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A Brief FAQ on CableCards
TechNit writes "Just when I thought my Comcast DVR box was not going to change here comes the CableCard. Fascinating concept but I don't see these being used without the added features of Pay-Per-View, Video on Demand etc. that many consumers (me) have become used to. I see these being used more for authentication/theft prevention devices as apposed to stand-alone service providing devices. What do others know about this?" An earlier CNet column points out the shortcomings of current CableCard implementations.
The upcoming CableCard 2.0 standard will allow for bi-directional operations such as Pay Per View and On Demand. The current iteration isn't capable enough to make much of a splash, IMNSHO.
Some of my fellow TiVo users are disgruntled that TiVo doesn't support CableCard yet. From what I gather, they are waiting for the 2.0 standard (this is only rumor but it makes sense).
Neat technology, but not feature rich enough yet.
I know they will be useful for non-Cable company DVR's such as Tivo, MythTV, or MCE, as they wouldn't have to use IR-transmitters and such to change channels.
Tivo cable card box
To summarize an engineer in the cable industry...
CableCard is somewhat a half-baked implementation right now.
Currently, it's only one way, so there is no support for two way device communication required for PPV, VOD, etc., and there is no guide, because there is no memory or provision for the EPG (Electronic Program Guide).
If the industry evolves the CableCard into a truly two way design, with memory and programmability and support for EPG, then it will be interesting. Additionally, an all digital set top costs providers about $70 in volume, while a CableCard is slightly more and has none of the features of the set top.
Really all CableCard is good for at this juncture is tuning/accessing encrypted digital channels directly with your television or monitor, WITHOUT a separate set top; if that's all you want/need, then it works fine. But what would be really nice is if some third-party PVRs or PCI TV cards for computers supported CableCard: then, you don't really care about the guide or some of the other functionality. You just want to be able to get at, and record, content that you can't otherwise get to without some convoluted IR blaster-type setup with an external set top, or being locked into your provider's choice of PVR, and its features (or lack thereof).
I think a big potential use of CableCards, despite their limited two-way featurs now, is their inclusion in HTPCs- allowing for recording of digital cable without having to do weird things with IR Blaster and such. Sadly, the only implementation I have seen thus far was something Shuttle demoed at CES...
Personally, I think its a waste anyway. The only viable cable HD PVR solutions are part of the cable box anyway, so all a cable-card TV gets you is the ability to view the TV and not record it.
Are you talking about v1 or CableCard in general. The reason why cable card exists is to specifically remove the ability of the cable company to control the PVR market (among other things). I personally have no desire to give that much control to my cable company, and prefer a homebrew solution.
When CC.v2 will be released, Hauppauge or the PCHDTV people will release an HDTV tuner that will finally be able to read HDTV/DTV of the wire in its proper form. No more of that MPEG2 -> ANALOG -> MPEG2 nonsense. That in my opinion is not a waste.
Buying a TV that is not just a monitor OTOH is a waste. There is no reason why a TV should do decoding, and a whole set of other things. Give me a component analog/s-video/DVI/whatever that other raw digital format was, and that is it. Anything else will be absolete long before the TV is. The more separation of components the better. And CC v2 is in part enabling that.
badness 10000
well a hacked cable card would be the same as a pirate digital cable box. i assume they exist? i have heard of pirate analog cable boxes, and ways to trick DSS boxes. if they do not exist now, i am sure they will.
one thing with digital cable boxes/cable cards is that they generally use something like a MAC address and that number is associated with your account. when you don't pay your bill they zotz the box(es), or when you change programming. you are effectively on a cable company private network so if they have the software they could possibly track down rogue devices..... though from the nature of the cable system it might take them a while to zero in on which actual house/apartment is using that device. that i am guessing from the stories of cable modem users' local networks including a printer hooked up to a neighbor's pc.
Why is it tat all new technologies are focused on three things: 1) preventing "theft" and 2) being cheaper to produce (with consumers pocketing *some* of the savings. 3) The fact that I would be paying for things I oppose (see below).
There's a reason that I have never wanted to get cable and this is it. The fight in the cable industry is not to bring better programing or features, or even to lower costs for us, but to reduce our ability to use (within our rights as well as without) the content provided.
