[mythtv-users] Can I use a Ceton InfiniTV device on a Windows 7 box?

[David Engel]

On Tue, Jan 08, 2013 at 01:04:52PM -0500, Ronald Frazier wrote:
> > I almost inquired about that too.  Now that I think about it, there's
> > no way they could enforce it since the cable cards don't communicate
> > back to the cable company.  As long as you get an M-card, all tuners
> > should work.
> >
> > Oops, as I was writing that, something occurred to me.  If the cable
> > company employs SDV, there is an indirect, upstream communication path
> > through the tuning adapter.
> 
> Funny that you mention there's no way to enforce it. I was almost
> ready to click post with that same statement in my email. Then it
> OCURed (haha) to me that they could be loading the cablecards with
> custom firmware that limits the number of tuners enabled. Since the
> communication process is one way, I'm not sure how they would do that.
> They could do it before they physically give you the card. That would
> have the negative side effect of them not being able to easily
> provision you for more tuners (though I guess they could then
> "justify" tacking on a service fee for the upgrade, huh). Another way
> (depending on how cablecards are designed to load firmware, this may
> not be possible) is that they could just be pushing out the firmware
> over the network and having it signed for that one card only. If any
> other cablecards saw the update, it wouldn't be properly signed so
> they'd just ignore it.

They can update the firmware over the wire.  I'm not sure if they can
restrict a specific firmware to a specific card.  

I'd still be surprised if any cable company really charged per stream
on m-cards.  I've heard Comcast has some shady pricing on cable cards,
though, so I wouldn't be totally shocked.

David
-- 
David Engel
david at istwok.net