Silicondust HDHomerun + DLNA = LiveTV on almost any device? - Page 4

Why is the Travel Channel video so choppy?

All good points. I really wasn't that excited at this news. While it is big news, it's not really for those with an HTPC. The Prime will ONLY be capable of supplying live TV. There will be no recording functionality because there is nowhere on the device to store the recordings. (That said, I wouldn't be surprised if SD enabled the USB ports for the TAs to allow a hard drive to be connected.)

Now a separate DLNA server (device or application) that has also licensed DTCP-IP (for the case of encrypted content) could request the stream from the Prime and serve as the recording device but for a PC application, there would be no point to this. They would need to license DTCP-IP and a DRM protection like PlayReady. Or they could just license PlayReady for half the cost (eliminating DTCP-IP) and use the DRI interface (directly or using the PBDA Directshow wrapper filters) like Windows Media Center.

We are not the target customers for this functionality, people with Smart TVs and devices that don't care about recordings are. I'm not knocking SD, this is a smart play for them. They just created the opportunity to move from Techies to the Average Joe, not a small feat for their market.
The guide will show up like any other content. The Prime will present what is currently airing as a list of available videos to watch (as if they were on a hard drive somewhere). When you select one, the Prime will tune to the appropriate channel (instead of reading a file) and stream it to the device.

For those interested in the technical specifications:

Aired programs will be listed by the ContentDirectory Service of the DLNA MediaServer device. If the Prime had recording capabilities, it would also implement the ScheduledRecording Service. You can read about them at http://upnp.org/specs/av/av4/

I think this approach has some great potential. As for it being useless, consider how many people have to use a cable box to watch TV. If they can get rid of the box and use either an X-Box or Playstation for live TV then it's a win-win. You've not only eliminated an extra box but you'll save a few bucks a month as well.

I've posted a feature request in the Ceton Echo bug tracking forum asking for XBMC support to be added to the Echo. I don't know if it's feasible or not, but it would potentially solve a lot of my playback issues using an extender. I know there's a PVR function being added to XBMC, if it hasn't been added already, that could make XBMC a one-stop app for those of use with content that's copy freely. I'm on FIOS and the only channels flagged as copy once are the premium channels, none of which I subscribe to.

RVU is a remote user interface layer that was built outside of DLNA and on top of (and competed against DLNA's original remote user interface which was based on HTML instead of being image based). DirecTV uses it as its whole-home solution with certain Samsung TVs being clients as well as the C31 set-top box. While RVU allows the HR34 to render the UI remotely on an RVU client, the video stream is sent in a separate stream via DTCP-IP. RVU was later added to the DLNA standard, and I believe DirecTV is the only one currently using this. Verizon had originally planed to, but later decided to go another direction with its yet to be released whole-home strategy.

The idea behind these remote user interfaces, is that most DLNA clients have less than great experiences, and the source wants to control the entire experience (think tru2way).

I'm not 100% sure how the server would work. I know that you can store protected CableCARD recordings on anything you want, but you can only play them back from the WMC computer you recorded them on. I'm not sure if DTCP-IP is only a transmission DRM, or if it also can be applied to a stored file the way PlayReady can be.

Actually, the channel list only shows the channel name, it does not show the name of the program currently airing. This is something that could be built into the renderer or a another DMC, though.

I'm not sure on this but I think the Prime is only capable of providing a simple channel lineup i.e., channel number and call sign plus a few other bits of data, like what shows up in their QuickTV player.

In my OP I was using the term Program Guide to refer to an EPG or IPG similar to what is provided by Windows Media Center and other PVR applications. I thought Program Guide data comes from an external source and is then integrated into the channel lineup by a service app that is part of the PVR or Player application.

It would be interesting to know how a Program Guide is generated on:

Samsung TV
PS3
XBOX

DTCP-IP is transmission only. For storage, one of their approved DRM schemes must be used: http://www.dtcp.com/approvedtechnologies.aspx

Windows Media DRM 10 or newer are on the list (which are a part of PlayReady).

Correct, it's only the list of channels. I blame it on late night posting.

Can DTCP-IP DRM be licensed to open source projects like XBMC?

Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator (DTLA)
http://www.dtcp.com/agreements.aspx

I'm sure they would be more than happy to take your money and sell the license certificate. Then they would revoke the certificate as soon as it was "leaked" in the source repository. So while the answer to your question is technically "yes", it will not work.

