Cable Companies no longer have to provide Cable Cards
 

Yeah, when I went into my local Comcast office in Houston a few months ago the comment I got from them was that they were not going to be supporting the cable cards pretty soon.

Which sucks since I have one in a Tivo and another in an HDHRPrime.

I just don't know when Comcast (Houston) is actually going to do it and what it will mean for folks that have and use them.

This could be the final nail in the coffin for the yet-to-be-released HDHomeRun Prime 6...

Yeah. It's almost like they saw it coming ;)

Spectrum is already moving channels over to the new system which do not work with cable card. Therefore I cannot view all my channels on SageTV. I expect it only to get worse.

I'm going to be really upset when the cable card ceases to function. It is the main reason I'm still on cable.

What new system?

Thank you, Ajit Pai. First, Net Neutrality, now this. Cable company monopoly lobbyists 2, consumers 0. Election coming....
This really ticks me off. Four TiVo’s...

Bear in mind a lot of this has nothing to do Cable Company Monopoly Lobbyists it more about the MPAA and RIAA and other Lobbyists worked to curb copyright infringement across all from of media.

Nonsense. If that were true, then Cox wouldn’t be offering their own DVR. along with all the other cable companies. This is purely a move to eliminate current competition from TiVo and others, while forcing consumers to switch to cable company proprietary equipment. Since Ajit Pai killed net neutrality under the wishes of the current administration, my Cox bill has gone up 30%, and my cable cards, 50%. In just two years. On equipment that is already out in the field, and costs them NOTHING.
Believe what you wish, but when you consider how many monopolistic cable operators are now content providers (don’t get me started on that crime), if what you say is accurate, then that’s even MORE reason for them to want ALL the profit margins.
Ajit Pai and his filthy corruption has made up my voting mind...

Yeah me too this will also finally convince me to fully move to Channels DVR at least they have TVE which has %95 of the channels I watch ... Might have to finally say bye to SageTV as I do not have any Cable boxes. I use a Roku for DRM and on Demand for XFINITY.

And they have still have control just like with Satellite and other Cable Company
do keep in mind at the actual broadcast come from the broadcasters them selves who applied the DMR on top of it, As for TiVo it there own fault beside you do know that many Cable Company carry TiVo DVR brand my cable provider dose but I have no control keep mind there DRM build in to video steam which why I still have HD-PVR as recorder:clap:.

We know Ajit Pai is part of problem but bear in mind everything circle back to media giant corporations which are the corruption paying out millions of dollars in lobbyist to get their way.

Agreed, and Pai is their b@#$&. The corporations are only a problem when our votes allow them to be.

It seems to me, at least in my area, the local 'cable' companies have had their 'monopoly' lock in place decades before Mr. Pai. This monopolistic effect is maintained by the politicians bought and paid for by said 'groups'.

At best It's a political apathy issue, at worst corruption from the ground up.

and not to sound like a defeatist, but people don't care enough to make the kind of choices that it will take to change things. it's a war that has already been lost IMO.

IMO, Silicondust had no intention of manufacturing a new Cable Card device. It was all smoke and mirrors.

Not sure what they would have stood to gain doing that, I do take them at their word that it was a matter of locking in a commitment to produce the chipset required for the hardware. I'm sure they would have loved to continue selling the Prime 3 these past couple of years, but it's not possible if you can't get the chips that the product was designed around.

Your bill and cable cards increasing in price have nothing to do with net neutrality. And, based on the ridiculously low usage rate of cable cards, mandatory support deserved to be killed. I say this as a cable card user and supporter. The cable card experiment was attempted and failed.

Media attention. While they have been talking about a 6 tuner CC box for a long long while, it was right around the time they started pushing their new OTA products and solutions that suddenly a "prototype" Prime 6 was revealed. Coincidence? I don't think so.

As I've said for 2+ years now, we will never see the Prime 6.

How do you know, are you working for Cox board of billing directors? And if usage rates are so ridiculously low, then I don’t see how mandatory support hurts the massively profitable cable company. Now, if Ajit Pai said “in 2025, mandatory support will end”, I’d have no problem. The same way they mandate automobile mpg or emissions standards.
Sorry dude, this is 1000% monopoly politics at their worst.

sadly, pretty much spot on. But the cable cards issue was one that at least said “we are here to protect a minority population”.
That’s toast...

I agree that CC was a failure, but I wonder why that is the case? Why did we not get more competitors to the cable company boxes, especially when, for so many years, the UI was crappy and innovation was non-existent? The cable box should have been an area where we saw lots of disruption, but this never happened. How many devices did we ever see that used CCs? TiVos and a handful of tuners for PCs from SD, Ceton and Hauppauge. Even having TVs that accepted CCs would have been useful for many, but those disappeared very early in the CC era.