Encrypted Live TV Using a CableCard

[jkanoy 6]

Apologies if this question has already been addressed; but are there future plans to support encrypted, "copy once", channels such as HBO, TBS, etc? It seems like the only live TV content I can see are channels and recordings that don't have DRM.

 

With Windows 8, 8.1, and 10 having to pay extra for the WMC pack, it sure would be nice to have this feature incorporated so I could use Media Browser Theater instead of a combination of WMC and MB.

 

Sent from my Sony Xperia Z3v

[krustyreturns 191]

There is almost no chance this will ever happen.  I don't know if you can still purchase the drm licence from MS, but even if you can last I checked it cost 35k.  Only wmc will play copy-once and that will likely never change.

[jkanoy 6]

Ok, thank you

 

Sent from my Sony Xperia Z3v

[a3gill 10]

Sort of a bleak outlook, no?

 

For myself (in the US), this only really applies to live sports. In particular, live sports on HD cable (not available via OTA) channels, but that distinction is left up to the provider, and mine is more generous than it HAS to be. Comcast (Xfinity) provides the SD alternative minus DRM/Encryption in all of my cases. Since ESPN, BTN, FS1 are available via respective apps, I am really only talking about NBA games. Even more specifically, Miami HEAT games on Sun Sports (Fox Sports derivative, oddly missing in their app) and on TNT (they may have an app, haven't had to look). While my concern is Sun Sports, there are similar channels for most all other teams in their local areas. It is similar to MLB games, though it's not really a concern of mine, in particular, to see baseball games, but if I wanted to, I couldn't.

 

All that said, it is hard to accept that the single industry standard agreed upon has a price point outside the reach of anyone that wants to offer it for free. The purpose is to control access. I am not sure that having a revenue surplus indicates trustworthiness. In fact, quite often, it means the opposite.

 

Could this be something that is handled by the device manufacturer (Ceton, SilconDust, etc.) and then its cost relayed to consumers in the product pricing? If I recall my research from long ago, there is some sort of security tied to BIOS, or otherwise the physical machine at boot, though I don't recall if that restriction was ever loosened.

Edited December 30, 2015 by a3gill

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

Sort of a bleak outlook, no?

 

Just what the cable companies want. They are already bleeding customers and facing dim prospects in the long term future.

[a3gill 10]

No disagreement here.

 

If I recall, the only reason anything was done was because congress passed legislation that said if you were a service provider, you couldn't make it only accessible via equipment you sell/rent. They didn't indicate any specifics. Just an idea of how much bleaker it was, prior to that law passing, Tivo sold for 1 million dollars. I don't have specific numbers, but i would imagine it is worth at least 100x that now, based mostly on the availability of removable decryption cards. Of course, that does our endeavor no good, but just interesting...

[sub3 64]

Sort of a bleak outlook, no?

 

For myself (in the US), this only really applies to live sports. In particular, live sports on HD cable (not available via OTA) channels, but that distinction is left up to the provider, and mine is more generous than it HAS to be. Comcast (Xfinity) provides the SD alternative minus DRM/Encryption in all of my cases. Since ESPN, BTN, FS1 are available via respective apps, I am really only talking about NBA games. Even more specifically, Miami HEAT games on Sun Sports (Fox Sports derivative, oddly missing in their app) and on TNT (they may have an app, haven't had to look). While my concern is Sun Sports, there are similar channels for most all other teams in their local areas. It is similar to MLB games, though it's not really a concern of mine, in particular, to see baseball games, but if I wanted to, I couldn't.

Yeah, it's unlikely you'll see free/open software supporting cablecard DRM anytime soon. There is certainly options for getting all your channels though, in highdef, with devices like Hauppauge Rocket/HDPVR/HDPVR2/HDPVR60 etc connected to a set top box. It's not ideal, but can be done pretty seamlessly. You'd probably want a setup were you pair one of these devices for the protected channels, and cablecard device for the copy-freely stuff.

Edited December 30, 2015 by sub3

[sub3 64]

Could this be something that is handled by the device manufacturer (Ceton, SilconDust, etc.) and then its cost relayed to consumers in the product pricing? If I recall my research from long ago, there is some sort of security tied to BIOS, or otherwise the physical machine at boot, though I don't recall if that restriction was ever loosened.

 

There is a long list of requirements for the protection of any of these DRM channels (like encrypted storage of recordings on disk, protected display path using HDCP etc), and these aspects can't be handled by the device manufacturer. Its the software using the tuner that needs to take care of this.

[mellomade 140]

Silicondust also has plans for this with the HDHomerun VIEW app.  Their plan is to support DRM channels just as WMC did.  If they get this up and running then I would imagine - on Windows anyway - that you could just use the VIEW player as an external player from Emby Theater.  No perfectly integrated but still has potential.

[rarefc3s 1]

Silicondust also has plans for this with the HDHomerun VIEW app.  Their plan is to support DRM channels just as WMC did.  If they get this up and running then I would imagine - on Windows anyway - that you could just use the VIEW player as an external player from Emby Theater.  No perfectly integrated but still has potential.

 

The Silicon Dust HD View app on my Shield TV will tune DRM channels. I have Time Warner and most of the channels are marked DRM. If the license is really $35,000, to me that sounds like an easy Kickstarter for Emby, Plex, Kodi - apparently Silicon Dust licensed it for their HD View app.

 

I just put Emby on the Shield TV last night but ran out of time to play with it. My guess is Emby on Android will only stream the non-DRM channels. This is the case for Kodi and even the Silicon Dust HD View app ran inside Kodi. So your idea about pointing to an external player in Emby could have potential! 

 

IMO, nothing as good as Windows Media Center for cable tv currenlty exist since it is the only software that fully supports DRM - viewing and recording. The Silicon Dust app guide is not there yet and neither is their DVR software. At least you can tune DRM channels but they have a ways to go. In my main TV room I am still running a HTPC with Media Center but the plan was to replace it with the Shield TV and then dedicate that HTPC as the Emby server. Hopefully one day soon it will all be possible.

Edited January 5, 2016 by rarefc3s

[Sammy 735]

Copied from here:

Patent trolls like Rovi certainly are annoying - and potentially lethal for small companies like SD.

 

A solution like Emby Theater is promising for using a grid guide though.  It could handle guide data just as it does for OTA and just be set to launch VIEW as an external player for any live TV.  That gets messy though because I don't think there is any way to turn off SD's UI and just use it as a player.  Maybe though - I don't know.

 

 

It is. Hopefully this can come to pass. It would seem that for this to work, the player for the LiveTV app would have to be locked down to the view player and not allow choosing any other external player. Maybe someone from @ could chime in on the "doability" of this; having one particular plugin open one particular player but allowing other plugins and Emby itself to still be able to choose the player.