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."

Comments

Re:Even in cable systems that don't have SDV

[Animats]

Huh?

Control

[Leftist Troll]

These devices have been crippled by the cable industry's obsession with controlling their content.

They need to give up and accept that no matter how hard they lock it down, someone's going to post torrents of all their hit shows. They might as well give us a functioning solution to decode their content, instead of the joke that is CableCard.

Re:Control

[Pentavirate]

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.

More background from TivoCommunity

[voidstin]

here.... seems like there's still a transition period where channels are being offered in both SDV and analog

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.ph p?t=357703

Oh no

[Joseph1337]

But the porn channels... why!?

if we had a tough FCC,

[jay2003]

they'd stick to guns on the CableCARD mandate and shut down cable systems that were not compatible with 3rd party devices. With a credible shutdown threat looming, this problem would get fixed in less than a month. I know it will never happen due to the huge campaign contributions politicians get from cable companies.

I'm not convinced the cable companies are doing themselves an favors. I'm unlikely to upgrade from my old analog cable if can't have an HD Tivo. Cable companies seem to think HD is a form of crack people cann't live without but I'm doing just fine on analog.

Re:if we had a tough FCC,

[svendsen]

Come on you know you NEED cable and HD and everything else they sell. I've come to the realization that nothing on TV is worth what is being charged. I just dropped all my HBOs, Showtimes, digital cable, boxes, etc. for plain old standard cable (76 channels at a rip off price of $50).

The funny thing is the lady on the phone kept saying she didn't understand why I didn't want all this great stuff.

Re:if we had a tough FCC,

[Anonymous Monkey]

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.

Re:if we had a tough FCC,

[planetralph]

Try over the air HDTV. Antennas still work and work great with HDTV. www.antennanweb.org will tell you what stations you can get. I didn't upgrade cable to HD when I got an HD TV, but I got an antenna and its working out great for network HDTV content. With an HD Tivo box I would have plenty of content at hand, so I wouldn't need cable's 100 stations. My kids don't want me to cancel their Nick and Disney channel, but if Comcast jacks their rates up after my 1 year trial is over cable is gone. Ralph

Re:Even in cable systems that don't have SDV

[Anonymous Coward]

What can't understand the long run on sentences some people type I can't believe your not with times you needto figure out comprehension abit even words missing will do.

Preemptive Counter Flame

[Anonymous Coward]

No doubt there will be countless "TiVo Sucks" comments. Usually by people who believe that building their own MythTV box (costing more than the price of an HD TiVo and 3 years of service) is better than paying a monthly or annual subscription to TiVo.

Here's the rub. TiVo is powered by Linux. Every time you tell someone to build a MythTV instead of buying a TiVo, you're re-enforcing the argument that companies cannot be successful and use open source software. That's right. You always sit there as armchair CEO's and wax poetic about how running or selling open source software can be profitable... that companies can have a successful business model by selling services (i.e. Redhat). And yet when a company comes along with a service plan, using Linux as their OS, and selling an awesome product... you say that only a fool would pay subscription fees and try to spin your own.

Thanks a lot folks.

Re:Preemptive Counter Flame

[grasshoppa]

Ok, but here's the counter argument; MythTV and TiVo are two completely different products, each serving different needs. So while yes, myth does end up more expensive, you get far more for your money.

In my specific case, I couldn't live without MythVideo. I have tons of videos stored on the thing, all accessible from the click of a button. Instead of having to hunt down the DVD, plop it into the machine and navigate the fucking ads and menus, I just click a button and watch the video. Last I heard, TiVo can't do that.

Re:Preemptive Counter Flame

[jollespm]

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.

Re:Preemptive Counter Flame

[Galaga88]

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.

That's not the only problem...

[rbf2000]

I've had the TiVo HD pretty much since the first week it came out. I've had a dual tuner TiVo in one form or another for the past few years so I was really excited when the new TiVo HD came out. However, I've been less than impressed with it.

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.

Re:That's not the only problem...

[wavedeform]

The artifacts are a known HD TiVo problem that should be sorted out with the next upgrade. Series 3 TiVos (which are also HD) do not exhibit this.

