Encryption

[NedS]

A3SA had only provided a path forward for Android platforms at the moment. I have been given the impression that a non-technical issue/disagreement is currently blocking progress on that. Nick is still working on a public shame letter addressed to the A3SA and other relevant authorities.

We remain hopeful that the A3SA might yet come to their senses.

[joblo]

[withdrawn by author]

[gore]

I think a3sa will be killed by greed and shortsightedness.
People won't be able to watch those channels, and that's that. No ad revenue for station, they will turn DRM off.
In my market this is the only ATSC 3.0 station with DRM, and of course they have it on ATSC 1.0 too...

The problem being that 3.0 broadcasts are receivable farther from the transmitter than 1.0 broadcasts are, meaning more potential viewers and ad revenue. In my market, I can only occasionally receive the 1.0 signals, but the 3.0 are rock-solid and stable. But all those 3.0 broadcasts are encrypted except for the Fox signal, meaning I, nor anyone else, cannot watch those encrypted signals, so the stations are completely wasting their money transmitting those signals, which I assume is a rather large cost to those stations.

How many years is it going to be before the stations come to grips with paying these costs of transmitting a signal that no one can see? I put away my HDHomeRun tuner a few months ago because it is useless at my location other than that one Fox station. I still check this forum every month or so to see if there has been any progress on encryption, but I see that there has been none and there doesn't seem to be any prospect of a solution coming at all. I guess I will look at one of the other manufacturers so I can watch the encrypted channels. I won't be able to watch on my phone or iPad or anything but the one device the antenna will be connected to, but at least I will have off-air TV to watch. I will check back in another 6 months.

[SoNic67]

The problem being that 3.0 broadcasts are receivable farther from the transmitter than 1.0 broadcasts are, meaning more potential viewers and ad revenue. In my market, I can only occasionally receive the 1.0 signals, but the 3.0 are rock-solid and stable. But all those 3.0 broadcasts are encrypted except for the Fox signal, meaning I, nor anyone else, cannot watch those encrypted signals, so the stations are completely wasting their money transmitting those signals, which I assume is a rather large cost to those stations.

In my market is the other way around. For now.
I think you should write FCC a letter stating just this... Those are public airwaves and if public cannot use them, what's the point of TV licenses? Put something about emergency broadcasts not being available in there too.

[danieljlevine]

I’d be careful about saying “no by can watch the ATSC 3.0 DRM channels. That’s not really true. By the time ATSC 3.0 rolls out officially, I expect current TVs and decoder boxes to be able to handle the DRM just fine and that will be most people.

We are a savvy minority who want their antenna in one location, watch on different platforms, and some to time shift their watching.

So I’m merely saying that the ATSC 3.0 broadcasts probably won’t be a waste of the broadcasters money in general. Just for us.

[gore]

I’d be careful about saying “no by can watch the ATSC 3.0 DRM channels. That’s not really true. By the time ATSC 3.0 rolls out officially, I expect current TVs and decoder boxes to be able to handle the DRM just fine and that will be most people.

We are a savvy minority who want their antenna in one location, watch on different platforms, and some to time shift their watching.

So I’m merely saying that the ATSC 3.0 broadcasts probably won’t be a waste of the broadcasters money in general. Just for us.

How many years will it be before 3.0 rolls out "officially"? 2, 5, 10, 20? In the meantime, like right now, it is true that no one can watch those signals unless they use a direct-connection device from the antenna to the TV. And some TV manufacturers have even stopped making 3.0-capable sets at all.

I am sure as well that sets will be come available that will receive encrypted 3.0 signals, but will that come with a monthly subscription fee? I am also sure that this is what the TV station owner groups want, that constant revenue stream that they became quite comfortable with after the FCC allowed them to charge cable and satellite providers that retransmission fee for what they called "modifying their signals" even though cable and satellite were doing nothing of the kind, only simply passing along a signal that viewers could otherwise not receive because of distance from the transmitters or other reasons. It was a GIANT money grab that we are still paying for with this encryption thing.

[gore]

The problem being that 3.0 broadcasts are receivable farther from the transmitter than 1.0 broadcasts are, meaning more potential viewers and ad revenue. In my market, I can only occasionally receive the 1.0 signals, but the 3.0 are rock-solid and stable. But all those 3.0 broadcasts are encrypted except for the Fox signal, meaning I, nor anyone else, cannot watch those encrypted signals, so the stations are completely wasting their money transmitting those signals, which I assume is a rather large cost to those stations.

