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FCC Approves Changes To Cable Box Rules
GovTechGuy writes "The FCC issued an order Thursday that should make it much easier and cheaper for consumers to purchase and install third-party cable boxes made by manufacturers such as TiVo. The rules are aimed at spurring competition in the cable box market; currently consumers overwhelmingly choose to rent a box from their cable provider rather than buy their own. Lawmakers have complained the current cable box technology is outdated and doesn't allow consumers to leverage new sources of video content such as the Web or streaming services from providers such as Netflix. The new rules should result in a smarter, more advanced cable box in the near future."
Where do I sign up?
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Hey, the heck with somebody else's hardware, can I make my own?
How hard could it be?
cable companies will fight tooth and nail against it, again.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
It's called an internet connection, bittorrent, and a ps3.
And Cable providers sue in 3...2...1
Cable and Internet providers have been ridiculously successful against the FCC for the past 15 years. It's like literally everything the FCC has tried to do has been shut down by the courts.
I had a cablecard installed in my Tivo Premiere within days of calling Verizon with no hassle at all.
None of these address the "value add" (sorry, kinda puked in my mouth a little bit getting that out) that sells the consumer that they MUST GET CABLE BOX FROM CABLE COMPANY. First of all, consumers don't know they have a choice of getting a cable card, and how to get a device that supports one, and get one installed if they find the device. Secondly, consumers are told they can't get on-demand content if they don't use the cable company's device.
That's it guys. Prescheduled programming? Nobody runs into problems with this. Pricing/Billing transparency? No - this would be a problem if most consumers knew the option existed. Streamlined installation? See pricing/billing transparency. Ease requirements? No - just need to HAVE requirements.
faulty "rules" are not what is stopping consumers from making the best long term decision... their own lack of understanding is.
a rule that really needs to be addressed is the practice of cable companies now requiring customers to power a separate tuning adapter to aid the cable company in not broadcasting signals to areas where no paying subscriber has requested the signal in the last few hours. it provides no features to me, and yet i am forced to pay for the electricity to power it and the space to store it.
TFA states a lot of PR from the FCC, the TiVo, and the cable industry on the effects the new rule will have on consumers, but nowhere describes what about the CableCARD rules is actually being changed, and doesn't cite the order to enable people to check for themselves. So I checked the FCC website, the order is here.
Haven't had time to read it myself yet, but hopefully having it will enable people to read it and make comments on the actual content, rather than the fluff in TFA.
The waiver for the satellite companies should be removed, so that you can buy third party DirecTV and DISH boxes too. (There could be third party DISH boxes, and would presumably have been new DirecTivos all along, without the waivers.)
Cable boxes aren't just behind, their development (at whatever pace) is lopsided. My cable box from Verizon Fios:
-Can suggest programs based on what I've watched. But it can't cache the channel line-up and programming info, so there's an incredibly irritating pause every time you click the remote.
-Can play video games from 1994, but it can't make the remote emit a sound so I can find it in the cushions. We've needed this feature for decades, but instead we get a gutted hole that used to be HDMI out or USB port (who knows?).
-Can deliver a huge variety of content from a fiber optic network, but charges huge fees for MA and XXX content that is far worse than what can be found on the internet for free, in 3 clicks. Seriously who has FIOS and orders that junk? Same with Comcast. It's rotgut moonshine at single malt-reserve prices. I expect porn to be ahead of the development curve, not bringing up the saggy rear.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
I thought television sets came "cable-ready" -- haven't they done so for like twenty years now? Why would you rent something that was obsoleted in the early 90s?
The barrier isn't technological, it's psychological. My mom has a cable box she doesn't need. The installer told her she needed to get cable. I told her to take it back and demand a refund. She won't. During the 80's, you had to have a box to get channels above 13, because that was the highest a TV could tune. Then the FCC mandated cable-ready TV's, and you didn't need a box at all except for pay TV. There was no education or information given to the public, so a lot of people went through the 90's still believing they need a box, and the cablecos still play on that. The only was to solve the problem is to educate the public, something like forcing the cablecos to hand their customers a pamphlet clearly showing what channels do and do not require a box.
