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Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Flagged Channels For XBMC PVR?
AlphaWolf_HK writes "I own an HDHomeRun Prime tuner, and unfortunately I live in an area where the cable provider (Cox) blanket flags all channels to be copy restricted. I'm tired of using Windows Media Center due to bugs and other problems, but since the channels are flagged it is the only option. Satellite is of course not an option at all (no cablecard or similar standard.) I've already begun moving most of my content watching to XBMC in the form of using sickbeard and couchpotato, both of which do an amazing job even with torrents now that Usenet has been getting hit pretty hard. To match this, I've already dropped my cable tier to the lowest possible for some basic digital channels that people in my household still watch and aren't available over torrents. But ideally I'd like to cut the cord completely as the service is otherwise useless. Are there any options for obtaining this content without physically moving to Comcast territory where they don't do this? Or perhaps any workarounds for the CCI flag? Ideally, anything that allows XBMC with digital content and no transcoding."
Thanks for contributing to the death of the platform you are trying to use.
Write to your congress critter, whine online, nothing will happen. Cancel the service, you can live without cable-TV.
What about using an antenna? I cut cable about 7 years ago - everything comes in on Mythbuntu via an HDHR hooked up to a small roof-mounted antenna. We get about 30 channels OTA with no excess compression and no copy protection. Everything else comes in over the net (Netflix and "other").
You don't say what metro area you are in or whether you are living in an antenna-friendly building but you've already got 90% of the gear you need. Lots of info on the web about how to make the jump. You may have already investigated OTA, but if not you definitely should.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
http://www.antennaweb.org/
Use an HD PVR with the component outputs of your cable box - no cable card so you have to pay the monthly cable box rental fee. This will allow you to record anything that the cable box can see.
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html
I haven't used XBMC but this works very well with MythTV and Verizon FIOS.
It's totally awesome and completely changed my TV watching habits. Also bonus points for UK citizens, you don't need a TV license :D
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Get a pair of digital rabbit ears - you should be able to pick up many local channels (which is what it sounds like you want). Depending on where you live, a TV antenna either out doors, or in your attic might solve the problem. Then you can pretty much cut the cable completely - and still be legal.
Alternatively, look for other (smaller) providers. I have family that lives in an area where there is one big cable company, and 2 or three much smaller companies that offer very similar & competitive products.
Great plug-in, and if the server is not overloaded, it finds most what you're looking for.
(direct streaming instead of download, then play)
First world problems...
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
See subject... I'm fairly certain hdhomerun + MythTV has no issues with unencrypted channels. I've been using that combo for year.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
How about dropping digital cable entirely and just ripping from analog channels?
It worked for TiVi et al for a decade before digital cable became common.
Budget is something that you should consider as well. You can get what you want, if you have the coin.
For instance, before I cut the "cable", my setup was as follows:
* Sattelite, outputting to component video and optical spdif
* A Hauppage HD-PVR, which takes component video in, and optical spdif in, and records/encodes the video to H.264
* MythTV (though you can choose other options)
* An IR blaster, pointed at the sattelite receiver.
* A $50 recent nVIDIA or ATI graphics card that supports VDPAU (ie. GPU-accelerated H.264 decode).
What happened is MythTV would signal the IR blaster to change the channel on the satellite, and then record the video.
The HD-PVR made excellent quality video, at an acceptable size. There are limitations to the HD-PVR's video (the video it encodes, while H.264, is in a format that requires a single, fast core to decode - something about multi-core decode not working at all...).
The HD-PVR even comes with its own IR blaster; I just never took the time to figure out how to use it, as I already had an exceptionally nice IR blaster. The HD-PVR is also a bit finicky, occasionally crashing and requiring a hard power cycle - I even had a network-commanded power relay that would cycle the power to the HD-PVR @ 3:00 AM daily (when even Satellite stopped broadcasting)
In the end, it was not bullet-proof (as occasionally the channel didn't change quite right, for example), but it worked 99% of the time. Full 1080 video with AC3 surround sound.
