Rob
In Deo speramus, God Bless the USA
Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
 ·Comcast
| Help us.. Help you..
In other words, to make some extra dough before the fourth quarter, and to help cover the costs of switching to SDV, TW wants owners to start paying for a STB.
Are they planning on giving the 1200 customers free set top boxes to replace their Tivos? After all, it's only 1200 customers, a 'small' number.
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www.rr.cx | YourIP.US |
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cypherstream
Looking forward to the future of things.
Premium,MVM
join:2004-12-02
Reading, PA
clubs:
| Correction
It should say Like Time Warner Cable, Comcast is slowly migrating to switched digital video.
Time Warner is WAY further along with numerous active SDV deployments. Comcast has what... 3 test markets? Give me a break. Time Warner has Comcast beat in the video market. Comcast has Time Warner beat in the Data/Voice market. Wish we could take the best of both companies and create one super provider that had it all. |
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insomniac84
join:2002-01-03
Schererville, IN
| That is one hell of a downgrade
Time Warner cable boxes are defective. If you turn the cable box on without the tv being on, the crappy hdcp doesn't sync. The box will only sync up when first turned on. After that you have to turn the box off and back on to get your picture to show up. It basically means a universal remote with an all one button is useless. My buddy was frustrated by the sync issue and by their lack of hd channels so he dropped back to basic cable within a week. It just wasn't worth paying more for almost nothing. |
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hobgoblin
Sortof Agoblin
Premium
join:2001-11-25
Orchard Park, NY
clubs:
| said by insomniac84  :Time Warner cable boxes are defective. If you turn the cable box on without the tv being on, the crappy hdcp doesn't sync. The box will only sync up when first turned on. After that you have to turn the box off and back on to get your picture to show up. It basically means a universal remote with an all one button is useless. My buddy was frustrated by the sync issue and by their lack of hd channels so he dropped back to basic cable within a week. It just wasn't worth paying more for almost nothing. WTF are you talking about?
Hob
--
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK | Cable Companies support for CableCARD has always....
... been as weak as it possibly could be. They haven't been in any hurry to open up this market for years. |
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banditws6
Shrinking Time and Distance
join:2001-08-18
Naples, FL
·Comcast
2 edits | Being a TiVo HD owner...
...I'm quite glad that Comcast is taking their sweet time testing and deploying SDV. My hope is that by the time they get to my area -- not likely to happen for a while, since we're one of the 10% of their markets serviced by Scientific Atlanta hardware -- the SDV dongle for 1-way devices will be available.
Otherwise I guess I'd have to downgrade to a cable company DVR. That thing was terrible.
Edit: I notice at the end of the article, the author remarks that he's waiting with bated breath for Time Warner to issue him the promised "new CableCARDs" that will work with SDV. I thought that there was no "two-way CableCARD" anywhere near completion -- and even if there was, it would not work in an existing TiVo unit without a hardware upgrade! Perhaps he is talking about the aforementioned SDV "dongle." |
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hottboiinnc
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH
·Time Warner Cable
·buckeye cable
| reply to cypherstream
Re: Correction
keep saying that and maybe they'll be Com-Warner. Which could be a good thing. Powerbost for all TWC customers, more channels over all. a larget backbone to carry data acoss the country and Comcast's newly updated backbone system (i forget what they call it) |
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jjoshua
Premium
join:2001-06-01
Scotch Plains, NJ | Forget about FCC mandates
Doesn't the FCC mandate that cable cards must be made available? |
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xenophon
join:2007-09-17
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
4 edits | I have a CableCard TWC box in KC
I'd blame Tivo for not keeping up. TWC shouldn't have to slow down for those who are taking their time.
I'm in KC and am glad to see more HD channels. SDV isn't perfect but it's great to see the extra HD channels, near 50 total. They are moving a bunch of SD channels to SDV next month and will add even more HD, both SDV and non-SDV.
BTW, a CableCard box is not required to get SDV. And it only impacts non-TWC CableCard boxes, like Tivo. When TWC-KC said they have 1200 CC boxes, they weren't clear if they meant non-TWC boxes. I have a CC box and it works fine.
Now if the HD broadcasters would stop stretching 4:3 content to 16:9. Viewers should be able to chose that themselves as just about any HDTV/cable box will do this manually. |
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sullim4
join:2003-05-18
Redmond, WA | So how about that fiber-optic network you've had for years?
