Comment Being forced to use a Digital Cable Box is a bad (Score 1) 567
Yes, you can setup up your Tivo or MythTV to work with a Digital Cable Box, best case you setup a Firewire connection which also handles channel changes. But in many cases its an ugly hack at best.
As the parrent poster mentioned, this is possible, but REQUIRES each customer use a cable box for each set in the house (for typical customer usage). "Cable-Ready" TV's, VCR's, and PVR's all become useless for tuning. The Cable company can't leave anything in the clear because it might offend someone, or at least is not wanted (not paid for).
Even the entire spectrum of digital channels would have to be encrypted/scrambled, with new QAM256 tuners in some HD sets and DVB cards in homebuilt PVR's. In the end I see this making TV much more controlled and Closed source we currently enjoy, despite the high prices.
As the parrent poster mentioned, this is possible, but REQUIRES each customer use a cable box for each set in the house (for typical customer usage). "Cable-Ready" TV's, VCR's, and PVR's all become useless for tuning. The Cable company can't leave anything in the clear because it might offend someone, or at least is not wanted (not paid for).
Even the entire spectrum of digital channels would have to be encrypted/scrambled, with new QAM256 tuners in some HD sets and DVB cards in homebuilt PVR's. In the end I see this making TV much more controlled and Closed source we currently enjoy, despite the high prices.