I've since discontinued my Satellite service, and record on-air ATSC broadcasts - and switched to steaming services. I don't really miss Sattelite, and save about $100/month in subscription fees...
I'm considering hooking a MythTV recording box up at my brother's house (who has cable), and pay him double the "extra TV" charge per month, and then just swap out external hard drives occasionally...
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
I don't get all the local channels, but I get all but one and live pretty far away from the transmitters. The quality is far beyond satellite and cable even when you pay for the supposed HD channels. Those just aren't compressed quite as regular D and besides the image aspect ratio. Over the air antenna is probably the best you are going to get. And it is free. So what if you don't get all the shopping channels and the hands in your pockets preachers.
If you can't find 90% of your TV shows on Usenet, you are either stupid, or doing it wrong. Some shows, NCIS, NCIS LA, Supernatural and a couple others get tagged right away, UFC stuff gets tagged within 5 hours usually. so I torrent those files usually.
But the rest? I have no problem finding at all. Oh, wait, The Carries Diaries never show up, but I think it's sort of a kid/teenagers show. Actress is hot though.
Granted, there might be a time soon when it's getting hard to get TV shows off Usenet, but that time isn't now. Still the best $10 a month service I pay for.
Be seeing you...
a) Cancel cable service. Retain or sign up for broadband.
b) Erect old fashion antenna. (We get 13 digital channels off the antenna, although many of them are crap.
c) Buy roku box. ($99 Amazon), less than the cost of 1 month of cable.
d) Subscribe to Netflix streaming, and/or Hulu +, Amazon streaming (Any combination still a tiny fraction of the cost of cable/satellite)
e) Whatever you can't get via above, torrent, or maybe read a book, go walk the dog, try to remember what your kids look like.
f) When all else fails, remember, It's Only TV. It's quite a ways down on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
There are legitimate gripes about access, copy protection, and copyright issues... but this doesn't come close to any of them.
This entire post can be summarized as: "I want more content, but don't want to pay for any of it. 80% of that content I already can steal, but I need help stealing the last 20%."
The word "steal" will cause some objections, but replace it with either "gain access to content without paying for it" or "circumvent copyprotections and break the DMCA" and you're dead on.
There's a somewhat legitimate question of "I'm paying for cable but can't watch it how I want to", but it's buried under all the references to torrents, usenet, and bypassing the copyright flag. Even a passing reference to already using some recognized legal channels like Hulu or Netflix would lend SOME level of credibility.
Rule #1 of Usenet. You do not talk about Usenet...
Whoops, too late.
Perhaps someone should get TPB involved in creating a new NZB-indexing site. They've seemed to manage to keep alive torrenting, which has the same relation to the pirated content, so why wouldn't they be able to do the same for Usenet?
As title. Get a life, then no need to watch the box.
No shit, abusing the no record flag?
Many of us saw that coming when they proposed adding it to the standard.
You keep wanting something that they do not want to give you. Until you realize this, you have taken the losing position. Move your dollars to service providers that provide content on your terms.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
It is probably what you want. I'm fairly certain its what I want as well.
The problem is that it doesn't freaking support encrypted channels in the US either apparently, or at least last time I tried.
I would absolutely love to get a raspberry pi to talk nicely with a Windows Media Center server, which apparently is easy as Pi ... in England :(
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
get STB from cable co. HDfury (hdcp stripper) and a capture card
use something like mythtv or mediaportal as a backend server then connect xbmc to it.
~$300 in hardware depending on cost of the STB from your cable co
was ripped from the law books by court rulings.... why are the coxuckers flagging every channel?
complain to your local government that grants cox its local franchise (those agreements can be revoked ya know -- kick the fuckers out), complain to your state attorney general, complain to the fcc, complain to your senators and representatives, write a letter to the editor in your local news paper, contact the consumer affairs reporters for your local tv stations.
Hauppauge's HD-PVR takes component input. It's an expensive and inelegant solution, but it's the one you're looking for.
