A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our other blogs:
CableCARD, FireWire, and FCC Mandates
The NCTA reported that the largest US cablecos have now deployed more than 21 million set-tops with embedded CableCARDs. Despite that, the FCC’s CableCARD mandate is widely considered a failure, and the agency is actively looking for potential alternatives.
3D Hastens MPEG-4 Transition
The added demands of 3D programming were bound to hasten the transition from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4, and now Engadget HD is reporting that Comcast will rely solely on MPEG-4 to deliver 3D signals starting in August.
New Motorola Gateway at Best Buy
he SBG6580 comes with several premium features including DOCSIS 3.0 compatibility, an 802.11N wireless access point, and a Gigabit Ethernet 4-port switch with an advanced firewall.
Walking a Fine Line with Set-Top Data
The topic of how operators use viewing data from set-tops has long been a controversial one. Despite the widespread use of user tracking technologies online – or perhaps because of them, and the resultant privacy debates – service providers have been reluctant to pursue aggressive set-top data mining strategies.
G.hn, MoCA 2.0, and the Home Networking Landscape
The G.hn home networking standard was approved by the ITU last fall, and just this week, MoCA ratified its 2.0 spec. So which standard will win out with cable and telco providers? And where does 802.11N fit in?
The MPEG-4 transition is something that I’m actively curious/concerned about, as a TiVo fan(atic). My TiVoHD only works, as far as I know, with a CableCard on MPEG-2 streams. If my provider (Verizon FIOS) begins to migrate service away from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4, I’m completely uncertain as to what options I would have, if any, to keep my TiVoHD running.
I know that the most recent TiVo hardware (since the TiVo Series 3) has a MPEG-4 hardware decoder built in, but I think this is more complicated than that. Does anyone know what we’re looking at for non-cableco hardware in the MPEG-4 transition?
“Despite that, the FCC’s CableCARD mandate is widely considered a failure”
Ugh. It’s bad enough when you write stuff like this on your own, but when you copy it from a Motorola press release, it’s worse.
Y’know, Motorola has some skin in the game in promoting that particular lie…
Is the glass half full or half empty?
I’m not sure Mari is saying it’s true, she’s saying it’s the position of many paying attention. From a technical standpoint, sure CableCARD has succeeded in providing separable security and opening the set-top box marketplace.
But, in practice, it’s a bitch for retail CableCARD devices. I have some skin in the game too… as my craptastic SDV tuning adapters (a hack) regularly lose channels and or reboot for no discernible reason. (Which cost me about $6 last month buying two episodes of Breaking Bad in HD that the TiVo failed to record because the channel was MIA. Not to mention failing to placate an angry wife every time we lose CNNHD.)
“I have some skin in the game too… as my craptastic SDV tuning adapters (a hack) regularly lose channels and or reboot for no discernible reason.”
I’m free from tuning adapter hell through FIOS, so I can only empathize without having to deal with it.
But that’s the thing – the FCC fell down in not making sure the tuning adapter hell didn’t happen. The entire point of the (successful) CableCARD mandate was to ensure that the consumer could get as good cable service via a third party cable box as they could with the cable box the line provider wants to rent to you. And until they allowed non-functional tuning adapters out into the wild, that was happening.
In other words, if the FCC had mandated that cableco boxes had to have the same tuning adapters that you have, then then suddenly tuning adapters would work just fine. Big telecom companies can generally get their tech to work when they have an incentive. Shills like Todd Spangler endlessly bitch about the seemingly unnecessary cost of having to putting CableCARDs into rented cableco boxes, but if the FCC didn’t force that to happen, then CableCARDs would work either.
Whatever wireline technology is adopted in the future, the FCC’s rule of thumb must be that the wireline’s rented equipment has to be on a level playing field with third party equipment. Otherwise, the wireline world will descend into the kind of proprietary hell that is the US cellular world.
That would suit Motorola just fine, but it’d suck for every wireline subscriber in the nation, including those who use their provider’s rented equipment, who’d find prices rising over time, and innovation decreasing over time.
