Perhaps in a few years one will be able to purchase a HDTV without the need to rent a cable box. In a few years there might be HDTV’s that offer true two way video on demand with the built in two way QAM tuner cable box technology. Higher-end HDTV’s would have a built in HD DVR or a external SATA jack to plug in a external hard drive. These new TV’s are going to have to support MPEG-4 and switched digital video to be 100% compatible with all the subscription programming that cable TV offers.

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6564362.html?desc=topstory (http://www.twice.com/article/CA6564362.html?desc=topstory)

6 biggest cable companies, Sony sign a pact on decoding

John Dunbar, Associated Press
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
This gizmo may soon be an annoying thing of the past for ...

(05-28) 04:00 PDT Washington --

The set-top box, a necessary appendage for millions of cable television customers for decades, is moving toward extinction.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/28/BUGP10U8EE.DTL

Stephen Wildstrom on May 28

Twelve years after Congress gave consumers the right to ditch the set top box rented from their cable service, it may finally become practical to do so. A sweeping deal with members of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association gives Sony the right to incorporate a cable TV technology called tru2way into television sets and other products. Consumer electronics devices incorporating tru2way should have the full functionality of the STB, including the pay-per-view and on-demand content that has been missing from previous deals.

Sony isn't the first company to reach such an agreement. But previous deals with Samsung and Panasonic were thought to be intended mainly for their set top box businesses. Sony does not make STBs and the deal is clearly intended to incorporate cable TV technology directly into consumer prices. Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Association and a long-time critic of the cable operators' foot-dragging approach to enabling third-party access to cable, called the deal a significant breakthrough.

Still, obituaries for STBs, almost all of them in the U.S. from either Motorola or Cisco Systems, provided by cable operators may be premature. Ken Wirt, vice-president for consumer marketing at Cisco, thinks there's plenty of life left in the old model, and the reason is the willingness of cable operators to supply boxes at very low cost. "Digital video recorders are subsidized by service providers," Wirt says. "The question is do people want to buy them? So far , people have voted with their wallets for the rental model."

Of course, consumers' choices in the past have been very limited. Even the best of the cable-enabled consumer electronics products, such as the TiVo HD, have suffered from significant limitations, which have helped Cisco and Motorola hang on to their effective duopoly. In theory, devices incorporating tru2way will be much more capable. However this turns out, consumers can only win.

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2008/05/will_sonys_deal.html?chan=top+news_top+news+index_news+%2B+a nalysis

I will keep my dual tuner PVR STB since I have no need for a non PVR capable TV in my family room.

Unless everyone who wants a TV suddenly starts buying Sonys, I don't think this is going to have any real effect. I'll stick with my S3 TiVo, thanks.

Topics merged.

The problem is, by the time this is implemented, will cable change its standards again? SDV II?

The original post describes almost exactly what I had with my TV. HD cable service with cablecard with a firewire hd-dvr and d-vhs deck that could record any HD programming on cable. Then cable chooses to use sdv for its hd channels and cablecard users are told to rent a box.

So now we are all in a position of waiting two years for something that was available three years ago with a cablecard. We're really going nowhere fast.

I have Verizon FiOS, which uses the same Motorola DCT series STBs as the cable companies. Does this mean there's at least some hope of compatibility? Verizon's not mentioned in the article.

I am under the imnpression the SDV will only be used PayPerView services and not for standard scheduled programming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_video

I really hope that this effort will be a success. Certainly if one has the space for a STB in every location and doesn't care about multiple remotes, there isn't any advantage. I have locations (e.g., bedroom, kitchen wall mount) that have no space for STB's to be placed.

I am under the imnpression the SDV will only be used PayPerView services and not for standard scheduled programming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_video

Unfortunately, your impression is not correct. An increasing number of cable MSOs are deploying SDV for regular linear channels; some only implement them for a few less-popular channels, while others (like TWC Hawaii) have gone all-SDV, which has yielded more than a few miffed would-be TiVo users. The tuning resolver is a necessary add-on for those users - it allows the TiVo to send a request to the headend for the channel, and find out which frequency and stream it'll be available on.

Content delivery standards are going to be changing too fast for this to be relevant. Cable is in flux, and ATSC-II will be here before you know it. Not to mention IPTV and whatever else you want to imagine. The concept of a "TV" is changing to a modular system and what we think of when we say "a TV" will become just a monitor.

The industry should be focusing on user and inter-device interface standardization so that average consumers can actually make sense of all the fancy equipment they are buying. TV as a system wouldn't be a problem if you could throw all the boxes in a closet, daisy chain them into a network with your monitor panels throughout the house, and control everything with one remote for each TV. Yeh... well I can dream, right?

The tuning resolver is a necessary add-on for those users - it allows the TiVo to send a request to the headend for the channel, and find out which frequency and stream it'll be available on.
That is all true, but with respect to this thread, Tru2way devices will have no need for the tuning resolver because they inherently have 2-way communication and cable will be providing the ocap libraries to interface with their system.

