Watching My Neighbors Watch On-Demand TV

Josh Levin, Slate Magazine writes "I have a magical box that allows me to watch other people watch TV — their movies, their sports, their cartoons, and their hour-long procedural dramas. And sometimes, usually around 11:30 on Friday nights, their soft-core pornography... I solved the mystery by consulting online message boards. At techie sites like AVS Forum, other voyeurs described their adventures in freeloading. I was intercepting video-on-demand channels through the power of my Samsung's QAM tuner."

He's not watching his neighbors watch TV...

[reset_button]

...he's only watching what they're watching...

Re:He's not watching his neighbors watch TV...

[TobyRush]

The article doesn't mention that he can watch anyone's TV except for this one TV he calls the "boogeyman." When he is watching that TV, it can watch him too.

Re:He's not watching his neighbors watch TV...

[WilliamSChips]

Actually the one Molly can't see she called "worse than the boogieman". The boogieman was Sylar, whom she could see, and in fact did

Re:

[zero1101]

Actually the one Molly can't see she called "worse than the boogieman". The boogieman was Sylar, whom she could see, and in fact did

This is 5, informative.

I love you guys.

Re:

[kalirion]

I'm sure you're right about the setup for next season, but what are you saying "No no no" too?

Re:

[mollog]

Yes, he's only peeking to see what they're watching, but I'm totally jealous. Aren't you curious to see what people are looking at? I think that would be very interesting (for a little while).

Re:

[daeg]

The interesting part would quickly dwindle as you realize that they only watch reality TV and My Super Sweet 16.

Re:He's not watching his neighbors watch TV...

[ubrgeek]

Well sure, but that's what my binoculars and rear window are for :)

Re:

[ozmanjusri]

Well sure, but that's what my binoculars and rear window are for :)

Maybe. But if you'd move about six inches to the left, I'd be able to see your TV a whole lot better.

Re:

[solevita]

...he's only watching what they're watching...

Correct, and what they're watching is "watch on-demand TV". The title does make sense, but there's room for obvious confusion.

Bedtime is always softcore porn

[raventh1]

Yeah, between childrens tv shows and softcore porn there isn't much that interesting, except that when they watch the nudity scene in a movie and then replay it 5-8 times.

Softcore porn....

[iknownuttin]

...and softcore porn there isn't much that interesting

Ya know, Softcore is actually sexier, as in, more of a "turn on" than the hardcore stuff. The hardcore stuff comes across as more anatomical than anything - at least in my advancing age.

I said "cums" ...huh, huh, huh....

OK, I'm not too advanced in mental age because I still think of "Beavis and Butthead"...I said "Butt"...huh, huh, huh...heh.....heh...heh....

Re:

[Tatarize]

What's a Beavis and Butthead? I've heard my father talk about that, but not sure what it is.

Re:

[try_anything]

Ooh, the acting is terrible, the plot is asinine, there are only fleeting glimpses of the woman's attractive body, but I am aware that the people on the screen are supposedly having sex!

Softcore porn is terrible. The people who make softcore porn are exactly as artful and sophisticated as the people who make hardcore porn. Softcore porn is just hardcore porn with various things subtracted and nothing else added in. Softcore porn is:

Bill O'Reilly without the incivility....
Taco Bell without the indust

Re:

[o2sd]

When I hear that women like softcore porn, I think, yeah, right, some guy pressures his overly compliant wife/girlfriend into watching porn with him, and she chooses softcore as a way of limiting the misery.

Here's a clue. Walk into a bookshop one day and head to the 'romance' section. I know you've never been there before, but look for the women with guilty looks on their faces standing close to shelves reading small paperbacks with intense concentration. Pick up a few of those books and flick through the p

Let's try this in geekier terms...

[cyberwench]

Think about things like slash and yaoi, which have been getting increasingly popular for women. They range from soft- to hard-core, and while a lot of them go for the emotional side of sex and relationships, there's no shortage of just straight sex. Ok, so "straight" is probably the wrong word. Or 'Queer as Folk' - huge female audience, and that's not because they identify with the single pair of lesbians. It's not guys writing all that Sparrow/Norrington or Aragorn/Faramir fiction out there.

