# Zatz Reports that FCC Drops CableCARD Requirements for Cable TV Providers



## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

https://zatznotfunny.com/2020-09/cablecard-is-dead/

Per FCC filing of 9/4/20:
_"We...eliminate outdated CableCARD support and reporting requirements."_

This doesn't mean that MVPDs will necessarily stop offering and supporting CableCARDs in the immediate future. It just means that they are no longer required to do so by the government.

We've seen multiple reports over the past couple of years of folks getting the runaround from their MVPD about obtaining or successfully activating a CableCARD for their TiVo. (Seems like certain providers, like Altice, Frontier and maybe Charter, are worse about this.) Those folks could contact the FCC to apply pressure to their MVPD and get the support they needed. Apparently, that's no longer an option. Looks like CableCARD users are on their own now.

Will be interesting to see if any MVPDs send out notices this year to CC users telling them that those devices are no longer supported. Or perhaps we'll just see them continue to allow currently deployed CCs remain in use but no longer provision/activate any more of them.


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## dishrich (Jan 16, 2002)

Guess that explains why Comcast no longer bills for CC's, at least on the new Simple & Easy plans...


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## jaredmwright (Sep 6, 2004)

NashGuy said:


> https://zatznotfunny.com/2020-09/cablecard-is-dead/
> 
> Per FCC filing of 9/4/20:
> _"We...eliminate outdated CableCARD support and reporting requirements."_
> ...


I hope this means IP based video with higher picture quality is coming for TiVo. It has been holding back linear tv quality IMHO. There are so many CC in use, hopefully this will take a long time to effect existing users and not be an immediate issue for most.

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

jaredmwright said:


> There are so many CC in use, hopefully this will take a long time to effect existing users and not be an immediate issue for most.


Footnote 40 of the FCC filing states that, as of first quarter of this year, there were about 456,000 CCs in use among the four largest MVPDs that issue them (which would appear to be Comcast Xfinity, Charter Spectrum, Verizon FiOS, and Cox). That amounts to right about 1% of the total number of cable TV subscribers that those four operators reportedly have now.

Given the amount of fluctuation that these MVPDs report in their TV subscriber counts from quarter to quarter (usually in the downward direction), I'm not sure that they're going to be all that concerned about the potential loss of 1% of their subscriber base if they stop supporting CC. And, of course, even if they pull the plug on CC, not all those CC-using customers would walk away. A decent chunk would switch over to MVPD-provided boxes, like the X1/Contour provided by Comcast and Cox.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

jaredmwright said:


> I hope this means IP based video with higher picture quality is coming for TiVo. It has been holding back linear tv quality IMHO. There are so many CC in use, hopefully this will take a long time to effect existing users and not be an immediate issue for most.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk


How would that come to tivo when their dvr's are cable card based? You think they're going to make new iptv based dvr's? Or do you think they're going to use that as their excuse to slowly let their dvr's die?

Sent from my SM-N975U1 using Tapatalk


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Just noticed that there was already an existing thread created yesterday on this topic (over in the Roamio section of the forum):

CableCard coming to an end FCC 20-124


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## CommunityMember (May 22, 2020)

jaredmwright said:


> I hope this means IP based video with higher picture quality is coming for TiVo.


I am not exactly sure the value add of what a classic TiVo is moving forward in most cases for most customers.

IP based video is already available on various TV's/Streaming_devices/mobile, and of course the TiVo Stream. However, most of them depend on the content provider to provide navigation and (cloud) DVR storage, although the TiVo stream does have their app to try to curate the available content.

As for providers that are aggressively moving to IPTV such as Comcast (but others have made steps in that direction), allowing a classic CableCARD TiVo to access their IPTV stream will require Comcast and TiVo to come to a mutually satisfactory agreement beneficial to both companies, which is likely to happen only with inclusion of settlements on their other ongoing contractual disputes (i.e. the various patent lawsuits).


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## CommunityMember (May 22, 2020)

dbpaddler said:


> Or do you think they're going to use that as their excuse to slowly let their dvr's die?


TiVo (the STB side) makes their money with STBs/DVRs for the cable/satellite operators, and is their focus. The consumer market continues with new devices/features primarily when the cost to offer a new product is very small since the other providers are paying for the primary development costs (that is why the Edge was released, it was a provider box and throwing a consumer UI on it was reportedly a small cost). OTA is pretty much the last justifications for owning a self-hosted DVR (cloud/OTT providers already provide dvr/on-demand capabilities), and you don't need the entire CableCARD eco-system overheads (and certifications) to produce such boxes (Amazon Replay, Android TV Live Channels, etc.).


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## mattyro7878 (Nov 27, 2014)

CommunityMember said:


> I am not exactly sure the value add of what a classic TiVo is moving forward in most cases for most customers.
> 
> IP based video is already available on various TV's/Streaming_devices/mobile, and of course the TiVo Stream. However, most of them depend on the content provider to provide navigation and (cloud) DVR storage, although the TiVo stream does have their app to try to curate the available content.
> 
> As for providers that are aggressively moving to IPTV such as Comcast (but others have made steps in that direction), allowing a classic CableCARD TiVo to access their IPTV stream will require Comcast and TiVo to come to a mutually satisfactory agreement beneficial to both companies, which is likely to happen only with inclusion of settlements on their other ongoing contractual disputes (i.e. the various patent lawsuits).


Can our box s actually be made to work with iptv? Or are you talking a new line of hardware ?


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

mattyro7878 said:


> Can our box s actually be made to work with iptv? Or are you talking a new line of hardware ?


Technically yes, but it would require cooperation from the cable companies which is unlikely to occur.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

CommunityMember said:


> As for providers that are aggressively moving to IPTV such as Comcast (but others have made steps in that direction), allowing a classic CableCARD TiVo to access their IPTV stream will require Comcast and TiVo to come to a mutually satisfactory agreement beneficial to both companies, which is likely to happen only with inclusion of settlements on their other ongoing contractual disputes (i.e. the various patent lawsuits).


If it was in the realm of possibility it would have happened when they ditched Tivo VOD last year.

It ain't happening and at this point I doubt Tivo even cares.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

slowbiscuit said:


> It ain't happening and at this point I doubt Tivo even cares.


This is the truth. Any Dvr customer that is asking or wants to see any sort of new feature that makes it more usable just needs to stop posting. It's not happening. No, it's not a possibility, and you're just wasting your time asking the question. Suck it up. What you have is what you'll get until your box dies or you sell it. Either deal with it or throw it on eBay and find another solution.

Wishing and hoping will just make you frustrated, and it's just not worth it.

Sent from my SM-N975U1 using Tapatalk


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

Yet another reason Ajit Pai needs to be fired.

Seems the writing is on the wall for cablecos (AKA ostriches) anyway.


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## ITGrouch (Jan 7, 2015)

CommunityMember said:


> TiVo (the STB side) makes their money with STBs/DVRs for the cable/satellite operators, and is their focus. The consumer market continues with new devices/features primarily when the cost to offer a new product is very small since the other providers are paying for the primary development costs (that is why the Edge was released, it was a provider box and throwing a consumer UI on it was reportedly a small cost). OTA is pretty much the last justifications for owning a self-hosted DVR (cloud/OTT providers already provide dvr/on-demand capabilities), and you don't need the entire CableCARD eco-system overheads (and certifications) to produce such boxes (Amazon Replay, Android TV Live Channels, etc.).


I have a close friend that lives in Sioux Falls SD and his cable provider there started rolling out TiVo Edge and Mini 4K devices several months ago. The consumer CableCard units will get phased out when the major service providers eventually pull the plug on CableCard, but they will continue to manufacture devices for service providers. You are correct that TiVo's bread and butter comes from service providers.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

ITGrouch said:


> I have a close friend that lives in Sioux Falls SD and his cable provider there started rolling out TiVo Edge and Mini 4K devices several months ago. The consumer CableCard units will get phased out when the major service providers eventually pull the plug on CableCard, but they will continue to manufacture devices for service providers. You are correct that TiVo's bread and butter comes from service providers.


The main solution that TiVo is selling these days for service providers is IPTV hardware and software (typically running atop Android TV). This is the first I've heard of a TiVo Edge being deployed by a cableco. Thought that TiVo had turned over manufacture and sales of CableCARD hardware for QAM cable TV to Arris/CommScope, which sells the MG2 gateway running TiVo software.


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## JackStraw (Oct 22, 2002)

I hope Verizon FIOS continues to support cable cards. I watch all my sports on delay. Right now with the NBA, NHL and MLB and the NFL added to the mix this week I need my DVR. Can't deal with FIOS clunky software and slow menu guide.


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## CommunityMember (May 22, 2020)

JackStraw said:


> I hope Verizon FIOS continues to support cable cards.


It is, of course, impossible to predict what VZ will do, as they have lots of possibilities they are juggling, and until the music stops no one knows what balls will hit the floor. However, it is perhaps instructive that in at least some markets they were suggesting to new subscribers that they should consider selecting YTTV rather than Verizon TV, and a bit further back they had tested (in beta testers residences) a pure IPTV solution (with a less clunky STB) which they later aborted because they apparently did not want to do that investment in a TV offering. Being a TV provider these days is mostly about revenue numbers, not significant profits (a significant percentage of any money that comes in goes out to the content providers), and comes with a high pain of managing the service. While cord shavers have not hit VZ as hard as some other cable companies, the direction of the consumer is still clear, and a smaller subscriber base for a TV offering is basically a given. There are more than a few industry pundits who think Verizon should (and some think will) just get out of the TV service offering all together (VZ doesn't really need the revenue numbers to prop up their share prices like some of the other less offering diverse players do, so it becomes a little easier to make the decision).


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## tim_m (Mar 8, 2017)

ITGrouch said:


> I have a close friend that lives in Sioux Falls SD and his cable provider there started rolling out TiVo Edge and Mini 4K devices several months ago. The consumer CableCard units will get phased out when the major service providers eventually pull the plug on CableCard, but they will continue to manufacture devices for service providers. You are correct that TiVo's bread and butter comes from service providers.


I have a cable company in my state that offers TiVo. I don't have them. They're called Grande. They offer Premieres, Roamios and they have a 4k one that is their own. It is an Arris MG2.


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## CommunityMember (May 22, 2020)

tim_m said:


> ... and they have a 4k one that is their own. It is an Arris MG2.


The MG2 is the predecessor to the MG3 (stated to also be available to operators) that is what TiVo has offered to consumers as the Edge (operator units may have different plastic shells and typically have operator branding labels, and are typically customized to startup with the operator logo, but the hardware is going to be the same). The Edge was, according to various reports, able to be released by TiVo because Arris was doing the heavy lifting (design, certification, manufacturing) for the operators. Should there be a future consumer model (the Edge Plus?) it will likely be based on whatever next model Arris produces for the operators based on their requirements.


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

I wonder if TiVo has said anything about the FCC action. It basically screws TiVo's retail business. Maybe TiVo doesn't care.

I'm in the middle of a significant problem with Spectrum. There is a problem in its system, apparently at a node such that I can't get a number of SDV channels. I get some SDV channels, but not all. I can only hope that Spectrum continues to try to solve the issue rather than just point to the FCC action and give me the finger.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

UCLABB said:


> I wonder if TiVo has said anything about the FCC action. It basically screws TiVo's retail business. Maybe TiVo doesn't care.
> 
> I'm in the middle of a significant problem with Spectrum. There is a problem in its system, apparently at a node such that I can't get a number of SDV channels. I get some SDV channels, but not all. I can only hope that Spectrum continues to try to solve the issue rather than just point to the FCC action and give me the finger.


Yeah, I'm wondering the same thing. The experiences of Comcast and Charter customers with regard to using TiVos/CableCARDs over the next couple of months will be instructive. Those are by far the two largest CC-issuing pay TV providers in the nation; together, I think they account for at least 2/3 of the nation's QAM-based cable TV subscribers (i.e. those who could potentially use a CC). If those two giants stop issuing CCs to existing, or even new, customers, and/or if they stop doing anything to support CC-using customers like you who experience technical issues, then I'm not sure I can see TiVo continuing to sell their Edge for Cable DVR into 2021. We'll see...


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> Yeah, I'm wondering the same thing. The experiences of Comcast and Charter customers with regard to using TiVos/CableCARDs over the next couple of months will be instructive. Those are by far the two largest CC-issuing pay TV providers in the nation; together, I think they account for at least 2/3 of the nation's QAM-based cable TV subscribers (i.e. those who could potentially use a CC). If those two giants stop issuing CCs to existing, or even new, customers, and/or if they stop doing anything to support CC-using customers like you who experience technical issues, then I'm not sure I can see TiVo continuing to sell their Edge for Cable DVR into 2021. We'll see...


Tivo was heavily discounting their Edge this summer so maybe they see the writing on the wall as well.

Truth be told, Internet speeds are much faster than they were back when CCs were first introduced. There's little reason for QAM cable TV to even exist at this point, let alone CC support.

I'm sure if not for Comcast's legacy boxes, they would shut off QAM TV today and move all that bandwidth to Internet.


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## ITGrouch (Jan 7, 2015)

NashGuy said:


> The main solution that TiVo is selling these days for service providers is IPTV hardware and software (typically running atop Android TV). This is the first I've heard of a TiVo Edge being deployed by a cableco. Thought that TiVo had turned over manufacture and sales of CableCARD hardware for QAM cable TV to Arris/CommScope, which sells the MG2 gateway running TiVo software.


My friend had special cable provider model Premier DVRs and Minis before the upgrade.


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## ITGrouch (Jan 7, 2015)

morac said:


> Tivo was heavily discounting their Edge this summer so maybe they see the writing on the wall as well.
> 
> Truth be told, Internet speeds are much faster than they were back when CCs were first introduced. There's little reason for QAM cable TV to even exist at this point, let alone CC support.
> 
> I'm sure if not for Comcast's legacy boxes, they would shut off QAM TV today and move all that bandwidth to Internet.


Comcast has far too many devices in the food chain that use QAM and most still use CableCards. They have streaming only devices BUT you have to have one of their X1 DVRs and DVR service and one of their Internet gateways. They use the Internet gateways as the MoCA controller for the DVRs and streaming devices.

I use a TiVo Edge and Bolt VOX with my Comcast TV service. I wanted to get one of their streaming boxes so I could watch Peacock content, which is included in my TV service but unless I added a X1v4 DVR and DVR service to the account, they couldn't add it to my account. I'm not ditching my TiVo devices until they pull the plug on CableCards. If you do not have Comcast X1 TV service but have Internet service with them, they have the Xfinity Flex service and they will give you a streaming box for free and you can add X1 TV service at any time.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

ITGrouch said:


> I use a TiVo Edge and Bolt VOX with my Comcast TV service. I wanted to get one of their streaming boxes so I could watch Peacock content, which is included in my TV service but unless I added a X1v4 DVR and DVR service to the account, they couldn't add it to my account.


You don't need a X1v4. You can sign up for Peacock directly on the Peacock: Stream TV and Movies Online, Watch Live News and Sports web site. Once you do that you'll be on the free tier. After that simply link your Comcast (or Cox) account on the plans and payment page and you'll get the Premium tier for free. That's what I did.


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## ITGrouch (Jan 7, 2015)

I did this. I can stream content on my PC, but I want to stream the Peacock content to my TVs. Hopefully, Roku will have a Peacock app in the near future.


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## southerndoc (Apr 5, 2003)

Surely TiVo is working on an IPTV version.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

ITGrouch said:


> Comcast has far too many devices in the food chain that use QAM and most still use CableCards. They have streaming only devices BUT you have to have one of their X1 DVRs and DVR service and one of their Internet gateways. They use the Internet gateways as the MoCA controller for the DVRs and streaming devices.
> 
> I use a TiVo Edge and Bolt VOX with my Comcast TV service. I wanted to get one of their streaming boxes so I could watch Peacock content, which is included in my TV service but unless I added a X1v4 DVR and DVR service to the account, they couldn't add it to my account. I'm not ditching my TiVo devices until they pull the plug on CableCards. If you do not have Comcast X1 TV service but have Internet service with them, they have the Xfinity Flex service and they will give you a streaming box for free and you can add X1 TV service at any time.


Unclear to me whether you need to use their gateway to get Xfinity cable TV delivered purely via IPTV. I use my own modem and router for standalone broadband and I have one of their free Flex boxes, which is the same thing as their Xi6 X1 IPTV box, just running a different UI. My understanding is that I could immediately add cable TV (IPTV) through that box without any additional hardware in my set-up, although maybe that's wrong and I'd have to get their XFi Gateway to replace my modem and router.

As for TiVos on Comcast, I think the near-term question is whether they stop issuing, activating and transferring CCs. As for CCs currently in use and working properly, my hunch is that they allow them to remain in place until they completely shut down QAM TV and take their network to all-IP. But at that point, yes, Comcast will need to swap out a decent number of older STBs in the field. But that number goes down every day through simple attrition. IPTV-capable devices (X1 and streaming devices running the Stream app) make up a pretty large majority of their base now.

Just today saw a recent slide from an industry presentation by Cox (which also runs X1 hardware under the Contour brand name). Looks like they plan to completely retire QAM TV and go all-IP in the 2022-23 timeframe.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

southerndoc said:


> Surely TiVo is working on an IPTV version.


TiVo already has IPTV-compatible solutions in the form of Android TV and Linux STBs that run the TiVo UI, plus back-end IPTV software for deployment on the TV operator's servers. But that requires the TV operator adopting TiVo as their overall solution.

There's no way for TiVo to produce a retail IPTV box that could work with any given IPTV operator without that operator cooperating with TiVo on it. Because there's no industry-wide IPTV access standard, the way that CableCARD is a standard for QAM TV.


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

NashGuy said:


> TiVo already has IPTV-compatible solutions in the form of Android TV and Linux STBs that run the TiVo UI, plus back-end IPTV software for deployment on the TV operator's servers. But that requires the TV operator adopting TiVo as their overall solution.
> 
> There's no way for TiVo to produce a retail IPTV box that could work with any given IPTV operator without that operator cooperating with TiVo on it. Because there's no industry-wide IPTV access standard, the way that CableCARD is a standard for QAM TV.


Spectrum is all QAM as far as I know and I haven't heard of any plans to do anything else. I believe their boxes are crap. TiVo and Spectrum would be a great partnership, but alas unlikely to ever happen.


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## Krandor (Jun 10, 2004)

It took a long time but in the end the studios got what they wanted since Sony vs Betamax. No 3rd party equipment and complete control end to end. Yes they can let you time shift but they can now restrict fast forwarding and insert their own commercials. 

It’s a shame. This has been the goal and they finally got it.


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## jaredmwright (Sep 6, 2004)

Krandor said:


> It took a long time but in the end the studios got what they wanted since Sony vs Betamax. No 3rd party equipment and complete control end to end. Yes they can let you time shift but they can now restrict fast forwarding and insert their own commercials.
> 
> It's a shame. This has been the goal and they finally got it.


Soon we will need to pay more to reduce ads if that is even an option. It has been a good 20 year run, but I have a feeling TiVo as we know it will be short lived. I may consider going OTA and leveraging my Minis once cable is not viable via TiVo if that does indeed happen in the near term. Until then I plan on using my Roamio Pros until they are no longer supported.

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Krandor said:


> It took a long time but in the end the studios got what they wanted since Sony vs Betamax. No 3rd party equipment and complete control end to end. Yes they can let you time shift but they can now restrict fast forwarding and insert their own commercials.
> 
> It's a shame. This has been the goal and they finally got it.


i feel you, but the ad-supported tv business doesn't work if everyone is using dvrs to autoskips ads no matter how much I liked skipping commercials on my Tivo for 15 years.

also I feel like Netflix is a better experience than using Tivo. I get no ads. I get lots of content. I watch what I want when I want and never have to set a recording or worry about tuners or storage etc. IT's similar Prime or HBO or Showtime and more.


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## tim_m (Mar 8, 2017)

CommunityMember said:


> The MG2 is the predecessor to the MG3 (stated to also be available to operators) that is what TiVo has offered to consumers as the Edge (operator units may have different plastic shells and typically have operator branding labels, and are typically customized to startup with the operator logo, but the hardware is going to be the same). The Edge was, according to various reports, able to be released by TiVo because Arris was doing the heavy lifting (design, certification, manufacturing) for the operators. Should there be a future consumer model (the Edge Plus?) it will likely be based on whatever next model Arris produces for the operators based on their requirements.


Ok so it is basically the Edge with a different outer cover.


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## tim_m (Mar 8, 2017)

UCLABB said:


> Spectrum is all QAM as far as I know and I haven't heard of any plans to do anything else. I believe their boxes are crap. TiVo and Spectrum would be a great partnership, but alas unlikely to ever happen.


They are garbage. The worldbox is crap and buggy as hell when i last used it last year. I can't imagine it has improved much.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

southerndoc said:


> Surely TiVo is working on an IPTV version.


Nope. Not possible. There is no IPTV standard. Every cable company uses their own IPTV protocol with proprietary encryption. TiVo might be able to strike deals with individual cable companies but they wont be able to offer a retail IPTV box.

6-7 years ago the FCC convened a panel to come up with a successor to CableCARD and their final conclusion was that apps are good enough. As long as the cable company provides an app that runs on more than one retail device (i.e. AppleTV and Roku) then that's all that is required. They don't have to open up the stream for recording devices in any way.

So once CableCARD is done then there will be no retail TiVo for cable. They'll probably still make OTA devices, and maybe partner with some cable companies, but that's it. And in reality DVRs are dying anyway. With streaming being ubiquitous and "cloud DVRs" being included with most streaming cable alternatives (i.e. YouTubeTV, Sling, Fubo, etc...) most people don't need a hardware DVR.


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

At least I have choice here in Burlington, VT. For our needs, currently, it's cheaper for us to go with Comcast vs Burlington Telecomm. But if we need to, we will definitely have switching to BT as an option. As long as Comcast supports the cards for a while I am sure I won't have to make a decision any time soon......


