[mythtv-users] DVICO FusionHDTV III QAM card

[Michael T. Dean]

On 08/18/2004 06:01 PM, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:

>On Wed, Aug 18, 2004 at 05:07:54PM -0400, Michael Hartman wrote:
>  
>
>>>If a (sub-)channel's data stream *was* encrypted, how would you tell?
>>>Cause it wasn't a valid MPEG stream?  Am I the only one on the list who
>>>gives a crap about digital cable?  ;-)
>>>      
>>>
>>If the stream were encrypted, it would not play back at all. It would
>>confuse the MPEG decoder so bad it would display nothing. 
>>    
>>
>The card won't just pass the appropriate extracted PS as a PS down to
>the bus?  It *has* to decode it into a frame buffer?  Bummer.
>  
>
My understanding is that the pcHDTV and the FusionHDTV III are both 
"software" HD tuner cards--they have no MPEG decoder hardware on board.  
Instead, they pass demodulated signal data through the bus to a software 
decoder.

I think what Michael is saying is that if the channel were, in fact, 
encrypted, the signal received over the bus would not be an MPEG stream, 
so when it's passed to a software MPEG decoder, the decoder would not be 
able to decode the video.  In other words, he's agreeing with your 
initial guess of how to tell it's encrypted.

Mike