[mythtv-users] FCC and HDHomerun

[Gary Buhrmaster]

On Thu, Oct 18, 2012 at 7:25 AM, Ken Mandelberg <km at mathcs.emory.edu> wrote:
> It seems to me that the new FCC rule permitting the cable companies to
> eliminate clear QAM means that the 2 tuner HDHomerun's days are numbered on
> MythTV (and other software DVR's).

Yes, and no.  Not all MSOs will decide to encrypt.  And those that
do may decide to roll it out area by area over years.  But if you
are using cable for your source of content (and not OTA),
then you are right that it is likely that a HDHR has a limited
expected service life.

> The HDHomerun prime should still be ok, but that means a progressively
> expensive CableCard (Comcast now gets $10/month - $2.50).

Your MSO will vary, and Comcast/Xfinity has this habit of
conflating the service (in this case, digital HD TV enablement),
with the DRM solution (the CableCARD).  The first CableCARD
is "free", but you have to pay for the service (the digital
HD signal).  Every additional CableCARD (if you have two+ primes)
is something like $2.50 a month.

In any case, it is true that the MSOs charge a fair amount
of money to deliver content to you.

> Does the IPTV provision in the FCC rule (to satisfy Boxee) offer hope for
> replacing a 2 tuner HDHomerun with MythTV getting the basic cable channels
> directly (including OTA HD channels) off the internet?

This question is just unanswerable today.  Until the MSOs publish
the specs for their E-DTA and follow on solutions.  As I said
before, it is possible that they could just make the E-DTA an
OCUR device, which would open up some interesting possibilities.
Until we see the specs, we can only conjecture.