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Open Cable Standard Not So Open
Mike Hicks writes "A few days ago, I heard about the FCC approving new rules for standardizing digital cable in the US. This involved using a set top box or tuner integrated into a TV along with a smart card (much like digital satellite services). Unfortunately, it looks like the standard (believed to be OpenCable) is meant to tightly control the hardware and software that can be used, probably making any open-source implementation very difficult if not impossible. I seem to be having a case of deja vu"
The cable industry is already worried enough about piracy and you can't figure out why they don't want open source set top boxes? Wow.
Does this really come as a surprise? Like cable modems, cable companies will simply issue out cheap hardware for a monthly fee. I suspect that they made several attempts to ensure that they get their piece of the pie. Just follow the money trail.
Analgo boxes weren't designed to be open either. For example you need a box provided by the cable providor to watch PPV or other scrabled channels. Also, most cable systems aren't using an open standard on their digital cable right now.
While an open (but secure for the operators) standard for digital cable be nice and probably better? I think it would. It it going to happen? Probably not. Cable providors have never been very interested in having open systems.
This reeks more of the big boys wanting to ensure that their business model is not broken more than ensuring that a strong, open, and extensible specification is designed.
Sort of like some other technology vs. business model battle we've been discussing here lately...
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
What if your new RCA plasma tv with the Digital Cable tuner built in decides to makes your sattelite tv signal a little less nice? you would never know it except for maybe that "RCA, sponsored by Comcast" sticker in the corner..
Too many games can be played with such systems....
We don't need a standard - we have Pace :o)
Pace pretty much rule the UK cable box industry and are providers for a large portion of the world including the US.
Seriously though we have a totally closed cable system where all channels are encrypted unlike america where basic analogue cable is provided in the clear.
The standard in the UK btw is Euro-DOCSIS - effectively our cable boxes are cable modems with a DVB headend tacked on.
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
What next? Are they going to create proprietary sidewalks and force us to wear certain shoes to walk on it, yet call it an open standard?
This is bullshit.. I have had a Hauppauge WinTV card in my computer for 7 years (okay in a few computers, but still the same card). Works great, saves me a lot of money and space, as my computer is my full entertainment center. If these people think I am going to have buy a device with a TV built into it to use the cable service, they are sadly mistaken. If i am forced to do this then I am going to do one of the following:
1. Go to satellite
2. Get the device required, hack it (oh and it will be hackable no matter how much they try to hackproof it, if it can be built, it can be hacked). Get shitloads of karma on slashdot, and maybe get myself on the front page.
3. Say to hell with cable tv or satellite all together and just buy DVD's, and get DSL for internet access.
I think the cable tv companies should learn a thing or two from the RIAA before they start their own major campagins, that is if they want to remain profitable...
In this digital age, the consumer has more organized power, and you don't want to piss the ones giving you your bread and butter, and your dodge vipers off.
every content provider is looking to incorporate more and more DRM as the quality, cost, and ease of creation of copies improves.
the music industry doesn't care about people copying songs off the radio. it didn't even really get its panties in a bunch when CD-Rs first hit the market. or when mp3s hit the ftp servers. It went ballistic when anyone could download a single application and instantly find a never ending stream of perceptibility loss-less perfect digital copies.
likewise with the MPAA and DVD encryption, likewise with the new Cable Set-top standard.
They want to cut out MythTV, Tivo, splitters, H-cards, and cable descramblers. It's becoming too easy to get at the current data, so they want a change.
with the analog system working (fairly) well as is, why else would they create a new 'standard' for the digital system? It certainly isn't in the interest of the consumer.
Why doesn't Sony support the Blu-Ray with its stock rewritable feature?
Why did Disney/Circuit City/et al try to push (the bad) Divx onto the market in the first place?
It isn't because consumers are clamoring for less control or cheaper movies.
The time is coming when content producers are going to have to realize that their profits will no longer come from format-updates (repurchasing 8-tracks as CDs, VHS classics as DVDs, etc), and will -not- come from service-style access to data. Classic TV advertising may even have to give way to pure product-placement campaigns.
Cable will realize that a move to pay-per-channel is the way to support content without advertising in our new time-shifted digital reality. Some people -will- pay $1/mo for TLC. Home Depot will still pay for product placements in Trading Spaces. Maybe the Super-station will go away - but the cable companies, and popular channels, need not.
the film industry has already shown that the theatre experience is not losing out to cheap cam copies. they've learned that feature-rich dvds or dirt-cheap dvds are preferred to the customer over hacked-together recompressed copies on filesharing networks.
The record companies will need to realize that to win with digital music requires providing the best quality, with the least hassle. They will need to realize that they must beat file-sharing on features. People will give up hunting around for a good (not mislabeled)256kbps rip of Britney's newest song - if they know they can just hit iTunes or its ilk and cough up $1.
Fair Use needs to win out. These purported 'losses' from file-sharing need to be revealed to be grossly overestimated fabrications. (A PSA from a supposed union set painter claiming that file sharing is killing the movie industry, and threatening his job - airing during it's highest grossing year of all time is particularly tactless)
DRM is the tool of the content dinosaur. If they concentrated on actual content piracy rings - where big money is being made off black-market copies, and abandoned their fruitless DRM research - their profits could be higher than ever.
