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whoaru99
join:2003-12-17

whoaru99 to KrK

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to KrK

Re: Goodbye Clear Qam Channels - FCC ruling

said by KrK:

Then there's no problem with a QAM decoder for other sets in a customer's house then. That's NOT theft of service.

Afaik, any unauthorized decoding of encrypted signals is illegal...
whoaru99

whoaru99 to DocDrew

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to DocDrew
said by DocDrew:

In the world of patents, copyrights, and intellectual property, protection EFFORTS are important to the defense of such things later. If you let everyone freely copy your known work and then try to collect on it later, you often get ruled against in of court.

Yeah, not unlike a parent who knows their kid smokes but can't be around 24/7 to prevent them from doing it. Do you just relinquish and say it's OK to smoke, or do you still make an effort to dissuade it even though you know it's probably still happening? The latter, I'd hope....just like the content owners/providers are doing.
elefante72
join:2010-12-03
East Amherst, NY

elefante72 to DocDrew

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to DocDrew
There are many inaccuracies in this forum, which is good because that is what the content owners want. The less you know, the better. Just rent the box. By the same token, most cablecos in 1-2 years will have moved away from CC boxes and move to IP-authorized streaming ones which will cost significantly less to the operator ( $50) and use 5 Watts which is good. The bad is that it will require you to rent the "big daddy" DVR at $30+/month. Eventually, they will do away w/ the DVR because it is HIGHLY inefficient and then you will just stream from the cableco's local CDN.

An ATSC tuner (OTA) or a QAM tuner (Cable) were in many TV's in the early 2000's--in fact my circa 2005 Panny has a cablecard slot. I don't remember specifics, however since OTA (stuff you can get w/ an antenna) is already unencrypted, when they were retransmitted over cable they were deemed to be in the same broadcast state and that is where "clear QAM" or unencrypted QAM originated. The big issue w/ this from the cableco is threefold:

1. If one had TV's they could get the basic tier if they had a QAM tuner. If they unsubscribe, there would have to be a truck roll to put a filter on said house trunk to block those frequencies. Similarly if they subscribed, truck roll to take the filters off. Costly
2. Content providers want more control and encrypting them now also allows the "basics" to turn on the CCI flag --copy once which doesn't allow copying (encrypted data a rest). This makes it harder to use data "on the go" or say across media servers-- a big step backward in innovation.
3. Since our paid-off government allowed service providers to be content owners, you now have competing consumer interests. Does TWC, Comcast or Cablevision not want to button up their content and control it to the max? Yes. To they offer the pipe, yes? Serious conflict of interest. Remember the old Sony--content owner--days when they used proprietary access and DRM in all their products. I have been Sony free for over a decade.
4. By forcing a cablco proprietary box in the house, it makes it more difficult for the user to switch companies (churn). Is it easier to wrap up one box and return to said co, or 5-6. This in turn also forced the cable co "user experience" and upsell potential (on demand, etc). Now they deploy proprietary apps to ipads. Now to switch from TWC to Verizon, you need to turn in 5-6 boxes, and then change apps on all your tabs. That takes a LOT of time, not the mention if they make their user interfaces proprietary enough, you have dissatisfaction in the home even though the content is a commodity. Turn a commodity into a proprietary consumable to reduce churn--a Sony special.

Now most people don't know that if the CCI/CO flag is not on--copy freely, Media Center (W7MC and the like) will store the file in an UNENCRYPTED manner, allowing you to view it via your PC or other media centers. If the CO flag is on (and on FIOS today that's only a few channels), you can only watch the content on the media center itself or an authorized streaming device (xbox, etc). The data at rest is encrypted.

All of this has nothing to do w/ analog vs digital--they are transport mediums--it has to do w/ putting that magic flag on the content so that content providers can control what you do with it, meaning piracy will get worse before it gets better.

The worrisome part of this, is that once they do this, then the broadcasters will start to push for shutting down OTA because it's insecure and anybody can put up a cantenna and pay $300 a month to watch TV. You say I'm crazy, but wait 10 years. It's coming.

