[mythtv-users] Comcast KNOWS Myths HDHomerun Channel Scanner is broken

[Daniel Kristjansson]

On Mon, 2009-04-27 at 09:08 -0600, Brian Wood wrote:
> On Monday 27 April 2009 08:56:07 Ronald Frazier wrote:
> > Son of a *****. I had a feeling it would happen sooner or later
> > (though I was hoping I was wrong), but as of this morning the digital
> > broadcasts of the basic cable channels are now all encrypted.
> > Generally I'm pretty happy with WOW, but a bit ticked that they would
> > do that. They are all part of the basic cable package, which all WOW
> > subscribers can receive, so it doesn't really make much sense that
> > they should need to encrypt them.
> 
> It certainly couldn't hurt to talk to them. It may not have been intentional, 
> maybe as simple as the default on their encoder being to encrypt, and they 
> just didn't pay attention.
> 
> Also, I recall reading some time back that the FCC wanted to know about cases 
> that appeared to be moves that were trying to force people to purchase or 
> rent STBs, this certainly souds like it would qualify.

I agree on both points, but under current regulations they are allowed
to encrypt everything except the OTA stations so you don't have the
same strong footing to fight them as when those cable companies were
still illegally encrypting the OTA's and a call to the local franchise
authority often got them to fix the problem in a matter of a day or
two. It might still be worth calling the franchise authority, I know
NYC is renegotiating with the cable monopolies right now -- the local
franchise authority can specify that a certain tier be available
unencrypted, but unless they know their constituents care are likely
to just bargain for the highest $ amount they can extract. (NYC has
three cable companies, two of which are incumbents that split up the
territory and don't compete with each other, and a third which competes
with those two only for large buildings.)

-- Daniel