Reason: Cable Card 2.0 standards dispute

[philam3nt]

This has been well known in the Tivo/Windows MCE/Non-Locked-in Cable-Box community for some time, and was blogged on engadget, which has a fantastic summary at Engadget: Cablecard 2.0 is ready . However, knowing most of you won't RTFA:

At this point you should be asking, what is stopping TiVo or Microsoft from creating two-way, multi-stream CableCARD devices? The answer is, some CE companies are not happy with the certification specification that CableLabs has decided on. As we previously discussed, the point of contention is the OCAP requirement...

...to put it in layman's terms, this would cut out the middle man, -- where the middle man is your cable company. With OCAP, TiVo couldn't deploy their software on a two-way host device without the cable company's approval, so the concept of going to the store and buying a TiVo that works anywhere wouldn't exist unless every cable company agreed to distribute and support TiVo's OCAP software -- this is how the long-awaited Comcast and TiVo agreement is going to work. The same might also be said for Vista Media Center, Microsoft would have to develop an OCAP VM in Vista Media Center and then work with each cable company to get them to deploy their user interface...

...In the end, we hope that the FCC steps in and requires CableLabs to certify two-way devices that do not require OCAP.

Charles doublerebel.com

CableCards

[iPaige]

Even when cablecards follow the standard it's a botched job 90% of the time. Here, read this article on OCUR. http://www.maximumpc.com/article/ocur Microsofts own lead for the program couldn't assist in getting the cablecards working. Shipped by two of the best PC manufacturers in the business, and due to the backwards ass way it's setup, completely unusable on arrival, or with aide from the cable company / microsoft / whomever wants to try. If that's the future of Media Center PC's, I'd rather just get downloadable content.

cablecards and company-provided STBs

[Icculus]

Weren't all the cable companies supposed to be using CableCards in their own new set top boxes by now? How are they handling this problem with those units?

Re:cablecards and company-provided STBs

[Overzeetop]

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.

Re:cablecards and company-provided STBs

[Anonymous Coward]

(Noted that you work for a small cable company, which is probably not Comcast or the like; this is a general response to their implementations -- if yours is somehow better, more power to you. Your cable company should expand and make billions with a better product)

Because traditionally your on-screen programming guides have been slow, unwieldy, and at least with the ones that I've seen, contain more and more dead space used for invasive advertising. Cable-company provided STB's are also notorious for missing recordings, scheduling problems, etc. The TiVo, in general, has provided a fast, responsive interface that WORKS, and they provide the scheduling guide. Their inserted advertising, that I have seen so far, has consisted of:
1. An item or two on their main menu you can select for more information.
2. An indication during a commercial for a TV show allowing you to hit a button and schedule a recording of the next airing.
3. A pop-up *during a recorded advertisement for a product* that can take you to more information (generally their current menu ad sponsor, with a URL or two) on that product.

Note that none of this gets in your way of setting up a recording, or even changing channels to what you want to see. Did I mention out the *SLOW* part of the STB's provided by cable companies (SA and Motorola boxes). Then there are the televisions with their own built-in TV Guide implementations that, at least from the ones I've used, are STILL faster and less cumbersome than the cable company's STB interface.

Re:cablecards and company-provided STBs

[Overzeetop]

The problem is that there are 18 different (ATSC) acceptable formats, and the result was years of delay and tons of poor products. I don't have any problems with sports on film, and that's only 24fps. Interlacing is a crutch of television technology, and the inabilityof 1950s technology to get horizontal refresh rates high enough to do progressive scanning. The problem is that the FCC decided to let the decision made by someone else - and the result has been two decades of poor results.

I'd prefer they chose 1080p/60 back in the 90s, but I'd be just as happy with 720p/30 or 720p/60. I can't tell the difference on my 125" projection setup, to be honest, though there are those with larger screens and better eyes who can do so - especially when they watch their favorite test patterns. Still, there is absolutly no reason for interlaced video today - it's not how the cameras work anymore, and there is sufficient horsepower in dedicated chips to decode 60 frames per second. Higher frame rates are nice, but not at the expense of the deinterlacing gymnastics that has to be done on the back end.

On behalf of all owners of MythTV, SageTV...

[coryking]

I would like to take this minute to extend my middle finger to both the FCC and every single person who works or owns stock in the cable and media industry. You people created a mess with this HDTV stuff and you all should be ashamed of yourself.

