Can Google Fix the Cable Box? 223
theodp writes "In purchasing Motorola Mobility, Slate's Farhad Manjoo reports that Google will also come into possession of one the nation's biggest suppliers of set-top boxes. So, can Google work some of its do-no-evil magic on the loathsome cable box? Don't bet on it, says Manjoo. For one thing, there's no evidence that Google would be very good at remaking the set-top box (Google TV, anyone?). But even if Google managed to dramatically improve set-top boxes, it's doubtful that cable and satellite companies would buy in. First, they'd lose all those ridiculously lucrative cable-box rental fees. More importantly, they'd have to give up control of the main entertainment device in most homes, and with it the opportunity to slow or stymie competing sources for entertainment. After the merger, notes Manjoo, Google could get several billion dollars by selling off Motorola Mobility's set-top-box division — a much surer payday than taking on Big Cable."
But ... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Team Cable already knows who you are, because they bill you and run a coax line to your house, and may well prefer their own in-house collection, however inferior, to Google having a chance to improve its overall advertising prowess on "their consumers".
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They'd include a web browser with the set-top box
But do cable companies want video on demand over the Internet (such as YouTube, Hulu Plus, and Netflix should Netflix go along with this) to compete with the cable companies' own video on demand service? Because once the cable box integrates the equivalent of WebTV, people not interested in sports will learn what video is available over the Internet, and many will drop TV from their bundle to save a few bucks a month.
Most cable companies aren't in direct competition with each other - you generally don't have the choice of multiple cable companies in a single area
Where I live, I can get Xfinity TV and Internet from Comcast, DISH Network with Frontier In
you can already buy your own (Score:3)
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/digital-cable-compatibility-cablecard-ready-devices [fcc.gov]
It's kinda like the way it was with telephones. People could own their own but it took literally over a decade before it really caught on. I know you could buy your own phone back in the late 1970's. However, the telcos were making pretty good money off rentals until at least the early 1990's. Lots of people just kept renting.
On the other hand, those old phones were very well enginee
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Yeah, phones would cost 100+ dollars in those days. About a week after that ruling, 25 Dollar phones appeared in the market, with in a year 10 dollar phones where widely available.
None of the matched the durability of the telco phones...but was that kind of durability worth it? no.
They also used to be responsibly for the complete line, including the physical line in your house.
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Well, the interesting part about cable cards is that it's a win win for the cable companies. If the cable companies built their own cards, or had them created for them, they could use the cable boxes to push the changes to encryption and everything to them like they do now.
The cable companies on the other hand, could continue renting the cable card for the same price or slightly less then the set top boxes and actually make more money because of the lack of overhead required.
Google could even increase the c
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Phone technology also advanced very slowly at the time, at least in terms of how it worked on the customer end, so it made sense.
Re:But ... (Score:4, Interesting)
It is already gathered. At comcast in 2002 I was gathering data from the boxes for sales. we had better data than Nielsen.
I can give you a breakdown of each box and what channel it was tuned to at that time reported every 5 minutes. it can report faster but that was the default of the boxes that comcast had deployed.
I pulled all of it into a SQL database so the sales people had real time demos in 5 minute increments of the number of boxes watching each channel INCLUDING VOD views.
This is not new. it has been going on for a while now.
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So now Google's going to know what I'm watching on TV too ? One step closer to the Google opt-out village [youtube.com] I guess.
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I'm sure Comcast appreciates it when they see my viewing habits in the morning:
6:30 AM Local CBS channel
6:30:02 Local NBC channel
6:30:10 Local Fox channel
6:30:15 BBC on local NPR channel
6:30:30 CNN Headline News
6:30:52 CNBC
6:31:02 CNN
6:31:18 Music Choice
6:31:20 Music Choice (next channel in series)
6:31:22 Music Choice (next channel in series)
6:32:18 CNN Headline News
6:32:20 CNBC
6:34:23 MSNBC
Guess where the commercials are.
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Hmmm... had not thought of that. So far I been thinking this deal will blow up in Google's face, BUT they may be able to get something out of their cablebox business.
Then again, cable companies can switch providers in a flash if they are not in agreement with any Google policy, they have proven time and time again they are bigger control freaks than Apple.
