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

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.

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

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.

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.