Slashdot Mirror
Sony Introduces Passage
UncleCrispy writes "Sony, a newcomer in the cable industry announced its new technology, Passage, on the opening day of the BroadBand Plus Show to the receptive ears of the cable community. "Sony's Passage Technology is a simple, elegant solution that allows equipment from multiple vendors to peacefully co-exist on legacy digital CATV networks"
Now you won't be stuck with the SetTopBox your cable provider forces on you, but with Passage you should be able to go to the store and buy any box you want. If you want a DVR box, you can buy it, and you'll no longer be stuck with the rental fees.
Sounds like it's a good deal for the cable providers and consumers, but how will current SetTopBox monopolies take the news?"
hmm my cablemodem costs $100.00 in the stores. my rental fee is $5.00 a month. I have had the cable modem die twice in 2 years and they replaced it for free because I was renting it while my neighbor had to go buy a new one from the store..
I figure that I'm way ahead of the game because I rented. and next year when the Cable company changes a few things and requires a change in the calbe modems, I get a free one while he has to buy another modem...
what's the advantage of owning your cable equipment again?
BTW, I had my digital cable box replaced once in the past 2 years also...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Sony works against a monopoly? Warm coats are on their way to hell right now, I guess. Can you be more ignorant of Sony's business tactics?
I wonder if they'll plug this as hard as they did with their other products: by writing advertisements-as-articles in Salon and National Geographic.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this doesn't sound like a Sony product for the home, but one for the cable companies, right? I'm sure Sony will have consumer products associated with this (ie PS2, some new PVR, other integrated A/V gear), but with stupid-sounding buzzwords like "Legacy CA Agnostic", it must be aimed a the pointy-haired crowd out there.
Anyone know who they are competing with? Is this a transport protocol + hardware, or the other way around?
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
Is that really so? Maybe I misunderstood the whitepaper but to me it seemed like the main benefit would be that you can now make multiple set top boxes co-exist. The cable provider may still force you to buy their preffered STB also (by encryption for example) - but now you don't have to buy that only :) Or...
Maybe I misunderstood it completely, if so, could someone explain the concept more clearly than the whitepaper does :)
But the SetTobBox-providers will be forced to pay licence fees to Sony?
Apart from that, it sounds like a great idea. Standards that allow competition are always welcome!
Well monopolies will be surely very mad for Sony about this, they might even try to find a way to sue them for anything.
Instead, Small manufacturers will be partying today, tomorrow, and day after that, cause they will finally have some 'edge', as customer can choose the box itself and small manufacturers might get their boxes sold more often. =)
Sony go go!
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
I did, didn't I. It was hard typing all that in the space of 30 seconds, let me tell you. That is why I can be forgiven for not updating the changelog to add that V1.2 has some formatting improvements as suggested by Genii Consulting (getting it right the log(n)th time).
No prizes for guessing what the first hack of this standard is going to be called. Hint for those that haven't reached the required caffeine level yet: you're sitting on it. Duh ;-).
[Ch]
Insert
I guess we have geeks/enthusiasts for every possible field/product in this world... I didn't get most of the "terms" they used in the specifications.
interesting concept... but will the cable companies accept it ? Is not that the BIG question here ?
|/________
|\A|ALYS|
Quote from the passage blurb: "With Passage, operators can introduce[...] innovative set-top boxes". I don't see how you can read this as "With Passage, operators can introduce innovative services on commodity set-top boxes", which is what the /. article imples.
-Baz
...but it sounds similar to something we've already got here in the UK. When ITVDigital went bust, the old set-top boxes could still receive the 'free-to-air' digital channels, such as BBC4 and ITV2. To get more people to switch on (no pun intended) to digital television, the Government (who are talking about switching off the old analogue system sometime in 2004) told set-top manufacturers to make more of these old boxes.
The result is that you can buy FreeView boxes for £100 which pick up around thirty digital channels - without paying a subscription fee. And it's not just a BBC monopoly - any broadcaster who shoves out a free-to-air digital channel can be picked up on a FreeView box.
