Time Warner out, Charter in.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by Monedeath

Seeing as Comcast is one of the content creating entities(studios) as well as one of the CableCo's, I'm not too surprised by their tendency to lock everything down. They don't want you to record it in HD and keep it forever. They want you to go out and buy the Season Compilation DVD/BluRays they release at the end of the year.

Actually, Comcast is very good about NOT locking content down (unlike Time Warner). Comcast sets the DRM flag to copy freely for most of their content, which means we can use cable card tuners to record and play back most channels with Sage. They only set the Copy Once flag for premium channels (and that is dictated by the channels themselves).

Right now, Comcast does require you to have a cable box or cable card tuner for every tuner (and that does suck). This doesn't protect the CONTENT so much as it protects the Comcast SERVICE. As an example, before they did this, if you wanted to buy Comcast internet service, it was not easy for them to prevent you from getting free basic cable. They could put a trap in the line outside your house, but then they would have to send a technician out to your house every time you made a service change. By encrypting everything and requiring an addressable box or cable card at every TV, they can remotely enable or disable service at will.

[nyplayer]

Tiki,

I guess I do not understand the requirement of a cable box for each tuner? I have 2 Primes each with a Cable Card and only 1 Cable box ... And i can get another cable card from Comcast with no problem. It only required 1 Cable Box from Comcast.

[Fuzzy]

he said you need an addressable box or cable card at every tv.. not a cable box. You don't even need any cable box at all if all you are going to be using is your Prime.

The point he was trying to make is that you cannot simply hook the cable to the tv and get anything. Everything is encrypted, and needs to be decrypted by a cable card (even the cable boxes have cable cards inside them). As tiki said, this is so they can control who uses their service without having to roll a truck to the location.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

he said you need an addressable box or cable card at every tv.. not a cable box. You don't even need any cable box at all if all you are going to be using is your Prime.

The point he was trying to make is that you cannot simply hook the cable to the tv and get anything. Everything is encrypted, and needs to be decrypted by a cable card (even the cable boxes have cable cards inside them). As tiki said, this is so they can control who uses their service without having to roll a truck to the location.

Thanks that explains it.

[Monedeath]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Actually, Comcast is very good about NOT locking content down (unlike Time Warner). Comcast sets the DRM flag to copy freely for most of their content, which means we can use cable card tuners to record and play back most channels with Sage. They only set the Copy Once flag for premium channels (and that is dictated by the channels themselves).

Right now, Comcast does require you to have a cable box or cable card tuner for every tuner (and that does suck). This doesn't protect the CONTENT so much as it protects the Comcast SERVICE. As an example, before they did this, if you wanted to buy Comcast internet service, it was not easy for them to prevent you from getting free basic cable. They could put a trap in the line outside your house, but then they would have to send a technician out to your house every time you made a service change. By encrypting everything and requiring an addressable box or cable card at every TV, they can remotely enable or disable service at will.

Ah, well that is different. I don't quite consider that a "bad actor" behavior at this point as there are options in such a situation, it is simply annoying.

It also allows them to eventually start doing things like Verizon FIOS is offering, as the use of addressable devices for the content gatekeeper can better allow for custom tailored programming options for individual households by making a few keystrokes in the office, rather than needing to schedule a technician to come out and add/remove taps and filters to your particular service feed.

It can be a positive, eventually, just annoying while they work on getting things to that stage. And seeing as how most of operations like to standardize everything, outside of designated test markets(which may still be some time away from happening), everyone else is going to be waiting until they feel it is ready to be rolled out system(nation) wide by their company.

[troycheek]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

The point he was trying to make is that you cannot simply hook the cable to the tv and get anything.

The last time I tried hooking Comcast straight to a digital TV, we could get one channel here. It was a loop of an overly cheerful guy standing in front of a fireplace explaining that having all our channels encrypted now was a good thing.

