 curls310
join:2007-09-26
Hillsdale, NJ | FU TWC Glad to not live in an area disserviced by them. | |
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tiger72
SexaT duorP
Premium
join:2001-03-28
Kansas City, MO
clubs: | Re: FU TWC Sucks to be you. Thanks to SDV technology, i am happily getting new HD channels. | |
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| | curls310
join:2007-09-26
Hillsdale, NJ | Re: FU TWC You need to reread my comment... i'm a happy FIOS customer. better in every possible way. Even cablevision is way better than TWC. | |
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| | | iwnt14me
join:2000-10-13
Newport News, VA
 ·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Verizon FIOS
 ·Verizon VoiceWing
| Re: FU TWC Before you make an comment like that do some research. Cox has been using switched digital video in almost all of their areas since Febuary of this year. I was told by a Cox technician That they did this to one add more HD, But to also force Tivo customers to downgrade. I dont care what kind of plant they have it still bites this entire area has the worst service with Cox's the picture freezezs and artifacts I had technicians and engineer at my house one night trying to tell me i was imagining it but when they all were in my living room watching it happen on their own boxes they had no answer. I have since dumped them since my complex was wired for Fios. I have also convinced 63 of my neighbors to make the move. the beautiful thing is everyone I get to sign up Me or one of my family memebers gets 100 bucks a month using the refer a friend program. | |
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kamm
join:2001-02-14
Brooklyn, NY
·Packet8
| said by tiger72  :Sucks to be you. Thanks to SDV technology, i am happily getting new HD channels. You mean those compressed-to-hell, downrezzed 1280x1080i piece of shit quality HD Lite ones?
Yeah, TWC and HD - best clueless post of the week, ROFLMAO!
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tiger72
SexaT duorP
Premium
join:2001-03-28
Kansas City, MO
clubs:
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: FU TWC said by kamm :said by tiger72 :Sucks to be you. Thanks to SDV technology, i am happily getting new HD channels. You mean those compressed-to-hell, downrezzed 1280x1080i piece of shit quality HD Lite ones? Yeah, TWC and HD - best clueless post of the week, ROFLMAO! It seems you don't know the difference between DirecTV (which extensively uses HDLite) and TWC. Go check out AVS before you make an idiotic comment like the above.
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"What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of omniscience? ...If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd better reexamine our reasoning."
-United States Secretary of Defense (1961-1968) Robert S. McNamara | |
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| fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
| said by curls310 :Glad to not live in an area disserviced by them. Evolve... | |
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| | riblet2000
join:2006-03-08
Naples, FL | Re: FU TWC Grow up. | |
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ARGONAUT
got ping?
join:2006-01-24
New Albany, IN | Re: FU TWC +2 | |
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| | | | fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20 | Re: FU TWC see my post above.. | |
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en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | TiVO makes use of Time Warner's network TiVO has little to stand on.
What's next... me suing TiVO for not working with analog after Feb 2009 or not working with OTA boxes ?
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Canada = Hollywood North | |
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pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
| Re: TiVO makes use of Time Warner's network said by en102 :TiVO has little to stand on. Only if TWC was not advertising these devices as being supported in any official capacity. If that is the case the fine should be $0.
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"At the moment of conception." | |
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BillRoland
Premium
join:2001-01-21
Ocala, FL
clubs:
·Cox HSI
| said by en102 :TiVO has little to stand on. What's next... me suing TiVO for not working with analog after Feb 2009 or not working with OTA boxes ? I'm sure we could find a federal judge out there who could find somewhere in the Constitution that TiVO is a Constitutional right.
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"Don't steal. The government hates competition." | |
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insomniac84
join:2002-01-03
Schererville, IN | The problem is that they have to offer cable card service by law. So they "updated" their technologies and now want people to rent extra equipment cable card was supposed to remove the need for. | |
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insomniac84
join:2002-01-03
Schererville, IN
edit:
August 25th, @10:12PM
| Re: TiVO makes use of Time Warner's network said by en102 :Not that I don't have issues with the way its being handled, but.. Typical business 101 though - if you're forced to implement a solution for a small group of users, you pass that cost on. TWC is not going to replace ALL of its current devices for Cable card devices, but will offer a 'patch' for a fee for those that want to use it. That defeats the entire point of a cable card.
And they were fined, so there is no point in defending the cable company. Legally they are wrong. | |
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| | | riblet2000
join:2006-03-08
Naples, FL
| Well, it's not business 101. Maybe Business Law 340.
