[mythtv-users] Comcast encrypting World Series on FoxHD

[Gary Buhrmaster]

On Mon, Nov 3, 2014 at 6:39 PM, Michael T. Dean <mtdean at thirdcontact.com> wrote:
....
> Does MythTV even know that the recording failed?  TTBOMK, we only figure it
> out when, after the recording ends, we still haven't been given any data for
> the recording.  I know this happens when using standard DVB/V4L recorders,
> but don't know for sure what happens with OCUR recorders (do we actually get
> an error from the driver when we try to use it to tune the locked/encrypted
> channel?).

I have not tried recently, but it used to be the case that such tuners
sometimes "dribbled" a few bytes/sec (I would guess the unencrypted
data) when tuned to a channel one did not have authority to receive,
and sometimes just passed through the encrypted data.  So, while
the recording would not be considered a success from a humans
point of view, there was data coming in.

I suppose that it might be possible for someone to write a patch
to detect certain failure modes earlier for particular devices, and
end the recording, but, as you say, that would not really help.

Actually, if the (at one time) rumored (DVB?) OCUR handler (the
one that used DRI) had been completed that would have supported
all the OCUR devices equally, I think the DRI interface provided
quite a lot of information regarding content and security status
(it has been a long time since I looked at that spec; I could be
imagining things).

I can imagine all sorts of workarounds, but they all just turn
into kludge upon kludge.