I'm wondering if the Comcast transition to IPTV might be illegal under the competition requirements of Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992 since they are prohibiting third party equipment (TiVo and other CableCard devices) from being able to receive their signal. The law dates back to analog but could be used as a legal roadblock by class action lawyers to protect TiVo owners with lifetime subscriptions.
Not to mention the various requirements of the franchising agreements.
Maybe to be a little less harsh they could develop a tuning adapter (similar to the ones used in SDV systems) that pulls in the IPTV and outputs a QAM signal that is compatible with TiVo/CableCard. It would behave the same way as a SDV adapter as the TiVo would call for the channel as if it were an SDV channel through its USB port and then the channel would go via the tuning adapter and get converted from IPTV to QAM.
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