"Switched Digital Cable" could end hopes of Cablecard and the PC!

[dbfresh23]

Apparently a lot of people aren't going to be able to use version 1 cablecards with Time Warner, Cox, Cablevision and other providers. Going by this article, TW is the only one that has actually started rolling it out already. To make better use of their bandwidth they are moving to what they call "Switched Digital" where digital cable is basically all treated as VOD is - where the user actually has to request for it to be sent, which obviously cablecard v1 cannot do. This could be very very bad news for HTPC users...

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/product...ble-hdtv_x.htm

[polen]

Wow, I have a friend that bought one of those Sony DVRs with a 500GByte drive and cablecard for $630 off ebay.

Maybe that's why there was so many of these on ebay, San Diego people probably were selling them, since they are a $1000 door stop now for those people.

I guess I will hold off on cable card setups. At least my analog capture cards will still work

-Polen

[stanger89]

That's kind of funny.

"Switched Digital" ~= IPTV

And, FWIW, it's not really any worse than where we are today.

[dbfresh23]

Yeah, exactly - no worse. It's also no better like people are/were expecting when MS announced cablecard for MCE.

I actually read a few articles on this and most of them did compare it to IPTV too...

[stanger89]

One potential advantage of this scheme, is that because they're saving a ton of bandwidth by not broadcasting channels you're not watching, hopefully they'll be able to use more bandwidth for the ones you are.

[hemicuda]

you really don't expect them to do something remotely as intelligent as that now do you?

[stanger89]

Not really

[stevech]

what am I missing here? Without fiber-to-the-home, and given it would take 30 years to change the paradigm to 100% VOD, where would the cable company get enough bandwith for VOD on coax for hundreds of thousands of subscribers in a metro area?

[jquinlan]

Did not Cablevision have to stop development of their new DVR's due to legal action from the Movie Industry and TV networks on something like this.

They were working on a DVR that shifts the show recordings to their servers so no hard drives are required at the home. Since they would then send the shows to you from their server the Networks considered this a re-broadcast and would require additional fees and licenses. I wonder how this VOD will work with prime time shows and movies if they are going to hold them to their schedule of broadcasting.

[stanger89]

First, consider that currently cable companies broadcast hundred(s) of digital channels simultaneously, to all their customers all the time. Then note they said "like" VOD, there's an important difference between this and true VOD, and that is this is not truely "on demand".

The way this, and IPTV work, is you've still got linear channels, just like normal, but unlike normal, they only send you the channel(s) you are actually watching. This has the potential to reduce bandwidth used at the customer end by a couple orders of magnitude.

Now, here's where IPTV/Switched Digital are different than VOD. Since you're selecting a linear stream, if two users select the same channel (show) the head end still only sends one copy of it, it's then split to the users who tuned to it.

In contrast, with VOD, the head end would have to send a unique copy of that show to each user.

FWIW, cable has plenty of bandwidth for VOD on the customer end, it's the head end where they'll have to do some work to get VOD really going.

[jquinlan]

Ok , I see how the switched cable would work without being compaired to VOD.

[paulbeers]

I personally think this is brilliant! Which I have to agree with hemicuda on I don't see all our cable providers going to this! I don't want to have to have a STB on every tv (I have 8 tv's thru out my little house and that is why I have fought going to DirectTV). At least this would allow for me to have as many HDTV channels I want and still allow the tv's without an STB still have their basic 70. *crosses fingers*. I will admit this advantage comes with a bit of sadness as I was getting kind of excited for Cablecard for the PC. Oh well, maybe they will come with some other type of devise to make use of this technology. If there is a will, there is a way!

[dbfresh23]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

I personally think this is brilliant! Which I have to agree with hemicuda on I don't see all our cable providers going to this! I don't want to have to have a STB on every tv (I have 8 tv's thru out my little house and that is why I have fought going to DirectTV). At least this would allow for me to have as many HDTV channels I want and still allow the tv's without an STB still have their basic 70. *crosses fingers*. I will admit this advantage comes with a bit of sadness as I was getting kind of excited for Cablecard for the PC. Oh well, maybe they will come with some other type of devise to make use of this technology. If there is a will, there is a way!

I see switched digital as mostly bad. Channel changes will likely take longer and the whole point that all of these devices that are designed to use cablecard v1 will be utterly useless is a very bad thing for consumers.

Your point of being able to watch tv w/o a stb will be moot in another couple of years anyway once they stop broadcasting analog. I fail to see any advantages for consumers. I rather see them just start eliminating analog channels now since it will eventually happen anyway.

They are already working on other devices to work with this technology being a software downloadable system and cablecard v2, point is they won't work with any of the devices out there today that are cable card v1.

I believe that you and hemicuda are both wrong based on the articles I've read - this is the more popular route that cable companies are taking - the other route being the slow elimination of analog channels.

Basically I hardly see this as "brilliant" and the only advantages are really for cable companies. I don't see how the FCC is even letting this happen being that it basically makes cablecard not work - which was a mandate that the FCC passed to allow consumers to rid themselves of the cable company owned stb.

[stevech]

Originally Posted by dbfresh23

Your point of being able to watch tv w/o a stb will be moot in another couple of years anyway once they stop broadcasting analog. I fail to see any advantages for consumers.

Local TV stations are in peril. Their slow move to on-air HD was/is their last hope.

While today's hybrid fiber-coax cable systems have a lot of bandwidth on the fiber segments, the last 100ft to the subscriber is mostly coax. The bandwidth is fairly limited if you compare no. of subs versus no. of unique shows watched, even allowing for this miracle switched cable (which the IT community calls IP multicast). The capital cost to go broadband to the home, new amps everywhere, etc., is high.

[mayamaniac]

I don't see whats the big deal in dropping Cable Card v1, especially for PVR users. Assuming that most homes will eventually use some sort of PVR system, so its useless to have the card inserted directly into your HDTV set. You need some sort of timeshifting recording system. So be it a new STB that supports Cable Card v2 for bi-directional data transfer, or provide a Cable Cardv2 PCI card for people who don't want an STB and rather use their SageTV or MCE box.

And this switched digital is stupid, it sounds like something that will fail after tons of money spent on development. bring on CableCard v2 and implement it the right way and not cripple it.

[dbfresh23]

Well the big deal in dropping cablecard v1 is that cablecard v2 is NOT backwards compatible. So all of the people that have v1 stuff are just SOL.