Frankly, as a woman my issue with actual porn in general is the same issue I have with movies in general. They're poorly made, the good ones are few and far-between. And frankly, if you're talking about limiting the misery, hardcore films at least have sex to break up the bad acting/lighting/costuming/etc. I'd have to disagree that hardcore sex is inherently violent - it's simply graphic. Maybe you're watching the wrong ones? =) Try looking for hardcore that is marketed to women... it tends to be better, all around. Especially if what you're wanting is something your wife/girlfriend/fling will watch with you.

I suppose the point I really want to make is that women are very much like men in that they're individuals. If you think you're going to "understand" women like they are some sort of weird single organism, it's just not going to happen. Interest yourself in the individual and you're more than half there.

Re:Let's try this in geekier terms...

[Kokuyo]

Another evidence that it takes a woman posting on Slashdot to get an Insightful posting about women on Slashdot ;).

Re:

[Bronster]

I don't believe you talked about "slash and yaoi" in the same paragraph as you said "just straight sex". I mean, sheesh.

Re:

[olman]

Try looking for hardcore that is marketed to women... it tends to be better, all around. Especially if what you're wanting is something your wife/girlfriend/fling will watch with you.

Problem is that the HC market tries to make even more extreme produce in a bid to outdo the competition. Anal sex was pretty much speacialty feature in in 80s, now HC films without are a niche market! Not to speak of a2m and some even more unsavory things that have been popping up recently.

In a word, Yuck.

Especially american HC

Re:

[try_anything]

If you add back in the rest of the ingredients that women need, and remove the violent aspect of most hard-core porn, then you have soft-core porn.

We may be working from different definitions of soft-core porn. By soft-core porn I mean the kind of stuff you see on Skinemax -- a split second of boobs, followed by two or three seconds of rear nudity, followed by lots of soft-focus closeups of faces or vague motion under the bedcovers in a dark room. When I say hard-core porn I mean anything where you can cl

Re:

[drsquare]

You see, for women, sex is a package deal, and hard-core porn leaves out 90% of what needs to be in the package.

That's PC bullshit. Women love straight-up, no-strings fucking as much as the rest of us. And yeah, that includes the 'nice' ones.

Re:

[munpfazy]

This is about as far off-topic as one can get, but I also find the prevalence of cumshot scenes in mainstream porn astonishing.

I know there are people out there who love their cumshots. But, there are people who love all sorts of wacky things, and most of them have to turn to specialty catalogs because their individual fetish doesn't automatically show up at the climax of every hardcore pornographic video produced in the last twenty years.

Don't get me wrong, I've my own kinks, and am perfectly happy to ind

Re:

[suckmysav]

"My own pet theory for the ubiquitous cumshot is that it's an artifice used by directors who can't get their actors to evoke a convincing orgasm even when they're *actually* having one."

Naah, it's just there to give the http://www.atomfilms.com/film/stunt_ccks.jsp [atomfilms.com]Stunt Cock something to do.

Re:Softcore porn....

[try_anything]

My theory is that the cumshot is a perfect combination of the following factors:

• The event is centered around the man's orgasm; the woman's role is to receive and appreciate. Considerations of her sexual functioning, which are highly anxiety-inducing, are completely absent.
  
• The cumshot can express either of the primary male fantasies of simple sex: that the woman is extremely eager, or that she is extremely submissive and compliant. The event centers around the woman's face, so her eagerness or misery is especially evident.
  
• Most women find it objectionable, which highlights the extraordinary sexual eagerness or submission a woman who receives it.
  
• The forcefulness and volume of the ejaculation is an easy measure of the quality of the act. A simple, concrete understanding of masculinity puts a man's mind at ease; subtlety makes him anxious. There's nothing less subtle than splattering a chick's face with a massive load. A bit of acting on the woman's part confirms the understanding.
  

Given all this, I understand why the cumshot is a staple device, rather than a fetish, but I am still surprised that there is no market for porn that is specifically guaranteed to be free of cumshots. I imagine it would be free of other things, too, but I'm not sure.

Complicating this is the fact that many women who enjoy porn have adapted to the porn model of sex, which skews the market. Some chicks, especially ones who grew up in repressive environments, have a lot of affection for pornography and associate it with their sexual emancipation. They interpret any criticism of mainstream pornography as a step down a slippery slope that ends in repression of female sexuality. They try hard to like cumshots and feel bad about not being able to "take it like a pro" through the back door. (They're also paranoid about people looking down on their sexuality. The smallest suspicion of judgment turns them into neurotic, inhibited wrecks. So no, just because I know this stuff does not mean I'm not the luckiest guy in the world.)