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## jeffsinsfo (Oct 16, 2005)

trip1eX said:


> i feel you, but the ad-supported tv business doesn't work if everyone is using dvrs to autoskips ads no matter how much I liked skipping commercials on my Tivo for 15 years.
> 
> also I feel like Netflix is a better experience than using Tivo. I get no ads. I get lots of content. I watch what I want when I want and never have to set a recording or worry about tuners or storage etc. IT'similar Prime or HBO or Showtime and more.


I do like the ad-free experience of Netflix, but there are plenty of other things I don't like about their user interface. By biggest issue with Netflix is that at any moment, you might lose access to content if they decide they are no longer going to offer a show. I started watching something and was 3 or 4 episodes in and suddenly couldn't find the show. Went online only to discover that it was one of the shows that had recently been pulled from Netflix.

I doubt I would even care about having a DVR with a large enough capacity to save whatever I want, and with the ability to transfer shows to my computer to offload them from the DVR, if I could rely on a streaming service to have _everything_ I wanted, guaranteed to last forever. Unfortunately there is no such thing.


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## Joe3 (Dec 12, 2006)

Perhaps arriving a too late, buyers remorse is beginning to set in for cord cutters. It wasn't a delivery system that was the problem. It was the contact providers who insist on squeezing the last penny out of a stone. The only ones who are benefiting from this are content producers who can ask for any price for any kind of content irregardless of the quality of the content they produce. This bubble will burst sooner than later and when it does the pieces will fall.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

jeffsinsfo said:


> I do like the ad-free experience of Netflix, but there are plenty of other things I don't like about their user interface. By biggest issue with Netflix is that at any moment, you might lose access to content if they decide they are no longer going to offer a show. I started watching something and was 3 or 4 episodes in and suddenly couldn't find the show. Went online only to discover that it was one of the shows that had recently been pulled from Netflix.
> 
> I doubt I would even care about having a DVR with a large enough capacity to save whatever I want, and with the ability to transfer shows to my computer to offload them from the DVR, if I could rely on a streaming service to have _everything_ I wanted, guaranteed to last forever. Unfortunately there is no such thing.


The digital hoarder/archiver/FOMO person. 

I look at it as glass half full. The reality is I have access to perhaps 10000x the amount of video content today than I had 30 years ago.

btw, what show are you talking about that went away after you were 3 or 4 episodes in?


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> Nope. Not possible. There is no IPTV standard.


There is a de facto standard: "TV Everywhere". Channels DVR is built around it. It's not a 100% solution, but pretty good.

Meanwhile, the standard the providers _want_ everyone to use is "apps". TiVo has already offered their implementation of that, the Stream 4K.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

jeffsinsfo said:


> I doubt I would even care about having a DVR with a large enough capacity to save whatever I want, and with the ability to transfer shows to my computer to offload them from the DVR, if I could rely on a streaming service to have _everything_ I wanted, guaranteed to last forever. Unfortunately there is no such thing.


You could buy individual programs and movies via iTunes/Vudu/etc. Short of physical media, that's about as close as you can get.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

wmcbrine said:


> There is a de facto standard: "TV Everywhere". Channels DVR is built around it. It's not a 100% solution, but pretty good.
> 
> Meanwhile, the standard the providers _want_ everyone to use is "apps". TiVo has already offered their implementation of that, the Stream 4K.


TV Everywhere is not an IPTV standard it's an authentication standard that allows people to log in to multiple apps with a single set of credentials. It does not allow retail devices to access the raw signal and record it like CableCARD does.

The TiVo Stream 4K is a fine AndroidTV device, but the TiVo part fails miserably at what it was supposed to do. It's "integration" with Sling TV is a complete joke and it's not even a very good content aggregator. TiVo could have made the best out of what they had there but they failed.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

jeffsinsfo said:


> I doubt I would even care about having a DVR with a large enough capacity to save whatever I want, and with the ability to transfer shows to my computer to offload them from the DVR, if I could rely on a streaming service to have _everything_ I wanted, guaranteed to last forever. Unfortunately there is no such thing.


Technically that was never the intention of the DVR. The DVR, and the VCR before it, were only legal because they were touted as a means to time shift content. You're actually not suppose to use them to archive content. This is why most of the cloud DVRs have a time limit and no ability to download/offload content to personal storage.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> TV Everywhere is not an IPTV standard it's an authentication standard that allows people to log in to multiple apps with a single set of credentials.


It's more than that. It also authenticates browsers... which is what makes Channels DVR work. And the streams for the browsers appear to be in a standard format, or at least within a narrow selection of formats.



> _It does not allow retail devices to access the raw signal and record it like CableCARD does._


Channels DVR does that. (The recording devices are things like a PC or a NAS. But the display devices can be STBs like the Apple TV or Fire TV. IIRC, an Nvidia Shield can do both.)


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

wmcbrine said:


> It's more than that. It also authenticates browsers... which is what makes Channels DVR work. And the streams for the browsers appear to be in a standard format, or at least within a narrow selection of formats.
> 
> Channels DVR does that. (The recording devices are things like a PC or a NAS. But the display devices can be STBs like the Apple TV or Fire TV. IIRC, an Nvidia Shield can do both.)


Maybe I'm missing something. Does Channels DVR support cable? We're talking about the ability to record cable in this thread. AFAIK Channels DVR is software that requires a 3rd party tuner, like the HDHomeRun, to actually record. And the only HDHomeRun that supports cable uses CableCARD. They don't have any magic technology that allows them to record from apps do they? The format of the stream coming out of the Channels DVR is irrelevant if it can't actually record from the source you want.


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## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

Dan203 said:


> Maybe I'm missing something. Does Channels DVR support cable? We're talking about the ability to record cable in this thread. AFAIK Channels DVR is software that requires a 3rd party tuner, like the HDHomeRun, to actually record. And the only HDHomeRun that supports cable uses CableCARD. They don't have any magic technology that allows them to record from apps do they? The format of the stream coming out of the Channels DVR is irrelevant if it can't actually record from the source you want.


You can use a PC as the DVR space and it will record anything that has TV Everywhere app but not premium channels. Or at least that was as far as I got before I gave up on it.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

PSU_Sudzi said:


> You can use a PC as the DVR space and it will record anything that has TV Everywhere app but not premium channels. Or at least that was as far as I got before I gave up on it.


OK so I was missing something. I thought wmcbrine was saying the Channels DVR could output a TVE stream, not that it could actually record them. I actually didn't realize TVE allowed recording at all. That's good to know. Maybe there will be some sort of TVE capable TiVo in the future then. Glad to be wrong on this, and shocked that the content providers are taking this approach when they aren't required to.


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

Dan203 said:


> OK so I was missing something. I thought wmcbrine was saying the Channels DVR could output a TVE stream, not that it could actually record them. I actually didn't realize TVE allowed recording at all. That's good to know. Maybe there will be some sort of TVE capable TiVo in the future then. Glad to be wrong on this, and shocked that the content providers are taking this approach when they aren't required to.


I've used Channels DVR with TVE as a source and it worked fine for live and recorded TV, but it was still in beta so in pursuit of 100% WAF for now I switched to an HDHR Prime using the CableCARD that used to be in our buggy Bolt.

We're also using an OTA HDHR as a source, and only want cable for a few news/talk channels. So if and when CableCARDs go away then I may return to TVE, though probably with a subscription to a Hulu Live TV or YTTV package that includes those few channels. Bye Xfinity.

I should clarify one thing though: the Channels DVR guys developed that TVE DVR solution on their own, and the future is unclear. I can't imagine TiVo doing the same, not with that lack of legal clarity, and not with the new owners of TiVo focused on streaming not DVRs.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> OK so I was missing something. I thought wmcbrine was saying the Channels DVR could output a TVE stream, not that it could actually record them. I actually didn't realize TVE allowed recording at all. That's good to know. Maybe there will be some sort of TVE capable TiVo in the future then. Glad to be wrong on this, and shocked that the content providers are taking this approach when they aren't required to.


Doubt it. TVE uses data, and if it was your primary source of viewing you would most likely kill your data cap.

Don't know why people are trying to cling to tivo at this point. It's like you think they actually want to continue making dvr's at this point.

Sent from my SM-N975U1 using Tapatalk


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

dbpaddler said:


> Doubt it. TVE uses data, and if it was your primary source of viewing you would most likely kill your data cap.
> 
> Don't know why people are trying to cling to tivo at this point. It's like you think they actually want to continue making dvr's at this point.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N975U1 using Tapatalk


All streaming uses data. I'm not sure most people have a data cap. I don't on Spectrum, the second biggest cable provider in the US.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

The FCC's decision is indefensible, since there has been no replacement for CableCard, and now there never will be. However, the pay TV TiVo niche has grown smaller and smaller as most of the tech savvy people have replaced the cord or cut the cord entirely with various streaming services, and pay TV is on it's way to an implosion anyway. The value proposition for pay TV just doesn't make sense anymore, and with the plethora of great content out there, there's just no need for it.



NashGuy said:


> Footnote 40 of the FCC filing states that, as of first quarter of this year, there were about 456,000 CCs in use among the four largest MVPDs that issue them (which would appear to be Comcast Xfinity, Charter Spectrum, Verizon FiOS, and Cox). That amounts to right about 1% of the total number of cable TV subscribers that those four operators reportedly have now.
> 
> Given the amount of fluctuation that these MVPDs report in their TV subscriber counts from quarter to quarter (usually in the downward direction), I'm not sure that they're going to be all that concerned about the potential loss of 1% of their subscriber base if they stop supporting CC. And, of course, even if they pull the plug on CC, not all those CC-using customers would walk away. A decent chunk would switch over to MVPD-provided boxes, like the X1/Contour provided by Comcast and Cox.


So the equation is complicated. If they want to move to IPTV, they'll just kill CC. If they don't, they probably will at least let existing customers stay on, also depending on the MSO. Cox and Comcast have been sort of friendly to TiVo for a while. Maybe a year ago, Wall Street finally figured out that holding on to a bunch of unprofitable cable TV subscribers just for the sake of bumping up the total subscribers number isn't profitable, BUT if they cut off existing CC users, some percentage of them have competition for broadband access. Let's say that's 20%, Comcast could be looking tens of thousands of highly profitable broadband subs disappear in one quarter, which would slow their broadband growth down and might spook Wall Street.



UCLABB said:


> I wonder if TiVo has said anything about the FCC action. It basically screws TiVo's retail business. Maybe TiVo doesn't care.


Part of it. If they have any significant future in retail, it's ATSC 3.0.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

UCLABB said:


> Spectrum is all QAM as far as I know and I haven't heard of any plans to do anything else. I believe their boxes are crap. TiVo and Spectrum would be a great partnership, but alas unlikely to ever happen.


Yes, Spectrum primarily distributes their cable TV service via QAM and they seem to lag behind other major cable TV providers in terms of their STBs. But they also offer the option of getting TV -- live, on-demand, and cloud DVR -- via managed IPTV on their own broadband network through the Spectrum TV app on Roku, Apple TV, Xbox and Samsung TVs. They even sell Apple TVs to their customers and use that device's "zero sign-on" feature; just connect it to your Spectrum broadband and it automatically configures itself with the apps you're paying for through Charter with everything signed in. Pretty slick.

An industry analyst I follow says that Spectrum is rumored to be on the verge of a deal with Google to distribute their upcoming Android TV device to their customers, both standalone broadband and broadband+TV. A year or so ago, Charter's CEO was indicating that he was considering going with X1 for their next-gen platform but it looks like they may be going with Android TV instead. Unless a cableco is going to roll their own STB software (a daunting task given that it's also about having access to third-party apps), the only real choices now are X1 and Android TV.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

Dan203 said:


> ...I'm not sure most people have a data cap. I don't on Spectrum, the second biggest cable provider in the US.


Not for long. They're lobbying hard to re-instate caps. And with Pai in charge, cable companies usually win out over consumers.
Spectrum Asks FCC to Allow Data Caps on Broadband Plans | Cord Cutters News


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

mdavej said:


> Not for long. They're lobbying hard to re-instate caps. And with Pai in charge, cable companies usually win out over consumers.
> Spectrum Asks FCC to Allow Data Caps on Broadband Plans | Cord Cutters News


StarLink beta here I come.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> So the equation is complicated. If they want to move to IPTV, they'll just kill CC. If they don't, they probably will at least let existing customers stay on, also depending on the MSO. Cox and Comcast have been sort of friendly to TiVo for a while. Maybe a year ago, Wall Street finally figured out that holding on to a bunch of unprofitable cable TV subscribers just for the sake of bumping up the total subscribers number isn't profitable, BUT if they cut off existing CC users, some percentage of them have competition for broadband access. Let's say that's 20%, Comcast could be looking tens of thousands of highly profitable broadband subs disappear in one quarter, which would slow their broadband growth down and might spook Wall Street.


I still don't think those numbers amount to much for those MSOs to worry about. 20% of 1% is 0.2%. Are they really afraid of making a move that might alienate 0.2% of their customers? And even if that many did decide to completely switch providers, they wouldn't all do so in one quarter. And why would they switch to a different MSO? Among the telco/fiber MSOs, the only one that supports CC, and therefore might still allow them to use their TiVo with their TV service, is Verizon FiOS. Switching over to AT&T or Google Fiber or CenturyLink or whoever else wouldn't let them continue to use their TiVo.

But I agree that Comcast and (best I can tell) Cox have been pretty friendly to TiVo users. So as I've stated a few times now, worst-case scenario there is that current CCs can remain in use but no new ones are available for activation. But it's certainly possible that nothing at all changes with regard to how they treat CCs, meaning that the recent FCC action has no effect on Comcast and Cox customers. We'll see.

I'd say the odds of an official cut-off on CC support is highest at Altice and Frontier (among those MSOs with 500k or more customers), based on firsthand reports I've read over the past few years from their customers.

As for Verizon FiOS and Charter, I'm not sure. My general impression is that Verizon has been pretty good to their TiVo/CC customers. Charter, IDK.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

mdavej said:


> Not for long. They're lobbying hard to re-instate caps. And with Pai in charge, cable companies usually win out over consumers.
> Spectrum Asks FCC to Allow Data Caps on Broadband Plans | Cord Cutters News


Why do they need to ask for permission? Doesn't Comcast already have data caps, and charge for overages?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

If Spectrum cuts off our CableCARDs then we're done with cable. We'll continue to use them for internet but not TV. That will be the final straw that will convince my wife to switch to streaming only. The only reason we even still have cable is because she still watches TiVo. I haven't used mine in probably 6 months now. (we each have our own) In fact I'm thinking about transferring off the shows I want to keep and selling it while it still has a tiny bit of value.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

krkaufman said:


> Why do they need to ask for permission? Doesn't Comcast already have data caps, and charge for overages?


According to the article it was a stipulation of their merger with Time Warner. They weren't allowed to impose data caps because the FCC thought that they'd use them to limit access to streaming video and force people to subscribe to their video packages. Which is probably exactly what they'd do.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> All streaming uses data. I'm not sure most people have a data cap. I don't on Spectrum, the second biggest cable provider in the US.


No. Really? Shocking. 

Your cable doesn't use your data cap and cable via iptv won't either.

TVE does. So add in all your streaming and then add in all your tve viewing/recording.

Sent from my SM-N975U1 using Tapatalk


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

Dan203 said:


> StarLink beta here I come.


Believe me, I'm right there with you. Starlink or T-mobile, whichever is available first. Unfortunately Starlink beta is only northern lattitudes right now.

Regarding how the CC situation will play out. The infrastructure for cards is pretty deep given the fact that many of their own boxes have cable cards inside. I expect it will work for legacy customers for the next couple of years, unless they have a problem, at which point they'll force you to get a box. I don't expect any new customers to be able to activate a card once the new policy makes its way through the system over the course of the next couple of months.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

krkaufman said:


> Why do they need to ask for permission? Doesn't Comcast already have data caps, and charge for overages?


Because "no caps" was a condition of their merger deal to get more monopoly markets. Now they want to wriggle out of that agreement.

EDIT: I see Dan beat me to it.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

mdavej said:


> Believe me, I'm right there with you. Starlink or T-mobile, whichever is available first. Unfortunately Starlink beta is only northern lattitudes right now.
> 
> Regarding how the CC situation will play out. The infrastructure for cards is pretty deep given the fact that many of their own boxes have cable cards inside. I expect it will work for legacy customers for the next couple of years, unless they have a problem, at which point they'll force you to get a box. I don't expect any new customers to be able to activate a card once the new policy makes its way through the system over the course of the next couple of months.


I'm wondering if they'll even allow me to reassign a card I already have? I have a card that's not currently paired to anything. (I gave the TiVo it was in away) I was thinking about pairing it to an HDHomeRun I have kicking around. But now I'm not sure if they'd even allow me to do that.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

dbpaddler said:


> No. Really? Shocking.
> 
> Your cable doesn't use your data cap and cable via iptv won't either.
> 
> TVE does. So add in all your streaming and then add in all your tve viewing/recording.


But creating a retail IPTV DVR isn't possible and CableCARD is being pushed out so what's the alternative? If you choose an online service like YouTube TV you'd have the same issue with caps as a TVE DVR just with the data requirement pushed to the time of consumption rather than the time of recording. There really is no "good" option for cable internet users with caps if CableCARD goes away.


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

Dan203 said:


> I'm wondering if they'll even allow me to reassign a card I already have? I have a card that's not currently paired to anything. (I gave the TiVo it was in away) I was thinking about pairing it to an HDHomeRun I have kicking around. But now I'm not sure if they'd even allow me to do that.


Probably nothing will change for a while. If a cableco is bad at cc support they will continue to be bad at it, and if they're good at it that won't change either. On Xfinity it was a piece of cake to reassign a card from a TiVo to an HDHR, using their self-service activation/repairing website. But over time I expect all of them will allow this support to break down from neglect, long before they impose any new policies.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Charter has always been bad. Out of all the cards I've installed for both myself and my family, I think only one was successfully activated without a tech visit. And the majority of the time the tech did come out all he had to do was call someone on his little walkie talkie and they were able to activate it instantly. So whatever system the people on the phone use is just straight up broken.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

mdavej said:


> Because "no caps" was a condition of their merger deal to get more monopoly markets. Now they want to wriggle out of that agreement.
> 
> EDIT: I see Dan beat me to it.


Appreciate both responses; thanks. Still baffles me that their lawyers couldn't wriggle out of it, given Comcast, a competitor with greater market share, has caps.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

Dan203 said:


> I'm wondering if they'll even allow me to reassign a card I already have? I have a card that's not currently paired to anything. (I gave the TiVo it was in away) I was thinking about pairing it to an HDHomeRun I have kicking around. But now I'm not sure if they'd even allow me to do that.


Assuming you've been paying the $2.50/month for it all this time, then yes, I'd go ahead and pair it while you still can. If it's some random card from another company, then no, they won't activate it.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

mdavej said:


> Assuming you've been paying the $2.50/month for it all this time, then yes, I'd go ahead and pair it while you still can. If it's some random card from another company, then no, they won't activate it.


I have been paying this whole time. I never bothered turning it in because I thought I might need it some day and it was a known good card so I held on to it.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Pokemon_Dad said:


> Probably nothing will change for a while. If a cableco is bad at cc support they will continue to be bad at it, and if they're good at it that won't change either. On Xfinity it was a piece of cake to reassign a card from a TiVo to an HDHR, using their self-service activation/repairing website. But over time I expect all of them will allow this support to break down from neglect, long before they impose any new policies.


Anything's possible but I'd be a little surprised if the CC situation changed soon at any of the four biggest players: Comcast, Charter, Verizon and Cox. If it does, I assume we'll hear about it from firsthand reports on this forum.

But I would advise folks on Altice and Frontier NOT to spend money on new TiVo hardware or lifetime service right now. Because those guys have been more difficult to deal with in the past and now there's no FCC mandate for their customers to fall back on. If one CSR after another there tells them "We don't support CC any more" or "I don't know anything about that," well, what can they do?


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

Dan203 said:


> I have been paying this whole time. I never bothered turning it in because I thought I might need it some day and it was a known good card so I held on to it.


I suggest you pick up an HD HomeRun Prime on eBay and have some fun with it! Assuming it doesn't require another guy with a walkie talkie, OMG kill me now. Xfinity used to be like that, but now there's that heavenly self-serve website.


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## jeffsinsfo (Oct 16, 2005)

trip1eX said:


> The digital hoarder/archiver/FOMO person.
> 
> I look at it as glass half full. The reality is I have access to perhaps 10000x the amount of video content today than I had 30 years ago.
> 
> btw, what show are you talking about that went away after you were 3 or 4 episodes in?


Come Fly With Me.

Don't get me wrong. I love having access to a large library on Netflix and don't feel the need to "own" or have permanent copies to a lot of it. But there are things I like to save on my TiVo so I can watch them whenever I want.


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## jeffsinsfo (Oct 16, 2005)

Dan203 said:


> Technically that was never the intention of the DVR. The DVR, and the VCR before it, were only legal because they were touted as a means to time shift content. You're actually not suppose to use them to archive content. This is why most of the cloud DVRs have a time limit and no ability to download/offload content to personal storage.


I understand that. But just as some people built libraries of VHS tapes they recorded themselves, I have no qualms about saving shows I recorded on my TiVo so I can rewatch them whenever I want.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

jeffsinsfo said:


> Come Fly With Me.


That series was pretty hilarious! Same guys from Little Britain. Hopefully it turns up on another service soon.


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## jeffsinsfo (Oct 16, 2005)

NashGuy said:


> That series was pretty hilarious! Same guys from Little Britain. Hopefully it turns up on another service soon.


I bought the blu-ray set after Netflix yanked it. This is a perfect example of something I would have been fine to just stream until I finished watching it once, but it got removed before I was able to finish the one and only season of it.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Pokemon_Dad said:


> I suggest you pick up an HD HomeRun Prime on eBay and have some fun with it! Assuming it doesn't require another guy with a walkie talkie, OMG kill me now. Xfinity used to be like that, but now there's that heavenly self-serve website.


