FCC Forces Cable Companies to Support HD Streaming on Network Devices

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by reggie14

I'm still using firewire channel changing (and even did firewire recording for a while, until I decided it was just too buggy). I won't be too sad to see it go. I swear the firewire drivers are buggy, even for just changing channels. Plus its days are numbered anyway, given that there's no x64 drivers for it.

These new boxes might give us a better way to tune the boxes. Though, I suspect they will come too late for most of us. I highly doubt I'll still be using Sage in 2014. Once Ceton gets their act together I'll probably jump ship to WMC and hope that Google someday releases a public version of their Fiber TV setup.

There are some folks already using http for channel changes, right? It's Dish or DirectTV boxes? That would be nice ...

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Edit to add: ... except, perhaps, for what's currently marked copy-freely. That doesn't violate the FCC rule. The FCC rule isn't worded as saying you need to be able to watch/record TV on any device. You can't word requirements like that. The rule is worded such that set top boxes must support an IP-based open industry standard for video distribution. By being open, in theory anyone could license the technology and build hardware/software that could be used with the set top box. But that doesn't have to be free.

Did I read something recently where the FCC actually gave the cable companies the thumbs up to encrypt every single channel they provide? That would further complicate the "copy freely" I suppose, based on Time Warner's history of copy flagging everything they can.

[Fuzzy]

This is really not all that different than the current cablecard scenario. That is also an 'open standard', it just still has to be certified by a certification body, that just so happens to be run by the cable companies. It is a better system though, removing the device pairing requirements that cablecard has, so that may end up being it's saving grace.