[mythtv-users] Comcast to drop analog cable

[Michael T. Dean]

On 06/16/2008 05:56 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
> I'd love to be able to access anything shown on
> anyone's TV anywhere in the world by just accessing a Global TV menu
> in MythTV and getting a copy delivered sometime the next day.
> Unfortunately we, as a group, are not a company and copyright stuff
> really says we cannot do this, but I think companies that are
> interested will appear that offer services like this. For $10/month I
> could legally get copies of every newscast shown on every TV station
> around the world from some business source like NetFlix but oriented
> toward current affairs not movies.

Though in truth, you may never be able to do this--just like someone
living in central Florida can't get WCBS TV ("the flagship station of
the CBS television network, located in New York City") without express
written approval from WKMG (the Daytona-Orlando market area CBS
affiliate).  The FCC prevents this to protect WKMG's investment (but yet
my local stations can decide to preempt network programming to put on
"Florida on Fire 2008" or some other ...).

Even though the satellite companies are broadcasting nearly all local
channels (and are required to eventually broadcast them all, if they
choose to broadcast any) to nearly everyone in the US, you can only get
your local channels from them (because getting a waiver signed by your
local affiliate is basically impossible).

Granted, you can probably go to the WCBS website and watch some of their
content over the Internet, but as soon as someone tries making a
business out of providing "out-of-market-area" content to consumers, I'm
sure big government will step in and laws will be adjusted before too
long...

Mike