Over the years Cable Companies and the "watchdogs" who are supposed to be supervising them (FCC) have been focusingmore on how to compel us to purchase new products (HDTV) than on how to safeguard our rights to use our cultural products. The cable companies have been spending lavishly on this from their profits. My purchasing of their products and services (like shopping at Wal Mart or purchasing Microsoft's products) supports their political agenda by filling their war chest. I suppose I could just donate to the EFF as well but that just ups the cost for me.
Yes I miss a few shows that are interesting, yes by shopping at more expensive (locally owned) stores I pay more for basic goods than I would at Wal Mart. But, when I factor in the cost of my freedoms, freedoms that are impacted adversely by supporiting the companies that I oppose, I find the skipping the movie, shopping locally, and using linux far far cheaper in the long run.
why are ir blasters so bad? mine's working great, and i'm not even pointing it at the cable box. i got a writeup on my blog:
http://mythtvbox.blogspot.com
I agree with CNET's "Five reasons to not buy a CableCard".
t ml for an NGNA primer). The cable video industry is a bit peculiar to the computer and networking crowd because there is basically only proprietary systems. There are standards-based components and approaches, but by the time a whole system is built, Set Top Boxes are not interoperable across multiple systems. The the kicker: with mostly analog video on cable systems, usually almost all the bandwidth was tied up with programming. That left no available spectrum to introduce a different, competitive system. Once a vendor got into a city, the operator never changed over to a differerent vendor in that city, because the switching cost was too great.
There's a long and sordid history in the Cable Industry behind the CableCard. From the outside it seems like a fine idea, but none of the insiders wanted it, so it happened slowly. Now that it's here, it's obsolete as the version available now only supports 'one-way' video services, i.e., traditional broadcast TV. EPG, VOD, built-in PVR, and more interactive services, all require two-way communication, which is not in this version.
There are specs in CableLabs for the two-way version, but it's not clear if they're finished or even workable. And more likely the existing specs would be trumped by the industry's NGNA -- Next Generation Network Architecture effort (see http://www.cabledigitalnews.com/ngna/ngnaprimer.h
There's a chance this will change, due mostly to digital TV requiring less bandwidth, pent-up demand for new technology (VOD & PVR primarily), and the great success cable has had with DOCSIS-based Internet Access (they make a ton of money on it!) leading to some appreciation for open standards and interoperability. We'll see.
Isn't firewire written into the HD spec?
Aren't all HD devices supposed to have firewire ports on them?
So all the tv's of the future would have f/w on them, no?
And if my above understanding is incorrect- if you have a cable-card interface (whether is via a pcmcia adaptor, a pci card, a usb adaptor or a firewire adaptor) that's all your MythTV (or other roll-it-yourself PVR) would need. No more set top box needed. Get the cablecard w/ adaptor, plug into MythTV setup and go.
http://slashdot.org/~tf23/journal
I'm still unclear if one cable card per setup will be of any benefit...
If I put a card in my TV, my VCR, which comes before the TV, won't be able to tune the channels, will it?
Maybe picture-in-picture will work, but what about all the other circumstances where you have multiple tuners? Watching one channel while recording another, etc....
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Actual question on the site:
Does CableCard support Wi-Fi?
Not yet.
What the fuck? WiFi? I hate this notion that everything should have everything else in it. What possible purpose does WiFi serve in an authentication card? None.
Other possible questions:
Does CableCard support printing my favorite vacation photos?
Not yet.
Can I use CableCard like a CreditCard?
Not yet.
Can CableCard be exchanged for Wishes and Dreams?
No.
Can I write on CableCard with markers?
On Tuesdays.
Many of these interfaces use DRM-- both the sender and the receiver may have IEEE1394 jacks, but the sender may choose to encrypt its data-- and key exchange is often dependent on whether the devices trust each other.
If the creators of MythTV have not signed the requisite contracts promising, basically, that "users will have no rights", your MythTV will have no easy way of decrypting the data.
But, what if I don't want my TV communicating with the cable company?
I really don't care for PPV and on-demand programming. I don't use them with my TiVo now; why would I want to use a CableCard in my TV that bypasses my recorders so I can only watch that content live?