(FWIW, most of Western Europe has the kind of regulation on the cellular world that the FCC has tried to implement on the wireline world with stuff like CableCARD, and coincidentally enough, Western European cellular services are cheaper and better than US cellular services.)
Funny. While I was writing the above comment, the execrable Todd Spangler broke some news that TiVo is trying to convince the FCC to do their job and find a way to fix your tuning adapter hell.
I’m sure AllVid will be a nice thing when/if it happens, but the FCC should fix the situation in the interim.
Yes, I agree the FCC has had no teeth or real interest. Maybe that’s changed with the new management. We’ll see. When CableCARD was originally conceptualized the two-way services of the time were VOD. The carriers rightly want to conserve and reallocate their bandwidth and implemented SDV, but as we know it isn’t natively offered/supported/possible by retail CableCARD devices. I’m still waiting for the mythical retail tru2way DVR to save me… (I did learn recently the Moxi has built-in DOCSIS modem, so it should be *technically* capable. If the cable regime opens and shares those standards… and maybe finished rolling it out on their end.)
Also, the county I lived in until last summer for about 10 years responded to the FCC yesterday:
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment/view?id=6015658381
As my local franchising authority, they heard from me on Comcast’s (former?) inability to properly provide CableCARDs. I took issue with a two week time frame to find cards and to consider their box instead and in being charged for an unnecessary (in my opinion) install. (When their own hardware didn’t require similar.)
“Yes, I agree the FCC has had no teeth or real interest. Maybe that’s changed with the new management. We’ll see.”
They’ve been making all the right noises so far, but yes, we’ll see.
“I’m still waiting for the mythical retail tru2way DVR to save me”
Aside from the fact that it’s never going to happen, who needs tru2way?
Assuming TiVo and the CEA convinces the FCC to do their job and fix the tuning adapter problem by means of an IP backchannel, you can have a third-party DVR that works reliably, get your VOD from Hulu and/or Netflix, and get your PPV from Amazon. Problem solved.
Then, when/if AllVid comes along four years from now, we can all move along to the next generation happily.
(And while I don’t agree with Montgomery County on all the details, I do enormously like their general attitude in their response.)
FWIW, the CEA comment to the FCC (pdf) makes for some pretty lively reading. The section on chutzpah is especially apropos.
It explains the lay of the land better than anything else I’ve read, and it proposes an easy way out of tuning adapter hell this year.
Re: the MPEG4 topic…
It’s obvious that the cable card decryption and the mpeg format are seperate ie) no special “Mpeg4 cable card”. So will a WMC PC with the upcoming Ceton or SiliconDust CableCard tuners support MPEG4 channels? If the actual stream is decoded on the PC, then I can’t see why not… you can download a codec for anything these days.
What about the Moxi or Tivo cable card retail DVR’s? I’m pretty sure the Broadcom CPU’s have MPEG4 decoding ability, but would it require a software update to use? Then were at the mercy of Tivo or Arris as to when the proper software update would be pushed.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for efficiency of spectrum and quality of services. MPEG-4 is the way to go, and I’m all for it. Just who will be left behind in the transition?
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for efficiency of spectrum and quality of services. MPEG-4 is the way to go, and I’m all for it. Just who will be left behind in the transition?”
My guess is that Windows and TiVo customers will receive timely software updates, if the capabilities aren’t already there. But I could be wrong about that, and there is a risk for owners of older TiVo boxes that they could be have suddenly useless boxes.
I don’t follow Moxi, so no clue there.
It’ll be an interesting transition, assuming everyone rolls it out in the foreseeable future.