At one point, according to some salesmen I'd talked to, unencrypted basic cable was a feature they were happy to provide because Comcast didn't want their customers to have to have a box for every TV unlike those nasty satellite providers. They were also happy to provide HD versions of local channels even though the default SD boxes couldn't tune them. They had a webpage that explained how to bypass the box to feed the local HD channels directly into your digital TV. My father ended up buying two HD televisions based on salesman promises that Comcast would always provide unencrypted HD locals because it would be illegal not to.

[Fuzzy]

At the time, it was illegal to encrypt them.. however, the companies have been able to get that cleared through the FCC based on their theft of service problems, and the wasteful practice of having to roll a truck to connect and disconnect people. Honestly, I'm fine with the encryption, as long as the method of decryption is simple and inexpensive, just not the DRM.
There were quite a lot of people, especially in areas like New York, that never paid a dime for cable, and still used the cable's expensive to maintain and operate network to get the free locals instead of using an antenna. This is a way for them to control that and recoup their network operations cost (which is a very large part of their costs).

[Tiki]

Yeah, I wish they could just put some sort of gateway device where the cable enters your home and then allow everything that you subscribed to be unencrypted throughout the house. I think the AllVid project that Sage was involved with a few years ago was headed sort of down that path.

I understand there are practical considerations that make this idea challenging (or costly).

[Fuzzy]

The HDHR Prime does pretty much exactly what AllVid hoped to do. Allvid was not going to allow content unprotected within the home, it was to be protected via DTCP-IP, the same protection scheme used by the Prime when streaming a protected channel. We just need to be able to record that content within the confines of that protection scheme.

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Yeah, I wish they could just put some sort of gateway device where the cable enters your home and then allow everything that you subscribed to be unencrypted throughout the house...

In this day and age, I'm sure there were plenty of methods to make sure that folks that ordered Internet service didn't get free local stations via cable, without having to encrypt the whole show. I think the cable companies used what they perceived as "theft of service" as a leverage tool to convince the FCC to encrypt it all.

In the end, we can all be assured that it was nothing more than politically greased pockets that resulted in fully encrypted cable TV. I will admit, it is the cable company's right (for the most part) to do whatever they wish with their services. Most folks (with a few exceptions) have some other form of pay television service(s) available. There are other Satellite TV services in my area, so staying with them and paying their monthly bill essentially says that I'm good with what they are doing.

[Fuzzy]

As I mentioned, this wasnt' about keeping those with internet service from getting basic tv - this was about people with NO service from getting basic tv.

[KeithAbbott]

Good thing I didn't order that HDHomeRun Prime yet...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0NS2HU20150507

[KeithAbbott]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...deal/27913177/

[KryptoNyte]

I hesitate to get my hopes up again.

[Fuzzy]

It is a sweeter deal, and if anything, a Charter purchase of TWC is far less likely to be shot down on anti-trust grounds than the Comcast purchase of TWC.

[KryptoNyte]

Looks like things are still moving along regarding the Charter buyout of Time Warner/Brighthouse.

Faster Internet, no data caps (for 3 years), and the obligatory CEO get rich deal. Charter even agreed to pay Time Warner 2 billion if the deal doesn't go through by November of 2016, and Time Warner obliged by agreeing to pay the same if they withdrew.

Charter no longer offers a whole home DVR system. Time Warner does. One concern at this point is that Charter doesn't ditch the entire Time Warner system, but would rather adopt some of Time Warners hardware/media practices, which would be good for some on the whole home DVR front, but terrible on Time Warner's copy-once policy.

I suppose there is a lot that could happen between now and then.

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

Charter no longer offers a whole home DVR system. Time Warner does. One concern at this point is that Charter doesn't ditch the entire Time Warner system, but would rather adopt some of Time Warners hardware/media practices, which would be good for some on the whole home DVR front, but terrible on Time Warner's copy-once policy.

It's starting to look like the Charter acquisition of Time Warner is likely to happen. The chart linked to below shows Charter's cable market share isn't even half that of Time Warner currently, which makes me worry a bit more about my original concern.

http://i.imgur.com/WH0ilcM.png

[KryptoNyte]

http://www.timewarnercable.com/en/su...formation.html

It would be a piece of [SageTV] mercy for them to bring us copy-freely Spectrum, at a reasonable price.