[mythtv-users] Cablecard spec change undermining CCI Copy Freely flags

[Gary Buhrmaster]

On Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 8:08 PM, Eric Sharkey <eric at lisaneric.org> wrote:
.....
> I thought that was part of the spec, not a change.  As Ron put it:
>
>   ..cablecard copy proection is a hierarchy, where CCI flags will
>    override CGMS flags. When a CCI 0x00 flag is present, it will
>    override any CGMS flags.
>
> Are you saying that wasn't part of the design of CCI from the beginning?

As I understand it, SD interpreted the specs as requiring
CGMS to be respected even with CCI=copy freely even
with unencrypted channels, which would prevent access
by the Prime even when a clear-QAM tuner could capture
it.  As with most specs of this complexity, there can often
be some "interpretation" of various different parts of the spec.
And while I have skimmed the various CableLabs (and
SCTE) specs from time to time, I certainly do not claim to
fully understand all of them (and some of them refer to other
specs behind a paywall, to which I do not have access).
Being conservative in the interpretation is probably the best
choice (especially when getting it wrong ends up costing
you at least another few 6 figure sized costs, and many
months of time, in another round of certification tests).
And, it made no sense (from a TV engineering perspective)
to set CCI=copy freely on unencrypted channels, and set
CGMS (and all rational TV engineers would force the CGMS
value reasonably in their (re)encoders).  But the real world
found TV engineers with "different" configurations.  Got
to live real world TV engineers.