They are required to provide devices which work with TiVo under the guise of Cable CARDs or equivalent technology. They didn't. They also rent a competitive DVR, and this non-action to provide the adapters they are required to provide could be considered anti-competitive (read: Illegal) activity by a regulated entity. In fact, this smells of a cash grab. I wonder how many of the customers forced to "downgrade" (which is what going from a HD TiVo to a cable DVR is) were provided cable-owned DVRs free of charge. It's either the adapter or a temporary freebie on the DVR until the adapters are available.
Too bad the FCC didn't actually issue a fine. Maybe a lawsuit would be a better idea. | |
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wmcbrine
Touched by His Noodly Appendage
join:2002-12-30
Laurel, MD
| said by en102 :TiVO has little to stand on. What's next... me suing TiVO for not working with analog after Feb 2009 or not working with OTA boxes ? Uh, it will work fine with OTA boxes. They just released an update to support them. Anyway, that's a Series 2 issue; SDV is a Series 3 issue. (The Series 3 already had a built-in digital OTA tuner.)
It's about time a cable company got punished for deploying SDV without accommodation in place for CableCard users -- since it violates the intent of the CableCard mandate -- but this is too little, too late. Even the silly tuning adapter (a ridiculous kludge of a design) will only help TiVos, and not many (any?) other CC devices.
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09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 | |
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punker
deleted by moderator
Premium
join:2004-06-21
Palmdale, CA
clubs:
edit:
August 25th, @04:43PM
| lol what about the CAPS
will they drop the internet caps if they do SDV
what happions if all the channel slots are being used
do i get an error saying
channel can not be displayed? | |
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nukscull
@rr.com | Re: lol SDV has nothing to do with adding Internet bandwidth at this point.
It is for adding new HD channels to compete with Satellite and FiOS, to which TWC is way behind with HD channel offerings. | |
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insomniac84
join:2002-01-03
Schererville, IN
| »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_digital_video
It appears all channels are sent to all nodes and this technology is only used on the last mile from each node to each house. Which means it would be much easier to send out higher quality channels and offer more channels. In theory if it's per node the number of tvs should be small enough to never run into a bandwidth problem, but they are adding an extra point of failure which means a channel not available error is entirely possible. And if they realize all their nodes only use an average of 50 unique channels they could start using the extra hundreds of channels of bandwidth for other things. And if they use all the extra bandwidth up and people start buying more tvs and leaving them on weird channels, you could run into a channel not available message. Overall this seems like a good technology, but I think the government is going to have to step in and force extra equipment be offered as a free rental. It's crap for cable companies to alter their networks so they can sell more premium services while also forcing existing customers to pay extra rental fees just to keep their existing services. And someone needs to force a standard so customers can buy 3rd party boxes and cards to enable tvs to work with any cable service. Cable companies shouldn't be allowed to use technology as an excuse to charge people per tv. | |
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| | K Patterson
Premium,MVM
join:2006-03-12
Columbus, OH
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: lol All channels are sent to the neighborhood hub, not to the node.
The hub (which, incidentally, is where the CMTS's are located) sends them to each of the several dozen nodes it supports as required, and tells the set-top box how to tune to the program.
The next step, once the copyright issues have been resolved, is to allow users to "record" the program at hub. In other words, a DVR without anything more than a set-top box at the residence. | |
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Video Guy
@verizon.net
 from:
TK Junk Mail
| Re: lol Actually it is to the service group, which is a logical collection of nodes. That is not, strictly speaking, equivalent to the hub.
SDV relies on queueing theory just like the phone company does to allow more tuners to be connected to the network than there are "slots" to serve them. It' sort of like how there are more phones than dial tone available at the CO.
When a cable system has SDV, there are two species of video: the traditional broadcast channels and those that are in the switched pool. (Broadcast in this context does not mean over-the-air, it means traditional transmission of cable video channels). If you tune to a traditional broadcast channel everything works the same as before. If you tune to a switched pool channel, your tuner first looks to see if any other tuner in it's service group has requested it. If so, it just tunes to the temporarily assigned location of that channel and you're done. If not, it makes a request to the system to have that channel added to one of the temporary channels and it tunes to it.
It all happens very quickly in most cases, so the user cannot tell when they tune to a switched channel.
Niche Content and High Use Content...
