[mythtv-users] Seattle Comcast firewire not working as of today -- 5C?

[Andy Alsup]

I talked to on CSR at Comcast, who said yes they do support Firewire,
and it should be working.  After I explained the problem she said we
wouldn't turn on Copy Protection, so it must be a Motorola problem. 
She told me to call Motorola...  So, I jumped through the hoop and
called Motorola just so I could say I've been down that road if asked
again.  Of course Mot CSR says they don't do anything with the copy
protection, and its a Comcast problem.  I tell him I know, but I need
more info to give Comcast because the CSRs don't know what system I'm
talking about.  He couldn't give me any more data, only that (in his
opinion) it is a firmware option that Comcast controls.

So I call Comcast back and eventually get transfered to a CSR guy who
at first told me that firewire was not supposed to work, but after I
insisted, he looked it up on their knowledge base and confirmed that
it IS supposed to work on the 6200.  Nice that they actually have that
fact documented somewhere.

Still, the CSR group doesn't have any contacts in engineering, and as
far as he knew, no way to escalate to the guys who run the headend. 
He opened a ticket for me with Engineering and Construction group, so
I don't know what that is, but it sounds like guys who dig ditches and
run cable, not control software.  Still, he was very helpful which was
nice.

I'll see what comes from this open ticket.  I may have a trench
digging truck show up in my yard as a result.

The City of Seattle has a Cable Consumers hotline that says they will
help follow through on issues for consumers.  I will call them and
give this much info and see if they can help get the data to the right
person.

I knew this day was coming, so I may have to accept the fact that I'll
get no more movies in HD.  As far as I can tell though, the 5C
implementation is only supposed to cover very narrow content types
like PPV, and certainly not block the local HD channels.

At very least, I am going to push for a published list of channels and
content types that Comcast agrees are supposed to be available on
firewire without content protection turned on.  If there is a
documented list, at least we have some way of knowing if they are
being compliant with the FCC rules.

Does anyone else in Seattle have personal experience to share?  Jarod,
aren't you using firewire on one of your boxes?