Cable Industry Responds Regarding HD TiVo Incompatibilities

[David Farber <dfarber () cs cmu edu>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Date: August 25, 2007 5:29:13 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: lauren () vortex com
Subject: Cable Industry Responds Regarding HD TiVo Incompatibilities



          Cable Industry Responds Regarding HD TiVo Incompatibilities

                 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000275.html


Greetings.  You'll recall a few days ago I reviewed the situation
concerning incompatibilities between the new High Definition TiVo
("TiVo HD") and the Switched Digital Video (SDV) systems being
rapidly deployed by cable systems:
      ( http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000273.html )

That was last Wednesday.  The following day, that blog item appeared
on Slashdot ( http://www.slashdot.org ) and was as a result very widely
referenced and discussed.  So much for Thursday.

Now comes word that the next day (yesterday), the cable industry
trade association (NCTA - National Cable & Telecommunications
Association) made a filing with the FCC offering to develop
a workaround for the problem:
  ( http://ibc.broadcastnewsroom.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp? 
id=175784 )

As might be expected, NCTA is continuing to push the "OpenCable
Application Platform" (OCAP) system that the Consumer Electronics
Association has found to be unacceptable.

However, NCTA reportedly says in their new FCC filing that they are
now willing to develop a "tuning resolver" to work around the
problem for existing devices like the new TiVo.  This device would
be a USB "dongle" to handle SDV tuning (the second of the probable
options that I mentioned in my original blog item, as it happens).

While this is obviously a welcome development, two obvious questions
are "When?" and "How much will it cost?"

Obviously cost is important.  And if the device takes too long to
appear, the associated host devices might already be obsolete!

Still, a busy three days, and no doubt the timing of the NCTA filing
vs. all of the Slashdot attention to the issue was just an amusing
coincidence.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren () vortex com or lauren () pfir org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
   - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com



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