Slashdot Mirror

Because the local cable monopoly has proprietary data on the wire requiring the use of a proprietary set-top box. This makes it impossible to use Myth, since you cannot plug the cable line into a capture card. You can plug the output of the STB into Myth and record it, but the remote protocol is proprietary as well so Myth cannot change channels, in addition to analog degradation of the digital signal.

Tivo suffers from the same issues. The moral of the story is that you use Comcast's DVR or none.

That may be for TiVo series 2 DVRs, but not for TiVo Series 3 and HD DVRs. However, most channels do require the use of a cable card. These channels are flagged so any programs recorded on these channels can not transfer. The problem with MythTV is it unable to utilize a cable-card capable TV tuner card due to digital restrictions management.
http://www.opencable.com/downloads/DCAS_New.pdf

Speaking as someone who works for the cable industry, this is a dollar short and a day late. The cable industry has already taken steps to increase competition in the cable box marketplace. http://www.opencable.com/ The Opencable platform is going to be the next generation of the cablecard technology (which already suits his needs btw). Cablecard was created to allow cable subscribers access to the digital channels on their own devices. Basically cablecard is a hardware secuirty token that allows access to the cable network. Opencable takes this a step further by defining the schema for interactive, two way services. This means that not only will you be able to access the cable channels (like cablecard) you will soon be able to access VOD and other "interactive" services from any device that supports this open standard. This is just another frivilous lawsuit brought about by somebody who is totally ignorant of what they are suing over. I hope this guy spends thousands of dollars only to find this out. Next time he should turn to Google before he turns to his lawyer.

There's already an initiative by CableLabs called OpenCable (OCAP) that allows for retail cable boxes.
http://www.opencable.com/ (now Tru2Way) http://www.tru2way.com/ for anyone who wants to be informed instead of jumping on the "evil cable" bandwagon

The specs are available here. "Tru2way" is merely a rebranding of OCAP.

Woops, make that "ostensibly". Suck it, spelling trolls.
And check out http://www.opencable.com/primer/cablecard_primer.html if you want
to know more about cablecards.

And a couple of honest answers:

I've posted about CableCards before, and yes they DO work...when they work. When each piece of the system is compatible, CableCards work great. We have verified that our Motorola DAC will talk to our CableCards via our billing system, in a host with compatible firmware. Unfortunately, the host is the customer's TV/Tivo from any number of manufacturers. When their firmware is incompatible, or the proprietary guide doesn't populate, the cable co gets blamed for these problems. We do our best to solve many of these situations, even though they are not our responsibility. The original 1.0 revision of CableCards was capable of two-way communication, but Consumer Electronics companies decided not to utilize this capability. Link: http://www.opencable.com/primer/cablecard_primer.h tml The older cards were single-stream cards, meaning they could tune a single channel at once. The newer revision which are preinstalled in our Motorola DCH's are M-Cards, capable of decoding multiple digital streams at once. Unfortunately for the consumers, CE manufacturers continue to build TV's that lack a diplex filter and other parts necessary for integrated 2-way functionality.

To drop analog cable would requires a digital tuner in or behind every TV in every home for our subscribers. We could go all-digital in a very short time, effectively eliminating ourselves as a competitor for those who can not purchase a new TV. We are currently working with Motorola to create a "dongle" style digital converter. The "mini-box" would be capable of being authorized on a channel-by-channel basis, using the removable security (CableCARD) currently mandated by the FCC, and still provide compatibility with older analog TVs. If we could get such a product for less than $100 cost per unit, we would order 20,000 of them tomorrow.

A la carte depends on all-digital, and it is technically feasible. There is a reason DISH Network advertises their content as all digital...on transmission it is, but once you hook up your sexy Dish HDDVR via regular coax and tune to CH 3 to watch, you're back on analog. However, the upfront AND longterm cost for cable companies to do so AND offer a la carte will be quite high, and like ANY business, cable companies will pass the increased cost to consumers. Additionally, contracts will need changed, something that will move at the speed of a jellyfish in January.

