[mythtv-users] Capturing 5.1 audio

[Michael T. Dean]

Bob wrote:

> Steve Adeff wrote:
>
>> My goal *IS* to skip the analog step. Right now, to capture from a 
>> cable box (since my firewire output is limited by 5C, grrrr...) ... 
>> I'd love to be able to capture the video via DVI to a dedicated mpeg 
>> encoder so I could do HDTV, but I'll wait for the hardware to be 
>> available for that (or 5C gets cracked),
>
> I hadn't realised that DRM was quite such a "clear and present danger"
> as you 'merkins would say, someone in a non DMCA'd country needs to look
> for a way round this DTCP stuff.

The problem with cracking 5C (and it's technologies, like HDCP) is that 
5C provides a means by which "substantially compromised" protection 
schemes can be revoked.  So, if someone were able to crack HDCP (i.e. 
create a computer program to masquerade as a 5C-compliant device and 
then decrypt the HDCP output from a 5C-compliant receiver), and the 5C's 
decided to revoke HDCP as a valid protection scheme, all new 
5C-compliant hardware would see HDCP as insecure.  So, once HDCP is 
revoked, all new hardware would down-res video to 480p when connected to 
any other piece of hardware that supports 5C protection using HDCP.

So, once HDCP is cracked, if you decided to use that crack, you would 
not be able to buy any new components for your system (because they see 
your HDCP system as insecure) until something else gets cracked, at 
which point you could switch to using the next cracked technology (but, 
no more HDCP because the new component that supports the next cracked 
technology sees HDCP as insecure).  This "technology freeze" may not 
seem like such a big deal to you (how often am I going to upgrade my 
$4000 TV), but--especially when dealing with things like 
cable-company-owned STB's, you may not have a choice whether to upgrade 
(i.e. they switch from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), so you have to 
upgrade).

I'm hoping that once the general public (who aren't using cracks) get 
burned once or twice having to replace equipment to protect the media 
corporations' interests, the "learning-the-hard-way" will cause enough 
of a public outcry to sway the politicians' blind support of the media 
conglomerates.  Now, with just a few techies complaining, the 
politicians have little incentive to do anything about it (at least 
until we start Internet voting--then they'll want to sway the votes of 
the people who crack the voting system so they can get the 2 million 
votes per techie ;).

Mike