The theory goes you should be able to switch your lowest viewed content since the chances of people watching very many of them at any one time in any one service group are low. You should also be able to switch your very highest viewed content since (and this will sound counter-intuitive) there are not that many of them and a very large number of people will tune to it. Remember that if any one tuner calls for a channel, all the other tuners can tune to that temporary feed without taking up any more slots. What makes it all come together is the fact that when highest viewed content is on and the most number of tuners are in use, that usage is concentrated, so you don't run out of slots. When things slow down and viewership spreads up and down the dial (mid day, over night), the variety goes up but the overall number of turners requesting channels goes down.
Over time, the goal is to reduce the homes per node and nodes per service group and to increase the size of the "bank" of channels such that there is a one-to-one ratio between tuners and slots. That is called switched unicast. And that, my friends, is the day that the cable plant becomes logically limitless in terms of video capacity.
What makes this tricky is the space for the slots is not free. Each slot takes up the same space as a broadcast digital or HD channel. So at first, SVD eats bandwidth until a cross-over point is reached where you have placed more channels into the switched pool than you have used up with SDV slots. Depending on how deep you go, you can gain a LOT of bandwidth for use as additional SDV slots (so you can launch more digital and HD content) and for other applications. Typically groups of slots are launched a QAM at a time, so you will migrate chunks of content over time.
SDV, going all digital and upgrading to 1Ghz are the three primary levers cable operators have to stay competitive with the dish and the telcos. | |
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TK Junk Mail
Go ahead, make my day
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Margate City, NJ
clubs:
·Comcast
| said by punker :what happions if all the channel slots are being used do i get an error saying channel can not be displayed? You may under certain conditions. Just like when you use VOD, you can get an error when all the bandwidth available on a node for VOD use is used up.
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My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page
Ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk? | |
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DataDoc
Waiting for Godot
Premium
join:2000-05-14
Greenville, NC
·Suddenlink
| Re: I think that $7,500.00 is a fine fine. said by Mr Matt :  I think that $7,500.00 is a fine fine as long as Time Warner is fined $7,500.00 for every subscriber that has lost the use of their TiVO. | |
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hayabusa3303
Over 200 mph
Premium
join:2005-06-29
clubs: | one more way. to screw the customer has hard as you can and get away with it. | |
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tiger72
SexaT duorP
Premium
join:2001-03-28
Kansas City, MO
clubs: | Re: one more way. how's that? | |
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insomniac84
join:2002-01-03
Schererville, IN | Re: one more way. Per tv fees added to your already high monthly rate. | |
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See 31 replies to this post |
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EPS
join:2008-02-13
Hingham, MA | Bah Complain when they don't upgrade their network, complain when they do upgrade their network...
I thought Motorola had a box that made TiVo compatible with SDV? Is this actually not out yet, or is this just referring to Cisco cable systems? | |
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jmn1207
Premium
join:2000-07-19
Reston, VA
·Verizon FIOS
| Re: Bah said by EPS :Complain when they don't upgrade their network, complain when they do upgrade their network... I think the perception many of us share is that the cable companies are not upgrading as much as they are thinly spreading available resources around.
The headlines in many tech news sites and publications are continually making us aware of these seemingly artificial attempts to upgrade our services. Our HD television is full of artifacts and seemingly compressed far too much. It seems as if too many channels are sharing too little bandwidth. Talk of throttling our internet speeds and placing caps on our total usage is heating up in several discussion threads.
They are redistributing existing resources rather than truly providing customers with legitimate upgrades. The same carrot is simply being chopped up into smaller pieces. The only problem is that this carrot no longer feeds all of us anymore, so it is becoming more obvious to us that they sorely lack in infrastructure and support. | |
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| | DNCS Guy
join:2008-03-26
Decatur, GA
| Re: Bah said by jmn1207 :I think the perception many of us share is that the cable companies are not upgrading as much as they are thinly spreading available resources around. They are redistributing existing resources rather than truly providing customers with legitimate upgrades. The same carrot is simply being chopped up into smaller pieces. The only problem is that this carrot no longer feeds all of us anymore, so it is becoming more obvious to us that they sorely lack in infrastructure and support. So what happens when something like tru2Way comes out and a customer has a 2 way capable device, and then the CableCo upgrades from a 750mhz plant to a full 1Gig and customers suddenly discover that their brand new (or relatively new) television only has a 860mhz tuner in it so they can't gain access to anything in the new upgrade? And then what happens if the CableCo decided that they more effeciently utilize their plant's resources by moving some existing channels/services to the new 860+mhz frequency ranges?
