Comcast Disables VCR Scheduling In New Guide

An anonymous reader writes "Comcast has quietly launched a new on-screen guide for its cable boxes. What they're not advertising is that they've removed the ability to schedule VCR-compatible channel flipping any time more than a few hours in advance for people who don't buy the $20/month DVR service. What this means is that VCR owners are now forced to pay for Comcast's $20/month DVR service or else start their recordings manually. For us techies there might be a way around this, but ordinary VCR enthusiasts and owners of other recorders are left in the dust. Anyone know a good antitrust lawyer?" Raise your hand if you regularly use a VCR these days, too.

Comments

Re:WHO CARES?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some nerds have to provide tech support for relatives that have VCRs and do not have DVRs. Try explaining that their VCRs are now useless and they now have to shell out $120-$240 a year.

Some nerds also own DVRs instead of renting from Comcast. The "VCR" programming feature is required to use with a non-Comcast DVR.

Re:Lawyer?

[commodore64_love]

You've been unfairly marked troll. (Not that I agree with you, but everyone should have a right to express an opinion without having their karma stabbed.)

Anyway, a free market WOULD fix in this case, because when Comcast pulls this shit, you would then be able to switch to Cox cable or Time-Warner cable or AppleTV or Verizon TV or anybody else you desired. Comcast's poor decisions would drive it into bankruptcy as customers would flee in droves. (As happened to Circuit City not too long ago.) BUT because Comcast operates a virtual monopoly, they know they can force customers into upgrading to Comcast DVRs, simply by turning off standard features...... like a VCR Timer.

Also it's not just VCRs, but also DVRs this affects.

I have a Panasonic ReplayTV that can switch the old analog channels just fine, but ever since the analog-to-digital transition, it's lost that capability. I now rely on an external box with a "VCR/DVR Timer" to switch the digital stations. If Comcast removes that capability from their set-top box, than DVRs like mine will no longer be able to record anything but a single channel when I'm away from home.

IMHO.

Please don't mod me "troll" just cause you disagree (like you did to Lekh).

Re:Firewire may possibly be a solution

[nvrrobx]

Firewire must be available, but it does not mean that the content is accessible.

Many providers choose to use the 5C DRM scheme to block your ability to record via Firewire.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Firewire_Cablebox_Compatability

Take a look at Myth's compatibility list for examples.

Re:Lawyer?

[coldmist]

That's funny. Even Galbraith later admitted that he was wrong on this point.

link

Galbraith’s magnum opus was The New Industrial State, in which he argued that large firms dominate the American economy. “The mature corporation,” he wrote, “had readily at hand the means for controlling the prices at which it sells as well as those at which it buys. . . . Since General Motors produces some half of all the automobiles, its designs do not reflect the current mode, but are the current mode. The proper shape of an automobile, for most people, will be what the automobile makers decree the current shape to be.”

Well, not quite. Although GM would have loved to “decree” the shape of automobiles in the 1980s, it seems consumers had different ideas. That is one reason why GM, which did produce about half of all U.S.-bought autos in the 1960s, sells only a quarter of all U.S.-bought autos today.

Interestingly, in his autobiography Galbraith presented the very evidence that should have talked him out of his conclusion in The New Industrial State. In 1954 Galbraith was on a consulting team hired by Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), Canada ’s dominant railway at the time. He saw quickly that CPR’s most promising assets were its forests and land, not its railway. Yet CPR basically ignored the team’s advice. He wrote, “The railway men did not look with favor on such passing fads as airplanes.” This should have clued him in to the idea that large firms like CPR could “decree” virtually nothing.

To his credit, Galbraith ultimately admitted, with a 15-year lag, the major problem with his thesis. In July 1982 the steel and auto companies he had claimed were immune from competition and recessions were laying off workers in response to both foreign competition and recession. Asked on “Meet the Press” whether he had underestimated the extent of risk that even large corporations face, Galbraith paused and replied, “Yeah, I think I did.”

If you blink you might miss it.. Firewire solution

[synthesizerpatel]

f you blink, you might miss it.. But I think this backs up my original assertion..

Section 76.640:

(iii) Ensure that these cable operator-provided high definition set-top boxes shall comply with ANSI/SCTE 26 2001 (formerly DVS 194): ? Home Digital Network Interface Specification with Copy Protection? (incorporated by reference, see 76.602), with transmission of bit-mapped graphics optional, and shall support the CEA? 931? A:

?Remote Control Command Pass-through Standard for Home Networking? (incorporated by reference, see 76.602), pass through control commands: tune function , mute function, and restore volume function. In addition these boxes shall support the power control commands (power on, power off, and status inquiry) defined in A/VC Digital Interface Command Set General Specification Version 4.0 (as referenced in ANSI/SCTE 26 2001 (formerly DVS 194): ? Home Digital Network Interface Specification with Copy Protection? (incorporated by reference, see 76.602)).

It's not malicious

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

This isn't a malicious attempt to get you to upgrade to DVR service. It has to do with the fact that the digital cable box you have (Motorola DCT2000 series) has 2MB of flash memory.

The VCR recording feature requires an IR database (that stores the correct power/record codes for each VCR), code to operate the IR blaster, and of course UI and other features. All of this takes space. It may only be a few KB, but Comcast keeps adding features to the DCT2000 boxes and eventually something has to go. The VCR feature is one that isn't particularly popular (it's hard to configure and most people don't even have a VCR anymore), and it takes up more space than many other features, so it gets the axe.

Comcast's guide software (i-guide) is not particularly great, but it's a hell of a lot better than what used to run on the DCT2000. Those boxes are very old at this point, but the i-guide software has given them a reasonable level of functionality for people who don't want HD or a DVR.

If you don't like the change, you are free to do any of the following:
- Return the Comcast box and use a video recording device (TiVo, Moxi, Media Center, etc.) that uses a CableCard. Comcast charges $1.50/mo for a CableCard.
- Use a recording device or software (Media Center, MythTV, TiVO series 1/2) that supports your cable box with an IR blaster.
- Switch to Comcast's DVR.

FYI, Comcast's DVR is $15.99/mo if it's the first box on the account in most areas ($20 if it's an additional box). Conventional boxes are free (first box) or $6 (additional boxes). Some of these rates vary by area, but they're increasingly standardized.

Re:Lawyer?

[Runaway1956]

Hmmm. You make sense - but, can you give an example of free market in the United States, any time within the past 100 years or so?

Seriously, we have never seen it in our lifetimes. Every single commodity or good that you can possibly purchase has been regulated at multiple points. Nothing you can possibly buy today is actually produced by a "free market". Absolutely nothing.

If you can find something that isn't actually regulated directly, you will find that it is affected by peripheral regulations, such as minimum wage laws. In the case of textiles, cotton remains King. Imagine that. I can't think of any specific laws that regulate cotton - but cotton is protected by seemingly unrelated regulations that outlaw hemp products in this country. You might say "Big deal!" But, hemp products outlast similar cotton products, usually by 7 times. Hemp products actually make the soil they are grown from more fertile, as opposed to cotton, which depletes the nutrients in the soil rapidly.

Go ahead - look around, and find ANYTHING on the US market which is truly subject to "free trade".

We can't possibly prove or disprove the idea that the free market is self regulating, because we've never put it to the test.

Re:Lawyer?

[Jon_Hanson]

The FCC has ruled that condo/homeowner associations cannot restrict the installation of (small) satellite dishes or antennas for receiving television or Internet services. There are certain exemptions for historical preservation and such but other than that they must make reasonable accommodations. http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/otard.html