I would run one in a heartbeat - especially since I now live in a city where Comcast has deployed Motorola rather than Scientific Atlanta. (on Scientific Atlanta the ESATA ports are enabled, and on Motorola they are disabled). I like having the ability to keep an entire season of certain shows on the PVR/DVR to re-watch at my leisure.
However, there is a problem; most CableCard-capable PVRs available on the market, at least last time I looked into them, did not support OpenCable Host Device services, so watching On Demand content isn't (or wasn't) possible. Also, aside from client apps on a PC or Mac, management of viewing, recording, and deleting content on a Tivo requires about 3x as many clicks as does the cable company's PVR. The Tivo still doesn't(?) support OCAP:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/02/dnptivo-premiere-and-premiere-xl-usher-in-a-brand-new-interface/
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
and get some line sharing going.
One big fat rented pipe and any telco, isp, tv, digital service you like.
No contract, long term, bundles, get some light and entrepreneurship flowing back into the dark cartels and sealed single providers.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Tivo HD + dual Cable Cards FTW!
First of all, consumers don't know they have a choice of getting a cable card, and how to get a device that supports one, and get one installed if they find the device. Secondly, consumers are told they can't get on-demand content if they don't use the cable company's device.
That's it guys. Prescheduled programming? Nobody runs into problems with this. Pricing/Billing transparency? No - this would be a problem if most consumers knew the option existed. Streamlined installation? See pricing/billing transparency. Ease requirements? No - just need to HAVE requirements.
did you see section three in the PDF?
...to me this announcement does nothing but highlight the overwhelming need to get rid of what was once only a possibly legitimate agency but, in a world of vastly different technology than when it was created, now is definitely unnecessary.
"Overbearing control-freaks vow to allow more competition in area of economy they enjoy tight control over."
Seriously, does no one else think competition (or, rather, the lack-there-of) in the telecommunications market would be so abysmal if the FCC weren't in the business of protecting the monopolistic status quo? And don't think I'll spare the Comcasts of the nation; they are just as guilty, though who can blame them? As a company you'd be stupid not to collude with the feds on minimizing the chance of competition.
26. We conclude that the best means of assuring the development of a retail market for navigation devices is to require cable operators to allow subscribers to self-install CableCARDs. We believe cable operators should have time to train staff and develop more robust customer support infrastructures and procedures, and provide nine months to comply for any operators that allow subscribers on any of their systems to self-install any cable modems89 or leased set-top boxes.90 We are not persuaded by arguments that cable operators could not support activation of retail CableCARD devices within this reasonable transition period. However, we are concerned that a cable operator that does not permit self-installation of any equipment that attaches to its network may not have the customer support infrastructures in place to handle self-installations and may need a longer transition period.91 Therefore, we will allow cable operators that do not have any self-installation support in place twelve months to phase in this self-installation requirement.92 We also require cable operators to inform their subscribers about the self-installation option when they request CableCARDs.93
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
Until cable companies and their subsidiaries are forbidden to design, manufacture, sell, lease, rent or otherwise provide hardware, they will have too much control.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
currently consumers overwhelmingly choose to rent a box from their cable provider
Back when I had cable a couple years ago, there was no choice. If I wanted the deal, I *had* to rent the box. It sat under my sofa for a year, collecting dust and costing me money until I just had enough of it and canceled the service.
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
i worked as tech support for a cable company in souther california. the only guy who was honest about the specific flaws of each model of box was the guy who trained us. he told us what problems to expect and how often, basically saying that all the boxes in one way or another were crap, even the 'new' ones. according to him, the main reason the company did not allow customer owned boxes, was because most of them were not compatible with our proprietary software. (read into that what you will) his sincere desire, for the good of the customer and the sanity of the tech support people, was for tv manufacturers to get off their butts and develop 2-way cableCARD ready TVs. do away with the box all together. at the time, there were TVs capable of using cableCARDs, but only 1-way, meaning no on-demand or pay-per-view. eventually, TVs with 2-way function and internal HDDs will come along, but who knows what roadblocks are delaying this...
