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New Agreement May End the Cable Box
esocid clues us to news that Sony and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association have come to agreement on the way forward for two-way TV without set-top boxes. The actual agreement was not made public, pending review by other members of the Consumer Electronics Association, and as a result the coverage of the agreement is uniformly pretty incoherent. The background is that the NCTA and the CEA submitted competing proposals to the FCC on how to handle two-way, interactive TV services. None of the articles I turned up made clear what the future of the CableCard is to be. This was an interim solution to allow competition in set-top box manufacture, but its adoption has been plagued with problems. "Sony and the cable companies — Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Charter, Cablevision, and Bright House Networks — agreed to adopt: the Java-based 'tru2way' solution powered by CableLabs; new streamlined technology licenses; and new ways for all those involved to cooperate in the development of tru2way technology at CableLabs."
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Not that sort of two-way TV. This story discusses a sort of two-way TV where there can be commands sent by the viewer, for interactive applications or choosing a pay-per-view program for instance.
:)
In before Big Brother references!
The history of the CableCard is long and confusing. Particularly because the cable companies don't want you to adopt it. Then they lose their cable box renting fee. 2truway is just the next step in the CableCard evolution.
Originally, CableCards only had one directional transmission capability. This prevented services such as on demand, pay per view, and guide data. At least, that's what the cable companies wanted you to think. In actuality, the hardware (developed by independent companies) for the cards supported 2-way transmissions. The hardware complied with the CableCard 2.0 specification but the software for each card did not. The cable companies didn't want manufacturers to use their own software in the boxes/televisions/DVRs that would be using the cable cards. No, the cable companies wanted them to use OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP). Of course this isn't an open platform at all.
Picture your Tivo now, with its great recording software. Compare that to the crappy software your cable company uses on their DVR. Well, the OCAP part of the CableCard 2.0 standard requires all hardware be running the cable company's software. In other words, your Tivo would have to be running Comcast/Cox/whoever's horrid interface instead of the standard one. At least, that's how I understand it.
Consumer electronics companies didn't like this at all. So they fought and protested, allowing the CableCard standard in general to slowly die. That's why most new TVs now don't even have card slots.
CableLabs eventually realized that this just wouldn't work. So, they decided "hey, let's just rename OCAP to something cooler." Thus, Tru2way was born from the remnants of OCAP, a subset of the CableCard 2.0 spec. The cable companies also lightened up on the licensing restrictions for the software. Now, the Tru2way standard is getting much more support. Why? I'm really not sure. All I know is that more television companies are saying they'll be adding support for it (and thus cablecards) in their upcoming television models.
I think that's a fairly accurate summary of the history of CableCard and tru2way. No, this will not replace CableCards. Actually, this is just another step in the process towards adopting them.
Frankly, my only concern is that I'm allowed to use my open source MythTV box with a CableCard in order to record shows off encrypted QAM channels like Discovery HD. Currently, I cannot do this due to the ridiculous certified media center PC and Vista requirement. If anyone knows a way around this, please tell me. The analog cutoff is looming and I don't want to lose my recording ability.
Yeah, just like people don't use HDMI...oh wait more and more do.
Cable boxes won't go away, but newer TV's and third party DVR's will finally be able to do two way communication with cable service. Nobody expects everyone to switch overnight but as more TV's supporting this standard are produced, fewer people will need cable boxes.
Let me know if you need to have anything else simple explained to you.
The reason cable providers are trying to offline analog (2-125) cable channels is very simple, bandwidth. In the space of one of those analog channels, we can push 6 SD digital channels and 2-3 HD channels down the pipe, It's a hell of a lot cheaper to the cable company to force the "cost" (a cable box/cablecard) for every connected device to the end user than to implement higher frequency plant or try switched digital video. It levels the playing field as well, Sat TV and most FTT* networks have terminating boxes per TV or a centralized terminating device and RF remotes (Next Level/Motorola's DSL based video product).
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The parent really could use a bump to the top of the conversation. The bit about OCAP/tru2way is the critical bit of information out of this announcement.
When Comcast wins, we all lose. This agreement signifies that the CEA has gone ahead and finally agreed to CableLabs terms; compliant devices will have to run the local cable company's Java middleware. This severely limits what 3rd party cable tuners can do, it will allow manufacturers to add functionality that doesn't relate directly to manipulating the signal (e.g. playing back movies from a file server) but it will prevent manufacturers from offering anything that involves the signal (no custom guides, no additional recording options, no custom interface, etc). Basically cable TV is now a Java application in hardware enforced authentication chain - your cable company will dictate what you get to watch and how. If they (or the networks they partner with) decide you can't keep a recorded program forever for example, then their middleware can be set to enforce that, and there's nothing you can do.
Crappy middleware for all, freedom (both to record and to innovate) for none!
You want an HDHomeRun, it will tune unencrypted (ClearQAM) channels and works with MythTV. Keep in mind however that cable companies usually encrypt all but the national networks, you won't get anything besides what you can already get with an antenna or infomercial/shopping networks that pay for their placement.
And tracking what non-pay channels you watch.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
They run it due to greed, period.
Greed led to the telegraph, telephone, electric light, automobile, airplane, and integrated circuit.
If things stay as they are we will never see a Star Trek like civilization because we are too wrapped up in making money and actually engineering things to NOT last so they can sell more.
Computers are lasting longer these days because the software curve is slowing. It used to be that many people would replace their systems every 2-3 years; that has slowed to 3-5 years. Cars are frequently coming standard with 6- and 10-year warranties. Even the military is holding onto things far longer. During much of the Cold War, the lifespan of most aircraft was less than a decade of front-line service; today, the F-15 and F-16 form the backbone of the USAF fighter complement, and the designs are more than 30 years old.
I know ppl working in the oilfield who are paid to research old wells so they can go back and try to drill deeper even though the vast majority of the time they find NOTHING.
I was working in the oil industry a decade ago, when the price of oil was a fifth of what it is now, and they had people researching old wells even then. The equipment was often still in place, so it was cheaper than drilling new wells, and the payoff happened often enough to just about balance out the costs. What was more important, though, was correlating the data received from the sensors and the results from the additional drilling. This helped to understand current and future oilfield yields and what could be done to improve current yields and placement of future wells.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.