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Can Google Fix the Cable Box?
theodp writes "In purchasing Motorola Mobility, Slate's Farhad Manjoo reports that Google will also come into possession of one the nation's biggest suppliers of set-top boxes. So, can Google work some of its do-no-evil magic on the loathsome cable box? Don't bet on it, says Manjoo. For one thing, there's no evidence that Google would be very good at remaking the set-top box (Google TV, anyone?). But even if Google managed to dramatically improve set-top boxes, it's doubtful that cable and satellite companies would buy in. First, they'd lose all those ridiculously lucrative cable-box rental fees. More importantly, they'd have to give up control of the main entertainment device in most homes, and with it the opportunity to slow or stymie competing sources for entertainment. After the merger, notes Manjoo, Google could get several billion dollars by selling off Motorola Mobility's set-top-box division — a much surer payday than taking on Big Cable."
But there is a lot of viewership demographic data to gather, and no one harvests ad data better than Google. They'll be able to offer an online ad that matches one that the view didn't switch away from last night while watching TV.
LOL, wut.. do you even own a cable box? If you made this statement I would think not.
There isn't a device in the home with so much potential that has been held back so much by backwards companies.
Can I have an HD version of my old ReplayTV? Fantastic interface, incredibly easy to use. Just add room-to-room streaming to make up for the loss of transferring every recording. (And I didn't even have the one that did automatic commercial skipping.)
Unless you own an ipod/pad/phone (ducks for cover)
Korma: Good
The naming is slightly misleading: "Motorola Mobility" encompasses their cellphone line; but also a bunch of STB, cable modems, and other consumer electronics widgets. "Motorola Solutions" is their government and enterprise customer brand(which includes a bunch of mobile RF stuff, just not the consumer focused gear).
There could certainly be some re-shuffling that happens during the merger; but "Mobility" presently includes a variety of hardwired consumer products.
My understanding is that, if you wish to use any encrypted cable service, you either suck it up and rent the company's cable box, or you enter the delightsome world of cablecard 'compatibility' with so-called "host" devices. At present, because of the somewhat onerous(incidentally the 'open' in "opencable" appears to be a piece of gallows humor, not an actual description) certification requirements, specific Wintel hardware configurations are the only ones DRMy enough for the purpose, along with a number of STBs and TVs and similar appliances.
Apple's continued lack of enthusiasm for DRM systems other than their own makes adoption of Cable Card on any of their platforms less than entirely likely, and I'm pretty sure that there is a standing order at Cable Labs HQ that any Linux system not thoroughly Tivoized is to be stopped at the door and ejected by security.
If you are dealing with OTA signals, or snarfing analog feeds from STBs, or using non/weakly DRMed digital media, you have options; but if you want to talk to a commercial cable network, not so much...
I doubt he owns a cable box. Since they are leased.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Oh yeah like Scientific Atlanta is any better. they all are shitty. Absolutely no CableTV equipment vendor for headend or STB is "non-shitty" they all pile on heaps of "shitty" as a selling feature.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The FCC already has a ruling on this:
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/digital-cable-compatibility-cablecard-ready-devices
It's kinda like the way it was with telephones. People could own their own but it took literally over a decade before it really caught on. I know you could buy your own phone back in the late 1970's. However, the telcos were making pretty good money off rentals until at least the early 1990's. Lots of people just kept renting.
On the other hand, those old phones were very well engineered and were meant to last decades. You could bludgeon someone with an old bell telephone and then use it to call an ambulance.
I am a lawyer, but not yours. Anything I tell you might be a total lie intended to benefit my clients at your expense.
Google bought a small company called SageTV a few months back. They were one of the only companies offering a "whole house" PVR solution via tiny thin-client media extenders running on multiple TVs, and PVR software running on PCs. They had an extensible UI, as well as a number of features (like local media file management) that cable company DVRs either don't do, or do very poorly.
My guess is that they intend to apply the SageTV team to making cable boxes suck less; especially whole house solutions. Obviously they won't be using clients PCs as the server any longer, but a lot of the technology is applicable.
Mine? It's slow, it stutters, it often loses the guide information for days to a week at a time. Often the DVR will say it's recording something, but it goes under "Not available" since the guide info is missing. Sometimes it'll miss a show too. The guide is in SD format. It can't stream things from my home network, and doesn't support AirPlay. It can't stream things from netflix or hulu. It can't browse the internet, nor are there any "apps" for it. The USB/Sata port is disabled so I can't just attach a big hard drive to it. It won't allow me to place shift even within my own house.
On 8/8/11 the new FCC rules on cable cards went into effect.
See http://www.fcc.gov/guides/cablecard-know-your-rights for more information
Open cable cards will hopefully set us free. If not, sic the bureaucrats on your cable company.
I don't even have cable, and I can immediately spot problems with these boxes at friends and family's houses.
First of all, why the hell do you all put up with the ads showing the whole time on the pay-per-view/channel listings area??? All that space is wasted for some inane repeating "preview". Remember, you are paying these people like $100/month and they reward you by putting an irritating ad where additional channel listings could be?
Second, in ye olde days of regular TV, you could browse channels by pushing the button on the remote as quickly as you liked. Or before that, you could machine-gun turn the knob and watch the programs fly by. Now with digital cable you have a distinct pause on each channel that makes flipping around take forever. Is this inherent to digital TV? If it is a buffering issue, why can't the box buffer the next channel and the previous channel so that flipping is instant?
Third, I notice that these boxes are crawling with input and output. Firewire, analog inputs, etc. None of them are actually turned on. WTF?
I'm sure I could make this into an article, so I'll just stop.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
S&P dropped their rating on Google stock from "buy" to "sell" after the Motorola acquisition, and knocked $200 off their one-year predicted price for Google stock. That's very unusual.
Google's track record with hardware is not good. They were in the direct sales phone handset business for only a few months before they had to exit it. Customers insisted that the hardware work, and wanted customer service when it didn't. Google couldn't handle that. Their approach to the "Google Search Appliance" (Mini size) is weird. There's no phone support for this rack-mounted enterprise device. If it breaks, they FedEx you a new one. After three years, the Google Search Appliance stops working and you have to buy a new one. Really. That's Google's approach to enterprise support. That won't fly with Motorola's customer base.
I would have thought with Hulu and tons of other entertainment that cable's glory days were behind.
As long as they own the wire coming into your house they are going to have a LOT of influence. Hulu is only as good as the internet connection it is attached to and only a relatively small percentage of the population has what I would consider enough bandwidth to really make it work. Furthermore they have lots of legal agreements with the various networks (content providers) as well as owning some networks of their own (Comcast) and have the ability (the legal right is still up in the air) to block or slow data coming down their pipes. There is no fundamental reason they can't have their own competing services to things like Hulu and Netflix.
I think cable companies are going to have to actively respond to new technology developments but they aren't going anywhere for a long time to come. I know people who would sooner cut off their heat than stop paying for overpriced cable TV. I exaggerate slightly but only slightly...
That would require 2 extra tuners.. and if I had the extra tuners, I'd rather use them to record more shows at once.
So why do the fancy boxes with multiple tuners still change channels slowly? Even when the other tuners aren't in use?
On Tivos, all of the outputs are active at the same time.
Yup, Tivo had it figured out a decade ago. Hell, even ReplayTV was better than the cable boxes available today.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.