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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."
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
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.
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.
You're right. I taught everyone in the house how to use torrents. Now we only watch what we want when we want. Haven't had TV service in over 5 years, went from xbmc to roku and plex with torrents, Netflix, and basic Hulu. It's not bad at all, everyone does this anyway with DVR, recording everything and watching it later. I am considering a Android PC for a good all-in-one solution.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Live broadcasts. For me, it's sports. There are a lot of sporting events that I want to watch that are only on cable/satellite. Even if there was someone torrenting sporting events (I've looked high and low, unless it's the super bowl, this doesn't exist), I would still rather watch most of them live.
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.
You must not watch sports...which is fine. But your whole strategy blows up for half the population that sees the primary purpose of a TV being for sports.
Incorrect. Both UHF and VHF are still used by digital broadcasters and the same old antennas are still used (rabbit ears for VHF and bowties for UHF).
The USA decided that digital broadcasting was so efficient that they could auction off UHF channels 59 through 69 in 2008.
Please do some googling before making such erroneous comments.
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).