Time Warner Cable moving *existing* channels to SDV

[BigFrank]

I just got a lovely note from Time Warner (in Rochester, NY) today.
The note describes what SDV is and indicates that:
Starting on March 12, 2008, Time Warner Cable will begin providing a number of our existing channels in SDV. The list is as follows:

HBO West
Cinemax West
Showtime West
Encore West
RTN
RAI

...
In addition you should be aware that in the future other channels currently accessible on a UDCP may be migrated to SDV and new services will be launched using that two-way technology.

I'm pretty sick of this. Every HD channel they've added since I got my TiVo has been added as SDV, and it looks like this trend is going to continue. I am pretty much done with Time Warner -- if they don't want my business, thats fine. DirectTV has several times more HD channels and their DVR is superior to the cable DVR. It may be inferior to TiVo (and the only fact I am still a cable subscriber is that I can use a Tivo with it), but it looks like I wont be able to use my TiVo with Time Warner cable much longer anyhow.

I'll really miss my TiVo, but at this point I feel so angry with TW that I want to show them that I'll vote with my money instead of just taking more and more of their semi-monopolistic crap. Why don't they get it in their heads that a partnership with TiVo is in their best interest and that its really not a competitor?

Frank

[MickeS]

I just got a lovely note from Time Warner (in Rochester, NY) today.
The note describes what SDV is and indicates that:
Starting on March 12, 2008, Time Warner Cable will begin providing a number of our existing channels in SDV. The list is as follows:

HBO West
Cinemax West
Showtime West
Encore West
RTN
RAI

...
In addition you should be aware that in the future other channels currently accessible on a UDCP may be migrated to SDV and new services will be launched using that two-way technology.

I'm pretty sick of this. Every HD channel they've added since I got my TiVo has been added as SDV, and it looks like this trend is going to continue. I am pretty much done with Time Warner -- if they don't want my business, thats fine. DirectTV has several times more HD channels and their DVR is superior to the cable DVR. It may be inferior to TiVo (and the only fact I am still a cable subscriber is that I can use a Tivo with it), but it looks like I wont be able to use my TiVo with Time Warner cable much longer anyhow.

I'll really miss my TiVo, but at this point I feel so angry with TW that I want to show them that I'll vote with my money instead of just taking more and more of their semi-monopolistic crap. Why don't they get it in their heads that a partnership with TiVo is in their best interest and that its really not a competitor?

Frank

Yeah, I hear you. I wanted to keep my TiVo, so I just dropped the HD package. I will be able to put up an antenna in a few months, and will drop TWC completely at that time. I am so fed up with cable companies, that I'm willing to give up some channels that I rarely watch anyway just to boycott them. I don't have any illusions it will help much, but at least I won't be contributing to their bottom line anymore.

I don't know why TWC has been so quick to jump on the SDV technology. Is their infrastructure so much worse than other cable companies? Are they more aggressive when it comes to competing with satellite?

[mattack]

I think voting with your wallet is a great idea... but since you *already* have a Tivo, wouldn't waiting until the SDV solution is released to see if that fits your needs be reasonable?

(and/or cancel JUST the HD or whatever other SDV channels you pay for but don't "get" and tell them exactly why.)

[cableguy763]

So, I don't see why the OP is really griping at TWC for innovating and trying to match the HD offerings that DirectTV has. Why isn't the op complaining about Tivo selling a device that only does one-way communication?

Cable has to compete. They are not going to sit by and let the competition offer more than they are. They are a business. 99% of their users use cable boxes. 50% are HD boxes. Those 50% want more HD channels. So, who do you satisfy? The .05% using cablecards, or the 50% using HD boxes?

Also, cable loves that you have a Tivo with say a 3 year service agreement. For 3 years you will be subscribing to at least a basic level of cable service. That is why cable is helping with the development of the tuning resolver. Just hang on for a few months. The resolver is coming.

[Krandor]

So, I don't see why the OP is really griping at TWC for innovating and trying to match the HD offerings that DirectTV has. Why isn't the op complaining about Tivo selling a device that only does one-way communication?