I actually already have one. I bought it a few years ago and it's what I originally got the CableCARD for. But when Windows Media Center died I moved the CableCARD into a spare TiVo I had so it's no longer paired to the HDHR. I wish I hadn't done that because now I want to try the HDHR again and getting it repaired is going to be a PITA.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

jeffsinsfo said:


> I bought the blu-ray set after Netflix yanked it. This is a perfect example of something I would have been fine to just stream until I finished watching it once, but it got removed before I was able to finish the one and only season of it.


Or maybe it's the perfect example of how Netflix is bringing you content that you never would see on cabletv in the US in 2020.

Half full!

Also great example of how if you really want a show immediately you can almost always find it. You found it on Blu Ray.


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

Dan203 said:


> I actually already have one. I bought it a few years ago and it's what I originally got the CableCARD for. But when Windows Media Center died I moved the CableCARD into a spare TiVo I had so it's no longer paired to the HDHR. I wish I hadn't done that because now I want to try the HDHR again and getting it repaired is going to be a PITA.


Not surprised to hear that, because many of those eBay listings are a result of WMC going away. Sorry about the PITA, but playing with Channels DVR even just for the one-month trial will give you hope for the future. A future without the limits of cloud DVR. As you probably know Silicon Dust also offers free live TV and DVR server software as well as a DVR hardware box, but compared to that UI the Channels DVR solution is like a breath of fresh air.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

jeffsinsfo said:


> I understand that. But just as some people built libraries of VHS tapes they recorded themselves, I have no qualms about saving shows I recorded on my TiVo so I can rewatch them whenever I want.


But the MSOs aren't required to allow you to do that. They're only required to provide you with a way to "watch" the content you pay for without having to rent a box from them. The ability to time shift was just a side effect of that requirement, and the ability to archive was just a side effect of time shifting. Now that technology has progressed to the point where they can meet the requirement without allowing for time shifting or archiving we're kind of SOL.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Pokemon_Dad said:


> Not surprised to hear that, because many of those eBay listings are a result of WMC going away. Sorry about the PITA, but playing with Channels DVR even just for the one-month trial will give you hope for the future. A future without the limits of cloud DVR. As you probably know Silicon Dust also offers free live TV and DVR server software as well as a DVR hardware box, but compared to that UI the Channels DVR solution is like a breath of fresh air.


I actually bought into the kickstarter for the HDHR DVR but the one time I tried it out it was so bad I never went back.

I'm going to try getting the HDHR working again just to play with. I want to try out the Channels DVR integration on the TiVo Stream 4K anyway, just to see how it behaves. (the built in TiVo part is useless anyway)


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## tommiet (Oct 28, 2005)

TiVo has been adding its own nails to the coffin with ads and now the FCC has added the wood box. All we need is a grave plot to end this.... 

Hate it... but it's coming.


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## ITGrouch (Jan 7, 2015)

I bought a Cable Edge back in June with a two year agreement. If Comcast drops CableCard support during this two year agreement, I am probably stuck paying for it unless TiVo allows some type of trade in on a OTA Edge.


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

ITGrouch said:


> I bought a Cable Edge back in June with a two year agreement. If Comcast drops CableCard support during this two year agreement, I am probably stuck paying for it unless TiVo allows some type of trade in on a OTA Edge.


More likely there will be a class-action suit, and after several years your share will be $1.97....

Seriously though, I don't expect anything to change quickly. These companies are not exactly nimble.


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## tim_m (Mar 8, 2017)

Personally if it were solely up to me, i'd have dropped cable by now and gone OTT. Either with AT&T TV NOW or T-Mobile Tvision. Those are the two that offer the most of what we'd need. I'm not sure my family is ready to ditch traditional cable. I live with my elderly parents and uncle. I really want to drop Frontier Fios though and go with one of those two, especially with how many channels Frontier has dropped this year. We've lost MGM, Starz/Encore, HDNetMovies, Axs.tv, MLBNetwork/Strikezone. Now the most recent one is overly egregious. They removed ALL Fox sports RSN channels including YES national feed. I literally could not watch the Rangers baseball game tonight in any legal way if i wanted to. I'm not a fan but its just the point.,


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

krkaufman said:


> Why do they need to ask for permission? Doesn't Comcast already have data caps, and charge for overages?


Not here.

Scott


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## DigitalDawn (Apr 26, 2009)

Like everyone else here, I'm thinking about what to use in the future when my TiVo's are no longer operational.

Channels and TVE certainly looks interesting. It has superior commercial skip (an important feature for my family) and what looks like a cable-like linear channel guide. A downside is that I can't add Premium channels to the mix and would have to watch them form separate apps. My question to folks that have Channels TVE: do you have to wait 10s of seconds for live and recorded channels/streams to start, or is it instantaneous like cable/TiVo.

Another option is Comcast. Not a great UI, minimal HD disk space, and their commercial skip is not implemented well. For me, this might make the most sense, because our community negotiated a great bulk deal with Comcast. We get Extreme Data (300+ down, 25 up) with no data caps, and X1 with 3 client boxes per home. A question here would be: As with TiVo, can I replace the Comcast hard disk with a larger drive??? I have done numerous google searches and can't find anything on replacing the hard drive on an X1v4.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Channels seems pretty instantaneous with TVE channels from my experience. Completely integrated into the guide, and my one season pass that was for OTA carried over to tve when it found the show on tbs.

Just hope you like purple because devs, like many engineers I know (know offense to any here), have zero design sense and consider Barney and Grimace to be their brand spokespeople.  On the flip side, they've done an excellent job overall on updating the gui itself. It's still not tivo. I can do without giant images of the show taking up way too much screen real estate, and I don't care for left/right scrolling to find my shows. But otherwise, I don't really miss tivo. And I'm about to rip the band aid off and delete my 100+ movies on my roamio pro and throw it on ebay.

Sent from my SM-N975U1 using Tapatalk


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

tim_m said:


> Personally if it were solely up to me, i'd have dropped cable by now and gone OTT. Either with AT&T TV NOW or T-Mobile Tvision. Those are the two that offer the most of what we'd need. I'm not sure my family is ready to ditch traditional cable. I live with my elderly parents and uncle. I really want to drop Frontier Fios though and go with one of those two, especially with how many channels Frontier has dropped this year. We've lost MGM, Starz/Encore, HDNetMovies, Axs.tv, MLBNetwork/Strikezone. Now the most recent one is overly egregious. They removed ALL Fox sports RSN channels including YES national feed. I literally could not watch the Rangers baseball game tonight in any legal way if i wanted to. I'm not a fan but its just the point.,


Same here. My wife is basically forcing me to keep cable because she still watches a handful of reality TV shows on oddball cable channels that aren't easily accessible via streaming. I personally haven't watched a show I recorded in 6+ months.


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

@DigitalDawn I too can confirm there's no extra delay in Channels DVR when tuning in a TVE channel or watching a recording. TVE streams do however usually run a minute behind OTA & cable, which can be annoying during an exciting game because Twitter and your neighbors may erupt in cheers before you've even seen a critical play, but otherwise this just means adding a minute's padding to the beginning of each show.

Like 'paddler I also use an HDHR OTA tuner with Channels DVR, but since you've got no data cap on your internet service I can't think of any reason why TVE shouldn't be your only source. TVE is still a beta feature, and almost a year ago I had the dubious distinction of being first to discover a bug that blocked a recording pass (so for 100% WAF I switched to an HDHR Prime and a spare CableCARD), but since then TVE support seems to be coming along nicely.

Oh, and I like the purple theme. Reminds me of the hippies I used to admire when I was a kid, lol.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Pokemon_Dad said:


> @DigitalDawn I too can confirm there's no extra delay in Channels DVR when tuning in a TVE channel or watching a recording. TVE streams do however usually run a minute behind OTA & cable, which can be annoying during an exciting game because Twitter and your neighbors may erupt in cheers before you've even seen a critical play, but otherwise this just means adding a minute's padding to the beginning of each show.
> 
> Like 'paddler I also use an HDHR OTA tuner with Channels DVR, but since you've got no data cap on your internet service I can't think of any reason why TVE shouldn't be your only source. TVE is still a beta feature, and almost a year ago I had the dubious distinction of being first to discover a bug that blocked a recording pass (so for 100% WAF I switched to an HDHR Prime and a spare CableCARD), but since then TVE support seems to be coming along nicely.
> 
> Oh, and I like the purple theme. Reminds me of the hippies I used to admire when I was a kid, lol.


Since TVE is Beta, could it be removed like the Beta Tivo OTT app on the Fire TV?


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

shwru980r said:


> Since TVE is Beta, could it be removed like the Beta Tivo OTT app on the Fire TV?


This is an entirely different thing. There is no separate app, and the Channels guys seems committed to supporting TVE.

In Channels DVR settings you select sources, which could be HD HomeRun devices that it has found automatically on your network, or a TVE source. The TVE source setup supports a very very long list of cablecos like Xfinity as well as OTT-only sources like Philo and YouTube TV. When I switched from TVE to an HDHR Prime, I just deleted the TVE source.


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## DeltaOne (Sep 29, 2013)

DigitalDawn said:


> A question here would be: As with TiVo, can I replace the Comcast hard disk with a larger drive??? I have done numerous google searches and can't find anything on replacing the hard drive on an X1v4.


I've been using an X1 alongside my TiVo for about two months. I've found the experience okay. Some things the TiVo does better, some things the X1 does better. Bottom line...I could live with the X1 going forward just fine.

I don't know if you can open an X1 and put a bigger hard drive in. I do know that Comcast will rent you a second X1, doubling your potential recording space.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

I use my parents x1 whenever I'm in town to visit. It does the job. I use voice to find stuff and works well especially since I don't know the channel numbers or where the channels are in the guide. So I say, watch the NBA Game and it gives me the channel with the NBA game. Or I say watch TNT and up comes TNT. I"ve also used voice to skip ahead on it. Works fine.

Some shows have some smart skip system which works great, but not all shows.

There is no quick 30 second skip that I know of. The whole thing feels less responsive than YTTV though or not any better in that regard. And still doesn't match the responsiveness of Tivo in the TE3 days. And it isnt' as nicely slick as an ATV either.

But it does the job. Has various streaming and on-demand stuff integrated.


I do hate that the guide is so unwieldly. I guess you can maybe do favorites or possibly even take out channels. I wouldn't know as I don't use it daily but the guide shows every possible channel under the sun which makes it supremely annoying to navigate.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> Unless a cableco is going to roll their own STB software (a daunting task given that it's also about having access to third-party apps), the only real choices now are X1 and Android TV.


TiVo. That's what Comcast, Charter, and Cox should have done.



NashGuy said:


> I still don't think those numbers amount to much for those MSOs to worry about. 20% of 1% is 0.2%. Are they really afraid of making a move that might alienate 0.2% of their customers? And even if that many did decide to completely switch providers, they wouldn't all do so in one quarter. And why would they switch to a different MSO? Among the telco/fiber MSOs, the only one that supports CC, and therefore might still allow them to use their TiVo with their TV service, is Verizon FiOS. Switching over to AT&T or Google Fiber or CenturyLink or whoever else wouldn't let them continue to use their TiVo.


A few have FiOS/RCN/ABB and would leave if those companies still supported CC, or rent a TiVo from RCN/ABB, but more important, AT&T, CL, Google Fiber, etc, have better broadband offerings, and without CC, those customers have no reason to stay on Comcast. That being said, I would predict that when Comcast moves a significant amount of content to IPTV, they kill off CC support entirely.



> I'd say the odds of an official cut-off on CC support is highest at Altice and Frontier (among those MSOs with 500k or more customers), based on firsthand reports I've read over the past few years from their customers.


That's a good guess. I guess Altice is pretty hostile towards CableCards. Frontier is just utterly and totally incompetent. They are a totally dysfunctional company that cannot do the most basic things, so I think they are too incompetent to actually kill off CableCards officially, so people will end up in an endless loop of cluelessness and incompetence without an FCC mandate to back them up, likely making it effectively impossible to get a CC. I'm concerned in CT that we won't have an ILEC in a few years, as they are so dysfunctional that they cannot maintain and install phone lines. They flat out refused to wire my building, and I went through the state, they refused to enforce the law against them as the ILEC, and my parents had a phone line, but it broke right around the time that Frontier took over, and they were unable to fix it, so they cancelled it, and I doubt they could ever get it back if they wanted it, so they're down to electric and Comcast as the only functioning utilities at their house.



> As for Verizon FiOS and Charter, I'm not sure. My general impression is that Verizon has been pretty good to their TiVo/CC customers. Charter, IDK.


The bigger risk for Verizon is that they just stop doing pay TV. I think as long as they have QAM, they'll do CC, but they may not be in the TV business at all soon. I wouldn't be surprised to see them move to YouTube TV and kill off the QAM infrastructure. It's unfortunate, as 15 years ago, they were the gold standard for how to deliver linear QAM TV at high bitrates via a high reliability FTTH network, although their broadband offerings are still best-in-class.



Pokemon_Dad said:


> Probably nothing will change for a while. If a cableco is bad at cc support they will continue to be bad at it, and if they're good at it that won't change either. On Xfinity it was a piece of cake to reassign a card from a TiVo to an HDHR, using their self-service activation/repairing website. But over time I expect all of them will allow this support to break down from neglect, long before they impose any new policies.


Most likely Comcast will retain CC support until they move a significant amount of content over to IPTV, at which point they will become obsolete anyway. They're years behind on IPTV though, so who knows.



krkaufman said:


> Appreciate both responses; thanks. Still baffles me that their lawyers couldn't wriggle out of it, given Comcast, a competitor with greater market share, has caps.


Rutledge doesn't like caps. By the end of the 7 years, Rutledge will probably be gone, and the caps will come. He graduated in 1977, so he's retirement age now. Comcast never had a merger with conditions that disallow them from capping like Charter does, so they have caps in some regions. There's no specific legal requirement that Comcast can't cap in the Northeast, but they do have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders, which they couldn't meet if they capped the Northeast and lost hundreds of thousands of broadband subs for no good reason in one quarter to Verizon FiOS. What I'm concerned about is that they break up the territory by state and cap CT and VT, while leaving MA, NJ, PA, DE, and MD uncapped. Cox does their territory by state, so CT has their arbitrary and capricious data caps, while RI doesn't.


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## DeltaOne (Sep 29, 2013)

trip1eX said:


> I use my parents x1 whenever I'm in town to visit. It does the job. I use voice to find stuff and works well especially since I don't know the channel numbers or where the channels are in the guide.
> There is no quick 30 second skip that I know of. I guess you can maybe do favorites or possibly even take out channels.


There is a 30 second skip, forward and backward. Use the pg up and pg down keys just to the right of the Xfinity key.

The guide can be controlled via a Favorites setting.

The X1 voice control works surprisingly well. Try using the voice control and say "Surprise me."


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## dishrich (Jan 16, 2002)

DeltaOne said:


> There is a 30 second skip, forward and backward. Use the pg up and pg down keys just to the right of the Xfinity key.


You should also add that in order for that feature to work, someone MUST have entered the "backdoor code" on (each) X1 box in the home to enable it...but it's only a 1-time thing, unless you have to replace a box; this does NOT come like this when an X1 box is first installed.
Solved: XR15 30 second skip - Xfinity Help and Support Forums - 3154209


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## MrDell (Jul 8, 2012)

Here in R.I. we are very fortunate to have Verizon as a alternative to Cox. Many people go back and forth to take advantage of specials. Right now Verizon is offering internet for $39.00 Per month for 200 up/200 down (if you have to rent a modem it will be extra). Cox is advertising $44.95 (modem rental included) per month for 150 down, but the up speed is far less than Verizon ... both are free of a contract lock-in


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## WVZR1 (Jul 31, 2008)

dishrich said:


> You should also add that in order for that feature to work, someone MUST have entered the "backdoor code" on (each) X1 box in the home to enable it...but it's only a 1-time thing, unless you have to replace a box; this does NOT come like this when an X1 box is first installed.
> Solved: XR15 30 second skip - Xfinity Help and Support Forums - 3154209


I've never forced the feature, it just works 30 forward, 15 back BUT is there any other oddities that can be enabled. The X1 does well, I use it for many auto racing events that will be 'one time' events. I've had my XG1V4 for 13 months now and I use it much more than I expected. TiVo for all recurring series that 'might' get skip!


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## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

I upgraded/downgraded to TE4 today to prepare for the inevitable goodbye to TiVo and onto some unknown grid guide in the future.

_Live Guide died in the moon of the brown leaves. He was last seen watching ESPN. His grave is unmarked, but it does not matter. He had always lived in the borderland, anyway. Somewhere between OTA and cable. It was a good death._


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## DeltaOne (Sep 29, 2013)

WVZR1 said:


> I've never forced the feature, it just works 30 forward, 15 back


I started to post that too. I don't recall enabling the skip on my X1. But it works. I googled X1 30 second skip and there are many references to it but they date back five and six years. Perhaps it's built in to X1 boxes now.

When I decided to run the X1 alongside my TiVo Roamio I didn't know how much I would use one versus the other. Turns out we've used the X1 exclusively on the main TV in our living room. I still depend on my TiVo Minis in the other rooms though.

While the X1's commercial skip feature isn't on as many programs as the TiVo feature, it does one thing differently. It adds commercial skip to a show during the show. We often wait 20 minutes to begin a show since that's enough time to skip its commercials. Every so often I'll see the that commercial skip has been added to a show during the recording.


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## DrewTivo (Mar 30, 2005)

morac said:


> Tivo was heavily discounting their Edge this summer so maybe they see the writing on the wall as well.
> 
> Truth be told, Internet speeds are much faster than they were back when CCs were first introduced. There's little reason for QAM cable TV to even exist at this point, let alone CC support.
> 
> I'm sure if not for Comcast's legacy boxes, they would shut off QAM TV today and move all that bandwidth to Internet.


True internet speeds have increased. But rural internet speeds still can be pretty slow, if broadband is available.

FCC Underestimates Americans Unserved by Broadband Internet by 50%


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

DrewTivo said:


> True internet speeds have increased. But rural internet speeds still can be pretty slow, if broadband is available.
> 
> FCC Underestimates Americans Unserved by Broadband Internet by 50%


So the logical problem with your argument is that CC is for *cable*. If you have *cable* that is QAM-based, you've also got internet available, in most cases gigabit download, but if not a few hundred mbps. The rural areas that have broadband issues are the ones that don't have cable (with a few exceptions for ancient analog cable systems that are somehow still functioning, but also couldn't support CC). There are some QAM-based systems that do not provide internet, but they are primarily institutional, where Wi-Fi or 100mbps Ethernet is available with some serious fiber bandwidth behind it.


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## wbrightfl (Oct 31, 2013)

My solution is if Comcast drops cable cards I simply cancel TV services and hook my antenna back up. All 3 of my TIVOs can continue with OTA only and in my area of South Florida we get over 50 channels, some with true 1080 HD, unlike Comcast which down converts to 720p. For cable news and the 2 or 3 cable channels I like I would add Fubo or AT&T, something basic to just fill the gap. I don't feel we need to panic and think this will not happen overnight, but good to begin thinking of our plan once this does happen. Could be years.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

wbrightfl said:


> My solution is if Comcast drops cable cards I simply cancel TV services and hook my antenna back up. All 3 of my TIVOs can continue with OTA only and in my area of South Florida we get over 50 channels, some with true 1080 HD, unlike Comcast which down converts to 720p. For cable news and the 2 or 3 cable channels I like I would add Fubo or AT&T, something basic to just fill the gap. I don't feel we need to panic and think this will not happen overnight, but good to begin thinking of our plan once this does happen. Could be years.


You mean 1080i. Don't believe 1080p is part of the ATSC 1.0 standard.

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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Pokemon_Dad said:


> Not surprised to hear that, because many of those eBay listings are a result of WMC going away. Sorry about the PITA, but playing with Channels DVR even just for the one-month trial will give you hope for the future. A future without the limits of cloud DVR. As you probably know Silicon Dust also offers free live TV and DVR server software as well as a DVR hardware box, but compared to that UI the Channels DVR solution is like a breath of fresh air.


I fond the HDHomeRun but I can't find the extra CableCARD I had anywhere. Ugh! I remember that when I bought my Bolt I left the one I had in my Roamio and moved the one from the HDHomeRun over to the Bolt so that if the setup went bad I'd still have the Roamio to fall back on. What I can't remember is if I ever removed the one from the Roamio. I gave that Roamio to my Sister, and she lives right across the street, so if I didn't remove it then she could actually be using it. Or I just "put it away somewhere I'd be able to find it" and I don't know where that somewhere is.


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

wbrightfl said:


> My solution is if Comcast drops cable cards I simply cancel TV services and hook my antenna back up. All 3 of my TIVOs can continue with OTA only and in my area of South Florida we get over 50 channels, some with true 1080 HD, unlike Comcast which down converts to 720p. For cable news and the 2 or 3 cable channels I like I would add Fubo or AT&T, something basic to just fill the gap. I don't feel we need to panic and think this will not happen overnight, but good to begin thinking of our plan once this does happen. Could be years.


That plan may be fine with you, but some of us watch a number of cable channels that would require multiple services to replicate. Getting 50 channels OTA means nothing to me because most of them are crap (to me). If fact, except for PBS I don't watch that much broadcast channel content. My wife watches a bunch of cable channels as do I including a number of sports channels that aren't available anywhere except on cable. So, my point is that everyone is different.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

UCLABB said:


> That plan may be fine with you, but some of us watch a number of cable channels that would require multiple services to replicate. Getting 50 channels OTA means nothing to me because most of them are crap (to me). If fact, except for PBS I don't watch that much broadcast channel content. My wife watches a bunch of cable channels as do I including a number of sports channels that aren't available anywhere except on cable. So, my point is that everyone is different.