Sorry to be late to the comment party. Regarding CableCARD’s success or failure, there are so many nuances there that it’s hard to address them all in one place. First, it’s something cablecos originally advocated because they wanted to open up the security market. That said, the technology wasn’t fully developed enough on all fronts for it to work when the mandate went through. You think operators are happy that CableCARD users can’t access their VOD services? They really don’t care about being hardware providers (contrary to those who claim they love leasing set-tops). They do care about people paying for their content and controlling the Guide experience. (which is a whole different argument for another time)
As for Motorola’s skin in the game (and yes, I contract for Motorola), keep in mind that Motorola made a lot of money around the CableCARD mandate. Sure they would have loved to have maintained the company’s large set-top market share, but that was never in the cards because it’s not what their customers want. (i.e. the cable companies) Ultimately it is not in Motorola’s interest to have separable security fail, particularly as the company moves on to more software and network-based services.
One other note- we still have rough transition years ahead, but downloadable security will eventually take over, and once we’ve moved to a software platform, there will be a lot more flexibility to accommodate all kinds of different devices.
And Chucky- I agree that IP can and likely will solve a lot of the retail problems. (in a sense, doesn’t it already, given that you get a lot more VOD options on a TiVo from IP sources now?) As for AllVid, I’m reserving judgment. I love the idea, but foresee a lot of problems in carrying it out.
“You think operators are happy that CableCARD users can’t access their VOD services? They really don’t care about being hardware providers (contrary to those who claim they love leasing set-tops). They do care about people paying for their content and controlling the Guide experience. (which is a whole different argument for another time)”
Well, the second half of this is true. The operators are trying to kill third-party devices mainly to have total control over their user’s experiences, which is something they can monetize.
But killing off third-party devices will also allow them to raise prices on their rental equipment. All they have to do now is keep their third-party equipment around the same general price level as TiVo to avoid defections. But without third-party equipment, they will be free to hike equipment rental prices without any possibility of defection. (Not to mention that in such a scenario, they’d prefer to either strip features from and/or kill DVR’s in order to lead their customers more towards a PPV model.)
“You think operators are happy that CableCARD users can’t access their VOD services?”
Yes. Very.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t be fighting the IP backchannel which would make such a thing easy to implement.
“First, (CableCARD is) something cablecos originally advocated because they wanted to open up the security market.”
Oh, good lord. Read up on the ’96 legislation a bit.
The cablecos didn’t (originally) fight CableCARD because they got significant regulatory relief in terms of pricing in exchange for CableCARD.
(Also, CableCARD passed because the consumer electronics lobby was a match for the cableco lobby. Also, CableCARD passed because it was part of a huge omnibus bill that allowed a variety of things to pass that never would have passed in standalone measures.)
And ever since the day after the legislation passed, the cablecos have been trying their best to obstruct CableCARD, in ways both legal and illegal.
Thinking that the cablecos were in favor of CableCARD as a standalone measure either before or after the ’96 bill passed is, at a very minimum, a poor reading of the relevant history.
Re:Moto Cable modem (I meant to ask this here, but posted on the other site):
I’m not very good with networks, so this is probably a dumb question. My home network consists of a htpc and a server connected to my router via ethernet cable, a desktop connected via MoCCA and another HTPC, an xbox 360 and Panny Plasma via another MoCCa. If I get this modem, can I ditch my router, hook the HTPC and server up directly to the ports in this modem and still use the MoCCA properly? Thanks.
Chucky- The cable companies are not making their money off of set-tops. I would venture to say that they almost consider having to provide set-tops as a necessary evil.
Hogues- Off the top I don’t see why this would be a problem, but I’m checking.
“Chucky- The cable companies are not making their money off of set-tops.”
I did not argue with that stipulation in my previous comment. I have no idea if it is true or not, but I did not question it.
But I think we can both agree that the cablecos are actively trying to kill off third-party DVR’s.
One of the reasons they are trying to do so is that that will allow them to make a profit on set-top boxes in the future.
But the more important reason is that killing off third-party DVR’s will allow the cablecos to change the user experience in a way that will allow them to further monetize their customer base.
I wouldn’t say they’re actively trying to kill off third party stuff, but they’re surely not going out of their way to make it easy. I do agree that their goal is to further monetize, which is expected.
