| Cablecards should work like SIM cards Plug it in to any compliant host device and it just works. Move it between devices, use the old card.
Noooooo. Cablecards have to be activated by the cable company, and are locked to the device you put them in until you go through the activation process again with a tech.
Cablecard receivers have to be certified/approved by Cable Labs.
Cablecard host systems that the receivers are installed into have to be certified/approved by Cable Labs. If it's a Vista Media Center PC, it has to be a new OEM system that's approved by Cable Labs and activated by the OEM (with a special BIOS setting). Cablecard host systems must use DRM and can't transfer recordings to other devices (though they can do limited streaming - such as to Media Center extenders). Cablecard host systems can have a maximum of 2 tuners (limits your ability to do centralized whole-home DVR, say with 4+ tuners).
Cablecard is crippleware (with the effort to maximize box/card rental and VoD/PPV service revenue by forcing you to use more boxes and by the easiest box to setup being the one provided by the cable co).
They would get a lot more people to subscribe to a lot more services and watch more PPV if they would just make it easy and economical to use any device and without such harsh restrictions. |
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| CableCard hosts systems are not limited to 2 tuners. The M-Card supports 6 tuners. Cost limits hosts to 2 tuners. There is nothing stopping a CE vendor from putting in 6 tuners for each M-Card slot, other than hardly anyone would pay for it.
The reason cablecards have to be bound to a host is to help secure the interface between the host device and the cablecard (decryption device). If a cablecard was not bound to a device there would be more oppurtunity for someone to try to steal high value (or copy protected) content straight from the card. Not that people aren't already trying to hack them.
As far as cablecards existing to maximize box rental, that's just dumb. Cable operators would LOVE to have customers go buy their own device and slap a cablecard in it. (contrary to consumer beliefs, cable companies hate supporting hardware) But only if that device supports all the services they offer and want to sell. As long as the CE manufactures don't make a TV or host box that supports all the services the cable operator wants to sell, they will never "push" them. But they certainly aren't the reason people have problems with cablecards. |
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DonLibesPremium,ExMod 2001
join:2003-01-19 | reply to kballs
said by kballs :
They would get a lot more people to subscribe to a lot more services and watch more PPV if they would just make it easy and economical to use any device and without such harsh restrictions.
True. I know a lot of people that are avoiding digital cable (sticking with analog) as long as they possibly can. |
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| reply to magnushsi
Windows Vista limits cable card tuners to 2. This was a limitation in the spec for CableCard 1.0.
M-Card hasn't been implemented in any hardware (yet) so maybe it will solve that problem.
The "more opportunity for someone to try to steal" issue is simply that your friends could get cable (from you) for the cost of a single cablecard rental (by you sharing your cards)... but oh wait, the cable company can still physically disconnect the cables like they always have... and if they wanted they could bring their STB/TV over to your house to get activated.
Having cablecards work like SIM cards does NOT mean they would have to transfer the data to the host unencrypted, it simply means they wouldn't need to be locked to the host (and setup with an unreliable activation process).
Cablecard is an unfinished/incomplete spec that renders 3rd party boxes unable to view high-revenue services like PPV because the 2-way communication portion is "not part of cablecard" and is mostly undefined - open to the cable company's preference (maybe the SDV spec fixes some of this). Because of this, only the cable co's boxes will really work for the services they want to sell you, plus the extra revenue for box rental, so they have little incentive to make activation in 3rd party boxes a 'just works' process, in fact they have incentive to do the opposite - make 3rd party box activation as painful as possible so customers prefer the cable co boxes.
If the cable cos really didn't care about box rental revenue, why do they charge you per box, charge you extra for DVR boxes, charge you for "DVR service", and charge you for "electronic programming service"? It's like soda at a restaurant - all profit! |
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| Vista doesn't limit anything to 2 cable card tuners? You didn't read the spec if you think it had anything to do with Vista or tuner limits? CC 1.0 does limit the card to supporting one MPEG stream at a time. You can put as many interfaces in a box as the software is written to support. Most choose two, cause it meets what people want to do at a price balance.
What are you talking about? There are nearly 100,000 CC 2.0 (M-Cards) deployed in peoples homes as of today. They work just fine and each one supports up to 6 tuners per card and of course two way connectivity.
Once again, you don't understand the spec...copy protection (the reason for binding to a host) is to protect the content being passed from the card to the host. Hard to explain, read the spec.
Wholy smokes! Unfinished/imcomplete? If you've ever read the spec (500+ pages) you won't think it's incomplete.
Cable co's charge you per box cause the manufacturer charged them per box! If you pay $15 a month for your DVR box the cable company breaks even 27 months on just the hardware cost. That doesn't include shipping, warehouse, staging, handling, support, etc. If you keep the service for 3 years, then maybe the cable company starts to make $ off the box rental. I'll say it again, cable companies HATE having to have boxes. |
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