Slashdot Mirror
Cable Industry Responds Regarding HD TiVo Problems
Lauren Weinstein writes "The day after the issue of cable system incompatibilities with the new HD TiVo and similar devices was discussed on Slashdot, the cable television industry has responded with a workaround proposal in a new FCC filing, though key issues remain to be fully resolved."
Let's skip the pointless blog promotion and go straight to the real article here.
Most of the problem is centered around Motorola and SA spreading FUD in the industry about signal theft. Instead of using standard encryption techniques (like your bank and just about every secure web site), they put together a system that is just about as closed as you can get. Then the .gov comes in and says they have to open it up. Rather than scrap the existing system and use something that will be secure and open to other manufacturers, they continue to try to adapt their encryption to the new rules, without letting too much information out there, hoping to avoid the hacking that went on in the satellite industry.
The other big problem is that the cable billing systems were never intended to deal with customer purchased equipment that requires authorization, and most of that code was hacked on at the last minute and doesn't work very well. The customer service people have minimal training on the system (they are there to provide customer service, not enter data), so they end up making a lot of mistakes. The billing systems make it much harder than necessary, and the screwy way cablecards interface makes it much more difficult.
Finally, the cablecard spec is still only 1 way. The real spec will be the 2.0/ocap system, but there still seems to be some work to do. This will allow 2 way services to be implemented but there is a lot of back office stuff that needs to be addressed, some of which has never been tried outside of a lab. The 1.0 cablecard slot is not compatible with the 2.0 cards (it is not a firmware upgrade).
It is going to require a lot of training and attitude change from the entire industry. In the long run, if the industry adopts the standard and actually uses the features available to them, it will be a great system. Imagine picking up a set top at Best Buy, taking it home, entering you WiFi key and getting on your home gateway. Your set top will autoprovision with services based on your subnet, and will share data with any other set tops in your home network. All this stuff is possible today, but will require a lot of rethinking by the cable companies. Motorola showed off the DVRs that share data, and Cisco/Scientific Atlanta has the home networking tech.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
In comparison to the Conditional Access Modules used in Europe with all (terestial, cable and satellite) DVB versions, CableCARD seems to be a rather broken standard, trying to do everything in the card, and therefore too complex and inflexible. CAMs on the other hand just perform the key exchange part of the decryption, everything else is handled in the receiver. There's no "multi stream" version of CAMs, because the receivers that can receive multiple channels at once can also decrypt multiple channels. Program information (EPG Electronic Program Guide) is also standardized with DVB, and runs unencrypted. A smartcard is inserted into the CAM for authentication, so the part that belongs to the cable company is really cheap. I don't think there's a satndard for two-way communication in DVB-C, but I could be wrong - and it should be easy to define one.
Now, CableCARD2.0 enhances the stupidity of the standard far beyond what any sane person could imagine and mandates a Java environment on the reciever. Are the cable companies actually trying to emulate their old proprieatry receivers in software? Why doesn't the FCC mandate real open standards, that are easy and cheap to implement?
My eventual reply was that I was discontinuing my cable subsciption till they put in cable internet, still no TV here because there is still no cable internet. The local cable company has been traded many times amongst the big cable companies and each time that is used as an excuse to explain why they haven't gotten cable internet when in talks with the city. This isn't a large city but it is a university city.
The university wired their dorms for broadband internet and started building more apartment style dorms once the old dorms quit sitting mostly vacant after they wired for broadband. Some of the new apartment dorms are up and full and more are under construction. The local telco did finally add DSL recently so perhaps the off campus apartment complexes will stop going empty.
The next city over faced the same problem with the cable company, their response was to put in their own cable company with broadband. When the cable company and telco were unable to stop them the cable company quickly added broadband and the telco quickly added DSL. Now their citizens can chose between two cable providers and multiple DSL providers. This was done before the state inacted regulations preventing cities from providing such services, hopefully more cities will do so if recent changes in Federal regulations work properly. Many of the local university students live and commute from that city that has more choices.
