Does anyone know what is the reasoning behind CopyOnce

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ZippyTheChicken

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Does anyone know what is the reasoning behind CopyOnce

#1

Post by ZippyTheChicken » Thu May 18, 2017 6:54 pm

I was just wondering today about CopyOnce protection.. and the pending ATSC3.0 standard.
It is my understanding that it will be possible for broadcasters to watermark / copyprotect their antenna broadcasts now and unlocking may be tied to a broadband connection releasing the code that the channel needs to decrypt.

Then I started thinking about copy protection on cable TV now..

Is there any standard as to why a channel is CopyFree or CopyOnce?

I know sports and hbo and ppv and ondemand are often copyonce and the rest of basic cable is normally CopyFree. I can kinda understand sports because of licensing but there is sports on OTA that says "no rebroadcast is allowed" .. why are they being (excuse me) hardasses and making stuff copyonce.. just because they can?

Is there any standard there? was there any FCC Guidance that said any station that is OTA Broadcast should be CopyFree.. and if Cable Providers also rebroadcast that channel it should be CopyFree.. and what of other stations..

Basically asking two questions there.. one is why cable is half and half and if OTA is suppose to always be CopyFree and we can expect ATSC3 to be copyfree in the future because of some FCC rule.

Anyway.. was just thinkin
haven't been able to find anything about it..
lots of stuff on how it is done and who does it
and people complaining about it..

just wondering are there regulations that say if its broadcast OTA it must be CopyFree.. and also why is Discovery Network copyfree???

I am assuming they do this ... because they can... but then every cable channel .. can .. but they don't

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#2

Post by cwinfield » Thu May 18, 2017 7:26 pm

cable theft, piracy, ensuring commercial advertising is maintained, Hollywood and cable broadcasting fear of digital content in general. If you can make perfect copies why pay for dvds of subscriptions?

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rmeden

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#3

Post by rmeden » Thu May 18, 2017 8:27 pm

There is no rhyme and reason. The whole purpose of the flag isn't to prevent piracy, it's to make it hard to use equipment other than that rented by the cable company.

When I tested a cablecard I found the copy flag was set on *all* non-broadcast channels. Even C-SPAN, which explicitly allows copying of all their shows.

I complained to Time Warner, got no where.

I filed a formal complaint with the FCC. Time Warner responded some BS about careful consideration, contracts, whatever. FCC accepted it and I had no way to counter their response. Case closed.

I don't see the FCC getting consumer friendly anytime soon.... we're at the cable company's mercy.

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#4

Post by adam1991 » Thu May 18, 2017 8:59 pm

We're not at the cable company's mercy at all. The answer is simple: don't buy their product.

Their product isn't a requirement for living, you know.

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#5

Post by Sammy2 » Thu May 18, 2017 9:41 pm

adam1991 wrote:We're not at the cable company's mercy at all. The answer is simple: don't buy their product.

Their product isn't a requirement for living, you know.
You don't live with my wife!

That said, we could slowly transition to other content if it were reliable enough.

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#6

Post by adam1991 » Thu May 18, 2017 10:02 pm

I cut the pay TV cord over 2 years ago. Everything I have is reliable. The wife and kids didn't blink. Works great. What "reliability" concerns do you have?

When this all started, I had gone as far as I could go to keep my 15/1 broadband plus pay TV down to $95 or so total. They were going to up it to at least $125, with no apologies. (And keep in mind, my ONLY hardware expense was cableCARD, thanks to WMC. Imagine what "normal" customers pay with whole house DVR hardware rental.) So I asked, what would it be without pay TV? With broadband only? The woman on the phone was *delighted* to help me with that. It was as if they were begging people to become broadband only customers. She upped me to 30/5 and charged me a promo rate of $30. Deal.

Two months later they upped *everyone*, and my 30/5 turned into 60/5 at the same price. After a year the promo rate ended, and I went up to $50. So be it.

