[mythtv-users] Firewire and 5c

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Wed Apr 11 16:27:23 UTC 2007


On 04/11/2007 11:57 AM, John P Poet wrote:
>
>  On 4/11/07, William Munson <william_munson at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >
> > Phil Bridges wrote:
> >>
> >> On 4/10/07, Chris Funk <cfunk30myth at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> I also have an Avermedia A180 hd card.  Shouldn't it be able to
> >>> pick up all the digitial channels if there is no 5c as well?
> >>>
> >> That's a good question.  Is there any reason a QAM tuner card
> >> wouldn't pick up channels that you could get over firewire
> >> through a cable box?
> >>
> > That is correct. Any ATSC/QAM tuner will be able to capture non 5c
> > streams.
>
>  I don't think so.   I have both HD-3000 and HDHomeRun tuners, and was
>  not able to capture any of the premium digital channels I subscribed
>  to.  I *had* to use one of Comcast's cable boxes hooked up via
>  firewire for those channels.
>
>  I was able to capture my "local" HD channels from Comcast via my
>  tuners, but nothing else.

That makes sense.  I've never seen anything saying that a cable company 
must use 5C encryption or none at all.  Probably just using their own 
encryption (or encoding) to prevent people from buying the basic digital 
package and getting premium channels for free.

So, not so much a copyright protection mechanism (as 5C was designed to 
be), but a service level protection mechanism.

Mike



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