Re:

[try_anything]

Whew, mod me -1, poorly written and edited.

That should be, "the extraordinary sexual eagerness or submission of a woman who receives it," and "just because I know this stuff does not mean I'm the luckiest guy in the world." That should at least make my post understandable.

Re:

[munpfazy]

Interesting.

You bring up some points I hadn't considered. Nicely done.

Re:

[try_anything]

After much thought I realized how I screwed up the analogy. In each one of the cases I listed, the key to the thing's appeal is also the key to its infamy. None of those things can be rehabilitated by removing the vileness, because to remove the vileness makes it pointless. Soft-core porn is an attempt to rehabilitate hard-core porn by removing the graphic sex, which I don't find vile at all. Therefore, my analogy misrepresents my feelings about frank portrayals of sex. People who do think it's yucky t

It's relaxing when others channel surf for you...

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

Watching what other people watch can be fun.

I use stumble video and will often check out what my friends have watched recently, but the real interesting videos are to be found within the logs of random users.

People find and like the strangest things.

It's relaxing when others browser surf for you.

[Anonymous Coward]

"People find and like the strangest things."

Surfing Slashdot.

Re:

[Propaganda13]

Watching what other people watch can be fun.

No. This is the same thing as giving someone else the remote. Unless you have the same interests, that person is just going to watch crap that you don't care about. You might as well set the remote to randomly change channels. You'd probably end up watching more shows that actually interest you.

Re:

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

I know not everyone is like me...in fact, I think I am the only person exactly like me...at any rate, many (most?) people would NEVER give up the remote - but I in fact sometimes enjoy letting my wife or a friend take control.

Nonetheless, there are indeed some friends who may not touch the remote - I will not allow it!

the whole stumble thing is basically directed randomness, I choose interests and then I hit a button. Viola! a random video starts to play, except in this case it is a random video within a sp

Article is dubious

[Timesprout]

Author says

My girlfriend suggested that I try plugging in the Comcast cable line.

Only an imaginary geek 'girlfriend' would suggest something like this.

Or a complete non-techie

[raygundan]

It doesn't take a techie. Heck, a suggestion like "just plug the cable in" in a world of proprietary cable boxes, encryption, DRM, a half-dozen compression and modulation schemes, cablecards, various incompatible resolutions, framerates, and interlacing schemes along with all of their associated digital and analog audio and video interconnection formats... is at best a long shot.

Unless you have one of the LCDs with an undocumented QAM tuner and a cable company broadcasting PPV on unencrypted QAM channels,

Re:

[geekoid]

For some people on /. I am sure they consider themselves a 'geek' or a 'techie' because they would think to plug the cable in.

I'm sure those same people post about how geeks don't have girl friends...I imagine they are sad sad people.

No

[geekoid]

it's a damn tired and old joke.

Re:

[ubuwalker31]

Can I get some recommendations for QAM tuners to hook up to my Computer?

Re:Or a complete non-techie

[Kadin2048]

HDHomeRun [silicondust.com]

Nothing else really comes close. Yeah, you can get HD tuner cards for a little less money, but they're a pain in the ass to work with and generally are less functional. An HDHomeRun is not just a tuner (actually, it's two tuners), but it's networked, so you can do everything with it that you can with a PCI tuner, but you can do it from any computer in the house.

It's a pretty brilliant little box.

Oh, and it works well with Linux, MythTV in particular. Once you start using that, you'll never go back to watching realtime TV.

Re:

[wings]

I never knew about the HDHomeRun [silicondust.com] until someone posted here it the other day. This was just what I was looking for, and I ordered one immediately. I thought it was a really good idea. I have an extensive MythTV setup, but what I plan to do with this box is locate it where the cable comes in, (near the TV) but locate the MythTV server much further away. This will allow more flexibility as to where the server goes by using the existing LAN and eliminating the long coax runs that feed cable to the tuner car

Re:

[arodland]

What's complicated about HD tuner cards? My pcHDTV card took less setup to get working right than my analog tuners did. And the kernel-driver is in-tree, which ivtv isn't. And it doesn't require separate firmware, which ivtv does. :)

Re:

[tap]

ivtv is in the kernel now. Some HD cards need firmware and some don't, for example the pcHDTV HD-3000 needs firmware for the Oren demodulator, while the HD-5500 uses a different demodulator and doesn't need firmware.