I dunno, I'm probably missing something incredibly clever that Sony have done to make this 'new'.
-Blacklaw
Not only posting a link to a WinInfo story that's, like, over a week old, but can't be arsed to preview it before posting.
Get some more coffee, looks like you need it!
-MT.
I'm remembering how a Sony exec once said they'd "firewall file trading at your PC". And I can't help but wonder if this is somehow part of that ?
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
Chair? :)
-MT.
Now Sony is protecting us from those evil American Empires Motorola and Scientific/Atlanta, as well as that nasty Canadian robber baron Videotron, as well as all those evil Korean STB monopolies? Um, Ok, great. Thanks.
Next time, will somebody please circulate a memo reminding us from whom we need saving? I'm losing track.
Also, this is not a consumer product. The Western Show where Sony made it's announcement is a Cable Operators Trade Show, a Comdex for the head-end and pole-climbing set. You can't walk into your local Radio Shack or Circuit Shack, buy a spiffy Sony Passage sitting up there on a shelf next to their Vaio's and PS2's, take it home, and give your Motorola box back to Comcast.
The key to understanding the role of the Passage, as I take it from following the links provided, is that the technology enables cable operators to purchase and deploy the 3 NEW SONY STB's ALSO BEING ANNOUNCED at the show. It would seem to allow a plant with existing S/A or Motorola infrastructure to hopskotch around their implied commitment to deploy S/A or Motorola boxes in the home, and use the new Sony STBs instead. The roll-out is presumed rather painless as well, as the Passage seems to allow old school and new Sony boxes to co-exist for an infinite time.
Of course, the technology economics of cable head ends are all balanced among the one-time-only cost of the legacy headend gear, and the presumed-to-be-ever-growing costs of the franchise build-out and additional STBs. For this reason, companies such as Motorola and S/A are typically inclined to provide sweet deals on the former encoder "razors," cuz they know the real money is to be made on the latter STB "blades." Sony wet-blankets those economics now. I'm sure the immediate fall-out of Passage will be a re-wording of a lot of their rivals' sales agreements locking low costs for the head-end gear into commitments for minimum STB purchases.
More business for the lawyers. More meetings for the salesguys. But none of this effects a consumer's "choice." You'll take whatever your cable company puts on top of your TV, end of story.
Assage ??
I understand and appreciate the Slashdotter's concern about monopolies etc., but Sony is where it is today because they produce better products than the competition. The Clie is better than the palms, the Playstation was better than the Saturn, the minidiscs were better technology than anything at the time.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Way to go!
I think its 2010 that there is goning to be no analogue tranmission at all (well thats the target).
:)
he bbc dont have a monopoly but they are technically the only people we have to pay our beloved TV License for
the gits!!!!!
Kingdom of Loathing (www.kingdomofloathing.com) Addicted is me
Since when was digital cable legacy?
What is: "Not Well", Alex.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
and fit the set-top function inside. The tv has become enough of a tower-of-boxes. Let's see if we can take one off the top. Standardization like this is the first step.
Remember the old days when quadraphonic was coming, but nobody new exactly how? Marantz had the plug-in on the bottom of their receiver where, whenever the dominant quad decoding scheme emerged, you'd be able to buy and plug it in.
Oops, quadrasonics didn't fly. But I still wish cable boxen could be a plug-in nested inside my TV or VCR. Signal and remote control interfaces, etc.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Since when has anyone seen the cable companies LOWER thier prices, I think this just gives them another reason to RAISE thier already high prices. Giving everyone the opertunity to purchase thier own STBs will cause them to have a plethora of thier own STBs laying around collecting duat and not generating rental fees. I will stick with my DirecTV.
[n8.r0n] http://petesweb.spymac.net/
Is it only me, or has this title something really weird ? I mean, "introduces passage" sounds like hard pr0n to me. Add "Sony" to the mix, and it imagine how it turns. At least it's not a dupe.