Well you have time to figure out. One way or the other, Tivo's cable dvr days are numbered. You can either cling to it as long as possible until your boxes are worth zero. Or you can find alternatives and sell your boxes now while they have value. I would imagine once a few majors ditch support, it'll be like dominoes. But again. As others have mentioned, it's a slow moving industry. You guys could have years before it's an issue and just be happy to run your gear into the ground and recycle it when you're done.

Since much of tivo was a money decision for people with the hardware rental costs being an issue, going to iptv and allowing streamer apps settles a lot of that issue. The rest is just a features/interface thing, and they still have room/time to improve before you guys are forced to make decisions.

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## wbrightfl (Oct 31, 2013)

UCLABB said:


> That plan may be fine with you, but some of us watch a number of cable channels that would require multiple services to replicate. Getting 50 channels OTA means nothing to me because most of them are crap (to me). If fact, except for PBS I don't watch that much broadcast channel content. My wife watches a bunch of cable channels as do I including a number of sports channels that aren't available anywhere except on cable. So, my point is that everyone is different.


Yes agreed that each of us will have to determine a solution that works for each of us. My solution will not be everyone's solution that's for sure. I only watch a few shows on cable channels so easier for me.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dbpaddler said:


> Well you have time to figure out. One way or the other, Tivo's cable dvr days are numbered. You can either cling to it as long as possible until your boxes are worth zero. Or you can find alternatives and sell your boxes now while they have value. I would imagine once a few majors ditch support, it'll be like dominoes. But again. As others have mentioned, it's a slow moving industry. You guys could have years before it's an issue and just be happy to run your gear into the ground and recycle it when you're done.


It's quite possible, at least for Comcast and Cox, that CableCards will survive until the total collapse of traditional cable bundles and linear pay TV. There will still be linear content, but things keep falling apart faster and faster for the cable bundle. This is part of my theory about Comcast delaying IPTV. It will be a lot easier to move to IPTV when 3/4 of the linear channels are gone, and you've got a few news and sports channels left.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Bigg said:


> It's quite possible, at least for Comcast and Cox, that CableCards will survive until the total collapse of traditional cable bundles and linear pay TV. There will still be linear content, but things keep falling apart faster and faster for the cable bundle. This is part of my theory about Comcast delaying IPTV. It will be a lot easier to move to IPTV when 3/4 of the linear channels are gone, and you've got a few news and sports channels left.


Am I missing something or is there a reason why linear TV will die with iptv? Nothing has to change except for the delivery method. Cable cards are simply antiquated old tech at this point. For them it's just more efficient to deliver it via iptv. Their new boxes are built around it. Their OS is built around it. There will just come a time where they simply say we're done.

Broadcast stations were pretty much forced to go atsc and we all had to love on for the first time since tv's were invented. Truly a remarkable time when pre transition, you couldve taken an a1st generation crt tv from the 50's, attach an antenna and watch current live TV. But then people hd to get conberter boxes. Ntsc Tivo's became obsolete.

But here everyone is whining about having to move on. Suck it up. It happens when it happens. Tech moves forward. It's television. Not like gasoline is all of a sudden gone and you have to buy an electric car.

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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> TiVo. That's what Comcast, Charter, and Cox should have done.


"TiVo" isn't really a solution on its own because it doesn't have a competitive app platform. Which is why "TiVo" for IPTV providers is typically the TiVo UI running atop Android TV, which has access to Google's app store.

Which gets back to my original statement that, at this point, pay TV providers basically have two choices in terms of OS to deploy on their next-gen STBs: X1 and Android TV. Because it's not just about the OS itself but the associated app platform. And no one wants to roll out next-gen boxes that can't support all the major apps that their customers may want. (Part of this is because the cable TV bundle over time may evolve into/be replaced by app-based services that the MSO could sell and bill for.)

Comcast and Cox (and Rogers, Shaw and Videotron in Canada) have gone with X1.

AT&T TV, the forthcoming revamped TVision, DISH's Sling and various smaller MSOs have gone with Android TV.

Altice is trying to do its own thing with Altice One but it's not going to succeed as the only major apps it has even now are Netflix, YouTube and Pandora. (Also CuriosityStream, although I wouldn't call that "major".)

Verizon FiOS developed a next-gen IPTV platform and then ditched it after extensive beta testing. As FiOS TV sunsets, it looks like their plan is just to sell YouTube TV, Netflix, Disney+ and Hulu in tandem with their own Android TV box, the Verizon Stream TV.

The MSOs smaller than those listed above all have fewer than 700k TV subs; if they stay in the MVPD business, they'll likely either go with an app-only approach or, if they continue to offer hardware, will use Android TV boxes/dongles (perhaps running the TiVo UI).

Only one that leaves is Charter. With 16 million TV subs and 26 million broadband subs, they're definitely big enough to matter. Over the past year there have been rumors that they were first considering X1, then Android TV. They've never seemed that technologically ambitious, so I can't see them trying to create their own solution, as Altice has. They'll end up hitching their wagon to either Comcast or Google.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Dan203 said:


> What I can't remember is if I ever removed the one from the Roamio. I gave that Roamio to my Sister, and she lives right across the street, so if I didn't remove it then she could actually be using it. Or I just "put it away somewhere I'd be able to find it" and I don't know where that somewhere is.


Wow, how unusual -- and nice -- that you have a close family member living right across the street! I think that sort of situation used to be fairly common decades ago but not any more. Anyhow, hope you find that CableCARD!


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

NashGuy said:


> Wow, how unusual -- and nice -- that you have a close family member living right across the street! I think that sort of situation used to be fairly common decades ago but not any more. Anyhow, hope you find that CableCARD!


Funny. My mom is 10 minutes from me and my sister a few minutes from her. We do family dinner every Sunday. I went on a date with some girl and told her that. She goes "that's weird." was like, "if that's your reaction, I gotta go." dropped a $20 on the table and left.

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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

NashGuy said:


> Wow, how unusual -- and nice -- that you have a close family member living right across the street! I think that sort of situation used to be fairly common decades ago but not any more. Anyhow, hope you find that CableCARD!


Yeah it's nice having them so close. Now that my nephew is grown and moved away, and my niece is 16 and doesn't want to hang out with her old uncle, I don't see them as much as I did when they were young. But I got to see them grow up, and help raise them a little along the way, which was nice.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

dbpaddler said:


> Funny. My mom is 10 minutes from me and my sister a few minutes from her. We do family dinner every Sunday. I went on a date with some girl and told her that. She goes "that's weird." was like, "if that's your reaction, I gotta go." dropped a $20 on the table and left.


My wife's family is very spread out. I've only ever seen her Mom I think 3-4 times in the 16 years we've been together. Only met her Brother once and her Sister twice. They barely talk, and don't even call on the holidays. Whereas I see my Mom and my Sister at least once a week. When my niece and nephew were young I was over there 2-3 times a week.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> My wife's family is very spread out. I've only ever seen her Mom I think 3-4 times in the 16 years we've been together. Only met her Brother once and her Sister twice. They barely talk, and don't even call on the holidays. Whereas I see my Mom and my Sister at least once a week. When my niece and nephew were young I was over there 2-3 times a week.


That stinks. At least she has your family. Probably greatly appreciated.

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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dbpaddler said:


> Am I missing something or is there a reason why linear TV will die with iptv? Nothing has to change except for the delivery method. Cable cards are simply antiquated old tech at this point. For them it's just more efficient to deliver it via iptv.


It's not that IPTV is changing pay TV, it's that pay TV is imploding, and Cox and Comcast might not want to invest millions upon millions upon millions of dollars converting to an IPTV system that can handle 400 channels of trash when the whole ecosystem is imploding anyway, and if they hang on to QAM a few years longer, there will be fewer subscribers and fewer channels to transition to IPTV.



> But here everyone is whining about having to move on. Suck it up. It happens when it happens. Tech moves forward. It's television. Not like gasoline is all of a sudden gone and you have to buy an electric car.


But it's not about allowing MVPDs to move to IPTV and leave TiVos behind, it's the FCC allowing them to leave TiVos behind even when they are still using QAM. Dropping QAM CC requirements and the failed attempt to make a replacement that would transition into IPTV are really two separate issues.



NashGuy said:


> "TiVo" isn't really a solution on its own because it doesn't have a competitive app platform. Which is why "TiVo" for IPTV providers is typically the TiVo UI running atop Android TV, which has access to Google's app store.


But it's the best DVR, and many MSOs do use TiVo. If Comcast, Charter, and Cox had all adopted TiVo, and put tens of millions of TiVos out in the field, it would also have a competitive app platform, because the user base would be there to drive app development for the platform.



> Which gets back to my original statement that, at this point, pay TV providers basically have two choices in terms of OS to deploy on their next-gen STBs: X1 and Android TV. Because it's not just about the OS itself but the associated app platform. And no one wants to roll out next-gen boxes that can't support all the major apps that their customers may want. (Part of this is because the cable TV bundle over time may evolve into/be replaced by app-based services that the MSO could sell and bill for.)


Right. So that leaves Charter. Comcast and Cox are on X1, the smaller MVPDs are leaving the market entirely, and some of the not-quite-as-small providers are already on TiVo. I just don't see the incentive in 2020 to invest in doing anything with linear TV, just let the service die off. I think the opportunity to milk the end of pay TV was about 5 years ago when Comcast was rolling out X1.



> Only one that leaves is Charter. With 16 million TV subs and 26 million broadband subs, they're definitely big enough to matter. Over the past year there have been rumors that they were first considering X1, then Android TV. They've never seemed that technologically ambitious, so I can't see them trying to create their own solution, as Altice has. They'll end up hitching their wagon to either Comcast or Google.


They seem a bit late to the game at this point. They may just give up on TV entirely, not necessarily get rid of it, but just let it bleed out for a few years. They don't have the vertical integration with content that Comcast or AT&T does. Or maybe they sell a white-label version of a Comcast-run IPTV service over their network?


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> But it's the best DVR, and many MSOs do use TiVo. If Comcast, Charter, and Cox had all adopted TiVo, and put tens of millions of TiVos out in the field, it would also have a competitive app platform, because the user base would be there to drive app development for the platform.


OK, but you're talking about what you think that they should have done around a decade ago -- adopt TiVo rather than have their own sub-par DVRs and STBs. I was talking about what the choices are for MVPD hardware platforms at this point, given the current market/tech landscape, and they basically boil down to X1 and Android TV.



Bigg said:


> Right. So that leaves Charter. Comcast and Cox are on X1, the smaller MVPDs are leaving the market entirely, and some of the not-quite-as-small providers are already on TiVo. I just don't see the incentive in 2020 to invest in doing anything with linear TV, just let the service die off. I think the opportunity to milk the end of pay TV was about 5 years ago when Comcast was rolling out X1.


Nah, cable TV is still in a majority of US homes and it's not going to die off in the next several years (thanks to, if nothing else, sports plus consumer inertia). But it'll continue to decline while SVODs continue to rise. But even if selling the cable bundle is just a break-even proposition (and for an MVPD as large as Charter, that's not the case, it's still somewhat profitable), being able to bundle it with broadband and potentially other services helps reduce churn. So it will continue to play a role in that regard.

Plus, as video consumption shifts from the bundle to SVODs, it makes sense for broadband providers to push into that arena as distributors. Why leave all the billing/commissions to Apple, Google, Roku and Amazon? If you can't sell them the channel bundle, still try to sell them HBO Max, Hulu, Disney+, CBS AA, etc. This is why we see Comcast giving out those free Flex boxes and it's part of the reason why every MVPD's next-gen STBs (if they continue to offer them) need to have a robust app platform.



Bigg said:


> They may just give up on TV entirely, not necessarily get rid of it, but just let it bleed out for a few years. They don't have the vertical integration with content that Comcast or AT&T does. Or maybe they sell a white-label version of a Comcast-run IPTV service over their network?


Yeah, that was a scenario I had hypothesized a year or so ago, that Charter might not just adopt and white-label X1 but also Xfinity IPTV too. Still not a crazy idea, I guess. Although I wonder if Charter, the #2 cableco, wants to kowtow to Comcast, the #1, to that degree.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> OK, but you're talking about what you think that they should have done around a decade ago -- adopt TiVo rather than have their own sub-par DVRs and STBs. I was talking about what the choices are for MVPD hardware platforms at this point, given the current market/tech landscape, and they basically boil down to X1 and Android TV.


Today? Absolutely nothing. Just keep re-using existing hardware, subscribers are leaving pay TV faster than the old boxes break and have to be sent off to the electronics recycler. Do nothing on hardware. Jack prices up. Play hardball with content negotiations, if content providers throw too much of a hissy fit, drop them from the lineup. Don't do promotions with TV. Customers will leave in droves, but the ones left behind will be more profitable than ever until the whole thing collapses. It's inevitably collapsing, so why bother putting much effort into it at this point?



> Nah, cable TV is still in a majority of US homes and it's not going to die off in the next several years (thanks to, if nothing else, sports plus consumer inertia). But it'll continue to decline while SVODs continue to rise. But even if selling the cable bundle is just a break-even proposition (and for an MVPD as large as Charter, that's not the case, it's still somewhat profitable), being able to bundle it with broadband and potentially other services helps reduce churn. So it will continue to play a role in that regard.


So I saw a chart recently that showed pay TV households vs. non pay TV households, and the lines are getting close to crossing over, and the rate of decline of pay TV is accelerating year over year. When a vaccine comes out, or before then, there is going to be a lot of people moving around for various reasons, and typically people don't hook cable back up when they move, which will cause a further acceleration of cord cutting on top of people looking to cut costs.

The legacy Charter markets never had much competitive exposure, they have a lot more from TWC and BHN, so I'm not sure how that factors into things.



> Plus, as video consumption shifts from the bundle to SVODs, it makes sense for broadband providers to push into that arena as distributors. Why leave all the billing/commissions to Apple, Google, Roku and Amazon? If you can't sell them the channel bundle, still try to sell them HBO Max, Hulu, Disney+, CBS AA, etc. This is why we see Comcast giving out those free Flex boxes and it's part of the reason why every MVPD's next-gen STBs (if they continue to offer them) need to have a robust app platform.


Good luck. Most people don't want their cable company involved in their streaming services. The cable companies are being turned into a utility, albeit one that is often an ironclad monopoly that can charge triple what a functioning market would, then can charge 3 times for the same data moving over their network, and can run classic racket schemes against content providers, so they have plenty of ways of making obscene amounts of money off of broadband.



> Yeah, that was a scenario I had hypothesized a year or so ago, that Charter might not just adopt and white-label X1 but also Xfinity IPTV too. Still not a crazy idea, I guess. Although I wonder if Charter, the #2 cableco, wants to kowtow to Comcast, the #1, to that degree.


I wouldn't be surprised. It doesn't seem like Charter has much interest in the TV business. It's more a matter of what their core business is (broadband), and outsourcing the non important parts of it (TV) to someone else. They'd probably brand it quite deeply as Charter, with Comcast providing the technology and using their scale to get distribution deals to keep carriage costs sort of in check.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Bigg said:


> It's not that IPTV is changing pay TV, it's that pay TV is imploding, and Cox and Comcast might not want to invest millions upon millions upon millions of dollars converting to an IPTV system that can handle 400 channels of trash when the whole ecosystem is imploding anyway, and if they hang on to QAM a few years longer, there will be fewer subscribers and fewer channels to transition to IPTV.


Comcast already basically has IPTV in place. The fact that I can watch any channel on my iPad in their Stream app indicates as much. They just also still send out QAM TV.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

morac said:


> Comcast already basically has IPTV in place. The fact that I can watch any channel on my iPad in their Stream app indicates as much. They just also still send out QAM TV.


So in a sense, yes, they already distribute feeds via IP fiber from Denver to the various headends, where they are put on QAM to get to the main X1 box in a house, then they go back to IPTV to the smaller boxes around the house. However, they do not have IPTV scaled up to deliver all TV in the last mile, which is why they are still using QAM there.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

morac said:


> Comcast already basically has IPTV in place. The fact that I can watch any channel on my iPad in their Stream app indicates as much. They just also still send out QAM TV.


Their X1 system is iptv. Iptv can be linear TV. Not sure why some people think linear tv isn't iptv. It's not a mutually exclusive technology. It's just a different type of delivery system.

I would be annoyed if there was no linear TV. I like turning on my TV and just flipping to whatever is on whatever channel. Some nights I don't want to think about what to watch or have to make a conscious effort to choose a particular series or movie from whatever app. That'd be annoying as hell, and I fully embrace apps.

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## Johncv (Jun 11, 2002)

If I am reading this correctly, the Cox Contour box uses the X1 platform, if so it's slow, crappy, buggy, and hard as hell to search for anything. Anyone know of any backdoor codes for the Contour box?


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## dishrich (Jan 16, 2002)

The often-used code is EXIT, EXIT, EXIT, 0, 0, 3, 0 - which converts the PG UP & DOWN keys into 30 sec skip, 15 sec backspace keys, for watching DVR'd shows


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dbpaddler said:


> Their X1 system is iptv. Iptv can be linear TV. Not sure why some people think linear tv isn't iptv. It's not a mutually exclusive technology. It's just a different type of delivery system.


X1 can do IPTV, but the linear channels are transmitted from the head end to the main X1 box as linear QAM. Of course they can do linear IPTV, there are currently 3 channels that I am aware of that Comcast transmits only via IPTV, but they are rarely watched specialty channels. They also started X1 using only QAM VOD, but have now moved VOD over to IPTV. VOD is the easiest to transition, as it's all individual streams anyway, without the need for multicast.



> I would be annoyed if there was no linear TV. I like turning on my TV and just flipping to whatever is on whatever channel. Some nights I don't want to think about what to watch or have to make a conscious effort to choose a particular series or movie from whatever app. That'd be annoying as hell, and I fully embrace apps.


That has nothing to do with the QAM vs. IPTV discussion for the delivery of linear channels. IPTV can certainly be used to deliver linear TV like it's 1976.

However, that otherwise off-topic comment actually brings up an interesting idea. Comcast may be delaying the move to IPTV, as more and more viewing is migrating to VOD anyway and away from linear, making the transition for linear content easier, and requiring increases in capacity for VOD anyway.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Bigg said:


> X1 can do IPTV, but the linear channels are transmitted from the head end to the main X1 box as linear QAM. Of course they can do linear IPTV, there are currently 3 channels that I am aware of that Comcast transmits only via IPTV, but they are rarely watched specialty channels. They also started X1 using only QAM VOD, but have now moved VOD over to IPTV. VOD is the easiest to transition, as it's all individual streams anyway, without the need for multicast.
> 
> That has nothing to do with the QAM vs. IPTV discussion for the delivery of linear channels. IPTV can certainly be used to deliver linear TV like it's 1976.
> 
> However, that otherwise off-topic comment actually brings up an interesting idea. Comcast may be delaying the move to IPTV, as more and more viewing is migrating to VOD anyway and away from linear, making the transition for linear content easier, and requiring increases in capacity for VOD anyway.


Good info. And my point on the latter was more about the person implying linear TV is dying because of streaming apps. Just because there are more on demand streaming options, doesn't mean it's dealing a death blow to linear TV.

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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dbpaddler said:


> Good info. And my point on the latter was more about the person implying linear TV is dying because of streaming apps. Just because there are more on demand streaming options, doesn't mean it's dealing a death blow to linear TV.


You're conflating and jumping between a whole bunch of different discussions that are different issues, and mostly unrelated to each other. Whether MVPDs move to IPTV for delivery of traditional MVPD packages is largely irrelevant to whether people cut the cord and move to OTT-SVOD. That being said, yes, there is a back-end connection there that with the continued implosion of the pay TV market, and people replacing the cord with vMVPDs, eventually cable operators will reach a point where it doesn't make sense to have several hundred mhz of linear QAM, and they'll move to IPTV delivery entirely, BUT that's a second- or third- order effect, and you're still conflating and jumping around willy-nilly between the various issues themselves.

Separate from the technical issues, linear pay TV is in a death spiral, and cord cutting is going to continue to be the norm at an ever increasing rate. Between an exodus of high-quality content, the tragedy of the commons of greedy content providers jacking up rates faster than inflation year after year after year, the declining quality and focus of the content on cable channels, the de-bundling of premium content and increase in interest in OTA, and OTT SVOD delivering what people have always wanted in the first place, on demand content, linear pay TV is continuing to collapse at an ever-increasing rate. At some point, the whole business just implodes, as channels start going out of business or leaving cable to distribute content via streaming one after another, more people cancel their cable subscriptions, and the cycle repeats until there are only a handful of actual news and sports channels left that stitch together streaming content, or produce the content for streaming, because every airport, hotel, and bar nationwide needs something to put on their hundreds of giant TVs.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dbpaddler said:


> I would be annoyed if there was no linear TV. I like turning on my TV and just flipping to whatever is on whatever channel. Some nights I don't want to think about what to watch or have to make a conscious effort to choose a particular series or movie from whatever app. That'd be annoying as hell, and I fully embrace apps.


There are always people who are behind the times and don't want to change. It's part of human nature. At first they are the majority, then they are a minority, then they are such a small segment that they no longer matter and they are forced to adapt, or become a niche market served by low-quality services. The days of "channel surfing" are long gone, now it's surfing through apps to discover content.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Bigg said:


> There are always people who are behind the times and don't want to change. It's part of human nature. At first they are the majority, then they are a minority, then they are such a small segment that they no longer matter and they are forced to adapt, or become a niche market served by low-quality services. The days of "channel surfing" are long gone, now it's surfing through apps to discover content.


How is channel surfing long gone? My niece still does it every now and then. My mom and sister do. I do. And again, linear TV isn't going anywhere. Not really sure why cable cards going away has to go hand in hand with linear TV going away. Correlating the two with this just doesn't make sense.