Re:

[Kadin2048]

Depends on the card, I think. You apparently either knew what you were doing when you purchased, or were very lucky. Not everyone has a flawless experience like that; there are a ton of video-encoder related horror stories in the MythTV-users archives.

I'm glad that the pcHDTV card has in-tree drivers now; when I started building my MythTV system about a year or so ago, it didn't seem like things were nearly as stable. I wanted to support the pcHDTV guys because I like their philosophy and what they're tryin

Re:

[arodland]

Yeah, it seems pretty cool. If only there were an open box that would let me get at crypted QAM... but of course I can't have that because who knows what I would do with Comcast's precious bits!

Maybe he rode a unicorn to the magic well to post.

[HornWumpus]

About as likely.

I feel icky.

[ushering05401]

n/t.

I have the lesser model

[ILuvRamen]

I have the lesser model of that device called binoculars lol ;) but hey don't yell at me, my neighbors are WEIRD! I gotta keep an eye on them lol.

Ah, sweet serendipity

[Tim C]

As I read the summary on the front page, what should be the fortune in one of the boxes on the right?

What PROGRAM are they watching?

What program indeed?

Same with me...

[BMonger]

I have the same thing going on with my TV. At first you think, "Wow! Free VOD!" but then you realize you have no clue when a show starts, no way to unpause if the real viewer gets a phone call or goes to the bathroom, and well... it's pointless. You end up flipping through a good 50 channels for hours having literally no clue what shows are on and no clue if that person will finish them.

It sounds neat but it's rather boring and partially stinks since you have to manually program those channels out. I mentioned this happening when the cable guy stopped buy and he seemed pretty "meh" about it.

DVR the VOD & it's A-OK

[G4from128k]

One could route the output of the tuner into a DVR, record it, and then use the DVR to buffer and skip the VOD signal.

Re:DVR the VOD & it's NOT OK

[HaeMaker]

Yea, I don't have 50 PVRs. Might as well pay for the content at that point.

Re:

[BMonger]

You can but it doesn't work still. If they only watch half the movie or fast forward/rewind then you have to wait for somebody else to watch the same movie and watch the missing parts... then you have to clip em all together... if you can afford the insane amount of DVR's it would take to store all that video... just buy the movies.

I read it for the articles?

[Anonymous Coward]

Channels 97, 100, 115 seem to be the on-demand channels in my area.

I was showing off the ability to intercept on-demand programming to some of my friends the other day and we happened to come across some of the softcore porn being fast forwarded through. Curious to see what they were fast forwarding to, we watched for a little bit... the person fast forwarded to a dialog interlude. Our curiosity piqued, we watched a little more and noticed that as soon as the actual intercourse portion of the movie started, they fast forwarded to the next scene that included dialog.

Could we have found the only person in the world who reads playboy for the articles?

Re:I read it for the articles?

[fm6]

No, the people who write articles for Playboy are serious, big-name writers. (Having "real" journalism, essays, and fiction takes the sting out of being a softcore porn mag.) Whereas the dialog in porn movies is always excruciatingly bad, and the plot — well, the truth is, I've never had the patience to find out if a porn film actually had one.

I guess your neighbor gets off on bad dialog, or he's seriously disturbed. Or maybe he's scripting a porn movie himself and sees no problem in stealing the dialog from an existing porn movie, since nobody listens to it anyway!

Re:I read it for the articles?

[Anonymous Coward]

well, the truth is, I've never had the patience to find out if a porn film actually had one.

"Patience" may not be the word you're looking for

Re:

[rcg40]

So the optometrist says to the guy, "You should stop masturbating so much."
And the guy says "Why? Is it hurting my eyes?"
"No. You're making the other people in the waiting room uncomfortable."

Re:

[xtracto]

This reminds me of a joke...

Do you know why girls see the porn movies to the end? ...

Because they are waiting to see if they marry and live happily ever after...

hohoho... thank you thank you...
I'll be here all night

Re:

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

Playboy is hardly a softcore porn magazine; it's just a bunch of articles about fashion, food and drink, electronics, humor, etc. with three pictorials consisting of nude and semi-nude photographs of women. No big deal.

Softcore porn implies depictions of simulated sexual contact and cheesy light jazz music. It's an abomination and should be eliminated at all costs!

Plyboy has great articles

[geekoid]

I learned how to make martinis, tie a bow-tie, and properly wear a suit.
They have had some great interviews. I highly recommend PLayboys articles.

I also look at the naked ladies.

