On Tue, Jan 18, 2005 at 02:23:16PM -0800, Julian wrote: > Brad, > > This is where my hopes of capturing the stream after > the set top box started. Too bad they were dashed. > Anyway I have read that the cable companies can detect > how much bandwidth you are consuming...so viewing the > content without paying is risky. Oh well, I guess the > easy answer to capturing encrypted streams is that it > can't be done today.
No, in a system as I have described (which is not the only system, but a common one) they can't detect how much bandwidth you are consuming. It's a one way RF stream. You are getting all of it, all the time, and just listening. Their cable box could report back what you watch but I don't think they do except for PPV, if they do they had better state it in their privacy policy and get your agreement! A VoD system would know what you watched, though. They are not common. Too fill in some numbers I left out, today many cable companies use 256-QAM, which has 39 megabits per channel. The channels take about 6mhz. An SD signal takes about 3.5 megabits, which implies they can get about 11 of them into a single channel. HD signals take more, about 18 megabits (a bit less for 720p) so you can get 2 of them on a 256-QAM channel, though with lower data rates on the HD, there are people who squeeze in 3 of them. This is a around twice what 8vsb ATSC sticks into a 6mhz channel. Though typically we see an ATSC holding one HD channel and one SD, or 4 or 5 SD channels. But no, you can't decrypt it. You could if you could get ahold of the keys and somebody wrote software. And the keys are sitting in the cablecards and digital set top boxes, so I am sure some folks will eventually extract them. Though of course the keys exist not just to be a pain in the ass, they are how they control whether you get paid channels (like HBO, or the digital extended cable channels etc.) It would be nice if when you paid for the channels they just came in the clear, but instead they insist you get their set top box or cablecard. A lot of people seem to not be liking cablecard. You get to tune with the tuner in your TV, but you lose any of the fancy features the cable companies put into the set top boxes -- on screen display, program guide, PPV etc.
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