This will date me, but I can remember the day when EVERYONE had to rent a telephone from Ma Bell. Rotary dial and then the Princess phone. Technology really got pushed along in those days.
Conservative, mod down for violating
Hold on a moment. Cable companies are granted exclusive franchises by the city government, not the federal government. That and that alone is the reason for the abysmal service. If you had a choice between TW, Comcast, Cox, Charter, and CableVision in most cities then we would have real competition, and the prices and services would be much better.
The FCC helps to keep the cable companies acting like there is competition. If not for the FCC, there would never have been the CableCard option in the first place. The only option would be to buy the set-top box, or not be able to tune in to many of the channels you are paying for.
Sure the FCC does sometimes bend to much the the will of the media companies or cable companies, but if the FCC only regulated the actual airwaves, and not also the cable companies, Things would be much, much worse.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
The old slider boxes they had way back when cable first started were way better than what they have now.
Seriously, when did the FCC grow a pair? This is fantastic there have been things coming out left and right that seem like they are shutting down the anti-competitiveness of cable companies and for the consumer. All good things must come to an end though, I am afraid what really bad piece they are waiting for to come out. I'd totally vote for the person driving all this over at the FCC for president. He totally freaking rocks.
WTF Slashdot, why do I have to login 50 times to post?
Remember those?
I'd kill to have a setup that my 75-year old mother could actually use. (She's just never going to be able to get the idea of separate components, and I've never found a "universal" remote control that she can use.)
Monopolistic a$$hats.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
They let you BUY THE BOX or RENT IT.
They have theme packs and pick and some All a carte cable.
Why can't you buy the same box comcast uses that has cable card in it?
Why is cable card locked out of VOD?
Why do you need a add on SDV tuner?
Why do some cable rent moxi boxes that can do SDV and VOD but when you buy your own NO VOD and SDV needs add on box?
Why is the RCN TVIO that can do VOD rent only and forces you to buy RCN HSI as well?
Why can comcast trun on the same cable box they have on there systems that you can buy in Canada systems the only change is the firmware and how hard is it for the box to download new firmware?
why do the few systems with rented moxi boxes do 2 way with VOD and SDV but when you buy a moxi and rent a cable card NO VOD and SDV needs the add on box?
And there is something in there about making any set top box they lease also available for sale.
in canada you can buy the box and not pay the rent on it.
Unlike a lot of comments advocating savings in cutting the leased equipment, I am OK with continuing to lease the providers box and so on, after having tried OTA, boxless basic programming and using the box as prescribed.
However, likethis epinion review for US service says response times for digital boxes are horrible. They are the most easily noticeable problem even by visitors. Analog boxes are simple, have lightweight remotes and lack today's "lightshow" happy LEDs.
Today, the java-fication of everything has caused boxes that freeze, slow down and have unpredictable behavior mindful of home routers. At least home routers include power buttons. Our New York digital boxes from TimeWarner take 30 seconds and 5 minutes after being plugged in. That is more than most computers, on devices designed 10 years ago, where almost everyone still chose TV over their PC for daily entertainment. I mean, current overjava'd cellphones don't take that long to boot, DVD consoles don't take that long to load videogames, and even 1970 B&W TV's don't take that long from cold to tubes-warm-enough-for-an-image.
Having Cable Box competition will result in a mozilla-javascript-like war. Then CableCo's replacing their OCAP (java) OS so that faster startup and response times are back the way they were with our brainless analog boxes. You will have more attention paid to VCR-recording, picture in picture features, and even the stupid way the CableCo boxes REMOVE the date/time signal from the carrier, even though my equipment is capable of reading it when I remove the box and know the exact channel. And we will finally be able to upgrade every few years, instead of being stuck with just one or two rented box models for decades to come.
Your point is moot with the rollout of FiOS. It kicks ass and takes names because FiOS forgot its bubble gum.
