Bright House Lifts TiVo Streaming Restrictions

bright-house-tivo

As the story goes, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks have been the most TiVo-hostile… by blocking video streaming via an inappropriately applied copy flag, relying on switched digital tuning hacks, and BH even having the gall to (previously) charge folks for that bit of unreliable hardware. Well, Christmas has come early to Bright House subscribers in Orlando.

Via DSL Reports, we learn that CCI Byte restrictions have been lifted on everything other than premium movie channels, allowing TiVo, Ceton, and Silicon Dust hardware owners to legitimately stream the cable content they pay for beyond Bright House’s formerly walled garden. And, come January, Bright House’s Tampa customers will similarly experience video liberation.

Having said that, SDV tuning remains a pain point across the board. This CableLabs franken-adapter has never been very reliable and TiVo hasn’t always gracefully handled tuning issues. Lately, some cable providers and/or regions have yet to deploy required firmware updates… resulting in an inability to tune switched channels and emphasizing once again CableCARD customers remain second class citizens.

Motorola/ARRIS Tuning Adapters need to be updated to version 1.40 of the firmware, in order to be compatible with current CableLabs device certificates. We are reaching out to all cable operators to notify them of this issue, and to urge them to update to the latest Arris firmware.

11 thoughts on “Bright House Lifts TiVo Streaming Restrictions”

  1. In other video streaming amnesty news, I assume most of you saw that Comcast is now allowing Roku owners to access HBO GO and Showtime Anytime. I imagine this relates to Comcast’s expansive public relations campaign in regards to the Time Warner Cable acquisition. But, whatever the reason, consumers win this won. Thank you.

  2. I’ve removed that bit from the post. As of late November, sounded like it was an open issue and hadn’t seen anything to indicate it’d been corrected. Thanks for engaging on the TiVo Community, DSLReports, etc. And nicely done opening things up.

  3. That’s great news unless you are still one of the suckers stuck with Time-Warner like me.

    Anyone have any ideas on how to lobby Time-Warner to stop this ridiculous policy? FiOS rollout is still dragging and not yet available.

  4. “That’s great news unless you are still one of the suckers stuck with Time-Warner like me.”

    We live in a frictionless free-market economic system. Obviously, you should just switch to a different MSO. Problem solved!

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