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A bit of a scare for cable card users


fantaxp7

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fantaxp7

One thing I find interesting that may or may not be related is Silicon Dust working with Google I/O. I was very excited to hear this. That new Android TV device that Google is working on sounds amazing if it works somehow with live tv. I wonder if it has cable companies worried/pissed where they would want to push away cable cards.

 

“We are extremely honored to have been selected to participate at Google I/O,” said Theodore Head, President and CEO of SiliconDust. “We’ve been working diligently with Google’s Android TV team to develop an elegant and intuitive solution to bring Live TV to Android TV.”

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You have to realize that the only reason cable cards are still supported now is because it was legislatively mandated back when MS was trying to push the vision of WMC in everyone's living room.

 

Once those mandates come off, the cable companies will drop support so fast it will make your head spin.  That will probably finally be the real end of WMC as well.

 

The industry has gone another way.  Regular people aren't going to build PCs and put cable cards in them and hook them up to their TVs.  This is what MS learned with WMC and why they have basically abandoned it.  And, yes, I did call you "not real people" ;).

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errr... Europe & FTA unless someone comes up with something spectacular WMC will "live forever" in my house....

Guess i'm not real people either!!! lol

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fantaxp7

You have to realize that the only reason cable cards are still supported now is because it was legislatively mandated back when MS was trying to push the vision of WMC in everyone's living room.

 

Once those mandates come off, the cable companies will drop support so fast it will make your head spin.  That will probably finally be the real end of WMC as well.

 

The industry has gone another way.  Regular people aren't going to build PCs and put cable cards in them and hook them up to their TVs.  This is what MS learned with WMC and why they have basically abandoned it.  And, yes, I did call you "not real people" ;).

 

Haha, good points.

 

Well perhaps since Google will be pushing Android TV into everyone's  living room cable cards may have a fighting chance. This is a very legitimate way for Google to create a all-in-one box that can crush their competition. Apple has been talking about integrating live tv for some time now...

 

Anyways, I like to day dream :P. If that Android TV comes out with cable card support and mediabrowser 10' GUI looking gorgeous on it (Hey Red ;)) then bye bye HTPC.

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None of us out here are "real people" in these terms :).  I'm talking your mom and dad and everyone else you see at Target (or your country's equivalent).  Those folks are gonna buy a box and plug it in and expect what they want to watch to come out.  That is the market these guys care about.

 

We will keep doing our thing as long as we possibly can but the industry isn't going to help us.

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techywarrior

The other thing I am scared of is that they are talking about dropping the requirement that network channels be unencrypted. Add to that the cable companies trying to fight the mandate that they broadcast OTA and we may end up with no real options.

 

The Aero decision may help at least with OTA but in a few years I am sure clearQAM is going away. And if that happens I am either going to see what streaming options are available legally or say FU to the cable companies and find other means for watching the content.

 

(we pay for streaming services like Hulu and stuff so I have no problem with that option, although some services seem to have quality or reliability issues, HBO, Crunchyroll respectively)

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christoph86

I may be wrong on this, but I think this legislation mainly refers to the requirement for cable companies own hardware, not retail hardware. They will still have to offer a way for retail hardware to have access, whether its cablecard or an entirely new standard.

 

TiVo is still a fairly big player and they won't just let their business and all their consumers become non functional.

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techywarrior

There has been a proposal for a while with a replacement to CableCard but I believe that was shelved. I am pretty sure that the cable companies will not be crying if Tivo is unable to work as they are taking a lot of revenue away from cable companies.

 

With the mandate dropped the cable companies would be free to do what they want. They could ask Tivo to give them a cut in exchange for "special" cards that you would put into the Tivo. etc.

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iam4uk

My CinemaPC is the best DVR I have used or seen, by far (as well as the best device for all other audio and video media).  The CableCARD in the InfiniTV is required for decrypting, of course, so the potential demise of CableCARD is cause for concern.  If the only available solution is a $14/month cable box for each TV, the cable company will lose this customer.

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nydude25

If the law does change about the mandate, the cable companies aren't going to disable CableCARDs the next day.

 

They've all made an investment in this technology and many of the STBs the cable companies rent to customers use the CableCARD infrastructure themselves. 

 

Maybe Tivo will convince the companies to keep using it or even work with them towards the next iteration.

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techywarrior

If the law does change about the mandate, the cable companies aren't going to disable CableCARDs the next day.

 

They've all made an investment in this technology and many of the STBs the cable companies rent to customers use the CableCARD infrastructure themselves. 

 

Maybe Tivo will convince the companies to keep using it or even work with them towards the next iteration.

 

Maybe... but with no mandate there is no guarantee. Big cable companies that have a CableCARD based infrastructure may continue to use them. But small companies may just drop support completely (obviously nothing would happen right away). Or maybe the small companies keep it as a way to steal customers from larger companies who drop support. But the state of competition in the US cable industry is such a joke that no one knows what would happen.

 

The only thing we do know is that with no mandate the companies will be able to reconsider their position and make the choice that helps their profit margin the best, not the customer.

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Koleckai Silvestri

Not sure how a small company will draw customers. People will have to move into their service areas as all cable companies have geographical monopolies. The only cable provider where I live is Time Warner. There is no choice. Satellite (DirecTV and Dish) and Fiber Optic providers (Verizon) are not under the same mandate. If you do happen to live in a place with multiple cable providers, your area is the exception not the rule.

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christoph86

Charter cable already has a 2 year waiver to deploy new set top boxes that use integrated downloadable security without Cablecard technology, given about a year ago.  http://multichannel.com/news/content/charter-scores-set-top-waiver/358801

 

There were stipulations in this waiver, one being they provide physical cablecard support indefinitely and may not stop issuing new cablecards to customers until a third party device compatible with the new downloadable security system is available for purchase at retail.

 

This tells me that, yes, cablecard technology is going away eventually (it is old tech), but likely will be supported for some time and that a newer technology will have to be available to customers for purchase at retail before they can stop issuing new cablecards.  What these systems will be and how we can incorporate them into HTPCs or our own configurations remains to be seen

Edited by christoph86
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techywarrior

Not sure how a small company will draw customers. People will have to move into their service areas as all cable companies have geographical monopolies.

 

Yea, I alluded to the monopoly issue in my post but it's not like that everywhere. I have Cox, Time Warner, and AT&T as options. Although I am in a condo building so I can't actually get all of those options. But someone living in a stand alone house across could. That's not the case in large parts of the country of course. And one of the reasons that I believe there needs to be more oversight on the cable companies. They are abusing their positions and colluding to set policy in their favor.

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