I've long ago suggested 5 or 10 year lease options for cities to offer infrastructure for Cable. Every 5 or 10 years, the lease would be up, and new bidding would take place. City mandates SLA for the service, and dings the lease holder when the lease holder doesn't comply. Charges, rates, and everything would be part of the contract.
Lowest price, best service, highest speeds etc all go into the equation. Every 5 or 10 years, everything is opened up again for bidding.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
People would be foolish to fail to invest in upstarts that produce the equipment and software. This is going to be a big deal in the tech industry.
...to have Time-Warner install a CableCARD on my Moxi DVR. First off, T-W resolutely refuses to allow customers to self-install. They require a technician to come out and make a call to the "head office" to relay information from the DVR that requires the DVR owner (in this case, me) to pull up. Then, it takes about 2-1/2 additional hours to figure out that the INIT sequence wasn't being properly sent by T-W. Of course, all this time T-W is telling me it's my DVR (even though T-W specifically identifies the Moxi as a "supported" DVR). In the end, it cost me $35 and 3 hours of my time (2 hours of that spent online chatting with a Moxi engineer who was telling me what to tell the cable guy) to deal with T-W's ineptitude when it comes to CableCARD support.
Contrast this to Comcast: I walked into the Comcast office, picked up a CableCARD for my mom's 8-year-old rear projection Mitsubishi, plugged it in, called Comcast, and was up and running in about 1/2 hour. Total cost? $0.
Unfortunately, I don't think the FCC's new regs will address gross technical incompetence on the part of some cable TV providers.
The rollout of FiOS or u-verse gives customers a maximum of 4 options in most places for non-broadcast channels. That is getting a lot better, but the companies still don't really compete, since FiOS/u-verse is largely only economical if you take bundled services, which means that you are very unlikely to be switching services. Switching between two cable providers if you are getting separate phone and internet would be no big deal, similar to switching phone companies in those few places with a choice.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
some system had analog cable scrambled for all channels.
People complaining about how their digital TV, Netflix, On-Demand and cable modems are suffering severe glitches (black screen, jerky/lost picture/audio, aborted DLs) because of all the people using the limited cable bandwidth.
...
I foresee a big push for faster "High Speed Broadband" in the near future. I use quotes because in the US its anything but, unless your lucky enough to have fiber in your community, and be able to afford it, and even then
_
I just want to watch the feed with advertizing on official websites to access content as it air... But their website constant;y tell me I am not in the right country, so I just go to Torrent and get it ad free, fuck you control freak overpaid broadcasters executives, you are losing the media war.
Tomorrow is another day...
I dont disagree with you that the TV landscape is different than what it was years back. STB reform in 1996 as a part of the Telecoms Act would have probably been a very good thing, promoted innovation, and saved people a lot of money. 1) But, I still think this good news. A good STB/Netfix Device/DVR/htpc-lite would be a nice addition to the home entertainment world. I'm optimistic about what a Google TV STB device could do. A PS3 doesn't do all of this, and for general consumers one dead simple box would be really useful. 2) And ... Sports. The number one reason people still subscribe to TV (don't have the stat, but I assure you its out there.) People will continue to pay for sports broadcasts, and I want them to be able to use whatever STB they want to watch their pro sports.
I read GP's post as "You youngsters don't have the Netflix et al to dump cable thing to call your own, and you don't have any original pop music to call your own either."
That being said, I do think Gaga catches too much flak from people like you. Sure, she has some standard-issue pop songs [those kinds of things can be fun anyway, but I digress...], but she does break out of that mold more often than most. (The piano song Speechless, especially live, comes to mind) Lily Allen breaks the standard pop song mold on an even more regular basis.
Led Zeppelin and Metallica would only be pop under a very wide definition (that which includes most anything nonclassical or something), but Zep is/was still *more* awesome, my overall #1. A few very premium classic acts are the few I like more than her any more. (Considering that I also have Lynyrd Skynyrd in that category, I've very well set in the name-starts-with-L department. :P)
IATYO (I Am A Twenty Year Old)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Remember the days of renting your dial telephone from the Ma Bell?