People, go to www.opencable.com.
Moderator: please moderate this up.
BackPassage. ;)
Consider, Sony doesn't exactly drop lemons in the laps of consumers and they have built a solid name with their products. I'm even using a VAIO laptop (though it's 3 yrs old and I consider it slowwwww, it's still an excellent design and has withstood much punshiment)
I'd look at how this flies in the face of what Microsoft has been attempting to do with entry into the set-top and TV-centric market (which is lackluster at best, but highly lucrative if they ever could exercise that monopoly power again) The XBox was not just a game, but planned as their gateway to managing your TV viewing (with games, internet, spying on you, all that good stuff...)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Just be carefull here... Remember that Sony is the same company that uses digital rights technology in their MP3 players.
To quote from their site:
Passage is efficient. With Passage Technology the customer experiences no degradation of existing services. A typical Passage system requires between 2-10% additional bandwidth* to deliver the same content and services including the new, secondary CA system. This means that Passage can be introduced in a system without changes to the existing channel line-up.
*Utilization of bandwidth overhead is controlled by the MSO. Utilization of more bandwidth increases security levels.
Is 'security levels' another word for digital rights management? I just have a hard time believing a company that goes through so much trouble to install DRM into their audio products would not do the same in the video market. Other posts have mentioned freedom to choose your own set-top box. That is not discussed on the Sony site. The freedom of choice is for the cable companies, not you or me. This could be good and it could reduce consumer costs but don't bank on it. It may just give the cable companies even more control over what you watch and how.
I have to use this cause I can't afford a real sig...
Jeff
Yes, I know that TW has a PVR now, but it sucks goats. I like TiVo, and I want to be able to buy one box that can do everything I want. If this can help that happen, I'm all for it.
Of course, I'm under no delusions, and will be suspicious of anything that the cable companies do that look like it's going to benefit me, since customers are not their #1 priority...
"but how will current SetTopBox monopolies take the news?"
By exploiting the DMCA and decrying Passage as a copyright circumvention device, of course.
This sounds like a great idea. Please Sony make a PVR compatible with StarChoice!
One of the telecom acts (not the one in 1996, something more recent) required that the cable companies allow access from third party boxes. However, this requires that there be a technical solution. Sony has now announced that one exists, and the cable companies agreed to a standard a few months ago.
This means that he reality of competition should take hold in the next two years. This is great news for consumers.
I switched from AT&T Broadband to DirecTV. The choice in receivers (particularly in HDTV STBes) was part of my reasoning. With an Open Cable solution, cable users will eventually get things like dual-tuner Tivo devices, but not until the cable companies send everything in digital.
In Boston, I could my first 60 channels or so in the much higher quality analog feeds than the over-compressed digital cable feeds.
This will be good for consumers, it will just take time.
Expect a Sony-branded Tivo enabled cable device within 18 months.
Alex
One must look at this in terms of the bigger picture (no pun intended). Some are saying that Sony is going up against the big boys, well no, the FCC has mandated that cable systems get the collective act together and enable consumers to purchase their own STB's retail and be able to use them on any cable system (The Telecommunications Act of '96). I believe they have until 2006 to make this happen. This is similar to the DOCSIS standard for cable modems.
Gentoo Rules, Debian Sucks
In Soviet Russia, cold gets YOU.
AND.
Women are hairy.
We alreay have "legacy" digital cable networks?
Most people I know still haven't switched to digital.
What about "FreePassage"? That would be my pick.
And I want a prize, dagnabit.
SONY is very, very prorietary, owns signifcant music and video properties, and is very Digital Wrongs Management(TM) oriented. IF you do get a selection of devices, they'll all use memory sticks for RAM, require a Clio for use as a remote control, and every music and viedo device will be locked down under RIAA and MPAA approved techniques. No thanks.
How is that possible ?