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Google's ad revenue mainly comes from clicks, not impressions. I doubt they're thrilled at the potential of an impression-only system. Besides, people would scream bloody murder over the addition of yet-more ads to TV. Especially overlaid ads.
True, but more very targeted ads are going to be an additional source of revenue for Google. And keep in mind that it's hard to hear the public's cries and complaints with money coming out of your ears.
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And keep in mind that it's hard to hear the public's cries and complaints with money coming out of your ears.
It's a lot easier once people dump your system because they're fed up with you pushing ads all the time.
Here's an idea (Score:3)
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Yep. definitely miss that interface. Every cable box I've had sucks rocks in comparison.
Maybe Google will improve it, though. Even if all they did was let me create my own channel ordering and use it as the default when I hit "guide", it would go a long way toward improving the usability.
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Room to room streaming has been there cince 2000. Did you even try to hook up tow of them in your home?
Also the ReplayTV allowed you to extract the TV shows. there is a nice program that existed that acted like a ReplayTV on the network and extracted the TV recordings for you.
In Canada you can buy the same boxes or rent them (Score:2)
In Canada you can buy the same boxes or rent them. Some cable / satellite systems even have rent to own.
And when you buy them there is no per box outlet / mirroring fees.
But over hear in comcast land new software like tivo on the Motorola cable box does not make it out of the testing area.
Stuff like E-sata is locked out (a few other cable systems have it turned on)
Other cable systems have auto HD where they can tune to the hd channel when you enter the old SD number. Comcast has the half backed pop up the a
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That is something I miss about Adelphia - they had the e-sata ports enabled. When I call Comcast about it the answer is invariably "it's in beta" - riiight. In other words, it's enbled in the Adelphia markets they acquired, but not on the the nodes running off the heads Comcast deployed.
You would think they would enable it - instead of customers breaking DVRs to get upgrades, they can enable the e-sata ports and let the customer pl
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I had a 1GB HDD attached to the DVR /s/1GB/1TB/
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the system with auto HD moved the SD channels to new numbers IO cable moved some of them to 1000's and rogers did this http://www.rogersautohd.com/ [rogersautohd.com]
Sure it can (Score:2)
You come home, turn on the TV, and it'll ask you for your Gmail account.
Cable is dying already (Score:2)
More importantly, they'd have to give up control of the main entertainment device in most homes
Interesting if true. I would have thought with Hulu and tons of other entertainment that cable's glory days were behind. I'd really like to know the % of homes that still have cable as I'm sure with the economy, many are considering other, cheaper alternatives.I know many that have ditched it in the past couple years and those that do have it, it's mainly b/c of ESPN/sports. At least around here, it is a non-trivial amount to add basic cable to your internet service, let alone any premium packages.
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Cable's death is greatly exaggerated (Score:3)
I would have thought with Hulu and tons of other entertainment that cable's glory days were behind.
As long as they own the wire coming into your house they are going to have a LOT of influence. Hulu is only as good as the internet connection it is attached to and only a relatively small percentage of the population has what I would consider enough bandwidth to really make it work. Furthermore they have lots of legal agreements with the various networks (content providers) as well as owning some networks of their own (Comcast) and have the ability (the legal right is still up in the air) to block or slo
Googles own system (Score:2)
Google is deploying fiber to the home. I'm sure there will be a video offering, what else are they going to do with that bandwidth? So, why does google care what Comcast or Direct TV thinks? If they make a better box they can use it for themselves. If they find a better way to generate revenue with it, then maybe the other operators my take a look at it.
Neilsen is shitting themselves (Score:2)
Google could do some real evil and start adding onscreen ads, or just make ads clickable to go to an informational website while buffering the remainder of the show. If Google splits the click revenue with the cable cos, they would almost certainly go along.
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More like dump it while it has value (Score:2)
So called 'big cable' only has a future as internet providers. Broadcast media, the already anachronistic channel paradigm, and tiered services are all as doomed as Blockbuster.
Google? No. Apple? Maybe. (Score:2)
I'm not sure Google can pull it off. They have the engineering talent, but I don't think they would be able to negotiate with the content creators or put an elegant face on their software and hardware.