That $125 from 2+ years ago is no doubt over $150 now. Shoot, they just raised their silly below-the-line "broadcast fee" to $12.50! So where do I stand now, having cut the cord and time went on? I stand here:

My broadband is 100/10 at $40. Nice. While I previously had Netflix, I went ahead and upped the $8 two stream subscription to $12 for four streams--to make up for the whole family watching. That's an additional $4 beyond what I was already spending.

Then I added ad-free Hulu, again for $12. Now my additional spend is up to $16.

So today, my monthly spend is $40 broadband plus the additional $16 spend for video, for $56. Compare that to what is no doubt $150 if I had pay TV with broadband.

That all being said, I dipped my toes into Playstation Vue last month to see what all the hoopla is about. I understand why people like it. (It's best on Amazon Fire TV; Roku doesn't do it justice.) If I keep it, I get the pay TV channels we would watch (HGTV/DIY, Food Network, Discovery/Science) and my spend goes up to $86.

Compared to what would no doubt be $150 from the cableco.

I very strongly suggest you look into PSVue, especially on Fire TV. It's very strong, and has a good "DVR" that not only records shows--it also adds "catch up" and "VOD" shows to the mix once you add something to "My Shows". On top of that, once you start playing a recorded show, it mimics broadcast TV by simply playing all recorded and on-demand episodes of that show without stopping. And just like a DVR, you can skip through the commercials.

Oh--and as for plain old network TV? When I cut the cord, I put up an antenna and added HD Homeruns to my WMC system, reran TV Setup, and that was that. All of my recorded shows stayed, and my list of recordings stayed and changed to record from the OTA stations. The cable-only shows simply sat there, with nothing to record. But they're still in the list.

Taking out the cableCARD and putting in an OTA antenna and switching WMC over was probably the least painful part of the whole process.

But now that Hulu has many of the network shows available the next day--and without commercials--my need for OTA DVR has diminished. Should I keep PS Vue, my need for OTA DVR will just about go away.

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#7

Post by Sammy2 » Thu May 18, 2017 10:17 pm

I have Charter Spectrum Gold (all the premiums) and the Spanish line up for soccer games along with 60Mbs internet for around $160 a month. If I add up all the channels we get, the individual apps / channels for them would be quite a hefty sum as well but I have not done that as of yet. We'd definitely get less sports content too.

By reliability, I'm meaning missed programs for whatever reason on Sonarr, some is my fault as I have multiple drives overflowing with content so new stuff has no place to go, and sometimes it just isn't there. And this is not pay channel stuff either; I'm talking about weekly shows on OTA TV here. If an episode is missing I got some 'spainin' to do though.

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#8

Post by adam1991 » Fri May 19, 2017 2:26 am

Sammy2 wrote:I have Charter Spectrum Gold (all the premiums) and the Spanish line up for soccer games along with 60Mbs internet for around $160 a month. If I add up all the channels we get, the individual apps / channels for them would be quite a hefty sum as well but I have not done that as of yet. We'd definitely get less sports content too.
Well, of course. Firstly, sports is the reason for pay TV. If that's your thing, just keep paying the bill. You can't get that programming any other way.

Secondly, cutting the pay TV cord isn't about replacing everything the cableco provides. It's about the huge breadth of alternatives, and choosing some things over others.

Sports notwithstanding, who would have thought that $10/month Netflix, $12/month ad-free Hulu, and $10/month Amazon Prime (to get their videos) could easily do a better job for you today than what the cable company could ever do in its prime.

There are only so many hours in the day, and you have only so many of those hours for video entertainment. Sports notwithstanding, you can pay $30/month for a huge variety of options that are just as good as whatever's coming down the pay TV pipe--and which DON'T have commercials.

Just as good. Remember that phrase. Identical to? No. If "identical to" the cableco pay TV stuff is your requirement, just pay the cable bill. But if you think about it, if you ponder the fact that you'll pay an additional $120/month CASH out-of-pocket for the cableco stuff, maybe the "just as good" yet not identical stuff becomes "better" once you have that $120 back in your wallet.