INtheKnow
@charter.com

INtheKnow

Anon

For most of us Charter Subs this is at least 24 months away. Charter is starting with MDU ( Multi Dwelling Units ) first then will move on to areas where theft and noise are the worst and finally it will migrate system wide. This will be done in steps due to the cost of DCTs ( 2 standard DCTs are available free for first year. )
Standard def DCT $300
High Def DCT $500
HD DVR $800
Meanwhile the DVR cloud will be developed to off set some equipment issues and cost and also that will address some of the copyright issues.
elefante72
join:2010-12-03
East Amherst, NY

elefante72

Member

That pricing is sky high. I must be in a monopoly universe...
Roku 2 HD $70 and that's retail price.
8 thread Intel i7 -> $300
Xbox (refurbished) -> $130.

All of those are way more powerful or feature-laden than the prices you describe. I purchased 4 Xbox--W7MC--for $520 (refurb) the cost of one HD DCT? My ROI versus renting was 18 months, including the W7MC virtual machine and 3CC. That was over 24 months ago, and to switch providers, I swap a CC into my 3CC and update channels. Nobody in the house even knew when I swapped from TWC to FiOS (regular HDHR at that time). It's too bad that MSFT is deprecating media center. Here's hoping they make a media hub in the future....I guess I can keep those boxes going for another 5 years or so.

HD DCT -> $500? I can buy a brand new price-inflated Moto DCX3200 for $200.

Cloud DVR will only succeed en masse when they get over the "unique" storage foolishness. At that point CDN will take off.
haggelz
join:2010-07-04
Glendale, CA

haggelz to jonboy

Member

to jonboy
Stupid....why would people even bother pirating clear qam channels anyway....Anything thats on ClearQAM here I can already get for free OTA....aka channels 1-13. This is just so people on basic cable have to get a box

KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium Member
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK

KrK to whoaru99

Premium Member

to whoaru99
Clear QAM isn't an encrypted signal.
whoaru99
join:2003-12-17

whoaru99

Member

Of course not, but the discussion seemed to be about the demise of clear QAM and steering towards ways around it.

DocDrew
How can I help?
Premium Member
join:2009-01-28
SoCal
Ubee E31U2V1
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DocDrew to haggelz

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Hopefully encryption and dropping analog will stop this crap
said by haggelz:

Stupid....why would people even bother pirating clear qam channels anyway....Anything thats on ClearQAM here I can already get for free OTA....aka channels 1-13. This is just so people on basic cable have to get a box

What you can get free OTA, most cable companies now have to pay for.

Why do people steal cable to begin with? Because it's relatively easy to do, they get lots of entertainment out of it, and the possibility of penalties are low. That's your answer to why cable wants to encrypt basic. Cable companies spend ALOT of money fixing damage done by thieves. Paying customers frequently suffer service degradation or outages due to damage from cable theft. With cable being able to encrypt basic and being able to turn off analog entirely, trying to steal cable by connecting a service drop into a nearby tap will get the thieves nothing. Hopefully most theft attempts will stop shortly after.
whoaru99
join:2003-12-17

whoaru99

Member

Ehhh...eventually word will get around to most, but there will always be someone who figures they can just clamp some jumper cables to the power line for free power. The risk of repeat offenders for attempted theft of power is much lower than for cable service though.

kilrathi
Premium Member
join:2005-04-22
Rockaway Park, NY

kilrathi to DocDrew

Premium Member

to DocDrew
This exactly! I am all for this encryption, I am a customer on another cable ISP(TW) who is suffering constant problems due to illegal cable hookups in the area where people hook up a lot of tvs jus tto steal basic cable for free. With this encryption less people will attempt to just attach any kind of garbage splitter at any cost to get signal because it wont help them.

Davesworld
join:2007-10-30
Thermal, CA

Davesworld to 88615298

Member

to 88615298
said by 88615298:

to be fair satellite, u-verse and FiOS were never subject to this ruling. Having for all or none. On the positive side, since QAM tuners are now useless TV manufacturers don't need to include them and maybe TV prices will go down.

