Why Cable Companies Hate CableCard!

[mbhuff]

Most cable companies are public companies. Most have reached market saturation;i.e, their potential growth potential is limited. Public companies, and especially the CEOs are rewarded not for profitibility, but by growth. Cable companies see their growth in offering services via their set-top-boxes. In NY Cablevision, they run adds over and over trying to sell their real-estate and auto sales system that they offer via their STB. Cable companies want to setup EBAY and Expedia like systems soon.

Everyone seems to be waiting on CableCard 2.0 whichs gives bi-directional commucation allowing things like PPV and VoD. The only thing people are missing is that the CableCompanies are requiring CableCard 2.0 specifications to insist that the CC 2.0 devices run OCAP, their operating system. Any CC 2.0 will NOT have a pure Tivo interface, it will have an interface THEY design so they can sell their services. The reason 2.0 hasn't been issued has been because of this fight, and they aren't backing down one bit from it.

Tivo's future has to be with companies like ComCast and showing how their superior interface can help them sell the cable companies services, rather than Tivo selling based on having a better DVR. The cable companies don't even want DVR services, they prefer customers use VoD and PPV.

[bferrell]

Tivo's future has to be with companies like ComCast and showing how their superior interface can help them sell the cable companies services, rather than Tivo selling based on having a better DVR. The cable companies don't even want DVR services, they prefer customers use VoD and PPV.
Mostly true, but working for a "Marketing Company" that happens to sell consumer products, I have to say - the Consumer gets what the Consumer demands, regardless of how bad the Big Scary Company wants to sell them something else. If customers demand DVRs, they'll get DVRs.

Brett

[PRMan]

If only all corporations thought as you do...

With CableCard, the FCC has shown that they prefer open standards that allow competition. Hopefully, they see this idea through with CC 2.0.

If cable companies want to show even more ads on the cable box itself, they might try building a DVR that crushes TiVo (shouldn't be THAT hard, TiVo has barely innovated in years).

[mbhuff]

Usually true, but remember Ford's saying "The customer can have any color they want.... as long as it's black". When cable companies have been given monopolies, they can dictate when the consumer "wants", or at least drag their heals.

Anyone that has used SA 8300HD with SARA software will tell you it's aweful. My cable company is aware of that, and is aware there is newer versions that fix a lot of the problems, but since it costs them money to get the upgrade, they aren't doing it, even though they get a lot of calls with complaints.

[ZeoTiVo]

If only all corporations thought as you do...

With CableCard, the FCC has shown that they prefer open standards that allow competition. Hopefully, they see this idea through with CC 2.0.

If cable companies want to show even more ads on the cable box itself, they might try building a DVR that crushes TiVo (shouldn't be THAT hard, TiVo has barely innovated in years).


yah HMO, MRV, TTG, TTCB HME

then there is suggestions, season passes , wishlists , folders, etc..

[jdmass]

Anyone that has used SA 8300HD with SARA software will tell you it's aweful.

I wish this was true. In fact, a very large number of SA DVR owners DON'T understand how awful it is and aren't squawking loudly to their cable companies.

Most people have never seen a Tivo, and are approaching the DVR coming from the perspective of a VCR as their only video recording device. From this perspective, it IS an improvement -- no tapes to load, it records their shows (most of the time), they can record 2 shows at once, pauses live TV, and it's a lot easier to program than a VCR (no flashing 12:00). So what if it's messes up sometimes, the VCR sure did!

Once you've experienced Tivo, you realize how primitive and crude the SA DVR implementation really is, but without that basis for comparison, most people are in the dark. This has always been a challenge for Tivo -- it's very hard to fully state its value in words.

[mbhuff]

I hear you. But I've talked to people at work, and even though they never have used a TiVO, they think it sucks, and have even called Cablevision about it. Even if everyone thought it sucked, it still wouldn't matter. Most people aren't willing to shell out $800 for a third-party box. They will either stick with it, or return it and get a normal STB.

[CCourtney]

I wish this was true. In fact, a very large number of SA DVR owners DON'T understand how awful it is and aren't squawking loudly to their cable companies.

Most people have never seen a Tivo, and are approaching the DVR coming from the perspective of a VCR as their only video recording device. From this perspective, it IS an improvement -- no tapes to load, it records their shows (most of the time), they can record 2 shows at once, pauses live TV, and it's a lot easier to program than a VCR (no flashing 12:00). So what if it's messes up sometimes, the VCR sure did!