I suggest taking a look at the CableCARD Primer which gives a good overview of this topic.

Btw, CableLabs is one word (no space inbetween).

// Sean

CableCARD has not always been bi-directional.

The franchises are contractually obligated by the terms of their agreement with cable labs to insure that the CableCARD is not installed in an unauthorized device. Otherwise the cards' serial numbers could be entered at the head-end before they were even sent to the customer, and they could be activated via push-data broadcast over the entire network the same way non-CableCARD STBs are currently activated. The receiver ID wouldn't even be needed.

Current CableCard technology is one-way only.

There are two parts to bi-directional support - technology and licensing. Series 3 supports the technology, but in order to support bi-directional functionality, manufacturers must agree to certain terms and conditions. A license called CHILA exists, but is unacceptable to many manufacturers, largely because it requires devices to interface with cable through OCAP, which means that rather than using protocols to access pay-per-view content, it has to use the whole cable operator middleware. Companies like TiVo, which pride themselves on user experience, tend to find this wholly unacceptable.

There are efforts to create a new license that does not rely on OCAP, but until then, I doubt TiVo will support bidirectional CableCARD.

Later this year, Comcast will be rolling out TiVO's Open Cable software. It will use the existing DVRs. It will use the Open Cable specifications. Hopefully it won't have too many bugs. I doubt it will have any home networking stuff, but you never know. At the National Cable Television Association conference this year, Motorola showed off the ability to schedule recordings from your cell phone, and hinted at being able to watch content from the DVR as well. I'm sure COX (being somewhat more technologically advanced than Comcast) will also be offering UI choice.

From http://www.opencable.com/

"The OpenCable(TM) initiative, managed by the Advanced Platforms and Services group at CableLabs, began in 1997 with the goal of helping the cable industry deploy interactive services over cable. Like several other CableLabs projects, including DOCSIS® and PacketCable(TM), OpenCable(TM) provides a set of industry standards. These OpenCable standards help achieve the goal of interactive services by meeting three key objectives:

      1. Define the next-generation digital consumer device.
      2. Encourage supplier competition.
      3. Create a retail hardware and software platform.

As such, the OpenCable project has two key components: a hardware specification and a software specification. The hardware specifications describe both one-way and two-way digital cable-ready "host" devices that are interoperable with cable systems throughout the U.S., thus creating a retail solution for consumer electronics products for cable. The software specification of the OpenCable project, called the OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP(TM)), solves the problem of proprietary operating system software, thereby creating a common platform for interactive television applications and services. Interactive (bi-directional) OpenCable products require an OCAP middleware stack, but the OpenCable Unidirectional Receiver (OCUR) does not."

Of course, I don't think just anyone will be able to load up an application for the settop box, but it is a lot better than the bad old days we're living through now. From what I've read, there will be oppertunities to write small applets for settops. However, the cable companies might just do what Verizon Wireless does and lock out anyone who doesn't pay them for get it now access.

You have a good point - putting media onto the Tivo (ie DVDs) is something you're going to have a problem with. My point is that the tivo does quite a lot, quite well, with almost 0 config.

As for cablecard, the 1.0 implementation was pitiful. 2.0 will be slightly better, and OCAP shows promise. It's definitely not going away. And the good news for all of us is that cablecard tuner cards (as well as satellite cards for DirecTV) should ship some time this year. It's still a good move by sharp - Cable card in an expensive display is a dumb idea. You want sharp providing your PVR/PPV/guide software? There's gonna be a box plugged into it somewhere - put the cablecard in that.

http://www.opencable.com/ocap/
http://www.hdbeat.com/2005/10/19/cable-cards-2-0-c oming-in-2006/

I gave up on TiVO after they wouldn't let me transfer my lifetime subscription to a new unit (only a referb at my cost) after their software upgrade turned it into a paperweight.