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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> X1 can do IPTV, but the linear channels are transmitted from the head end to the main X1 box as linear QAM. Of course they can do linear IPTV, there are currently 3 channels that I am aware of that Comcast transmits only via IPTV, but they are rarely watched specialty channels. They also started X1 using only QAM VOD, but have now moved VOD over to IPTV. VOD is the easiest to transition, as it's all individual streams anyway, without the need for multicast.


Since spring of 2019, at least in some regions (including here), Comcast has been setting up some portion of their new broadband+TV subscribers (or broadband subs who at that point added TV) as 100% IPTV. Without the customers asking for anything particular in terms of equipment, they were given only Xi5 and/or Xi6 STBs, which have neither QAM tuners nor hard drives in them. Everything delivered to those boxes as part of their regular Xfinity TV service -- linear channels, on-demand and DVR -- comes in the form of managed IPTV. (Prior to early 2019, those Xi5 and Xi6 boxes were only used as Mini-like "satellite" STBs in tandem with a main X1 box with QAM tuners.)

I'm still not clear whether or not Comcast is doing 100% IPTV solely for broadband customers who use a Comcast-provided gateway or if they are also offering it to those who use their own modem and router. (It's my understanding that any standalone broadband customer with a Flex box -- a category I was in until recently -- could add TV service without having to switch out or get any additional equipment. And they do give Flex boxes to folks like me, who use their own modem and router.)

As we've discussed before, if/when Comcast begins delivering some linear channels via IPTV multicast, reception of those channels will probably rely on having a Comcast gateway in the home. But I don't know whether Comcast has even commenced multicast yet. Also, who knows, maybe the Xi6/Flex box has software in it that allows it to tap into a Comcast multicast stream regardless of the router/gateway being used.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dbpaddler said:


> How is channel surfing long gone? My niece still does it every now and then. My mom and sister do. I do. And again, linear TV isn't going anywhere. Not really sure why cable cards going away has to go hand in hand with linear TV going away. Correlating the two with this just doesn't make sense.


You're the one mixing a bunch of different issues together. Channel surfing died when digital cable and satellite took over and you couldn't zap multiple channels per second, and had a guide that made the practice obsolete in the first place.

The FCC decision was a bad one. Cable Cards should have been required to stay around as long as linear pay TV zombie walks on with QAM delivery.



NashGuy said:


> As we've discussed before, if/when Comcast begins delivering some linear channels via IPTV multicast, reception of those channels will probably rely on having a Comcast gateway in the home. But I don't know whether Comcast has even commenced multicast yet. Also, who knows, maybe the Xi6/Flex box has software in it that allows it to tap into a Comcast multicast stream regardless of the router/gateway being used.


I think you'd have to do it at the DOCSIS/gateway level. That being said, my new theory is that they're just stringing it out until they have so few TV customers or they're all primarily using IP-VOD anyway that multicast doesn't matter.

The cord cutting trend has continued to speed up, and I think Comcast is looking at that and realizing that they really don't want to invest more than they have to in TV delivery. They're probably also looking at the HD channel tonnage decreasing over the course of the next few years, relieving pressure on QAM bandwidth, combined with their current absurd level of compression.

The writing is on the wall though. It might take 5 or 10 years, but eventually everything will be IP, and whatever remnants of the pay-tv business are left will just be more IP traffic. We're headed from what was a one-tier system a few years ago to a three-tier system where you've got managed IPTV, content from CDNs and content providers like Netflix that pay Comcast protection money so that their bits don't have "accidents", and then the general peered internet traffic.


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

NashGuy said:


> I'm still not clear whether or not Comcast is doing 100% IPTV solely for broadband customers who use a Comcast-provided gateway or if they are also offering it to those who use their own modem and router.


I found this recently while helping someone select an Xi5/Xi6 box as a sort of TiVo Mini solution:

"Note: The Wireless TV Box will not work with customer-owned modems or Xfinity Wireless Gateways with bridge mode turned on." ← https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/wireless-tv-box-faqs

That page also indicates those boxes require an X1 in the house, but I don't doubt they can also be set to see Xfinity IPTV as their server.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Pokemon_Dad said:


> I found this recently while helping someone select an Xi5/Xi6 box as a sort of TiVo Mini solution:
> 
> "Note: The Wireless TV Box will not work with customer-owned modems or Xfinity Wireless Gateways with bridge mode turned on." ← https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/wireless-tv-box-faqs
> 
> That page also indicates those boxes require an X1 in the house, but I don't doubt they can also be set to see Xfinity IPTV as their server.


Right, although that was in those boxes' original use-context, i.e. in conjunction with a main X1 box that housed QAM tuners and DVR hard drive. Not sure if what you quoted still holds if using the Xi5/Xi6 as a standalone IPTV box, as Comcast began doing after that support article was written.

I know that when Comcast first announced that it would give out one free Xi6 box to standalone broadband customers, under the new Flex branding, they said it would require use of their own gateway. But then they soon after changed that policy and began offering them to any standalone broadband sub, like me, who was using their own modem and router.

Since that time, Comcast changed our local rate card to include a line item called "Choice TV," which appears to be what they used to call "Xfinity Instant TV," i.e. local channels, on-demand, HD, and 20 hours cloud DVR, with broadcast TV fee included, for $25 extra beyond the price of broadband. It appears to be marketed as an upgrade/add-on for standalone broadband folks, some of whom are already on the Flex platform.

Underneath that line, it states "-- with TV Box (Flex upgrade): $30".

The footnote for Choice TV simply states "Requires Xfinity Internet service, Flex and compatible customer owned device or Flex Streaming TV Box." Makes no mention of requiring an Xfinity gateway. That said, it might. You can't always go by what Comcast puts in print, and sometimes they seem to put out conflicting info.

[Edit: Changed "broadband fee" to "broadcast TV fee" in para 3.]


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Bigg said:


> You're the one mixing a bunch of different issues together. Channel surfing died when digital cable and satellite took over and you couldn't zap multiple channels per second, and had a guide that made the practice obsolete in the first place.
> 
> The FCC decision was a bad one. Cable Cards should have been required to stay around as long as linear pay TV zombie walks on with QAM delivery.
> 
> I think you'd have to do it at the DOCSIS/gateway level. That being said, my new theory is that they're just stringing it out until they have so few TV customers or they're all primarily using IP-VOD anyway that multicast doesn't matter.


Sorry. All the guide did was replace a tv guide or the guide in your newspaper. It made channel surfing easier because you could have one channel on, hit a commercial, click the guide, find another show, go to that and just bounce back and forth. Maybe add a thrid show depending on the commercial rotation. It just made surfing more efficient, not killed it.

Even in old cable days you had your few favorite channels memorized so you could direct tune them in and use last to bounce back and forth. Usually tbs, wgn, USA on top of your uhf channels since vhf was just news, game shows and gossip. Just biding your time before 8pm hit for prime time.

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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

NashGuy said:


> Right, although that was in those boxes' original use-context, i.e. in conjunction with a main X1 box that housed QAM tuners and DVR hard drive. Not sure if what you quoted still holds if using the Xi5/Xi6 as a standalone IPTV box, as Comcast began doing after that support article was written.
> 
> I know that when Comcast first announced that it would give out one free Xi6 box to standalone broadband customers, under the new Flex branding, they said it would require use of their own gateway. But then they soon after changed that policy and began offering them to any standalone broadband sub, like me, who was using their own modem and router.
> 
> ...


Shame my fraternity brother still doesn't work fo Comcast. He's an engineer and would be able to give me an educated scoop of their plans and capabilities I'm sure.

That said, reading all that crap and how they want to tie you in to rented equipment again makes me glad I told them to bugger off. I like it better when they're just a dumb pipe to me.

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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> I think you'd have to do it at the DOCSIS/gateway level.


Maybe. I know that the RDK software that Comcast has embraced and includes in their gateways has built-in support for multicast-to-unicast conversion, so that the gateway can fetch the multicast streams and then in turn serve it as unicast streams to any device on the network.

That said, it also appears that multicast support can be built into STBs, not just gateways/routers. For instance, French firm Broadpeak has built support for their multicast adaptive bitrate platform as a plug-in for Android TV. So perhaps a similar solution could work in those Xi6 boxes.



Bigg said:


> That being said, my new theory is that they're just stringing it out until they have so few TV customers or they're all primarily using IP-VOD anyway that multicast doesn't matter.


There will always be heavily viewed live sports. However that's packaged, marketed and sold, its delivery on an IP network would benefit from multicast.



Bigg said:


> The cord cutting trend has continued to speed up, and I think Comcast is looking at that and realizing that they really don't want to invest more than they have to in TV delivery. They're probably also looking at the HD channel tonnage decreasing over the course of the next few years, relieving pressure on QAM bandwidth, combined with their current absurd level of compression.


I think that there are other benefits to the overall network from going all-IP and eliminating QAM TV, though. Regardless of what happens to cable TV subscriber levels, Comcast will go all-IP at some point and they'll continue to sell packages of cable channels for several years to come.


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## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

Bigg said:


> There are always people who are behind the times and don't want to change. It's part of human nature. At first they are the majority, then they are a minority, then they are such a small segment that they no longer matter and they are forced to adapt, or become a niche market served by low-quality services. The days of "channel surfing" are long gone, now it's surfing through apps to discover content.


I'm 46 and still channel surf tho not as much as I used too-largely this is to look for things to record or flip back and forth between the news and sports games. I imagine I will do some variety of this the rest of my days which hopefully will be another 30-40 years.

You have lots of good contributions to the discussions here and I am guessing based on them you are in your 20s? If so than how you consume content and watch it and what that is is far different than my cohort and above. We aren't going anywhere anytime soon lol. So yes things will keep changing but probably not as fast as you think.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

PSU_Sudzi said:


> I'm 46 and still channel surf tho not as much as I used too-largely this is to look for things to record or flip back and forth between the news and sports games. I imagine I will do some variety of this the rest of my days which hopefully will be another 30-40 years.
> 
> You have lots of good contributions to the discussions here and I am guessing based on them you are in your 20s? If so than how you consume content and watch it and what that is is far different than my cohort and above. We aren't going anywhere anytime soon lol. So yes things will keep changing but probably not as fast as you think.


And you can even channel surf inside OTT apps. I do it in the Pluto TV app. So no, I don't think the concept of linear channels is going to disappear. (Remember when folks said vinyl records would disappear? Now they outsell CDs.)

I also noticed that the new Google TV home screen UI on Google's new Chromecast has a Live tab with -- wait for it -- a linear channel grid guide. It definitely appears to incorporate channels from YouTube TV. I'm hoping that it will essentially be an updated version of Google's old Live Channels app and have an API that allows any app that wants to opt in to place their streams there. Hopefully it will support channels from OTA tuners, streaming channels from Pluto TV, etc. That's what Amazon has done with the live channel grid guide on Fire TV -- make it a single guide for live channels from lots of different underlying sources/apps.


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## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

NashGuy said:


> And you can even channel surf inside OTT apps. I do it in the Pluto TV app. So no, I don't think the concept of linear channels is going to disappear. (Remember when folks said vinyl records would disappear? Now they outsell CDs.)
> 
> I also noticed that the new Google TV home screen UI on Google's new Chromecast has a Live tab with -- wait for it -- a linear channel grid guide. It definitely appears to incorporate channels from YouTube TV. I'm hoping that it will essentially be an updated version of Google's old Live Channels app and have an API that allows any app that wants to opt in to place their streams there. Hopefully it will support channels from OTA tuners, streaming channels from Pluto TV, etc. That's what Amazon has done with the live channel grid guide on Fire TV -- make it a single guide for live channels from lots of different underlying sources/apps.


I've poked around inside Pluto too-if that's the one that has a Dr. Who channel? Kinda cool. Peacock has a feature like that also with a bunch of "channels". I'm guessing this is partially to satisfy the 40+ crowd who enjoy doing this. With the end result of keeping you inside the app.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

NashGuy said:


> And you can even channel surf inside OTT apps. I do it in the Pluto TV app. So no, I don't think the concept of linear channels is going to disappear. (Remember when folks said vinyl records would disappear? Now they outsell CDs.)
> 
> I also noticed that the new Google TV home screen UI on Google's new Chromecast has a Live tab with -- wait for it -- a linear channel grid guide. It definitely appears to incorporate channels from YouTube TV. I'm hoping that it will essentially be an updated version of Google's old Live Channels app and have an API that allows any app that wants to opt in to place their streams there. Hopefully it will support channels from OTA tuners, streaming channels from Pluto TV, etc. That's what Amazon has done with the live channel grid guide on Fire TV -- make it a single guide for live channels from lots of different underlying sources/apps.


Tivo is looking to do that (the live guide incorporation) with their Stream app on the TS4k. It's a bit rubbish at the moment, but the intent is there.

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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

They can replicate a channel surfing type experience in Netflix easily if enough people really wanted that. BAsically just set up playlists (channels.) And for a real channel surfing experience have the playlists "play" in real time behind the scenes. And just keep programming the playlists. 

Or just have a random button that selects random content and starts at a random place in the content which is basically channel surfing.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> The footnote for Choice TV simply states "Requires Xfinity Internet service, Flex and compatible customer owned device or Flex Streaming TV Box." Makes no mention of requiring an Xfinity gateway. That said, it might. You can't always go by what Comcast puts in print, and sometimes they seem to put out conflicting info.
> 
> [Edit: Changed "broadband fee" to "broadcast TV fee" in para 3.]


One of the "compatible customer owned devices" is Roku with the Xfinity app. I can watch Live TV on that and I have my own modem and router. Granted I also pay for TV service, but my point is that there's no special equipment needed for that to work.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

It's dead, Jim. Cablecard support has been a dead man walking ever since the 2013 court decision that neutered the Cablecard requirement and killed any standing for further regulations driving consumer choice in navigation devices. If Congress wants anything different than the direction the market is taking on its own they'll have to update the Cable Act.

I've never had a customer service rep so happy to cancel a service as when I called WOW! to cancel my TV package. If you go on their home page they're not even promoting a traditional TV service any more. They're directing customers to streaming services and providing a free Chromecast. 

When the sixth largest cable provider is that anxious to get out of the MVPD business it suggests that the profitability just isn't there anymore.


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## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

trip1eX said:


> They can replicate a channel surfing type experience in Netflix easily if enough people really wanted that. BAsically just set up playlists (channels.) And for a real channel surfing experience have the playlists "play" in real time behind the scenes. And just keep programming the playlists.
> 
> Or just have a random button that selects random content and starts at a random place in the content which is basically channel surfing.


But I think you're missing the point. There are tens of millions of people that don't watch things on demand and want to watch live programs, eg news or sports. We don't want to see yesterday's weather or last weeks baseball game. Streaming fills a huge gap for wanting to watch an archive of TV series or movies but not live programming.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

PSU_Sudzi said:


> But I think you're missing the point. There are tens of millions of people that don't watch things on demand and want to watch live programs, eg news or sports. We don't want to see yesterday's weather or last weeks baseball game. Streaming fills a huge gap for wanting to watch an archive of TV series or movies but not live programming.


Or just think about what I want to watch. Sometimes I just want background of something I know I like. Makes zero sense to go to a streaming app and pick something if I'm not fully paying attention to it. Sometimes I'm doing work, paying bills or other stuff. Kinda dumb to put on a specific show if you're not fully paying attention.

Add to that. Say Cheers is on. Good background. Could probably recite half of script. Couldn't navigate to a streaming app if I wanted to as it's gone from Netflix. I'm not going to pay for it. Lots of syndicated shows are no longer available on streaming services unless Amazon has it for rent or purchase. I would do that why? At least now I can dvr that stuff and watch it at my leisure.

More and more contracts end and these providers care more about their own content. Same with movies. Heck, the tivo stream will sit there and recommend all thesw shows or movies I have to pay for on Prime instead of things included in my streaming packages. That's helpful how?

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## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

dbpaddler said:


> Or just think about what I want to watch. Sometimes I just want background of something I know I like. Makes zero sense to go to a streaming app and pick something if I'm not fully paying attention to it. Sometimes I'm doing work, paying bills or other stuff. Kinda dumb to put on a specific show if you're not fully paying attention.
> 
> Add to that. Say Cheers is on. Good background. Could probably recite half of script. Couldn't navigate to a streaming app if I wanted to as it's gone from Netflix. I'm not going to pay for it. Lots of syndicated shows are no longer available on streaming services unless Amazon has it for rent or purchase. I would do that why? At least now I can dvr that stuff and watch it at my leisure.
> 
> ...


Agreed. Lots of folks younger than 30 don't watch TV like this and that's fine, everything will be geared to how they consume content over the next 20 years when they are in my/our shoes now. I keep CNBC on background all day long while working from home and I guess I could open the app and stream it from there, but sometimes I flip over to Fox Biz or Sportscenter or MLB Network or NFL Network or Weather Channel if whatever is being discussed is boring. Can do all of this with 7 apps but much better with a cable box/TiVo.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

PSU_Sudzi said:


> Agreed. Lots of folks younger than 30 don't watch TV like this and that's fine, everything will be geared to how they consume content over the next 20 years when they are in my/our shoes now. I keep CNBC on background all day long while working from home and I guess I could open the app and stream it from there, but sometimes I flip over to Fox Biz or Sportscenter or MLB Network or NFL Network or Weather Channel if whatever is being discussed is boring. Can do all of this with 7 apps but much better with a cable box/TiVo.


The even younger crowd will put something on Netflix and still get absorbed into their phone. My niece doesn't understand the one screen concept even when we're watching a movie or trying to be absorbed in a show. It becomes a battle until my sister tells her to put her phone in the other room. Though they don't have the years of not having a second screen while watching TV like we did.

So 40+ years from now when we're close to looking at the brown side of grass, or already doing so, people will wonder what linear TV is or comment on how weird that is. But it's not going anywhere for quite a while. As long as the boomers to Gen x are watching TV, there will be linear TV in some form.

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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

PSU_Sudzi said:


> But I think you're missing the point. There are tens of millions of people that don't watch things on demand and want to watch live programs, eg news or sports. We don't want to see yesterday's weather or last weeks baseball game. Streaming fills a huge gap for wanting to watch an archive of TV series or movies but not live programming.


But watching live programming not the same thing as channel surfing.

And streaming does live programming too.

For example, you can go to ESPN+ and switch between 2 or 5 or 10+ live events at any one time.

The only real difference would be that channel surfing live programming on different apps is more cumbersome. But not like that couldn't be tweaked or won't get better over time.

I mean all they need to do is to let, for example, Siri on the ATV switch between live feeds on different apps. There's you're live programming channel surfing.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

Can someone explain to me how "guide surfing" on a streaming service like Youtube TV is functionally different than traditional channel surfing?

On Youtube TV, I pull up the guide and arrow up and down to see every channel via a live thumbnail as I surf. I still see what's on each channel and can stop at whichever one catches my eye without much thought.


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## zalusky (Apr 5, 2002)

We do not have any season passes anymore for the broadcast networks. My wife still surfs the guide for cooking shows. When it comes to actually watching evening entertainment we hit the streamers. I will look at the ratings and add stuff periodically to my queue.

The only area we watch live TV is news channels during the day as background and late night Colbert/equivalent before going to bed.
And also Hockey but thats been essentially nuked for this year. I could probably get that in a streamer.

Next year our Comcast contract is up and we shall have to decide to renew it depending on the packages available. It's hard to beat the packages when comparing to unbundled still. I really don't care about most of it but if the Tivo experience/cablecard goes south I will be forced to really examine alternatives. I hate the new GUI and haven't upgraded to that.


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## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

trip1eX said:


> But watching live programming not the same thing as channel surfing.
> 
> And streaming does live programming too.
> 
> ...


I would love better or more integrated app switching, especially between sporting apps. I've used the ESPN app for multiple games but for college football you get games on other networks too like Fox or CBS. We just aren't there yet though.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

PSU_Sudzi said:


> I would love better or more integrated app switching, especially between sporting apps. I've used the ESPN app for multiple games but for college football you get games on other networks too like Fox or CBS. We just aren't there yet though.


In my living room, I built a corner fireplace wall wiut a tv above. Have a 55 there now, but I cna max it at 60. When quarantine hit, I wanted something bigger for my workout classes so on the left wall I put up a 100" screen and mounted a projector between the dining room and living room. I rarely turn on the TV now, but it's perfect for two games at the same time.

Funny how PIP was such a hug selling feature on tv's once upon a time. Now it's like it never existed yet we've had an exponential increase in the amount of content we can consume.

And Android TV should multitask well when Android 10 hits it. Maybe it'll make PIP a feature again. We do it on our phones tablets with split screen and drawing over apps.

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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

mdavej said:


> Can someone explain to me how "guide surfing" on a streaming service like Youtube TV is functionally different than traditional channel surfing?
> 
> On Youtube TV, I pull up the guide and arrow up and down to see every channel via a live thumbnail as I surf. I still see what's on each channel and can stop at whichever one catches my eye without much thought.


I consider YTTV to be cabletv in this discussion and not to be a streaming app.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

morac said:


> One of the "compatible customer owned devices" is Roku with the Xfinity app. I can watch Live TV on that and I have my own modem and router. Granted I also pay for TV service, but my point is that there's no special equipment needed for that to work.


Yes, that's true. Comcast unquestionably can and does deliver their service as 100% managed IPTV to anyone with both Comcast TV and broadband if they're using the Xfinity Stream app or website on their home network, regardless of what kind of modem/router you have.

What I'm not sure about is whether Comcast will let you initiate TV service and ONLY use IPTV-only/non-QAM devices, whether that's their Xi5, Xi6 (Flex), or app-based devices like Roku and certain smart TVs. In your case, you also have a QAM-capable STB too, right? Either a TiVo (CableCARD) or an X1 or pre-X1 Comcast STB? Comcast probably assumes that you'll mostly watch TV through that device, with your Roku on a secondary TV.


