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Comcast TiVo Copy Protection rant

6K views 30 replies 9 participants last post by  nvt 
#1 ·
I have managed to avoid the oppressive copy protection flag for several years (looking at the dates this fiasco has been going on since 2006)
I have 3 TiVos - an old 240 S2, a 540 S2 and a Dual Tuner. Love them all, enjoy watching things and transferring to my laptop and onto my iPad to watch while I travel which I do every week.

I recently bought the XL - mainly for the integration with NetFlix and to watch some HD sport. I rarely watch recorded sport - enjoy the occasional watching of a past game but can live with the limitations just some of the stuff on this box. But concurrent with this my Motorola Comcast cable box failed and I was forced to replace it with an "Xfinity" box- HUGE mistake. The do not have any more regular boxes and you are forced to take a new box that
- has no serial connection so back to the IR spaghetti unreliable solution
- limited output choices to connect to
- includes a CAT5 network port - WARNING - don't plug your home network in to this it takes over and screws up any router and DHCP you may have set up - lord knows what this is supposed to be for
- Headache of setting up and a box that still does not work and I await a visit from an engineer

This is linked to the 540 unit and now suddenly all of the shows I watch and my family watch are flagged copy protected and in many instances as soon as you start watching them they will delete in 24 hours! No transferring them upstairs to watch in comfort and god forbid I might copy them off and watch in the little time I have while traveling.

And what about a family....take one example. My kids enjoy Tosh.0 as do I. THere are episodes of this on my TiVo that I will get round to watching at some point dating back months. No longer the case - it is copy protected. As soon as any one in the family watches an episode it will be deleted in 24 hours. So the message from Comcast is clear - we want your kids to watch TV on a regular basis. Homework be damned - you had better watch the TV when we blast it into your house otherwise you can't.

In looking at the reports of this on this forum and on others it seems as if this is "not my problem" routine. TiVo reefers you to the cable provider (Comcast) in my case and Comcast to Tivo

Is it just me or is this the death knell of Tivo unless they stand up and fight on behalf of their loyal customers. They won out on their patent infringement but if they just let this continued erosion of their tool set occur the product will be come just like any other DVR and the question then becomes why bother with Tivo....there are no advantages to making that investment over the subscription based poorer quality limited DVR from the cable company (hmmm wonder if this is the intention of Comcast)

As for Comcast - poor service, crammed channels and lack of customer service I'd jump to Verizon in a flash if it was available and must now look at the other choices from other providers but I'm willing to bet they are all in collusion to limit customer choices.

Not allowed to ask the obvious question - is there any way around this - so I won't ask that question. Instead I'll ask what are the solutions to what I deem reasonable legal behavior of recording programs and watching at a time and place of my choosing......?
 
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#2 ·
The solution is streaming. Once they enable Premiere to Premiere streaming it will be a non issue. It is not going to change since the cable company has been granted the right to enable these restrictions as long as it isn't from a local broadcast channel.
 
#3 ·
This is linked to the 540 unit and now suddenly all of the shows I watch and my family watch are flagged copy protected and in many instances as soon as you start watching them they will delete in 24 hours! No transferring them upstairs to watch in comfort and god forbid I might copy them off and watch in the little time I have while traveling.
If shows on regular (non pay-per-view) cable channels are flagged to delete in 24 hours, that doesn't sound right. Here, the shows are flagged to prevent transferring to another TiVo or PC, but none are shackled with a 24 hour timer.

That is something I would call and complain to my provider about.
 
#6 ·
If shows on regular (non pay-per-view) cable channels are flagged to delete in 24 hours, that doesn't sound right. Here, the shows are flagged to prevent transferring to another TiVo or PC, but none are shackled with a 24 hour timer.
That is something I would call and complain to my provider about.
Specific examples - channel 69 - Comedy Central which at the end of last month was recording fine with no restrictions but since putting in the RNG110 Box (labelled "Xfinity" on the front) I get a flag on this channel and on Tosh.0, Daily SHow and the Colbert Report

For clarification - I am not talking about any HD channels or premium channels (like HBO etc). On my other Tivo's the HBO, Showtime channels all record without any problems or restrictions
 
#8 ·
The only content this makes any sense at all for is shows d/l'd from Netflix.
And I would understand (I might also disagree but that's a separate issue) that but this is Comcast content - the NetFlix content does not download as such it streams and there is nothing to record or transfer
 
#9 ·
This just boggles my mind. Like everyone else, I didn't think it was possible to embed something in the a/v stream that forced the TiVo to do this. I never even heard of any TiVo forcibly deleting something 24 hours after first viewing, much less a TiVo 2.:confused:
 
#10 ·
This just boggles my mind. Like everyone else, I didn't think it was possible to embed something in the a/v stream that forced the TiVo to do this. I never even heard of any TiVo forcibly deleting something 24 hours after first viewing, much less a TiVo 2.:confused:
Well that's at least reassuring to me that I am not alone in my frustration!
 
