<div>Has anyone looked into the legal aspects of CableLabs products? </div>
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<div>A while ago I looked at the Cablelabs Cablecard spec and it is a semi simple interface to design to. It wouldn't be too much work for me to design some custom hardware that did the proper handshaking to setup a channel with the cable companies that are using cablecards.
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<div>My only problem with doing this is I have a feeling that it might be illegal. There is no way I could get my custom hardware approved by Cablelabs, and in the handshaking process I believe I would have to "lie" to the cable companies as to what the hardware is (at least since it isn't an approved cablelabs product). In addition to that, say I set up a link and have the decryption algorithm, then I believe I would need software to do the decoding which is probably over my head (Hardware engineering is so easy, you software engineers are so cool (I'm not worthy!)). And then to top it all off, there is no way I could ever sell anything like this because I'm sure Cablelabs or the cable companies would probably sue me.
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<div>Anyways... I guess what I am saying is I know everyone wants a cablelabs cablecard reader for their PC... It would be nice if I could provide that without getting in trouble. <br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 4/6/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">H P Ladds</b> <<a href="mailto:householdwords@gmail.com">householdwords@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span>
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<div style="DIRECTION: ltr">Mike:<br><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.vwbinc.com/products.html" target="_blank"><br>http://www.vwbinc.com/products.html</a> (Scroll to the very bottom). Perhaps the "Select" nomenclature is important -- I'm not certain what it means. Also, on closer inspection, it appears that the 5000 model is not available at CompUSA -- only the 4000.
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<div style="DIRECTION: ltr"><span class="q" id="q_10a7053e349d9330_3"> </span></div></div></blockquote></div>