Quote:
Originally Posted by
dmusoke 
Not to derail this important discussion but have you guys read about this
http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/fcc-forces-cable-companies-streaming ?
Also my question to Arris would be:
1. Will i be able to carry my paid-for-programs, transfer them for archival purposes and play them on another non-moxi device later on? These HD file can easily be stored as .mts file or as .mkv files.
2. Will Moxi issue SW updates to fix the latest bugs in their boxes plus support livestreaming as described in the link i posted above?
- David
1) For Moxi HD media, Moxi outputs HD only via the HDMI port. I'm not aware of any commercial device that would take HDMI output to create HD video files regardless of the container type. There is the HD Fury family of devices that take HDMI output, strips away the DRM and generates DRM-free HD videoI to RGB using VGA, component or BNC connectors. You then send this output to whatever HD compatible encoder you have and create video files that can be transcoded into whatever video container format you wish. The one thing I'm unsure of is the audio aspect; The HD Fury will output audio over Toslink which should be okay for all but the highest resolution audio formats.
2) The retail Moxi devices are dead for all intents and purposes as far as Arris is concerned, The last system update was some two years ago and I haven't heard anything that would lead me to believe otherwise. Clearly, Arris bought Diego for their technology and they have no extant interest in the retail market. That said, most of the "bugs" of the Moxi devices are really feature enhancements however sorely needed or desired.
As far as livestreaming perhaps a small lesson in the history of cable boxes is needed here. You may recall that cable boxes had Firewire outputs that the FCC required to encourage time shifting of cable programming. There was however, no requirement for the cable companies to activate these ports nor supply devices such as hard drives to record video output. I'm not even sure if they were required to indicate the video codecs used. These ports languished and though there were people who were able to create home brewed schemes to use the Firewire ports, I know of no commercial device that took advantage of cable box Firewire output. Also there was the FCC requirement for the adoption of CableCard technology again to encourage 3rd party manufacture of retail devices. I can count on one hand the number of companies that supply retail devices that supports CableCard technology..
Undaunted, in 2010 the FCC in an effort to encourage the manufacture of 3rd party devices to supply cable TV to home video screens, considered demanding an
IP-based gateway device to replace traditional cable boxes. This was met with the anticipated foot stomping from cable providers and the Ethernet port on cable boxes has been included in cable boxes to meet a suggested December 2012 deadline. On the other hand, this is the FCC that just permitted cable companies to encrypt free, over-the-air content transmitted on their systems
Nevertheless, exactly what does this Ethernet port do? What protocol is used? What A/V codecs are used? Is there a common framework for controlling what is sent from the head end to the cable box or are CCs free to create a patchwork of incompatible protocols? Is the signal encrypted? Will the CC be required to license decryption schemes? Or is this simply an Ethernet port to the Internet? Are there bandwidth requirements or will there be throttling of the data stream? (Connecting a Roku box to this port and actually using it are two different issues.) My guess is that the cable companies will forestall, obfuscate, confuse the customer, and stymy 3rd party manufacturers so that, fingers crossed, this goes the way of the Firewire port of yore.
