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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 Lawmakers have complained the current cable box technology is outdated and doesn't allow consumers to leverage new sources of video content such as the Web or streaming services from providers such as Netflix.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."
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.
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.
No. This is different. It's legal.
Legality is kind of irrelevant at this point.
Cable/Satellite have already lost. This legislation is really no different than legislating that horse carriage manufacturers cannot mandate what buggy whip you get to use.
Locked in bundles, extortion by ESPN, monopolies and duopolies, out of control advertising, spamming during the programming itself, locked outputs, retroactively removed features that existed at the time of purchase (fuck you Sony and burn in Hell), are not desired by younger consumers, and especially the generation of young consumers that have been raised on YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace, Hulu, etc.
The future are services like Hulu and Netflix. I hardly even bother to torrent TV shows or movies anymore. For one, I can usually get the movie legally in a few days through the mail, or streamed directly to my TV in HD quality. My TV shows are now without commercials or those impossible-to-ignore-totally-ruin-the-fucking-show overlays with the Sci-Fi channel being the best example of the retarded twats that decided that was a good idea. I watched entire seasons of Chuck, Stargate SGU, The Big Bang Theory, etc. all without any interruptions or annoyances.
Above all... I did this legally for once. TV shows that are broadcast are obviously fair game to me though. If you put in radio waves across my face on my property, fuck you when you attempt to control what I do with it. That being said, I do like the fact that I can pay a reasonable price for access to a large catalog of movies legally.
There is a reason why Blockbuster has declared bankruptcy. There is a reason why Cable/Satellite execs constantly lament how many people are "cutting the cord".
They don't get it!
Even a cablebox of your choosing is not going to give you the on-demand choices and advertising free content that people are clearly going to obtain one way or the other. The article mentioned that the 3rd party cableboxes would contain Netflix. Really? If that is available, why would I choose to pay $50 a month for HBO/ShowTime/Cinemax/whatever? I would never pay any money for ShowTime, or whatever they are called, when they do the Sci-Fi Super-Retardo overlays on the movie while I am watching it. Saw that at a friends house and spent the next 20 minutes hooking up his kids XBOX to his TV, using the Live account his kids already had, and started watching the same movie IN HD, and WITHOUT the overlays through Netflix. Now his whole family has about 30-40 movies all the time queued up in their instant watch queue.
Sorry, the legislation here is too late. Nearly every young person I know has already transitioned towards a YouTube/Netflix/Hulu/??? combination to get access to entertainment and has never even once paid a cable TV bill.
We don't need to talk about the illegal stuff. Those people doing "illegal" stuff still represent a loss of marketshare (not a loss of income due to piracy, or some equally retarded and fallacious argument). However, what about the people like me that have been using, by and large, completely legal distribution channels to obtain entertainment on their own terms?
IMO, the legal options are going to make a cablebox obsolete before the legislation even takes place. 5 years ago I laughed when MS and Sony said they had ambitions to become the media centers in people's homes. Not laughing anymore....
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.
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
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They're still building it, so nobody knows what it's like.
Though from the delays, I don't doubt it will have at least one major technical fuck-up that they'll gloss over but will piss me off every time I turn the machine on.
I had a cablecard installed in my Tivo Premiere within days of calling Verizon with no hassle at all.
I have the same setup as you and can tell you there is a hassle. The cablecard Verizon Fios installed on my Tivo Premiere has one way communication. That means if I want any of the On Demand services I have to also keep my regular Verizon cable box (and pay the monthly rental fee). On Demand is an important part of the service as there are a ton of free movies and free replays of network and cable TV shows. Not all of this content is matched by the services on the Tivo alone.
Take for example one of the premium channels (HBO). With the Verizon cable box I can watch any of the HBO movies or series on demand. I cannot do this with the Tivo. I would have to plan ahead and record everything my wife might want to watch. And I am no mind reader.
Remember... ZG9uJ3QgZm9yZ2V0IHRvIGRyaW5rIHlvdXIgb3ZhbHRpbmU=
Well, they should be scared that people are going to abandon their lucrative set-top box rental scam. I'm shelling out a lot of money per month just to have HD DVRs from Comcast. These are buggy, buggy pieces of Motorola crap that I just can't wait to get rid of.
The worst part is the abuse of their monopoly position. With 1080 lines of resolution at their disposal, they manage to squeeze five (5!) whole channel listings at a time onto the program guide screen. They reserve the bottom 20% of the guide for inane advertisements. They refuse to allow me to remove the shitty channels I will never watch from the lineup. They do not let me reorder the channels in a fashion that makes logical sense to me. There's a whole pile of annoyances that grate every time I touch the remote. We even have a list of activities we don't dare do, lest we send the cable box into some kind of tailspin while it's recording. And for this crap software, I pay them continually.
I always liked my ReplayTVs much better than any Tivo I ever used, but anything else has got to be a damn site better than these awful things.
John
Hooking up a PVR should be no more complicated than hooking up a VCR used to be.
All of the nonsense "standardization" that has been created by the industry and the FCC is nothing more than a monopoly on a silver platter.
The connection between the cable box and the TV should be in the clear. THAT should be mandated by the FCC.
I should be able to record off of a cable box with a $30 ATSC tuner.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Protip2: Then the FCC rule won't apply to them and any posts here are off topic trolls (in addition to the fact that Slashdot officially considers itself to be American and the largest single readership is American), unless made with a disclaimer similar to "I'm not in the US, but..."
P.S. I'm not in the USA.
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