House votes to end Cable Cards requirement

[mikejaner]

http://www.lightreading.com/cable-vi.../d/d-id/710079

All that has to happen now, is the Senate vote in September, and lights out for Cable Cards. It may take a little while to phase out, but I see providers killing them as soon as they can retool their boxen.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by mikejaner

http://www.lightreading.com/cable-vi.../d/d-id/710079

All that has to happen now, is the Senate vote in September, and lights out for Cable Cards. It may take a little while to phase out, but I see providers killing them as soon as they can retool their boxen.

I might have said this on another thread already, but DVB is going to spread in the USA very soon and open big business opportunities and competition which is always good.

[nyplayer]

Comcast and Tivo already have an agreement on this.
http://www.multichannel.com/news/tv-...pproach/375989

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by routerunner

I might have said this on another thread already, but DVB is going to spread in the USA very soon and open big business opportunities and competition which is always good.

Really? I'd be interested to read about that, that could be great news.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Really? I'd be interested to read about that, that could be great news.

The DVB.org website has lots of info. I recall that at the end of Feb 2013 some experiment where carried in USA regarding the adoption of DVB-T2. There are currently more than 140 countries adopting DVB and USA is currently the one still out. Also ATSC 3.0 could be in actual fact ditched in favour of DVB-T2, please read here

[stanger89]

Well DVB-T (terrestrial) won't really change anything, everything available OTA (ATSC) is clear and without copy protection flags, so DVB-T doesn't buy the US market anything from and end user perspective. It's also unrelated to the possible "death" of CableCard.

DVB-S or DVB-C, now that's a different story, and that would be interesting.

[routerunner]

...so DVB-T doesn't buy the US market anything from and end user perspective...

The DVB standard, regardless the transport method used, shares the same functionalities like, advanced content protection, MHEG for advanced interactivity that allows, for instance, displaying multiple video stream at the same time and select the one to watch, commercial skip preventer (when implemented) and lots more, so it might not attract final users, but definitively broadcasters.

[tvmaster2]

so, a couple of thing:

how soon will a cable-card equipped Tivo be worthless, and

for people like me, who live just out of reach of all, OTA towers, what good will DVB be?

[ckewinjones]

For those of us happily using a hardware/software stack of FiOS FTTH - CableCARD - Ceton InfiniTV4 - SageDCT - SageTV Server - SageTV HD300 to get content recorded and to the screen, what does "lights out for cable cards" mean? Will Verizon be free to stop supporting existing CableCARD installations (like mine), or is it simply that the will no longer be required to supply CableCARDs on request to new customers?

If I have to retire the CableCARD (and the Ceton card) and re-tool my hardware/software stack, that may end up being the thing that finally kicks me off of SageTV. If I have to rebuild everything, I may be better off rebuilding on a platform that is living and supported.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

so, a couple of thing:

how soon will a cable-card equipped Tivo be worthless, and

for people like me, who live just out of reach of all, OTA towers, what good will DVB be?

Better picture quality because normally more bandwitdh is available unless the broadcaster is trying to squeeze too many channels. The DVB-S2 (satellite) standard, can have a satellite transponder with 44Mbps max bandwidth and some HD channels are in the order of 8/10 Mbps with h264 coding which is pretty good. In the UK where I live BBC has the best HD channels and are free, whereas BSkyB pay-TV are not so good as it used to be and the main reason is because they have so many channels squeezed per transponder.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by routerunner

Better picture quality because normally more bandwitdh is available unless the broadcaster is trying to squeeze too many channels. The DVB-S2 (satellite) standard, can have a satellite transponder with 44Mbps max bandwidth and some HD channels are in the order of 8/10 Mbps with h264 coding which is pretty good. In the UK where I live BBC has the best HD channels and are free, whereas BSkyB pay-TV are not so good as it used to be and the main reason is because they have so many channels squeezed per transponder.

ah, ok. So BBC HD is terrestrial, aka with an antenna, as opposed to a dish?

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by ckewinjones

For those of us happily using a hardware/software stack of FiOS FTTH - CableCARD - Ceton InfiniTV4 - SageDCT - SageTV Server - SageTV HD300 to get content recorded and to the screen, what does "lights out for cable cards" mean? Will Verizon be free to stop supporting existing CableCARD installations (like mine), or is it simply that the will no longer be required to supply CableCARDs on request to new customers?

If I have to retire the CableCARD (and the Ceton card) and re-tool my hardware/software stack, that may end up being the thing that finally kicks me off of SageTV. If I have to rebuild everything, I may be better off rebuilding on a platform that is living and supported.

That's kinda my thought: can Cox, etc. just drop all support, immediately, or will they have to continue to service current cable-cards that are already out there....

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by routerunner

The DVB standard, regardless the transport method used, shares the same functionalities like, advanced content protection, MHEG for advanced interactivity that allows, for instance, displaying multiple video stream at the same time and select the one to watch, commercial skip preventer (when implemented) and lots more, so it might not attract final users, but definitively broadcasters.

But that's my point, at least in the context of this thread, Over the Air broadcasts in the US are (IIRC) by law, unencrypted, and also by law/ruling, cannot be flagged for content protection, so DVB, unless adopted by Cable (DVB-C) or Satellite (DVB-S) providers brings nothing to the table for those who could potentially lose their cablecards if the law from the OP is passed.

