How to record via IEEE 1394 (Firewire) to Windows XP - Page 15

i didnt need the other file to make this work. the pproblem you are experiencing is due to the 5c encryption. to check if encrytion is set on a certain show.

- browse to channel
- turn power off motorola
- immediately press ok
- browse to interface status

note the 5c implementation if set to 0, you can copy. if set to 1, you cant

-jb

Thanks to this thread I now have my PC recording Time Warner HD through the SA3250HD firewire port. I have noticed some interesting things.

I am able to capture/record the HD feeds from all of the OTA stations that Time Warner carries, plus Discovery-HD, TNT-HD, and INHD1 and INHD2. HBO-HD, SHO-HD, ESPN-HD, HDNET and HDNET movies are appear to be flagged through 5C copy protection by TWC as "copy once" and thus cannot be recorded through firewire. This seems consistent with others on this board.

I do run into a stange problem. If I change the channel to a 5C protected channel while watching through VLC, I then cannot record or watch any non-protected channels upon switching back. It will only work again if I close VLC AND reboot the cable box. DVHS will not work either. If I do not reboot the box, I get recorded files that will not play back with any player (even though there is data in the file). I think the problem is the 5C copy protection flag gets "stuck" into the on position for the other channels, which is only fixed by rebooting the cable box. Any thoughts?

I am curious to know what ESPN HD cannot be recorded through firewire, considering Discovery and TNT can be recorded through firewire. I suspect it is somewhere in the carraige agreement bwtween TWC and ESPN.

It looks as if the copy protection battle lines are being drawn. I refuse to get the HD-DVR because there is no way to offload the material from the DVR to permanently archive it -- and the content providers are doing everything in their power to keep it that way. TWC is in the middle, but my gut feeling is they are not adequately looking out for the consumer's interest -- especially the law abiding consumer that simply wants to exercise his/her fair use rights by maintaining personal copies of HD material.

It seems to me there should be a tool for removing the 5C flag from the transport stream files that cannot be played back. Anyone know of such a tool? Or is the stream scrambled? The content providers would probably argue any such program would violate the DMCA. But Congress' power on copyrights only goes so far as the constitution allows --- and the fair use exception is based on the first amendement, and should, IMO, override any attempts by Congress to legislate otherwise.

Just an FYI - I noticed the 5C protection is not set on a station, but rather set on an individual show basis.

I.E - Some discovery shows like American Chopper are copyrighted.

-JB

Yes, any 5C=1 material is encrypted and no, you can't get at it. Your fair use argument won't go very far, I'm afraid. The FCC has said that fair use means you can record programs & watch them later (timeshifting). It doesn't mean you are entitled to use a COMPUTER to do this. You can easily buy a JVC D-VHS tape deck at most consumer electronics stores that is 5C-compliant. It will record & play back any 5C=1 material just fine. Don't hold your breath for a PC-based 5C implementation any time soon, if ever.

Hi, I wonder if I could request a recap from those who have had complete success with this method, which to me means consistent recording of non-5C channels and consistent, glitch-free playback of those same files on the PC.

I have been following the thread since it was new, have the drivers installed successfully, and have captured streams using CapDVHS. Playing those streams glitch-free is still an unsolved challenge. I'm plagued by audio that drops out and goes out of sync, inability to select a stream, and files that simply stop playing at random points.

This has been true with playback via HiPix, and recently with the .TS play ability added to Theater Tek 2.0. Also tried using HDTVtoMPEG2, but the resulting files were no better.

Could the members with successes please post their successful stream record / stream play combinations? I'd appreciate it.

It took a while to figure out all the little issues. This is how I have been able to get near perfect resuls.

STB: Motorolla 6200 (7.15 firmware)
Cable: Adelphia
Software: DCTRecord, TStoATSC, HDTV2MPEG
Playback, via MyHD120, (and occasionally MPC)

Details can be found here:
Post 4009296

The only minor changes I've made to that process is recording in 128MB file segments, rather then 4G files segments. This keeps data loss to a minimum under a power failure. This also helps with the MyHD/non-ATSC TS format issue. Again, read that post for more details about this process with the MyHD120 card. (some things may apply to the Hipix card as well.)

At the time I was testing all of this (last summer), I came to the conclusion that VLC was a waste of time and that for playback, the MyHD card did the best job, as long as I made the streams ATSC compliant. (The only ones that come off the 6200 that way are the OTA rebroadcasts, YMMV.) When I do use a software player, I use MPC with WinDVD codecs.

--Eric

I have had varied results as well. I have gone to experimenting with direct viewing (real time live TV) using VLC and also using a filter graph I built with Graphedit.

Shows that have been recorded and play back "black" show something different when viewed real time.

I have two (2) HBO HD channels (channels 790 & 791). Both are (for now) unencrypted according to SA3250HD info. Channel 791 views perfectly in real time and records / plays back fine as well. On the other hand, channel 790 when viewed real time shows about 60% - 75% of video and audio: little stretches (snippets) of video and audio followed by pauses and hangs. A recorded file for this channel simply plays back "black" (nothing at all). Also, the CPU usage jumps up and down from 0% (pause / hang time) to 30% when info is coming through.