My wife even bought me a subscription. Which I let lapse when we had children.

Re:Plyboy has great articles

[Tweekster]

Actually playboy is great, if it werent for the naked pictures. If i want nudity i will get nudity, not airbrushed women that practically look like cartoons.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right. I like my naked women to actually BE cartoons.

Re:

[UserChrisCanter4]

Fun Fact: There is actually a nudity-free version of Playboy that universities and major libraries often subscribe to and keep in their periodical archives. Although you're obviously making a commentary on the artificial models, you really can read it "just for the articles."

Re:

[bcattwoo]

While doing some research as an undergrad I stumbled upon the fact that my school, the University at Buffalo, had Playboy on microfilm. My curiosity piqued, I found a secluded microfilm reader and found that they had the whole issue on film, nudie pics and all.

Re:

[freedom_india]

I remember a FRIENDS episode when Ross writes a joke to Pl@yboy and Chandler claims it is his.
Both announce to Joey [breathlessly] that their joke to Plyboy got published, when Joey injects and says: "Jokes ! You guys know they have nked pictures of ch1cks in there?"

Re:

[scharkalvin]

In his heyday Jean Shepherd wrote some of his best humor
stories for submission to Playboy. If you've never read
'Shep' or heard his radio shows you need to.
He is the 'Mark Twain' of the 20th century. Go to
www.flicklives.com right now!

Re:

[ubrgeek]

I only read it for the page numbers ... ;)

Page numbers,,,not me....

[CFD339]

For me its the staples. I'm all about the staple marks.

Re:

[feepness]

Could we have found the only person in the world who reads playboy for the articles?

No! Think of it man! One of the actresses lives nearby and was checking out her speaking parts! Lucky dog.

Re:

[Nom du Keyboard]

as soon as the actual intercourse portion of the movie started, they fast forwarded to the next scene that included dialog.

And the neighbor on the other side of you, no doubt, only watches the parts where they cuddle together after intercourse.

Re:

[swb]

Hustler was at its peak in the late 70s/early 80s. I can remember getting ahold of them in that era and it was sublimely raunchy -- Chester The Molester, racist sex cartoons and real beaver shots. Most important were the groundbreaking amateur shots, Huslter's Honeys. Pretty hard core nudies of blue collar tarts from all over; if you ever had a fantasy about the girl who worked in the factory office, this would satisfy it.

Playboy was dull by comparison -- no beaver shots and too many articles about stere

Wifi

[Fuzzums]

It's probably just as legal as using a randomly available wifi signal...

He's screwed.

[twitter]

It's not a secret. It's useless information. Given the reaction to many of the same kinds of infractions lately though, poor John Levine will be sent to Guantanamo for the next five years. Mr. Levine's article is to the movie business what the Boston Strangler is to the single woman alone at night - he's a traitor who's violated the DMCA and allowed people unauthorized access to .... utter crap. He'll be lucky if they don't just shoot him.

not funny "haha", but "interesting" funny

[neersign]

My parents in Annapolis (writer mentions DC-Baltimore) have a similar occurrence. They also pay for basic cable and are able to plug the line straight in to their tv's digital/hd tuner to grab the digital signal. They also receive channels that I chalked up to being PPV, and some of them show smut too. The odd thing is that sometimes they can watch a movie all the way through, and other times they will loose the signal in the middle, almost as if some one realized they were watching a movie they weren't supposed to get and flipped a switch to turn it off. Sometimes they can change the channel then come back to watch it again, other times they can have the signal then change the channel and come back to find that the program is gone. It's very strange and only happens on one of the two tvs (different brand, model, and year) that they have hooked up this way. I guess this article explains what is really going on.

I double checked, and no, Josh Levin is not a pen-name that my dad uses, so it looks like this is pretty common.

The possibilities

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine sitting alone on a Friday night, no girlfriend in sight, flipping through the channels, running dead up against a soft-core channel, looking wildly left and right irrespective of loneliness, yanking at the wanker furiously hoping there is time, and then being beaten by the creep next door who started early and staring at Ma Bush staring back at you from CNN.

Sounds like watching TV with my wife

[xs650]

Having a program randomly fast forward and go back and repeat parts sounds like watching TV when my wife has the remote. Except for the porn part.

You'll go to jail for that

[Weaselmancer]

It's not exactly the same thing, [slashdot.org] but close enough. All it would take is a prick DA and an idiot judge. Neither are in short supply.

