[mythtv] A new angle on High-Def Satellite capture?

[Chris Hamilton]

> The only thing I'm not so sure about is whether Directv is sending out a
> standard DVB signal. If it is, there's plenty of DVB cards on the
> market, and I'm thinking allthats needed is a user-space decoding
> process which should be relatively trivial in the scheme of things. If
> its not a standard DVB signal, then the plausibility of this angle is
> murky. Does anyone know the answer here?

The DirecTV signal is not standard DVB, but is closely related. Some
older TwinHan DVB cards are able to be tweaked to process the DirecTV
signal, and there is also a custom built card (I forget the name, check
the forums at dvbn.happysat.org) that can also handle the DirecTV
stream.  Thus, it is possible and is already being done.

Presently, the creator of the custom DVB card (actually a USB based
device) and another guy are working on creating a DVB loopback device
that wraps the DirecTV stream to make it look like DVB-S standard.  As
such, MythTV would be able to natively handle the signal without difficulty.

The only open question is the authentication. As far as I know, there
are already people doing exactly this, involving an external (serial or
USB) based interface to the smartcard, passing appropriate data and
allowing the smartcard to provide the decryption keys.

> So, what do you guys think? Any comments are appreciated. I'd like to
> stress that I'm a legitimate, paying subscriber, and this idea would
> only be able to work for other legit subscribers with a valid, active,
> account card. Unfortunately I can't make the time to work on this. But
> I'd like to spread the idea around, so if a talented programmer who has
> the desire to make a big difference to a lot of people like me, (and
> hell, make a stand against DRM) that the idea is available.

Well, the entire thing is likely only quasi-legal.  Unfortunately, all
of the above pieces also make it only a small leap to illegally grabbing
the signal.  There are mechanisms of 'subscription' sharing, whereby one
card is used to generate the keys/authenticate video for many different
front ends.  Couple this with the internet, and you can have
geographically diverse people sharing a single subscription.

So, technically feasible, and already working to some degree.  I
actually imagine it won't be much longer before you see a released
version of the dvbloopback wrapper, and then you'll have Myth support.

Regards,

Chris