It seems to me that the channel 790 HBO HD stream is corrupted some how rather than encrypted. Interestingly, I can barely get anything at all out of the OTA HD channels (ABC, NBC, Discorvery, etc.) in real time and recorded files are also "black". These are unencrypted.

No problem with any of the SD digital channels but have not checked each and every one.

I will try a reboot of STB. Anyone have any thinking about this?

EDIT: The point I am trying to make here is that playback of recorded files from unencryped channels that are "black" (no valid content) may show some degree of information when viewed real time. What this means exactly I do not know.

DFA

This is crazy YO! I don't see why it is possbile to have a hardware 5c compatible device and not a software based solution. Heck, it's just code. Someone should be able to reverse engineer the firmware.

At the same time, I feel, that it would be in good interest to develop PVR capable software. It's only an amount of time till 5c is cracked. It is inevitable.

My .02

-JB

Yeah sure. Thousands of developers are feverishly working on hacking their JVC 30K VCRs. Somehow I don't think the studios are too worried about that happening...

Why not, DeCSS was out in no time. I'd say the studios are pretty pissed about that one.. :-)

-JB

Yeah, and they learned their lessons. DTCP/5C is not the naive, poorly implemented scheme that CSS was.

jamesbender:

DTCP is not like wimpy CSS. Suggest you read up on it. It has a key (I forgot how many bits but is a large key) that also changes every few minutes. Without the key, you can't decrypt and the key is a moving target. Once it was known how CSS worked, CSS was finished. One of the hallmarks of a robust protection scheme is that knowing how it works in fine detail, even having the source code to analize does not compromise its effectiveness. DTCP may be such a scheme although from my reading there seems to be a "secret sauce" component that is kept under wraps. So there may yet be an Achilles heel.

Some guy was on trial for cracking it but it took a whole crap load of PC's that he harnessed across the internet to do it (called a brute force crack; no real sophistication just cosmic horsepower). In fact, I really don't consider that a crack since it is a one time, temporary thing that only proves how tough an animal DTCP is. So, that approach is not going to be a practical work around to be able to record a show.

EDIT: It has been brought to my attention that the supposed brute force crack mentioned in the above paragraph was from a mock trial and did not actually occur. The site I had gleaned this information from did not or at least clearly indicate that the expert testimony I was reading was taken out of context from a mock trial. Nevertheless, the observations (my opinions) relative to the fictitious crack I hold to be true. A brute force crack would be of little practical use.

I won't say it can't be done. But not anything like CSS by a long shot. Maybe not at all. DTCP is on a par with kerberos it seems to me. Rather than meet something like that head on and try and go through the front door, it is better to work at the back door and windows but this is not the place for such discussion.

DFA

I agree, I read up and saw the presentation on DTCP. Looks very good. But being in the network security profession I've learned never to say its impossible to crack, just improbable. And yes, not the place for this discussion. (don't want to offend the moderators).

P.S- do they make a 5C compliant device that records to disk?

-JB

Back to regularly scheduled programming, any comments on my observations of real time viewing of STB Transport Streams versus the recorded TS. Reference my post about 8 posts back. Curious to get any input on this.

DFA

Presumably, the cable co DVRs (like Moto 6412) are 5C compliant.

It's not so much how "solid" the system is - any cryptography system that gets embedded in consumer electronic devices is probably going to have widely-used embedded "secrets" that have to be obscured by tamper-resistant hardware, and protected by severe legal agreements. Example - in the aftermath of the Xing private key for CSS being revealed, I've read that the penalty to 5C licensees for accidental disclosure is at least $8 million & probably more. Could you get around this? Sure, but I doubt Mom & Pop really want to first go thru some kind of setup/registration process where they securely generate unique private keys - when all they want to do is watch a movie.

As for a PC implementation, this would require something like Microsoft's "Palladium" computer architecture (dead? on the back burner?) before the studios would trust it. They have a lot more trust in dedicated consumer electronic devices. Someday someone will probably figure out some 169-Time-like bypass or mod for 5C cable boxes, but it'll be expensive & therefore limited to a small audience, just like in the past.

In any case, my main point in continuing this discussion is: DO NOT expect DTCP/5C encryption to be anything like the CSS encryption system for DVDs. People now seem to have this unrealistic expectation that any new encryption system will be cracked just as easily. Don't hold your breath...

Before I installed Windows SP2, I think viewing HD thru VLC's 'Open Capture Device' is quite stable, I can change channels on DCT6200, whatever, it won't crash.

But after I installed SP2, VLC is going to crash after I change a few channels, sometimes CapDVHS will also crash(this kind of crash will lead to an immediate reboot without even a blue screen).

Has anybody else have this kind of problem? Actually I'm not sure that it's SP2, I did install some other programs onto my HTPC.