Once you've experienced Tivo, you realize how primitive and crude the SA DVR implementation really is, but without that basis for comparison, most people are in the dark. This has always been a challenge for Tivo -- it's very hard to fully state its value in words.

Well, I'm very familiar with both the TiVo interface and the SA8300HD (w/ SARA v1.87.xx and v1.88.xx versions of the SW.) I can tell you that yes, TiVo SW is better and has many more functionalities, but the SA8300HD had been lambasted inappropriately. Many of the statements made about it are just plan wrong, or at the least made out of ignorance of the boxes capability.

I've been using the SA8300HD for two years. I lost a total of one program due to the SA8300HD in this time period. The S2's have more problems with this when using an IR blaster, or power glitches turning the STBs off. I often have two programs recording at the same time (actually 3 if you count my DHG-HDD500.) The interface is actually faster than an S2 interface (significantly faster than a DHG-HDD interface.) First Run/First Air/Season Pass whatever you would like to call it works flawlessly for me. 90% of the stuff I watch get's put in as First Run. One week worth of look ahead is fine by me, I don't take more than one week of vacation at a time and when I'm out of town on a business trip for a couple weeks I can use the internet to program it (if in a round about way) It goes like this, I log into my Gmail account and e-mail my wife a reminder to record a specific program on a specific day and time.

To those who say it's nothing more than a glorified VCR, I say how can you declare that TiVo is anything more than a glorified VCR.

The functionality that makes TiVo unique are the fact that it can attempt to predict and record programming, you can priorities recordings in case of conflicts, you can program it over the internet. HD Cable Recording has outweighed these factors by far for the past two years.

TTG is not availabe on the S3 yet and is no better than my pulling recordings over 1394 port of the SA8300HD
MRV is availabe on SA8300HD

Are these features nice to have, Yes. Is it worth paying extra money to TiVo to have them, Yes. Does it make DVRs with less functionality a POS, No.

When my Cable Co started to providing HD DVR service, I jumped ship. Sorry but the functionality that SD TiVo's provided was not sufficient to retain me, and I will not go D.Sat. route.

CCourtney

[HD Guy]

CCourtney,

I am currently using the 8300 with the 1.87 software. I would love to update the firmware, but as others point out, my cable company "isn't interested". Besides losing programs or parts of programs regularly, the most annoying feature is that I can't shift time. As a football fan, I love the action, but not the pauses. So, I start recording an hour or so before I start watching. With the 8300, the first thing I have to do is "rewind" the show so that I can start at the beginning. Of course, I need to do this without looking at the screen (spoiler). Then the same thing happens when it hits the end of the recording period. I need not mention that every time I skip commercials using fast-forward, I wind up going to far, then need to rewind to restart the game. Need I go on? In general, I have the 8300 only because no HD TIVO for cable existed (until now).

[Stormspace]

yah HMO, MRV, TTG, TTCB HME

then there is suggestions, season passes , wishlists , folders, etc..

Most that isn't available with the current generation of TiVos, however the second half of your list is right on the money. :)

[CCourtney]

CCourtney,

I am currently using the 8300 with the 1.87 software. I would love to update the firmware, but as others point out, my cable company "isn't interested". Besides losing programs or parts of programs regularly, the most annoying feature is that I can't shift time. As a football fan, I love the action, but not the pauses. So, I start recording an hour or so before I start watching. With the 8300, the first thing I have to do is "rewind" the show so that I can start at the beginning. Of course, I need to do this without looking at the screen (spoiler). Then the same thing happens when it hits the end of the recording period. I need not mention that every time I skip commercials using fast-forward, I wind up going to far, then need to rewind to restart the game. Need I go on? In general, I have the 8300 only because no HD TIVO for cable existed (until now).

Yes, the 1.88.xx version of the software will take care of this. While those negative items features are there, I lived with them for more than 1.5yrs and I'm glad they're gone, but I didn't have.

I had trained my self to count off the seconds and hit the play button, it's about as accurate as a 30sec advance button IMHO. I don't even use the '5 10 30 90 300 second Advance features' on my DHG-HDD500.

I don't see why you cannot timeshift on it. Other than not wanting to see the score, I was able to time shift it just takes some time on the rewind and the ability to not look at the score.

It's unfortunate that a number of CableCo's have sat on the Arse's instead of updating the software, but it's good to know that the issues are correctable and will eventually get corrected. BTW, the vast majority of CableCo's using the SARA SW have updated to the 1.88.xx version.

CCourtney