It also brings nothing to the end user, unless you expect everyone who just uses an antenna to replace their TVs or add STBs to get new DVB broadcasts.

Originally Posted by routerunner

Better picture quality because normally more bandwitdh is available unless the broadcaster is trying to squeeze too many channels. The DVB-S2 (satellite) standard, can have a satellite transponder with 44Mbps max bandwidth and some HD channels are in the order of 8/10 Mbps with h264 coding which is pretty good. In the UK where I live BBC has the best HD channels and are free, whereas BSkyB pay-TV are not so good as it used to be and the main reason is because they have so many channels squeezed per transponder.

Frankly though, this is all moot unless we're talking about DirecTV and or Dish Network (or the cable industry) choosing to adopt DVB-C/S and standard CAM/CI infrastructure that would allow US users to use standard DVB hardware in PCs to access protected subscription content. And I don't see that happening, well, ever.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by routerunner

In the UK where I live BBC has the best HD channels and are free, whereas BSkyB pay-TV are not so good as it used to be and the main reason is because they have so many channels squeezed per transponder.

Is this true for sports fans? I thought that Sky and others are increasingly buying crucial sports content, like EPL, to force you to subscribe to Pay TV, not unlike here in North America.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by wayner

Is this true for sports fans? I thought that Sky and others are increasingly buying crucial sports content, like EPL, to force you to subscribe to Pay TV, not unlike here in North America.

Depends on the sport. I'm not a sporty guy at all, but my son is and he loves football, some premier league matches are shown in clear on BBC/ITV and for some champions league the highlights only, but he's following more the Italian football champions league and this is the main reason I developed the DVB decrypter plugin to watch those matches.

Sky HD channels used to be really good initially, but quality gradually dropped and lots of people (mostly the one that follow sports) complained and they started giving 3D included in the package for free last year to try to win people back. I was a Sky customer many years ago, but realised that I was always watching the free channels anyway so I cancelled my subscription. Here in the UK we have Freeview (DVB-Terrestrial) and Freesat (DVB-Satellite) and the channel choice is pretty comprehensive with about 10 channels in high HD quality, my son watched the whole World Cup on BBC One HD and ITV HD for free and the picture quality was amazing. Some of the Sky HD channels are up-converted from SD anyway.

[farscapesg1]

ugg.. I guess I really need to look into alternatives to SageTV. We've been running on borrowed time but if CableCard access is yanked from us, that will be final nail in the coffin. In theory, our household TV watching has changed enough we could get by with a single DVR for the living room but we have gotten so accustomed to a "whole house" setup with Sage (4 extenders, 2 clients, 2 placeshifter licenses on laptops, and two HDHR Primes for all the recording needs).

I guess I need to start playing with the Roku and Plex again for our archived videos. Maybe pick up a Chromecast to try out as well. We've never gotten into Netflix/Hulu/etc., but since we can't get OTA if Comcast pulls cablecard access we'll probably find out just how much TV we can live without by cutting that cord...

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by farscapesg1

ugg.. I guess I really need to look into alternatives to SageTV. We've been running on borrowed time but if CableCard access is yanked from us, that will be final nail in the coffin. In theory, our household TV watching has changed enough we could get by with a single DVR for the living room but we have gotten so accustomed to a "whole house" setup with Sage (4 extenders, 2 clients, 2 placeshifter licenses on laptops, and two HDHR Primes for all the recording needs).

I guess I need to start playing with the Roku and Plex again for our archived videos. Maybe pick up a Chromecast to try out as well. We've never gotten into Netflix/Hulu/etc., but since we can't get OTA if Comcast pulls cablecard access we'll probably find out just how much TV we can live without by cutting that cord...

I would not worry about it at all... because if they pull requirement for cable card that means that any STB's in households would not work. So I see that cable cards will not be required in the future but I doubt if they completely shut off cable card service.

[Bucsfan2008]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

I would not worry about it at all... because if they pull requirement for cable card that means that any STB's in households would not work. So I see that cable cards will not be required in the future but I doubt if they completely shut off cable card service.

Even if voted in, I don't see it being phased out for quite some time for some cable providers. I have Verizon Fios and a while back I used one of their set top boxes and through the holes of it on top, I could see the same multistream Mcard that I was using in my Ceton InfiniTV. So from that perspective that would be a huge over hall of equipment that they have already bought that would cost in the multimillion dollar range not mentioning having to change an entire platform for just a few cablecard users such as ourselves. That wouldn't make good business sense. In addition, that doesn't even consider the contracts that they may already have in play with the cable box manufacturers that produce these type of boxes. It may happen down the line, but it would have to make financial sense to do it right away and I just don't see it.

If you have a cable company that doesn't use a cablecard in their boxes and goes through a different method, then I would imagine it would be fairly quick. Again what you may see is cable companies stop providing new cablecards to subscribers but for the ones that do have it, I see it as business as usual.

[KeithAbbott]

But a quick, inexpensive step for the cable providers would be to change the CCI flag from copy freely to a more restrictive setting, as an interim step until they can get all of the hardware swapped out.

[Bucsfan2008]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

But a quick, inexpensive step for the cable providers would be to change the CCI flag from copy freely to a more restrictive setting, as an interim step until they can get all of the hardware swapped out.

Fios wouldn't be able to do it or they would lose out on their multi-room DVR so anyone putting up that flag would effect that kind of technology.