receive over-the-air to be unencrypted (so-called "must-carry" channels). So in reality, you should expect pretty much everything other than those to be encrypted (so channels like TBS, TNT, USA, etc will be encrypted but channels like NBC, CBS, Fox will continue to be unencrypted).
It is called ANSI/SCTE 52.
http://www.scte.org/documents/pdf/Standards/ANSI_SCTE%2052%202008.pdf
In his own mind, Booth was a patriot. Maybe thinking you are a patriot isn't always a good thing.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
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
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.
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.
How does this effect the FCC requirement for 1394 ports to be made available?
http://www.1394ta.org/consumers/FCC_complaint.html
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!
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.
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?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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.
[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.
$ make available
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.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
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.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
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.
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
"The fact is that the FCC doesn't allow operators to encrypt HD locals, which is not going to change."
Time-Warner cable operators regularly encrypt the stations that are local to their customers. If it were not allowed they would not be doing it because the FCC fines would be fairly large.
Right now, in some markets, Comcast is sending local stations 'in-the-clear' but that will change in the very near future. In some other Comcast markets, they're already encrypting the local stations.
Simply put, the FCC has very limited power of control in regards to the cable television providers. Cable providers could distribute hardcore pornography if they wanted to and the FCC could not do one thing about it, with the possible exception of issuing a Rule that requires some method of restricting access so that children can't stumble across it accidentally.
Congress has passed no law requiring cable providers to send local stations 'in-the-clear'. Such a law might actually be unconstitutional. The FCC may or may not have made a Rule about it. If they did make a Rule about it, enforcement of that Rule is obviously lax. If it were merely a Recommendation, then there is no enforcement.
Welcome to America.
Bend over, please.
Thank you.
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
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?
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.
>>>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.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
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!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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.
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.
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.
First encryption is mandated by the content carrier deals signed by cable companies with the content providers. Remember, the cable company doesn't own the content, they only purchase the rights to broadcast it.
Encryption is pushed on the cable companies to protect content by the content providers. The substantial cost of the content licensing agreement, and all the encryption hardware required to cipher and broadcast content comprise a good chunk of your monthly cable bill.
Second, the Cable Card is a result of the consumer electronics providers whining to the FCC about how the cable companies have encrypted their networks to protect the content. They can't play on the now proprietary encryption scheme networks and sell more TVs so they pressure the FCC, who in turn "looks out" for consumers by mandating "separable security".
The cable industry response is the Cable Card which is a standards based device any CE vendor can support to decipher content. Again costing the cable company millions to develop (vis a vis CableLabs) and deploy, and again the cost is passed to consumers. But by God your Tivo works now so at least we don't have to put up with a crappy set top box. Too bad everyone doesn't own a Tivo so we can all enjoy what we pay for.
Third Cable Labs has nothing to do with the restrictions on PCs. It is again the content providers - they refuse to allow their content to be streamed on an open bus (PCI/PCI Express/USB) that may be easily sniffed or otherwise compromised with their content in the clear.
Now I know every Slash Dotter on the planet is all about open source, Linux, and free love, but here is one case where Microsoft was actually able to do something the open source community can't. At least in my humble opinion.
Microsoft convinced the content providers that Windows Vista security could protect their content (via Win DRM, the draconian premade PC, dmi and BIOS scans, etc) and earned the exclusive rights to support the PC version of a Cable Card tuner (OCUR). I don't believe for a minute this is due to Microsoft's technical superiority in the security space. Rather a substantial amount of under the table money was forked out to secure rights. So while free love is cool and all, monopoly level income has it's advantages.
So I come back to the point which is don't blame the cable companies, Cable Labs, or cable cards. The root of the issue lies with the content providers. If the content guys could pull their heads out of their asses and figure out how to protect their content for reasonable cost, or otherwise establish a sustainable business model so they didn't have to protect it, we could all quit paying the price tag to keep their ridiculous profit margins safe.
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.
ERROR: SIG NOT FOUND (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?:
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.
ERROR: SIG NOT FOUND (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?:
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
It's not that the government is unwilling to regulate it. It's that government grants them the monopoly. Your local government prohibits other companies from competing with the "authorized" cable franchisee. Get rid of this and allow companies to compete and at least you'll have an option to switch when one of them does something stupid.
Because the people it bothers are more likely to complain on Slashdot than to the FCC and their elected representatives, whereas the people who prefer this arrangement act directly, clearly, and forcefully in the political arena to protect their preferences.
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.