However, there's a standards group called Open Cable that will roll out later this year. It will allow development of new applications across all cable box platforms, and make it easier for retail set top boxes. This is how TiVO will get back in business, in my opinion. There is no way they'll be able to beat Motorola and Scientific Atlanta/Cisco on volume, cable system integration, or hardware support. Cable companies are good at just swapping out a bad box and giving you a new one (one of the few things they seem to do well. Troubleshooting is a whole other problem). How can they compete with that?

http://www.opencable.com/

OCAP will soon be taking care of that.

I don't agree that binary drivers would be enough to satisfy the OpenCable robustness requirements. For example, Windows Vista includes a whole set of DRM features in the OS. Implementing similar features on Linux would be either a huge amount of work or impossible.

This is the real bummer here. Without CableCard, or its satellite equivalent, we will never be able to build an HD PVR, let alone some PC-based system. And even WITH CableCard, we miss out on Pay-Per-View, On-Demand, and other services (at least until the probably-never-to-see-the-light-of-day CableCard 2.0 that should be out sometime in 2007). I have a Comcast HD PVR. It works ok, although compared to my Replay 5000, it is pathetic, in terms of conflict management, predictability, etc. However, the Comcast box lets me record 2 HD streams at once. The Replay is only standard-def. As far as I can tell, Comcast is trying its hardest to derail CableCard. As for Satellite, don't count on anything, even as lame and rudimentary as CableCard, in the near future.

If you are interested in specs, you might start by lookin here. It's as far as I have gotten so far. It looks as if they use a standard PCMCIA connector. http://www.opencable.com/downloads/specs/OC-SP-RPL CC-I01-040621.pdf/

They have done a lot of viciousness to prevent that. You would unlikely be able to use it out of region and operater. Look at http://www.opencable.com/specifications/

I believe this has something to do with the OpenCable intitative. I know that there was talk of an HD Tivo being built for OpenCable.

For the life of me, when will cable companies find a new vendor for their equipment?

A very large part of the problem is that the cable companies are locked into the proprietary encryption systems used by SA and Motorola (each has their own). The cable companies have a big investment in the necessary compatible headend equipment. Neither vendor is in a hurry to license the encryption technology. So while other companies can build much better set top boxes (STBs) in terms of the UI, they can't build boxes that are compatible with the existing digital system. I used to work for a cable company that desperately wanted to have more vendors building STBs, but the options of (a) licensing the security IP or (b) building a logical overlay network using some other technology were both ridiculously expensive.

If ever widely adopted, CableLabs' OpenCable system shows some promise of separating the security functions from the rest of the box and making it possible for other companies to get into the business. In the mean time, we're stuck with the crud built by the incumbents.

What is really needed is a card you can stick in your computer that has a CableCARD slot, so it can be authorized to decrypt the digital cable channels. Anyone heard if something like this is in the works?

It is not in the works because such a card would probably be illegal (see Exhibit B).

Ok, here's some tuners that will work on Linux.

First of all, check out this site to get the dvb drivers. For ease of use, they also have a patched kernel tree in CVS you can pull down and compile.

Second, if you're a non DirectTV satellite customer, you can get HDTV sat streams if your provider conforms to the DVB-S standard (ie not DirectTV). Or, if you're in Europe and your standard cable provider conforms to the DVB-C standard, you're in luck as well. Snap up one of the TechnoTrend cards from here. These have been reported to work with MythTV.

Now, for us in America and some other select countries, we're out of luck in the cable market.
We've seemed to create another standard called OpenCable that the big boys like Time Warner are using.

As of right now there are no OpenCable cards available for Windows or Linux. The best we can do is OTA ATSC...

There's a standard, called OpenCable, but the cable industry hates it. There's a huge battle going on right now, involving the "broadcast flag", the FCC's rules on opening up the cable box market, the consumer TV industry, and the content people.

The cable industry certified to the FCC that they were in compliance with the OpenCable standard as of January 1, 2000. Ask your cable provider for the supposedly-available "digital POD" (a smart-card like device that handles the encryption) and see how far you get.

Here's some information about this from the FCC:
FCC DTV Standards

and the people that made the standard (OpenCable, same people that made DOCSIS):
OpenCable Standard

Where's OpenCable when we need it?

