Let's add support for the new silcon dust HDHR Prime (copy freely channels)

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by stevech

Newbie confusion: The SiliconDust product goes to CableLabs certification. I pay for a CableCARD for it. The SiliconDust product produces a stream on Ethernet.
Are you all saying that the streams on ethernet remain encrypted, and only software receiving that stream that is CableLabs certified is permitted to receive and store, then decrypt at time of viewing (never store decrypted)?

Is this the concept?

So SiliconDust can work with what compatible certified software? Only those who pay to get the certs? And Sage doesn't plan to do so?

So does that mean SiliconDust is betting the farm on their new CableCARD box based only on MS Media Center?
Is this a sensible business plan, or what don't I know?


(and there's the dearth of extenders for MS media center, for HD)

Newbie confusion: The SiliconDust product attains CableLabs certification. I pay for a CableCARD from my cableCo. The SiliconDust product decrypts and produces a stream on Ethernet.
Are you all saying that the streams on ethernet remain encrypted, and only software receiving that stream that is CableLabs certified is permitted to receive and store, then decrypt at time of viewing (never store decrypted)?

So SiliconDust's compatible certified software is what? Only those who pay to get the certs? And Sage doesn't plan to do so?

So does that mean SiliconDust is betting the farm on their new CableCARD box based only on MS Media Center? Is this a sensible business plan, or what don't I know?

(and there's the dearth of extenders for MS media center, for HD)

Yeah, that's pretty much it. If the stream is marked as anything but copy freely, it has to remain encrypted all the way up to the display device. That includes the HDHR, ethernet, Server, decoder, even the HDMI.

[stevech]

No Sage, right?

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by stevech

No Sage, right?

At the moment, Sage does not support any form of DRM.

Of course, they could decide to support it at any time in the future, but there have not been any announcements (or even rumors) that they are considering supporting this.

For now, we must assume that Sage does not and will not support DRM, so Cable Card support will be limited to only channels marked as "Copy freely". Anything marked "copy once" or "copy never" will not be playable in Sage.

And at the moment, there isn't even any native support for working with a cable card tuner at all - even for copy freely stuff (though people are using Sage with a Ceton Cable Card tuner and a 3rd party plugin for the copy freely stuff, and there is a good chance that the HDHR Prime will also work for copy freely).

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by stevech

Newbie confusion: The SiliconDust product attains CableLabs certification. I pay for a CableCARD from my cableCo. The SiliconDust product produces a stream(s) on Ethernet.
Are you all saying that the streams on ethernet remain encrypted, and only software receiving that stream that is CableLabs certified is permitted to receive and store, then decrypt at time of viewing (never store decrypted)?

So stream-receiving compatible certified software is what? Only those who pay to get the certs?

As Fuzzy said, that's basically it.

And Sage doesn't plan to do so?

Sage hasn't said one way or the other, but they are rather anti-DRM and haven't done so yet, so I think the odds are against it.

So does that mean SiliconDust is betting the farm on their new CableCARD box based only on MS Media Center? Is this a sensible business plan, or what don't I know?

(and there's the dearth of extenders for MS media center, for HD)

Personally, I don't know why anyone would get into building CableCard for PCs at the moment, the odds just seem way too stacked against it. But then again I haven't done the research to figure ROI or anything. I guess they figure they can still make money.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Personally, I don't know why anyone would get into building CableCard for PCs at the moment, the odds just seem way too stacked against it. But then again I haven't done the research to figure ROI or anything. I guess they figure they can still make money.

I think there are allot of cable card tuners sold. Look at the Ceton and how quickly it sold out on Amazon and they don't place small orders. There are allot of xbox 360 users to take advantage off that don't care about Movies as they use the dashboard to rent/watch netflix etc.

Also though I know Ceton was also focused on mass distrubition systems (think sports bars,hotels etc commercial buisness).

My 2 cents.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Personally, I don't know why anyone would get into building CableCard for PCs at the moment, the odds just seem way too stacked against it. But then again I haven't done the research to figure ROI or anything. I guess they figure they can still make money.

As Plucky said, the success of the Ceton card suggests there's a market for the device.

A lot of products are just sold for a short period of time anyway, so I don't see why the alleged impending death of CableCard is a big problem. While TiVo doesn't have a huge number of customers, I still they're influential enough to prevent CableCard from being killed before there's a viable alternative deployed. That alternative might be AllVid, but I suspect some type of Internet streaming is more likely.

Maybe that's a dangerous assumption, but I think its reasonably safe. The cable companies infrastructure already supports CableCard, and that will probably continue to be the case until they decide to do a massive replacement of cable company owned STBs. I really think there's at least 5 years or so before CableCards go away, maybe more. Maybe no one will be using them in 5 years, but I think it will be possible to get them and use them for a while.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Personally, I don't know why anyone would get into building CableCard for PCs at the moment, the odds just seem way too stacked against it.

I haven't kept up with what's going on in the DRM-world but I keep hearing "cable card is dead". Why is it dead? What killed it? What's replacing it? As far as I know it's the only game in town right now. There seem to be things on the drawing board, but are there actually any "cable card-killer" devices available or even announced? (Is it PlayReady?)

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

I haven't kept up with what's going on in the DRM-world but I keep hearing "cable card is dead". Why is it dead? What killed it? What's replacing it? As far as I know it's the only game in town right now. There seem to be things on the drawing board, but are there actually any "cable card-killer" devices available or even announced? (Is it PlayReady?)

They are saying that because the FCC has already admitted it is a failure and needs replaced. Allvid is proposed as well as some other options. It is still in my guess 3 to 4 years before we see the replacement though.

[stanger89]

FWIW, I was saying I wouldn't build a device because I just don't see WMC alone as enough of a market to justify the expense of going through the hardware development and certification costs.

[Gustovier]

Originally Posted by stanger89

FWIW, I was saying I wouldn't build a device because I just don't see WMC alone as enough of a market to justify the expense of going through the hardware development and certification costs.

That's because you know about sage. A lot of people still don't know about this software. I know I just happened to stumble across it, and then I immediately dismissed it(why I dunno, maybe it's the webpage). Wasn't until some time later when I came back and saw what it could do. Another factor is default sage stv doesn't really have the eye candy or good of ui as WMC. Bmt like functionality should also be built in. Anyways I digress and this is off topic.

I know that comcast and fios keep a lot of their channels as copy freely except premiums/ppv(yes they could change it). But are most other cable companies the same way(Warner/cox/cable vision)?

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Clift

Or license PlayReady (also not cheap)

They already have one.

Originally Posted by Gustovier

I know that comcast and fios keep a lot of their channels as copy freely except premiums/ppv(yes they could change it). But are most other cable companies the same way(Warner/cox/cable vision)?

Unfortunately no. Most other companies have everything marked at least copy once. That is why everyone wants sage to support some sort of drm. If drm was done correctly it would inhibit our ability to do what we want, but it isn't. The way that it would work is you wouldn't be able to view the content on anything other than the machine that recorded it (the server) so if you use clients, you wouldn't be able to view it on them. That is why we don't want sage to have drm. Even OTA can be flagged. Just ask the WMC crowd how they feel about drm.