Technologizer

For about a year, and as directed by Congress, the FCC has been working on their (our) National Broadband Plan. With the goal of ensuring access while maximizing usage and potential. Whatever that may mean. But hopefully does not include Chatroulette. As you might imagine of a government report, the newly released National Broadband Plan covers a lot of territory. So instead of reading each of the 376 pages, take a look at DSLReports for some consumer-centric highlights. You might also want to hit Engadget for a few corporate responses. However, given our general focus here, I wanted to address the cable-co…

Section 4.13 discusses the current CableCARD landscape and associated challenges. Specifically, they address the SDV hurt fest, pricing obfuscation, “installation” hoop jumping, and CableCARD certification burden. And the FCC would like to see this all cleaned up by the fall. This year. It’s certainly a goal we can get behind. But, yeah, good luck with that.

Continue reading this story…

Over the years, I’ve experienced more CableCARD installs than most. As I frequently rotate devices and have lived something of a gypsy lifestyle since unloading our home (along with our projector) and given bi-coastal employment. The vast majority of installs have been problematic. When the Comcast or Cox Communication techs bother to show. I even had to get in touch with my (previous) local franchising authority (Montgomery County, MD) at one point. Which is both good and bad… Fortunately, I know how to get things taken care of. On the other hand, why did getting a timely CableCARD install require filing a report? Plus, in most situations, I still firmly believe a CableCARD install shouldn’t require a truck roll — even if pairing is required. Let me pick up the card at their office and give me a number to call to read off my STB numbers for pairing. Saving the savvy some time (while preserving my PTO).

Continue reading this story…

Having piloted their “personal TV service” in Los Angeles since November, Sezmi is formally launching into the LA market today via local Best Buy outposts.
Last month at CES, I finally got a look at their product… which pulls together local other-the-air (OTA) programming, premium programming (such as CNN and SyFy) simulcast OTA in select markets, and Internet-sourced content including CinemaNow VOD and YouTube. Their vision is solid, and more holistic than most, likely embodying the future of home entertainment by aggregating multiple content sources within a personalized presentation for each family member (or housemate).
Continue reading this story…

A year ago, I toyed with the idea of getting rid of cable and doing all my TV watching online. In the end, I kept Comcast–partially out of lethargy, but mostly because (A) cable is still a much better source of news-related programming than the Web, and (B) I’m very comfortable with my TiVo.

Reason (A) still strikes me as a significant argument in favor of keeping cable. With reason (B), however, I may be at a crossroads. My TiVo HD, which never worked very well, now isn’t working at all–it crashes every few minutes. I’m still trying to troubleshoot it, but I suspect that the drive is bad and will need to be replaced. That’ll require an investment of money and time, and while I may go through with it, I’m also flirting with the notion of retiring the TiVo and giving up cable.

News remains the biggest argument against doing so: I still like the idea of having CNN, CSPAN, Fox News, MSNBC, and other newsy outlets readily available. On the other hand, some of this stuff is available in podcast form–albeit after a delay–and it’s not like I’m glued to TV news every night. (I do, however, like to gorge on it when breaking events warrant, whether they involve election night or a celebrity death or the moving tale of a small boy swept away in his father’s experimental balloon.)

If I cut the cable and give up TiVo, what should I replace them with? I’m still not sure. I like Roku. I own an Apple TV that I don’t use much but would probably enjoy if I made an effort to rediscover it. The Boxee Box looks promising.

But the one box that offers access to the widest variety of stuff–including an endless supply of free material–is a PC. So I’m also toying with the notion of connecting a Windows box or Mac Mini to my Vizio and using it for Netflix, Boxee, YouTube, video podcasts, and a whole lot more. The major downside: Even a cheap PC costs a lot more than a Roku or a Boxee Box. But hey, if I’m no longer tithing to Comcast I’ll have some newfound cash to spend.