There are persistent rumors of Apple being interested in making a television and I think they could pull it off. They already have a bunch of deals with content people in place. They also have the ability to look at a market and see what could be rather than what is. They reshaped the music industry and cell p
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Considering Apple charges $999 for a 27-inch screen now, I'd hate to see their TV prices.
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I don't think Apple gear is as overpriced as it once was. Their less mainstream items (like 27" monitors) may be expensive, but most of their mainstream consumer stuff is priced fairly (IMHO). Apple A/V gear might not appeal to the geeks here who would rather roll their own MythTV setup, but for those of us who don't want to get our hands dirty or need equipment that can be used by less tech-oriented family members, it could be very appealing.
In other words, cost and value aren't the same thing at all.
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mmm depends. There high end stuff is over priced, and their monitors are over priced. Hardware speaking.
The cable companies will run in fear (Score:2)
Let's be really clear here for a moment that the cable companies are NEVER going to let Google implement what's possible or what the consumer desires in the way of a proper set top box. Don't you just implicitly expect things like Slingbox to just, y'know, work? Nope...impacts revenue. How about HBO GO? Hmm...no again, that's a problem from a demand forecasting perspective. The cable companies win today by limiting choices (options, bandwidth consumption, etc) and Google would invariably want to uncork that
SageTV (Score:5, Interesting)
Google bought a small company called SageTV a few months back. They were one of the only companies offering a "whole house" PVR solution via tiny thin-client media extenders running on multiple TVs, and PVR software running on PCs. They had an extensible UI, as well as a number of features (like local media file management) that cable company DVRs either don't do, or do very poorly.
My guess is that they intend to apply the SageTV team to making cable boxes suck less; especially whole house solutions. Obviously they won't be using clients PCs as the server any longer, but a lot of the technology is applicable.
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I'm another loyal SageTV user... I've been using it for close to 10 years and it's really nice. I never went crazy with the multi-tv setups, but paired with a Hauppauge HD-DVR i've been watching crystal clear HD on FIOS for years. It was disappointing when they basically sold it and shutdown the website. I highly doubt they'll put out anything as feature-rich as the original SageTV. It's not as 'cutesy' as Tivo but its easily better in a lot of ways. I can seamlessly watch DVR TV/LiveTV/Downloaded Content a
no box is best box (Score:2)
We dropped our cable subscription a few months ago when they forced set-top boxes on us. We were already paying for something we hardly used, and the idea of adding even more electronics to our setup was distasteful. Our main home theater unit already has too many devices to list here, and two of the three other TV's are wall-mount with no reasonable place for a set-top box. I actually shopped around for satellite before realizing that every one of those providers force you to use their equipment as well. S
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This [myp2p.eu] is what you want. Not, strictly speaking, legal, but pretty much every sport you may want to watch can usually be found on the forums, live.
cable companies drive them (Score:2)
The cable set top box wouldn't really stay in Google's control. The cable companies themselves have to drive them.
Do you think they want Netflix running on your cable box that they subsidize?
If Google can get some kind of profit sharing model with the cable companies when it comes to advertising then they will get some traction.
Google also got into the whole ad scheduling space as well. This might give google the ability to insert local ads into youtube streams, which could be a decent revenue stream and re
Let me sum up... (Score:2)
Not another Google privacy encroachment (Score:2)
They're already in my phone, PIM, and POOM data, I don't need them harvesting my viewing habits for the Feds and advertisers as well.
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Just me, I plan on bailing when my contract is up, but that's prohibitively expensive to do AFTER you've got the phone.
No (Score:2)
You can't fix cable without fixing the cable companies, not the box.
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Since cable went digital, all a cable company is is an ISP with a reasonably fat pipe to the home with an agreement with content providers to provide TV content that provides a set-top box to display that content on the TV.
Google is -- with its Kansas City demonstration project -- becoming an ISP with a fat pipe to the home. With SageTV and Motorola acquisitions, its got both quality PVR software and an established STB business. They are mi
What "do-no-evil magic"? (Score:2)
"Do-no-evil magic"? Citation bloody needed. Those days are past. Look at the Google+ names fuckery - stuff like blocking Hong Kong users from their email [google.com] because they don't think their names sound American enough. Even their own employees [livejournal.com]!
