legality

niall martin

New Member
I'm really impressed with the 2.22 custom firmware. No doubt like most people here I use it watch HD programs on other devices and for the long term archiving of HD material for subsequent playback on newer equipment at some point in the future. However, is this legal?

niall
 
See Quick Guide to Custom Firmware (click).

The key points here are that:
  • At the moment, all Freeview broadcasts are transmitted "in the clear" (ie unencrypted), including HiDef. Thus we are only decrypting what Humax has chosen to encrypt according to the terms of their civil contract in return for the EPG data. It would be possible to capture the same (unencrypted) data using a DVB-T2 USB tuner dongle on a PC;
  • The recording of broadcasts has never been strictly legal, but has been accepted for personal use ever since domestic video cassette recorders came into being;
  • Reverse-engineering for the purpose of study is legal, penalties begin when new products are marketed that plagiarise other products;
  • Provided everything is for personal use only, the level of penalties that could be imposed are so minor that it would not be worth anyone's while to pursue it.
 
I can add that the interception of HDCP-protected HDMI data is a different matter: this is implemented so that the copyright holders of material (eg the large movie corporations) can be persuaded to release their material on high-quality media (eg Blu-Ray) protected from the risk that the average Joe Public can cream a clean copy out of the Blu-Ray player via HDMI (which would be of better quality than a DVB-T2 broadcast). This will not stop the criminally-intent of course.
 
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