And maybe I don't want them to be able to audit what I'm watching. And no, I don't like that they can do that with my cableboxes now. (Though they do get a skewed look about me based on what my TiVo records as suggestions.)
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
ANSISCTE282004.pdf
I guess it's open after all. Although I hope there's no proprietary software initialization that you still need to actually make it work.
If I could take my CableCard to a friends' house, snap it in, and watch the channels I subscribe to, or bill the PPV to my account -- then it would be something to write home about. I know I'd have to assume that either cable company is the same at my friend's house or has some sort of "roaming" agreement -- but don't I pay for cable -- not my house? And if I'm away from hoome...that cable subscription is basically useless.
FCC mandates that cable companies need to make firewire control possible as of early 2004: Link
If you live in the US you should be able to do something about this.
Its not in cable's interest to deploy CableCard technology. They'd rather you rent a $10/mo box forever instead of buying a CC-equiped device. Its a lost revenue stream. Even if they charge you $1/mo for the actual card (it still remains their property, you'll NEVER see a CableCard on e-bay since end-users are never allowed to buy one), you're losing a large amount of revenue in equipment rentals.
So what do they do?
As anyone with a CC equiped set know, they provide shitty service and support to cablecard customers. Staff I've talked to dont get informed. They have to search the web to go and find information on what TVs have difficulties and what to do about it to fix them. The software is still buggy, despite the FCC mandate that CableCard be operational on July 1 2004.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
I just purchased the cheapest Toshiba rear projection HDTV out there -- the plain ol' 46H84 (???). It's a big-ass 46" rear projection HDTV monitor with just the right amount of inputs for the crap that I have. I paid just over $1000 for it to be delivered. Not the best price, but not ridiculous either, given that it replaced a 5-year old 27" Magnavox tube television.
So, I saw this News.com FAQ the other day, and I had a talk with my boss before Christmas about this CableCard crap and when the best time buy an HDTV will be. When I talked with my boss, I researched the CableCard ready Toshiba DLP projection HDTVs that are in their lineup. Pricing was higher than their entry level DLP projection HDTVs, and certainly a lot more than my dinky rear projection HDTV that I just bought.
Anyway, my conversation with my boss got me thinking...what happens when the CableCard slot shorts out or fails after the first year of warranty coverage? What happens if one of these new integrated card readers on some of these HDTVs stops reading SD cards from your camera?
My thinking is this -- you just paid $3000+ for a nice HDTV with CableCard a year ago. Now, if you didn't get sucked into a bullshit store service plan for $500 which might not cover a failed CableCard slot, you're stuck with a relatively new TV that has trouble getting digital cable or satellite services. Or you've got a TV that, 1-2 more years, will have this nice little HOLE in the front of the console for that SD card that it can't read, thus screwing up your pricing if you decide to sell it used.
I say stop the integration with the most expensive piece of hardware in my entertainment center. I'm not paying $3000 for a receiver or a DVD player. Those are relatively inexpensive items that I can replace in a pinch if need be. But a $3000 TV ought to be stable enough -- in terms of integrated features -- that it won't require replacement or a repair for something that can just as easily reside in a satellite or cable receiver in my A/V rack.
Not to mention the fact that, if I DO have a service plan that will fix it, I run the risk of sending off my nice $3000+ HDTV to someplace that may F--- it up in transit or during repairs, or, based on stories about Best Buy service plans, not come back for 3-4 months. The TV should stay put, and keeping it simple -- without all this extra crap built in -- is the safer bet, I say.
Or at least make it a modular add-on to the back of the TV that can be purchased for a reasonable price and, thus, replaced if broken at a reasonable price.
IronChefMorimoto
TiVo submitted a letter to the FCC this week suggesting that cable operators are not doing enough to promote the CableCARD and are not inclined to promote it, especially the more advanced cards which allow dual tuners. TiVo argues that it is not in the cable operators economic interest to promote them and that the cable companies are trying to completely control their access, guides and channels to the detriment of competitors like TiVo. http://thomashawk.com/2005/01/tivos-letter-to-fcc- and-will-microsoft.html