You are not the customer, you are the product [blogspot.com]. Eric Schmidt stated it clearly [allthingsd.com] last year. Make no mistake: Google has decided it's finally time to cash in.
This has abolished their goodwill in an instant. I'm seeing people seriously question Google for collaborative document
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While I completely agree that Google has abandoned the "Do No Evil" policy a long time ago I am unconvinced that any other company put in the same position would act substantially different, or even that they should. Microsoft already does much of the same things Google does with the information that Bing brings them.
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How much bad will do you have to be running up for people to think Bing might be a better idea?
I've found that Bing is much better than Google for technical searches because it just seems to search for what I actually asked it to search for and not search for words I didn't ask for which it thinks I might perhaps have meant to search for. Google search really sucks these days and I'm probably going to switch completely away from it soon. Every new 'upgrade' to their search seems to make it even worse.
Oh yeah, and let's not forget stealing the up and down arrow keys from the scrollbar so now I can no
New FCC rules on 8/8/11 (Score:2)
See http://www.fcc.gov/guides/cablecard-know-your-rights [fcc.gov] for more information
Open cable cards will hopefully set us free. If not, sic the bureaucrats on your cable company.
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On 8/8/11 the new FCC rules on cable cards went into effect.
See http://www.fcc.gov/guides/cablecard-know-your-rights [fcc.gov] for more information
Open cable cards will hopefully set us free. If not, sic the bureaucrats on your cable company.
Miraculously, the cost to rent a card suddenly increased to the price they used to charge for the entire box.
Maybe I'm just pessimistic, but as far as I can tell the new rules say nothing about what the cable companies may charge for the cards; I wouldn't expect to see any reduction on monthly bills for someone renting a card instead of a box.
Missing the middle ground... (Score:2)
Farhad completely misses the opportunity. He sees only two worlds...a world where Google completely tries to change the whole paradigm of how cable service is provisioned and delivered, or just selling off the set-top division of Motorola Mobility. I agree with him that for Google to attempt to make the cable companies let people buy their own boxes is madness. I also think, however, that Google realizes this. Not only is there the history of the CableCard, but also the problems with support, the fact t
DVR/Game Console/Browser/Video Phone/IPTV/+apps/.. (Score:2)
Forget about what the cable companies want. If Google produces a device everyone wants they'll have no choice. They didn't want TiVo or any DVRs at first, or multiple TVs connected, or IPTV or any kind. Popularity will force their hand.
Imagine if a $200 box made it realistic/simple/practical to make video phone calls, and the same box could surf the web, play games, show and record TV. Good hardware isn't the issue, it's good software with open and free SDKs. As long as they don't "beta" it to premature dea
I think Comcast gave up on Motorola (Score:2)
My Motorola cable box died recently and the new one that Comcast supplied did NOT have the Motorola name brand on it. In fact it only has the name Xfinity on it. I wonder If Comcast has designed their own box and contracted to have it made for them. (but by WHO?)
could they make it a better cable box (Score:2)
Just be patient cable is already bleeding... (Score:2)
Cord Cutting has become fairly mainstream lately, probably more due to the economy than anything else but the trend started with people just tired if paying insanely high bills. Cable companies have enjoyed monopolies on internet in many areas since driving out local ISP's. Prices here were actually reasonable when there was competition but as speeds increased smaller companies didn't have any ability to compete. Prices in my area have gone up over 100% since I first had it installed 8 years ago. What w
Google outlook not so good (Score:3)
S&P dropped their rating on Google stock from "buy" to "sell" after the Motorola acquisition, and knocked $200 off their one-year predicted price for Google stock. That's very unusual.
Google's track record with hardware is not good. They were in the direct sales phone handset business for only a few months before they had to exit it. Customers insisted that the hardware work, and wanted customer service when it didn't. Google couldn't handle that. Their approach to the "Google Search Appliance" (Mini size) [google.com] is weird. There's no phone support for this rack-mounted enterprise device. If it breaks, they FedEx you a new one. After three years, the Google Search Appliance stops working [google.com] and you have to buy a new one. Really. That's Google's approach to enterprise support. That won't fly with Motorola's customer base.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
LOL, wut.. do you even own a cable box? If you made this statement I would think not.