Listening to their ads, you would have thought bandwidth would ever have been a problem... |
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SLD
Premium
join:2002-04-17 | reply to insomniac84
Re: That is one hell of a downgrade
We recently cancelled cable all-together because the Comcast HD DVR would drop audio throughout the programming. OTA with Media Center works much better. |
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imrf
Premium
join:2002-06-06
Utica, MI | reply to jjoshua
Re: Forget about FCC mandates
Yes, and they still will be. Customer will still be able to use them, they just won't get to see whatever HD channels are sitting behind the SDV gear. |
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xenophon
join:2007-09-17 | reply to insomniac84
Re: That is one hell of a downgrade
I don't have that problem with SA8300HDC. |
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tshirt
Premium,MVM
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA
·Comcast
| reply to KrK
Re: Cable Companies support for CableCARD has always....
said by KrK :... been as weak as it possibly could be. They haven't been in any hurry to open up this market for years. Because the "standard for the 1stGen cards was weak and development lagged too far behind current needs. 2nd gen (2 way addressable) cards could have worked, but by then hardware MFGs were sick of the problems and could see switched digital coming.
The real question here is WHEN can they deliver a workable, invisable to the user, adaptor box.
Another Vapor ware (like cable card) that leaves consumers hanging/unable to use their own hardware/ etc. will have subscriber heading towards the exits, willing to pay more elsewhere (think dish/DTV/IPTV) rather then using the cable co's premium service (which is the gravy/high profit part)
The standard are taking to long too develop, far too to roll out, and still lack the reliablity that the industry claims. |
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IanR
join:2001-03-22
Madison, NJ
| Slanted playing field by design
Let me see:
FCC orders Cable Companies to offer cable Cards to their customers at low price.
Cable companies own the shop which agrees all new Cable Card technology and checks that such hardware is good BEFORE they can be offered to customers
Cable Companies want customers to lease their own Hard Drive based recorders
Thus TIVO users and other Cable Card users suddenly lose channels unless they drop their existing hardware and lease Cable Boxes. |
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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 tshirt
Re: Cable Companies support for CableCARD has always....
said by tshirt : The standard are taking to long too develop, far too to roll out, and still lack the reliablity that the industry claims. Agreed.... and personally I feel this is the case because they aren't that motivated to do so, IMHO. If this was a priority to them it could be done in 6 months, easily. Interoperability with competitors equipment is a very, very low level of interest for any of these providers.
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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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cao1964
join:2000-08-09
Danville, PA
| reply to insomniac84
Re: That is one hell of a downgrade
said by insomniac84 :Time Warner cable boxes are defective. If you turn the cable box on without the tv being on, the crappy hdcp doesn't sync. The box will only sync up when first turned on... Same problem here, thought it was an issue with cable but realized they boxes just don't work right. |
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cao1964
join:2000-08-09
Danville, PA
| reply to IanR
Re: Slanted playing field by design
said by IanR :Let me see: FCC orders Cable Companies to offer cable Cards to their customers at low price. Cable companies own the shop which agrees all new Cable Card technology and checks that such hardware is good BEFORE they can be offered to customers Cable Companies want customers to lease their own Hard Drive based recorders Thus TIVO users and other Cable Card users suddenly lose channels unless they drop their existing hardware and lease Cable Boxes. Amen! |
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MacLeech
The one and only
Premium
join:2001-07-14
SoCal
2 edits | reply to banditws6
Re: Being a TiVo HD owner...
said by banditws6 :I thought that there was no "two-way CableCARD" anywhere near completion -- and even if there was, it would not work in an existing TiVo unit without a hardware upgrade! 2-way CableCARDs have been available since day 1 of release, it's the EQUIPMENT they're put in that enables or disables it's use. Tivo doesn't make any boxes that can use it.
Cable companies were mandated last year by the FCC to stop buying "integrated security" boxes and have since been buying and issuing "separable security" boxes aka boxes with CableCARDs in them.
Those boxes (the Moto DCH series and SciAtl/Cisco C series) have been using the 2-way features of CableCARDs just fine, including SDV. |
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Fubar
join:2001-02-20
Phoenix, AZ
| reply to banditws6
said by banditws6 :...I'm quite glad that Comcast is taking their sweet time testing and deploying SDV. My hope is that by the time they get to my area -- not likely to happen for a while, since we're one of the 10% of their markets serviced by Scientific Atlanta hardware -- the SDV dongle for 1-way devices will be available. Otherwise I guess I'd have to downgrade to a cable company DVR. That thing was terrible. Edit: I notice at the end of the article, the author remarks that he's waiting with bated breath for Time Warner to issue him the promised "new CableCARDs" that will work with SDV. I thought that there was no "two-way CableCARD" anywhere near completion -- and even if there was, it would not work in an existing TiVo unit without a hardware upgrade! Perhaps he is talking about the aforementioned SDV "dongle." All cable cards are 2-way capable.... But none of the hardware available is.... |
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