I have had trouble with BSOD channel changes with VLC and XP-SP1. I have also built my own filter graph with Graphedit to view real time and it does not crash on channel change. So, not sure what is responsible except that "stream.sys" seems to be involved according to BSOD info. I'm thinking driver not ready and up to the task of what we are trying to do. You might want to see what drivers SP2 changed with regard to IEEE 1394.

EDIT: I'm not certain and don't recall for sure but I think the installation of the MEI drivers replaces "stream.sys" with its own. Installation of SP2 may revert it back to an all MS flavor. Might want to check that out.

DFA

anyone get this working with a cablevision Sony box? My computer keeps just saying unknown can not force drivers it just will not go.

XP sp1 home: on a Compaq Presario celeron 2.7 gig

my first step.

I unplugged all other video cables from the Sony so it would use the ilink cable.

POP got the new hardware balloon.

Says welcome to the new found hardware wizard.
this wizard helps you install software for

" UNKNOWN "

I hit install from a list or specific location (Advanced)

I hit don't search

Hardware types come up and the list is

1394 Debugger device
61883 Device Class
AVC Device Class

ECT.

I hit AVC Device class
I get select the device driver.....
only thing there is AVC Device

I hit have disk
I get install from disk

I pick meidvhs
i get the specified location does not have information about your hardware

END

I can not figure this out at all, any help? please

Ok and on the 37 th time hitting update hardware It pops up avc tuner!!

good grief why would it take so long? I got a 20 sec recording of wnbc from the Sony so I guess this stb works

Cool looks like cablevision does not have any 5c on any of the hd channels as I just recorded starzhd fine.

Does anyone have any details on the other three devices that are found by the PnP manager when the STB is plugged into the XP system? I'm guessing that the AV/C Panel device could be used for controlling the STB if the appropriate drivers and user level code was available. Does anyone know if that is the case?

TIA,

Craig

I wanted to answer my own question of a couple of pages back, and give everyone the benefit of my 'geek week'. I can now record and play non-5C content flawlessly from my Seattle Comcast 6200 firewire output. The instructions on this thread for installing the appropriate driver do work well.

If you are getting audio glitches or video dropped frames on playback, pull out your motherboard manual and find a PCI slot for your audio card that does not share with your graphics card or HDTV card. ACPI sharing under XP DOES NOT work adequately for sharing an IRQ under .TS playback conditions, and the only way to get the audio card 'unshared' is to try slots, then look in Device Manager to see what's sharing IRQs with what. I finally found a slot for my Delta 410 that was unshared, and that cleared up all my playback glitches. XP still shares the IRQ with a couple of USB ports, but unless you're making heavy use of them during playback, that doesn't seem to matter.

So now I have my computer set up for HDTV recording capability similar to a VCR: I use CapDVHS to capture the stream, because I like the ability to schedule recordings manually or weekly. Leave it running and it does the job. The 6200 can be set to tune a particular channel at a particular time, so as long as the box is on, you're golden for recording.

For playback, I use Theater Tek 2.0. Yeah, it's a commercial product, and you have to pay for it. It's also widely considered to be the best software for playing DVDs. The new version has the unexpected (by me) ability to play .TS files. Set CapDVHS to generate files with that extension, set HD video to Overlay (not VMR) in TT, and playback is click and watch. No futzing with the captured stream is required, and you can use TT's chapter advance button to switch between programs in a multiplexed stream. How slick is that?

For reference, my HTPC is a medium-powered one- ASUS A7V333 motherboard, Athlon XP 2000+, 512k DRAM, Radeon 9600 Atlantis, Delta 410 S/PDIF out to my receiver. 480Gb of onboard hard disk, including 320Gb RAID 0 array. I did a recent 'nuke and pave' with a slipstreamed XP SP2 CD.

Last night I was watching a program previously recorded with Beyond TV 3.5 while CapDVHS was recording ER in the background. Didn't come close to maxing the system, and all was glitch-free. I'm becoming a pretty happy HTPCer- finally!

For those that have both a firewire deck and a firewire tuner... how do you have your chain run? I've only got one firewire port on my PC, two on the Motorolla 6412, and two on the 40k. Should I go Motorolla to 40k to PC? Or does it matter? And if I do it that way, are there any complications from using the modified files to install the Moto box and then have to use an actual JVC deck?

Thanks,
MP

I'm running two cables - 6200 to JVC 30K and JVC30K to computer. Seems to work ok, as long as the JVC deck is always turned on. I tried using a firewire hub, but didn't have any luck with it.

I'm running a laptop with XP SP2, and I have a Motorola 6208, firmware rev 8.12 (MediaCom upgraded it all the way from 7.09 to 8.12). The drivers that were provided at the top of this thread work fine, but whenever I try to run DVHS or DCTRECORD, they don't recognize the device. Any suggestions?

Try to unplug and reconnect the 1394 cable.

Has anybody had problems with the Comcast 6412?

I just swapped from a 6208 and can't get it working. One of the ports is dead, but the other one is live. Drivers seem to install OK, but get the samplegrabber error. Looking at the status of both a local OTA and HBOHD show both 5c=0. I seem to remember that the encrypted should show 5c=1.

fw=09.12

Working now. I must have put in the wrong drivers.