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Why Can't I Buy A CableCARD Ready Set-Top Box?
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Oct 18, 2007 12:51 PM
from the companies-don't-want-your-money dept.
from the companies-don't-want-your-money dept.
Al E Usse writes "Ars Technica does a write up of the problems that were not solved by the July 1, 2007 integration ban on integrated security in your cable box. The goal was to get everyone on the same page by requiring standardized technology. Just the same, the cable companies aren't really playing ball. 'The companies who make the boxes don't seem interested in selling to consumers [and] cable companies still push their own branded devices.' The article covers some deep background on the whole CableCARD mess, and concludes with the current state of the market: 'Based on June 2007 figures from the cable industry, 271,000 CableCARDs have been deployed. That's an astonishingly low number. 58 percent of all US households with a TV subscribe to cable, according to the NCTA, which means that 65 million households have at least basic cable.'"
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Submission: Why Can't I buy a cablecard ready set top box? by Anonymous Coward
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Bullhockey (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bullhockey (Score:5, Insightful)
That said the other issue I have is that CableCards are only allowed in approved "closed" devices. There needs to be a way that I'm allowed to install a CableCard tuner in whatever device that needs it, my personal computer most of all, without having to do it exactly the way that the industry wants me to. I'm not a pirate, I just want to be able to watch at some future time on the PC of my choice (I know many people only have 1 but I have 4 or 5 in the house at any one time all capable of displaying the content if allowed) or on a mobile device. Heck I'm even fine if they somehow figured out how to force me to watch the commercials as long as I could watch them when and where I wanted to. It doesn't seem like the lack of cablecard tuners in unapproved pc's is slowing the piracy of TV much so why spend so much effort to do it?
Parent
Re:Bullhockey (Score:4, Informative)
He had no clue. First, many techs, especially contractors, are clueless. Second, everything Comcast does is braindead.
You can have CCs in any device, no approval necessary. However, there is no guarantee your STB will work with one unless it's been certified. Tivos do work, but only uses them one way. There are only Cisco and Motorola devices that are two-way, and allow on demand or channel guides. One of those bad boys will set you back about a grand, or more for the HDs.
The article mentions that the biggest reason people aren't using CCs is because there are no good STBs. That's totally not true. There are plenty made by Cisco (Scientific Atlanta) and Motorola. They just cost between $800 and $1300 and come with your cable service. There's just no point in buying one, although we will sell them if you want them. As for consumer-grade options, I can't answer that, it just seems that no PC component company wants to make a CC interface, and the only consumer STB is Tivo.
I just wanted to point out there are tons of cable cards out there, and they are part of the digital boxes provided by the cable company.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, we don't verify your device or anything.
There may be restrictions on what kind of device you call sell, regarding patents and licensing, but we don't check your equipment beyond "it works to your satisfaction." I don't write the software or build the hardware. But I do know we don't check to see if your device is approved. There are far too many CC-ready TV models for us to verify.
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The article did not say it was the technology's fault. The market for simple STBs is not large enough to make selling them to consumers worth it for the manufacturers.
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No, I did. I saw it on Ars earlier. I'm responding to the the summary that blamed us for not playing ball. It blames the cable companies for not playing ball. That's BS. We'll sell you any box we provide. Do you really want to spend $1200 on an SA HD-DVR? Nobody else does, that's why we aren't selling them.
The problem is that there are no GOOD consumer devices. There just aren't. We can't help that. We aren't in the STB business.
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that is entirely the problem, and frankly if you wouldnt sell me any box you provide your business is retarted.
the point is that we as consumers shuold have a choice and viable alternatives to paying the outlandish fees that "you" charge while still getting the service we provide.
the whole pay you 6+ bucks a month for the box thing is getting old. the box should either be free or we should be able to buy it from and others. There are no good devices because everytime one
Re:Bullhockey (Score:4, Informative)
the point is that we as consumers shuold have a choice and viable alternatives to paying the outlandish fees that "you" charge while still getting the service we provide.