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:

• $1,500 for a LCD Hi-Def TV
• $1,000 in computer upgrades
• Up to $10/mo more in cable fee's

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:

• Create a community website that lists what channels are currently in the clear for a region
• Provide a user friendly guide to understanding "hi-def" including terms like "QAM" and "5c"
• Provide a user friendly guide to constructing systems that can record and play back hi-def content.
• Provide resources for citizens to lobby their cable company and local government.

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.

Re:If we had a smart government

[bcattwoo]

It's not a public utility, it's not using public property like the phone company

Really? Do you have some sort of fancy cable-less cable company that doesn't rely on public rights-of-way and utility easements to get its product to its customers?

aim at foot, pull trigger

[voidstin]

You'd think that with downloadable TV (appleTV, revision3, democracy, youtube, etc, etc) becoming a real threat, cable companies would actually want to embrace products people love. I have DirecTV and am stuck with the HR20 for HD. It is awful. I'm thinking that 60 bucks a month could go much further on Netflix and iTunes...

It's not like it's going to take a lot to get customers to ditch time warner and/or comcast.... these companies are reviled.

Re:If we had a smart government

[coryking]

At least here in Washington State, the city elects a "cable franchise" that is granted access to use the city's cable infrastructure. The city has an oversight board composed of citizens whose task is to make sure the cable company isn't screwing people.

If you wanna change the system, at least here in Washington, your best bet is to lobby your city government.

To the Early Adapters...

[Toonol]

Thanks to all of you who are cutting edge, purchasing all these incompatible devices under the spectre of still-evolving standards. When I, and the rest of the world, follow in your footsteps three years from now, the process will be smooth and error-free because of your trials and tribulations.

Seriously, I'm grateful for you guys. You take it on the chin so we don't have to.

Re:You know what works almost as well as Cable? OT

[MbM]

Agreed. All you need to recieve over the air HD is a UHF antenna and a digital tuner.

I bought a device called an HDHomerun just for this purpose. It's an inexpensive dual tuner reciever for unencrypted digital content; streams content over ethernet to any computers on the lan. Now my only concern is harddrive space; storing the shows in their original quality can take 6G per hour -- not that I'm complaining, it's noticably better than the pixelated crap my (analog) tivo produces.

And how do to you propose to get that content?

[Alzheimers]

Who's network will be distributing that content? Hint, for a lot of broadband users, it's their cable company.

With net neutrality in contention and backbone infrastructure reaching capacity, how far is it of a stretch to assume that you won't see some kind of throttling of video content from a provider who's also trying to sell you their video service on the same wire? For ordinary people who just want their video to look good and get delivered when they want it, once their AppleTV or Netflix or whoever's selling downloadable content turns ugly then they'll blame those companies, not their cable company.

I think the battle between the telcos and VOIP was nothing compared to the bloodbath we're going to witness. The cable companies have the FCC in their pockets. Who do you have?

Re:When will people ever learn?

[Kirby]

Yeah, I hear some people are using this new Linux thing, but Windows 3.1 works just fine!

Seriously, there's a substantial gap between features between the two devices, including:

* Ability to record high definition on the TiVo (VCRs are very poor quality, which is easily noticeable, especially on modern televisions). Ability to record good quality of non-high def shows as well. The new boxes even record 5.1 sound.
* Ease of repeated recording of favorite shows
* Ability for device to know the difference between first run and rerun
* Ease of delete without subsequent quality loss
* Not taking up valuable space with stacks of videotapes
* Ability to auto-record based on keywords (Particularly nice for sports fans), directors, actors, and such.
* Auto-fill of space with shows you like. Seems small, but I _always_ have two or three Simpsons and Buffys sitting around, so I don't end up watching Home Improvement on a slow Sunday when I want to veg.
* Ability to record two things at once.
* Ability to watch something recorded while recording up to two live shows.
* Ability to pause, rewind, and fast forward 'live' tv. Very nice if the phone rings, or if nature calls!
* Ability to auto correct for schedule changes. No more losing track of a show when Fox moves it to Saturdays, or miss the last 10 minutes of Lost because it's a 70 minute episode! This is not a small feature. Tivo has an excellent track record at being on top of this kind of thing.

