Re: MythTV to the next level.

Les Klassen Hamm wrote:
> Sadly I don't have any experience, but I've been led to believe that you
> have to use their converter before it gets to the card. I'd be happy to
> hear from someone with real experience, though.

I've run across some more information about MythTV + HDTV.

Shaw uses some digital boxes such as the Motorola 6200 for their HDTV
content sending. These boxes have a firewire port because of an FCC
ruling stating that there needs to be a way to allow people to record
media for time shifting purposes (since VCRs used to be able to do that,
but are rather rare nowadays).

The MythTV wiki has instructions on how to add support this way. You
simply equip your MythTV box with a firewire card, add in the scripts
which tune the box via firewire, and record the video over the feed.
It's also easy to do it if you have a Mac via the VirtualDVHS software
and included firewire port.

There is one caveat: DRM. The 5C got together and defined the 5C bit,
which means that if Shaw decides to turn it on for a channel, the 6200
won't allow it to be recorded. I don't know if this is something where
the data is encrypted before it's sent out over the link (since the spec
docs include a full hand-shake protocol definition, etc, to allow
further 5C compliant devices access to the data...), or if it's just a
simple disable for the firewire port which could be worked around via
some clever reverse engineering of the 6200 itself (I don't have a JTAG
device :/).

It's pretty ridiculous in general since 5C is supposed to be for premium
content (EG: movies that are probably out on DVD or HD-DVD/BluRay, which
are all cracked at this point), and most cable provides I found during
my Googling seem to be the kind that turn it on for random channels
(C-SPAN, CBC, etc) rather than simply the premium channels.

DRM is a good enough reason for me to not bother with the expense of a
set-top-box + firewire card that may or may not record when I can easily
torrent HDTV versions of my shows from people who are willing to record
+ seed them.
Received on Wed Apr 11 19:39:38 2007