There isn't a device in the home with so much potential that has been held back so much by backwards companies.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
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I doubt he owns a cable box. Since they are leased.
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That must be in the US. Here in the UK I am very happy with my Virgin cable box.
The only potential changes I would like would be for them to enable the usb/sata/ethernet ports on the back of the thing so I could add external storage or for viewing content not from the box itself. The ports are there, but the software isn't yet - presumably due to licensing issues with the content providers (I mean, why ship them on production boxes with custom circuit boards if you didn;t have plans for them?).
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The ports are there, but the software isn't yet - presumably due to licensing issues with the content providers
A lot of camcorders implement the USB Mass Storage or Media Transfer Protocol class. What objection would "content providers" (I take it you mean the cable TV networks) have to people plugging in their camcorders and watching home movies?
(I mean, why ship them on production boxes with custom circuit boards if you didn;t have plans for them?)
I've seen TVs with a USB or Ethernet port labeled "SERVICE". These are supposedly used by technicians for diagnostics and firmware upgrades, not by end users for watching videos.
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The point is, the port is completely disabled, so if you enable USB Mass Storage then sure you can connect your camcorder, but you can *also* connect a hard drive or USB stick and save/view recordings you have made on the box itself. There's a reason that the storage on the DVR itself is limited when it would be trivial to enable the box to save out to an external disk or array, networked or otherwise. They don't want you recording and keeping shows - they want you to buy the DVDs.
I'm pretty sure the ethern
Read-only Mass Storage (Score:2)
if you enable USB Mass Storage then sure you can connect your camcorder, but you can *also* connect a hard drive or USB stick and save/view recordings you have made on the box itself.
That'd be an argument for read-only Mass Storage, not for no Mass Storage at all.
There's a reason that the storage on the DVR itself is limited when it would be trivial to enable the box to save out to an external disk or array, networked or otherwise. They don't want you recording and keeping shows - they want you to buy the DVDs.
So in other words, they want camcorder owners to buy a computer with a BD-R drive on which to edit video and author BDAV discs. Do I misunderstand you? Or are you saying the networks want people watching their DVDs instead of home movies so much that they're willing to force the issue on cable TV system operators?
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Yes, pretty much - they are concerned that DVRs are already "cutting into" DVD sales - they absolutely do not want you to be able to save your recorded shows on external media, or somehow extend the storage of the box (even if you can't take the content to another device due to encrypted streams etc) because the realise people will record a whole series and keep it, and thus have no need to buy the DVD box set for christmas.
They don't car that the limitations they impose on box-makers make it hard on home c
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Here in the UK the TV I got 8 months ago happily plays mkvs off USB drives. I would assume its quite standard in set top boxes as well?
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It's unlikely you'll get external storage - Freeview in the UK started encrypting the EPG a few months ago; the only way to get decryption keys to put in your STB is if you agree to make it difficult for people to get recorded programs off the box. I can't see Virgin Media's agreements with the TV companies being dramatically different.
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The UK is even worse off, since there is no requirement to provide cards that can be used in your own equipment...
You might be happy with your cable box, but what else have you used? Having used dreamboxes, mythtv and others i can say that i find the boxes supplied by sky or virgin to be extremely crippled in terms of features.
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There's a good question. Do people even own cable boxes anymore? Mine's built into my TV. I remember my grandfather had this little box sitting by the TV twenty years ago that let him get cable channels. Then when he got a new TV it went away.
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30 second forward skip and 5 second back skip.. NO NOT FFW and REW... skip.
That makes your cable DVR garbage to me and anyone that has ever owned a TiVo or Replay TV.
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Mine? It's slow, it stutters, it often loses the guide information for days to a week at a time. Often the DVR will say it's recording something, but it goes under "Not available" since the guide info is missing. Sometimes it'll miss a show too. The guide is in SD format. It can't stream things from my home network, and doesn't support AirPlay. It can't stream things from netflix or hulu. It can't browse the internet, nor are there any "apps" for it. The USB/Sata port is disabled so I can't just atta
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Sucking less probably.