And that $120/month is after tax. How much of your paycheck does it take to come up with that extra $120/month? $175? OK, would you turn down a $175/month raise?

My wife got over not having HGTV very quickly.

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#9

Post by jachin99 » Sat May 20, 2017 11:02 pm

I'll chime in here because I might be the only person in the world who is happy with their cable bill. I have cox, and at least for the time being, I'm lucky enough to not worry about copy-once on anything. For a 50 meg download/ i dont know upload, and thirty or fourty regular cable channels (TNT, TBS, HGTV, Etc.) I pay 99.00 a month, which to me isn't too bad. I also have amazon/Netflix but we don't use that too much. WIth the cost of my internet connection alone, Its about the same price, if not more to move to an internet TV service but to be honest I like the interface of HTPCs better, and I can use a normal remote with WMC.

I think a big part of keeping your cable bill down is not renting equipment from them, and calling them about once a year to talk the price down. I had to spend about 45 minutes on the phone with cox in order to knock my bill back down but at the end of the day its worth it to me.

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#10

Post by adam1991 » Sat May 20, 2017 11:26 pm

You're right, at $99 including cableCARD, that's not bad.

Time was, my cable company responded well to the yearly negotiation. But then one year suddenly they stopped, hard. When I said, how much would internet only be, they cheered right up and all but actively encouraged me to go that route. I dunno.

It looks like my cable company has changed their tune--for new customers, anyway. Their equivalent to your service would be the same 100/10 broadband I have, plus no doubt a very similar 50 or so channels, for $95/mo for new customers. Have no idea how long that would last--but if a new customer wanted to commit to being a customer for 2 years, they'd drop that down to $75/mo for the first year.

Anyway, right now with PS Vue I have your service, pretty much. 100/10 at $40, plus the $30 PS Vue product, for $70. Of course, that includes PS Vue's DVR, which isn't a bad way to go, all things considered.

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#11

Post by ZippyTheChicken » Tue May 23, 2017 2:21 am

I have a cable card on comcast and a Ceton 4 tuner usb. I have been recording a ton of shows and movies off of basic cable and it is weird .. most basic cable is copyfree but you come across random stations that are copyonce.. anything past the basic cable subscription you end up with copyonce.

I don't even bother recording copyonce because I would have to save it in a huge wtv file .. what I do now is save in wtv then convert to mp4 h.264 and then reencode into a smaller size but good bitrate h.265 mp4 file...

The resulting files are really small anywhere about 250mb per hour of 720 width video with decent quality settings.

I am doing this to prepare for cutting the cord and I already have my antenna system and android boxes at my TV to watch my shows i have recorded off my nas. The cost for my system is less than half a year of video service from comcast.. I figure I can be fully happy and never miss cable for about 3 years straight and by that time ATSC3 might kick in and online tv services might offer individual channels or a package I can enjoy for about $15 a month.. I don't have netflix or hulu and I don't pirate.. I really don't need to with like 25000 files making up 500 series and 2000 movies..

Its getting to the point where today I only recorded about 8 episodes.. basic cable is all reruns.. anything better is copyonce so I pretty much have it all with some content I just won't record or ever watch.

Anyway .. yeah pretty much.. they do it (copyonce) because they can and there isn't any real standard behind it.


rmeden wrote:There is no rhyme and reason. The whole purpose of the flag isn't to prevent piracy, it's to make it hard to use equipment other than that rented by the cable company.

When I tested a cablecard I found the copy flag was set on *all* non-broadcast channels. Even C-SPAN, which explicitly allows copying of all their shows.

Robert

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#12

Post by Ken H » Thu Jun 15, 2017 6:13 am

It's all about one thing - money.

Video content creators, want as complete as possible control over the product they produce, be it movies, or TV programming. The more control, the more they can monetize their product and more profitable they can be. If they don't have control, others will distribute the product either for free or for profit and their profit stream comes to a screeching halt.

HDCP is just a current digital method content providers use to control their product. To learn about previous efforts, google Jack Valenti.