I literally just ordered an Xbox a couple days ago to go along with my HDHomerun, but then I heard the news about the PS3 support, and the Xbox is now just sitting there unopened. I currently have two PS3's so I would prefer if I could just use those, however I'm not sure if the user experience would be the same, and if I might still be better off using an xbox extender.

Does anyone have an idea of how the day to day usage of these two options would differ? I'm assuming the ps3 would not be able to schedule recordings or playback any recorded material? Also, can anyone guess what the user interface would be for the PS3? Would you have to go through all of the various menu levels to actually get to select channels on the PS3 like you do for any standard DNLA content, which could get somewhat cumbersome, or is anyone expecting a separate HDHomerun app like there is for netflix? Just trying to get an idea of what people expect the capabilities of this to be. It seems there still would be some valid reasons to have an xbox as an extender based on how this PS3 tuner capability is expected to work.
Edited by MikeK614 - 12/11/12 at 5:17pm

I'm trying to understand what SD's press release really means with respect to opening the door for alternatives to WMC that can play all CATV programming including copy protected.

Sounds like no-go for XBMC...

Phase one is for devices with DTCP-IP support. XBMC (or any other open source software) does not and never will have DTCP-IP support. It would defeat the purpose. SmartTVs and media player devices like a Roku box would be able to support it.

I don't know what SD has planned for the later phases of their Project:Connect though.

WMC on the 360 acts like a full blow DVR, the ability to automatically schedule recordings based on title etc. Watching the HDHR Prime on a ps3 will be like browsing a list of channels in a list and then watching live tv. So no program guide, no show meta data, not recording. So for now they aren't that comparable, but who knows what it'll look like in a few months.

Just because XBMC is opensource, doesn't mean that an addon to it needs to be. Does it?

I don't see why these functions can't be added as long as someone puts in the time and money and sells the addon. There are plenty of opensource projects that have proprietary binary (closed source) additions. Just look at android. Most of it is open source, but most of the hardware drivers aren't, along with a lot of googles built in apps.

I haven't looked into the license/code of XBMC to really answer that specifically but in general: sure, you can do a closed source addin to an application, there just needs to be some type of API or plugin architecture in place for the main app to support the plugin. I proposed something exactly like that for MediaPortal and NextPVR in one of the Ceton threads: a black box app to handle the recording and playback that just exposes functions like Play(), Pause() etc to the main app.

The main problem with a software application using DTCP-IP (at least a Windows application) is that DTCP-IP licensing will double your licensing costs for no reason. You can simply license PlayReady (which you would still have to do if you went the DTCP-IP route) and use the DRI/PBDA interface.

I don't think DRM can be securely implemented that way---as a stand-alone black box addon. I think the content has to be protected along it's entire path from source to screen including all the interfaces, memory and storage. Right?

I would love to be proved wrong, but I'm thinking more like a few years. DVR development is apparently pretty complex, and even the new XBMC PVR add-on, which has long been in development, is quite rudimentary compared to WMC (no series scheduling for instance). This DLNA implementation will be even more rudimentary than XBMC PVR. I don't see Silicon Dust just pulling out an amazing DVR in a few months time.

I'm very excited for this development, especially if it supports copy once. However, if you have a Windows 7 PC laying around (which most people do), why not just use WMC in conjunction with an Xbox 360 extender (something else most people have)?

Don't get me wrong, being able to watch live TV on other devices will be great, I just wouldn't expect it to be a replacement for WMC anytime soon.

I don't really know much about DRM, but there was a question posted on the silicondust forums that implies that DTCP-IP has some sort of DRM to apply to the storage of files, and streaming previously recorded protected content.
source: http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13920&sid=33e16080c966489a47f8a54ab47391bc


I did a search and found a cablelabs spec that seems to imply (at least to me) that you can stream previously recorded copy protected content over DTCP-IP (they call it DTCP-DIS... whatever that is).
http://www.cablelabs.com/specifications/OC-SP-HN-SEC-I04-120531.pdf section 6.12

Apologies in advance if I'm not interpreting this stuff correctly
Edited by Diverge - 12/11/12 at 8:12pm

It's pretty much the ONLY way it can be implemented. Yes, which is why it would need to be a black box type of application. It's the only way to insure that something cannot be injected into the path.

