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Communications Entertainment

FCC Delays Cable TV Apps Vote, Needs Time To Work Out Licensing (arstechnica.com) 39

Posted by msmash from the buying-more-time dept.
The FCC has delayed a vote on a plan that would require pay-TV operators to make free TV applications, so cable subscribers will have to wait longer for an alternative to renting set-top boxes from cable companies. ArsTechnica reports:The FCC was scheduled to vote on final rules at its monthly meeting today, but the item was removed from the agenda just before the meeting began. The commission's Democratic majority still seems determined to issue new rules, but there have been objections from the cable industry and disagreements among Democratic commissioners over some of the details. "We have made tremendous progress -- and we share the goal of creating a more innovative and inexpensive market for these consumer devices," Chairman Tom Wheeler and fellow Democrats Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel said today in a joint statement. "We are still working to resolve the remaining technical and legal issues and we are committed to unlocking the set-top box for consumers across this country." The vote could happen at next month's meeting, but the commissioners did not promise any specific timeline.
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FCC Delays Cable TV Apps Vote, Needs Time To Work Out Licensing More

FCC Delays Cable TV Apps Vote, Needs Time To Work Out Licensing

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  • Sperm bank is an app, Free TV app, enough with apps already.

    Seriously, I don't understand what TFS is about!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Xfinity was suppose to release a free app this fall, that you could install on a Roku and it would replace the need to rent a cable box. This is a good thing I am disappointed it has been delayed.

      • You know they're going to make people hate it by crippling it and make them want to go back to the cable box. Examples of ways they can do that include preventing fast-forwarding commercials.

        Personally I think it's a wasted effort. Right now we're witnessing capitalism do its thing as streaming services are gradually doing what the FCC already failed to do with cablecard over a decade ago. Pretty much the only people who give a shit about cable anymore are people who watch sports, but if you watch sports th

  • Waste of time (Score:3)

    by Grishnakh ( 216268 ) on Thursday September 29, 2016 @12:27PM (#52984045)

    This is a waste of time and effort. Cable TV is not a need, it's a luxury service, and it's quickly becoming obsolete anyway. Internet service is a real *need* in modern society, just like other telecom services and electricity, but cable TV is not like this, it's purely for entertainment. Let the cablecos treat their TV customers however they want, and focus regulation on ISPs (which also happen to be cablecos in many cases).

    Why should I care if Rolls-Royce, Coach, or DeBeers were screwing over their customers?

    • So you are saying the FCC shouldn't have an opinion on anything at isn't a *need* as defined by you? Wow. Self centered much?

    • force ISP to let your own hardware or may it part of the base rate.

      Comcast business class with static ip forces you to rent with an fee on top of the static ip fee.

      ATT forces you to rent their gateway.

      Now with app based tv the ISP can say for security we must own the gateway and we want the gateway to do all.

  • Mine seems to be working great in my Tivo.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by crow ( 16139 )

      The first plan that they dropped was for software-only cable cards. This would mean you wouldn't have to pay a monthly rental fee for your cable card. If you terminate service or start new service, there would be no physical equipment to mess with.

      What I don't understand is why you can't already go out and buy a cable-card set-top box and stop renting one from the cable company. Unfortunately, with the rental cost of a cable card, it might not save that much money.

      • I don't know about your cable company but I'm using Charter and it's only $2.50 / month for the cable card. Since install I've had a Tivo Roamio and 3 Tivo Mini's connected to it in my house that have been just about everything I could want out of a TV experience.

  • Previous Plan Preferred (Score:3)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Thursday September 29, 2016 @01:17PM (#52984341) Homepage Journal

    The previous plan to require the cable companies to support a software-only cable card was better. That would allow TVs and set-top boxes to be built with native cable support--you would just need to do some configuring. It would use the same encrypted QAM signal that is coming in over the coax.

    The app approach can be helpful, but it involves streaming the channels over the Internet instead of using the QAM signal that is already being sent. This has a number of downsides. Streamed video may be more highly compressed. It may be subject to dropped packets. Streaming may be subject to WiFi interference in places where coax already runs to the TV.

