gary.buhrmaster at gmail
May 30, 2012, 10:12 AM
Post #16 of 16
(746 views)
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On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 3:06 PM, Preston Crow
<pc-mythtv08a [at] crowcastle> wrote:
....
> The disadvantages are that you might have to pay a fee for the card
Currently, CableCards cost a few dollars a month (your
particular franchise will vary). Under the proposed FCC
rule change allowing basic tier encryption, CableCards
will be "free"(*) for (at least) basic tier decoding for (at least)
two years (longer in some cases), and then somewhere
between free and $1/month (estimated based on local
franchise regulations). Same for the basic basic HD STBs(**)
that will support the existing no-STB TV (using clear QAM
today). None of those pricing numbers addresses the various
fees for the cable itself, nor any equipment needed to use the
CableCard or the basic basic STB.
> and you can only record one channel per tuner
This is an issue that is considered "fringe". Yes, this
list is self-selected with people who do/want this. The
number of customers are considered small (by the
MSOs and the FCC) to not be a significant decision
point. Vocal, yes. Large, no. While a perhaps
irrelevant data point, Cablevision (the largest MSO
with an existing waiver) had around .1% of their
customers request a "free" STB/CableCard. That
is in the noise values of irrelevance of customer
numbers.
Gary
(*) Interestingly, while Comcast, TWC, etal. are agreeing
to provide "free" equipment for (at least) two years, some
of the smaller players are very worried that they cannot
afford to provide that equipment for free, and are asking
for a potential waiver to the waiver, to allow them to
recoup (minimal) costs in their jurisdictions. I presume
they are worried about not having the deep pockets
(or larger credit lines) to front the monies for a roll out,
since the recovery of the up front monies will be over
the long term (fewer truck rolls, less theft of service
(resulting in some new customers :-), etc.) The FCC
has tended to be willing to grant waivers to the small
players to meet unique issues in their areas.
(**) I will note that the Comcast DTA (a basic basic STB
for SD basic tier only) does not do full CableCard like
encryption, nor full channel authorization management.
It uses a simplified 3DES encryption as specified in a
SCTE doc whose number I do not recall right now
(using a cost optimized decoding chip). A basic basic
HD STB basic tier only box might do same and be quite
cheap to manufacture).
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