Allowing other manufacturers to create phones initially resulted in a slew of sub-standard, crappy telephones. After a short period of growing pains, touch-tone phones appeared and grew in popularity. This innovation was further enjoined by cordless phones.
I wonder what kind of antiquated phones we'd be stuck with today if we were still renting phones from a single provider.
How amazing, powerful and inexpensive can cable boxes become now that they're open to competition.
I hear Google is pushing a bunch of big-name brands to make android-based cable boxes! Let's change some random rule so we can blame it on the change when people see advanced cable boxes a month from now!
I think we forget sometimes that most people want to just turn the TV on and go to a channel and have it work. I don't want to mess with hooking up an Xbox. (I don't own one). As a non-technical person I find Apple TV and Google TV or whatever to be completely opaque and frustrating to use at best. I like streaming on Netflix but it doesn't work well on my TV if I try to hook up the computer to it. And I never had a card in my cable box-- there's a slot for one (it's a Scientific Atlanta model) but I never got one from Time Warner. I just want to watch the freaking television. That is what it is for. For those of us who just want to watch TV, is there any real benefit to cable box competition? Will it matter? I know many people here are more technically-minded. But I am not. And also, I suspect, are 90 percent of TV viewers. I don't want to mess with a zillion different devices trying to figure out how to connect, you know? I like the on demand service, but again, i just want to point the remote and have it work. No fuss no muss. So, will some more technically sophisticated person out there help explain to me why this is going to matter? I'm not being just flippant. I really want to know what this will do for me.
This is fine and dandy for people that have expensive tastes, but I own both PC tuners AND multiple TVs that support ClearQAM. Last April, over 100 channels (which are part of my subscription) were removed from my viewing unless I got a digital cable box from the local cable company. They started encrypting almost every channel so the Clear QAM tuners became nearly worthless. Only about 15 channels are not encrypted anymore - 10 of those are local access and home shopping channels - SWEET! NOT! A few of the local broadcast channels are so pixel-ated as to be worthless over QAM. It has become better to use the OTA ATSC tuner instead.
I'm still paying for those channels, but I've been forced to add a cable box. My 3 VCRs are worthless now too. Where was the government oversight when as these changes were allowed? Cable-Ready should be mandated ... still.
unfortunately
right now have to take the output of the box and feed it into a capture card and change channels with an ir blaster. Would so much better to be able to just capture it like I do for regular broadcast TV using a OTA tuner card.
I used to have Tivo years ago and have tried to go back to it several times over the years since I got digital cable. Tivo's great interface and amazing add-on features were something I always missed with my generic cableco DVR. But every time I tried, I ended up going back to the cableco.
The first time I tried to go back to Tivo I had all kinds of problems with the cablecards. I had to have a technician come to install them (no self-install) and he couldn't get them to work. It took two visits to even get them installed and even after that they were wonky. And they charged me for the cablecards too (had to lease them, couldn't buy). That, combined with Tivo's much higher monthly charge, eventually drove me back to the much cheaper generic DVR.
The second time I went back, I had HDTV and bought one of the HDTV Tivo models (a substantial upfront cost, but not as bad as they had been when they first came out). This time the cablecards worked but the problem was that my cableco was using SDV (switched digital video) on many of its HDTV channels. That meant that I couldn't get Universal's HDTV channel (which was rerunning "Firefly" at the time, long before it came out on blu-ray), among others. No adapter was available, and all I could get was a vague promise that they were "working on it." As more and more new channels were added in SDV, I finally gave up and went back to the generic DVR.
