[mythtv-users] Time Warner & Firewire

Mark Knecht markknecht at gmail.com
Wed May 18 02:27:51 UTC 2005


On 5/17/05, Tom E. Craddock Jr. <sigtom at sigtom.com> wrote:
> William wrote:
> >>Basically correct (with 'blessed' meaning that the device
> >>does some preliminary transactions to show it's compliant
> >>with the spec) but even once the data is sent from the DVD or
> >>cable box to the TV/monitor it's still encrypted as per the above.
> >>
> >
> >
> > These difficulies are what is leading me to think about getting a hd dvr
> > from one of the providers. The local cable co is giving them away for the
> > same rental as a standard cable box. If its anything like a tivo the content
> > of the box should be available over the network connection for easy copying.
> >
> 
> No such luck for the TimeWarner/Brighthouse HD DVR box, the SA 8300HD.
> No way to pull any thing off this box.  Doubt that any decent sized
> cable co will make any box avail that has the ability to pull recordings
> off for archival purposes.  They are nice for the novice user, but I
> still use MythTV more than I use the 8300HD boxes.
> 
> Tom

Actually pure archival was contemplated in the 5C spec. If a DVR
records on removable media then the data on the media was to be
encrypted but carries flags that say it can be archived. (I forget the
actual flag names.) That way you could keep a backup copy off
premises. There were copy once flags, copy multiple, copy unlimited,
etc., that defined how copies of copies would be handled. In this
model there was no degradation of the program material and but the
copies were managed as per the desires of the owner of the material.
(The studios - not the hardware people.)

One thing that may not be clear to people is that the final decryption
of the program material was always going to be done as close to the
display as possible thus ensuring that there wasn't as much chance of
people using computers to steal copies of movies as happens today.
Again, you could make a copy of a DVD in your PC if you had the media
to copy, but you weren't going to be able to make multiple copies in
parallel by setting up banks of DVD writers and driving them in
parallel from the same 1394 output. (As pirates are doing today with
non-HD material.)

There was a lot of work done on this stuff. It was a really different
sort of working group consisting of people from the 5C's as well as
all the major Hollywood studios.

- Mark


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