LP
I gotta say, I'm getting pretty damned tired of these posts. Not only do people who post this sort of thing merely prove that they are incapable of making distinctions between good and bad things without resorting to child-like simplifications of categories ("Microsoft: ALL PURE EVIL. Linux: ALL PURE GOOD. No exceptions possible, lest the world become a complicated place with gray areas and stuff!"), they get up on their high horse and berate everybody else for being mature enough to say "Yes, X is largely evil, but action Y is a good thing overall." Talk about opening one's mouth and removing all doubt...
Even one person can do good things while being more-or-less evil, or do evil things while being more-or-less good. Instead of accusing everyone of being a hypocrite (and perhaps worse yet, moderating such things as "Insightful" of all things! as of this writing, the parent isn't moderated but previous messages of this type often are), why not grow up, get with the program, and recognize that under the label Sony is a complex company, comprised of thousands of complex human beings, that can not be boiled down to one word "evil", OK? And hold the insufferable "Look, me see hypocrites! You dare think Evil Thing did good thing? Hah! What you think next? Linux may not be God's Gift To Man in every way? Fool, Linux is All Double-Plus Good! No Evil possible! Gray areas impossible! Detailed thinking just hypocrisy! Ugh says so!"
It's slightly offtopic, but something that I've longed for is the possibility to get rid of all those stinking cables between my home entertainment units. They should invent a cross-manufacturer compatible standard that enables you to just daisy-chain your stuff with fiber-optic cable. Sony invented something similar in copper, it was called Lissa i think.
That would really be a treat.
Geez, I'm kidding already.
how will current SetTopBox monopolies take the news?
How about, "They'll take it up the ass"?
I think General Instruments, Scientific Atlanta, Toshiba, Telstra and the half dozen other set top box developers might be a little surprised that they are "monopolies." They might wonder why the face such stiff competition every time a cable agency adopts a new technology.
:).
Of course, if you're talking about a local monopoly you may be misunderstanding the problem. You rent a box from your cable provider but they don't make much out of the deal. A modern digital box might be about $100 on the open market vs the $30 your telco pays when buying in bulk, plus the cost of remotes, maintenance and so forth. The new DVR boxes are even more expensive. And your average cable co charges less than $5 to rent the box. Around here, Time Warner is considering charging $15 per month for a 30 gig DVR box, which is only $5 over what Tivo costs per month. And if you want a new box...well, just break the one you've got
I remember when TW brought out the first box with an on-screen guide. I was totally impressed -- they were selling on screen guide services at $5 per month and here TW was offering it for free with the normal addressable units. When they brought out the first boxes with digital audio out, there was no additional charge -- just ask for one. To this day you have a choice of optical or coax when ordering a new box. They also have a number of different remotes.
Choice seems like a good idea, but cable companies are in the business of getting you to pay monthly. They find little ways to make this affordable, no matter how much you think they're fleecing you. And covering the huge up front cost on boxes with that small rental fee is one of them. That's why AOLTW's cable division reports a nice profit every quarter while AOL bleeds like a stuck pig.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Maybe this will help in the Firewire v. DVI realm. I would prefer to have HAVi enabled Firewire I/O on all of my components, and I'm guessing the big cable companies will want DVI since the big studios are pushing it. I'd love to be able to replace my DVI-based TimeWarner box with a HAVi enabled component.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
"Competition == Good for consumers
ALWAYS."
Hmmmm. Stagecoach [bus company from Scotland] went into small areas and undercut small local coach operators, by initially making losses, and driving the competition out of business, leaving consumers with no choice.
They amassed huge profits, became dominant, using their now competition-less environments to fund expansion into other areas, and spending millions on campaigning against equal-rights for gay people.
Always, my arse.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Hint for those that haven't reached the required caffeine level yet: you're sitting on it.
Chair?
"And like that
My cable modem used to cost $10 a month. I guess a lot of people were buying their own modems though, because recently the company raised internet prices by $7 and lowered the modem rental to $3. Didn't change my bill at all. But if you were using your own modem, now you are paying more.