But ideally I'd like to cut the cord completely as the service is otherwise useless.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
You should try reading the summary a bit there hoss. It's somewhat difficult to torrent live broadcasts.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
try to find an episode of Caillou (kid's programming) it is actually kinda hard. the big name shows are the easy ones though, especially if it is adult oriented.
tl;dr: little kid's shows are the hardest to find.
Really? I've been seeing more and more stuff get some sort of numeric file name. The stuff is all being posted, but with scrambled names for some private communities I guess.
I probably spend more on content than your monthly salary, and still have plenty left over.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
A television Tax.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom
We have been in DirectTV for over 10 years.
They will install the antenna for cheap. (We got ours free through a promotion.)
I watch the shows I want (L&O, Rizzoli & Isles, etc.) my wife watches her shows (Judge Judy, Duck Dynasty, etc).
I have their DVD, so no idea on offline access. But still....
My son has Netflix on his PC (when he is working!)
Lots of options.
When did Cox turn flags on the content? I had a HDHOMRUNPRIME running on CableCARD last year until the Olympics melted the server. (was re-compressing to mp4 from MPEG-2, Q6600 just couldn't process that much video that fast.) I could record pretty much everything but HBO, Showtime etc. Now im just using antenna and the old school HDHomerun ATSC tuners so i havent tried premium cable in a while. Guess ill set it up at my in-laws and see what happens.
Good-bye
Due to subchannels each station can broadcast multiple shows at the same time. Because of that there's 100+ OTA channels here in Houston. Sure I don't watch them all (as I don't speak Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese or Farsi) but I didn't watch all the channels available on DirecTV either.
I cut the cord a couple months ago and for shows I can't get over the air I just buy them streaming via Amazon, iTunes, etc. or on blu-ray compilations. I've saved $162 in the past 2 months over what I had been paying DirecTV.
If you're interested, these are my blog entries about my DVR project.
And you still feel that you are entitled to piracy?
Hauppauge pvr-1212 and an cable box with Component Video outputs can circumvent the broadcast flags and still provide HD content.
So is six strikes actually stopping anyone, or are people continuing to torrent?
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
I also went ota, built my own antenna and put it inside the garage up in the rafters.see http://www.digitalhome.ca/ota/superantenna/index.htm for lots of information and plans. I needed a pre-amp for the 90 feet of cable to my tvs. The nearest broadcaster is about 45 miles away. I get the standard stations: ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, FOX, and ION along with their sub-channels. That's 13 channels that come in very well nearly all the time. I also get several other channels, but not consistently.
Been over-the-air for years.
We get pristine 1080i network-supplied digital picture for free, no broadcast flag, a fair number of local channels, and Netflix, Amazon and Sony Playstation Store supply the rest over the internet.
Haven't really done much with Hulu, but it's another opportunity for you to stream fresh content.
I use MythTV and a HD Homerun tuner, running on Debian on a QNAP TS-119 (which draws something like 6 watts spun up). For TV frontends, I use the PS3, or a recent Mac Mini.Very reliable.
Took a fair amount of setup, but all works great. My just-turned-five kid has been working the remote himself for about 18 months, getting lots of great commercial-free kids programming from PBS.
Been forever since I've paid for cable TV.
There's a neat little transcoder called PlayOn (playon.tv) that connects to a whole host of online broadcasts, including all of the major cable and broadcast networks, Netflix, Hulu, and a few other things.
Obviously, this is not a perfect solution, but it does allow Netflix to run via XBMC (or another UPNP frontend), and while you have a somewhat limited choice of episodes with the broadcast networks (usually only the last three episodes plus another one or two "important" episodes), the commercials at least show a countdown timer.
I too use OTA only, no cable. The problem is, I am a baseball and football fan. In the last 6-8 years or so Major League Baseball has sold something like 95% of the rights to local coverage of baseball to cable TV. Even the first round of the MLB playoffs are only on Cable. NFL Monday and Thursday night games are only on cable as well. The online Major League Baseball streaming is only for those games they haven't sold the rights for already (so you can't watch the local team). The online only NFL streaming from DirectTV costs $300/season.