TiVo would love to do two-way communication, but they are not currently allowed to so it is really fair to blame them when their hands are tied.

[Krandor]

edited for duplicate

[BigFrank]

So, I don't see why the OP is really griping at TWC for innovating and trying to match the HD offerings that DirectTV has. Why isn't the op complaining about Tivo selling a device that only does one-way communication?

Cable has to compete. They are not going to sit by and let the competition offer more than they are. They are a business. 99% of their users use cable boxes. 50% are HD boxes. Those 50% want more HD channels. So, who do you satisfy? The .05% using cablecards, or the 50% using HD boxes?

The Cable companies have had years now to comply with the FCC wrt CableCard technology and now the new "Open" initiative. They do just enough to avoid getting penalized but not enough to make these options truly practical for other companies to innovate on. The FCC requires the cable companies to provide CableCards to consumers at their request for exactly that reason - to allow other companies to be able to innovate in the cable market. Tivo is a perfect example of that. Do you think its a coincidence that SDV only started to get adopted by cable companies around the time that devices that practically used CableCard became available? I don't. I honestly don't believe that the cable pipe is so saturated that they need SDV yet.
All you have to do is look at the mountain of posts from people who had trouble getting their CableCards installed and in many cases to properly function. Its pretty clear that Cable companies are trying to protect their control on their market without regard for the consumers rights or interests.


Also, cable loves that you have a Tivo with say a 3 year service agreement. For 3 years you will be subscribing to at least a basic level of cable service. That is why cable is helping with the development of the tuning resolver. Just hang on for a few months. The resolver is coming.

You think I should wait "a few months" for a tuning resolver? I have no faith that they will be easily available in my area any time soon and even if they are there will be compromises - like I will probably have to pay even more per month to rent the damn thing. And who knows how buggy the things will be (likely another way for them to make you want to give up and get THEIR DVR). Since the day I got my TiVo, TimeWarner has made it clear that they didn't want to make it easy for me to continue using it. And I'm finally coming to the point that I'm tired of fighting them.

I have a Tivo Series 3 with a lifetime service plan. But for the *less* than the money i'm spending on my cable plan plus the fee for renting 2 cable cards I can get a DirectTV subscription with far more HDTV channels and a DVR.

You can say its not TimeWarner's fault if you like, but I don't buy it.

[cramer]

So, I don't see why the OP is really griping at TWC for innovating and trying to match the HD offerings that DirectTV has. Why isn't the op complaining about Tivo selling a device that only does one-way communication?Becausse they aren't "innovating". They are being greedy and spiteful. They have plenty of capacity for channels. However, they won't drop all or even most analog channels because then they wouldn't be able to charge a premium for "Digital Cable". The vast majority of their capacity is consumed ("wasted" is what I call it) by ondemand crap. This ondemand ("iControl"(tm)) crap grew out of the cableco's (TW in particular) original design for a DVR... the stb is nothing more than a tuner, all the recording and content are on servers at the headend. It was designed like this so it's under their control. They obviously never went ahead with it for legal reasons. (they'd be sued for (re)transmitting content without royalties and licenses.)

SDV is yet another ploy to lock consumers to renting hardware from the cable company. Funny thing, SDV -- designed by TW and SA, BTW -- didn't exist until the FCC refused to extend the integration ban again. Mighty convenient. Just like the constantly re-engineered seperable security system... CC1.0 -> CC2.0 -> DCAS -> OCAP... the FCC finally realized they were just being strung along; the industry had no intention of ever implementing or using any of the crap they were coming up with.

One cannot hold Tivo, Inc. to blame, either. They have to have Cable Labs certification. Until recently, there was no certification for two-way devices. On the other hand, cable companies have no requirement to use certified hardware themselves. (and they don't, btw. The SA8240 cannot meet certification requirements as it has no analog tuner.) Name one certified CE device that's two-way and can receive SDV channels. The only one I know of (and I'm not sure it's in stores) is 100% OCAP, which means it runs whatever the cable company sends it; and that is certainly not a tivo.

Cable has to compete. ... They are a business.Yes they do. However, their bad business decisions are not my problem. They've had literally hundreds of opportunities to lead the market, but they never, ever do. They're like Microsoft... they don't do anything unil someone else is already doing it -- a "proven market" as they put it.