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#13

Post by Scallica » Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:54 am

Ken H wrote:It's all about one thing - money.

Video content creators, want as complete as possible control over the product they produce, be it movies, or TV programming. The more control, the more they can monetize their product and more profitable they can be. If they don't have control, others will distribute the product either for free or for profit and their profit stream comes to a screeching halt.
You are exactly right. However, one thing I don't understand is why some channels are copy-once on one provider and copy-freely on other provider in the same local area.
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#14

Post by Ken H » Fri Jun 16, 2017 4:52 am

Scallica wrote: You are exactly right. However, one thing I don't understand is why some channels are copy-once on one provider and copy-freely on other provider in the same local area.
It's remotely possible the contractual agreements between the various providers and the content owners are different, but much more likely is the possibility of simple screw-ups at the head ends.

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#15

Post by Space » Fri Jun 16, 2017 6:02 am

Every time I've seen someone post about the response when asking their cable company why certain channels are CopyOnce, the response is "contractual obligations". Whether this is the truth or not, I don't know.

I know that FiOS is one of the better ones; they only have HBO, Cinemax, and the Fox cable networks CopyOnce. All other channels are CopyFreely (even the premium channels other than the ones mentioned).

The Fox cable networks used to be CopyFreely up until July of 2015, but apparently Fox told them to protect the channels (I am not sure if it was part of a new contract or if they just told them to do it in the middle of the contract).

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#16

Post by marvin-miller » Tue Jun 20, 2017 7:18 am

I don't know why everyone gets uptight about this stuff. I use a Colossus with an HDMI feed from my cable box. The box uses HDCP so I used to use component lines to get around it. Last year I just broke down and bought an HDMI splitter that doesn't (ahem) pass theought the HDCP. So, now I have much less cable clutter, better picture, and no copy protection at all. Problem solved.

Is it not that simple for everyone or am I just lucky?

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#17

Post by Space » Tue Jun 20, 2017 7:44 am

If you are using a device such as a HDHomerun Prime, there is no way to put any kind of splitter between it and the recording PC (they are connected via Ethernet).

The Prime allows you to record up to three channels at once, and there is no need for a cable box (or multiple cable boxes to record more than one channel at a time). Renting multiple cable boxes can get expensive (as opposed to renting a single CableCard).

The biggest problem I have with copy protected programs is that if certain components in my WMC PC go bad and I need to replace them, it may trigger PlayReady in to thinking it is a different PC and I will no longer be able to view any of the previously recorded copy protected recordings (thankfully on FiOS that is limited to a small number of channels, but I have a lot of movies that I might want to watch some day that are protected).

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#18

Post by Scallica » Tue Jun 20, 2017 11:29 am

marvin-miller wrote:I don't know why everyone gets uptight about this stuff. I use a Colossus with an HDMI feed from my cable box. The box uses HDCP so I used to use component lines to get around it. Last year I just broke down and bought an HDMI splitter that doesn't (ahem) pass through the HDCP. So, now I have much less cable clutter, better picture, and no copy protection at all. Problem solved.

Is it not that simple for everyone or am I just lucky?
You are lucky. I tried the Hauppauge HD-PVR when it first came out, using component video cables (analog). The Hauppauge software detected the CGMS-A flag in the broadcast and would not let me record it.

As for the Colossus with HDMI, your cable company is probably not flagging your channels as copy-once or your set top box does not care about the HDCP handshake. Have you tried recording a premium movie channel such as HBO or PPV?
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#19

Post by marvin-miller » Tue Jun 20, 2017 5:58 pm

We have 6 (?) Movie Channels that I record from regularly but I've never had HBO or PPV so can't say on those specifics. I do know, back in the day when I was able to use a standard tuner card in the computer that all the channels were copy-protected and if I didn't back up some directory and wiped the computer my recordgings would not work. Same cable provider as today so I would assume they are all still protected.

I never had an issue when I went Component , or, more recently, HDMI. The splitter seems to be very effective in stopping HDCP in it's tracks. This worked with both Motorola and Arris boxes.

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