[mythtv-users] Not quite OT, but close. A letter to congress.

[Eric Sharkey]

On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 11:09 AM, Michael Cook <waxrat at comcast.net> wrote:
> Eric Ladner <eric.ladner at gmail.com> writes:
> FWIW, I would expect a lawyer could argue successfully that if the
> programs are encrypted, then the port is not functional.  If you
> can't view the content coming from the port, how could that be
> considered functional?

Because if you hook it up to a 5C compliant device, it will work and
you can view it.

At the time this legislation was written, it was thought that it would
become common place for digital televisions to have a firewire input
port.  The TV already has an mpeg decoder it uses for unencrypted
digital streams and the firewire input was a method to use an external
device to do decryption.

5C encryption on firewire is similar to HDCP on HDMI.  It's supposed
to be a way for various devices to negotiate a "protected path" which
could guarantee that the video is displayed but not recorded or
subverted in other ways.  The thought was that all TVs would implement
the 5C protocol and then consumers could hook up their TVs and watch
live tv though a cable box via firewire, but be able to do all channel
changing and stuff like that with just one remote for the TV.

The FCC never passed any legislation that required a firewire port "to
allow consumers to record cable TV programs".  It was required to
allow consumers to view cable TV programs, which is a subtle but
important difference.

Eric