Even if you are not a sports fan, now that Comcast owns NBC, you can expect similar shenanigans for NBC programming.
Finally, with an antenna, you sometimes have to readjust it between station changes. This makes DVRing with an inside the house antenna problematic.
To get around a similar situation with Comcast, I use an Hauppuage HD-PVR with my MythTV setup. It's basically a $160 USB device that takes the analog component output from your cable box, along with digital audio, and spits out an h264 file stream. It works, but there are some downsides: It's prone to needing bi-monthly to monthly power cycling due to hangs, there is a slight bit of quality loss since you're converting digital to analog back to digital (though the audio is untouched,) and you have to use an irblaster or firewire channel changer to control your cable box.
All that being said, the quality loss is negligible (even on my 59" plasma) and I love the fact that I never again have to worry about my cable company mucking about with their channel encryption flags, frequencies, etc. If your cable box can view it, then you can record it. Period. Because of that, I put up with the HD-PVR's quirks while happily watching all the HD channels I have access to.
You still need your cable box for it to record, but if you get the channel, you can record it, and you can record it DRM free as well. Sadly, you need a cable box for each device as it uses your box itself to decode the video stream and simply captures that decoded stream.
Before Google purchased SageTV, SageTV was actively fighting the fight against the copy flags on cable channels because it was circumventing consumer fair use rights by circumventing copyright law with encryption.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Yeah.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Usenet. Usenet! WE'VE GOT USENET HERE!
See? No one cares.
Not really. But kill your cable. If your cable company is forcing you to use equipment that doesn't work well, and preventing you from tuning, recording and time-shifting with the system of your choice, fire them.
I assume the problem with that is it's a tough sell for whoever in your house isn't gonna get to watch what she wants. Tough spot.
What exactly is the programming that you haven't been able to find elsewhere? Maybe someone here knows the answer to that more specific question, i.e. where to find the particular stuff you want.
I am not a crackpot.
I don't know how Cox does it, but as a Comcast agent (and one of the few people there that actualy UNDERSTANDS CabeCards, know about the CCI, the 2 aspect of CableCards: Conditional Access and Copy Protection) here's how they do it (in digital areas):
Limited Basic: Copy freely
Expanded Basic (no longer an explicit tier, is now part of Digital Starter): Copy freely
Digital Starter: Copy freely
Digital Preferred: Mostly Copy freely except for Encore and Bravo, which are copy-once in at least some areas).
Premium channels (HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, Starz, TMC): Copy once.
PPV: Copy never
I am certin on the above based on offical Comcast documentation and personal experience. As for the other stuff: The Sport and Entertainment Package, Multilatino/Selecto and international channels are probably copy-freely; Playboy and EPIX are probably copy-once.
Hate Comcast all you want, but at least as far as copy protection is pretty permissive - most content copy-freely; copy protection is only applied when Comcast is contractually required to apply it) . Comcast is actually one of the more clueful companies with CableCard, even if the reps aren't - but like most reps they are low-pay, low maintence ( just need to be provided plenty of sunlight and a twice-weekly watering).
Its entirely possible something configured wrong at the headend. Such a problem would be almost undetecable - only devices that participate in Conditional Access but not Copy Protection would notice this. Customer owned-CableCard devices are a very small subset of devices; Conditonal access-only CableCard device are a very small subset of THAT subset. You coudl call COX and explain, though i doubt the rep will know what you're talking about (or even if they do, what to do about it).
DSLreports has offically sactioned forums for customers of certain ISP's customer, and even in the unoffical forums many employees often stop either offical or unoffically, and may be able to resolve this issue.
I had to do illegal stuff to get rid of the flag.
first configure your HDHR to act as an actuall DVB device in your recording server. This requires installing some drivers. Then you need to open up your cable card and wire it to your PC via rs232.
