HDCP + HDMI + Comcast = The Devil Himself
So I’m finally pulling in decent wages this summer, and since a large portion of my free time (nearly all) is spent either watching TV, playing video games on my TV, watching TV shows about video games, and watching videos about TV shows, I decided it was time to upgrade my pathetically small standard television.
It served me well when I needed something compact to fit in my room, but now that I’m living on my own, and the apartment has a room dedicated solely to sitting on the couch and watching tv, 19” wasn’t nearly large enough.
So I saved my pennies.
Lots of pennies.
And I went out and bought one of the nicest 46” HDTV’s Samsung offers. Native 1080p, 15,000:1 contrast ratio, new graphic processors, the works. It is the most fantastic piece of equipment I’ve ever purchased, I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful representation of my effort I’ve put into school and work. Along with the TV, I purchased a stereo system, also a Samsung, which just is simply stunning. Not terribly expensive, wonderfully designed, and utilized the wonderfully new input technology, HDMI.
There is a reason I, as well of thousands, perhaps millions of others want HDMI: Digital Video, Digital Sound. No conversions, no compression, just clean raw HD picture and 5.1 sound.
Like so many others, I thought it would be wasteful to get an HDTV and not subscribe to HD television. So before I even got the TV, I signed up for Comcast’s HD programming, and they gave me a new set top box, one with HDMI ports. When I finally got the receiver and the TV, I hook the HDMI cord from the cable box into my receiver, and BAM! I got sound, then I got picture.
BUT WAIT!
All of a sudden a big obnoxious blue blanket covers the screen, embroidered with the phrase:
“The HD Content Protection of your display had been compromised, please use the YPbPr outputs for your HDTV.”
Then the screen went blank. I tried reseting everything, messing with cables, but it kept showing up. I simply had no clue what was going. What the heck is it talking about?
I immediately went to the one source for information on all things comcast, I picked up my phone, dialed 1-800-COMCAST, immediately hung up, cast the phone aside and went to Google.
I tried searching for HD Content Protection first. It seemed important, what with the capital letters and all, and apparently it is indeed a proper noun. Did you hear about this? I never have, I consider myself a pretty technically versed guy (between the CS major, the programming job, the years of fiddling with computer equipment, and the hours a day I spend online reading tech articles). HD Content Protection (or HDCP) is a the television equivalent of iTMS DRM (the system iTunes uses to encrypt their songs so they can’t be shared over the internet). While the iTMS DRM developed to safeguard music labels from a market flooded with illegally downloaded music, right on the heels of Napster’s collapse, HDCP was developed to protect no particular group of people from something that wasn’t being stolen by anyone and servers to only to obfuscate what should be an extremely easy process for next evolution of home theater connections (by which I mean HDMI). HDCP is actually Intel’s fault, apparently they felt a need to keep ‘pirates’ from stealing their precious HDMI cords and using them maliciously too -- well, actually, I have no idea how this could be used maliciously, its a damn cord. Never the less, it is here now and it was keeping me from watching my own TV from my own cable box using my own stereo system.
It took about another hour before I found the culprit: my Moterola digital cable box. I found this blog with a guy in a very similar situation, practically the same model TV and receiver, and he had documented his troubles in some detail. He described his myriad of phone calls, emails, and live chats with Comcast, Samsung, and Moterola, all of which seemed to blame the other. Samsung told him this was a known problem, and that they notified Comcast to fix their HDCP last November. Moterola told him that HDCP updates came in the form of firmware updates, but that they couldn’t tell him when they would be released. He found out later that Comcast eventually received boxes with the firmware updates (bringing it from version 16.20 to 16.35) which completely solved his problems. I found a site listing all the firmware updates for my digital cable boxes, and what they were for, and it indeed said 16.35 was the one that fixed the HDCP problems. I wondered if this was my problem, and after poking around in the menus, I found that my box was indeed running 16.20!! I must have the old firmware!
Well now I had a solution, but how the hell do you get firmware for a cable box. Certainly not from your computer. So I decided to bite the bullet and wrestle with Comcast customer service.
Rookie mistake.
I started off with their Live Chat, a bit like a buggy version of AOL instant messenger. I finally got connected with someone, he told me to hang on while he looks up my information, so I click a different tab to reread something, quickly click back, and the applet is just gone. So I got to restart the process all over, finally got reconnected to someone, and the idiocy began.
The man I was speaking to was six different kinds of stupid. I really do understand what its like to work in customer service, I spent 3 months addressing complaints from CUSA customers, so I always approach these people with kindness. I really only expect 2 basic things from them, that legitimately they try to help, and that they respect my intelligence. I don’t care if they can’t help me, or if they are unable to fix the problem, as long as they don’t talk down to me and just make some kind of effort, I’ll make sure I don’t burden them with any anger or disrespect in turn. But this guy. Come on. When you start the chat you are asked to briefly describe the problem before they connect you to a representative. I wrote something like “HDCP prevent my new Samsung HDTV and stereo from getting signal thru HDMI - need firmware version 16.30”. The first thing the guy does is ask me what the problem is. Did he not read that thing I submitted? I humored him with a response.
