> Well, it would, and that's the easiest way to make the > point about it. > The fact it'll affect people running MythTV et al > themselves *as well* > is less of a concern for them (or the BBC). >
What I mean is most (all?) the complaints before were from people wanting to watch on a Linux PC. (Irrelevant anyway because they are only blocking DVB-SI not the MPEG-2 PSI* which will still give you channels; they just won't be named and will have no EPG but both pieces of information can be downloaded from the internet anyways.) *unless they've conveniently decided to (incorrectly) group MPEG-2 PSI with DVB-SI. > The reality is, STB manufacturers don't really have the > luxury of being able to: > > a) ignore the licensing terms of the open source DVB > stacks; > b) reverse-engineer the decoding tables; > c) obtain the tables from the BBC but breach the > non-disclosure terms; or > d) release a box which doesn't support FVHD > GPL issues are pretty minor; a legal way of including the licenced codes could be fudged into the system. It can be done in the same way people have Linux mobile phones with a closed GSM stack. Low cost Chinese knockoff STBs won't care about the Freeview logo and will just get the codes from whoever reverse engineers them. > On the other hand, while (technically-minded) consumers > wouldn't be > permitted to do any of those things easier, nobody would > come knocking > on the door if they reverse-engineered the Huffman tables > themselves > and used them solely in order to make linux-dvb on their PC > work. The > minor snag is that this is a completely unrealistic > scenario, because > people who have successfully decoded them will want to (a) > give others > the tables or (b) give others a utility for decoding the > tables, and > people who can't figure it out will plead to be sent copies > of it, and > everyone will fall afoul of the EUCD's anti-circumvention > provisions. IANAL but there are also reverse engineering exemptions for interoperability purposes. (made stronger by the non-commercial use) The silly thing is this isn't going to deter anyone. Cheap boxes with reverse engineered codes will soon roll off the factory line in China. Again DRM is just affecting ordinary people wanting to record things for personal use. Nobody is going to replace all their devices at home with HDCP compatible ones. This is like Adobe's RTMP "DRM" which is just gives content providers a nice walled garden feeling in spite of the RTMP passkey being the phrase "Adobe Flash". - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