Now, a lot of Tivo's shortcomings are their own fault. Their upfront and monthly costs are substantial compared to a generic DVR. The interface on the HDTV models is a lot slower than on the old SD models. They still only have a lousy 30-minute queue for live TV. And I never could get the upconversion function working right (my TV had to adjust it's resolution itself if I changed from a SD to HDTV channel, making channel-surfing painful). But a lot of the problems that have kept me away from my once-beloved Tivo brand have been due to the cableco and how hard they make it to go to a third-party brand.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Even if cable companies were not given monopolies, there still would not be competition, except maybe in the most densely populated areas. It's just too expensive to install the infrastructure and only get half of the possible customers. If one calbe provider is already present in a given area, it's unlikely that another will enter that market.
This proposed model is a perfect example of why the free market is better. Just take a look at ANY Scientific Atlanta DVR that many cable companies provide. What a monumental P.O.S from a user interface, responsiveness and straight up reliability view point. A little competition and we'd have world class cable boxes with world class UIs and dvrs.
The menu options and recording/search features couldn't be made any worse even if you hired the worst Microsoft UI engineers (all the ones that have been let go in the history of Microsoft).
Example. Push the menu button while watching a show you recorded and the default next action is stop this show and delete. So if you hit the menu button twice (because the piece of shit is so unresponsive you don't think it took the first click), it stops your show and erases it. Thanks. Great design. How about, I dunno, NOT defaulting to DELETE when you push the menu button--especially when you are in the middle of watching it!!!
I don't particular care for the HD DVRs my cable co offers, since I have Tivo, but I'd like to have one around for the bedroom upstairs but don't want to pay $14/mo for the goofy thing. So now we can call them up and just buy one for a few hundred?
not interesting until they make a rule requiring a method for me to get at the stream using my PC, WITHOUT having to use their "approved" DRM-based software (like I could with analog)
I own a Series2 and two HDTivos and all three devices have been among the most reliable things I've owned. The Series2 is semi-obsolete but surprisingly still going strong (until the soon to be implemented switch of Comcast's analog channels to encrypted digital).
Both of my HDTivos have multistream cable cards and have since I bought them. I'd like to bitch about Comcast, but about the only complaint I had was being required to have an "installer" install the CableCards. In both cases the installer knew what they were doing and the cards worked the first time -- I doubt the installers were on site more than 30 minutes total between both boxes. No problems at all with them in the 2-3 years I've had both boxes.
I haven't run into any issues with switched digital video but from what I can tell, it's a "solved" problem with the addition of a tuning adapter (per Tivo's web site).
STB = set top box?
Does anyone balance their set top box on top of their 2" thick plasma or LCD TV anymore?
The FCC mandated that all devices (including VCRs, DVRs, and Cable Boxes) would use Firewire to pass audiovideo data back and forth.
But did the FCC mandate the terms under which the cable provider may turn on 5C encryption on FireWire feeds for a given channel?
Megahertz and Link [...] ThisTV [...] PBSarts, PBSworld, PBSinfo, MiND [...] Qubo, Smile of a Child [...] RetroTV [...] on free antenna TV there are tons of channels airing reruns
Where do you live? The Fort Wayne, Indiana, market has none of these.
While [uncompressed video] can be compressed again it won't be easy, won't be real time, and won't be cheap.
Then how do consumer high-definition camcorders manage to do it? Sure, there's a loss of image quality, but it still handily beats S-VHS and even consumer DVD+R decks.
For the special cases of sports and local (theoretically urgent) news, I get it. But for anything else?
Some Slashdot users share a house with people who subscribe to cable TV just for ESPN and MSNBC. Besides, dramatic TV series that co-workers like to spoil around the water cooler are like news in this respect.
If it takes 4 hours to receive 1 hour of video, then streaming just isn't viable.
Imagine four people in the house, each watching 1.5 hours of video a day. Torrenting all your TV would take up your entire downstream bandwidth.
If you wait just a few minutes to let your dvr or flash player as appropriate buffer, you can do that just fine now.
Not everybody is willing to pay $180 a year extra for a DVR, and every commercial in a Flash stream that I've seen has been unskippable.
But things like ACC baseketball
Are they already televising baseketball outside of that movie?
Your point is moot with the rollout of FiOS.
Where I am typing this, FiOS is not offered. We checked.