QAM and ATSC tuners are the same hardware, it makes no difference in cost of manufacture. Besides, the tuner front end as a whole is a tiny percent of the cost. The other thing is that QAM TV's should have cablecard slots. You no longer have to have a Tech come out and install one.

TV Monitors were quite common in the early days of HD and were not really any cheaper.

Another point is that by the beginning of 2011, at least with Comcast, all but local channels were encrypted already. Fortunately the majority of TV I watch is from the local affiliates of ABC, NBC, CBS, CW and Fox. Some PBS as well. I started using a good outdoor antenna. Local channels received over the air with a signal of at least 65% will give you the best picture you're going to ever see with 720p and 1080i and TV channels using mpeg2 transport streams.

Watching movies at 1080P from Vudu over the internet which uses an h.264 mpeg4 transport looks slightly better due to h.264 being 40% more bit efficient and can actually best mpeg2 with less bandwidth. It takes more power to decode though.

I just use satellite and local OTA these days.
Radisc359
join:2010-10-02
Fremont, NE

Radisc359 to kilrathi

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to kilrathi
I don't see any issues as long as I can keep clearqam locals only, I don't care about analog at all. Because not only does it look horrible on an hdtv, one analog channel takes up an entire qam! I'll go OTA antenna if I lost my locals though.
amungus
Premium Member
join:2004-11-26
America

amungus to jonboy

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to jonboy
Agree with locals staying clear. This should not be messed with, and probably won't.

In any case, it's beyond overdue to make new TVs truly "cable ready" again.

NTSC/ATSC/QAM tuners are all well and good, but, why can a TV not be 'addressable' by now, such as a cable box? Why can I not simply buy a tuner, without needing a cable card for extra channels? Even there, it's near impossible to buy the card from any provider, it must be rented, and have extra fees associated with it.

Why on earth, with all the "smart TV" bullsh|t out there, can a TV not have a unique address that works, um, exactly like the freaking existing boxes? How hard would it be to include all of the whopping TWO major standards (Moto/Scientific Atlanta) that are present at, um, 99.9% of cable plants (as I understand it - I could be wrong), into a TV?

I don't care if they want to encrypt, but make TV "cable ready" again.

Also, please keep these boxes, PLEASE, as the component video outputs on them are pretty much priceless at this point in history, whether people realize it or not. Viva analog.
whoaru99
join:2003-12-17

whoaru99

Member

One reason I can think of is because technology changes and I don't want to have to replace the whole TV because some cable company adopts new stuff. At least with multiple inputs on the TV you can find some way to plug in that external box.

I don't disagree with the concept of universal connectivity, but we sorta all know how that goes.
pandora
Premium Member
join:2001-06-01
Outland

pandora to jonboy

Premium Member

to jonboy
Sigh ... guess forward isn't the same as hope and change.

This must be forward for someone, probably a few who sit on the FCC or work there.

I wish the FCC would stop pandering to large companies.
Tarball
join:2006-06-09
Saint Louis, MO

Tarball to jonboy

Member

to jonboy
So does this mean Charter HASN'T been encrypting local channels already? Ever since they moved around the channel lineup in April, I haven't been able to pick up the locals through ClearQAM.

nunya
LXI 483
MVM
join:2000-12-23
O Fallon, MO

nunya

MVM

As I understand it, they have been using some neighborhoods in the St Louis area as "test" locations since last year.

PFH
Bully For You
join:2003-06-26
Saint Louis, MO

PFH to Tarball

Member

to Tarball
Yeah, I'm in South STL, and I still get a mix of analogs and digitals, locals in HD (2.1, 4.1,5.1, etc.). I thought i had heard that the Central West End, for example, was a neighborhood undergoing a full digital test.

The Mrs. will throw quite a fit on the day we have to put boxes on all our TVs, and I'll need to do a long-overdue redesign of my PVR PC, which currently only has four analog tuners.
Tarball
join:2006-06-09
Saint Louis, MO

Tarball

Member

said by PFH:

Yeah, I'm in South STL, and I still get a mix of analogs and digitals, locals in HD (2.1, 4.1,5.1, etc.). I thought i had heard that the Central West End, for example, was a neighborhood undergoing a full digital test.