Re:

[bill_mcgonigle]

You and I might go to jail, but this guy writes for Slate, a Voice of Authority.

You can't ordinarily pour manure on a person and kick him in the balls, but if you're doing it for 'Reality TV', "hah-hah, we have a camera!"

Re:

[Sax Maniac]

I'm not so sure. I've only ordered basic cable for the last 8 years or so. I tell them that, hey, you're giving me basic cable for free. They don't care. So I buy an HDTV with QAM tuner and no intention of buying digital cable, since I use ReplayTV for everything. Now I get HDTV for free. They still don't care. They would actually have to get off their butt and install a filter, which they never do.

New hit TV show

[EmperorKagato]

Watch My Feet

Rabbit Ears?

[Jimithing DMB]

I wonder if the author realizes that all of the over the air HDTV stations are broadcast on UHF frequencies so you need only a standard UHF attenna. Those are the loop kind or occasionally they enclose the loop in a rectangular thing. You can fold the rabbit ears down because you don't need them at all.

Still, this is interesting. I might think about running a cable feed to the tuner and see what happens. I went with OTA in the first place because the cable company wasn't carrying the local NBC and FOX stations in HD but now they are. Never even dreamed I'd get the occasional free VOD stuff.

Re:

[Technician]

I wonder if the author realizes that all of the over the air HDTV stations are broadcast on UHF frequencies so you need only a standard UHF attenna.

The author mentioned marginal over the air signal which frequently cut out. It's time to ditch the loop antenna and put up a proper stacked bowtie or yagi antenna. I used to live in the boonies and didn't have a local VHF station so our TV was telecast and re-broadcast on high UHF channels. My folks still had the yagi antenna kicking about so I put it up and

Re:

[zjbs14]

Incorrect. Most, but not all, digital broadcasts are UHF. One of my local stations uses VHF channel 10 for their digital signals. UHF is used more frequently because it generally has more available slots (and also lower power requirements), and because the FCC will probably eventually be auctioning off the low VHF band (channels 2-6) for other uses.

Did you people learn nothing from the internet?

[geekoid]

We you got something good, keep your yap shut.

Re:Did you people learn nothing from the internet?

[Rob T Firefly]

TFA: The reason I can watch all that hot on-demand stuff is because Comcast doesn't encrypt it.

That rattling/bleeping/crying sound you hear is every sysop at Comcast getting an email informing them they won't be going home as early as they thought tonight.

DMCA wins again

[caveman]

Unfortunately for the O.P. the DMCA will rule his watching of unencrypted video feeds a violation, because he is circumventing a protection mechanism.

The DMCA and it's supporters have shown time and time again that it does not matter how lame and technically incompetent a protection measure is, it merely has to be 'broken' to incur the wrath of the law. Publishing the technical details is probably instant guilt in terms of 'trafficking in circumvention technology' or whatever the legalese is.

The early analogue cable TV transmission systems in the UK used to transmit premium channels unencrypted (and then moved to using some fairly trivial to counter sync-mangling) which simply required a tuner that could see outside of the usual UHF 21-68 band to view. While the frequencies used on the actual cable networks were sufficiently out-of-range of normal 'terrestrial' channels, the company actually supplied an add-on box clamped to the back of the cable receiver which would downshift all of the cable channels so that the normal 'terrestrial' channels carried on the cable service were tunable by 'normal' TV's. If the TV had a tuner which could see outside the usual UK 21-68 band (Channel 21 is 471.25MHz, 68 is 847.25MHz) then the channels are there for your viewing pleasure regardless of what the cable receiver thinks you are entitled to see.

All the article does is move this into the digital realm with QAM.

Minus several million points out of ten to comcast for not encrypting traffic here.

otherwise, it's old news.

Re:DMCA wins again

[geekoid]

Why does it need to be encrypted? he has no control over the show, the fast forwarding, the changing of channels. Pretty difficult way to watch TV.
Plus it's not like you know WHO is watching it.

Encrypting it costs them money, and doesn't give anybody any gain.

He is not circumventing a protection, and I would be very interested to read the opinion of any lawyer who feels this is a violation of the DMCA.

Yesh, there are a lot of stupid clients the tell their lawyers to send out notices, but they never seem to go anywhere.

I had the same thing!

