CableCard OEM Restriction Lifted!!!

[Sparhawk6]

Gosh, it would break my heart to leave SageTV for WMC, but this may be too hard to pass up. Anyone know a good media extender for WMC (not Xbox)?

[MitchSchaft]

There isn't a good extender besides the xbox. Yet anyway. They come out with a new one every couple years, then stop making it 6 months later :P.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by stuckless

And you don't think that once cablecard "copy freely" is adopted by everyone... then the content providers won't just say... "hey, let's turn off the copy freely flag". I don't mind if sagetv wants to invest in cablecard, but I would hope that they would price their servers and clients in 2 tiers... 1 higher priced tier for cablecard support + drm and a requiar price teir for non cablecard+drm support. That way, people that love and want DRM, can pay the extra costs for it.

Oh yes I do eventually. But I don't mind DRM like I said the autodeleting doesn't happen don't know why you thought that. The only thing that would be flagged like that is ppv and that doesn't work in current installment anyways. I think even with DRM based on some things that sharing through the homegroup is coming drm or not drm meanin all client computers and extenders will be able to access within the homegroup and in all honesty that is all most users want/need. Sure some want portability but that is the minority. Cablelabs opened this to microsoft because of what AT&T ie unverse is allowing IMHO. Uverse allows streaming to clients from a "server" if you will throughout the entire house as long as it stays in that closed loop. And the new homegroup feature of windows has that closed loop capability. Now I could be wrong but I thing you will see this.

[azmouse]

http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayRe...5091086&EDATE=

so.....now is the waiting game.....

* merged 9 *

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by azmouse

http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayRe...5091086&EDATE=

so.....now is the waiting game.....

* merged 9 *

Wow merge #9 never ceases to amaze me how people can't look or search before posting.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Yeah, why are they going through the trouble of getting DTA's waivered if they're going to let anyone record unprotected copies of everything in the basic tier.

The basic tier might mean something else to you than the FCC. The basic tier is just the local broadcast networks and public access. The DTA waivers let cable companies encrypt the expanded basic tier. At least for now, it doesn't appear any cable company has tried to get a waiver to encrypt the basic tier. Of course, that doesn't mean it will never happen. But, as I said in another thread, it seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through when most people can just get those channels over-the-air for free anyway. I think cable companies have basically just accepted that cable Internet access generally means free basic channels.

And, as I think we both said in that other thread, I think the main reason cable companies wanted to encrypt the expanded basic tier was because it's a lot easier for them to shut off a STB remotely than to go to a house and disconnect service or install a filter. The DTA waiver was necessary because they wanted to save money on STBs. I doubt copy protection was a major concern. I think Comcast has been playing it up as something necessary to reduce cable TV piracy, but I think they just concluded that was more likely to win them sympathy than saying it makes things easier for them.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Sparhawk6

Gosh, it would break my heart to leave SageTV for WMC, but this may be too hard to pass up. Anyone know a good media extender for WMC (not Xbox)?

Originally Posted by MitchSchaft

There isn't a good extender besides the xbox. Yet anyway. They come out with a new one every couple years, then stop making it 6 months later :P.

Like I said before, if the Dish tuner came to pass, and MS decrippled their extenders, it would be a very attractive package. But I'm not going back to cable, nor am I going back to a full HTPC in front of each TV, especially when you can't schedule recordings across them.

Originally Posted by reggie14

The basic tier might mean something else to you than the FCC. The basic tier is just the local broadcast networks and public access. The DTA waivers let cable companies encrypt the expanded basic tier. At least for now, it doesn't appear any cable company has tried to get a waiver to encrypt the basic tier.

OK, I meant expanded basic. Most people can't get squat over firewire because the cable companies have DTCP enabled. I don't see why CableCard would be any different, why they wouldn't set the Copy Once flag on everything thus forcing DRM on all recordings (but maybe the "basic" tier).

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by stanger89

OK, I meant expanded basic. Most people can't get squat over firewire because the cable companies have DTCP enabled. I don't see why CableCard would be any different, why they wouldn't set the Copy Once flag on everything thus forcing DRM on all recordings (but maybe the "basic" tier).

I'm in Oklahoma City using Cox Cable. I tried capturing video from the Firewire port on my SA box. The only channels that would come through were the locals. And even some of those were 5C'd even though they're available in the clear.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I'm in Oklahoma City using Cox Cable. I tried capturing video from the Firewire port on my SA box. The only channels that would come through were the locals. And even some of those were 5C'd even though they're available in the clear.