God I hate AT&T.
my cable modem was free! no monthly rental fee! free lifetime replacement if it breaks! regularly achieve 500-600 KB/s (i live in CT, USA)! no limits on amount downloaded per month (aside from capability of hardware)! has gone down only once in past 3 months (all cable service was down for a few hrs)!
w00t w00t!!
Cablevision's Optimum Online.
Having worked for Scientific Atlanta..I cannot comment on the "empire" but it is most definately evil.
Real Evil.
I work in the Digital TV / Set-Top-Box marketplace, and all I can say is that very few people really understand all the jargon being used here. Certainly the result of a combination of specialized and complex technology with marketing gone mad :-)
I'll try to explain it in simpler terms though, and I hope this will help everyone here understand what Passage really is, and why it's not so hot for the consumer. Imagine that you decide to broadcast a new TV channel when all you've got is a *big* pile of money; i.e. you have no previous experience or contacts in the field, you do not own cables, satellites, or anything of the sort. You can become an "operator" if you find the following items:
you'll send digital signals, which means that your viewers will need a special set-top-box (named "STB" for short) to descramble your signal and view it on their TV.
if your channel is not free, the STB will need some sort of "card reader" to identify each subscriber and control which programs they're allowed to watch. This is called "conditional access", or "CA" for short
a STB "recognizes" your signal from all those that it receives from the cable or satellite through a unique ID. You'll need to reserve one or more of such IDs, as well as bandwith, to your carriers (i.e. cable or satellite operators)
you need to produce and send your signal to your carrier. The signal contains video, as well as other kind of data, like the encrypted list of valid subscribers along with their individual rights, that you'll periodically insert in the stream, or the list of programs to come this week
This is done with specialized hardware (e.g. MPEG compressors, multiplexers), as well as specialized software written to drive everything. All of this costs a *lot* of money, and is called the "head-end".
Several companies on the market are able to provide you with "turn-key" solutions, which include everything from deals with STB manufacturers (like Pace, Philips, Sony, Thomson Multimedia, etc...) to TV production studios. All you have to do is pay some cash, and they'll choose everything for you and make all critical technical choices.
Now, consider the following:
there are several competing CA technologies on the market today. They differ on the way they scramble the video signal and subscriber access rights, and much more importantly, on the way they encrypt and protect user identification on each "access card".
each CA technology specifies a card reader technology, a card manufacturing technology, a digital file format to store the access rights, and specialized software to encode your subscribers list, which generally comes straight from a big database (like an Oracle one). This means that changing your CA technology is not possible unless you change all of your STBs and your costly head-end. This is by no means trivial.
A typical STB has about 60 distinct devices to control, and its software is a very complex thing that must be able to drive everything, while controlling video and running application, like the electronic program guide, or even Java applets in certain cases.
This software is generally not written by the STB manufacturer, but by a specialized company, like NDS, OpenTV, Canal+ Technologies, etc... In theory, these companies must be able to adapt their software to various CA technologies. In practice, they all implement a single CA technology that they either designed themselves or licensed from another party. These companies also develop specialized head-ends that only work with their technologies.
the format of the data contained in your signal is not standardized yet. It is thus only determined by your head-end and STB software. The only thing that these various formats share is the fact that they encode all video using an MPEG-2 codec, all other data varies tremendously except that they're mostly embedded in an MPEG transport stream. Some experiments with MPEG-4 video codecs are currently being performed, by the way...
All this means that operators cannot easily change the technology they're using to broadcast once they've selected one. There is no monopoly since several competing technologies exist for both CA and STB/Head-end software, provided by distinct companies. However, there is a lock-in once you've signed one of these "solutions".
It's really diffcult to know what "Passage" really is from the Sony brochure. It seems clear that it incorporates a migration tool that can be used by operators to smoothly switch to "better" technology without changing everything immediately. However, what these "best technologies" are is left unexplained. It may be that the tool is flexible enough to adapt to anything new, but I would doubt it. I rather supposed that it will only be used to switch to Sony-approved STB+Head-End software :-)
As for consumers, this will change absolutely nothing since they will not be able to choose their STB, except from the models "approved" by their TV operator(s).
