[CETON UPDATE] Echo, Q and Companion

[Dean L. Surkin]

Follow up to discussion on XBMC, Ceton, and CableCard support:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/18/medi ... cablecard/

[adam1991]

And 15 months from now, after it's been delayed multiple times and the commitments have changed regarding what it can do, it'll quietly go away in the night.

Sound familiar?

[richard1980]

I really don't understand why these other entities work on half-ass CableCARD support solutions. Maybe I'm just biased because I live in an area where the majority of content is copy protected.

[STC]

^ probably has a lot to do with the cost of certification for the software (?)

[richard1980]

Then why bother working on any CableCARD support in the first place? It seems like a waste of time and money to me. At least if the addition of CableCARD support meant the ability to tune copy protected channels, the developers could hope to draw people away from WMC.

[Motz]

I believe you can have CableCard support (which I think is pretty important) and then there is CableLab certification, which is how you can get copy protected channels, which is actually the most important part. I think that is how it works though.

[foxwood]

Then why bother working on any CableCARD support in the first place? It seems like a waste of time and money to me. At least if the addition of CableCARD support meant the ability to tune copy protected channels, the developers could hope to draw people away from WMC.

Ad-skipping software can't handle copy-protected recordings, but there are still plenty of InfiniTV users using Comskip or ShowAnalyzer.

Adding support for cable-card tuners isn't that hard - they're just another tuner, and in the case of the InfiniTV, Ceton wrote the drivers. There are users who can take advantage of this support in XBMC even without DRM support (FiOS users, for example, don't have too many copy protection issues yet), and there's no point even trying to do the DRM if you can't handle the tuners, so I wouldn't say it was a waste of time, even if it turns out that the DRM part of the problem is just insurmountable.

[erkotz]

I really don't understand why these other entities work on half-ass CableCARD support solutions. Maybe I'm just biased because I live in an area where the majority of content is copy protected.

Agreed, though I also live in an area where everything is CCI 0x02.

^ probably has a lot to do with the cost of certification for the software (?)

It's really not *THAT* much (I believe $10k + $5k per "major release") - certainly not pocket change, but not totally insane. Also, around a year ago I made an offer that if an open source project wanted to approach us about sponsoring their WMDRM certification costs, we would be willing to have a dialog about it (not a guarantee we would, but would discuss it with them). No one has approached me about this.

I believe you can have CableCard support (which I think is pretty important) and then there is CableLab certification, which is how you can get copy protected channels, which is actually the most important part. I think that is how it works though.

The DRIR (the software that uses the tuner eg WMC, MediaPortal, etc) doesn't need CL certification at all - it just needs to support the DRI (freely available) and support a form of content protection that the tuner also supports (basically means WMDRM).

Then why bother working on any CableCARD support in the first place? It seems like a waste of time and money to me. At least if the addition of CableCARD support meant the ability to tune copy protected channels, the developers could hope to draw people away from WMC.

Ad-skipping software can't handle copy-protected recordings, but there are still plenty of InfiniTV users using Comskip or ShowAnalyzer.

Adding support for cable-card tuners isn't that hard - they're just another tuner, and in the case of the InfiniTV, Ceton wrote the drivers. There are users who can take advantage of this support in XBMC even without DRM support (FiOS users, for example, don't have too many copy protection issues yet), and there's no point even trying to do the DRM if you can't handle the tuners, so I wouldn't say it was a waste of time, even if it turns out that the DRM part of the problem is just insurmountable.

As far as I know, there's no reason someone couldn't get the necessary DRM support for ad-skipping software - just that no one has done it.

[Sammy2]

To bad Media Portal didn't bite.. Could have helped with the Q and Win8 quagmire.

[gpatlanta]

As far as I know, there's no reason someone couldn't get the necessary DRM support for ad-skipping software - just that no one has done it.

Would Ceton support that cost? I've finally started using comskip and I have to say commercial skip for my four non-DRM is awesome! If it could handle DRM, that would be incredible. I do realize this is unrealistic, but never hurts to ask.

[richard1980]

I think it would likely be in Ceton's best interest to explore the commercial skipping subject further. I'm sure there are a lot of people that would pay for commercial skipping capabilities with copy protected content. Worst case scenario, Ceton could write their own commercial skipping software.

[gpatlanta]

I would happily pay a descent chunk of change for this.

[STC]

I believe the new term paraphrased by Ceton for this mechanism is 'bookmarks'

[slowbiscuit]

Not that it matters if the Q is going nowhere, as it appears now.

At some point I think they have to bite the bullet and go with Linux, get it fully CL/DRM certified, then roll up whatever frontend they want - it's clear MS doesn't give a rip about WMC anymore. I think they're struggling with the cost of that and that the Echo and Xbox won't be compatible unless they roll their own 'WMC compatible' RDP server into Linux, assuming that MS would even go along with that.

[erkotz]

As far as I know, there's no reason someone couldn't get the necessary DRM support for ad-skipping software - just that no one has done it.

Would Ceton support that cost? I've finally started using comskip and I have to say commercial skip for my four non-DRM is awesome! If it could handle DRM, that would be incredible. I do realize this is unrealistic, but never hurts to ask.

We are open to having a discussion with the developers of any project that would result in an increased value proposition for the InfiniTV. Again, no promises, but if any developers of such as project are interested in supporting protected content, but the financial costs of WM-DRM certification are a barrier, we can certainly have a discussion about Ceton subsidizing that cost.

[Motz]

I think there are certain legalities with commercial skipping. It is a very gray area. Look at dish with the Hopper and the stuff they are going through.

[Kowolski]

Since MCE is basically at end of life stage and abandoned by MS. Maybe Ceton could acquire WMC, continue development and just charge for it. Why start new when there is a working product already.

[mike_b]

I think there are certain legalities with commercial skipping. It is a very gray area. Look at dish with the Hopper and the stuff they are going through.

In the early 2000's, I had a ReplayTV with built-in commercial skipping. The TV networks sued ReplayTV because of this feature. The company went out of business shortly after the lawsuit was filed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_skipping

I switched to SageTV and Comskip and have successfully skipped commercials for years. I'm still running my SageTV PC and an HD200 until I can purchase an Echo extender. I have WMC running on a second PC and Comskip is working great with WMC. Hopefully, I'll be migrated to WMC and Comskip in the near future.

[erkotz]

I think there are certain legalities with commercial skipping. It is a very gray area. Look at dish with the Hopper and the stuff they are going through.

IANAL, and I am not speaking for Ceton's stance, however, as far as I know, there is no legal precedent saying commercial skipping by an end-user illegal. Obviously the TV stations do not like it, but that doesn't make it illegal. I believe ReplayTV settled their suit, and Dish's product is new, and also a bit different (as I understand it, Dish is actually marking the commercials for you, as opposed to an algorithm).

[STC]

Give it time and I wager a lot of the commercials will be graphics onscreen during the show. I've seen some of those already and there will be Jack Diddly we can do about it