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## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

dbpaddler said:


> In my living room, I built a corner fireplace wall wiut a tv above. Have a 55 there now, but I cna max it at 60. When quarantine hit, I wanted something bigger for my workout classes so on the left wall I put up a 100" screen and mounted a projector between the dining room and living room. I rarely turn on the TV now, but it's perfect for two games at the same time.
> 
> Funny how PIP was such a hug selling feature on tv's once upon a time. Now it's like it never existed yet we've had an exponential increase in the amount of content we can consume.
> 
> ...


That's pretty sweet. If you do a search on here you can find a never developed feature on TiVo called Sports Bar mode with 4 PIP. Would be awesome on Apple TV.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> Yes, that's true. Comcast unquestionably can and does deliver their service as 100% managed IPTV to anyone with both Comcast TV and broadband if they're using the Xfinity Stream app or website on their home network, regardless of what kind of modem/router you have.
> 
> What I'm not sure about is whether Comcast will let you initiate TV service and ONLY use IPTV-only/non-QAM devices, whether that's their Xi5, Xi6 (Flex), or app-based devices like Roku and certain smart TVs. In your case, you also have a QAM-capable STB too, right? Either a TiVo (CableCARD) or an X1 or pre-X1 Comcast STB? Comcast probably assumes that you'll mostly watch TV through that device, with your Roku on a secondary TV.


I have no Comcast provided equipment. Just the TiVo (CableCard), my modem and the Roku. Roku is still in beta testing I believe.


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## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

nrc said:


> It's dead, Jim. Cablecard support has been a dead man walking ever since the 2013 court decision that neutered the Cablecard requirement and killed any standing for further regulations driving consumer choice in navigation devices. If Congress wants anything different than the direction the market is taking on its own they'll have to update the Cable Act.
> 
> I've never had a customer service rep so happy to cancel a service as when I called WOW! to cancel my TV package. If you go on their home page they're not even promoting a traditional TV service any more. They're directing customers to streaming services and providing a free Chromecast.
> 
> When the sixth largest cable provider is that anxious to get out of the MVPD business it suggests that the profitability just isn't there anymore.


Good quote!


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

nrc said:


> I've never had a customer service rep so happy to cancel a service as when I called WOW! to cancel my TV package. If you go on their home page they're not even promoting a traditional TV service any more. They're directing customers to streaming services and providing a free Chromecast.
> 
> When the sixth largest cable provider is that anxious to get out of the MVPD business it suggests that the profitability just isn't there anymore.


And the really weird thing is that they recently launched their own new IPTV service, WOW! tv+, that comes with an Android TV box. But they've only rolled that out in certain areas and no longer even feature it on their website. It's almost like a secret option they have. Instead, as you say, they're pushing customers to third-party streaming services.

WideOpenWest confirms WOW! tv+ is still available

Interesting that WOW! is giving away free Chromecasts. I bet they soon upgrade that to the new Chromecast with Google TV that has its own voice remote and runs Android TV apps. (Can't imagine a lot of folks are keen on getting a free streaming device that requires them to cast video from their phone/tablet/computer.) I've read a rumor that Charter may also give those new Chromecasts out to their broadband subscribers too. Would be a cheap, easy way to ensure that their HBO subs have an easy way to stream the HBO Max app on their TVs...


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## tivoknucklehead (Dec 12, 2002)

surprised to hear there are less than 500,000 cablecards in circulation. I figured Tivo had more users that that alone


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## ManeJon (Apr 14, 2018)

Not saying that cable companies don't want their profits - the American way - but those who supply the channels and programs are jacking up prices also. Every couple of months you read about some stations disappearing from a cable company because they can't reach an agreement.


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

tivoknucklehead said:


> surprised to hear there are less than 500,000 cablecards in circulation. I figured Tivo had more users that that alone


Surprising to me too, but at least that's the retail number only. TiVo sales include both retail and cableco boxes. When I looked it up that way I found this: "The National Cable Television Association reported in April 2016 that only 621,400 CableCARDs were deployed for use in retail devices by the nine largest incumbent cable operators, compared to 55 million operator-supplied set-top boxes with CableCARDs." --- Wikipedia: CableCARD/Adoption


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

And don't forget OTA numbers... Not like there have been a plethora of quality OTA Dvr's over the years. 

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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

dbpaddler said:


> And don't forget OTA numbers... Not like there have been a plethora of quality OTA Dvr's over the years.


I'd bet that's a very small portion of this number, most of which which breaks down into two very different categories: Nielsen: 16M U.S. homes now get TV over-the-air, a 48% increase over past 8 years - TechCrunch


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

morac said:


> Truth be told, Internet speeds are much faster than they were back when CCs were first introduced. There's little reason for QAM cable TV to even exist at this point, let alone CC support.


ridiculous. Shows EXPIRE off of streaming. I watch as much as I can on (almost) commercial free streaming.. but I tivo as backup because shows DO expire before I watch them.
Also, you CAN'T watch faster than realtime with any streaming device that I know of. I do that ALL THE TIME on Tivo (especially since we found out about the backdoor to greatly speed it up). (It actually was I think my Toshiba XS32 and PS2, from what, almost 20 years ago, that introduced me to watch-faster-than-realtime in the first place.. e.g. DVD commentary at 1.3x.. and of course I listen to all podcasts faster realtime.. at 2x except very rare cases)

If there was a CLEAR indication of when shows would expire (even years in the future), AND I could watch faster than realtime (at a reasonable set of different speeds), THEN I could see going to mostly streaming.

otherwise, I may have to actually try OTA tivo + streaming when cablecards go away.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Is it really worth entertaining posts that assume iptv and linear TV are mutually exclusive? 

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## CommunityMember (May 22, 2020)

Pokemon_Dad said:


> Surprising to me too, but at least that's the retail number only. TiVo sales include both retail and cableco boxes. When I looked it up that way I found this: "The National Cable Television Association reported in April 2016 that only 621,400 CableCARDs were deployed for use in retail devices by the nine largest incumbent cable operators, compared to 55 million operator-supplied set-top boxes with CableCARDs." --- Wikipedia: CableCARD/Adoption


And that 55 million number (which were forced to be deployed on the cable companies in order to insure that retail CableCARDs would be supported (the "separable security requirement")) is why CableCARDs, themselves, will continue to be supported by cable companies for at least their own use for a number of years, even as the cable companies no longer are required to support retail devices. With a couple of exceptions (from companies that truly seem to despise trying to support retail CableCARDs (*cough* Atlice *cough*)), it seems likely few companies will decide to drop retail CableCARD support immediately, although they may reduce their training of staff even further, making it even harder to get things resolved (although if one reads some of the posts here, I am not sure one could tell the difference between hard, really hard, and basically impossible). It should be noted that in Canada the cable companies, simply because many of them leveraged the manufacturing volumes that US cable companies produced, also have a large number of STBs that use CableCARDs, but those companies have never officially supported retail devices (their sort-of equivalent of the FCC, the CRTC, never required the companies to do so). But the CableCARD technology is out there, in wide use, and will continue to get support, at least during the lifetime of the cable boxes that depend exclusively on CableCARDs (the typical cable box lifetime expectancy is 6-7 years, and while the majors have been purchasing flexible delivery boxes for a few years now, that still means that you probably have some number of years before many cable companies would expect to be able to scrape CableCARD support entirely).


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## mattyro7878 (Nov 27, 2014)

tim_m said:


> Personally if it were solely up to me, i'd have dropped cable by now and gone OTT. Either with AT&T TV NOW or T-Mobile Tvision. Those are the two that offer the most of what we'd need. I'm not sure my family is ready to ditch traditional cable. I live with my elderly parents and uncle. I really want to drop Frontier Fios though and go with one of those two, especially with how many channels Frontier has dropped this year. We've lost MGM, Starz/Encore, HDNetMovies, Axs.tv, MLBNetwork/Strikezone. Now the most recent one is overly egregious. They removed ALL Fox sports RSN channels including YES national feed. I literally could not watch the Rangers baseball game tonight in any legal way if i wanted to. I'm not a fan but its just the point.,


At least 3 of those channels are not offered by Comcast for any price. I miss HDNet.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dbpaddler said:


> Sorry. All the guide did was replace a tv guide or the guide in your newspaper. It made channel surfing easier because you could have one channel on, hit a commercial, click the guide, find another show, go to that and just bounce back and forth. Maybe add a thrid show depending on the commercial rotation. It just made surfing more efficient, not killed it.


Guide surfing killed traditional channel surfing.



NashGuy said:


> That said, it also appears that multicast support can be built into STBs, not just gateways/routers. For instance, French firm Broadpeak has built support for their multicast adaptive bitrate platform as a plug-in for Android TV. So perhaps a similar solution could work in those Xi6 boxes.


What protocol does it use to get through a regular modem and router to the STB?



> There will always be heavily viewed live sports. However that's packaged, marketed and sold, its delivery on an IP network would benefit from multicast.


Maybe. But what if you're watching through Sling, I'm watching on YouTube TV, and the guy next door is watching through Hulu? Factor in small nodes and the case for multicast isn't very good anymore.



> I think that there are other benefits to the overall network from going all-IP and eliminating QAM TV, though. Regardless of what happens to cable TV subscriber levels, Comcast will go all-IP at some point and they'll continue to sell packages of cable channels for several years to come.


Yes, all-IP is the way everything is eventually going. It's just a matter of how long it takes.



PSU_Sudzi said:


> You have lots of good contributions to the discussions here and I am guessing based on them you are in your 20s? If so than how you consume content and watch it and what that is is far different than my cohort and above. We aren't going anywhere anytime soon lol. So yes things will keep changing but probably not as fast as you think.


30's. I was totally bought into cable and TiVo 5-6 years ago. The times are changing, and so have I. My dad isn't quite ready to give up that massive bloated mess of a cable bundle, but 90% of what he talks about on TV is either YouTube or Netflix.



NashGuy said:


> What I'm not sure about is whether Comcast will let you initiate TV service and ONLY use IPTV-only/non-QAM devices, whether that's their Xi5, Xi6 (Flex), or app-based devices like Roku and certain smart TVs.


In certain markets, they are rolling out IPTV-only equipment to some customers.



mattack said:


> ridiculous. Shows EXPIRE off of streaming. I watch as much as I can on (almost) commercial free streaming.. but I tivo as backup because shows DO expire before I watch them.


Fringe use cases don't drive the market. The market is going towards streaming VOD with a constant firehose of content.



CommunityMember said:


> ... it seems likely few companies will decide to drop retail CableCARD support immediately, although they may reduce their training of staff even further, making it even harder to get things resolved (although if one reads some of the posts here, I am not sure one could tell the difference between hard, really hard, and basically impossible).


You mean they ever trained them on CableCard in the first place? Could've fooled me.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

NashGuy said:


> And the really weird thing is that they recently launched their own new IPTV service, WOW! tv+, that comes with an Android TV box. But they've only rolled that out in certain areas and no longer even feature it on their website. It's almost like a secret option they have. Instead, as you say, they're pushing customers to third-party streaming services.
> 
> WideOpenWest confirms WOW! tv+ is still available
> 
> Interesting that WOW! is giving away free Chromecasts. I bet they soon upgrade that to the new Chromecast with Google TV that has its own voice remote and runs Android TV apps. (Can't imagine a lot of folks are keen on getting a free streaming device that requires them to cast video from their phone/tablet/computer.) I've read a rumor that Charter may also give those new Chromecasts out to their broadband subscribers too. Would be a cheap, easy way to ensure that their HBO subs have an easy way to stream the HBO Max app on their TVs...


Interesting. I hadn't even heard of that offering and it didn't show up on their page when I first started looking into cutting the cord a month ago. She called the device a "Chromecast." I really didn't ask for any details before declining since I already had a Roku. I wonder if they're still sending out their TV+ device even though they're not promoting it.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Bigg said:


> Guide surfing killed traditional channel surfing.
> 
> What protocol does it use to get through a regular modem and router to the STB?
> 
> ...


You say fringe use but linear TV itself is far from fringe. Just because it allows us some other uses, doesn't really make them fringe.

Here's another. How many times have you been surfing and watching. You come upon a show/movie and start watching. You then remember it's on one of your streaming services. How often do you actually switch over? And then how many times do you search the streaming sites only to find you can only watch it on Amazon for coin. And then some of that time you swear it was Prime or on Netflix before. But of course not when you want to watch it.

I often find when cable is showing a movie, it's not on Netflix or Prime. And movies that are free on netflix/Prime are not being shown on cable.

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## JLV03 (Feb 12, 2018)

mattack said:


> ridiculous. Shows EXPIRE off of streaming. I watch as much as I can on (almost) commercial free streaming.. but I tivo as backup because shows DO expire before I watch them.
> Also, you CAN'T watch faster than realtime with any streaming device that I know of. I do that ALL THE TIME on Tivo (especially since we found out about the backdoor to greatly speed it up). (It actually was I think my Toshiba XS32 and PS2, from what, almost 20 years ago, that introduced me to watch-faster-than-realtime in the first place.. e.g. DVD commentary at 1.3x.. and of course I listen to all podcasts faster realtime.. at 2x except very rare cases)
> 
> If there was a CLEAR indication of when shows would expire (even years in the future), AND I could watch faster than realtime (at a reasonable set of different speeds), THEN I could see going to mostly streaming.
> ...


No experience, but PlayOn (PlayOn) does allow you to "record" from a streaming service. If TiVo goes away I might venture down that path. Or not, as there are tons of things I have saved up on TiVo and streaming services I'll likely never get around to watching.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dbpaddler said:


> You say fringe use but linear TV itself is far from fringe. Just because it allows us some other uses, doesn't really make them fringe.


That was in reference to backup/archiving of shows, which is a fringe use case. DVR'ing things is a mainstream use case, where they are DVR'ed, consumed, and deleted.



> Here's another. How many times have you been surfing and watching. You come upon a show/movie and start watching. You then remember it's on one of your streaming services. How often do you actually switch over? And then how many times do you search the streaming sites only to find you can only watch it on Amazon for coin. And then some of that time you swear it was Prime or on Netflix before. But of course not when you want to watch it.


The only time I've recalled coming across a movie that anyone was really interested in during the last decade or so was James Bond, and I have the whole Blu-Ray set plus the new ones. Otherwise, if it's not available as part of an OTT SVOD package, it's available as PPV VOD.

I also haven't had cable myself since 2016, and find that I have an overwhelming tsunami of content without having cable, while there's nothing that I miss from cable. I have too much to watch, but I use Netflix pretty regularly, Amazon Prime Video is free with Amazon Prime, I have Hulu bundled to my Spotify for $10/mo, YouTube is free, OTA is free on my TiVo Roamio OTA, and I have two subscriptions to model railroad channels that are obviously niche content, and better quality that what's on YouTube in the niche.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> What protocol does it use to get through a regular modem and router to the STB?


Not sure. The answer may be out there somewhere online if you're interesting in reading up on the technical intricacies of Broadpeak's multicast ABR.



Bigg said:


> Maybe. But what if you're watching through Sling, I'm watching on YouTube TV, and the guy next door is watching through Hulu? Factor in small nodes and the case for multicast isn't very good anymore.


I don't think node size is relevant because I think a single multicast stream can span viewers across nodes on a HFC network. But the point you raise about viewers for a given live channel being fractured across many different OTT vMVPDs instead of the MSO's own managed IPTV service could happen, at least with smaller MSOs like WOW! and Sparklight that are no longer really selling their own cable TV service and instead pitch vMVPDs. I don't see such a scenario ever happening on Comcast though; I believe that their own cable TV service will always remain far more popular than all vMVPDs combined on their network. Same probably goes for any MSO that continues to actively sell their own TV service and bundle it with broadband.

More relevant question, I think, is what happens if/when popular sports begin to be offered via standalone OTT services outside of the cable bundle. Many (myself included) expect that, at some point, all of ESPN will be sold via its own app. If all those app-based viewing sessions were served unicast streams, that would obviously put additional strain on an MSO's network during popular games. So it's possible that ESPN just works out deals with the MSOs so that the ESPN "OTT" app could be served the same multicast stream used on that MSO's managed IPTV (cable TV) service. It'll all work itself out.



Bigg said:


> In certain markets, they are rolling out IPTV-only equipment to some customers.


Yes, I know, I'm the one who originally reported that here. The question is whether those customers must use Comcast's own wireless gateway or if they can use their own modem and router. I think it's the former but I'm not sure.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

nrc said:


> Interesting. I hadn't even heard of that offering and it didn't show up on their page when I first started looking into cutting the cord a month ago. She called the device a "Chromecast." I really didn't ask for any details before declining since I already had a Roku. I wonder if they're still sending out their TV+ device even though they're not promoting it.


Yeah, as the article I linked to above says, WOW! tv+ is currently available in three trial markets (Columbus, Cleveland and mid-Michigan), even though it's not advertised on their website. And if you get it, it definitely comes with their custom Android TV box and remote. You can see a picture of it and read about its initial trial launch in Columbus here:
WOW trials Android TV-based streaming service | Light Reading

My guess is that they're still trying to figure out if they're going to stick with and really try to push this new managed IPTV service or if they decide it's not worth it, in which case they'll just stick with their old QAM-based cable TV product while it slowly dies and meanwhile also sell contract-free OTT services on the side.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

NashGuy said:


> My guess is that they're still trying to figure out if they're going to stick with and really try to push this new managed IPTV service or if they decide it's not worth it, in which case they'll just stick with their old QAM-based cable TV product while it slowly dies and meanwhile also sell contract-free OTT services on the side.


It says that the trial is focused on new customers who want a TV package. Since I punched through the menus with the intent of cancelling a service I probably wasn't even a candidate. I agree, it sounds like they're going to watch the churn for those customers and see if it's worth retaining a traditional cable TV package.

Maybe if they can eliminate the expense of the legacy QAM plant it will be profitable enough to be worthwhile. It could be rolled out as a way to mass convert the existing cable customers off QAM without losing everyone not ready to transition to streaming services.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

nrc said:


> Maybe if they can eliminate the expense of the legacy QAM plant it will be profitable enough to be worthwhile. It could be rolled out as a way to mass convert the existing cable customers off QAM without losing everyone not ready to transition to streaming services.


That's certainly possible. I don't know if we've seen any cable operator do a mass conversion -- yet -- from QAM to IPTV, which requires swapping out all those old STBs. Seems like the game plan most are following so far is to introduce IPTV as the flashy new thing and let the old QAM-based service languish for a long while, letting attrition take care of the swap-out over time. Although at some point, you'd figure they will completely eliminate the QAM plant. It's just a matter of when. As I say, I don't know of any cable operator to have done so yet, although maybe there are a few tiny ones that have.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> I don't think node size is relevant because I think a single multicast stream can span viewers across nodes on a HFC network. But the point you raise about viewers for a given live channel being fractured across many different OTT vMVPDs instead of the MSO's own managed IPTV service could happen, at least with smaller MSOs like WOW! and Sparklight that are no longer really selling their own cable TV service and instead pitch vMVPDs. I don't see such a scenario ever happening on Comcast though; I believe that their own cable TV service will always remain far more popular than all vMVPDs combined on their network. Same probably goes for any MSO that continues to actively sell their own TV service and bundle it with broadband.


I suppose multicast across nodes helps somewhere upstream in the network, but the primary capacity issue is at the node level, not farther up the network.



> More relevant question, I think, is what happens if/when popular sports begin to be offered via standalone OTT services outside of the cable bundle. Many (myself included) expect that, at some point, all of ESPN will be sold via its own app. If all those app-based viewing sessions were served unicast streams, that would obviously put additional strain on an MSO's network during popular games. So it's possible that ESPN just works out deals with the MSOs so that the ESPN "OTT" app could be served the same multicast stream used on that MSO's managed IPTV (cable TV) service. It'll all work itself out.


The Superbowl could become an issue. It chewed up a lot of bandwidth in 4k this year, and that was only with a small proportion streaming it. For less popular events, I doubt that they would make that big of a dent in bandwidth in the sea of Netflix and Hulu and the other streaming services in use, especially as they would replace some of the OTT SVOD viewing that would otherwise happen at that point.



> Yes, I know, I'm the one who originally reported that here. The question is whether those customers must use Comcast's own wireless gateway or if they can use their own modem and router. I think it's the former but I'm not sure.


Gotcha. I think they have to use the Comcast gateway?


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Bigg said:


> Fringe use cases don't drive the market. The market is going towards streaming VOD with a constant firehose of content.


That's not fringe. People bought VCRs and a bajillion tapes before doing it with Tivos...

Plus, isn't using a separate streaming connection (or multiple) per household more bandwidth overall than just sending all of the channels?


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

mattack said:


> That's not fringe. People bought VCRs and a bajillion tapes before doing it with Tivos...


Storage and archiving is a fringe market. DVR'ing and timeshifting is not.



> Plus, isn't using a separate streaming connection (or multiple) per household more bandwidth overall than just sending all of the channels?


NashGuy and I have had extensive discussions about unicast vs. multicast, how it's implemented, bandwidth management, etc, but in theory, IPTV should be a lot more efficient, it's like SDV but more flexible, since the reclaimed bandwidth can go to other uses that aren't just the MVPD's channel delivery.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Gotta love when people claim to know the market... 

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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> Gotcha. I think they have to use the Comcast gateway?


Yeah, I think that's true if they take an IPTV-only X1 box(es), i.e the Xi6 or Xi5, for use with Comcast cable TV. However, it *may* be possible for someone to sign up for Comcast broadband and cable TV and then use only the Xfinity Stream app (Roku, smart TVs, etc.) in conjunction with their own modem and router. That would allow the transmission of IPTV without the need for *any* Comcast equipment (kind of like you can do with QAM TV with a CableCARD).


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

dbpaddler said:


> I would be annoyed if there was no linear TV. I like turning on my TV and just flipping to whatever is on whatever channel. Some nights I don't want to think about what to watch or have to make a conscious effort to choose a particular series or movie from whatever app. That'd be annoying as hell, and I fully embrace apps.