I'm just about to ditch AT&T Digital Cable, because their default box where I live has had its S-Video and digital audio connectors removed. Probably saved them $10 per unit. I recently begged them to let me either rent or buy a full version of the same model box from them. When I mentioned the 1996 law which says customers have a choice in 3rd-party set top boxes, I received their response: --- We are in the early stages of Beta testing converters with S-video and Dolby digital 5.1 outputs in select regions for the eventual launch throughout our enterprise. We do not yet have a time table for when these will be available for lease in your area. According to the information provided at the FCC's website, http://ftp.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/Orders/1998/fcc98 116.pdf, subscribers have the right to attach any compatible navigation device
to a multichannel video programming system as long as the equipment does not provide the unauthorized reception of services.
If you wish to register a converter you have purchased with us, please contact our Cable Television Customer Care Group at 1-888-633-4266 for assistance.
You are allowed to purchase your own converter, we will not support it, nor guarantee that it will receive all the channels that you subscribe to. Also there have been cases of people buying converters on line that are stolen from other regions, it is our policy to report any such incidents, so choose whom you purchase your converter from wisely.
If you have any future questions or problems, please feel free to email us again or contact our Technical Support line for further assistance. We are here 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When replying to this address, please include this message as well as all previous correspondence regarding this issue.
Motorola has a digital cable, surround sound receiver, dvd player, etc. all-in-one box coming out (or already out). The Motorola DCP501 is the perfect solution for most people in an apartment or duplex that want all the goodies but don't have the room for all the pieces. I can't wait to buy/rent one -- soon as Mediacom starts supporting DD5.1 in my area.
This is mostly Sony helping themselves (brilliantly) what is most likely happening here is that Sony is suddenly making a much belated entry into a field dominated by Scientific Atlantic and Motorola. The issue they are running into is that the MSO's and cable operaters are working on equipment that links the head-end to a particular set of set-top-boxes.
This technology allows cable operators to use the Sony boxes on systems that previously may have only allowed Motorola boxes.
Personally the Sony/Digeo Moxi box may be the coolest thing around.
"Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to m
20% lower costs than the town hardware store, widget stores, etc.
No skills. No livable wages.
The widget store had replaced the heads on my VCR pretty cheap when there was a problem involving children and food items.
The hardware store sold me on a more expensive paint that "el discounto paint" when the showed me that 1 gallon went further (and mentioned a neighbor who backed them up on it). Saved me money.
I bought from them, even at higher prices and less hours.
The workers and owners of the local stores spent money at my computer business even if I charge more than "jimmy the neighbor kid" per hour. The hardware store office had an internet connection that I built a firewall for, that I served mail for.
But competition is good, I hear.
Locally owned stores now out of business. The MART store buys their supplies overseas or from MART-Central. I've lost a lot of business. Lots of business in town have lost business. The drug store used to get plumbing supplies from the hardware store, the bank used to get lights and such from them. The banks used to have the accounts of the local businesses. The MART banks somewhere in another state. Now the bank mostly handles minumum wage paychecks.
The workers make minimum wage and most can't get more than 28 hrs/week - so no benefits. Nice kids there, just no skills. No long term investment. Some hardware lackeys working there. Ex-Owner doing some contracting work to make ends meet. He knows his tools.
The town dies a little more.
Was the "monopolistic" HW store abusing its power? No, I could drive 20 minutes to another one. Were they over charging? No, there costs were higher and, most important, they provided benefits and living wages for their employees, who then spent their money locally and added to the community.
The MART will string people along. The people will make less money; more people will hit the dole when layoffs happen as they continue to live month to month.