Parent
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Most stuff is 'engineered' to die right after warranty, unless they offer extensive warranty support. Then its good for as long as you can 'extend the warranty'.
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Stop and Think This Through... (Score:2)
That would actually be a meaningfully more expensive box than just having everything mounted on a single board. Perhaps this is a legislated requirement. Very hard to say if this is true or not. Let's read on...
It works with our system just fine.
Now we get at the meat of the problem. The point of the legislation was to open the system in question up to OTHERS. As it stands, it appears I ca
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Why not TiVo? (Score:5, Interesting)
(Yeah, yeah, I realize that the TiVo service subscription will put off people, but it's worth it.)
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Re:Why not TiVo? (Score:4, Informative)
Even better, there's the occasional offer to transfer existing lifetime service to the latest hardware, and a free year of service on the legacy unit, which can then be unsubscribed.
(Of my eight TiVos, two are lifetime, 5 are $6.95/mo, and one is a never-subscribed Series1 20hr unit. Two of the monthlies are also Series1 that I could let lapse and still be able to do manual recordings.)
Parent
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At least there's Tivo (Score:3, Informative)
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Let's see what happens when you call your cable provider and ask them to put a cablecard in a box you don't rent from them. At the gates of customer service hell that's called an "unsupported device."
Please, prove me wrong.
This is just like (Score:4, Insightful)
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Or maybe most people just don't want to pay the true cost of their phone so the service providers have to find some way to make sure they can still make a profit! The fact is right now the market is completely dominated by the carriers so that all major manufacturers have a lot more interest in making certain the carriers want their phones then the end user does.
If this wasn't the case we would have seen dual carrier enabled phones a long time ago, not just add-ons to let you switch from carrier to carri
Maybe it's not the technology... (Score:3, Interesting)
My dad bought a 58 inch LCD open box from best buy a month or so ago. No rep explained it's functionality to him really. I forget the make now, but it had a cable card slot and a Hard drive for DVR. Off he goes to get HD from Time Warner. They say "hey, you need a box." They didn't ask what TV he had or if it was Card ready.
Moral of the story?
Come thanksgiving, I'm putting a Cable card in the TV for him and hope there is no ensuing SNAFU that prevents him from getting his HD channels. By himself, he would have had no clue what he needed. His only hope *I* see would have been to get an company cable installer who would see the situation and get him the card.
Analog cable for me.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Analog cable and a Tivo with lifetime service (buy one on eBay). That's the way to go.
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So, instead of having 99 channels full of crap, and one with something interesting once in while, you have 999 channels full of crap, and one with someting interesting once in a while. And you pay more.
Color me a little skeptical.
The reason to go digital is to get the DVR in the msot convenient way (as opposed to rolling your own).
The more critical question for PVR builders (Score:5, Interesting)
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Why would I want it? (Score:3, Insightful)
My conclusion is the reason you can't replace the cable company's box with your own is that no one would want to. This isn't a great conspiracy, it's just that the STB manufacturers aren't going to try to sell a product that no one wants. Why would anyone want to replace one box with another box that does the same thing? The only motivation I could envision is cost, but the rental fees for the boxes aren't usually that high.
For a consumer, using the cable card to use a better DVR or to get rid of the STB entirely is worthwhile. So, the market has responded by providing these options. However, there's no motivation for someone to choose a different basic STB than the one the cable companies provide.
No one reads the Firehose Related Stories links? (Score:3, Informative)
If I dare try to change the channel at precisely the time that guide data is updated on the channel I am leaving, the box may fail to change channels, change to the wrong channel, or even crash. Every recording I make has to be padded by at least one minute start and end to avoid this bug, even back-to-back recordings on the same channel. (Networks shifting start and end times by a minute is exacerbating the problem.)
This requires me to disable the TiVo's Suggestions feature as they cannot be padded.
I can't use TWC's cable box at all with the Series1 units as they lack the ability to trim their recordings in response to a neighboring-in-time padded recording: one or the other recording would not be recorded.
I've been subjected to these boxes for more than a year now (I'm in one of their beta-test cites) and the company has thumbed its nose at local officials demanding a resolution to and restitution for the problems.
