CableCARD Archives - Page 24 of 30

Scientific Atlanta Exceeds 7 Million SDV Homes

In a press release, which could be a mixed bag, Cisco reports:

Scientific Atlanta, a Cisco company, today announced that commitments for its Switched Digital Video (SDV) platform in the U.S. have exceeded 7 million homes passed. By extending and distributing the management of the video and data network control plane all the way to the “edge” of the network (generally speaking, at the optical node), operators can maximize their network investment by sharing quadrature amplitude modulators (QAMs) across both video-on-demand (VoD) and switched digital video traffic.

While SDV currently poses a problem for retail CableCARD devices (think TiVo) unable to resolve switched programming, these 7 million homes may not all receive SDV channels. Yet. And of those that do, we’re probably only talking a few stations. For now. 7 million represents greater than 10% of US cable subscribers, and Time Warner has indicated they intend to deploy SDV to 50% of customer homes this year.

SDV allows the providers to more efficiently utilize their bandwidth, a consideration with digital and HD content proliferation, but as a TiVo owner I’m somewhat concerned. Sounds like the various stakeholders are working on a technical solution, but when will it be released and who pays for it? And I assume I’ll have to give up yet another spot on my surge protector.

Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our other blogs: The Motorola CableCARD Q&A: Connected Home 2 Go DivX Thrives, DVD Continues To Die: Davis Freeberg’s Digital Connection Netflix Watch Now Download Hack Surveillance: Brent Evans Geek Tonic FiOS TV Gets HD: Connected Home 2 Go Sage 6.3.1 Beta Released, HD Extender Support: Brent Evanas … Read more

Interesting News Out of Cable Land

Towards the end of last week, two very interesting pieces of news came out of the cable industry… First, I noticed over on TiVo Lovers that CableLabs has approved a new content protection system using traditional IP networking (in addition to the existing Firewire standard). Megazone speculates that TiVo knew this standard was under consideration … Read more

SDV Keeps On Rollin’

In the next month, Cox will deploy SDV in neighboring Fairfax (VA) county. Multichannel News writes: In Northern Virginia, where Cox has about 240,000 subscribers, the SDV system will go live systemwide in about 30 days, according to Kelso. Later this year, Cox plans to roll out the system in its Phoenix and Orange County, … Read more

The Challenge in Building that Perfect Entertainment Box

Building the perfect DVR/video-entertainment device is hard, which is why cable or telco TV plus a Netflix or Blockbuster + Movielink service is probably your best bet right now. But lest ye be sitting in your living room bemoaning the state of your set-top set-up, let me offer up a bit of context on why building the perfect box is so hard.

There’s the leased set-top model used by cable operators. In an effort to make those set-tops as cheap and efficient as possible, a lot of constraints are applied. There can’t be too much storage or processing power, too many added features or too much open access for modification that could muck up the service for everyone. Not an ideal situation, but on the other hand, these operators bring DVR to the masses.

There’s the retail model, which is owned by TiVo. People who have TiVo tend to love TiVo, but relatively few people have it because of the price. Plus, there’s the issue of plugging TiVo into your cable or telco network. Either you need a separate set-top from your service provider or you need a CableCARD. CableCARD certification is a serious technical challenge (more than I think most people realize) and it still doesn’t provide access to two-way services like video-on-demand and switched digital video.

Finally there’s the Internet model. All those media extenders that made big news early in the year, and P2P services like Joost (the box here being your computer). Here the problem is both content and bandwidth. Not enough appealing, timely content to keep people happy, and/or not enough bandwidth to keep content flowing efficiently.

So what’s on the horizon?

Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our other blogs. Wii – Gaming Genius or Fitness Fad: TechLore Mark Cuban Kills The Internet: Connected Home 2 Go Belaboring the CableCARD Issue: Connected Home 2 Go Terayon and Targeted Advertising: Connected Home 2 Go

Where the Holidays Start in July

It’s that time of year again. We’re more than halfway to the holiday shopping season and CES 2008, which means CE companies are starting to panic about what they can get on to store shelves or at least out of production in time to take advantage of the year’s biggest buying season and biggest PR event respectively. Without doing any in-depth research yet, here’s my list of what we might see around Black Friday time:

Retail Moxi DVR – Dave’s already covered this extensively, and I can’t wait to see how Digeo brings its two models to market. What are the price points? Who will sell them? Has Digeo had any problems with CableCARD certification?

Touchscreen iPod/Nano iPhone – The rumor is some iPod/Nano mash-up will come out later this year. I don’t think it will make my X’mas wish list. A touchscreen on a device smaller than the existing iPhone? I’d need tinier thumbs.

Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our other blogs. Widgets are Walled Gardens: Connected Home 2 Go Seven-Oh-Seven Comes and Goes: Connected Home 2 Go Verizon Dodges CableCARD Deadline: Connected Home 2 Go Top 10 Apple iPhone interface mistakes: Rakesh Agrawal