This does not mean "consumer choice"...well sort of, but the ONLY choice is Sony. What this allows is a cable MSO to purchase the Sony headend equipment, then in turn allows Sony boxes to co-exist on a system that has another digital conditional access / encryption system (i.e. S-A or Motorola). What does that do? Well, IF the MSO chooses to install the equipment, and IF Sony sells the boxes retail, then consumers can buy Sony boxes instead of leasing from the MSO. Big whoop. Who cares. MSOs upgrade frequently. PVR boxes are already coming out from S-A and being offered. If you buy, you're locked in...or you get to give Sony more money for a new box. ALSO, this is an increadible oversimplification of the problem.
From what I can gleen from sonypassage.com, this addresses multiple encryption systems. There is a LOT more than that to deal with. There are applications thatrun on specific platforms (VOD, xOD, games, e-mail, web browsers, and more) and supporting multiple platforms would be a nightmare to the MSO, which in turn could drive UP cost of service, cost of support, (and thus your cable bill) and maybe even drive down reliability. Closed systems have their advantages. As consumers they may not be obvious, but as someone who has worked in the cable industry for nearly 20 years, I know there are a lot of considerations that consumers, and even the FCC, just don't "get".
When Sony (or whoever) comes out with product (virutally impossible) to make all systems co-exist, then maybe there will be something to talk about....but oh, gee, that wouldn't be a "product", that would be all of the mfr's following a single standard -- standards which have been "out there" but unagreed upon for many years in the U.S. And the problem with standards is that although they may allow competition, they also can stagnate technology growth because changes/enhancements to the standards can never be agreed upon quickly, and it takes manufacturer incentives away from improving them b/c their effort also helps out the competition.
Climbing down off of my soap box for now...
Anonymous coward #841,217,793
Channel's 2-13 came in direct, pay channels were scrambled, 14-upper needed the STB (tv's now tune the upper cable channels just fine).
In the 80's, we got VCRs. These played tapes but they also tuned channels so they could record. We set them to channel 3 and hoped that we remembered to set the STB to the right channel before the show we wanted started.
Or we went direct and couldn't record the pay or high channels.
Or we got A/B switches and splitters and Dad got a headache every time he had to record something.
TVs now directly access all the channels. But we need a whole STB at some cost to tune the pay channels or, in some places, ALL the channels to decrypt them. So my STB goes into my VCR (which has an IR mouse for the STB) which goes into my TV. I still have A/B switches. (e.g. it still causes headaches).
My new TV is just a monitor. No tuner. It's HD in fact.
It's hooked up to my (old) VCR for tuning. Which is attached to an STB to decrypt some channels.
Remarkably, the STB has never really gotten smaller. I *have* the one from 1979. It had push buttons for each channel, but it's the same size. They both make like room heaters. Didn't IC's make things smaller?
Proposal
DUMP THE STB NOTION
It's out of date. It's nearly 30 years old. It's in the way.
In each Tuner (VCR, TV, Tivo), put a card. perhaps something that looks like a PCCARD (pcmcia), perhaps not.
When the card is in the Tuner, perhaps the tuner will divert the (tuned) video feed THROUGH the card with info about the channel on a data feed.
The card will do the descrambling it might need or (better) provide information/software to descramble to the tuner (the tuner might have a generic DSP).
Volume costs? About $10 tops. No case, no power supply. here's the extra:
I have a high quality tuner. I get to use it.
They start pushing HD down the pipe, they don't need to replace every STB. It's software. Upgrades are easier.
Extra Credit:
Can we discuss that, with the rate increases for cable since the comcast/ATT merger that wouldn't raise rates, that perhaps Congress could mandate HD over cable by, hmmm, 2006?
How about getting the freaking fiber into the house. I'm tired of ground loops and worrying about lightning down the street taking out my VCR. I look forward to affording an HD tuner that feeds my new TV via firewire.
Yet you wish to eat it, too.
The world is grey, is it? That has always been the rallying cry of the insignificant; the sheep who follow as they're led to the slaughterhouse.
An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an
anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt
already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the
engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later
the physicist understands too and chuckles to himself happily as he now
has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the
mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he
was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of
humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too
trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny.
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