[mythtv] decryption as a post-recording user job instead of recording already decrypted video

[Pascal Vandeputte]

Hi,

For many years now the Flemish DVB-S provider TV Vlaanderen (part of M7 group) posed no restrictions on the number of simultaneously decrypted programs. You could happily record 5 programs simultaneously without problems, only in 1% of the cases the smartcard acts weird and you end up with an empty recording in mythtv (0 or 376 bytes).

Since december though, there is an anti-cardsharing restriction in place which limits simultaneous decryption to 2 channels (or 4, but only if you buy their "approved" settop box). I can sympathize with that (although I doubt the effectiveness of it). Now, even if I configure only 2 tuners in my backend, I end up with a lot of empty recordings because the smartcard locks itself for a while if you request too many different channels in an arbitrary amount of time. I don't know how that's possible, perhaps because EIT gathering has an influence on the number of requested programs.

Some time ago a patch was submitted in an effort to make MythTV record encrypted data and decrypt it later as a user job or when watching the recording. The idea was to allow many simultaneous recordings of encrypted video, and decrypt it at playback time or as a user job. Many existing settop boxes do it that way.

http://www.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-dev/2010-July/068820.html

I was wondering if anything was done with this patch, because that's still unclear after reading the entire thread. It could even be a solution for the 1% of failed recordings I observed before (because the smartcard had a hiccup), the job could then just be re-run.

Best regards,

Pascal