Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Flagged Channels For XBMC PVR?

AlphaWolf_HK writes "I own an HDHomeRun Prime tuner, and unfortunately I live in an area where the cable provider (Cox) blanket flags all channels to be copy restricted. I'm tired of using Windows Media Center due to bugs and other problems, but since the channels are flagged it is the only option. Satellite is of course not an option at all (no cablecard or similar standard.) I've already begun moving most of my content watching to XBMC in the form of using sickbeard and couchpotato, both of which do an amazing job even with torrents now that Usenet has been getting hit pretty hard. To match this, I've already dropped my cable tier to the lowest possible for some basic digital channels that people in my household still watch and aren't available over torrents. But ideally I'd like to cut the cord completely as the service is otherwise useless. Are there any options for obtaining this content without physically moving to Comcast territory where they don't do this? Or perhaps any workarounds for the CCI flag? Ideally, anything that allows XBMC with digital content and no transcoding."

Rule #1

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for contributing to the death of the platform you are trying to use.

Go OTA

[Lev13than]

What about using an antenna? I cut cable about 7 years ago - everything comes in on Mythbuntu via an HDHR hooked up to a small roof-mounted antenna. We get about 30 channels OTA with no excess compression and no copy protection. Everything else comes in over the net (Netflix and "other").

You don't say what metro area you are in or whether you are living in an antenna-friendly building but you've already got 90% of the gear you need. Lots of info on the web about how to make the jump. You may have already investigated OTA, but if not you definitely should.

HD PVR

[Anonymous Coward]

Use an HD PVR with the component outputs of your cable box - no cable card so you have to pay the monthly cable box rental fee. This will allow you to record anything that the cable box can see.

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html

I haven't used XBMC but this works very well with MythTV and Verizon FIOS.

this worked for us...

[roc97007]

a) Cancel cable service. Retain or sign up for broadband.

b) Erect old fashion antenna. (We get 13 digital channels off the antenna, although many of them are crap.

c) Buy roku box. ($99 Amazon), less than the cost of 1 month of cable.

d) Subscribe to Netflix streaming, and/or Hulu +, Amazon streaming (Any combination still a tiny fraction of the cost of cable/satellite)

e) Whatever you can't get via above, torrent, or maybe read a book, go walk the dog, try to remember what your kids look like.

f) When all else fails, remember, It's Only TV. It's quite a ways down on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Help me steal crap

[Anonymous Coward]

There are legitimate gripes about access, copy protection, and copyright issues... but this doesn't come close to any of them.

This entire post can be summarized as: "I want more content, but don't want to pay for any of it. 80% of that content I already can steal, but I need help stealing the last 20%."

The word "steal" will cause some objections, but replace it with either "gain access to content without paying for it" or "circumvent copyprotections and break the DMCA" and you're dead on.

There's a somewhat legitimate question of "I'm paying for cable but can't watch it how I want to", but it's buried under all the references to torrents, usenet, and bypassing the copyright flag. Even a passing reference to already using some recognized legal channels like Hulu or Netflix would lend SOME level of credibility.

Re:Rule #1

[iamhassi]

You're right. I taught everyone in the house how to use torrents. Now we only watch what we want when we want. Haven't had TV service in over 5 years, went from xbmc to roku and plex with torrents, Netflix, and basic Hulu. It's not bad at all, everyone does this anyway with DVR, recording everything and watching it later. I am considering a Android PC for a good all-in-one solution. [amazon.com]

Re:Go OTA

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a Dreambox, install one of the 'special' firmwares and you can watch and record whatever, whenever. Google for more info.

Re:Don't try it, it's illegal

[seinman]

Live broadcasts. For me, it's sports. There are a lot of sporting events that I want to watch that are only on cable/satellite. Even if there was someone torrenting sporting events (I've looked high and low, unless it's the super bowl, this doesn't exist), I would still rather watch most of them live.

Re:Go OTA

[DriveDog]

If you have an attic, I would suggest hanging several directional homemade Hoverman antennae in the attic, each pointed towards a station you want. Materials for the antenna—wood, coathangers, screws, wire, possibly ratwire or something for a reflector, and a balun, should cost you maybe $5 each (I had all the junk to make several without spending a dime). You might need to buy some coax. These things are much, much better than the indoor antenna junk being peddled in stores for $30, $50, even more. I implanted one in the wall behind the TV just for backup in case the IPTV setup goes down. The angle just happens to work for the two closest channels.

Re:Go OTA

[ChaseTec]

Don't buy some expensive antenna, you can build a good one yourself, see http://www.tvantennaplans.com/ [tvantennaplans.com] I also used two android apps, TV Antenna Helper (to figure out where the transmit towers are) and Hdhomerun Signal Meter (to make sure I had the direction of my antenna perfect).

Hulu, NetFlix, and Amazon Prime for the rest of my content.

+1000 Go OTA

[jddj]

Been over-the-air for years.

We get pristine 1080i network-supplied digital picture for free, no broadcast flag, a fair number of local channels, and Netflix, Amazon and Sony Playstation Store supply the rest over the internet.

Haven't really done much with Hulu, but it's another opportunity for you to stream fresh content.

I use MythTV and a HD Homerun tuner, running on Debian on a QNAP TS-119 (which draws something like 6 watts spun up). For TV frontends, I use the PS3, or a recent Mac Mini.Very reliable.

Took a fair amount of setup, but all works great. My just-turned-five kid has been working the remote himself for about 18 months, getting lots of great commercial-free kids programming from PBS.

Been forever since I've paid for cable TV.

Re:Rule #1

[Bigby]

You must not watch sports...which is fine. But your whole strategy blows up for half the population that sees the primary purpose of a TV being for sports.

Re:Basic services are often free over the air

[cshay]

Incorrect. Both UHF and VHF are still used by digital broadcasters and the same old antennas are still used (rabbit ears for VHF and bowties for UHF).

The USA decided that digital broadcasting was so efficient that they could auction off UHF channels 59 through 69 in 2008.

Please do some googling before making such erroneous comments.

Blanket copy restricted is not allowed

[mattack2]

If you truly mean *all* channels, even rebroadcasts of OTA channels, are protected, then this is against the FCC's rules, and you should file a FCC complaint.

Also, if *other channels* don't want themselves to be protected and they are being protected, you can help get them unprotected (I have seen people talk on tivocommunity.com of having this work on their cable systems).