Faced with competition the cable company reacted quickly and fulfilled their contractual obligations with the neighboring city, here they continue to ignore them while changing parent companies as the deadline approaches each time and the city again foolishly grants them an extention. No doubt the cable companies are using a similar song and dance routine regarding technology changes that in their arguements means they no longer provide the type of service that the FCC required them to make more open and therefore they need new regulations that are more directed to the new service before they have to change them to be more open. Openess should be required to be built in, if could find a way for their to be real competition in these areas then that openess might finally get here, provided of course that enough customers demanded it and followed up with their dollars. Of course it would also help if local, state and federal governments would strip away their contracts and licenses when they failed to meet their obligations properly.
We need to broaden our activism, unfortunately too few are willing to simply disconnect to get the point across and there is seldom an available alternative that meets our needs to make it easier for people to vote their dollars without giving up their TV addiction.
Did you actually read "TFA", or even the blog post that linked to "TFA"?
The mention of TiVo in the blog post is in reference to a previous post. The actual article (linked through the blog post) isn't about Tivo. It's about "Consumer Electronics Devices".
Both the article and the blog post assume some level of familiarity with the technology in order to fully understand them. The fact that you consider the TiVo "unique" in the context of a discussion about alternatives to the Open Cable Platform because it has a general purpose processor and runs linux clearly shows you shouldn't be butting in. Rudimentary reading comprehension would have shown you that it's not something "unique" about this class of devices, but actually the proposed standard, even if you weren't familiar with the issues involved.
At least you had the decency not to hit the "Post Anonymously" box this time though.
I used to find hooking up TV equipment fairly easy.
I got a TiVO HD last week and getting it to work was a NIGHTMARE
First I couldn't find anyone at ComCast that seemed to know how this CableCard junk works. My local office wouldn't just give me one and let me hook it up myself, I had to have a "technician" for that.
I requested a visit and specified it was for TiVO HD, and I needed a MultiStream card.
THREE guys show up. Two of them were n00bs being trained. The supposed experienced hand doing the training, hadn't heard of an M-card, and only had one single-stream card with him.
Next he informs me none of it will work until I upgrade to "Digital Classic" I can't do it with just basic digital service.
Says I'll need to call in again and schedule another truck roll after I've upgraded.
Useless! How many mornings off am I supposed to request from work, so I can hope they will show up and figure this out?
They've made it so frakkin complicated their own people don't know how it works, and they won't let you do it yourself in many places. This is like the old AT&T monopoly. This half-baked idea is supposed to replace analog cable by 2009. Ugh! The CableCo has frakked this up through sheer incompetence or spite, and the FCC is asleep at the switch. This stuff should be kept SIMPLE not layered up with a bunch of unneccessary widgets. Adding MORE widgets will not fix a broken design.
Yes I returned my TiVO HD within the 30 days for full refund. I ABSOLUTELY do not blame TiVO in this, the returns lady was very gracious and didn't try to talk me out of it or anything. TiVO is just trying to play the hand it was dealt.
Note the big driver for freeing up bandwidth is HD content. HD requires 3x to 4x bandwidth to broadcast over a standard def channel. This incurs substantial cost to the cable company in terms of content revenue per bandwidth unit. One might give a nod that broadcast providers are trying to help us out here and make that shiny new HDTV in our living rooms even better. Even satellite is making this move - though they can't do switched due to their restricted 2 way capability, and instead had to launch a few new satellites and work other magic to increase their bandwidth.
An alternate to SDV would be to increase plant bandwidth like the satellite guys and add additional channels. This requires substantial capital investment whereas switched is primarily a software solution and therefore significantly cheaper. Like order of magnitude cheaper. I guess in a way you can thank Wall Street for SDV because the investors really love this stuff and it makes stock prices go up.
Remember the whole point of business is to make money while moving toward the best solution by virtue of competition. Not to give stuff away for free because it makes a company feel warm and fuzzy. You vote with your dollar be it buying stocks, paying taxes to support public infrastructure, or paying for goods and services. If you don't like cable go sign up for something else. Each broadcast technology has it's pros and cons, pick what works for you. If you're not happy with anything then cancel and get outside or take up a hobby. Hell start your own broadcast video company. Just no more whining!!!