Rick
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-06
Waterbury, CT
clubs: 
| This would seem to be a windfall for
the cable co's. No more cable box inventory needed if it spreads to other manufacturers and as far as broken and defective boxes..that would be a thing of the past and would shift that responsibility to consumer owned equipment.
Sounds like a real money saver.
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The Coyote captured the RR! Roadrunner Rick is now Comcastic! |
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SRFireside
join:2001-01-19
Houston, TX
| said by Rick  :Sounds like a real money saver. On both sides of the process. This also means the consumer doesn't pay cable box rental fees or have to deal with another device to hook up to their entertainment systems. It's a win/win if it's done right (and nobody exploits the savings with trumped up fees). |
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Smith6612
Premium
join:2008-02-01
united state | It also means no more possibly ugly looking box on top of your TV/in your cabinet or somewhere as well, so you'll have more space as well for other things. |
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Shrapnel64
Premium
join:2001-01-24
Hayes, VA
 ·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Cox HSI
| reply to Rick
If TV Manufacturer's were smart, they would make the box sort of like a Cable Card -- where it is replaceable if something should go wrong with it. It would be pretty sad if after a year of using the TV the built-in cable box device died, and you had to buy another $2,000 TV. |
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person9998541
@il.us
| reply to SRFireside
said by SRFireside :said by Rick :Sounds like a real money saver. On both sides of the process. This also means the consumer doesn't pay cable box rental fees or have to deal with another device to hook up to their entertainment systems. It's a win/win if it's done right (and nobody exploits the savings with trumped up fees). They will not have to pay rental fees but they will have to pay massive service fees for anything that goes wrong or the cable prices will suddenly jump more than the usual 10% a year that is definitely beyond the inflation already. |
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Jafo232
You Can't Spell Democrat Without Rat.
Premium
join:2002-10-17
Boonville, NY
·RoadRunner Cable
| Could it possibly lead to at least one less remote? Oh please, that makes it worth it by leaps and bounds..
Now, if they would just make a deal with DirecTV and Dish Network!
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Custom PHP/Perl Development. Vbulletin And Wordpress Mods Too! |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
·Cox HSI
·AT&T Southwest
| reply to Rick
Are you kidding? The lease fees, rental fees, and access charges they make using these things are the windfall.... if that was eliminated, a major cash cow of the cable companies would go away..... Don't look to see them rushing to do this in a hurry.... **unless** they find some way to continue the fees without actually providing you with a boxen.
--
"Regulatory capitalism is when companies invest in lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, instead of plant, people, and customer service." - former FCC Chairman William Kennard (A real FCC Chairman, unlike the current Corporate Spokesperson in the job!) |
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swhx7
Premium
join:2006-07-23
Elbonia
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to Rick
They'll still have to provide boxes for anyone who doesn't have a TV with built-in support for this Tru2Way.
And I will keep a TV that doesn't do DRM and demand a box, because then the cable company won't have control over my TV.
Think about it, this is a DRM scheme. Do you really want the cable company changing the software on your TV whenever they feel like it? Tru2Way provides for that.
But if you insist on a box, they will have to give you one with outputs and you can still record. |
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Corydon
Cultivant son jardin
Premium
join:2008-02-18
Denver, CO
clubs:
·Comcast
| reply to Shrapnel64
You know, I hear about people having trouble with cable boxes, but my experience has been that they're pretty solid. There's not really all that much that can go wrong with a plain digital cable box (as opposed to a DVR that has a hard drive that can fail).
It is true that the cable companies will be off the hook for maintaining these things, but presumably they'll be covered by some kind of manufacturer's warranty just like the rest of the TV.
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My opinions are my own. No-one else would want them! |
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patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
| reply to SRFireside
said by SRFireside :said by Rick :Sounds like a real money saver. On both sides of the process. This also means the consumer doesn't pay cable box rental fees or have to deal with another device to hook up to their entertainment systems. It's a win/win if it's done right (and nobody exploits the savings with trumped up fees). $4.99 outlet fee, $3.99 digital duplication fee, $1.99 digital navigator fee.
Your sets won't be free, cable companies will get same money, except now they don't have to stock, distribute, repair cable boxes. |
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Morac
join:2001-08-30
Riverside, NJ
·Comcast
| reply to KrK
said by KrK :**unless** they find some way to continue the fees without actually providing you with a boxen. That's exactly what this does. It opens VOD and OnDemand to people who don't have boxes. It's a win/win situation. Cable providers don't have to go out and purchase tons of boxes and provide them to customers (rentals fees don't immediately cover the costs), but they still get the revenue from VOD and OnDemand purchases. Customers don't need to rent a crappy box from the local provider. |
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patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
| reply to Corydon
said by Corydon :You know, I hear about people having trouble with cable boxes, but my experience has been that they're pretty solid. There's not really all that much that can go wrong with a plain digital cable box (as opposed to a DVR that has a hard drive that can fail). Lots can go wrong, tuners fail/feed noise into the ADC, if your firmware gets screwed up, or an update fails half way through (happened), or your cable company rolls an update which happens to exploit a bug in the box(1/2 of the times, when a VOD title finishes, the box doesn't respond to input and reboots in 15 seconds), and now the box is dead or restarts all the time, or VOD and IPG are dead.