DTCP-IP DRM only applies to the transport mechanism (when the file/stream is sent from device A to device B). When device B saves it, it saves it with a different DRM scheme (PlayReady being one of the approved types). DRM must be handed off to another approved scheme for "persistent protected storage" (recording) and "protected digital output" (playback rendering). Basically, you would request that the DTCP-IP would "transfer" the DRM handling to PlayReady. DTCP-IP would recognise that PlayReady is an approved DRM and allow the transfer of the license. See http://www.dtcp.com/approvedtechnologies.aspx for DTCP approved DRM shemes for persistent protected storage and protected digital output. No apologies necessary, I'm learning as I go just like you. And I could be just as wrong in my understanding.

I should have read your post more carefully. You laid it out nicely. I would assume that the DRM would need to be implemented as code that runs in the protected Environment (PE), same as how it works in Windows Media Center.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa376846(v=vs.85).aspx

So its not really a technical issue but more of a business issue i.e. costs, year over year volumes, ROI, etc.

Looking at some of the up front and recurring licensing costs and considering the cost of development, support, etc I would say that a business model would be difficult.

DTCP-IP licensing fees:

DTLA Small Adopter $14000/year
DTLA device certs ?
Microsoft code signing cert ?

WMDRM 10 (PlayReady) for persistant storage

$5,000 license fee
$10,000 certificate fee for each major release of a licensed product

Software engineering $
Support $
Other $

Right. But as I said, for an PC application, you don't need to pay the DTCP-IP licensing. PlayReady is all you need because you can request that the Prime send the stream with DMDRM encryption using SetDRM in the Security Service of the DRI interface. This is what Media Center does.

If anyone wants to pay the $5k license fee for me, I would be more than happy to create a demo for them.

Plus whatever it costs to get CableLabs to certify the solution.

CableLabs does not have to certify a PC application AFAIK. They used to certify the entire system but then they changed that to allow OCUR devices to be installed on any PC.

Thats interesting regarding WMDRM.
Edited by t-c - 12/12/12 at 6:48pm

My understanding is that they will need to certify any app that uses a previously uncertified playback pipeline. AFAIK, the only PC pipeline that is certified is WMC's which uses undocumented features in DS - so it can't be reused.

I did some research into what it would take to do this on a PC a while back. Could be wrong, but it seemed like the cheapest way was to use the protected path stuff baked into MF. AFAIK it's the only documented way to enable HDCP.

Are you sure all it takes is paying the fee? I have a feeling that they will not license it to just anyone. If they did, they would run the risk of someone using it to make something that removes the encryption.

If it is just a matter of paying the fee, then I bet you could get it funded with a Kickstarter project.

Actually, the pipeline that WMC uses is very well documented: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/gg463120.aspx
Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/gg463131.aspx

That fee (and a license agreement) gets you a test certificate and the SDK so that you can develop your application (NDAs involved and all that). You then have to pay the $10k and submit your test app for certification for the final certificate. Sure, you could then make something that removes the encryption but the second you release it into the wild, they will know it was your certificate that did it and simply revoke that certificate (then hunt you down with pitchforks).

Oh, and if your submitted product does not pass the certification, it's $2500 for each retest.

http://www.microsoft.com/playready/licensing/ (Select "Developing a PlayReady PC application" in the dropdown). There may be additional fees involved but I don't know what the would be.

I could be wrong in my understanding of all this so if someone else knows...

That's only half the problem (and having documentation doesn't make it well documented* ). You still need to certify the playback mechanism. Securing something at rest is relatively easy. Make sure that it can't be hijacked during playback is not. DS wasn't designed to handle protected playback, obviously it's possible to get something DS based certified (MS did after all), but it's not reusable so you would need to build something new. IMO, MF is the only cost effective way to do that.


* Google "SageDCT"

I don't disagree about using MF for playback but that's theoretical in my case until I would be able to take a look at the PlayReady SDK. They may provide a way to do it with DirectShow but all the samples I have seen to date use Media Foundation. As for certification of the playback mechanism, have you gotten confirmation that it needs to be certified by CableLabs? (I'm honestly asking here because I wasn't able to find any CableLabs certification that covered PC applications for OCURs.)
I'm intimately familiar with SageDCT (not as much as you of course). You were a great help to me and Martin with NextPVR stuff and thank you for that.

Not personally. Had a few conversations with some people who have looked at it seriously. It's supposed to be quite onerous, even have to write an essay about how awesome your playback framework is .