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FCC To Allow Cable Companies To Encrypt Over-the-Air Channels
alen writes "The FCC is now allowing cable companies to encrypt free OTA channels that they also rebroadcast over their networks. 'The days of plugging a TV into the wall and getting cable are coming to an end. After a lengthy review process, the FCC has granted cable operators permission to encrypt their most basic cable programming.' Soon the only way to receive free OTA channels via your cable company will involve renting yet another box or buying something like Boxee."
well there goes my HTPC build. For those that like to build their own media centers, dvr's, etc this is utter crap. Of course I can spend $200 to get a tuner card that will accept a M-type cable card but then that is yet another piece of equipment that I have to rent from said cable company.
who wants to bet said FCC people have coushy jobs lined up at some major cable company.
Wait, 99% of TVs sold today don't bother supporting it... Shit!
will also work for many people. I recently cut my cable TV service when I realized that almost everything I was actually watching was programming being broadcast over-the-air. A $50 antenna and I'm all set
There are many places in this country that the OTA signal is not reliable unless you have a massive antenna due to LOS issues.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Cable exec makes more money. Cable exec buys new car. Consumer gets to wash that car, earning cash to pay current month's cable bill. Win-win!
I'll get cable when they make good on their original promise: Pay for TV, so no ads. Part (most) of the money you pay goes to the show to replace their ad income.
For all you young-lings, TV used to be completely free. To get people to pay for cable, their sales pitch was that you wouldn't get any ads.
They can pry my torrents from my cold dead heads or stop being lying, greedy assholes. Their choice.
You can digitize without encrypting. That is what clear QAM is for.
What this is really about is that they won't have to roll a truck for a cable install. Heck, they can fire all the techs too, or at least most of them. They will leave all the cables live all the time and make you come get a box to do the decryption. When you leave you give the box back, or if you don't pay they deauthorize it on their end.
You'd think that in today's era of streaming video, netflix, hulu, amazon and iTunes, the cable companies would be doing everything in their power to increase viewership numbers (for advertising revenue).
Adding obstacles to folks trying to watch their programming seems insane - like they are actively trying to go out of business, driving more folks (like me) away from traditional add supported media. My wife and I do all our watching on Netflix (or Amazon, if there's a show we're willing to buy). I can't imagine going back to the bad old days of television ads.
Not that I mind, given the advances in cell technology, I think we're less than 10 years away from cable companies being nothing more than legacy internet providers anyway, like dial-up.
Comcast = Earthlink in ten years.
Drinking habits can be dangerous. You can choke on the cloth and the nuns will wonder where their clothes are.
This move will only make pirating television more appealing.
Thanks for nothing, FCC. I'm tired of every last fucking thing on Earth being monetized for no reason other than greed, and the so-called "regulators" doing nothing as the are getting huge sums of money from the parties behind the changes.
Digitize for Clear QAM takes no more bandwidth than Encrypted QAM. Most areas have not had analog at all for 2 years now.
I used to work for Comcast in the headends and OTN locations, I know more about this than the CSR's or installers ever hope to know.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That is all.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
The way this was agreed was if the cable company is encrypting their channels, they have to make them available unencrypted over IP, so devices like Boxee and others can still receive them, or work with PVR makers to make "Software updates" available so they can decrypt the streams.
Given that the daddy of all open-source PVR projects, MythTV, already supports IPTV systems (after a little careful setup), this is actually a good thing. And while it is basic channels only for now, hopefully the practise will expand into premium channels later on.
Look! TV just killed itself!
I have two tween kids. They don't know what Cable, satellite or OTA are...
There's YouTube, NetFlix, Amazon and PutLocker.
They also know some suckers who pay for HuluPlus, to watch the unwatchable.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I know it's not an option for some, but I live where I can get New York OTA channels, and even Philly stations if I want, with my roof antenna and rotor. I record everything we watch on a MythTV system with a TB of disk space. I haven't had pay TV in 25 years.
I have cable for internet only. Every time the cable company calls me trying to sell me a TV package, I tell them exactly what I'm currently using, and exactly why I want no part of their any-consumer bull shit. I wish more people would do the same thing.
What sucks of course is that, because all the available internet providers are TV providers, you pay a premium for internet when it's not part of some fucking package. The whole situation just blows to put it mildly...and the fucking FCC, whose supposed to be working for us, can go straight to fucking hell too.
Seriously, +1 Internets to the first person who can put a positive spin on this one. Wow. Just wow.
By requiring all TVs to use one of our new Freedom Choice cable boxes we can provide a better over all customer experience, features such as our on screen channel guide can now be utilized on all your TVs. Think of it as an upgrade for your TV.
Sincerely,
Your friendly local cable company
In a bit of shameless internet panhandling, I accept Litecoin Donations at Lbd2oH9QsthD1GfuUXPyka12YxvWJYnBVf
Making money off the elderly and out of touch, the way God intended.
These so-called "HDTV" antennas were sold for years with the incorrect assumption that digital TV would stay on UHF and it most assuredly did not!
In the New York area for example, several of the UHF digital networks moved their digital signal to their original VHF frequency when the switch over occurred.
Don't buy one of those unless you're sure that all the digital networks in your area are on UHF. If any are, you'll need a combination UHF/VHF antenna.
