What’s Next For CableCARD and Vista

re: What’s Next For CableCARD and Vista

Jack — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 23:10:48 GMT

Microsoft seems to have forgotten digital TV in Europe. Here we use the DVB standard.

MCE/WMC supports DVB-T (terrestial) MPEG-2 only.

DVB-C (cable) and DVB-S (sattelite) viewers are left out (or have to use hacks to fool WMC that their hardware is DVB-T).

HD channels in MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 are getting more and more common. But WMC can't be used to view them. My Xbox 360 could have been perfect to view HD channels on my HDTV. Right now it's useless for watching HDTV.

And the worst part is that there is no word from Microsoft if they will ever support DVB-C, DVB-S or H.264.

I suspect they will but when? It's alreay too late. I would have expected this in Vista, but I guess they were to busy implementing other stuff...

The big downside is that since there is no support for HD many users will abandon WMC for other products.

New York Times Discusses CableCards » Floppyhead - Digital Media and Home Theater Computers

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 02:28:59 GMT

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re: What’s Next For CableCARD and Vista

Kevin — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 00:18:25 GMT

Nice post. A much better article than my hack job.

It is interesting to see how many cable companies have stated that they plan on rolling out SDV in the next year. It also is interesting that no one mentions this being an issue with the new Tivo HD.

Right now the only logical DVR to own/rent is the one offered by your cable company. I would not touch an OCUR PC with a 10' pole, even though I drool over VMC.

re: What’s Next For CableCARD and Vista

Ted — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 23:42:59 GMT

Chris,

I think the bigger picture issue is HD support within VMC. While you have tackled the cable issue in detail here, I think that the overall foot dragging may make cable irrelevant within VMC over the long haul. It would be interesting to see the timelines for the other competing technologies like IPTV, satellite, others.

I did do a very brief analysis for VMC in Canada here: www.digitalhome.ca/.../showthread.php. If you could expand on my limited and dated knowledge, I think it would be useful for your audience.

Ted

re: What’s Next For CableCARD and Vista

chrisl — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:20:18 GMT

JoeW: OCAP is a mess, that's for sure. The .NET addition that I talked about above is my hope that there is something else there not visible to the eye.

IPTV is clearly a whole different issue. I think it will be a mess to, because Microsoft has their own IPTV platform they are pushing to Telcos. I fear that if your provider isn't using a Microsoft-based solution for IPTV, it will not be supported in Media Center. This could happen until Microsoft gives up on the market, but they have been interested for a long long time, so that's not to likely.

Of course, FiOS TV is interesting. While people tend to think it means IPTV, it's not. FiOS TV works the exact same as cable TV, so you can currently use a CableCARD and gain access to your content. IP is only used for PPV, VOD and some guide services. It's not IPTV, it's cable that used IP for "extra" content.

re: What’s Next For CableCARD and Vista

chrisl — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:13:53 GMT

Thanks Ben.

I had read on the TiVo HD specs that it supports M-Cards, and I'm pretty sure it does. The trick with this currently is getting your cable provider to get you one. It's my understanding that most providers are still shelling out S-Cards and most don't have M-Cards in stock.

As someone who knows very little about OCAP, I'm wondering how the mix of the external tuner and Microsoft working with CableLabs will impact anything. Microsoft has been working with CableLabs since at least the late 90's, and with .NET in OCAP it just seems like there might be something there that would magically "solve" the issue of cable companies deploying OCAP-based software. But, again, I really have no idea on that.

re: What’s Next For CableCARD and Vista

JoeW — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:10:02 GMT

Interesting post. Makes it much clearer. The OCAP solution doesn't sound good to me, it sounds like moving the specification into some sort of Cable Company owned GUI - like a browser. Whereas BCOR sounds like standardizing the service and allowing the GUIs to fit in with the device.

Interested to know where IPTV fits into this. Do you think there will be a standard around IPTV that allowed CEs and MCE to be used by services like Fios? With non-broadcast mediums a standard like BCOR would be necessity.

University Update-Windows Vista-What???s Next For CableCARD and Vista

University Update-Windows Vista-What???s Next For CableCARD and Vista — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:52:48 GMT

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re: What’s Next For CableCARD and Vista

Ben Drawbaugh — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:36:25 GMT

Nice job Chris,

I have a few notes I'd like to add.

1. The new TiVo HD is supposed to be ready to go with M-Cards, I don't think anyone has tried one, but according to CableLabs the M-Cards themselves are ready for multi-stream duty.

2. OCAP is controlled by the Cable co' so even if MS did write OCAP software for Vista Media Center, they would have to work with every Cable co' to get it supported -- good luck with that.

The OCAP requirement is about control, Cable doesn't want 3rd party software sending signals on their network. Sure, sounds like a good idea in practice, but in actuality they are forcing us to use their crappy lowest common denominator software. As CableLabs put it, they want to prevent disintermediation.