Someone close to me

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I'm in Oklahoma City

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Someone close to me

If the Midwest wasn't so dang spread out we could do a HTPC Enthusiast meet-up some day

[FreshOne]

+1 for CableCard tuner support in Sage (I would gladly pay an extra license fee for CableCard support).

I am no fan of Microsoft or DRM, but W7 Media Center + CableCard tuner seems quite appealing....

It gets even better if you add one of these Ceton cards (support concurrent recording / viewing of 4 channels using ONE cable card) !!!
http://www.cetoncorp.com/ProductsWMCFAQ.php

A 4 tuner Ceton card, Sage Server, and some HD200s would be awesome...

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by stuckless

And you don't think that once cablecard "copy freely" is adopted by everyone... then the content providers won't just say... "hey, let's turn off the copy freely flag". I don't mind if sagetv wants to invest in cablecard, but I would hope that they would price their servers and clients in 2 tiers... 1 higher priced tier for cablecard support + drm and a requiar price teir for non cablecard+drm support. That way, people that love and want DRM, can pay the extra costs for it.

The thing preventing this, is that they would actually not be able to offer DIFFERENT flags for cablecard than they supply to their own DVR's. Therefore, if they DID switch to a more restricted protection flag, it would prevent their own DVR's from recording the content as well. If they didn't, they would end up being in violation of the same FCC ruling that spawned the creaton of cablecard in the first place.

[reggie14]

Are there really any significant implications for non-HTPC users if cable companies set the copy-once flag? Presumably TiVo users would still be able to record those shows, and since there really isn't much transferring of recordings off TiVos I wouldn't think copy-once would prevent most users from doing anything they want to do.

[Fuzzy]

well, in actuality, I don't think Copy Once (or even No Copy) would have any implications for me as a Sage user either. Even Copy Once are still allowed to be transferred to 'playback only' devices, within a limited range (which the extenders, if certified, would qualify as). All the copy protection flag would do is affect the ability to transcode to an 'external device' with 'persistant storage' such as DVD, I-pod, etc. Placeshifter, on the other hand, could theoretically even be certified as a display only device, as the definition of a display only device is:

Display Only Devices, which are downstream rendering devices that are not permitted under applicable compliance rules to persistently store Cable Content, shall be subject to agreed upon proximity limits.

Because of the quality degradation placeshifter introduces, I'd wager it COULD be certified as a D.O.D.

[robmarch]

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/09/m...m-requirement/

haven't read in detail, but wonder if this clears the way for Sage to leverage at all?

* merged 10 *

[MitchSchaft]

Originally Posted by FreshOne

+1 for CableCard tuner support in Sage (I would gladly pay an extra license fee for CableCard support).

That would be $75,000 please .

[HelenWeathers]

If Hauppauge plans to sell CableCard tuners -
http://www.gearlog.com/2009/09/haupp...blecard_tu.php

Will they include a WinTV version of software to record from it?
Do they sell any tuners without WinTV?

If WinTV could do it SageTV probably could.

****Pure Speculation****

[Brent]

It is entirely possible that non-Microsoft companies could add CableCard support to their software yes.

The most likely candidates for that are:

1. Apple - some day if they want to
2. Snapstream - while their consumer business is pretty slow these days their enterprise customers might be interested in this. So I think it's possible.
3. SageTV - Do they want to do CableCard? Probably

What would keep these companies from doing it?

1. Cost. Number one stumbler on this is the cost of Cable Labs Certification, PlayReady licensing (to Microsoft), and of course the time and money to develop & support EDIT: Scratch the CableLabs certification - not required for the software - only the CableCard device itself (thank for the tip Jere)
2. DRM - Does adding DRM cause problems for other devises or things in SageTV or BeyondTV?
3. Not thinking there is enough demand - if they think their customer base would rather have a HD-PVR or something else, it makes it more difficult to justify focusing on it.

[FreshOne]

Originally Posted by MitchSchaft

That would be $75,000 please .

Come on. Can't we get a second user to get that down to "only" $37,500 ?????

[stanger89]

Does Ben D have an intravenous hookup to the MS koolaid? I mean no offense to him, but he seems to just glaze over all the issues setbacks MC has had and overstate the good news. This is of course all IMO, but still....

For example the Ceton writeup sounds interesting. A 4-channel cablecard tuner does indeed sound cool. And no doubt the OEM un-restriction news is definitely good. But IMO it changes little. It makes a CableCard *MC system more affordable but that's it. It still doesn't offer a good solution for mulitroom, whole-house viewing, what with crippled extenders (no DVD support not to mention Blu-ray). I mean I'd be OK with Xbox extenders if they were more functional.

And does he really think there's a snowball's chance that half of Xbox Live Gold subscribers would buy a cablecard tuner?