In my market is the other way around. For now.
I think you should write FCC a letter stating just this... Those are public airwaves and if public cannot use them, what's the point of TV licenses? Put something about emergency broadcasts not being available in there too.

I've done that, several times, and received no response at all. That is not surprising, public comments rarely receive any sort of direct response. I have also spoken to my Congressman a couple of times about this subject. I know him quite well, see him around often when he is home from Washington. As with any subject, he said he will "look into it".

[nyjklein]

What's this about?

https://tvnewscheck.com/tech/article/me ... -atsc-3-0/

[Freekick123]

What's this about?

https://tvnewscheck.com/tech/article/me ... -atsc-3-0/

Broadcasters use recording software to insure compliance. It records not only what aired but captioning, loudness, quality and other things. This is purely for the industry and not for us viewers. Obviously if you need to record something with DRM for compliance purposes you'd have to be able to decrypt it. I'd expect other companies like Actus and SnapStream to need A3SA approval also.

[NedS]

What's this about?

https://tvnewscheck.com/tech/article/me ... -atsc-3-0/

Technically speaking, the HDHomeRun hardware can provide you the DRM'ed ATSC 3.0 feeds right now, but it's just encrypted data and you can't do anything with it. So any other company/software/whatever could come up with their own A3SA agreement/license/arrangement/whatever even without us (Silicondust) being involved. MediaProxy deals with TV stations and their engineers, so A3SA isn't worried about end users getting access to unencrypted streams.

Silicondust is basically getting the app/player-side approved. The hardware is already complete, though in our case we can also use the hardware tuners for things like round-trip checks and probably a bunch of other stuff, so there are likely to be firmware updates to assist in that.

My assumption is that A3SA has more requirements for us because we have an app that is being exposed to the general public.

[Cabal]

My assumption is that A3SA has more requirements for us because we have an app that is being exposed to the general public.

Can I infer from this that there is not already a discussion taking place?

[NedS]

Can I infer from this that there is not already a discussion taking place?

There is a discussion already taking place between Silicondust and A3SA. The part that I am guessing about is the discussion between MediaProxy and A3SA.

[DennisFL]

If the powers that be approve SD decryption, I suspect the requirements will be to refuse skipping or fast forwarding content (the commercials will need to be included just like the streaming apps) and anyone using HDHomeRUN ATSC 3 decrypted streams must also abide by the rules. Correct?

[joblo]

If the powers that be approve SD decryption, I suspect the requirements will be to refuse skipping or fast forwarding content (the commercials will need to be included just like the streaming apps) and anyone using HDHomeRUN ATSC 3 decrypted streams must also abide by the rules. Correct?

Mon Mar 06, 2023 12:28 pm:

4. Can playback functionality, such as FF or REW be restricted, such that viewers can be prevented from skipping commercials during playback?

No restrictions on FF/RW for recordings.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230605210 ... 36#p389936

[DigitaLSD]

I am a bit lost. I am using an Antenna with a Flex 4K and the HDHomeRun app on Android Televisions (two Sonys and a HiSense). Seemingly, I have two problems stemming from DRM.

1) the DRM Protected channels won't function on my Android TV (though I think this behavior is expected based on the Q&A in the first post). I tune to them and get varying levels of "Need Decryption" depending on which stream it is, but one of them simply says "No Video)

2) Within the first page or two, or perhaps the last one (that's all I read because 32 pages of forum posts are too many), it was mentioned that if the channel doesn't tune, it will drop back to the ATSC 1.0 feed, but in my case, this is not happening. I wonder if it's because of the way the channels are laid out, and maybe someone can answer this for me. So, for instance, the normal 1080i stream of CBS is channel 5.1, while the HEVC Stream (presumably 1080p or higher) is 105.1. When I attempt to tune to 105.1, it just puts up a black screen with a message about decryption and doesn't auto-tune back to 5.1. Is this expected behavior? All of the channels in question are 1xx.x and they align with their xx.x counterparts (5.1 105.1, 9.1 109.1, 29.1 129.1, etc).

If it is supposed to be auto-tuning back to the non DRM version of the channel, I would like this ability, though, I suppose it's just as easy to hide the channels entirely (though, if I do that, I wouldn't have a way to check if the problem has been solved in the future without hoop jumping).

I think it's kind of crazy that normal broadcast stations have implemented DRM protection...