[mythtv-users] Comcast & Firewire STB's without 5C/Firewire equipment

[Robert McNamara]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Robert McNamara
<robert.mcnamara at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> 5) As for Firewire, the people at the counter called elsewhere to
>> determine that the 1394 interface is not supposed to be enabled by
>> default and can be disabled remotely if they find you are using it but
>> not paying for it. To get it enabled you have to pay the additional
>> $6.99 to allow the STB to drive a second digital device. She didn't
>> know anything about FCC laws so possibly this is true or not true.
>>

Continuing to stew on this and become more angry for you, just so you
know, there is *absolutely* no chance of them turning off your port as
an individual.  Here's how it works on the headend.  There are
profiles for each set of subscription types corresponding to each
class of hardware.  When a box authenticates on the network, it checks
that it's coming in from the right node, that it's authorized, and
then it sends the profile corresponding to your box type and
subscription lineup to your box.

So, fiscally speaking, do you imagine they will find a headend
engineer capable of writing said profile, and have him cobble together
a brand new hardware profile for *your* box that will sit on their
Management console just to download when *your* box connects so that
they can punish you and disable one port?

No.

Not to mention the fact that there is *no* means of them telling you
even have a cable plugged in to the port, let alone are capturing
video with it.

Grr!

Robert