American TV producers and film companies used the same argument a few years
back that if the broadcast flag wasn't allowed then they wouldn't allow HD
content to be broadcast on non-encrypted channels. Congress rejected the use
of the broadcast flag and American producers caved in and allowed HD content
to be broadcast.
The encrypted EPG is just a watered down version of the broadcast flag as
far as I can see which tried to prevent automatic recording of programmes on
non-approved receiving hardware such as MythTV. Hardware manufacturers that
agree to the license terms are given the secret of how to decode the Huffman
tables and but the manufacturers will probably be forced to agree to encrypt
the files when saved to the hard-disk to prevent them escaping.
MythTV equipment will still record the programme but you might miss
something if the schedule changes at the last minute. Currently the backdoor
approach is to use the Radio Times xml data streams that MythTV can use to
show the EPG of DVB-S(2) channels. I assume this'll also work for the
upcoming HD via the terrestrial multiplex. The other method is to use
Digiguide and manually setup a recording with the hope that the schedule
doesn't change.
So the whole point of encrypted EPG is to make scheduled recording on
un-authorised hardware as difficult as possible and force hardware
manufacturers to implement restrictions in how customers can view their
recorded files.
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