The Mrs. will throw quite a fit on the day we have to put boxes on all our TVs, and I'll need to do a long-overdue redesign of my PVR PC, which currently only has four analog tuners.

It's weird because I get The Weather Channel, TV Guide, and CSPAN-3 in digital, and FX, Travel Channel, and religious channels in analog. So apparently I'm not in a full digital area, but the channels I pick up seem so random. All I care about is the locals, which an antenna is alright for, except when it gets windy/stormy and all the channels start pixelating.
Zappa2000
join:2001-12-16
Kalamazoo, MI

Zappa2000 to jonboy

Member

to jonboy
Dropping Clear QAM would indeed suck, and while it may be possible to get the same channels OTA, in some areas, that isn't a option without a high powered antenna.
PsychoSy
join:2001-01-15
Monroe, MI

1 recommendation

PsychoSy to jonboy

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to jonboy
Rays: It's really going to suck for Charter to be able to do a service call from the head end without having to send a tech guy out. I much rather have to wait all day for a guy to come out and then get charged $40 or more for the privilege.
It's gonna suck worse for those techs. In all honesty, if I was cable tech, I'd let the thieves, the poor, and the elderly still using their old school TVs for basic cable (because either they can't afford an HDTV or they aren't stupid enough to plunk down $200 for an LCD HDTV with a 1 yr warrant that'll puke within 8 months due to junk capacitors from Taiwan on the invertor) get their grove on while blowing all kinds of smoke and mirrors up my superiors posterior -- up to and including cooking the books (Suuuurrrrre, I installed that filter *snark*) ...

Why?

Self-interest.

The very fact that they are eventually going to encrypt everything so that older CRT based SDTVs will need an STB, and that service calls can be done at the head end literally means my job (and the jobs of my supervisors) are on borrowed time. Much like self-scan checkout lanes did to cashiers. Much like postal carriers once all the utility companies drop snail mail for email. Much like police, soldiers, and firefighters once drone technology matures enough to justify the dehumanization and automation of their respective trades. Their days are numbered, too.

Oh, and do those Charter vans service themselves?!? Who changes the oil, replaces the spark plugs, and turns the wrenches?!? If you don't need a physical human being with a clipboard, utility belt, and Charter ball cap hanging backwards on their noggins, you certainly won't be needing mechanics servicing all the wear and tear they're putting on those vans, either.

So what exactly would I, my fellow human colleagues, and human supervisors get for "corporate loyalty" (i.e. being a narc)?!? It won't extend our employment from being outsourced to a computer by one hour let alone one day. The writing is on the wall. Finding a new line of work is a given. So it be in my immediate self-interest -- especially in this wretched economy -- to artificially extend my employment as much as possible by embracing my inner Yousarrian (for all you Catch 22 fans reading) and keep "moving the bombing line over Balogna" as much as possible ...

It's not like cable providers are against nickle and diming people to death. They just want to be the ones operating the Skinner box as opposed to being on the "business end" of it. Besides that percentage figure of customers effected is already a bogus and cooked figure six ways from Sunday. If they're willing to LIE out their ship-sinking gobs about real bandwidth usage to justify caps and/or bolting a meter to the side of the subscribers' spider hole, they're certainly willing to LIE about the real number of people who'll be effected by bow-to-stern encryption. Especially if it means less wails and whines emanating from your fainting couch since it doesn't effect your ivory tower ...

cork1958
Cork
Premium Member
join:2000-02-26

cork1958

Premium Member

Right on, PsychoSy!!
15444104 (banned)
join:2012-06-11

15444104 (banned)

Member

@PsychoSy:

That post is one of the most insightful and hilarious I've found around BBR in a long time. Nice!

You should anon e mail this to Charter Corporate.

