On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 11:56:29AM -0500, Brian J. Murrell wrote: > You are missing the point of the problem. Software like Myth will not > even get access to the content to strip/remove/skip/ignore the flag. > The knowledge (i.e. programming specs) needed to get the information > from the HDTV capture card will not be available to a project like Myth > for those very reasons. > > Sure, it could be reverse engineered for every device out there but > that's a long hard road.
It's a very complex path. Somebody could build a box using mythtv which complies with the broadcast flag. It would have to be a "locked" box like the Tivo (which also is just a PVR application running on linux) where the user does not have access to the OS or files, just the ability to run the application. It would have to store all video on disk encrypted (as the tivo does) to prevent you from opening the box and taking out the hard disk full of unencrypted video files. Not only can this be done, but that's how all cable set top boxes and satellite boxes etc. are going to be required to work if they want to get broadcast digital TV and are sold after July 1. Nothing stops such a box from running Myth. The GPL only requires that the vendor of the box publish the source to any changes they make to myth or linux. You will be able to read the code where they block you from access, but not change it. Like the Tivo series 2, such boxes will probably (if they want to get approval from satellite companies or cable companies) have a ROM that checksums the kernel before booting, to assure the user has not changed the code on the disk. Tivo users found a way around this but it took them lots of work. You can also replace the roms in some cases. Defeating some of these tricks may be a DMCA violation however, especially if it gets you access to data that's supposed to be encypted. As noted the GPL does not stop somebody from building a locked box, an embedded system, using GPLd code. It may or may not piss off the developers -- and frankly I would not want to be building such a box with the developers pissed off at me -- but that's to be seen. For example, linux core developers did not seem very bothered that Tivo comes with a linux inside that users are unable to modify. --------------- To another point in this thread, explaining to consumers why the flag is bad. Alas, it doesn't stop you from doing rewind/ff. Locked boxes can do anything they want as long as they don't leak out the unencrypted digital video in full-res form. Locked boxes get another big leg-up, because for digital cable and satellite, they get access to the raw compressed streams from those services, no need for any mpeg encoder at all. So consumers will buy them. The real danger is more subtle -- it's the death of innovation. Compare a DVD player from 10 years ago to one today, and look at the features for playing videos. They are almost identical, just a lot cheaper today. 10 years and almost no innovation. Compare that to all the other technologies in media! MythTV seems to add a new feature several times a week. Compare that to the locked boxes like the Tivo, or Scientific Atlanta etc. That's the real killer and it's hard to show folks.
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