Now, there are downsides, mostly in the cost department, but if you consider television to be a hobby, I highly recommend tivo. (If you think TV is a waste of time, and are reading this thread, well, is trolling really a better use of time than tv? Honestly.) Other DVRs provide most of these features, and are better than a VCR, but Tivo still has the best featureset. Hopefully, they'll work out these cutting-edge-technology stumbles in a way that's good for current consumers. (But I've had the original HD box for almost a year and never had any problems.)

Who The Devil Wants Them?

[Vengance Daemon]

The whole digital TV, Blu-Ray, HD DVD, TiVO, and cable TV mess just makes me tired all over. I am watching less and less TV these days because the quality of programming just stinks. There is no cable news channel that isn't, as Scott Adams said in another context, "nuttier than squirrel poo" - they all cover the celebrities and the Nancy Grace outrage of the week type of junk; and the broadcast networks have totally been taken over by accountants with seemingly no artistic sense whatsoever.

Why all of these goofs want to make it MORE difficult to watch TV is beyond me. Dorothy Parker wrote a great poem called "Parable For A Certain Virgin" that really sums up my feelings about DRM and the MAFIAA nonsense very well.

Nothing New

[Cramer]

Nothing new to see here. SDV has been a problem for 3rd party cable hardware from the get-go. Tivo owners have been in this mess since the Series 3 was released A YEAR AGO. The only thing that's changed is the price for the Tivo HD... it's now cheap enough for some of the village idiots to aford one.

As for the BS comments w.r.t. cablecard requirements... SDV isn't part of those requirements. And wouldn't matter if it did. All the products on the market (and there are things other than tivo's that cannot support SDV, btw) are UNIDIRECTIONAL devices. There are no certification paths for bidirectional devices. (partly because there's no set standard because the cable companies keep changing their mind.) SDV is 100% unnecessary. Cable companies have plenty of capacity if they drop analog cable entirely or even start using the parts that no longer carry stations. (TW/Raleigh has room for ~40 HD stations above the analog broadcasts. That number goes up every year as they reduce the analog tier.)

The reason SDV exists -- and, btw, it was created by Time Warner and Scientific Atlanta -- is to subvert the cablecard mandate and attempt to push back the "integration ban" that took effect (finally) July 1. It's the difference between "spirit" and "letter". However, as SDV is linked in the UDCP license, there may yet be a loophole to their loophole. But I'm pretty sure no cableco will go along with it -- they're doing a bang up job keeping cablecards from working properly in the first place.

Re:Open source cablecard device?

[cadfael]

(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.

Re:Everything US Sucks.

[WhiteWolf666]

Huh?

Most of these 3rd party digital tuning solutions suck, quiet frankly. Anything that is sold as an add-on for the PS3 is not going to have much market uptake.

The real "long-term" solution to this stuff is IP video, not switched. Content providers *should* go online, and you should have IP boxes that hook up to your TV to access the stuff. Locally cached content should play the same as remote content.

And we're getting there in the U.S. You can go to ABC.com and watch most of the latest shows (unfortunately, they just switched to a currently windows only Flash plugin, but I suspect thats going to change in the near future with H.264 support in Flash). Many other pieces of software support Mac and Linux (Miro, Vuez, Flash, Helix) all of these play HD just fine, and most are just a hair away from being accessable on every brand of game console.

Why? Because all they require are processing power and an IP. And sufficient bandwidth.

Bandwidth is another issue, but some of the providers in the U.S. are finally doing the right thing, and going big. Verizon is in decent shape, and compares well, worldwide. RCN's service is not bad, either. Even Comcast is tolerable, particularly in areas where it competes with Verizon, RCN, and similar next-gen solutions. Sprint's got a nationwide all-you-can-eat (gaming, servers, video) EVDO RevA network, and is deploying WiMax nationwide in the next 6 months.

The only really big laggard is AT&T, and those executive will be first against the wall when the broadband revolution comes.

Hell, it's even become a major discussion in congress.

Either way, however, I don't think the future of commercially distributed video lies with integrated networks, with moderately open end points. I think the future of commercially distributed video must lie with sending content online; the missing parts are a)content provider's approval (this is a problem worldwide), and b)easy to use hardware.

I would *love* to see a 3rd party "cable" provider that plugged into your internet connection, and served up the standard "extended basic" fare.

That would be *cool*.