Superbowl DRM (Ceton InfiniTV)

[jason531]

Update: I got a call from Ceton support. I sincerely believe this is not their fault and am extremely impressed by them. They are working on these issues and I trust that they will get this worked out. Keep in mind that all of the layers of DRM are rather complex and not under Ceton's control.

There has been some discussion about this in another thread, but I am trying to gather more information to find out what happened and felt it best to start a new one. A number of Ceton InfiniTV users have reported that their recording of the Superbowl stopped abruptly at the end of the third quarter. Given that I have had issues recording NFL games with the InfiniTV in the past, and am running the beta firmware that supposedly fixes the issue, I initially assumed that Ceton is to blame.

Upon further review, I am not so sure. There are mixed reports of people running the beta firmware being able to record the game without incident, using various methods. I have a theory about how people running the beta firmware could have had this issue based upon the actions (or inaction) of their local provider. The full details are here over at TGB.

In summary, according to Jeremy Hammer (VP Systems Integration, Ceton Corporation) there are a number of levels of copy protection including CCI, CGMS-A, and RC (broadcast flag). A flag with a higher priority will override another, as long as it is actually set. This is where, according to my theory, the local provider comes into play. I suspect that Fox set something at the CGMA-A or RC level precisely at the end of the third quarter. If your local provider left the signal untouched and didn't set CCI to "copy freely" then your recording got screwed.

I am not a cable systems engineer or DRM expert, so please let me know if I have something wrong here. I am doing my best to stick with the information provided by Jeremy Hammer, who is not just an executive but apparently does hands-on coding -- he should be considered an authoritative source on this.

So, here are my questions:
Did you attempt to record the Superbowl using the InfiniTV? If so, how (SageMCTuner, SageDCT, or WMC7)? Did it record successfully? What firmware version and HW version were you running at the time? Who is your cable provider and market?

Thank you for all of your help.

-Jason

[jason531]

My recording stopped at the end of the third quarter.
FW 1.0.1.51
HW 4790
Provider/Market: Comcast/Nashville
Methods: SageMCTuner and WMC7 (both failed)

[Mythikal]

Successfully recorded.
FW 1.0.1.51
HW 4790
Provider/Market: Comcast/Minneapolis
Methods: SageDCT