Then you need VDR-SC inside there you will find a package SASC-NG and modify it to work with your cable card just look at the source. This will convert your cable card into a server and many clients can connect to it even people from other houses. This is where it turns illegal IMHO.
Since you installed the driver for HDHR you can access the stream in chunks the whole and record all the TV programs in that channel or transport stream. I hope you know the difference between physical and virtual channel. And SACS will decrypt it for you and leave you with a named mpeg file.
If you're using satellite is easier specially if is dishnetwork. You need a smart card reader and a DVB-S tuner. and the same software. Also satellite is better because the HD streams are in MPEG4 format which translates to HDD space saving. You can read more about it here
Would you mind if I pop into your house and borrow your couch? I'll bring back when I am 'done' with it. How about your car? Hell, how about I just move into your house. Your not really using the rest of the space.
Just because you make money does not mean you are being a cheap ass. I knew a guy who made 150k a year. Drove a car he bought in the 70s and ate peanut butter sandwiches every day. Not because he LIKED it that way. He was cheap.
You should try reading the summary a bit there hoss. It's somewhat difficult to torrent live broadcasts.
Read the summary? Read the article, what is the fun in that?
Be seeing you...
try to find an episode of Caillou (kid's programming) it is actually kinda hard. the big name shows are the easy ones though, especially if it is adult oriented.
tl;dr: little kid's shows are the hardest to find.
yes, i agree, Kid shows are harder to find, unless they are like super hero cartoons. Nerds, go figure.
Be seeing you...
I like my (admittedly geeky) setup.
I bought a Raspberry Pi, installed the OpenELEC build with XBMC and hooked it all up though a wireless router with dd-wrt configured as a wireless bridge.
Media can be accessed from any Windows/SAMBA share on the network. I store media on an old desktop or external drives attached to that desktop.
After all expenses, it was about $100 total for the Pi, a case, used router and HDMI cable (I'm not counting the desktop that I had anyway). XBMC can be controlled via an Android or iOS device with free software and it's been able to play just about anything I've thrown at it, with a few exceptions.
As for *ahem* "content acquisition", just buy any one of several no-logs VPN services for about $30/year if you're worried about it. PrivateInternetAccess.com, for example, costs about $40/year, accepts bitcoins for anonymity, offers IPSEC connectivity and at least claims to not maintain any logs.
No, unfortunately, the Pi can't do Netflix (yet ... that may change once Android runs properly on the Pi), but I have my phone, tablet and laptop for that. Yeah, I know it's an incomplete solution.
I know this will be unpopular here (and trust me, I hate it as much as you guys do), but just keep using Windows Media Center. I have Time Warner Cable, so pretty much all channels are copy-once, except the broadcast channels. I started off using MythTV + Hauppauge HD-PVR. It was decent, but it wasn't totally reliable. Plus I still had to pay $12/month for the simple cable box (no dvr, only one tuner). So when the CableCard tuners came out, I instantly jumped on it. So for $2/month I can record 4 channels. And sure it sucks to have to run Windows, but WMC is still leaps and bounds better than anything offered by the cable cos even though it hasn't been updated in years. Plus I can use my Xbox 360 to watch tv (both live and recorded) in another room.
If you truly mean *all* channels, even rebroadcasts of OTA channels, are protected, then this is against the FCC's rules, and you should file a FCC complaint.
Also, if *other channels* don't want themselves to be protected and they are being protected, you can help get them unprotected (I have seen people talk on tivocommunity.com of having this work on their cable systems).
I've spoken with some within cox about it. I wrote this in my original submission, but the editor removed it.
Basically what they told me is that in most areas it is basically identical to what you do at comcast, including Atlanta where Cox is based. However in my area they just flag everything copy once. The heads of each respective area say they are following corporate policy, yet clearly not all of them are.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
the few live events you're interested in
"Few" live events? One householder in my survey sample told me that he has all the Internet access he needs at work and that in a money crunch, he would rather take Internet access away from the wife and three kids than give up his NHL ice hockey and UFC fights.