Even that dolt Tommy Boy Rutledge would probably crack an evil grin.
rd1144
join:2009-02-26
Denver, NC

rd1144 to jonboy

Member

to jonboy
It would be nice if TV manufactures started including cablecard slots again on televisions. They used to do this in the Mid-2000's on hdtv's and stopped because it didnt catch on. It would also be cool if a tuning adapter and EPG could be integrated into televisions too. I dont think it would be that hard. Even if it did have more of a upfront cost for the television, I would be all for one less box.
15444104 (banned)
join:2012-06-11

15444104 (banned)

Member

Agreed.....LESS SET TOP BOXES IS BETTER!
PsychoSy
join:2001-01-15
Monroe, MI

PsychoSy to 15444104

Member

to 15444104
I wouldn't waste my bandwidth. For one, Charter corporate (all cable companies for that matter) has been probably told this already over the years by the ever coalition of the laid off. In the very unlikely chance what I said in my post was never roared back at 'em by one of the laid off, they certainly lurk these boards. In short, they'd have to be living under GEICO's rock to feign ignorance.

Rutledge would certainly crack a grin ... but I don't think it would be evil. More of a "Canary Ate The Cat" Cheshire grin of Schadenfraude more than anything. If there's any person who knows he's just a muppet for the shareholders, it's Rutledge. And if there's anyone that is kept awake at night or having brief issues with insomnia over the biggest threat to all cable/satellite providers, it's Rutledge. Especially if his golden parachute isn't quite golden ...

Because there's a certain Aussie that's far more scarier than all the great unwashed that might be stealing basic cable just to have a night-light (for their sake, I hope it ain't "Pawn Stars" or "American Pickers" - those shows will make anyone sleep with one eye open and "pay" a heavy price for it). He's the type of guy that not only could start the OTA multicasting riot, but get away with it: Rupert Murdoch.

Hence the "Canary Ate The Cat" grin on Rutledge ...

He's not the CEO of Comcast nor TWC ...

And I bet he has no intention of being on Charter's payroll when Murdoch embraces his inner Dick Cheney, and pumps a slug of multicasting 00-buck right in their faces. I certainly wouldn't - there's an ice cold Mojito on a beach in Trinidad with my name on it ... ripcord, don't fail me now!
whoaru99
join:2003-12-17

whoaru99

Member

said by PsychoSy:

a muppet for the shareholders

Like it or not, that is pretty much the job of a CEO.

msmisfit
join:2004-09-13
Atlanta, GA
ARRIS SB6121
Netgear WNDR3800

msmisfit to PsychoSy

Member

to PsychoSy
said by PsychoSy:

Because there's a certain Aussie that's far more scarier than all the great unwashed. He's the type of guy that not only could start the OTA multicasting riot, but get away with it: Rupert Murdoch.

What does this mean? I pray Murdoch isn't going to acquire any more power or influence in this country than he already has.
PsychoSy
join:2001-01-15
Monroe, MI

PsychoSy

Member

Murdoch (or anyone, for that matter) couldn't possibly acquire more power or influence in this country ... unless they have rewarding enablers who -- when it comes to regulation and oversight -- have a good 30 to 40 year track record demonstrating their capacity to have more waffle than an IHOP ...

Without further ado ... let's meet 'em!

*waves*

Howyadoin' there, Hockacrats?!?

Let's be honest: Murdoch could use ALOT of PR Rehab right about now. And what better people to provide such PR Rehab than the very fence jockeys whose main man in the White House spent his entire first term Socializing their entire existence with bailouts, immunity deals, lack of prosecution, no frog-marching, and ordering us to moovsie and forwardsie just like they did the first time around with Tricky Dick Nixon?!?

It's a big "bipartisan" and "pragmatic" con of kabuki theatre; they all in on it.

The WWE's creative team couldn't have booked it better ...

Considering every time you turn on a TV and see ads about a disruption of channel carriage, more often than not it's Murdoch trying to nickle and dime them by taking hostages. That speaks volumes: the biggest threat to cable isn't freeloaders nor techs that won't narc 'em out; it's other rich elites taking turns eating their own. That's a given once bow to stern encryption is commonplace and the most mundane of service calls can be performed at the head end. Then the game begins in earnest. Without Main Street's thieves, all you got is Wall Street's thieves (and their purchased Beltway Bagmen) ...