Because that's what's really locking TiVo out of the digital cable biz. They can't directly operate on a digital cable wire, and the companies such as Scientific Atlanta are not releasing their decoding specs so that TiVo can make a box compatible with cable systems that run their backend equpiment.

Analog CATV is standardized, cable channel 27 in one town is on the same frequencies as cable channel 27 in another. OpenCable will basically do the same for digital. It should be noted however that OpenCable is leaving decryption and conditional access for others to handle... they're just defining a slot in which the system provider's choice of smart card that that will handle that stuff goes into.

Slashdot has written before that this isn't quite the same as Open Source in the way that it's usually thought of here, this is a hardware spec that pretty much gives up a single-channel digital bitstream to the device's wishes once the access card lets it go.

In the future, this could lead to "digital cable ready" TVs and devices, including TiVo that won't need the assitance of a settop box. But, of course, the present digital cable system makers don't want to give up their cash cow. That's why the current digital cable device makers can eat TiVo's lunch right now...

The only thing that ever came from that groundbreaking deal was of provoking the biggest players in the cable industry to form their own development alliance. These boxes were to use java and offer all kinds of gee-whiz features that would make cable tv so compelling everyone was going to throw away their (windows) peecees and mild bill would never again be so foolish as to try breaking into the cable hardware industry.

You see now how far it all got... on both sides of the aisle.

The thing you want to see is OpenCable, which should be coming sometime around 2005-ish, give or take. It's not exactly wonderful, but it'll let you pick up a digital cable box at a local store and plug in into whatever company provides in your area.

TV over IP will be quite a while before it hits mainstream, just due to bitrates. MPEG-2 is still king (at least until MPEG-LA and MPEG-4 part 10 settle down), and it's 2-4Mbps per SD channel, 19Mbps for HD. Cable modems tend to max out at 6Mbps theoretical.

But still, the idea of any IP device receiving IP TV in anathema to broadcasters. They want hardware copy protection and encryption, so it'll be quite a while before you can watch HBO realtime on your PC in digital quality.

This may be a reality sooner than you think. The FCC (on direction from Congress) has mandated that the Cable Industry have an Open Cable Standard (suprisingly enough called OpenCable) that would allow you to purchase a cable box at BestBuy and bring it home (Amended Telecom Act of 1934, Section 624a, c.2.c). Your local cable provider would provide a POD (PCMCIA card) that would decode the signal and provide it back to the box to show on your TV.

The whole purpose of this is when you move to a different cable provider, you can use the same box and just get a different POD to decode the signal

According to the FCC, the Cable Industry had to have a working example by 2001, and they did (well, close enough to count). Hopefully we'll start seeing this make it to the consumer before the mandated 2005 date...

See the OpenCable Initiative and this article in Cable Today. There is a July 1st, 2000 deadline but many cable operators have applied to the FCC for waivers due to deployment delays.

Btw, does anyone know if it's true that Apple cancelled it's 1 dollar licensing charge for Firewire ports? (By (un)popular demand?)

The answer is "depends on who you are". See "Apple caves in over FireWire licensing" in The Register.

The company today announced it was forming a 'patent pool' with key FireWire licensees Compaq, Sony, Matsushita/Panasonic, Philips and Toshiba. Together, the six companies will develop and implement a collective licensing programme.

In effect, the move takes Apple's FireWire intellectual property and shares it out among the six companies ...

I realize that Slashdotters are computer-centric, but try to remember that FireWire's current focus is on Digital TV. The American standard interconnection for digital video (between cable boxes or digital camcorders and DTV sets, for example) is OpenCable HDNI, which uses FireWire as the hardware layer. With the US being forced over to DTV over the next decade, that adds up to a lot of FireWire ports.

The $1 per port fee was never going to fly with the home electronics market, which is objecting strenuously to a "mere" 5 cent (US) per device fee for licensing the 5C copy protection system which is also part of OpenCable HDNI.