The MPAA isn't going to miss their episode of doobie while I borrow it. Fail analogy.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Even the first round of the MLB playoffs are only on Cable.
It gets worse. Imagine if some rounds of the World Series were on cable. That's exactly what happened with the NHL Stanley Cup finals in 2012: two games were televised on what is now NBC Sports Network, a cable channel.
Subscribers to Cox cable that only find out about all these things after they signed their contracts are colloquially known as "Cox suckers"
How about dropping digital cable entirely and just ripping from analog channels?
If they're encrypting their digital channels with DTCP, the decoder box is probably adding the analog copy protection signal formerly known as Macrovision to the analog output too.
Is an appetite for sports necessarily "a massive appetite"? US OTA doesn't carry much baseball, basketball, ice hockey, or MMA.
One possible answer for sports is go to the bar to watch the game.
Not if you live in a 21-to-enter state and have kids. Or what chain of all-ages sports restaurants do you recommend?
Using MythTV (the Mythbuntu variant) and an OTA antenna with a pair of HDHomerun dual tuners was my own answer to getting rid of a massively bloated cable bill.The most surprising result, six months later, is that those 'cable' shows that were going to be sacrificed, and sorely missed, simply turned out not to be so important after all. Let's face it, most folks have a finite amount of viewing time available, and as it turns out, shows that were scrapped were quickly replaced by other shows, and became replacement 'favorites' instead. Shows that had not been watched previously, due to the amount of available viewing time, turned out to be just as enjoyable as the ones they replaced. Let's face it, none of the stuff aired on ANY network or cable lineup is all that exceptional in the first place, it's not really all that hard to find something that can be an equally mindless diversion.
The biggest surprise in our particular household was how large the percentage of viewing shifted to PBS, for both adult and children's programming, as well as discovering that the OTA antenna could also (in my location) receive a couple of Canadian signals which have excellent programming, that had never been offered through the local Comcast cable feed. Sure, there's always the option of online streaming for some programming now and again, but far, far less that we initially expected.
On the technical side, I now have the ability to actually record up to five signals at once, more if I use the multiplexing feature of HDTV broadcasts. The old DVR could handle two, and no multiplexing capability. Storage is limited to what *I* decide it will be. Instead of being stuck with 60-120 hours of non-HD programming, and no option to expand beyond that because I'm stuck with a DVR that actually supports expandable storage but is locked out of doing so by a cable provider. With 3.5TB of storage online, I can handle 500 hours of HD programming easily, and I can expand that to the limits of what I want to invest in HD space. Last but not least, all of my recorded media is available on every TV in the house, using either dedicated frontend machines, Laptops running XBMC, and in the case of my toddler, a Raspberry Pi based frontend to service his own viewing requirements of his favorite shows, plus ripped versions of his DVD collection, all on demand, (with a little assistance from Mom and Dad).
Not to say that there were no hurdles to overcome, and to set up a fully networked MythTV setp does require an investment in equipment and time, as well as some routine maintenance, but now all five TVs in my house have full access to 30 OTA channels, any and all scheduled recordings, an extensive music collection, online photo viewing, weather reporting, selected online news feeds, as well as an extensive DVD collection. No cable company that I am aware of offers this type of all in one media solution, and based on what I was paying for the paltry level of service I was previously subscribed to, with constant price increases looming in the future, I'm one very happy cable cutter these days!
Differences between how you act when some one is watching, and how you act when no one is watching, define who you are
I probably spend more on content than your monthly salary, and still have plenty left over.
Is your employer hiring?
If they are copyrighted content? But I suppose you don't care.
There's also the problem of connecting a computer to an older TV that lacks VGA and HDMI inputs. My survey sample includes a sports fan who owns a projection CRT HDTV monitor. No, that's not a misprint; it was one of the early sets designed for 1080i component input, which he bought with the house.
Thank you. The restaurant with an owl for a mascot left my home town recently. I'll try to recommend Buffalo Wild Wings as an option, but I don't know whether these restaurants are allowed to carry pay-per-view events like UFC.
