n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY
 ·Optimum Online
1 edit | reply to MichaelWacey
Re: This shows how little the cable industry understands
said by MichaelWacey  :Why can't they come up with a scheme where the cable comes out of the wall, plugs into my TV, and I can watch what I want. Too bad they do not understand their customers. Actually I have wondered something similar for a while but in a different format. Granted you cannot have ClearQAM for all of the channels since customers have to pay for the premium channels. What I would like to know is why a cable box could not be developed that sits between the cable feed into the house and the house wiring. This box would either have a CableCard in it or be a traditional box with a SmartCard. The box would decrypt all channels the subscriber is entitled to watch and rebroadcast those channels to the house side in ClearQAM. It would require some horsepower but probably not beyond the current technology. This would at least allow subscribers to hook up any number of their TV's in their house without incurring the monthly rental charges and per-outlet fees (oops, maybe I just answered my own question  ) |
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MacLeech
The one and only
Premium
join:2001-07-14
SoCal
4 edits | There is a whole home solution (TeraPIX by BroadLogic) that can bolt to the side of the house, but unit costs, installation costs, and in-home signal distribution problems are big enough issues to prevent any cable companies from rolling it out.
It's just easier and cheaper to slap a box on every TV that needs it and handle a couple channels at a time.
To rebroadcast everything in the clear you would need some serious hardware to handle hundreds of channels. You're talking a headend in a box and even the TeraPIX doesn't do all of what you want. It just converts select tiers of digital channels (not all of them) to analog and it doesn't keep them digital, remux them, or rebroadcast them as QAM channels.
P.S. ClearQAM (as opposed to encrypted QAM) is a misnomer as it's not the QAM channel that's encrypted. It's the MPEG streams on the QAM channel that are encrypted. That means the QAM channel has to received, demodulated, (possible MPEGs demuxed), and then the MPEG stream can be decrypted. |
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TKJunkMail
Enjoy the sun
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Avalon, NJ
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Comcast
| reply to n2jtx
said by n2jtx :said by MichaelWacey :Why can't they come up with a scheme where the cable comes out of the wall, plugs into my TV, and I can watch what I want. Too bad they do not understand their customers. Actually I have wondered something similar for a while but in a different format. Granted you cannot have ClearQAM for all of the channels since customers have to pay for the premium channels. What I would like to know is why a cable box could not be developed that sits between the cable feed into the house and the house wiring. This box would either have a CableCard in it or be a traditional box with a SmartCard. The box would decrypt all channels the subscriber is entitled to watch and rebroadcast those channels to the house side in ClearQAM. It would require some horsepower but probably not beyond the current technology. This would at least allow subscribers to hook up any number of their TV's in their house without incurring the monthly rental charges and per-outlet fees (oops, maybe I just answered my own question ) Good idea. But, it won't make everyone happy because most TVs still don't support QAM. Though going forward that would be an excellent way to not need more than 1 box per household.
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Joe12345678
join:2003-07-22
Des Plaines, IL
| reply to n2jtx
said by n2jtx :said by MichaelWacey :Why can't they come up with a scheme where the cable comes out of the wall, plugs into my TV, and I can watch what I want. Too bad they do not understand their customers. Actually I have wondered something similar for a while but in a different format. Granted you cannot have ClearQAM for all of the channels since customers have to pay for the premium channels. What I would like to know is why a cable box could not be developed that sits between the cable feed into the house and the house wiring. This box would either have a CableCard in it or be a traditional box with a SmartCard. The box would decrypt all channels the subscriber is entitled to watch and rebroadcast those channels to the house side in ClearQAM. It would require some horsepower but probably not beyond the current technology. This would at least allow subscribers to hook up any number of their TV's in their house without incurring the monthly rental charges and per-outlet fees (oops, maybe I just answered my own question ) Just trun that in to a full home DRV and put mini boxes at each tv. |
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