I grew up in a house surrounded by cable. However, the cable company wouldn't spend the few thousand dollars -- in 1970's dollars -- to reach what was 3 dozen potential customers -- and they all wanted cable back then. It's about 50 homes now; they're all dish/dtv customers now -- at least every house has a dish hanging off of it, and 4 of them still have the c-band "big dish" in the back yard. TW extended the cable a few years ago... not suprisingly, not long after Bellsouth hung a few line-powered remote DSLAMs on the poles.

Last thanksgiving, I was counting DirectWay dishes on the way to dinner. And commenting how, even though TW has finally, after 3+ decades, run cable past all these houses, NONE of them are connected to that cable. Not for TV. Not for internet. Great way to run a business guys... let's wait 30 years so it'll cost 2-3 orders of magnitude more to reach people who have already found other options, and no longer want to be a cable customer.

Put another way, cable companies won't do anything where there isn't any competition. They won't build a bar in a town where there are no bars. As there are no bars there, they don't know that'd have any business. They'll wait forever for someone else to be first rather than risk anything.

[Edit: For the record, DirectWay is the last choice. When you have no other choices, you still debate going with DirectWay.]

[Edit2: The often hailed capacity crunch hastening SDV is suspect as well. TW/Raleigh wanted to move every channel to SDV back on Jan-01-2007, but back peddled quickly after the plan was leaked. TW/Shelby (fed from Charlotte) has exactly the same lineup (ignoring locals) and yet they have no SDV at all; and don't expect to have any SDV capability this year.]

[jacksonian]

and don't expect to have any SDV capability this year.]
Do you have some information that we don't know about, or this just your prediction?

[cableguy763]

Cramer,
For the record, SA did not create SDV. It was BigBand. Time Warner Austin was the first to test and implement SDV in the world. Startover was launched in South Carolina in 2005. First in the world to launch it. Those are just two from the top of my head. Time Warner is not afraid of innovation, and being the first to do it.

Analog cable is still around because that's 40% of their customers. Engineering departments in every cable system would love to chop analog service down to just the lifeline service. But hacking off 40% of your customer base is not a very good thing. Which is where SDV comes in. Austin had absolutely no bandwidth left to add even SD channels, much less HD.

[cramer]

Do you have some information that we don't know about, or this just your prediction?This was a conversation with the engineering manager. They didn't have any SDV as of January, and didn't even have the hardware to support it. You'd have to have that conversation with people in Charlotte to know when that sort of equipment is planned for integration. I doubt there's enough people in Shelby to justify the cost.

For the record, SA did not create SDV.That's not what SA and TW both said. I don't have the docs around anymore. Of course, they also call it an "open standard." But the documentation for it is nowhere to be seen.

Analog cable is still around because that's 40% of their customers. Engineering departments in every cable system would love to chop analog service down to just the lifeline service.From the conversations I've had with cable company employees, no, they don't. As I said to the above mentioned manager... they'd have plenty of capacity if they dropped the *75* analog channels they still broadcast -- most of them are also in digital. They won't do it because it'll cost them money. Basic cable ("lifeline" as you put it) is $12 a month. Standard cable is $50 a month. If they have no analog teir, they cannot charge a premium for digital cable -- around $20 per month. Switching to 100% digital also means activating a whole lot more cablecards and new cable boxes (which also use cablecards.) And yes, they will lose a percentage of customers that refuse to get new hardware (either a new digital ready TV, or STB.) But those people will be screwed anyway in just under a year.

They are starting to over subscribe their TV network just like the data network. They haven't learned anything from over subscribing the data network by factors of thousands -- instead they decide to put dollar signs in front of it and charge "heavy users" by the byte. SDV is going to bite them in the ass to the point of drawing blood. When someone goes to watch channel 1000 and there's no free slot to transmit it, there will be angry customers, legislation, and fines flying from everywhere (Utility Commission, FCC, franchise authorities, etc.) I predict cable companies will test out charging people by the minute -- cell phone companies have done it for years after all.