[mythtv-users] Cablecos and QAM

[Gary Buhrmaster]

On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 4:36 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> Someone pointed out yesterday that since the FCC no longer requires
> Clear QAM, cablecos are phasing it out.  (What was the citation on that
> requirement, BTW?)

The FCC reference is FCC 12-126

> 1) Does anyone know if WOW -- who have built a sort of reputation of
> getting their engineering 'right' as we define that term -- are going to
> do this as well?

AFAIK WOW has not announced encryption of basic.

However, that said, *none* of the MSOs announced it before
they made a corporate decision to actually encrypt basic, and
even then, they did not make it a real announcement, it was
done franchise by franchise in small print on your bill.  And
before they made a decision to move forward almost every
MSI, when asked, said that they were not currently encrypting
basic (which was a standard corporate non-answer).  Even
Comcast was non-committal until they decided to do so
(and they were one of the ones promoting the ability to
encrypt basic), and only admitted to doing so after they
were explicitly asked after they were seen doing so.  Same
with TIme Warner (did you see the announcement that they
were encrypting basic in Maine?  Of course not, there was
no announcement.  Same in the greater NYC area happening
now).

Should WOW decide, at some point, to encrypt, as a
smaller MSO, they may be exempt from the "free"
equipment requirements.  Depends on whether WOW has
gotten too big.

> 2) Does it mean that you can't use tuners at all, and must go to STBs? Or
> just that you will have to have a Cablecard-capable tuner?

STB, DTA, OCUR (CableCARD) device are the known options.
Well, there is also the E-DTA for the (last model) Boxee
device, but that only works with that Boxee.  In the case
of the STB (or DTA), one can capture the content via a
HD-PVR (for the usual STBs), or an analog capture card
(such as the PVR-500) in SD from the DTA.