Cableco PVRs are the sorts of things that inspire great free software projects to be created.
From what I have seen of current (new) boxes, that has not changed a whole heck of a lot.
Now you may have an unusually cool device. Since everyone is at the mercy of their cable providers, the rest of us may not be so lucky.
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Sure is does.
This whole problem stems from the fact that you are subject to a physical monopoly and the policies put in place with the stated goal of avoiding this problem have done nothing but reinforce this problem. One incumbent is left with the ability to deal with the DRM and patent legal mine field involved.
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Actually, I concur. It's not like it's explicitly broken, it's just that it lacks a lot of ridiculously obvious features and the tie-in from the cable companies is annoying. Restricting obvious features with a surcharge is pretty stupid and is contributed to a loss of cable (tv) customers.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't even have cable, and I can immediately spot problems with these boxes at friends and family's houses.
First of all, why the hell do you all put up with the ads showing the whole time on the pay-per-view/channel listings area??? All that space is wasted for some inane repeating "preview". Remember, you are paying these people like $100/month and they reward you by putting an irritating ad where additional channel listings could be?
Second, in ye olde days of regular TV, you could browse channels by pushing the button on the remote as quickly as you liked. Or before that, you could machine-gun turn the knob and watch the programs fly by. Now with digital cable you have a distinct pause on each channel that makes flipping around take forever. Is this inherent to digital TV? If it is a buffering issue, why can't the box buffer the next channel and the previous channel so that flipping is instant?
Third, I notice that these boxes are crawling with input and output. Firewire, analog inputs, etc. None of them are actually turned on. WTF?
I'm sure I could make this into an article, so I'll just stop.
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First of all, why the hell do you all put up with the ads showing the whole time on the pay-per-view/channel listings area??? All that space is wasted for some inane repeating "preview".
Adding a new channel (which would probably be something worthless like MTV4) would use the channel, but it would add to the licensing costs (which gets passed to the customer). I don't have much use for another junk channel.
Second, in ye olde days of regular TV, you could browse channels by pushing the button on the remote as quickly as you liked. Or before that, you could machine-gun turn the knob and watch the programs fly by. Now with digital cable you have a distinct pause on each channel that makes flipping around take forever. Is this inherent to digital TV? If it is a buffering issue, why can't the box buffer the next channel and the previous channel so that flipping is instant?
The blank screen is the box waiting for the next key-frame to be sent. 10 years ago those were about 1 every second. I don't know how frequent they are today, but probably less so (key frames are "expensive" from a compression stand-point). Each video stream requires it's own video d
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That would require 2 extra tuners.. and if I had the extra tuners, I'd rather use them to record more shows at once.
So why do the fancy boxes with multiple tuners still change channels slowly? Even when the other tuners aren't in use?
On Tivos, all of the outputs are active at the same time.
Yup, Tivo had it figured out a decade ago. Hell, even ReplayTV was better than the cable boxes available today.
Why MSWIndows? Why not Apple TV with a USB tuner? (Score:2)
Why MSWIndows with a cable card?
Why not Apple TV with a USB tuner? Makes about as much sense.
I'll just buy a tuner card or USB box for the Fedora box I use here. Or not. We've done fine without TV for about seven years now.
Re:Why MSWIndows? Why not Apple TV with a USB tune (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple's continued lack of enthusiasm for DRM systems other than their own makes adoption of Cable Card on any of their platforms less than entirely likely, and I'm pretty sure that there is a standing order at Cable Labs HQ that any Linux system not thoroughly Tivoized is to be stopped at the door and ejected by security.
If you are dealing with OTA signals, or snarfing analog feeds from STBs, or using non/weakly DRMed digital media, you have options; but if you want to talk to a commercial cable network, not so much...
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When I had a digital cable box I just plugged a Firewire cable from my Mac Mini into it and wrote a dozen lines of Python code to control the thing. Video popped up in VLC and dumped into an MPEG2 file on the hard drive.
Oh right, they disable the firewire port in the US don't they?