[cmoney]

When I first moved to my apartment building, I plugged in my Sony LCD TV and got to watch other people's on-demand shows until I got my own cable service. I was able to watch about 3 movies this way. It was kinda funny, they ended up pausing the movie at the exact same time I needed to get up for a health break. Also watched some porn and it's fun/creepy watching other people's porn habits and how much porn they "need". Haha.

Works with Elgato's EyeTV 500 for mac...

[posterlogo]

I was confused by this for a while when I would set the clear QAM tuner to scan the hundreds of channels for signal and occassionally it would find digital cable channels that i just couldn't identify -- random videos, movies, then the signal would be gone. I figured it was from the on-demand stuff, but I couldn't ever really guess as to how far from my apartment the vid was going to, which i was apparently intercepting...

PC QAM tuner

[tivojafa]

For watching unencrypted digital cable on a PC, take a look at the HDHomeRun:
http://www.silicondust.com/wiki/products/hdhomerun [silicondust.com]

Two tuners, works with MCE (2005, Vista, x86, x64), BeyondTV, SageTV, etc.
Linux - works with MythTV and VLC.
Mac support is rumored to be soon.

http://brentevans.blogspot.com/2007/03/silicondust -hdhomerun-qam-tuner-review.html [blogspot.com]
http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/04/18/15312 47 [linux.com]

Re:

[camperslo]

I'm not sure if any of current products from the same vendor support QAM, but the eyetv 500 [elgato.com] tuner from a couple of years ago works great with a Mac.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

New spin on old

[LordSnooty]

In the UK the older Sky boxes were notorious for offering your current viewing to neighbours - only this was simple RF leaking from the rear. Careful placement with a small aerial and you could get a half-decent picture. This meant you could watch your neighbour flicking through the channels, usually quite rapidly until boobies appeared, at which point he of course rolled back a few times in order to check out the action.

Not all cable systems do this

[nxtw]

My local cable system's video on demand does not go over the wire in the clear. (Time Warner)

I'm not sure if it's just encrypted or if it's done over a packet-switched channel (DOCSIS) instead, although there is mention of VOD IP addresses in the diagnostic menus.

Some TVs are equipped with a QAM tuner

[Stavr0]

The model I have has a tri-band NTSC/ATSC/QAM tuner and a slot for a CableCard interface. It took me approximately 10 seconds to find the VOD channels beyond the analog range.

Now I would be really pleased if my cable provider could sell/rent me a CableCard, but I'm stuck with using their dreaded SciAtlanta decoder.

Now even less interesting!

[mike_sucks]

Who would have thought it was possible to invent something more boring than watching TV. Of course... watching people as they watch TV. Genius!

I think I just felt the world get a little dummer. /Mike

Re:

[npsimons]

I think I just felt the world get a little dummer.

Me too.

Why not encrypt VOD?

[mveloso]

Funny how the comcast spokesperson lies:

Cable encryption is done per channel, not per title. The problem is that Comcast's infrastructure is built on SeaChange, which is running Windows NT 4 (if I remember correctly). They just can't handle the load.

The other architectures (non-SeaChange) can handle encrypted VOD streams, but tend not to because the operator hasn't thought about it.

And lastly, encryption of VOD content is done by fiat from corporate - that's how the cable industry works. And that's exactly the kind of thing that corporate is for - to set systemwide policies like that.

Old school cable hacking

[British]

Over 20 years ago with Scientific Atlanta cable boxes, you could turn the TV to channel 2 or 4(normally you use 3) and scan for channels. Often you would find the premium channels in full clarity. This only worked for a few years.

When I first got my HDTV, I had fun scanning the subchannels, and found the menu background channels for On-demand, but never watched anyone else's on-demand movies.

Perhaps I should re hook-up the coaxial to the TV and try it again. Does this work on Comcast?'

I'm not the only one

[beerdini]

We had this happen too with our cable connection. Back when we had high speed internet set up, comcast had to pull a filter from our line because it was interfering with our signal, I thought that this was the reason, not QAM...but I never bothered looking up if anyone else could do this too. Now years later, the old tv went out so upgraded to an HDTV, it was surprising when it detected 300 channels when we previously had 20.

The problem is when trying to watch what the neighbors are on-demanding, the chan

Cool.. I'm gonna try this out.

[MrJerryNormandinSir]

Hmm.. I gotta check this out tonight.

Re:how bout a nice mug

[Frosty Piss]

No thanks, already got some.

Re:

[markov_chain]

Also, maybe they figure that people who see the VOD channels without being able to control it (pause, skip, etc.) will be more likely to buy the service.