Regarding VOD on third party stuff, I assume the cable-cos wouldn’t mind the extra revenue at all. However, with only like 1.5 million TiVos out there, there’s probably not enough money to be made for the engineering to be worthwhile.
PS One of our contacts at the NCTA mentioned he might be writing something up on SDV and tuning adapters, asked for my input. I suggested he explain why the tuning adapters “suck shit” and that he respond to the CEA’s TiVo IP backchannel suggestion.
“I wouldn’t say they’re actively trying to kill off third party stuff”
Then why not implement the IP backchannel rather than giving away tuning adapters? The tuning adapters cost the cablecos significantly more money than implementing the IP backchannel infrastructure would.
It’s hard to take that single data point as anything other than an active attempt to kill off third-party boxes.
And beyond that single data point, there is a long litany of other evidence going back years now, of course…
“Regarding VOD on third party stuff, I assume the cable-cos wouldn’t mind the extra revenue at all. However, with only like 1.5 million TiVos out there, there’s probably not enough money to be made for the engineering to be worthwhile.”
Well, if they were to implement the IP backchannel, (which, again, would save them money over giving away tuning adapters) then they could leave all the messy and expensive engineering of the interface up to the third-party boxes, should the third-party boxes wish to assume it, no? The IP backchannel tells the cableco that the box wants a show, and the cableco sends it. From the cableco infrastructure’s POV, it’d be no different than any other IP backchannel request.
Not to mention that the non-PPV part of VOD doesn’t bring them in any extra revenue, assuming customers will still subscribe to the premium channels without it.
And if I were a cableco exec, I’d happily forgo the trickle of extra revenue that would come in from third-party boxes utilizing VOD and PPV in exchange for the help in pursuing a long-term strategic plan to wipe third-party boxes off the face of the earth. If the FCC will let them get away with it, it’s the smart business strategy for the cablecos to pursue.
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(This is more tangential to the topic than proof of what I’m saying above, but when I ordered my service from FIOS, I had multiple reps each repeat to me multiple times how utterly horrible an idea it was for me to get a CableCARD precisely since I’d lose out on VOD. It was their final line of defense, after several others had been tried, to shift me away from a third-party box. If it’s on all the sales reps’ sheets as a special point of emphasis, you know it’s something that has been given thought at higher levels as the competitive advantage of their boxes over third-party boxes. And why give away your competitive advantage?)
Well… the CEA says the IP backchannel would save them money. We haven’t heard their side yet. More importantly, I wonder if it gives up control or opens a door into their infrastructure they object to. In reality, again, there’s probably limited business/monetary motivation on their end. So I’d say they are passively blocking third parties. It’s a catch-22 given TiVo’s (and Moxi + MCE) limited footprint.
“PS One of our contacts at the NCTA mentioned he might be writing something up on SDV and tuning adapters, asked for my input. I suggested he explain why the tuning adapters “suck shit” and that he respond to the CEA’s TiVo IP backchannel suggestion.”
The NCTA already commented to the FCC on the IP backchannel, negatively, of course. (I love reading Todd Spangler, since he is paid to essentially repeat the wireline providers’ position. It’s useful to know the talking points of the crowd wearing the black hats.)
“More importantly, I wonder if it gives up control or opens a door into their infrastructure they object to.”
That’s the NCTA’s argument in their brief. They ignore the cost part of the CEA’s argument, and instead complain about security and authorization issues.
This comes after the part where the NCTA argues that tuning adapters work just fine…
“It’s a catch-22 given TiVo’s (and Moxi + MCE) limited footprint.”
But, of course, if I’m correct that the wireline providers have a long-term strategy to wipe third-party boxes off the face of the Earth, (and I think I clearly am correct on that one), that catch-22 is what they think of as their trump card.
Keep putting up obstacles to third-party boxes until you drive down their number to the point where you can get the FCC to go along with the idea that there is no longer a cost-effective reason to support third-party boxes since no one has them anymore. Catch-22.
I do have some faith in the current regime at the FCC, so we shall see how it plays out…
Thanks, Mari