MDAPI / Softcam support again

[frodo]

Recenly the MDAPI and 'softcam' discussion is getting a lot of attention again
The MP team clearly stated their opinion and reasons about not to support the MDAPI here : Mediaportal policy on sattelite/cam/dvb hacking

Now lots of people dont like this policy and try to convince me and the team
to add MDAPI support . (In fact, I noticed some guys already did it themselves)

I would like to explain a little bit more why we cant do this and react on all those arguments i receive..
Here's the current list of all those arguments:

1) MDAPI can be used for a lot of things not just for illegal stuff
Sure i know you can do other things with it. (watching teletext for example)
But hey be honest with yourself and admit that the only reason why people want MDAPI support in MediaPortal is because they want to watch DVB channels illegally.

2) But I do have a valid subscription!
People tell me they have a valid subscription+smartcard but the smartcard is in the standalone settopbox and they want to view encrypted channels in MP also.
Let me state that if you want to view encrypted channels both with your settopbox and with MP, then legally you need to buy 2 smartcards + 2 subscriptions. I'm sorry about this, i dont like it either. But thats the way it is at the moment. Things like cardsharing or using softcams are highly illegal.

This is also the reason why you have to search in the dark places of internet, mostly on russian servers to download the softcam software (and the keys)

3) But i have a valid smartcard + subscription. But i don't have a DVB card with a CI slot.
Sorry, but that is not my problem. Mediaportal supports the CI interfaces of Technotrend, Twinhan and Digital everywhere so if you want to watch encrypted DVB channels you will need to use one of those cards.

4) But all other applications have MDAPI support?
I know. but those applications are not opensource and public like us.
We are an opensource project and so are the members of the project
We (the mediaportal team) can easily be traced by the law when doing illegal stuff.
If we were involved in doing illegal things (either directly or indirectly by supporting MDAPI) then this could (in theory) mean that legal measures are taken against one or more members of the MediaPortal team.
Now i dont know about you, but i dont like expensive lawsuits and/or the project being shut down.

Furthermore, if we were involved in doing illegal things (either directly or indirectly by supporting MDAPI) then this would mean the end of the very good relationship we have with tvcard suppliers like hauppauge, digital everywhere, twinhan, technotrend etc etc

I hope this clears things up a bit.
If you really want softcams to work then i'm sorry but you will need to use some other application.

Frodo

[zag2me]

I actually agree with some of this, but saying media portal will get shut down by companies for indirectly supporting these things is a little much i think.

I see why you cant directly do this but surely someone writing a plug-in should not be suppressed.

Open-source can never be shut down, it just wouldn't happen, and people should fight for that right, otherwise these big media companies will just walk all over the consumer time and time again.

I do however take the point about having a good relationship with hardware suppliers.

Personally I have been a member of the dbox2/dreambox community which is also open source and they have not had a problem with any of this. The development of the images has been amazing when people got together and worked as a team. Better than any commercially available solution.

Just as a thought, is the dreambox plugin going to be banned too?

Funny I have such strong views when I dont even use MDAPI

[samuel337]

True, but from a personal perspective, would you be willing to fight the big media companies?

If I was working in a company with a significant amount of capital, I'd definitely consider it, but otherwise, economics prevent us. This isn't a matter of free software vs. commercial software - its between consumers and media companies wanting to enforce their view of fair use to the full extent of the law.

The best we can do is lobby them, that's about it.

Sam
p.s. Its also about risk too - where are the developers mainly residing for Dreambox? Some countries are a bit more lax than others, so maybe the risk is not so big.

[Agarwal]

Hmm... the reasonning behind all this is quite odd. Will you remove support for viewing xvid files, since 90% of the viewed files are downloaded illegally on the net? Will you remove support for mp3 files, for the same reason as above?

I would agree that having MDAPI supported *directly* in MP would be bad; however, what is being made is a generic DirectShow filter which supports MDAPI. The filter itself is not illegal; the way you use it can be, though. However, you would have 2 levels of "protection";
- MP wouldn't support MDAPI directly; it would support it through a generic DirectShow filter (which can be used on any other DirectShow application)
- The MDAPI filter itself is not illegal, as stated above.

Since the filter could be used from ANY directshow application, do you think Windows Media Player should be banned? Winamp? Graphedit.exe? Zoom player?

It's your call, really, but let's face it; you'll gain a LOT of north american users by supporting the said filter.

Either way, I don't really care. I'm not developping the filter specifically for MP, and people will provide source patches and modified dll's one way or another. I just think the decision on this subject is preventing a LOT of users from using MP, especially considering that, like I said, you're protected anyway since MP would *not* be implementing the MDAPI itself.

People interested in the filter can come to the DVBN forum.

[mbb]

I’m totally agree with you about MDAPI usage frodo, but I would like to give more information.

MDAPI is just a communication interface between an application and some special DLLs call mdplugins. To prevent legal problems in the current dev all potential illegal parts are external and optional (like ffdecsa.dll)

I’m not a layer and I don’t know if add support for a “possible” illegal usage is against the law (I know “possible” is a little bit weak )

Divx support is tolerated even if everybody knows that 90% of usage is to watch illegal material. No commercial film is selling in this format. All that you watch is a copy (I concede 10% for demo and holiday’s movie )

My first goal to develop this was to add multi-tuner capabilities with my subscription card (your point 3))

Even my cable provider understand this need because he propose a dual tuner settopbox with a small hard drive to be able to watch a channel and record another in same time.
It’s apparently possible to share a ci module between 2 tuners. When card suppliers will provide this kind hardware I will be the first to buy it.

I don’t know if relationship with tvcard suppliers will become bad if everybody buy new DVB cards for multi-tuner usage.

And about ci and cam tvcard suppliers are not directly involved on that but pay a lot of royalties for the licence usage.

Companies who are really worry about are viaccess, seca, irdeto, … consortiums who collect royalties and of course crypted TV programm providers.

[chenks]

what's the point in arguing about this.
the devs have told everyone their stance... and you just need to live with it.

if you don't like it then write your own media program and include the stuff in that.

[CHli]

Amen

[infinityloop]

Originally Posted by chenks

what's the point in arguing about this.
the devs have told everyone their stance... and you just need to live with it.

if you don't like it then write your own media program and include the stuff in that.

good post

[SePPiE]

About the whole "xvid is illegal too cause 90% is downloaded etc" In my country (and frodo's, cause he's dutch too) it's totally legal to download movies and music.. We are just not allowed to upload it. So bittorrent and p2p is illegal in this country, (cause you're also uploading) but usenet is totally legal.

[mPod]

Gone off topic, thread closed.