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."

Comments

Re:Species traitors

[Ex-MislTech]

is it so goddamned hard not to type out "people" ?

Well see, I sensed a disturbance in the force and
knew that someone out there would see "ppl" and
not realize that shorthand is used in the court system.

So, just for you, I typed it out as ppl.

Because of the use of ppl I saved time until
this became important to you.

You will see ppl abbreviate Sat., Sun., Mon., etc etc.

In fact etc, it a abbreviation for Etcetera.

So I'd make sure and write all the Unix and Linux
early developers and let them know that /ETC needs
to be fixed NOW !!!

And that it is a plague upon humanity...

Or not...

Re:You have to rent the box first

[Blkdeath]

The pain is that you had to rent the box first.

The other option is, of course, to purchase the box, but most people, myself included, would rather rent it from the cable company. If my purchased equipment caffs on me I'm on the hook to buy another (warranty period notwithstanding). If their rented equipment caffs on me, I bring it to the store and get a shiny new one.

Everything you describe is dependent on that box.

Everything you describe is dependent on the VCR.

You're limited to what the provider of the box conceded to let you do. You're lucky, because you can still hook the device to a burner or use analog connection to connect to a classic recorder. But everything could go away whenever the provider choose. For example, I really doubt you have any solution to record shows in HD.

I can connect an external firewire recorder to my HD cable box and record in HD with 5.1 sound.

Whereas with a VCR, you don't depend on an exernal box and on what the provider decided to let you do. You just plug the damn VCR to the cable and do pretty much whatever you want to do.

Yeah, and wind up watches were great because you didn't have to rely on a damned battery!

VCRs are old, kludgy, clunky, inconvenient, have a reduced shelf life due to their moving parts, are expensive to run over the long term (added cost of tapes), fragile, etc. Comparing a VCR to a digital DVR is only good for pure nostalgic purposes. There's really no advantage to a VCR anymore and in fact when I move in 2 days I'll be disposing of mine and all accompanying VHS tapes.

You don't need a specific box obtainable only from your provider.

Actually, I can purchase a digital STB from my local box electronics store.

But instead, what we are starting to see is cable companies who force you to rent *their* box and that's the only single way to access the content of their channels.

Actually, I have something to the order of six cable outlets in my home. One has an HD STB connected to it, one has a regular STB connected, two of the others have regular televisions connected and the other two are presently not in use but are active.

I only need the STBs to access higher (newer) 'specialty' digital channels, PPV events and high definition content.

This situation may not apply in all countries, but that's what I'm seeing here around (Switzerland).

Of course, Switzerland, United States, Canada, Argentina, Poland, England, Ireland, etc. are all different. However the common fact remains; VCRs are still useless. :)