Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Cable Companies Pledge Industry-Wide Commitment But Want Control Over UI (arstechnica.com)

Posted by msmash on from the meet-in-the-middle dept.

The FCC proposed rules to force pay-TV providers to make video programming -- and the right to record video -- available to the makers of third-party apps and devices. Under this model, third-party app and equipment makers would be able to create their own interfaces through which cable TV subscribers could access their programming. On Thursday, cable companies noted that they still cannot fully comply with FCC's attempt to open up the set-top box market, but have resigned themselves to accepting some form of regulation. From an Ars Technica report: Cable companies still aren't giving up on the apps approach, but now they say they would agree to rules that make it mandatory for large operators to build apps providing access to all the video customers subscribe to on a wide range of devices. Pay-TV companies with at least 1 million subscribers would have to follow the mandate. Industry representatives told the FCC that they are open to the commission "enforcing an industry-wide commitment to develop and deploy video 'apps' that all large MVPDs [multichannel video programming distributors] would build to open HTML5 Web standards," they said in an ex parte filing released today. The filing describes meetings with FCC officials involving the cable industry's top lobbyist, National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) CEO Michael Powell, representatives of Comcast and AT&T/DirecTV, and reps from cable networks Vme TV, Revolt TV, and TV One.

2 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Uh-oh by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Really, a lot of compression can be done to graphical displays on television... the CNBC Ticker is an example. Rather than bloat the satellite signal with a ticker that is quickly getting outdated, they can send the ticker as a bunch of compressible letters and numbers, and then reassemble the ticker at the cable headend.

  2. People use this crap? by slk · · Score: 4, Informative

    A TV is a monitor into which you plug your Chromecast / Roku / Apple TV / Media PC and stream stuff. The whole "Cable company DVR" / "Smart TV" / etc is just a pile of legacy mess that will go the way of the dodo bird, Microsoft Bob, and (hopefully) vendor Android skins.

    --
    ERROR: Null .sig, core dumped.