The only thing that has alleviated the problem is getting a CableCARD-enabled TiVo, though it too has had difficulty with cards that lose the signal and will not reacquire it without a restart or (disliked by TWC) ejecting and re-inserting the offending card which I've had to do three times so far. And of course it's the card in CableCARD slot 1.
This is 2007... (Score:5, Insightful)
but oddly enough, shows work fine from bittorrent (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:but oddly enough, shows work fine from bittorre (Score:4, Interesting)
Cable companies have had their chance to offer TV shows in a convenient and cost-effective format, and they've completely blown it. I'm not going to waste my time and deal with the hassle of conforming to their stupid DRM schemes, and ridiculous pricing (usually over $100/month for HD service, with terrible compression), when I can just get what I want on BitTorrent. Besides, most of the worthwhile shows are on the main networks and PBS anyway; for cable, the only channels with worthwhile programming are Discovery and Sci-Fi. $100/month for two HD channels? And I have to watch it on their schedule and with commercials? I don't think so.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
BitTorrent is the way I watch TV almost exclusively now. I don't have to pay for cable service (only cable internet), and I just download the shows I want to see, in full HD glory, and watch them on a computer connected to my HDTV. My wife really loves it because we can pause and rewind, and best of all we don't have to sit through obnoxious commercials. And of course, it's all free, except for the internet service.
Interestingly enough, Microsoft is sort of blowing it with their xbox live service. I picked up a 360 recently for the games, I didn't even know they were doing all that other stuff with it. And it's really a cool service -- naturally, it was developed by a third party at Microsoft's request. But they do enough stupid shit there that they ultimately make it not entirely worth my while. Yes, you can download shows "to own" but they provide no mechanism to move them off the built-in hard drive. The bigger dr
FCC Fails Again - Vote with your Wallet (Score:5, Interesting)
This reminds me of a deadline a few years ago set by the FCC to include working firewire ports on set-top boxes. This would allow a digital connection to certain TV's as well as to recorders like D-VHS or computers (using D-VHS emulators.)
http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/02/01/does-your-cable-box-have-a-firewire-port [engadgethd.com]
That mandate deadline came and passed without compliance as well. Boxes never had ports, or had ports removed even though OEM's like SA and Moto included them, or had ports that weren't functional.
The FCC has been a joke since it was created. Like most of government, despite any good intentions, it has proved ineffectual in enforcing many of its own mandates that has resulted in loss to the consumers while effectively enforcing protections for certain corporations like the Cable Cos resulting in loss to competition.
For me, I've given up. I've basically voted with my feet and stopped subscribing to cable. If I hear about something of interest, I can usually download it or have a friend record it or wait for it on DVD and rent it. The result is that I watch less TV, which may be a good thing or maybe I miss things I would enjoy or maybe it doesn't make a real difference except that the Cable Cos, as well as the content creators, advertisers other related businesses and the FCC (through included taxes), are not getting my money because of this stupidity. You may want to consider the same.
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TV is for suckers, period. I would not have said it, if you had not asked, though...
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Or, you know, diapers for the kid...
Yup. (Score:2)
Yup. I ditched cable TV about 5 years ago when I realized that I was paying my hard-earned money to get bombarded by commercials. After sitting down in front of the History Channel, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Comedy Central, and other popular cable channels, I noticed that they always only played 5 minutes of program material, followed by 5 to 8 minutes of commercials, followed by 5 minutes of program, followed by 5 to 8 minutes of commercials,
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Re:hackable? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the more fundimental concern the companies have is the lack of control they would have over the whole system if they don't own it. People could set up services for free that would work better than the ones the cable company would try to sell (because they always halfass features like that).
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
This message has been brought to you by people with more confidence than groundings in reality.
Re:hackable? (Score:5, Informative)
The cable company takes its encryption key and encrypts it with the card's public key, then transmits that over the public band. Every cable card device sees this, but only the target card (your card) is able to read it, and use the card's private key to decrypt it.
