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Why Can't I Buy A CableCARD Ready Set-Top Box?
Al E Usse writes "Ars Technica does a write up of the problems that were not solved by the July 1, 2007 integration ban on integrated security in your cable box. The goal was to get everyone on the same page by requiring standardized technology. Just the same, the cable companies aren't really playing ball. 'The companies who make the boxes don't seem interested in selling to consumers [and] cable companies still push their own branded devices.' The article covers some deep background on the whole CableCARD mess, and concludes with the current state of the market: 'Based on June 2007 figures from the cable industry, 271,000 CableCARDs have been deployed. That's an astonishingly low number. 58 percent of all US households with a TV subscribe to cable, according to the NCTA, which means that 65 million households have at least basic cable.'"
The title of the OP makes it sound liek you can't buy anything from anyone. I just bought an HD Tivo that takes cablecards. It's going to replace the Verizon FIOS DVR box that I think is a POS, even after being replaced with another.
He had no clue. First, many techs, especially contractors, are clueless. Second, everything Comcast does is braindead.
You can have CCs in any device, no approval necessary. However, there is no guarantee your STB will work with one unless it's been certified. Tivos do work, but only uses them one way. There are only Cisco and Motorola devices that are two-way, and allow on demand or channel guides. One of those bad boys will set you back about a grand, or more for the HDs.
The article mentions that the biggest reason people aren't using CCs is because there are no good STBs. That's totally not true. There are plenty made by Cisco (Scientific Atlanta) and Motorola. They just cost between $800 and $1300 and come with your cable service. There's just no point in buying one, although we will sell them if you want them. As for consumer-grade options, I can't answer that, it just seems that no PC component company wants to make a CC interface, and the only consumer STB is Tivo.
I just wanted to point out there are tons of cable cards out there, and they are part of the digital boxes provided by the cable company.
Even better, there's the occasional offer to transfer existing lifetime service to the latest hardware, and a free year of service on the legacy unit, which can then be unsubscribed.
(Of my eight TiVos, two are lifetime, 5 are $6.95/mo, and one is a never-subscribed Series1 20hr unit. Two of the monthlies are also Series1 that I could let lapse and still be able to do manual recordings.)
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Each card has a public and private key. The cable company's signal is also encrypted, but there's a public band somewhere where the cable company can communicate will any cablecard that happens to be listening. So you plug the cable card into the TV (or tivo or whatever) and then go to the setup menu and read off a string of numbers. That string represents the card's public key.
The cable company takes its encryption key and encrypts it with the card's public key, then transmits that over the public band. Every cable card device sees this, but only the target card (your card) is able to read it, and use the card's private key to decrypt it.
So now the card has been given the cable company's encryption key, and can decrypt the signal and let you watch all the sweet sweet porn.^H^H^H^H^H discovery HD. The cable company periodically changes its key, and it keeps a list of all the cable cards that are authorized and sends the new key to all those cards.
IF you had all of this working in software, then you could copy the cable company's key into as many other devices as you want. That way, you could pay for one TV, but have other TVs authorized. But, you would have to keep copying the key to all the other devices. You absolutely could not get perpetual free cable. The best you can do is pay for one but actually have many. Hardly even seems worth it.
the point is that we as consumers shuold have a choice and viable alternatives to paying the outlandish fees that "you" charge while still getting the service we provide.
We don't charge equipment fees. In fact, local law prohibits us from doing this, but none of our divisions do. We charge for DVR service, but so does Tivo. Some of that is licensing, some of it is infrastructure, some of it is profit. There are no good devices because everytime one was created YOU found a way to make it not work.
No. We have done no such thing. I'm afraid I'm going to need some kind of citation for that accusation. Have we broken any Tivos? No. then there was the whole lets only scramble some channels thing which was slightly better..
That's because HBO doesn't let you get their channel without paying. then digital came out, and the whole one-way two-way problem was created.
Are you trying to imply that we could have put 600 channels and on-demand channels down the line without using a compressed, digital signal? Your Cable Card handles the digital signal just fine. There are no technical limitations there, and if you put one in a cablecard slot on your TV, it will work. It's because we need an addressable box on your end to authorize the service you purchased. It's like how you need a power meter for your house. That's necessary equipment too.