I don’t need to give up cable. I can afford it, and there are times that I’m very glad I have it. But more and more, I feel guilty about spending as much I do each month given how little of it I end up watching. It feels wasteful, like filling up your plate at an all-you-can-eat buffet when you know you’re only going to take a bite or two.

Here’s the part where I ask for your advice. What would you do? What are you doing?

I’ve written periodically of my flirtation with dumping cable for an Internet-only approach to my TV watching. I haven’t, however, pulled the trigger–mostly because cable still has a lot of live programming, such as news and sports, that I can’t replicate over the Net alone.

That’s why I’m intrigued by Sezmi, a TV service that’s announcing that it’s rolling out to its first real customers (in Los Angeles). The service aims to provide a more personalized, Net-savvy, inexpensive alternative to cable and satellite–complete with the real broadcast and cable channels you can’t get from Apple TV, Roku, or Vudu. It does so via a 1TB DVR/set-top box that provides access to three types of TV sources: broadcast stations, cable channels, and Internet content. (It snags the first two kinds over the air, via a powerful antenna in a box that looks like a loudspeaker: Sezmi simply grabs local broadcast channels as is, and the company is leasing spectrum from local broadcasters to transmit cable channels–including both standard-def and HD.)

Continue reading this story…

Here’s a major development in a tech legal tussle I wasn’t even following: The U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that it’s okay for Comcast to offer a digital video recorder service in which the DVRing is all done at its facilities and delivered over the cable system–rather than via a box with a hard drive inside it in the consumer’s living room, which is how DVRs have worked since the dawn of TiVo and ReplayTV.

Media companies had sued to prevent this form of networked digital recording, fearing that it would make DVRs more pervasive, and therefore increase the odds that TV watchers will skip the ads that pay for their content.

Over at Barrons, Eric Savitz has a good post on the implications of today’s ruling. It’s obviously good news for Comcast and bad news for the media companies who had hoped to prevent it from offering this technology. Eric says it’s also a bummer for DirecTV and Dish Network, since there’s no way to deliver networked DVR functionality via satellite. I imagine that TiVo isn’t thrilled with the ruling, either–anything that helps make DVRs provded by cable companies more popular presumably hurts the sales of the box that’s still synonymous with “DVR.”

Mostly, though, I’m wondering: Should consumers be pleased with this ruling?

One benefit seems to be obvious: If Comcast can put the DVR at its end of the network, it should be able to let its customes sign up for DVR service without having to swap a non-DVR cable box for a new one. It should also allow folks with multiple cable boxes in their homes to get access to their recorded TV from any TV set.

I’m not enough of a cable-TV technology guru to know whether a cable box will be required at all to get access to a networked DVR. I’d like to think that a TV set with a CableCard would be up to the task, but I assume that it will require the elusive piece of technology known as the two-way CableCard.

If any of this happens, it would be pleasant but far from earthshaking. But centralizing the DVR would also open up the possibility of letting people get access to their recorded TV from any PC or phone with an Internet connection–in other words, providing the functionality of Sling Media’s wonderful SlingBox without requiring the SlingBox. You might even be able to get at your shows from any TV with Comcast service.

That would be neat. I’m not holding my breath that we’ll see it anytime soon, though–and even when it does show up, I suspect it might be in a form that’s nowhere near as usable and lovable as the TiVo/SlingBox combo I’ve been using for awhile to watch my favorite programs anywhere at any time. (I haven’t used Comcast’s current DVR box, but as far as  can tell, you can divvy its users up into two groups: Those who find it adequate, and those who can’t stand it.)

Of course, as a Court of Appeals ruling, this decision is subject to further change. It may be a long while before Comcast or any other cable company gets to put DVRs in the cloud. But to answer the question I asked a few paragraphs ago, I hope that they do–I can’t see any way that such a technology would be anything but a happy development for consumers. (Unless you take the “If consumers skip past all commercials, advertising, and therefore advertising-supported TV, will go away” scenario into account, which you probably should–but that’s a subject for another post…)