I have this http://www.antennasdirect.com/store/ClearStream-C2-VHF-Combo.html in my second story attic at 47 miles out from the transmitters, roughly 50 feet above sea level. Mounted it to an attic cross beam, aimed it with my iphone compass and was good to go. Works like a champ.
Go here http://www.antennaweb.org/Address.aspx to evaluate how your location in relation to your local transmitters.
Good-bye
First you should go to http://tvfool.com/ and check your address for OTA digital signals.
Note the "Real" channel on the tvfool chart. If it's 7-13, you'd need a VHF-high antenna, if it's 14-51 a UHF antenna will pick it up. If it's 2-6, you're probably in Alaska, and sadly will need an old, full-range VHF-lo/hi antenna.
Any channels that are Green or Yellow will likely work with a simple, cheap, indoor antenna (preferably in your window, facing towards the transmitter). The simplest old indoor antennas seem to work the best... better than more expensive indoor antennas that are tunable or have a useless (for short cable runs) amplifier. Nice long "rabbit-ears" at a 45 degree angle will do a good job for VHF (real: 2-13) channels, while a nice big "loop" antenna will do very well picking up UHF channels.
If you're in the red, or worse, you MIGHT be lucky and receive the station(s) with an indoor antenna with minimal dropout, but at this point, you're probably at the point that you should invest in a roof-top antenna.
VHF is pretty simple, and easier to receive over longer ranges, and around obstacles like mountains, buildings or trees. For antennas, you have a couple choices which are both about equivalent in reception and price (about $40):
http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=Y10-7-13&sku=716079000994">Antennacraft Y10-7-13 100mi 120" VHF-high
or
Winegard YA 1713 100mi 100" VHF-high
For UHF channels, reception is a bit tougher, as curvature of the earth, and any obstacles cause more issues. There's some debate over how the top 8-bay antennas should be ranked, but it's an easy choice when you see one of the contenders costs nearly half as much as the rest:
Winegard HD 8800 8-Bay 60mi UHF
Now, if you need both UHF and VHF-high antennas, connecting them with a splitter will cause you to lose a significant amount of signal strength. Instead, a purpose-built VHF/UHF splitter/combiner will perform much better. Just about any one will do, but here's a link for an in-stock $2 model:
Pico Macom UHF/VHF Band Separator/Combiner
And finally, if you're going to run the coax a non-trivial length, or if you are going to connect the antenna(s) to a splitter to serve multiple TVs or just multiple tuners (eg. TV+DVR) then you'll get a big benefit out of a mast-mounted pre-amp. The key is to get the lowest "noise" figure you can. There are a range of ridiculously expensive options that will get you a just-slightly lower-noise signal, but once again Winegard is much cheaper, and close enough:
Winegard AP-8700 VHF/UHF Pre Amplifier
Thanks to FCC regulations, you can put this all up on a mast as high as 12' above your roof line, without anyone being able to require you to get a permit or similar (unless you're in a historic area, or there's serious safety issues like overhead power lines). And if you happen to NEED to go higher to get reception of local stations, they MUST grant your permit request for minimal cost and in a timely fashion.
To deal with the risk of lighting starting fires or blowing up your TV, you need to ground your mast and the coax. A coax grounding block costs about $1, and like your mast, just needs to be wired to metal water pipes, or a grounding rod. Some more advanced coax surge suppressors exist, but I would never forego the simple task of grounding everything first.
That should be all the equipment you need, and the information on tvfool will tell you EXACTLY which d
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
These are kids he was talking about. Political talk shows are out.
As for sports, that is the only real thing holding back a lot of guys I know from switching.
That being said, Cable Companies keep raising the costs year after year above and beyond what people are receiving in cost-of-living raises . ESPN, especially. They can go fuck themselves.
Young people are cutting the cords faster than ever, and in the case of kids, never accepting the cord in the first place. That's why the Cable Companies will die.
1) No incentive to younger people to shell out $50-$60 per month (base rate). It's hard enough for younger people to find money in the first place, let alone spend it on stupid shit. It's basically a cell phone plan, or Internet plan in terms of cost. What does it deliver that is as attractive, or more attractive, to younger people than Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, Hulu or pirating ?
2) Pricing themselves so high that older people are increasingly looking to save costs by switching to something else. Guys that need to have sports are really just buying it for sports then. That's not an audience that will keep revenue streams at the levels they are now, which means sports would need to increase their revenue streams even more.
They are required to because cable companies use public rights of way for their cables. The rights of way are typically controlled by the city, and the city generally requires that the company serve the general public interest if they are going to get to use the rights of way.
Serving the general public interest included providing the over-the-air channels that they get FREE and that they are allowed to rebroadcast for FREE in order to make sure that people don't have to have cable AND rabbit ears. Cable companies WANTED to include local channels, and they generally don't PAY for them.
So they don't get to CHARGE for them since the originator of the programming gets nothing from them.
Satellite companies use public airwaves for their transmissions.
The commons is rapidly (and immorally) becoming privatized.
Rights-of-way, eminent domain being used to give property to private companies, increasingly intrusive IP laws and the weakening of fair use, etc.
If the cable company doesn't want to feel like the owe the community something, then they can tear out and take down the cables that they run through the community's property.
This space available.