A large part of the problem is that technology is advancing, and customers are wanting more and more from their providers. Because of the various factors that must be evaluated in the quest to deliver those services, there is no perfect solution and there are many options available to MSO's today. That's also one reason you can see different MSO's having completely different strategies.
A MSO must evaluate the ROI of the upgrade approach, the speed which they can get the improvements to the customer, customer impact during the upgrade process, FCC licensing and rules, future upgradability, cost, etc etc etc. Each option has it's own advantages and disadvantages. Sure, Every MSO could upgrade their plants to 1Gig systems with MPEG4 video, but the cost of replacing all the existing Settop boxes in the field with ones capable of decoding MPEG4 would be excessive...The customer impact of being told "You need to swap your box or else" would be a customer service nightmare, let alone a logistical one.... And the time, service disruptions, and customer impact while going thru an entire plant and upgrading every single component from the headend out to support 1Gig would be another major cause of problems. The ROI on that upgrade path would be such that for the large MSO's it would be career suicide for numerous people once the stockholders got ahold of them.
So you see different MSO's taking different approaches at finding ways to offer their customers more using the technology available today. Because each of them have their own measurements they used in evaluating their options, you can see the differing results. Obviously, it has to be something they can cost effectively do to a large majority of their systems... Then they need to figure out what kind of customer impact they can deal with, the technical costs and headaches of rolling it out without causing service interruptions, etc....And then you have them factoring in things such as their legal obligations with content providers, franchise authorities, content providers, etc; as well as cost, market competition, the speed they can have the customers see the benefits of the upgrades, and the ultimate ROI.
some are choosing to go the SDV route. Others are attempting to improve compression so they can squeeze another HD channel into a mux. Still others are just saying goodbye to analogs so they can replace it with all digital.
No matter the strategy they choose, someone gets pissed. Go SDV, Tivo and cablecard TV people get pissed because they can't get all the channels someone with a 2way box can get. Go 3-in-1 HD's, HDTV videophiles get annoyed because the picture can get a few more artifacts than it does in a 2-in-1. Go All Digital, People with multiple TV's plugged straight into the cable get annoyed that they don't get all the channels they used to get without a box. | |
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| | | jaminus
join:2004-10-14
Arlington, VA | Re: Bah Very insightful technical analysis. Thanks for posting. | |
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jchambers28
join:2007-05-12
Alma, AR | glad I moved glad I moved to a cox area | |
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Dogfather
Altitude is your friend
Premium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | Re: glad I moved Why? Cox is deploying SDV too. | |
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| | SilverSurfer
join:2007-08-19
| Re: glad I moved said by Dogfather :Why? Cox is deploying SDV too. Yes, but they sent notices in advance before they did it. | |
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Dogfather
Altitude is your friend
Premium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA
edit:
August 25th, @07:41PM
| Re: glad I moved Not in my market (Orange County) where we supposedly have SDV. | |
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krazymon2
join:2008-01-13
Coraopolis, PA
·Comcast
| Not TWs Fault I really don't see why its TWs responsible if equipment that YOU BOUGHT doesn't work on their system. Systems are changed and updated to benefit not only the company but the consumer in the long run. The Tivos that people purchased don't have the right technology to adapt. If anything Tivo themselves are at fault for not having the hardware to THEIR customers to handle SDV. | |
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See 16 replies to this post |
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skuv
@rr.com
| So... Unless EVERY channel is on SDV, the TiVo is far from useless.
Why such sensationalism?
And TiVo isn't excepted from all the blame, since they actively pushed their product, knowing that 2-way communication would be necessary at some point. TiVo even made an updated TiVo HD model after the Series 3, knowing full well that SDV already existed.
But I do agree with the fine because people lost some channels without much notice. But their TiVos certainly aren't useless.
Hopefully the 2-way adapter will be available by the time TWC has deployed SDV in more areas and added more HD channels because of it. | |
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myosh
join:2001-05-03
Cupertino, CA | Re: So... It's hard to build hardware around something that doesn't have a standard. Motorola and Cisco implement SDV in different ways, from what I understand.
I own 2 high def TiVos and fortunately Comcast hasn't implemented SDV yet in my area. | |
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MacLeech
The one and only
Premium,MVM
join:2001-07-14
SoCal
| Re: So... Standards exist and have for a few years:
»www.opencable.com
given the new name for marketing:
»www.tru2way.com
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Don't mind me, I'm just trying to help...
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DNCS Guy
join:2008-03-26
Decatur, GA
| hmmm Somehow just because of the nature of SDV, I doubt TWC moved highly watched channels to SDV. If they moved channels that were watched by most of their customers, it would completely negate the whole advantage of SDV technology because the channel would still be sent pretty much all the time taking up that bandwidth.