My guess would be that you're over 50. Most younger people have grown up with DVRs or streaming and don't enjoy linear TV at all. They'd rather binge watch a show they picked at random than watch whatever happens to be on TV when they flipped it on. The only people I know that still do that are older than me. (42) Everyone else I know exclusively watches either DVR or streaming content. (mostly streaming)

I've said this many times, for probably the last 5+ years, but I believe that eventually the cable companies will spin off their TV services as app base OTT service available nationwide and use their infrastructure exclusively to provide internet access. AT&T is already doing this to an extent. Comcast is also kind of doing it with Peacock. The writing is on the wall for linear TV and they're all going to start hedging their bets with OTT services.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Not there yet but gen x. And people in there 40's and 50's are a large crowd and will live another 40. And say it all you want, but it's still here. Atsc 3. 0 will be rolling out at some point. Peacock, all access and so on are paid services providing extra content and catalogs you don't get OTA. It's an extra revenue stream.

So in 20yrs if broadcast TV is gone from OTA, are you right 25yrs later? Because eventually, everything changes. But predicting something that takes 25yrs to happen doesn't make you nostradamus. That's like predicting so and so is going to die, and 25yrs later they finally do. 

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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dbpaddler said:


> Not there yet but gen x. And people in there 40's and 50's are a large crowd and will live another 40. And say it all you want, but it's still here.


Take my dad as an example. He's technologically challenged to say the least. He used to channel surf all the time. He still does a little bit, but now he mostly opens up YouTube or Netflix. He's still tied in to pay TV, but his viewing of it has dropped drastically. People will follow the content, and the content is on streaming.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

dbpaddler said:


> Not there yet but gen x. And people in there 40's and 50's are a large crowd and will live another 40. And say it all you want, but it's still here. Atsc 3. 0 will be rolling out at some point. Peacock, all access and so on are paid services providing extra content and catalogs you don't get OTA. It's an extra revenue stream.
> 
> So in 20yrs if broadcast TV is gone from OTA, are you right 25yrs later? Because eventually, everything changes. But predicting something that takes 25yrs to happen doesn't make you nostradamus. That's like predicting so and so is going to die, and 25yrs later they finally do.


I don't care if I'm considered right or not. In fact I'm already kind of wrong because I've been saying this for so long that it should have happened by now for me to be really right. But I still think it's coming eventually. Maybe in 5 years, maybe in 25.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> I don't care if I'm considered right or not. In fact I'm already kind of wrong because I've been saying this for so long that it should have happened by now for me to be really right. But I still think it's coming eventually. Maybe in 5 years, maybe in 25.


I'm not convinced that the major MSOs will turn into vMVPDs, but they may offer their MVPD services as a white label to smaller MSOs.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Bigg said:


> I'm not convinced that the major MSOs will turn into vMVPDs, but they may offer their MVPD services as a white label to smaller MSOs.


I just don't see MSOs surviving long term. They're essentially going to turn into internet providing utilities and likely end up being heavily regulated. If they can spin off the TV portion into an OTT service, like YouTube TV, Sling, etc..., then it would allow that portion of the business to survive independently of the heavily regulated physical connection.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

the traditional cable package itself is under pressure to change. and this includes the YTTVs and Slings of the world as they are selling the same traditional cable package.

People are leaving cable. Even Sling has lost customers the past 2 quarters. The vMVPDs aren't picking up many of the people leaving cable. People are leaving the cable package behind altogether.

And it's a vicious circle. Fewer subs are around to share in the same costs which puts upward pressure on the price. Which puts further downward pressure on the subscriber numbers. Rinse and repeat.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> I just don't see MSOs surviving long term. They're essentially going to turn into internet providing utilities and likely end up being heavily regulated. If they can spin off the TV portion into an OTT service, like YouTube TV, Sling, etc..., then it would allow that portion of the business to survive independently of the heavily regulated physical connection.


But what's long term with your predictions? Like above... Is it really much of a prediction if it's 10+years from now? If you're making the prediction and it comes true in a few years, you have something. Otherwise, what's the point or relevance in making a prediction with no real short term possibility? At least for the sake of the topic on hand. We can all agree I'm sure the landscape will be vastly different in 10yrs. But what's the point of predicting a decade out?

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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

dbpaddler said:


> But what's long term with your predictions? Like above... Is it really much of a prediction if it's 10+years from now? If you're making the prediction and it comes true in a few years, you have something. Otherwise, what's the point or relevance in making a prediction with no real short term possibility? At least for the sake of the topic on hand. We can all agree I'm sure the landscape will be vastly different in 10yrs. But what's the point of predicting a decade out


Have you used the internet before? One of it's main purposes, especially on these kinds of forums, is to make wild predictions and spout your personal opinion.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Dan203 said:


> Have you used the internet before? One of it's main purposes, especially on these kinds of forums, is to make wild predictions and spout your personal opinion.


That's just you're opinion!

AND YOUR JUST A GIANT DUMB-DUMB!


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> I just don't see MSOs surviving long term. They're essentially going to turn into internet providing utilities and likely end up being heavily regulated. If they can spin off the TV portion into an OTT service, like YouTube TV, Sling, etc..., then it would allow that portion of the business to survive independently of the heavily regulated physical connection.


MSOs? They have a cash cow on their hands. They either end up getting some competition and have a duopoly or maybe three players in a few select markets, or they get heavily regulated and stay as a monopoly, basically guaranteeing them significant profits.

I don't think regulators are going to price regulate them down to what a truly competitive market would, they'll let them make semi-obscene profits like private electric utilities do today.

All ISPs that want to be successful in the long term have to move to FTTH/FTTB distribution, and the larger MSOs are completely capable of doing so a decade or two or three down the road, and in the meantime, they will milk coax for all it's worth, on a system that has seen relatively inexpensive incremental upgrades over the years.

The biggest threat to MSOs is if governments allow the creation of muni and co-op providers that provide really good fiber at "cost", in the sense that they are run to turn a modest profit that's plowed back into the product and expanding their territory, or if small companies come in with internet-only fiber and as private companies are willing and able to expand on a small profit, instead of huge returns to shareholders. For regular goods you have at a store, there is a lot of value in brands, with the MSOs, they have trashed their brands for so long as abusive monopolies that their brands hold significant negative value when anything else comes into town, people will jump just to get away from the MSO.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Bigg said:


> MSOs? They have a cash cow on their hands. They either end up getting some competition and have a duopoly or maybe three players in a few select markets, or they get heavily regulated and stay as a monopoly, basically guaranteeing them significant profits.
> 
> I don't think regulators are going to price regulate them down to what a truly competitive market would, they'll let them make semi-obscene profits like private electric utilities do today.
> 
> ...


There is a state law in NV that prevents the creation of "muni" providers, so no chance that's coming to my area.

Competition is a joke. The second biggest company in my area is AT&T. Their best offering is 45Mbps VDSL, and even that's only in some neighborhoods. Everyone elese gets 6Mbps standard DSL. If any company had the money to actually invest in FTTH it's them and they haven't bothered. As for cable companies switching to fiber (I think you were suggesting that) why would they? If they could get rid of QAM and dedicate the entire 800-1000mHz spectrum to DOCSIS 4.0 then they'd have more bandwidth than anyone would ever need. Maybe fiber is easier to maintain but I'm not sure that offsets the initial investment when they already have a working system.


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## zalusky (Apr 5, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> I just don't see MSOs surviving long term. They're essentially going to turn into internet providing utilities and likely end up being heavily regulated. If they can spin off the TV portion into an OTT service, like YouTube TV, Sling, etc..., then it would allow that portion of the business to survive independently of the heavily regulated physical connection.


Well if you have noticed they are evolving into complete solution stacks such that dependency on the MSO portion is less important.

Comcast has purchased NBC which includes traditional broadcast, suite of cable channels, and movie production and does partner with Verizon for mobile
ATT has purchased Time Warner, and DTV and has a mobile presense

Disney has purchased ABC but does not have a delivery mechanism

CBS owns showtime and is still loose

So part of me is wondering about T-mobile.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

zalusky said:


> Well if you have noticed they are evolving into complete solution stacks such that dependency on the MSO portion is less important.
> 
> Comcast has purchased NBC which includes traditional broadcast, suite of cable channels, and movie production and does partner with Verizon for mobile
> ATT has purchased Time Warner, and DTV and has a mobile presense
> ...


Well tmo did have a deal with Viacom previously and they do have their TVision service. Haven't paid much attention to it.

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## dishrich (Jan 16, 2002)

DeltaOne said:


> I started to post that too. I don't recall enabling the skip on my X1. But it works. I googled X1 30 second skip and there are many references to it but they date back five and six years. Perhaps it's built in to X1 boxes now.


An update to my post - I just now got around to actually recording something on my new X1 box; when I went to skip commercials & hit PG UP, it skipped ahead 5 minutes, as well as PG DOWN went 5 minutes back - as it's done on every X1 box here I've ever come in contact with. Had to do the enabling code & it now skips 30-sec/10-back...so maybe you're system might somehow be different than ours, (I just don't see Comcast enabling it, as there IS a reason why they don't openly advertise this "feature") or you lucked out with someone's box (they DO recycle them) that came with it enabled. (you do say you don't recall enabling it, though...) I've set up X1 boxes for several clients over the years thru recently, & I've NEVER seen it come "pre-enabled" on any of ours...just sayin'...

Also another way to skip/replay - use voice commands & you can input any length of time; eg:
"forward 9 minutes"
"rewind 7 minutes"
(Someone [email protected] posted this) You can use voice commands for a somewhat clunky commercial skip, for on-demand shows, where CS/FF has been disabled - press the PG UP button, which forces a 10-min skip, then immediately voice command "rewind 8 minutes", for a 2-min skip forward, etc.


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## DeltaOne (Sep 29, 2013)

dishrich said:


> Had to do the enabling code & it now skips 30-sec/10-back...so maybe you're system might somehow be different than ours...
> Also another way to skip/replay - use voice commands & you can input any length of time; eg:
> "forward 9 minutes"
> "rewind 7 minutes"


I must have enabled the 30 second skip and forgotten about it.

Interesting about using voice to skip ahead a number of minutes. I'll try it. I've been using voice commands to get to the to do list and recordings, it's faster than pressing buttons on the remote. Voice commands on the X1 work well.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> There is a state law in NV that prevents the creation of "muni" providers, so no chance that's coming to my area.


Yes, there are absurd laws that result from corrupt politicians in a number of states, and that adds to the problem. Hence why MSOs are more likely to get regulated than to face effective competition nationwide.



> Competition is a joke. The second biggest company in my area is AT&T. Their best offering is 45Mbps VDSL, and even that's only in some neighborhoods. Everyone elese gets 6Mbps standard DSL. If any company had the money to actually invest in FTTH it's them and they haven't bothered. As for cable companies switching to fiber (I think you were suggesting that) why would they? If they could get rid of QAM and dedicate the entire 800-1000mHz spectrum to DOCSIS 4.0 then they'd have more bandwidth than anyone would ever need. Maybe fiber is easier to maintain but I'm not sure that offsets the initial investment when they already have a working system.


They should be able to do 50mbps, but that doesn't materially change anything. And if some are able to get 50mbps, there are a lot that can only get 25mbps or 18mbps or even 12mbps if they're farther from the VRAD.

So that logic makes sense for probably the next decade or so. As long as there's no effective competition, why compete with nothing? However, at some point, your nodes are pushed so far out into the field that it ends up costing more to build and maintain coax with a bunch of active electronics in the field, with it's whole host of problems, than it is to just go to FTTH with some form of PON like EPON. Comcast has already looked at this at small scale, but has only implemented changes over to fiber for some bulk customers, and a couple of neighborhoods used as testbeds.

The MSOs will move to an all-IP, rPHY system, which will put EPON and DOCSIS 4 on a level playing field. The problem is that N+0 and FDX just aren't going to work in a lot of places, or at least won't be economical to make work in those places, so they're going to have a lot of plant either stuck on some sort of split (they could move to 5-85 or 5-200), or they're going to have to move to EPON in those areas. My guess is that it's a hodge-podge that over time moves to EPON FTTH, or something even newer and faster, but it will be a very long and drawn out conversion, with FDX DOCSIS eventually being limited to MDU-type installations with minimal exterior wiring, similar to how G.Fast will work for telcos, but with much easier distance limitations to work with than G.Fast.

I could be wrong though, and we could see areas that don't work for deployment of N+0 FDX just being moved to a rebuilt 5-200 split, which is easy to manage on the same system at a node level once everything is rPHY, and some bulk customers, or buildings with marketing agreements ending up getting the EPON.


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## WVZR1 (Jul 31, 2008)

DeltaOne said:


> I must have enabled the 30 second skip and forgotten about it.
> 
> Interesting about using voice to skip ahead a number of minutes. I'll try it. I've been using voice commands to get to the to do list and recordings, it's faster than pressing buttons on the remote. Voice commands on the X1 work well.


I didn't forget and my XG1V4 did the 30/10 skip with 'no enable' by me!

I don't speak so the the emails I get daily from Xfinity are a 'damn nuisance' regarding the 'VOICE REMOTE'!


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## ajwees41 (May 7, 2006)

slowbiscuit said:


> If it was in the realm of possibility it would have happened when they ditched Tivo VOD last year.
> 
> they didn't ditch cable vod comcast dif cox users still can access vod via tivo
> 
> It ain't happening and at this point I doubt Tivo even cares.


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## wco81 (Dec 28, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> There is a state law in NV that prevents the creation of "muni" providers, so no chance that's coming to my area.
> 
> Competition is a joke. The second biggest company in my area is AT&T. Their best offering is 45Mbps VDSL, and even that's only in some neighborhoods. Everyone elese gets 6Mbps standard DSL. If any company had the money to actually invest in FTTH it's them and they haven't bothered. As for cable companies switching to fiber (I think you were suggesting that) why would they? If they could get rid of QAM and dedicate the entire 800-1000mHz spectrum to DOCSIS 4.0 then they'd have more bandwidth than anyone would ever need. Maybe fiber is easier to maintain but I'm not sure that offsets the initial investment when they already have a working system.


Cable companies have been making money for decades from the same coax going into the home.

It's just amazing that nobody is willing to bite the bullet and invest in FTTH or try to compete for home broadband. It's guaranteed $50-100 a month for the rest of the century.

AT&T Giga is now doing any more deployments, at least in my area. Maybe they're just hooking up new apartment complexes which are big enough? Hard to fathom their strategy.

The big mobile carriers talked up home 5G until last year but even without the pandemic, there was reason to be skeptical.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

wco81 said:


> It's just amazing that nobody is willing to bite the bullet and invest in FTTH


Sounds like a good infrastructure initiative to boost the economy short-term (deployment) and long-term.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> My guess would be that you're over 50. Most younger people have grown up with DVRs or streaming and don't enjoy linear TV at all. They'd rather binge watch a show they picked at random than watch whatever happens to be on TV when they flipped it on. The only people I know that still do that are older than me. (42) Everyone else I know exclusively watches either DVR or streaming content. (mostly streaming)
> 
> I've said this many times, for probably the last 5+ years, but I believe that eventually the cable companies will spin off their TV services as app base OTT service available nationwide and use their infrastructure exclusively to provide internet access. AT&T is already doing this to an extent. Comcast is also kind of doing it with Peacock. The writing is on the wall for linear TV and they're all going to start hedging their bets with OTT services.


I'm in my mid 50's and the last thing I want to watch is live TV. But I've also been time shifting my TV watching since the mid 80's. And in the end I would miss TiVo but I'm already watching a large percentage of content from streaming sources instead of broadcast recordings.

Although this was precipitated by the bad video quality that FiOS has now. And I'm sure that FiOS would love for me to drop their TV service. Since then my price would either stay the same or go up. Either way it would mean more profit for Verizon.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

You do realize you're replying to someone who's predictions have been as correct as a carnival psychic. 

Sent from my Surface Duo using Tapatalk


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

wco81 said:


> It's just amazing that nobody is willing to bite the bullet and invest in FTTH or try to compete for home broadband. It's guaranteed $50-100 a month for the rest of the century.


Yeah Google and Verizon should build out FTTH. Oh wait they did and they largely if not completely abandoned the effort. 

It also isn't a matter of how much revenue you can get from the customer, it's a matter of return on investment. And one problem with being the 2nd broadband provider is you basically cut the economics in half compared to what the cable company had if they were the only provider. YOur same investment is likely to gravitate towards having half the customers (revenue) with 2 providers than it would if you were the only game in town.


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## wco81 (Dec 28, 2001)

krkaufman said:


> Sounds like a good infrastructure initiative to boost the economy short-term (deployment) and long-term.


Except there are telecom lobbyists all over Capitol Hill.

They would squash any efforts to bring competition of any kind.


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## wco81 (Dec 28, 2001)

trip1eX said:


> Yeah Google and Verizon should build out FTTH. Oh wait they did and they largely if not completely abandoned the effort.
> 
> It also isn't a matter of how much revenue you can get from the customer, it's a matter of return on investment. And one problem with being the 2nd broadband provider is you basically cut the economics in half compared to what the cable company had if they were the only provider. YOur same investment is likely to gravitate towards having half the customers (revenue) with 2 providers than it would if you were the only game in town.


I thought a truck roll would be like $1000 per house. Or maybe it never got that low.

I would pay for installation around that amount.

In the case of Google, they got worn down fighting AT&T and the others city by city.

In the case of Verizon, they cherry-picked what they thought were the most favorable zip codes but they also made sure to stay in their ILEC markets, not try for instance to go into the AT&T or other RBOC markets.

Silicon Valley and Bay Area are really poorly served as far as FTTH competition. Why is that? Because they'd have a captive market out here. People would never give up FTTH service. So it can't be that they wouldn't have perpetual revenue streams.

I think they figured out, especially in the case of AT&T, that they could get $50-70 a month with Uverse vs. $70-100 for FTTH but they didn't have to spend a lot on the latter. So they're content to just sell Uverse rather than go through getting right of ways, possibly getting into disputes, etc.

Of course they rather blow their money on DirecTV instead.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

dbpaddler said:


> You do realize you're replying to someone who's predictions have been as correct as a carnival psychic.


Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

trip1eX said:


> Yeah Google and Verizon should build out FTTH. Oh wait they did and they largely if not completely abandoned the effort.


Google isn't a telco, and Verizon got about 65% done with FiOS when they kicked out the visionary Ivan Seidenberg and replaced him with the imbeciles McWireless and Shamwow.

The problem is Wall Street insisting on instant returns on everything, and acting like a bunch of petulant two year olds. Telcos should be investing on a 30-year time horizon, not a 3-month time horizon. Verizon's FiOS was completely paid for in 11 years, financially performing extremely well for telecom investment.


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## CommunityMember (May 22, 2020)

krkaufman said:


> Sounds like a good infrastructure initiative to boost the economy short-term (deployment) and long-term.


Based on industry construction numbers, just get every single residence in your community (or others willing to pony up for those that don't want to pay(*)) the $1500 for the construction costs to pass the residence (another $500-1000 for an actual install, and then there are actual service charges of course to pay for the pole rental, and infrastructure maintenance, etc.) and someone will likely be glad to take the money and do the build. Talk is cheap, but construction is not. If you really believe that this is a good thing to do in your location you should start a petition to put it on your communities ballot to pay for it all.

Note also that that $1500/passing is where construction and permitting is not excessive (generally considered medium density single family homes with aerial infrastructure and existing pole rights in average cost construction locations). While it can be less, it can also easily be a lot more. I believe the San Francisco CA estimate to wire the entire city was much more expensive (which surprised no one who understands the costs of such work in San Francisco(**)), AND it required a mandatory FTTx subscription for every resident and business to keep it from losing money going forward making it a city monopoly (pay me now, *and* pay me later). So step one is actually to get a real world estimate for your location. Many locations have done the initial analysis, and except for a very few locations the voters have chosen not to increase their taxes for the service. But perhaps your location will be different.

As an investment by the incumbent(s), they will slowly get closer to FTTx on their own (Comcast, with their N+0 roll-outs actually have fiber close to many in many medium and higher density locations), but there are a lot of existing locations across the US where it will take decades because of that large construction cost (when you talk about someplace like Iowa you could have houses (farms) miles apart, and that is a lot of construction for one possible subscriber).

And, as always, if FTTx is a critical thing for you, you can move to locations which have it. I hear parts of Kansas City are a nice place to live. And some specific (usually high rent new construction) MDUs may have FTTx even if nothing around them does, or likely will, for quite some time. Same for specific greenfield deployments (but lots of places are not true greenfield even when people think they are).

(*) The construction cost is the same whether anyone subscribes or not.

(**) Amusingly, the company that provided the estimate made a caveat that said the costs would only be as low as their very expensive estimate if the construction processes in the city were changed to be more streamlined and none of the citizens filed objections to any work, and no one actually believed that that could happen in that city (so even more expensive in reality).


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

wco81 said:


> I thought a truck roll would be like $1000 per house. Or maybe it never got that low.
> 
> I would pay for installation around that amount.
> 
> ...


yeah it is funny that they bought DTV for a ton but went the conservative route with Uverse rather than build a FTTH network. But to be fair at least DTV throws off cash every year. A FTTH network would have been eating cash for a long time.

And again regarding the cost per home to build a competing fiber network, the problem is the cost per home essentially doubles given there is already a competitor in place. You would have to expect to be lucky to get 50% of homes. And then on top of it, it takes awhile to add customers. You don't pass a thousand homes and then the next day you're earning revenue from 50% of those 1000 homes you passed. It probably takes many years to get up to that level of penetration.

I think Google and VZ stopped building out so much to concentrate on filling up their networks. Of course VZ hit the low hanging fruit first. Google did too. Everyone does that. And btw Google probably also got into the fiber business as much to light a fire under the cable and telecom companies as much as anything.