How many TV VCR combos are out there where their VCR unit failed? (I'm comparing apples to oranges, mechanical to pure electronic) |
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patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY | reply to KrK
Outlet fee, digital duplication fee, fact you get digital cable (digital navigator) fee. All of those still apply. |
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BSD24
Tier 4
Premium
join:2008-04-30
Middleboro, MA
clubs:
·Comcast
 ·Verizon FIOS
·Verizon Online DSL
1 edit | reply to person9998541
said by person9998541 :said by SRFireside :said by Rick :Sounds like a real money saver. On both sides of the process. This also means the consumer doesn't pay cable box rental fees or have to deal with another device to hook up to their entertainment systems. It's a win/win if it's done right (and nobody exploits the savings with trumped up fees). They will not have to pay rental fees but they will have to pay massive service fees for anything that goes wrong or the cable prices will suddenly jump more than the usual 10% a year that is definitely beyond the inflation already. jafo232, you must forget that there is high inflation and we are in a recession! Gas prices have more than doubled in a year. Gas has caused prices for everything to go up. But again our economy is not good, and primarily because of high inflation. |
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nukscull
@rr.com
| reply to Shrapnel64
said by Shrapnel64 :If TV Manufacturer's were smart, they would make the box sort of like a Cable Card -- where it is replaceable if something should go wrong with it. It would be pretty sad if after a year of using the TV the built-in cable box device died, and you had to buy another $2,000 TV. But wouldn't they be smarter to leave it integrated fully, so that if it dies when the warranty is out that you would have to buy a new one?  |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
·Cox HSI
·AT&T Southwest
| reply to patcat88
Fees are BS ways to charge more but false advertise.
Seriously.
250 Digital HD Channels for $29.95 a month!*
* $4.99 HD Enabling fee, $2.99 Digital Programming Access guide fee, $1.99 cost recovery fee, $3.50 fee maintenance and update fee, additional fees per each HDTV. Does not include Federal Charges, local taxes, or other usage fees. Billing fee not included. Actual cost $62.95 a month.**
**Maybe. Could be more.
--
"Regulatory capitalism is when companies invest in lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, instead of plant, people, and customer service." - former FCC Chairman William Kennard (A real FCC Chairman, unlike the current Corporate Spokesperson in the job!) |
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nukscull
@rr.com
| reply to KrK
said by KrK :Are you kidding? The lease fees, rental fees, and access charges they make using these things are the windfall.... if that was eliminated, a major cash cow of the cable companies would go away..... Don't look to see them rushing to do this in a hurry.... **unless** they find some way to continue the fees without actually providing you with a boxen. But the reason they charge those fees for boxes is because they had to buy them in the first place. It's not like they're making free money, not for a while on some of the boxes anyway. Not to mention all the spares they have to keep on hand to swap out. |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
·Cox HSI
·AT&T Southwest
| I could see that... but the fees would drop when you had your account for awhile, or you could buy out the box and avoid the fee. Seems not to be the case. The fees themselves are another revenue stream.
Even when they don't have to provide you with the boxes, they'll not drop the fees, methinks... they'll just rename them.
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"Regulatory capitalism is when companies invest in lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, instead of plant, people, and customer service." - former FCC Chairman William Kennard (A real FCC Chairman, unlike the current Corporate Spokesperson in the job!) |
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cableguy619
join:2003-06-24
Chula Vista, CA
| reply to patcat88
said by patcat88 :Outlet fee, digital duplication fee, fact you get digital cable (digital navigator) fee. All of those still apply. Outlet fee whos your cable provider they suck... |
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JPL
Premium
join:2007-04-04
West Chester, PA
·Verizon FIOS
| reply to Jafo232
said by Jafo232 :Could it possibly lead to at least one less remote? Oh please, that makes it worth it by leaps and bounds.. Now, if they would just make a deal with DirecTV and Dish Network! First off, there are great universal remotes out there - my Harmony 550 has allowed me to put all the rest in a drawer (for real). Second, DirecTV did try something like this a few years ago. I forget the manufacturer (RCA, maybe?) created a high end TV complete with DirecTV receiver installed. It went exactly nowhere. Third, these types of deals tend to take a long time to go through (when exactly is Comcast rolling out it's Tivo-enabled DVR around the country?) - so I wouldn't go unplugging my STBs anytime soon. Finally, unless they put harddrives in these TVs, people will still opt to have DVRs on their TVs. |
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