#12 ·
cable can pass macrovision flags and apparently one of them is 24hr nuke.

so you could replace the S2's with S3's/S4's as digital recordings have laws about what flags they can use. Comcast generally doesn't use the digital flags except on premium movie channels (even then the law only allows them to use a flag that blocks MRV but has no time limits)

alternately for a hec of a lot less get a "video stabilizer" to but in between the cable box and the tivos inputs that strips the macrovision.

something like this for $10 on ebay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Brand-New-D...ltDomain_0&hash=item2c5f673138#ht_8364wt_1151

I dont have that particular brand- but I've purchased a similar one that works on 9v battery from ebay for 10 bucks years ago and it "fixes" these issues.
 
#14 ·
My question then is: When the heck did TiVo start honoring macrovision flags?
day 1- or very long ago- i know for sure the series 2 DVD recording units did. Hence the purchase of my "video stabilizer" so I could convert VHS tapes to DVD.

also I believe a law (or regulation) kicked in a few years requiring everyone to obey the flags. (there was a rush for people to buy DVD burners that ignored the macrovision coming out of VHS players so people could convert like i did.

(also sort of related but somehow macrovision flags became so important that the cablecard rules require digital things like S3/S4's to pass on macrovision flags to their analog outputs. There's a lot more than the CCI 0x01,2,3 flags that we all complain about- other flags require the various macrovision flags to get passed to the cablecard devices analog outputs.)
 
#15 ·
This is linked to the 540 unit and now suddenly all of the shows I watch and my family watch are flagged copy protected and in many instances as soon as you start watching them they will delete in 24 hours!
This is sort of mentioned, but I believe whatever you're seeing is legally allowed ONLY for PPV. Search some more, check the FCC, etc... but just like they CANNOT (legally) copy protect the cable versions of broadcast stations, I am under the impression you are receiving improper copy protection on non-PPV channels.
 
#16 ·
The solution is streaming. Once they enable Premiere to Premiere streaming it will be a non issue. It is not going to change since the cable company has been granted the right to enable these restrictions as long as it isn't from a local broadcast channel.
Oh, yeah. That will solve all of the problems he is experiencing on his 540, including recordings being deleted 24 hours after first playing.:rolleyes:
 
#17 ·
Oh, yeah. That will solve all of the problems he is experiencing on his 540, including recordings being deleted 24 hours after first playing.:rolleyes:
Obviously the 24 hour deletion is a mistake from the cable company. They aren't allowed to do that with the regular cable channels.
 
#19 ·
#20 ·
There does not seem to be an easy way to attach screen pictures but I have a few including the one that captures the TiVo messages:

"Due to policy set by copyright holder "Keep until I delete" is not permitted for this recording"
And on the recording playback

"will be kept through tomorrow at 6:30pm and will be deleted by Tue 9/276:59pm" for Colbert Report recorded 9/20 at 6:30pm on Channel 69 COmedy Channel

And the 24 hour kill it timer for the Colbert Report
"will be deleted tomorrow at 9:19am (24-hour timer)"
 
#22 ·
There does not seem to be an easy way to attach screen pictures...
When you're making a post, scroll down and hit the Manage Attachments button. You'll see a pop-up screen (see below) where you can upload different files provided they aren't too large.

"Due to policy set by copyright holder "Keep until I delete" is not permitted for this recording"
And on the recording playback

"will be kept through tomorrow at 6:30pm and will be deleted by Tue 9/276:59pm" for Colbert Report recorded 9/20 at 6:30pm on Channel 69 COmedy Channel

And the 24 hour kill it timer for the Colbert Report
"will be deleted tomorrow at 9:19am (24-hour timer)"
I'm curious. What is the icon next to the program in the list? Is it the regular green/yellow dot, or is it a flag?
When you go to the program info screen, do you see a flag next to the "will be deleted" line?
 

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#23 ·
This is sort of mentioned, but I believe whatever you're seeing is legally allowed ONLY for PPV. Search some more, check the FCC, etc... but just like they CANNOT (legally) copy protect the cable versions of broadcast stations, I am under the impression you are receiving improper copy protection on non-PPV channels.
I'm not certain but i dont think there are restrictions on macrovision flags on analog outputs. Again not certain at all but seem to recall the regs were related to digital only.

BUT- it wouldn't hurt to contact comcast to complain and see if it is legal and perhaps it might just be a mistake since no one else has complained that i can recall.
 
#24 ·
I'm not certain but i dont think there are restrictions on macrovision flags on analog outputs. Again not certain at all but seem to recall the regs were related to digital only.

BUT- it wouldn't hurt to contact comcast to complain and see if it is legal and perhaps it might just be a mistake since no one else has complained that i can recall.
It would also be interesting to know what Comcast DVRs do with the same content.
 
#26 ·
It would also be interesting to know what Comcast DVRs do with the same content.
apples and oranges I suspect. The comcast DVR probably would behave the same as an S3/S4 tivo that connects directly to the wire.

there are CCI flags which tell cablecard boxes to ADD the macrovision flag to their analog outputs. Assuming the channel is digital to begin with (like the vast majority of comcast seems to be all digital)- then it has a CCI bit set telling the cablebox to add the flag on it's analog outputs. The Tivo S2 sees the flag on the incoming analog input and respects the flag and does what it's supposed to with the content.

The 64k questions is -can CCI bytes have such restrictive flags on analog outputs when they aren't permitted to do that on digital outputs.
 
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