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New HD TiVo and Cable Incompatibilities
Lauren Weinstein writes "The rapid deployment of Switched Digital Video (SDV) by cable companies can cause major problems for buyers of the new HD TiVo, preventing any access to some channels."
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Huh?
here.... seems like there's still a transition period where channels are being offered in both SDV and analog
h p?t=357703
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.p
Yeah, when I had cable I watched five different programs. Good Eats, Iron Chef, Stargate. Right now it would be nice to get Dr Who, Good Eats, Iron Chef, Feasting on Asphalt, Mythbusters, and reruns of some old shows every now and again would be cool. Quite honestly, if I had to pay a few bucks to download them, and they had adds, it would still be a better deal than cable.
We are the Borg...
I love the TiVo software, it beats Comcast's DVR hands down, but there are technical limitations. For instance, there is a lot of random artifacting that occurs on digital channels. Even more annoying is the fact that the audio will drop out randomly at times. I'm told it's a problem with the Scientific Atlantic cableCARDs that I am using.
I've also been told that it should be fixed via a firmware upgrade, but the whole point of TiVo is that it is easy an intuitive, but when you have the audio dropping out, the picture pixelating, and now not being able to get channels at all, it would seem as if TiVo may be losing their edge. Of course, most of the problems are because of the Comcast, which is unfortunate, but I'm hoping everything will clear up when I switch to Verizon FiOS at the end of next month.
Charles doublerebel.com
If I had a sig, this is where it would be.
At the present time, I *CANNOT* purchase a device that allows me to record shows I currently record in Hi-Def using my SageTV. Worse, I cannot even prove that last claim because there is no definitive list of channels the my local cable company broadcasts in the clear. Even worse is that there is no promise that the cable company will suddenly flip the switch and deny my access to any given channel.
You will note that as a customer and a citizen of my region, I am willing and able to purchase:
It is with great regret and much pain that I announce today that I will not be spending that money. Unless I can record my favorite shows on the History Channel or Discovery Channel in hi-def, I will never purchase or upgrade my existing television equipment. I will never upgrade my cable plan and should the cable plan I subscribe to become unavailable, I shall cancel the plan and throw my equipment out the window. I can only hope the City, who selects our fine cable company (Comcast), will send a garbage truck to pick it up. Please have it noted this is not a "protest" or a "boycott" but a simple economic decision. It is not worth investing in new television equipment unless I can reliably insure that I can record my favorite shows in Hi-Def.
As a citizen of my region and customer of of my cable company this is my only demand:
Allow my computer to record unmolested hi-def content that has the same quality and capability as those who lease cable owned set-top-boxes or those who own Tivo's
Let it be known, as an advocate of home-brew systems, this shall be my plan:
I shall hope by providing a platform for such discourse, we as a community and pressure our government and cable industry to provide us the same access to our favorite shows as those who currently enjoy them.
Thank You.
They use custom pre-release versions which work with their boxes. Just because TiVo won't make 100 custom boxes that only work with specific systems isnt' their fault, right? And deploying switched digital before the offical spec is complete is no big deal, right?
If you want my opinion, the FCC should forbid any content provider from selling or leasing end-user equipment, and requiring that all providers use a common specification (we do it for OTA, why not cable?). As for my OTA comment - the FCC fucked that up, too. We should be watching 720p, period. If it weren't for all those mama's boy TV manufacturers who were so damned afraid of losing their interlaced teddy bears, we'd have been much better off.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Actually, you can with a Series 2 TiVo. You have to have a Windows based computer to run the TiVo Desktop software (the Mac version won't stream, yet) and you dump your video files to a specific folder in mpeg2 format. Then, on the Tivo you can browse the host computer and pick what you want to watch. Depending on file size/resolution you can watch as is streams or wait a bit to cache enough of the file on the TiVo.
I've never used any of the Myth stuff, so I can't say if it's any easier or harder.
Even better, with TiVo.net, it'll transcode non-MPEG2 files on the fly and stream them to your TiVo, so the issue of converting files beforehand is moot. There's a similar plugin that'll handle all your non MP3 music as well.
This actually isn't due to the cable companies' greed. There are several layers of software on a cable box. There's the firmware, Guide programming (ie TV Guide), and any additional software features like VOD software on top of that. The cable company doesn't write any of it. It's the incompatibility of the software that's the issue. For things like VOD and PPV and now SDV, third party companies provide video servers, the servers that interact directly with the set-top boxes and software that is on each set-top box that does all of the communication back and forth. CableCard 2 is a mandated standard on how this communication must take place so that other cable boxes with the cards can be used in lieu of the cable companies boxes. CableCard 2 covers VOD and PPV but SDV is new and so it doesn't cover it.
Cable companies aren't implementing SDV just to make it difficult for companies like TIVO. SDV is a tremendous way to better utilize the available bandwidth. SDV allows a cable channel in a network segment that isn't getting watched to not be broadcast until someone tunes into the channel. This makes channels completely dynamic instead of being associated with a specific frequency. This will allow cable companies to use a fraction of the bandwidth to provide channels than they use now. They can then use that extra bandwidth for additional channels or broadband.
I was a set-top box developer for one of these third party VOD companies and I was associated with the SDV demo we put together to pitch to some cable companies. Since there is no standard, we do it the best way we know how that works with our system. So there really isn't a conspiracy here. Just companies trying to do business as cost-effective as possible with standards and governmental organizations just trying to keep up.
www.joshferguson.org
(as usual, in a cable discussion, I put my flame proof underwear on....)
Its a little more interesting than that. I am actually a Cable guy who does design for products in MSO (cable company) networks. You are essentially facing two folks who hold the keys to the kingdom, SA and Motorola. The DRM (conditional access in our world, or CAS) is proprietary. FCC mandates that the CAS be separable (as of July this year). Moto and SA complied by providing CableCards. They did not mandate that the two way services be supported (a friend pointed this out to me the other day...very important distinction). TIVO is neither SA or Moto, so they don't entirely get the same access to the secrets of the inner workings of the cable cards (and thus, have issues supporting a two way host; ergo, no video on demand or SDV support). They also need to support OCAP (don't even think about getting me started on this). The open source community is welcome to read the specs for building a device that would talk to a cable card, but getting the technical help to make it work (either with Moto or SA or with CableLabs) would be problematic. One way is not really that hard, so I think that is doable.
Certification is a economic issue (and a large one at that). So where it is nice to put a POD interface in, getting it to work is another thing (plus you need to think about supporting SCTE 55-1, SCTE 55-2, or DSG for the return path...)
FYI, in a typical network, channels in North America are 6MHz wide (either over the air or on a cable plant). Typical encoding for a standard def signal is 3.75 mbps, and a typical QAM channel (256 QAM) has a data rate of 38.810720 mbps, so you get about 10 streams per 6 MHz channel. HD can run up to 19 mbps (really, really rare), so you could fit two (or three if they decrease the bit rate down and thus drop the quality) per channel. Over the air ATSC uses 8 VSB for their modulation, and I don't offhand recall what the bit rates are for that.
-- The Hollow Man
Non illegitimati carborundum