    Another advantage of the virtual cable card is that cable cards allow for recording. I know people are shifting to streaming on demand as the most popular option, but many of us like to record on DVRs. I love my MythTV, and many people love their TiVos.

    And then there's the privacy issue. How many times have I heard people complain about smart TVs sending data back to corporate servers for who-knows-what purpose? With a streaming app, you can't easily block that.

    All said, what really makes sense is both. Require both a freely licensed streaming app and a software-only cable card. Prohibit charging a rental fee for cable cards or set-top boxes until they comply with the regulation.

    • Interesting, that does sound like it would be much better.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by crow ( 16139 )

      One other point: Cable channels are currently sent in MPEG-2 via encrypted QAM over coax. With Fios, the box in your garage (ONT) converts the fibre signal to coax, but the signal is still the same MPEG-2 over QAM. Streaming services use MPEG-4. Boxes like the Roku don't even support MPEG-2, so it has to be re-encoded for streaming.

      Eventually the cable companies may switch to MPEG-4, but that requires replacing all the existing cable boxes, and they're really happy getting $120/year for equipment that is

  • It's a bad idea anyway (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Thursday September 29, 2016 @01:19PM (#52984355) Homepage Journal

    Let's all hope that this ends up not happening. It'd be an extremely minor improvement which only prevents any serious improvement from ever happening.

    If the government is going to use force here, then it should be that any interstate commerce in TV must use standards. Why demand a free-as-in-beer app when you can just demand free-as-in-speech specs? That would get us all plenty of free-as-in-beer apps anyway, except that you get as many are needed, until everyone agrees it's competitive enough. Don't like Company X's TV player? Try Company Y's, or this one on githib, or write your own. A week after specs are published, you're going to have way better stuff available than any app Comcast is ever going to make for your Roku, which will be the next thing for you to be constantly bitching about (assuming you're still using the Roku when the app comes out).

    If you're not going to force the use of standards, then don't bother using force at all. Why go to so much trouble just to do it wrong? You're setting us up so that when we tire of this next failure, the cable companies will be able to say "but we did what you want! It's not fair to make us change again!"

    Protocols and interoperability are what have value. Stop stressing implementations so much. Doing things is fucking trivial, compared to figuring out what to do and being allowed to do it. Freedom gets you diversity, which gets you performance. Does anyone really still pretend to not know this?

    • Completely agree - without standards I expect companies like Comcast and Verizon to release a "free app", with a crazy permissions grab on the device.

      push notifications (for service notifications, and of course specialized targeted offers)
      read contacts
      access GPS fine location
      bind vpn service
      camera
      audio input
      read log data
      read / write storage
      etc...

      Permissions grab to be justified by:

      The app needs these rights so you can host a geotagged live stream of your face while you are watching your favorite show, that

  • So that explains it... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I think this may explain why Apple paused its plans to incorporate a life TV service into the Apple TV app... why forge relationships with lots of $$$ if the government could force the cable company to foot the bill entirely and provide free apps ... which you could then just add to your exisitng box and not have to change your business model?

  • No matter what the FCC decides, the cable companies will eventually find a way to make up a new fee that replaces the lost lease income. For instance, I lease an STB from Dish Network to the tune of about $7/mo. I could buy the exact name model of STB on eBay and send back the leased unit, but to authorize it for use with Dish they would change me a, you guessed it, $7/mo BYOSTB "access fee."

  • I think what most people would love to have is a Roku with a cable card. The current hardware won't do MPEG-2; otherwise people would pair the Roku with a HD Homerun Prime. The Prime can tune three channels, so you would need one cable card for three Rokus/TVs. If Roku did this, they would crush the set-top box market.

    • Why would be have a Roku and cable? I bought them because I left. Once everyone drops cable, the networks will realize they need apps or deals with Hulu/Netflix. As everyone here knows, it's the ISP side that needs FCC attention.

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