So now the card has been given the cable company's encryption key, and can decrypt the signal and let you watch all the sweet sweet porn.^H^H^H^H^H discovery HD. The cable company periodically changes its key, and it keeps a list of all the cable cards that are authorized and sends the new key to all those cards.
IF you had all of this working in software, then you could copy the cable company's key into as many other devices as you want. That way, you could pay for one TV, but have other TVs authorized. But, you would have to keep copying the key to all the other devices. You absolutely could not get perpetual free cable. The best you can do is pay for one but actually have many. Hardly even seems worth it.
Parent
Cable companies moving towards DCAS (Score:5, Interesting)
The real path in digital cable is ClearQAM (i.e. unencrypted digital cable) that will eventually transition to DCAS, with CableCard being the lame horse in the race. The Downloadable Conditional Access System (DCAS) [wikipedia.org] is better to the cable companies because:
1. They don't have to deal with any kind of external hardware in terms of inventories and so on.
2. Nobody from the cable company needs to go and activate the hardware (i.e. tens of billions in deployment costs for personnel, vehicles and equipment), because it's all done from the head end.
3. The Conditional Access system is inherently downloadable, meaning it can be renewed if cracked (similar to BD+ on Blu-Ray).
4. The Conditional Access system is embedded inside the chip with special design methods that prevent it from being hacked from the outside. Before you go off on me on this one, note that it's part of the contract when you license the IP that the hardware has a very specific path to transfer information that can't be addressed by additional logic and subjects you to an economic death penalty if you do - no more peeking into internal registers or external memory since all of that has to be encrypted from the inside and done so by design from the beginning.
5. Even if you do go to the extent of de-lidding the chip and attempting to find the secrets, the cable companies can send electronic bullets to disable a cracked device if so found.
6. Content recording and sharing is automatically DRM protected from the head-end's instructions, so only compliant devices within a particular approved secure media sharing framework can transfer the content.
It's a content producer's and cable company's simultaneous wet dream. The cable guys are interested ultimately in selling gravy (i.e. programming), not leasing or selling hardware that needs to be maintained, stocked, etc.. Even the satellite guys that I've talked to have said as much. When you also consider that Broadcom, the very dominant player in Set Top Box chips, is itself pushing DCAS, you can see where this is going. Heck, even Verizon last year tried to throw a monkey wrench in the works by writing a letter to the FCC so it could use DCAS for its new Fiber-to-the-Premises IPTV network. The poor bastards who get the shaft now are the companies providing digital TV chips with cable box functionality embedded, although this is also why Broadcom is intent on pushing this through as a first-mover advantage in the DTV chip market.
Don't fret too much on this one - it's all already essentially been decided for you. The unfortunate aspect of this is that the early adopters are going to get the shaft.
Parent
Re:Try buying a TV that supports CableCard (Score:4, Insightful)
No it's not. If I had such a service (and I have no intention of doing so), I'd do what I do now with my ~70 basic cable: block out channels. Religious channels? Begone! Shopping channels? Don't see them. Ad channels? Yeah right. Golf? Get real.
By the time I had blocked out all the channels I didn't want in the first place, I'd probably be down to about the same number I have now. 200 channels? No problem.
Unless you're now going to tell me that using digital cable/set top boxes/whatever, that one can't block channels. If that's the case, then there is absolutely no way I'll be getting any such service.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's exactly what I'll tell you. The reason my digital cable box is now plugged into my Myth backend is that it had no provision for deleting unwanted channels or making a channel list like my TV can for analog (and clear-QAM for my new TV) stations. It's amazing that they'd omit such a commonly-used feat
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I don't know your system, but here's why I'm trading my Verizon HD DVR box for an HD Tivo:
1. Verizon's guide is wrong about what show is on more often than Tivos was with Comcast cable in my area. neother is wrong significantly often, but Verizon annoyed me more often than
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We did that in 2006. It had no effect.
As long as the bulk of voters are easily manipulable through expensive TV ads, the ultimate loyalty of politicians will be to those who fund the expensive TV ads.