[mythtv-users] Comcast and Cablecard CGMS copy-once problem

[Gary Buhrmaster]

On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 4:06 PM, Peter Bennett (cats22)
<cats22 at comcast.net> wrote:
> I posted a message in the Comcast forums

I would claim this was not an optimum approach.
Regardless of the claims of the CSR that may
be responding, they are not the people you need
to get to.  The forums are not the path you should
take.  That is why I previously posted that one
should call.  You need to be able to escalate
(and the forums have no real provision for that).
Every Comcast employee on the forums seem
to try to help.  Some even have a handle on the
minutia, but they are not the people you need
to talk to, and I do mean talk.

> The settings in our cable headend have been verified and are accurate as
> Copy Freely."

And this is likely true.  And totally not addressing
the issue you should have been raising which has
nothing to do with channels being set to
CCI=Copy_Freely.  The issue is that the latest Cisco
CableCARD Firmware converts CCI=Copy_Freely
to CCI=not_specified (there is no such flag state,
it means that there is no CCI present in the stream),
which means CGMS must be respected.  Flagging
channels as CCI=Copy_Freely at the HE was,
unfortunately, a distraction.  If you mentioned it, it
likely led the CSR down the wrong path.  That would
be an error on your part (the CSR tried to help, and
believed he did, if you said the channels were not
properly marked, and they are).

I will again suggest you need to (by phone) contact
Comcast, and continue to escalate.  You will be
spending hours and hours (and hours) on the phone,
probably over multiple sessions.  But only a phone
call cannot be dismissed with the imprecise answer
that you got on the forums (and where you get to
start all over again).

But before you make that call, I would suggest you
be able to reference the (change of) CableCARD
specification by reference number.  And (ideally)
the reference in the Cisco Firmware release notes
(although that seems impossible these days since
Cisco (appear to) no longer publish them).  That
may require many hours of research on your part.

Good luck.