I use Snapstream BeyondTV and capture analog signal through an mpeg encoder card and a serial cable to control the receiver (You can also use an IRblaster). Once recorded the program re-encodes into AVI (DIVX)..... Been using it for many years and still works like a champ.... Great Product.....Hope this helps....
According to this comment from slashdot user guantamanera, it is possible to strip off the cci flag when using the HDHomerun Prime you own with a modified VDR-SC. HDHomerun Prime is one of the three cable card tuners available for pc's. The other two are the Hauppauge WinTV DCR-2650 and the Ceton InfiniTV 4. I have no idea if it is possible with the other two. According to an AC who commented in that thread
A softcam is a software conditional access module. Softcam's make cardsharing possible allowing multiple receivers to share a single smart card to decrypt a satellite DVB stream. After reading that thread and looking into it, I can find no documentation anywhere on how to get any softcam to operate with a cable card tuner at all much less strip out the copy control information. It would make sense that is possible though, the cable card standard is somewhat related to DVB standards. If anyone knows how please reply. Good luck AlphaWolf_HK if you attempt to go down this road. I'd like to know if you manage to get this working.
The cryptographic requirements associated with CableCARD tuners require things like signed bootloaders, signed, encrypted firmware, and hardware that is locked down to prevent most levels of attack. Additionally, since the entire security setup is based on good old public key infrastructure, devices that get exploited can have their certificates revoked. Since certificates are supposed to be burned into the device at the factory, that would essentially brick thousands of devices. So, if someone finds a way around it, then if they have any sense they won't fucking post about it on Slashdot. There's talk of attacks on the CableCARDs themselves, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense because the card is supposed to re-encrypt the stream for transmission to the host when the channel is copy protected, and the CCI delivery from the card to the host is protected with hashes of various bits of data to prevent MITM attacks. Unless the people designing the card hardware were incredibly incompetent and left an unprotected bus sitting around, then attacking the card seems just as difficult. Then again, the R5000 addon for a dozen different satellite receivers works by getting at unprotected buses, so maybe there are just a lot of incompetent hardware designers around.
I'm reading at +4 and haven't really seen many possible solutions. How about looking at it another way ... what exactly are the "bugs and other problems" you're having?
Maybe we can resolve those so that you can continue to use WMC?
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a mac with Elgato eyeTV will ignore the cable Do Not Copy flag. eyeTV supports the HDHomeRun as an input device and can receive any Clear QAM cable TV signal.
Bittorrent is your friend - you can find most everything online these days - even sports! Granted, you're not watching it as it happens, but then again, with digital delay, you really aren't anyways.... Go OTA and download the rest!
The "obvious" thing (which is so obvious, that I wonder if I'm wrong!) is that an OTA antenna plugged into your HDHR will pick up what you're talking about, because the only thing you can't easily pirate, also just happens to be the only thing that is legally available+playable: local TV stations. No?
If that's not what you're talking about, then just what content are you talking about? Please give an example. A show name, anything.
Is the issue that your local geography makes OTA unviable? If so, then maybe your city needs its own "scene." ;-) I wonder if municipalities ought to start actively suporting such a thing, as an alternative to cable franchises. If Cox is setting the turn-away-customers bit, it may be that no one cares about your market area anyway, so why not?
And what's with the "no transcoding" constraint? You didn't explain why that's important. If you're cursed with having to stream over wifi (no copper LAN in the house), transcoding is damn useful for reducing the OTA MPEG2 bitrates.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
NHL and UFC sell live streams
If I don't misunderstand what I've read about these streams, they're blacked out in areas where the event has been sold to a cable system.
So spend your entertainment budget elsewhere
That doesn't help if the head of household cares so much about NHL and UFC that he would disconnect Internet before disconnecting pay TV. All his own use of the Internet can be done at the office, and because the house is in his name, he feels entitled to take the other four people in the household off the Internet should money become tight. I've spoken with somebody in my extended family who holds exactly this view.