1394 and compressing analog Re: [mythtv-users] Beginner Question

Joseph A. Caputo jcaputo1 at comcast.net
Mon Dec 20 16:04:31 UTC 2004


On Sunday 19 December 2004 16:00, Brad Templeton wrote:
> ----------------------------
>
> The bad news is those firewire streams out of the cable box or
> satellite box are going to be encrypted and/or the box will refuse to
> send them to any device that doesn't have the authentication codes
> licenced from the oligopoly.  (ie. 5C etc.)   You won't get them for
> an open source box.

I was under the impression that the FCC mandate meant that the FIreWire 
output had to be unencrypted, though it could be downsampled to a lower 
resolution.  So, you couldn't get HD resolution out of the box, but you 
could at least get direct digital access to some form of the content, 
even if it is only 480i or 720p.  Personally, I'd be reasonably happy 
with that, from a picture quality perspective.  What really burns me up 
is the fact that in order to access all of the content I pay for, I'd 
*still* need to rent an additional box from the cable company per tuner 
(unless they're not encrypting any of it, which is unlikely with 
Comcast).  Also, regarding the 'authentication'/5C stuff, etc., I 
thought that everything was required to work with pre-broadcast flag 
devices (i.e., devices manufactured & sold before July 2005).

-JAC


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