I have Verizon FiOS, which uses the same Motorola DCT series STBs as the cable companies. Does this mean there's at least some hope of compatibility? Verizon's not mentioned in the article.

Sure, for a limited number of TVs and that's only till they change their minds and go off in some other direction with technology.

Buying any kinds of electronics with any kind of "future proofing" in mind will not work - unless you treat your electronics like a car lease and trade it every 3 years.:cool:

That is all true, but with respect to this thread, Tru2way devices will have no need for the tuning resolver because they inherently have 2-way communication and cable will be providing the ocap libraries to interface with their system.

Yes, but I was responding specifically to the mention about SDV not being used for normal linear programming; I was trying to clear up why SDV is an issue for *all* programming, not just iPPV/on-demand content. Please read my entire post - it's related in context to what I was saying.

Other than Sony signing on, which is significant, the introduction of tru2way is old news. In addition to Sony, Panasonic and Samsung said at CES, that they would incorporate tru2way into TVs, as well as STBs. Panasonic specifically promised to have plasmas with the tech. late this year; (Oct/Nov.?) Just a few days ago, Samsung said it will have LCDs using this tech., but still no timeframe; my guess would be
March.

Most every one will anounce this technology at CES next year and high end units will have it - then will trickle down to less expensive models. The normal patern in electronics.

The problem is, by the time this is implemented, will cable change its standards again? SDV II?

The original post describes almost exactly what I had with my TV. HD cable service with cablecard with a firewire hd-dvr and d-vhs deck that could record any HD programming on cable. Then cable chooses to use sdv for its hd channels and cablecard users are told to rent a box.

So now we are all in a position of waiting two years for something that was available three years ago with a cablecard. We're really going nowhere fast.

OCAP/tru2way is supposed to allow for much of that- new software for new systems gets downloaded to the tv/stb from the headend to deal with whatever new services they offer.

New providers (like fios) are likley to go nutty with some crazy new setups but the old cable company's have shown time and again that they go peicemeal with incremental upgrades.

so long as the tv has the hardware needed it can get the upgraded software. Off the top of my head the big new hardware to be needed would be an mpeg4 decoder. It seems new stb's are coming with those (the tivo's in the retail market and the panasonic ocap boxes that comcast has ordered as examples). The SDV adapter spec has a part in it that the end device can notify the head end if it is mpeg4 ready. So presumably everyone is noticing that mpeg4 is becoming important. I'd imagine that many new devices comeing out that are high end enough to have ocap at first will have the extra 10-20 bucks tacked on (if that) to include the MPEG4 ability. As things come down in price and more bottom end stuff gets it mpeg4 might be included in all the mpeg2 chips by defualt at that time.

clearly nothing last forever, but i think this wave might last long enough to not be completely annoying.

I have Verizon FiOS, which uses the same Motorola DCT series STBs as the cable companies. Does this mean there's at least some hope of compatibility? Verizon's not mentioned in the article.


sorry nope-

verizon has special boxes made by moto that include IPTV ability (the model numbers are clightly off of the "normal" cable boxes- i think they end in QIP for "qam with IP". Verizon used typical cable QAM technology for their linear broadcast channels but their VOD and PPV apparently use IPTV. No one else is making the IPTV equipment apparently.

Verizon has made some noises that they will go all IPTV in just a couple years. If so there's no 3rd party devices that I have heard of that will do IPTV. (not sure if they will though- if everyone is going with QAM and OCAP and sony et al are building tv's that you just plug in and work- is verizon going to ignore that and still stick to a model that requires them to buy tons of STB's and force them on consumers?- HMM- maybe that IS your hope)

Verizon is an interesting case- I'm not sure how the FCC will apply the law to them that requires 3rd party devices to be available at retail. The law actually applies to DISH and Directv also, but the FCC gave them both broad waivers many years ago that essentially completely exempts them from any action to force open markets and that's why there is no standard for DBS boxes so you can buy any old box at retail (in fact you have much less choice today then you did originally with DBS). Maybe verizon can get such a waiver totally exempting them, but so far they have only got smaller issue specific exemptions (one of which is that no one makes a low end cablecard iptv box so they can continue to use integrated non cablecard boxes for low end users as an example)

When the FCC started making rules to provide for 3rd party devices they basically anointed cablelabs as the group to create the standards. There were competitors that complained saying that cablelabs obviously has an agenda and wanted the FCC to assign the duty to an independent standards organization like ansi or something. But the fcc said no one else was as far along with standards as cablelabs and that the fcc itself wanted nothing to do with making standards so they said cablelabs was it. Well now as predicted that’s a problem for verizon, they aren't even allowed to join cablelabs, they have no say in cablelabs' standards and they want to use IPTV which cablelabs has nothing to do with. So how is verizon going to buid an IPTV infrastructure to a standard that 3rd parties can build to? There is no cablelabs standard for iptv. Will any 3rd parties even bother making tv's or stb's for verizon's current small footprint if there was a standard to follow? If verizon made an iptv standard would att and qwest have to follow? The whole telco providing tv situation is a mess in regards to the 3rd party device law....