It's really hard to say if there will be any CableCard PCI cards or not. Unfortunately, it's up to the cable operators.
Speaking as somebody who has worked in the cable industry (I worked for two DOCSIS cable modem manufacturers for a combined 3.5 years) - no offence meant to anybody in the cable industry who may be reading this e-mail, but the U.S. cable industry is the most stagnant industry, hell-bent on protecting their monopoly, while spending the least amount of money to do so. DSL is starting to eat their lunch (telcos are spending a lot of money to improve the infrastructure), and the cable operators are legitimately frightened. Despite that, I honestly think that if the FCC had not mandated CableCard, then CableCard would never have happened. Ideally the end user would be able to insert their own CableCard into the PCI card, but at the moment, it seems that the cable companies are sending out technicians to do the installation, to make sure that everything is working. At this point, I seriously doubt that they'd allow you to install the card in some device other than a TV. Perhaps CableCard 2.0 will fix things, but knowing how the cable operators and CableLabs work (and seeing how the FCC is constantly shuffling around the issue), I'm not too optimistic. Also a factor is that the cable operators don't seem to be advertising it too much (could be because the technology is not mature), and also, it would cut into their PVR rental business (those PVR boxes cost the cable company at least $300 each, and just like DOCSIS cable modems in the beginning, and even now, the cable operators want to milk them for all they're worth). Additionally, cable operators want only approved devices using CableCards, so that their precious digital content isn't being recorded and swapped around. I'd certainly love for a hardware vendor to prove me wrong, and produce PCI cards which will accept CableCards (but the PCI card must output unencrypted MPEG-2, not some proprietary crap that MythTV can't handle). Even if it was the one-way 1.0 CableCard, that would convince me to move to digital cable, as I can continue to use MythTV's EPG (from Zap2It), and I don't do PPV. But it won't really happen in the U.S. without the cable operators' blessing. (Europe, on the other hand seems to be much more progressive on this, they realize that they need to make their customers happy, and are searching for solutions to the DSL problam). -- Joe --- Jason Gabriele <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The cable card pci cards will probably be sold at > the store. They will > just come with windows software thats all. You wont > have to go > underground to buy the hardware. And as far as > illegal drivers, well > just look at other linux software with > less-than-legal status. Some > distros refuse to ship either NTFS drivers or mp3 > playback because they > were both reverse-engineered. IIRC the gatos project > has also reverse > engineered drivers for ati cards. It depends on how > the card works. If > the drivers only let you do things the cards were > made for it shouldnt > be a problem. As long as you cant steal PPV or > encrypted digital > channels you dont subscribe to I cant see anyone > getting too mad about it. > > >Problem is, in doing so you are likely to break > some law somewhere. > > > >Which scares real companies from doing the work to > sell such hardware > >to us at a good price. > > > >Now of course, when it comes to bootleg satellite, > there is an industry > >with companies willing to take the legal risks, > because the amounts of > >money are serious; people bootleg satellite > packages that cost $100 > >pre month and PPV costing much more, so they are > willing to hunt for > >under the table stuff. > > > >But when it's just, "I can buy a Tivo with a > cablecard for $X and I can > >build a Myth box for a similar amount of money but > you have to go > >underground to get the cable card" it's not an > easy battle to win. > _______________________________________________ > mythtv-users mailing list > [email protected] > http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com
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