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"Open" in "Open Cable" essentially means "open to more companies than just the two that dominated set top boxes when the standard was developed" (Scientific Atlanta and one other, I think Motorola); it has nothing to do with openness in the sense we understand it, alas.
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CableCard devices requires your PC software to follow DRM restrictions (copy once, copy never). So far only Windows Media Server have them implemented, any other OS/software such as MythTv will only receive the cable channels marked "copy freely" from the CableCard device (no premium channels, PPV, etc)
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I recently dumped the TV portion of Verizon. It was costing me around $100 a month for JUST TV, and that was with what I would consider a small setup. The misses was all for it, EXCEPT for the need for a DVR that was simple for her and my son to use. Not really for them to program, but for them to get at shows that are programmed. We live in area with TONS of channels OTA with an antenna. I ended up getting the Channel Master CM-7000PAL. That and netflix streaming, and I'm paying a fraction o
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They recently bought sage.tv, I suspect what they come up with will look a lot like that.
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There could certainly be some re-shuffling that happens during the merger; but "Mobility" presently includes a variety of hardwired consumer products.
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Your right, Google gets the whole cable division. What used to be GI. Set top boxed, MPEG Encoders, Sat receivers, conditional access systems, all the outside plant equipment. Absolutely everything one would need to deploy a cable system. A shitty cable system, but a cable system non the less.
Re:Uh? I think that's the wrong company.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh yeah like Scientific Atlanta is any better. they all are shitty. Absolutely no CableTV equipment vendor for headend or STB is "non-shitty" they all pile on heaps of "shitty" as a selling feature.
As an addendum to the AC post above... (Score:2)
I will also point out that even if you hate everything Apple with an irrational hatred of a thousand burning suns, an aTV makes a sweet XBMC box, then you really can be in ultimate control of the software on the box.
Anything Netflix doesn't carry (Score:2)
I mean with Netflix and bit torrent who needs cable
You need cable Internet or fiber Internet for Netflix, and you need cable TV or satellite TV for anything Netflix doesn't carry. See archived pros and cons [pineight.com]. As for BitTorrent, which owners of copyright in video make their videos lawfully available over that?
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I can get cable internet without basic cable, but basic cable costs only $15 and if I don't bundle basic with internet, the price goes up $10. So it's effectively paying $5 for basic... /sigh
I do pay for extended, almost entirely for Discovery, TLC, History, and Cartoon.
and you give up VOD and have to use SDV tunners (Score:2)
and you give up VOD and have to use add on SDV tuners in SDV cable systems.
Also can you get out of market sports packs on cable card? Event PPV?
$3 month ok but some systems hit you with a outlet fee and maybe even a cable card HD fee.
There is lots of Free VOD and cable systems like comcast are cutting down on HBO, SHOW, MAX and STARZ HD and they say that alot of that in on VOD in HD.
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and you give up VOD
What's wrong with the Starz-based VOD package that Netflix offers?
how do I built PC? (Score:2)
Build a Windows Media Center PC
Not many end users are willing to take hours of time of work to learn how to build a PC. What brand of off-the-shelf Windows Media Center PC is worth the money?
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Just buy a Mac Mini or any ION machine on Amazon.
There are also plenty of other machines at places like Frys and BestBuy that aren't monsters either.
Building an HTPC is so 2005.
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Maybe. But that used to be true with phones as well.
If Google see money i selling directly to the consumer the certainly have the power to to remove the cable companies strangle hold on the box. And THAT would be a good thing.
I hope they do sell straight to consumer, because I would wager dollar to donuts that it will be a better experience. In fact it might be the only path available to us to be able to get on common recording devices regardless of who you get your TV.
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I dumped mine 5 years ago for something better.
It's time for something new. It's too bad that this particular market won't allow for the next iteration of "some guy in his garage".
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Sadly, because of the Box, TiVO is box dependent, Have Direct TV? you need a special TV? change to fibre? need a different TiVO. Want to record everything at it's native resolution? too bad, me made TiVO not allow that.
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hmm, interesting; however TiVO comes with baggage in that they have made agreements that a company the size of Google would not have had to make.
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