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?"

Comments

rental fees ain't bad.

[Lumpy]

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...

Re:rental fees ain't bad.

[zoward]

On the flip side: I have Charter.net. Modem rental fees were $10/month for a cable modem priced at ~$100. I've had mine for 2 years, saving myself $140 by buying the unit. However, the price of rental just went from $10 to $3. So it seems to vary from situation to situation. You alos have to wonder how many extras (PVR being a good eaxmple) a third-party box might have.

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

What is this thing?

[ArcSecond]

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?

Re:What is this thing?

[grammar nazi]

...but how will current SetTopBox monopolies take the news?

Easy. They will do what all monopolies do when competition enters their markets. They will either squash Sony's box through legislation or deals with the cable companies, or, they will lower their prices.

Competition == Good for consumers
ALWAYS.

Re:What is this thing?

[papasui]

Actually the FCC passed a bill around 1996 that requires cable companies to support other digital cable boxes besides the ones they provide.

Re:What is this thing?

[Abcd1234]

This product appears to be geared toward cable operators (MSOs) who are providing a digital tier as part of their services. You see, in existing cable systems, the entire network must be fairly homogenous. ie, the same set-tops in the home, the same headends in the network, etc, etc. This, of course, locks an MSO in with a particular vendor and reduces competition. According to the hype on their web site, they are providing a product which allows multiple types of set top boxes and multiple head-ends from different vendors to exist in the same network. IOW, it allows the MSO to mix and match hardware to suit their needs.

As for the term "Legacy CA Agnostic", this is actually quite important. What they're saying is that you can roll out this "Passage" technology in a cable network without disrupting the existing cable access system. So, you could roll out a new type of STB in homes if you wanted, or allow people to start purchasing STBs from other vendors, without breaking your current network set up.

As for the architecture, it appears to involve replicating signalling and control data for each of the STB types in the network (using encryption to separate the "channels") and then doing regular broadcast for the video stream. At least, that's what I can get from their Architecture description (which is rather vague... surprise, surprise). This allows for multiple STBs while keeping bandwidth overhead at a minimum, since only the signalling needs to be replicated.

Freedom to choose _multiple_ STBs?

[jki]

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

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 :)

Re:Freedom to choose _multiple_ STBs?

[papasui]

Sure, around 1996 the FCC passed a bill that would require the cable companies to support 3rd party digital cable boxes besides the ones that they rent out. Just as there's a the DOCSIS standard for cable modems, there's standards for the digital box. Any fairly new cable box should work on most digital cable systems, it does require that it be provisioned (authorized) on that cable system by enter the box number into the system.

So you know the name of the first hack already ;-)

[cheros]

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]

Choice - for whom?

[Bazzargh]

This reads like it gives /cable companies/ more choice in STB's, not consumers. So it will let them change suppliers on a whim. This might provide consumer benefits (lower rental costs) but since the alternate destination for the savings is higher margins for the cable co's, I wouldnt bet on it.

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

Perhaps I'm missing something...

[Blacklaw]

...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

Re:Perhaps I'm missing something...

[class_A]

A better example would be Sky in the UK. You cannot view encrypted Sky DTH satellite broadcasts unless you buy a specific Sky branded receiver. This limits the viewer to a range of "approved" boxes which differ very little in basic specification.

In Europe, viewers can purchase a generic DVB-S decoder with the features they want and then plug in the required encryption module (similar to a PCMCIA card) for the encryption standard that their chosen provider uses.

The UK situation will hopefully change next year as the European Union is forcing all broadcasters to move to the modular system, which will mean that Sky will have to release an encryption module for those generic boxes.

Flashback

[1stflight]

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 ?

I Speak For My Tribe When I Say "Huh?"

[RobotRunAmok]

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.

Re:SetTopBox monopolies...

[Martin Blank]

From the perspective of the geek, there is no company with more personalities than Sony:

They're a member of the RIAA (BOO!!!)

But they came out with a driver that reads and writes both DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW (YAY!!!)

But they're a member of the MPAA (BOO!!!)

But they come up with technology like this that allows competition in what are now monopoly situations (YAY!!!)

Sony is about the only company out there that we can pretty much agree we both love and hate at the same time.

Jeopardy

[evilviper]

but how will current SetTopBox monopolies take the news?

What is: "Not Well", Alex.

Be carefull...

[onlyabill]

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.

Re:Be carefull...

[sarabob]

No.

The way the CA system is proposed to work is to leave the majority of the packets in an MPEG stream unencrypted, but to encrypt "critical" ones. Frame headers, Slice headers etc, I guess. That way you can have the majority (99%) of the video stream in the clear, but the video is still unwatchable. To this, the cable operator takes *two* copies of the critical blocks, and encrypts them with the two different CA keys. The STB can decrypt either of the two sets of critical blocks to get the original, complete stream back.

The more bandwidth you allocate to the Passage system, the more blocks can be counted as "critical" and the better the security. It's not a DRM thing.

TiVo owners say "yayy"

[jspayne]

Don't forget now that Sony is a major licnesor of TiVo software...can you say TiVo in a cable box? I knew you could...

Jeff

Re:So you know the name of the first hack already

[teamhasnoi]

Your Mom's Face?

Geez, I'm kidding already.

Hmmm...

[dasmegabyte]

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.

Re:So you know the name of the first hack already

[tswinzig]

Hint for those that haven't reached the required caffeine level yet: you're sitting on it.

Chair?