[mythtv-users] FCC admits CableCARD a failure, vows to try something else

[jedi]

On Fri, Dec 04, 2009 at 01:53:09PM -0700, Travis Tabbal wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Matt Emmott <memmott at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> >
> > I bet I'm not alone when I say I have some ideas for them. :-) - Perhaps
> > it's time to contact our legislators?
> >
> >
> 
> Oh, I could give them a load of comments that the cable industry would hate.
> I wonder though, what's wrong with DVB-C? It's a known spec with existing
> deployment in Europe. Perhaps our friends across the water can tell me if
> it's good or bad. It seems like DVB based tech is easy enough to interface
> with Myth though.
> 
> I think the biggest thing they should do is require open access to the
> tuners. All communication with the user side of the tuner must be open-spec
> and unencrypted with the card handling the crypto. No restrictions on who or
> what is allowed to access the stream outside of the tuner device. The tuner
> output is unencrypted MPEG2 or h264 along with any status information
> available. They should also require that channels and such not move around
> on a whim, the channel map must be broadcast in an unencrypted, open format.
> 
> 
> Like clear-QAM with basic channel-map data and the ability to encrypt
> channels on the wire side for premium, PPV, etc..
> 
> No requiring their menus and such either. Just a simple tuning API will do
> nicely, thank you. If they want to do 2-way devices, similar rules apply.

   There should be something akin to the AT commandset for STBs. All STBs would
be required to follow it as well as provide undegraded unencrypted outputs in
digital. The STB doesn't need to go away. Infact, having it there serves as a
nice place for creating an interface barrier between what the cable company
does with their network and what TVs and other consumer devices need to 
understand.

   Access to the content is what is important. The existence or nonexistence
of a separate box of an some size with it's own wall wart is not that bit of
an issue really.

   Without their current nonsense, a $30 broadcast tuner the size of a thumb
drive would be able to do what you need a $200 mac mini sized analog capture 
device for now.