But such is not the reaction of anti-competitive cabals. Being forced to -compete- is not what they do. Suing, threatening, bullying, bribing - these are the blunt instruments they wield instead of the precise tools of innovation, imagination and competition.
So in the meantime - expect every advance to carry DRM in the fine print.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
The way I've read it, I don't see how the open standard couldn't still be implemented in an open source settop box or tuner; the only place it wouldn't be open source would be inside the smart card.
Although it's likely that there would be some requirements ala DVD for ensuring that whatever copy protection schemes are supposed to be implemented get implemented.
I could see TV content providers building some of the hardware into the tv such as a decoder device that works with all devices. So the situation would be this. Get your receiver box from your cable/satellite company (or pehaps some module that plugs into the tv) that grabs the signal and determines if you are allowed to view it and pumps it into the TV using 1394 or something like that and then the TV decompresses it on the fly to the screen. By removing the analog middle man (moving the meat of the hardware to the tv) they could significantly limit the ability to record "unauthorized content" Then they could add an "analog out" port on the tv that delivers only authorized recordable content.
How do you know? You might very well be right but your assumption that this is what Microsoft thought they were accomplishing when they released the Xbox is a clear indicator of a lack of perspective on the problem, which is a mistake that Microsoft is not making.
You act as if Microsoft's video game history goes back only as far as the Xbox, when in reality it goes back much further. Microsoft was publishing games before the advent of the Dreamcast. Then, Sega signed on with Microsoft, and Microsoft helped them with the software for Dreamcast. It would be folly to believe that there was no technology transfer back to Microsoft there. They got a nice look inside the video game world.
Now, microsoft is working on their trustworthy computing crap. Xbox is just a test platform for that. It's actually been quite successful in that you have to physically modify your Xbox to play games to date, though I'm sure that since you can now run linux without hardware modifications, that will change for software soon. However, nothing outside of a hardware hack lets you play copied games on DVD yet, and we don't know if that will ever happen. Outside of a buffer overflow vulnerability in the DVD drivers, this is fairly unlikely.
For Microsoft, Xbox is a learning experience. They could launch nine or ten completely failed video game consoles in a row and not damage the company. However Xbox is continuing to pick up momentum because it offers the most features, and the body of games is slowly becoming respectable. Xbox Live 2.0 will (I think) dramatically increase demand for the Xbox because it will be useful as a media player without hacking, assuming it does everything Microsoft claims - such as streaming of audio and video.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
OpenMyAss. OpenCable project? Did CableLabs try to wear the "Open" name bandwagon in hopes to win OSS proponents over with a privately held Trademarked name? GAH! What fools. What OSS proponent would not gag on their own vomit when they see it?
The OpenCable project is an open, collaborative forum that allows multiple interested participants to help shape the specifications for digital cable products so that the cable industry continues to keep pace with emerging technologies and service opportunities.
Access to the confidential section of the OpenCable Web site, which contains draft specifications not available to the general public.
Participation requires only that you return the "OpenCable Confidential Information Access Agreement" signed by an authorized representative of your company. This simple non-disclosure agreement (NDA) can be downloaded here.
Non-Disclosure? Confidential? Not available to the general public? Tell me again why this is called an "open collaborative forum"?
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
I look at articles like this, and others related to it, and simply laugh.
I don't have cable TV. I don't have satellite TV, I don't have regular TV, in fact, I don't even *own* a TV.
I haven't owned a TV since 1989 and I don't miss it one single solitary bit.
What I *do* have, is a library of over 1000 books. History, science fiction, biography, operating systems.
All the time I have saved by not watching the boob tube has allowed me to do things (like getting out and getting a life, girlfriend(s), clubs, etc.) that TV slaves can only, well, watch on TV.
So don't just sit there watching the nth rip-offs of star trek, or endless re-runs of beevis and butthead, kill your TV and go *do* something!
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
If this was just about beeing able to watch a channel or not, then the method you described would be sufficient - however, this is about plugging the "analog hole" and not opening a much worse digital one. Just imagine - if people controlled their set top boxen, they could record any content and play it back when they want (assuming there was a hard disk inside). They could implement a Skip-30-seconds button on their remotes. All other kinds of evil things could be done that deprive the cable companies and content providers of the contol they want.
If you wanted to avoid this, the hardware would have to be much more expensive, which is probably not what they want.
Duh
. You're a cable company. You make a living selling access to a stream of media delivered out of Hollywood. If you're not directly owned by a media publisher you are in close alliance with them. Are YOU going to make your next generation hardware platform "open" so that any chinese supplier can deliver $150 tivo boxes to your customers that allow them to "digitally duplicate" all your content at THEIR convenience? Are you going to learn nothing at all from the Disney V. Sony case? Are YOU going to give up the ability to control how your users use your service?
This story, while perhaps interesting, comes a year or two late. You might as well make the next story "Joe says sky blue in daytime, film at 11."