Andy: When I turn on my tv I get an error message “The HD Content Protection of your display had been compromised, please use the YPbPr outputs for your HDTV.”
Tony: Did you try power cycling the modem?
The ultimate talk-down response, I just described my problem in a very technical nature, even asked for a specific firmware version, and he wants me to power cycle. But I stayed calm,
Andy: Yes I have. I’ve spent hours trying to find out what the problem is, and many sources say that this specific cable box needs a firmware update from 16.20 to 16.35. I checked my box through the menus and I indeed have 16.20. How can I get the new firmware?
After a very long pause:
Tony: firmware update for digital box is updated to the current version.
What does that mean, did he just electronically update my firmware? Does he mean I have the most recent version already and he can’t help me?
Andy: updated already or just now?
Another long pause.
Tony: Contacting after Samsung HDTV and stereo firmware.
Tony: You can contact us anytime, 24/7 online or by phone at 1-800-COMCAST.
Tony: Did that solve your problem?
Um, first off, you didn’t answer my question. Secondly, that first thing you typed is hardly a sentence, but I think he meant that I should talk to Samsung, despite the fact that he seemed to think “Samsung HDTV and stereo firmware” was the manufactures name. Thirdly, he isn’t helping me at all he’s trying to get rid of me by blaming Samsung. And after all that he decided to ask if, by not answering my questions and telling me to go away, he had solved the problem. Ok, now I’m getting frustrated.
Andy: um, no. I just checked my cable box again, it’s still using 16.20. I can’t get this to work without the new firmware.
Tony: Did the cable work before your got your new equipment?
Andy: Yes, but that was a different setup. I’m trying to get HDMI working now. From what I read the cable box needs an HDCP update so it will let me plug this into my receiver. I think it’s got something to do with the way it routes HDMI from the cable box to the receiver, and the receiver routes just video to the TV. It works for a few seconds before I get the error, so I know it’s gotta be a problem with the old firmware’s HDCP.
Very long pause. I think I must have broken his tiny little brain at this point.
Tony: Thank you for being patient, just a moment;
Andy: No problem.
Well at least now he’s taking the time to consider my problem. I waited for another 3-5 minutes, then, expecting a real answer:
Tony: if the digital set top box if Samsung HDTV and stereo for HDMI.
Ok. Is this person insane? That sentence makes no sense. Is this even a person? Am I talking to a computer that happens to be named Tony that’s handing me poorly constructed canned responses?
Tony: Is there anything else I can do for you?
Sigh.
Andy: Apparently not. Thx 4 your time.
>End Session
Well that was half an hour well spent. Let me tell you, the survey they asked me to fill out after I left the chat room didn’t know what hit it.
I decided to try support by phone instead. This guy was at least a bit more helpful. I told him my problem, and he was able to tell me firmware updates are done automatically and there wasn’t anything he or I could do to update it. He did tell me that I can check my local Comcast store for a newer box, one with 16.35. I thanked him, and was off the phone in less than 5 minutes.
See? He didn’t solve my problem. But he explained why he couldn’t, offered me something to try, and didn’t talk to me like I didn’t know what the problem was. That’s all I want from these people.
Still I have every reason to be made at the company as a whole. Firstly by giving me a device advertised as an HD receiver with HDMI when you can’t plug it into a receiver, one with extremely outdated firmware (the new one came out in January for Christ’s sake), and finally by not being able to fix the problem outright. I just have to try my luck in store, cross my fingers and hope they have a new box.
What’s worse as I’m not even sure this will work. While 16.35 fixed problems for many, others still get HDCP errors. Why should I pay $130 a month for HD service I can’t get access to? It’s like joining a fancy country club that doesn’t give you the key for the front doors. If they can’t fix it, my alternative is to drop their service, with fees mind you, get a satellite dish, and pay $100 to my apartment complex for the privilege of screwing it onto the outside of the building.
For now I tried a workaround instead. I can run the HDMI from the cable box into the TV, then run an optical cable to the receiver, but then I have to swap cables around just to play Xbox, which is a huge, huge pain and something I shouldn’t have to put up with considering the amount of money invested in this system.
I am truly outraged at Comcast’s behavior. This problem is entirely unadvertised, unaddressed, and unethical. Reading the accounts of hundreds of others in my situation serves to solidify my anger. I truly can’t believe they are allowed to do this to their own customers. This is low even for a cable company.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