Now... I could see them maybe moving some lesser watched channels to SDV that just so happen to be the type of niche programming that technophiles like to watch.
One of the irony's is that people using TIVO's are not a majority of a cable company's customers just because a lot of consumers either don't see a reason to buy their own DVR, or don't have the money to invest in the equiptment. It's just that the type of customer who is more likely to purchase a TiVo is also more likely the be the type of customer wanting to view the niche programming and channels that are most suited to an SDV migration.
Generally, if a channel is not the type of channel to be watched almost constantly by a large group of customers, then it's a perfect candidate for SDV. Considering HDTV's are not even owned by the majority of households yet, it makes perfect sense from a customer ratio standpoint that certain HDTV niche programming (like sports channels which may have only 1 or 2 people watching them on every other node unless there is a major sporting event being aired) be converted to SDV. | |
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maxpower
join:2006-10-09
Providence, RI | Pass it on Hopefully TWC won't pass the fine on to all of their subscribers....just the Tivo users. | |
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| SilverSurfer
join:2007-08-19
edit:
August 25th, @06:02PM
| Re: Pass it on said by maxpower :Hopefully TWC won't pass the fine on to all of their subscribers....just the Tivo users. Yeah, because non-TivO users like you are safe from any arbitrary/capricious and unannounced changes to the network.  | |
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| | maxpower
join:2006-10-09
Providence, RI
| Re: Pass it on said by SilverSurfer :said by maxpower :Hopefully TWC won't pass the fine on to all of their subscribers....just the Tivo users. Yeah, because non-TivO users like you are safe from any arbitrary/capricious and unannounced changes to the network. How do you know I don't have or use a Tivo? | |
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dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
| said by maxpower :Hopefully TWC won't pass the fine on to all of their subscribers....just the Tivo users. Want to bet the cablecard rental rates go up to absorb this fine?
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When I gez aju zavateh na nalechoo more new yonooz tonigh molinigh - Ken Lee | |
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| riblet2000
join:2006-03-08
Naples, FL
| said by maxpower :Hopefully TWC won't pass the fine on to all of their subscribers....just the Tivo users. I would happily agree with you as long as the rate increases for ESPN and the rest of the cable bill hogs were only passed along to the sports junkies and MTV addicts. Seems fair, eh? | |
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| | maxpower
join:2006-10-09
Providence, RI
| Re: Pass it on said by riblet2000 :said by maxpower :Hopefully TWC won't pass the fine on to all of their subscribers....just the Tivo users. I would happily agree with you as long as the rate increases for ESPN and the rest of the cable bill hogs were only passed along to the sports junkies and MTV addicts. Seems fair, eh? It sure does. | |
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cornelius785_nli
@verizon.net
| here's an idea... I'd love to see all cable boxes with a firewire port that allows you to connect to any machine. Not ideal, but no wondering if that cable card works and no more issues on locking into 'old' tech. I know some cable boxes have firewire, but most use 5c encryption and the big media giants plus the MAFIA will complain that no one should have access to unprotected content and so on. Atleast with the idea, all that is required to support new features is a software update to the host. One can only dream... | |
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nightwalker
Nightwalker
join:1999-08-07
Appleton, WI
edit:
August 25th, @09:26PM
| standard tivo's work just fine with SDV Around here, the converter box is included in the cost of digital cable anyhow.
I'm using an older Series1 Tivo and it works fine. I'm sure the Series2 work as well.
Cablebox --> Svideo/RCA (audio) --> Tivo
Tivo --> SVideo/RCA (audio) --> TV
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»www.reverse.net | |
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notivoplease
@rr.com | no why would anyone buy a tivo. they will be outta business in 2 years. | |
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myosh
join:2001-05-03
Cupertino, CA | Re: no said by notivoplease :
why would anyone buy a tivo. they will be outta business in 2 years.
Pffftt, yeah right. Didn't all the so-called "experts" say this 5 years ago? | |
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eric_n_dfw
join:2001-10-22
Euless, TX | Re: no Yeah. Much like the "beleaguered Apple Computer Company" comments 8+ years ago. | |
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youeeiiioouue
@comcast.net | Soo What!! Get DirecTV with a DVR and get all the damn channels you want! | |
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Time Warner Cable Cripples TiVO, Gets FCC Fine
I think that $7,500.00 is a fine fine.