Encryption

[homerbrew]

Ah, maybe there is a warped logic here that I never considered before. Could they be thinking of a non-OTA future? Obviously impersonating an OTA station would be insanely wacked and stopped pretty quickly. Perhaps they are looking for a way to preserve all the station sovereignty even if the station "transmits" over the internet? They could use A3SA certification to somehow preserve locality? So I couldn't watch Boston stations if I was in Los Angeles? I dunno just trying to comprehend. Otherwise, yeah this is just strange, expensive, proprietary behavior by A3SA.

I do believe that is the broadcasters intent. They want make OTA so unbearably difficult, that it becomes useless. They assume you will go to cable/satellite/streaming to watch that station, where they extort that service to rebroadcast said station every few years. If they go that route, I will just boycott all local stations and they can pound sand. They will ultimately drive people to more piracy than ever.

[techpro2004]

FYI, I fully expect this post to get moderated, just trying to let sd know about it so they can use it as leverage against the a3sa


[removed by moderator]

[jasonl]

Yesterday, the FCC issued another Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding ATSC 3.0, available at https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments ... 5053A1.pdf. They asked for feedback on a ton of issues that have been raised by all sides, including a whole lot related to DRM and A3SA, which is extremely encouraging. Many of the people who previously filed comments were even quoted in the footnotes, which seems pretty cool to me. Lon Seidman posted a video summarizing it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YmeEp_N6pY. We will be preparing our own comments to add to the proceedings, but we encourage everyone to review the document and file their own appropriate comments. I don't think there's any way this would have come out anywhere near what it is without the flood of feedback and the work that Lon and Tyler have done, so keep it up!

[decaym]

Nice to see the FCC getting involved. I haven't written in to them since the AllVid fiasco, which would have worked well with the SiliconDust product line. My musing that time ran for about six pages, so I have my work cut out for me to fully collect my thoughts.

[removed by moderator - see forum rules]

There also needs to be clarity regarding the use the standards in ATSC 3 in terms of use by third party and open source software. As it stands now, one of the best known media managers (not sure if I should use their name here) can't show or record ATSC 3 streams, even without DRM, from my HDHomeRun. If the current situation stands, when ATSC 1 goes off the air my recording days will end.

[jasonl]

There is an open-source AC-4 decoder that is part of librempeg, which is a fork of ffmpeg. I'm assuming you're talking about Jellyfin. They could potentially integrate that decoder if they wished, they would just need to make sure to grab the version of it before the developer relicensed it. There haven't been any changes to the AC-4 part since the relicensing was done, at least.

[howardc1243]

according to the last video uploaded to you-tube lon seidman revealed some good news regarding drm and the broadcasters, nab, pearl and the a3sa are going to have to answer some hard questions from the fcc with regard to encryption among other things.

[tzr916]

Hypothetical:
If DRM on ATSC 3.0 survives and ATSC 1.0 gets shut down, what happens to locals on cable systems? Do they get DRM? What type of DRM? Cable company flavor, or A3SA flavor?

Big question:
After the "transition", would DRM'ed locals via cable card work in the HDHR Windows App?

[foxbat121]

Hypothetical:
If DRM on ATSC 3.0 survives and ATSC 1.0 gets shut down, what happens to locals on cable systems? Do they get DRM? What type of DRM? Cable company flavor, or A3SA flavor?

Big question:
After the "transition", would DRM'ed locals via cable card work in the HDHR Windows App?

Cable companies usually get direct video feed from local stations, usually through dedicated fiber connection or other ways, not from OTA broadcasting signal. After that, cable companies processing them based on regulations for cable cos. There is no ATSC signals here.

[tzr916]

Hypothetical:
If DRM on ATSC 3.0 survives and ATSC 1.0 gets shut down, what happens to locals on cable systems? Do they get DRM? What type of DRM? Cable company flavor, or A3SA flavor?

Big question:
After the "transition", would DRM'ed locals via cable card work in the HDHR Windows App?

Cable companies usually get direct video feed from local stations, usually through dedicated fiber connection or other ways, not from OTA broadcasting signal. After that, cable companies processing them based on regulations for cable cos. There is no ATSC signals here.

Ok, but it's the broadcasters who are backing (pushing) DRM. If that survives the transition, will that enable someone to force DRM on the locals carried by the cable companies? Is there an A3SA for cable companies? Or does each cable company have to say "yes" or "no" to DRM on the locals they carry?

[foxbat121]

IIRC, most cable cos need to carry locals in the clear. Or they can get a waiver from FCC and in return, offer free boxes to those wish to receive locals from them. It doesn't matter if it is receiving DRM from local stations or not. That signal is not the something you received from the cable (QAM instead of ATSC). That signal is protected by the carrying agreement between two companies. I heard it could be something that is un-compressed. Cable co needs to re-compress and encode them before sending out to cable customer.

[jasonl]

Cable providers have been allowed to encrypt everything for like a decade now? But there is a prohibition on applying DRM to unencrypted digital terrestrial broadcast content, so that presumably would not apply if the broadcast is no longer unencrypted, and cable providers could choose to (or be required to as part of the carriage agreement) copy protect those channels.

[gore]

Hypothetical:
If DRM on ATSC 3.0 survives and ATSC 1.0 gets shut down, what happens to locals on cable systems? Do they get DRM? What type of DRM? Cable company flavor, or A3SA flavor?

Big question:
After the "transition", would DRM'ed locals via cable card work in the HDHR Windows App?

Cable companies usually get direct video feed from local stations, usually through dedicated fiber connection or other ways, not from OTA broadcasting signal. After that, cable companies processing them based on regulations for cable cos. There is no ATSC signals here.

Actually, most cable companies do indeed get their local affiliate signals via OTA antennas placed on towers. Major urban cable systems might have a fiber connection to the TV stations but systems in mid-size and small towns still use antennas because it is much cheaper to just use an antenna rather than have a dedicated fiber connection. Of course there are less systems who do this now than before, as more and more cable systems in smaller communities shut down because of competition from streaming.

With the advent of YouTubeTV and other streaming providers and the fact that most communities both small and large, and a lot of rural areas as well, are now served with at least one, if not more than one, fiber provider, traditional antenna-based cable television has been going "out of style" in recent years. TV reception via antenna has also been declining, to the point that I wonder just how much longer OTA TV signals will even be available. If no one is watching via antenna, the TV stations might wonder just why they are spending all that money on tower maintenance and power for the transmitters.

[tzr916]

.....cable providers could choose to (or be required to as part of the carriage agreement) copy protect those channels.

This leads back to my question:
Would the cable company DRM have to be compatible with the Prime tuners, and thus record and play in the Windows HDHR app?

[jasonl]

I can't imagine the cable industry inventing or adopting another DRM system at this point. TV over QAM is on its way out.

[gtb]

I can't imagine the cable industry inventing or adopting another DRM system at this point. TV over QAM is on its way out.

*Every* major operator has indicated that their future solution will be IPTV based in major industry events. Some (especially the smaller ones) by exiting the TV service entirely (only the biggest operators can negotiate a deal that is economically viable compared to the large operators such as Comcast/Charter and the YTTV/DirecTV/etc. vMVPD behemoths) and suggesting their customers choose one of the various alternative vMVPD services. Most of the majors have eliminated adding to their future technical (and customer) debt by no longer offer new CableCARDs to customers. "It is hard to make predictions, especially about the future", but I personally will not be surprised when even the operators still tolerating linear QAM customers start a forced migration (i.e. we are just trying to guess the dates, not the end target).