The other problem about investing in Fiber especially 10-15 years ago was the fear some tech would come along and change the economics. And now 5g is a threat. That could have a big effect on the economics of FTTH going forward. Musk's satellite internet network and I don't know much about it, but if some of the promises are true that could change the economics of fiber in some areas. Also some wanted the costs to pass a home with fiber to come down first. I've read articles that said passing each home with fiber has gotten cheaper over time.

AS someone else said, I think the bay area is probably a nightmare to lay a fiber network. In the end I just don't think it is that easy to make $$$$ otherwise you'd have more people in the space.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

CommunityMember said:


> Talk is cheap, but construction is not. If you really believe that this is a good thing to do in your location you should start a petition to put it on your communities ballot to pay for it all.


So this is an issue of short-term verses medium-term thinking. In the short term, yes, fiber is really expensive to build. But once you build it, it's entirely passive from the CO to customer in most cases, and in order to upgrade from BPON to GPON, GPON to XG-PON, and XG-PON to NG-PON2, all you need to do is swap out electronics at the two ends. On top of that, the maintenance on copper is outrageous, fiber is much cheaper to maintain, and while gas might be cheap right now, the trucks and the skilled union labor to maintain those lines is most certainly not.



> Note also that that $1500/passing is where construction and permitting is not excessive (generally considered medium density single family homes with aerial infrastructure and existing pole rights in average cost construction locations). While it can be less, it can also easily be a lot more.


So it can cost more, but it's still feasible to do. Verizon has wired much of New York City, and co-ops like ECFiber have wired parts of rural Vermont (with more parts to be wired by another co-op soon) with extremely low densities. AT&T and Verizon have both done tons of suburban areas, but above ground and underground. Probably the worst case scenario for fiber is low-density where cable already exists. Although the densities are higher than where the fiber co-ops are installing in Vermont, those co-ops will have a monopoly over much of their territory (there is some overlap with Comcast near towns where there are more customers), and can charge around $100/mo for a 100mbps symmetrical connection.



> As an investment by the incumbent(s), they will slowly get closer to FTTx on their own (Comcast, with their N+0 roll-outs actually have fiber close to many in many medium and higher density locations), but there are a lot of existing locations across the US where it will take decades because of that large construction cost (when you talk about someplace like Iowa you could have houses (farms) miles apart, and that is a lot of construction for one possible subscriber).


Cable has less need to go to FTTH, since they have coax that currently can carry around 6gbps, and will move towards 10gbps, versus telcos where they're lucky to get 100mbps at very short distances. FTTH can be done in very rural areas. While the distances can be long, the costs to do work out there are relatively low, and you generally have long, straight runs on poles that are easily accessible.

The lack of fiber is a policy problem, plain and simple. There is no technical reason why any dwelling in the United States that is connected to the power grid cannot be connected to an FTTH connection.



trip1eX said:


> yeah it is funny that they bought DTV for a ton but went the conservative route with Uverse rather than build a FTTH network. But to be fair at least DTV throws off cash every year. A FTTH network would have been eating cash for a long time.


FTTH would have been a MUCH better investment. FTTH is a growth business, DTV is dying.



> And again regarding the cost per home to build a competing fiber network, the problem is the cost per home essentially doubles given there is already a competitor in place. You would have to expect to be lucky to get 50% of homes. And then on top of it, it takes awhile to add customers. You don't pass a thousand homes and then the next day you're earning revenue from 50% of those 1000 homes you passed. It probably takes many years to get up to that level of penetration.


In denser suburban areas, it is profitable to have 3 providers, i.e. Verizon, Comcast, and RCN in Eastern Massachusetts. In lower density suburban, it is profitable to have two. In rural, it's really only profitable to have one. The toughest areas are the exurban/rural where cable is already present. In areas without cable, it's much easier for fiber, as they will have a monopoly as soon as they come to town.



> I think Google and VZ stopped building out so much to concentrate on filling up their networks. Of course VZ hit the low hanging fruit first. Google did too. Everyone does that. And btw Google probably also got into the fiber business as much to light a fire under the cable and telecom companies as much as anything.


VZ was intent on doing a 100% replacement of copper with fiber under Seidenberg until they squeezed him out and brought in the imbeciles. Google was never that serious, they're not a telco. Verizon built FiOS as a telco, with a telco mentality. Although they stopped bringing FiOS to new towns over a decade ago, they have continued to fill in the gaps within existing towns, and they are now decommissioning the copper lines in those areas in order to reduce costs. This should have been the goal for 100% of ILECs in 100% of places in the US. I know two people who got FiOS after they "stopped" expanding it because they were in UG neighborhoods served by COs that had FiOS.



> The other problem about investing in Fiber especially 10-15 years ago was the fear some tech would come along and change the economics. And now 5g is a threat. That could have a big effect on the economics of FTTH going forward. Musk's satellite internet network and I don't know much about it, but if some of the promises are true that could change the economics of fiber in some areas. Also some wanted the costs to pass a home with fiber to come down first. I've read articles that said passing each home with fiber has gotten cheaper over time.


Everyone keeps saying that wireless this or wireless that is going to happen, but it's never going to be as good as wired. Yes, 5G will serve some subset of the customer base, and be extremely profitable for the wireless providers, but that's not going to magically negate the need for wired home internet. If these companies had done the right thing and committed to 100% FTTH in the early 2000's, the systems would all be built, many of them would already be paid off, and they would have an absolute cash cow on their hands.



> AS someone else said, I think the bay area is probably a nightmare to lay a fiber network. In the end I just don't think it is that easy to make $$$$ otherwise you'd have more people in the space.


It's not that the actual costs are that high, it's that the incumbent telcos have thrown up as many roadblocks as they can to actual competition, in some areas, that works. AT&T knows that if Sonic could wire everywhere easily with fiber, then they'd lose customers on creaky U-Verse copper lines.


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

wco81 said:


> Except there are telecom lobbyists all over Capitol Hill.
> 
> They would squash any efforts to bring competition of any kind.


How is it real competition to take taxpayer money and build a system to compete infrastructure that was privately funded?


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## wco81 (Dec 28, 2001)

There's no competition now.

What are you referring to, taxpayer money for what?


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

UCLABB said:


> How is it real competition to take taxpayer money and build a system to compete infrastructure that was privately funded?


"'What is the TVA?', Alex."


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

I'll take Boring Conversations for $600.

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## ncbill (Sep 1, 2007)

Maybe we should have a poll.

Anyone else halfway expecting an email later this year from their cable TV provider stating something to the effect of "we're discontinuing Cablecard & tuning adapter service as of 12/31/2021?"


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

ncbill said:


> Maybe we should have a poll.
> 
> Anyone else halfway expecting an email later this year from their cable TV provider stating something to the effect of "we're discontinuing Cablecard & tuning adapter service as of 12/31/2021?"


No, because there are about 50 million CableCAARD boxes out there supplied by cablecos too. I think we've got five years or more.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

ncbill said:


> Maybe we should have a poll.
> 
> Anyone else halfway expecting an email later this year from their cable TV provider stating something to the effect of "we're discontinuing Cablecard & tuning adapter service as of 12/31/2021?"


nah they wouldn't give that much warning.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

ncbill said:


> Maybe we should have a poll.
> 
> Anyone else halfway expecting an email later this year from their cable TV provider stating something to the effect of "we're discontinuing Cablecard & tuning adapter service as of 12/31/2021?"


I feel like they'll get lost in the system somewhere and if you try to change anything, your whole plan will explode, and no one one will have any clue what's going on.


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

krkaufman said:


> "'What is the TVA?', Alex."


Were there already perfectly functional power facilities, navigational facilities, flood control facilities in the area? That's far from an apt analogy. What I questioned was using taxpayer money to construct a directly competing system. Want to play fair? Just buy the private system out and then set a lower price if that's what's desired.


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## ManeJon (Apr 14, 2018)

I don't think they'll drop cable cards because that would cause many people to drop the cable carriers entirely and go to streaming only. And there is no way they have the staff and resources to replace every TIVO type box very quickly The DVR that I can get through my carrier is so inferior that I'd probably do something completely different. Obviously, I don't know exactly what will happen but I doubt drop will happen that soon. But time will tell


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

ManeJon said:


> I don't think they'll drop cable cards because that would cause many people to drop the cable carriers entirely and go to streaming only. And there is no way they have the staff and resources to replace every TIVO type box very quickly The DVR that I can get through my carrier is so inferior that I'd probably do something completely different. Obviously, I don't know exactly what will happen but I doubt drop will happen that soon. But time will tell


I wish that were the case. But I read a statistic that Spectrum, for example, has 40,000 cable card customers out of 26 million. That's 1/10th of 1%. They could easily supply DVRs for all of them and wouldn't even notice if they left. And when they did leave, they'd just raise their internet price to make up the difference. So I don't think cable companies care at all about that tiny number of customers and are ecstatic to finally be rid of cable cards, something they've been trying to do since it was first mandated.

I don't think current cable card customers will be impacted for a while. But it's going to be much more difficult, if not impossible, for new customers to get a card a few months from now.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

I got a survey from Comcast about modem/routers which gives some insight in what they are planning to do.

One of the questions asked was would you rent a modem/router from Comcast for $14 a month with no charge for any in-home service visits or use your own modem and router, but any in-home service visit would charge $75 per visit. 

They could do something similar with cable cards which would be pretty horrible as one year I had a tech out every other week for an “in-home” visit despite the problem being outside.


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## wco81 (Dec 28, 2001)

$14 a month, what a joke.

You can get a good DOCSIS 3.0 modem for about $70-80 and a 3.1 for maybe $150?


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

morac said:


> I got a survey from Comcast about modem/routers which gives some insight in what they are planning to do.
> 
> One of the questions asked was would you rent a modem/router from Comcast for $14 a month with no charge for any in-home service visits or use your own modem and router, but any in-home service visit would charge $75 per visit.
> 
> They could do something similar with cable cards which would be pretty horrible as one year I had a tech out every other week for an "in-home" visit despite the problem being outside.


So by that they're trying to point out that rentals subsidize their service staff? I'd tell them if those were my two options I'd choose another company. What if the service call was due to something that was caused by their side of things? You want to charge me for someone to come out and take care of an issue on your end just because I own my modem?

That is rather vague though. Do they mean if there is a service issue because of the cable modem you own, they will charge you to have someone come out? Or is any problem, even if it's on their end, they'll charge you for the visit?

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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

mdavej said:


> I read a statistic that Spectrum, for example, has 40,000 cable card customers out of 26 million.


I suspect that's just CableCARDs for non-Spectrum boxes, and they also still have to support millions of legacy Spectrum-supplied CableCARD boxes that they'll allow to die off over time. The report I read said there were over 50 million such legacy cableco CableCARD boxes out there.


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## millst (Mar 9, 2001)

I did manage to go to the AZ Cox store and get a cablecard today so looks like we haven't quite gone off the cliff yet. Might be in for a disappointment soon, but I'm sick of the bugs in YouTube TV. Plus, they keep jacking up the price (wasn't even saving money anymore).


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## chiguy50 (Nov 9, 2009)

wco81 said:


> $14 a month, what a joke.
> 
> You can get a good DOCSIS 3.0 modem for about $70-80 and a 3.1 for maybe $150?


There are arguments on both sides of the issue. For example, I have $352 invested in the gear that replaced my previous Comcast XB6 gateway (Netgear CM1000 modem, Netgear R7800 router, and Actiontec Bonded MoCA 2.0 Adapter), not to mention the $111 upgrade for an Actiontec MoCA 2.0 Extender. While I have more than amortized 100% of these costs in the two years since their purchase--and despite the fact that the typical third-party purchase would undoubtedly be much lower-end--I think most Comcast customers are more comfortable, and are inured to, getting their digital reception equipment via rental from the provider. If anything goes wrong, Comcast provides the support free of charge. And you can always return or swap out the item for something else as you please.

BTW, the true rental cost is $14 plus sales tax in most states, so more like $15+ p.m.


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## chiguy50 (Nov 9, 2009)

morac said:


> I got a survey from Comcast about modem/routers which gives some insight in what they are planning to do.
> 
> One of the questions asked was would you rent a modem/router from Comcast for $14 a month with no charge for any in-home service visits or use your own modem and router, but any in-home service visit would charge $75 per visit.
> 
> They could do something similar with cable cards which would be pretty horrible as one year I had a tech out every other week for an "in-home" visit despite the problem being outside.





dbpaddler said:


> So by that they're trying to point out that rentals subsidize their service staff? I'd tell them if those were my two options I'd choose another company. What if the service call was due to something that was caused by their side of things? You want to charge me for someone to come out and take care of an issue on your end just because I own my modem?
> 
> That is rather vague though. Do they mean if there is a service issue because of the cable modem you own, they will charge you to have someone come out? Or is any problem, even if it's on their end, they'll charge you for the visit?


I completed that same survey.

I can only guess at the intention behind the survey questions, but in point of fact Comcast's policy has always been that they are not responsible for support--to include maintenance or trouble-shooting--of any customer-owned equipment, and that includes not just a third-party modem/router or DVR but also the residential coaxial cable wiring and in-wall connectors in most cases.

Of course, the CableCARD is owned by Comcast ("Customer Provided Equipment" or CPE) and is thus Comcast's support responsibility so long as the issue is inherent in the CableCARD and not due to a fault or incompatibility in the device to which it has been paired.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

chiguy50 said:


> I completed that same survey.
> 
> I can only guess at the intention behind the survey questions, but in point of fact Comcast's policy has always been that they are not responsible for support--to include maintenance or trouble-shooting--of any customer-owned equipment, and that includes not just a third-party modem/router or DVR but also the residential coaxial cable wiring and in-wall connectors in most cases.
> 
> Of course, the CableCARD is owned by Comcast ("Customer Provided Equipment" or CPE) and is thus Comcast's support responsibility so long as the issue is inherent in the CableCARD and not due to a fault or incompatibility in the device to which it has been paired.


But my point was, will they charge you to come out if the problem is with their side of things? Wiring from house to pole or if you have their cable box?

And then, will they do everything they can, including lie, to place the blame on your side of things, knowing you have owned equipment and opted to pay for service calls?

Thats the question.

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## mattyro7878 (Nov 27, 2014)

Bigg said:


> I'm not convinced that the major MSOs will turn into vMVPDs, but they may offer their MVPD services as a white label to smaller MSOs.


Or the day may come when even though you are offered linear qam and want to use your Tivo to watch it, so many channels will be missing we will cave and rent their box!


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dbpaddler said:


> So by that they're trying to point out that rentals subsidize their service staff? I'd tell them if those were my two options I'd choose another company.


WHAT other company? Most of their customers are captive. That's why they get to abuse them so badly. If they have fiber available, they'd be on that in the first place.



> What if the service call was due to something that was caused by their side of things? You want to charge me for someone to come out and take care of an issue on your end just because I own my modem?
> 
> That is rather vague though. Do they mean if there is a service issue because of the cable modem you own, they will charge you to have someone come out? Or is any problem, even if it's on their end, they'll charge you for the visit?


In 2013, I had a modem that was performing very poorly, it turns out Comcast broke it with a bad firmware update. After two truck rolls, we swapped out the modem and it worked fine. I had to end up buying another modem, although the broken one got a firmware update fixing it later. ARGH.



chiguy50 said:


> There are arguments on both sides of the issue. For example, I have $352 invested in the gear that replaced my previous Comcast XB6 gateway (Netgear CM1000 modem, Netgear R7800 router, and Actiontec Bonded MoCA 2.0 Adapter), not to mention the $111 upgrade for an Actiontec MoCA 2.0 Extender. While I have more than amortized 100% of these costs in the two years since their purchase--and despite the fact that the typical third-party purchase would undoubtedly be much lower-end--I think most Comcast customers are more comfortable, and are inured to, getting their digital reception equipment via rental from the provider. If anything goes wrong, Comcast provides the support free of charge. And you can always return or swap out the item for something else as you please.
> 
> BTW, the true rental cost is $14 plus sales tax in most states, so more like $15+ p.m.


That's not really apples to apples. You've got a bunch of really high end gear plus MoCA that 99% of users don't need. Plus, even if the gateway were free, I wouldn't use one, as it gives Comcast access to my network, Comcast controls the firmware on the router, the service should demarcate with a DOCSIS connection and an IP address. The ISP shouldn't be providing DNS, much less DOCSIS hardware much less a router or wireless access point for the customer's network.

What I have now, and want to remain using in the future is one cable coming in, going to one modem that I own, I get my DOCSIS signal and IP from the ISP, everything else I provide. I'll have to upgrade my 8x4 modem to DOCSIS 3.1 when I move to a Comcast area and get faster service (depending on what is on promo at that point in time).


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## Pokemon_Dad (Jan 19, 2008)

morac said:


> one year I had a tech out every other week for an "in-home" visit despite the problem being outside.


I hope they credited you for those in-home visits. I went through something similar once, three "home tech" visits and two "network" crew visits, before they found the problem outside on a pole somewhere. In the end did not have to pay for any of it.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Bigg said:


> WHAT other company? Most of their customers are captive. That's why they get to abuse them so badly. If they have fiber available, they'd be on that in the first place.


Well for those that do have choice. And the other choice is to go internet only with them and get an iptv service. That at least limits things on their end that can be problematic. There are always options.

And would they have fiber if it were more expensive? In Philly, fios nickels and dimes you. Every advertised deal is a solid 25-30% more expensive on the actual bill. All for fiber? Sorry no.

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## ManeJon (Apr 14, 2018)

If my cable company - Spectrum in Maine - offered similar to what TIVO offers I'd go to it probably. Although they are working on and I guess rolling out a cloud based DVR currently the only thing they offer is 2 tuner and no whole home. That just doesn't work for us. Most people aren't like us and they will do what the cable companies want them to do. Time will tell


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dbpaddler said:


> Well for those that do have choice. And the other choice is to go internet only with them and get an iptv service. That at least limits things on their end that can be problematic. There are always options.


Not for internet. And if you had fiber available, you'd probably already be on fiber.



> And would they have fiber if it were more expensive? In Philly, fios nickels and dimes you. Every advertised deal is a solid 25-30% more expensive on the actual bill. All for fiber? Sorry no.


FiOS is far superior to cable, so yes.


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## mlsnyc (Dec 3, 2009)

dbpaddler said:


> In Philly, fios nickels and dimes you. Every advertised deal is a solid 25-30% more expensive on the actual bill.


I thought FiOS's Mix-and-Match is national, but maybe not. Here in NYC, the price is the price. It's $99 for TV.... not: it's advertised as $99 but you'll really pay $124-$129 because of the $25-$30 in fees.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Yes it's super expensive. My current bill of $91 after taxes, fees, and cable card. For Gigabit INternet, phone service, and Custom Tv would go up to around $160.

My two years are up in December. But it will go up only $5 after that for year three. And i though the last time i was on the site it looked like they extended that price for me out further than the three years mark.


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## tim1724 (Jul 3, 2007)

Bigg said:


> Although they stopped bringing FiOS to new towns over a decade ago, they have continued to fill in the gaps within existing towns, and they are now decommissioning the copper lines in those areas in order to reduce costs.


Well, they're doing this in what's left of their service area. Verizon has been selling both copper and fiber infrastructure across huge swaths of the country (HI in 2005, ME/NH/VT in 2007, WA/OR/ID/NV/AZ/WI/IL/IN/MI/OH/WV/NC/SC in 2009 and CA/TX/FL in 2016) and as a result it functions only a cellular company now in most of the US. Most of their remaining fiber/copper operations are in the northeast.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

tim1724 said:


> Well, they're doing this in what's left of their service area. Verizon has been selling both copper and fiber infrastructure across huge swaths of the country (HI in 2005, ME/NH/VT in 2007, WA/OR/ID/NV/AZ/WI/IL/IN/MI/OH/WV/NC/SC in 2009 and CA/TX/FL in 2016) and as a result it functions only a cellular company now in most of the US. Most of their remaining fiber/copper operations are in the northeast.


True. I don't know how the numbers shake out, but I believe they kept the majority of their territory by homes passed, due to the sheer density of NYC, Philly, Boston, and DC metro areas. It's sad that they weren't able to buy CT many years back, it would fit perfectly in their area.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

FiOS is also forcing many people onto Fiber. My parents neighborhood got forced to Fiber earlier this year. Since they were retiring the copper plant in their area.
Although they only have it for phone service. They still get internet and TV from Comcast. I can't get them to switch everything to FiOS or Comcast and save a bunch of money. They want to keep everything split up and pay a crazy high $375 each month for those three services. Even though they could cut their bill by $150 to $175 by getting everything from either Comcast or FiOS.


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## chiguy50 (Nov 9, 2009)

dbpaddler said:


> But my point was, will they charge you to come out if the problem is with their side of things? Wiring from house to pole or if you have their cable box?


In principle, no, you should not be charged for faults in Comcast-owned equipment or systems according to their corporate policies. HST, there can be grey areas regarding interoperability issues and demarcating where the one side leaves off and the other side starts. And there is the customary caveat concerning faults that can be ascribed to customer or third-party intervention (e.g., if your landscaper cuts the coaxial feed into the house, you could be charged a fee for the repairs).



dbpaddler said:


> And then, will they do everything they can, including lie, to place the blame on your side of things, knowing you have owned equipment and opted to pay for service calls?
> 
> Thats the question.


No one can answer with certainty what Comcast's policies will be going forward, and at any rate they will always be subject to change. But based on past behavior I would expect them to honor their published support policies while continuing to push for the largest possible penetration of the X1 ecosystem.

Individual CSR's may give unreliable information, but I myself have never been lied to by a Comcast rep. I've certainly encountered plenty of misinformed or under-informed CSR's and been given the usual self-serving sales pitches (as always, _caveat emptor_), but I would not equate those shortfalls with an attempt to swindle the customer. Of course, you have to do your own research and be prepared to stick up for yourself if you want to avoid being taken advantage of by a retailer.


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## chiguy50 (Nov 9, 2009)

Bigg said:


> That's not really apples to apples. You've got a bunch of really high end gear plus MoCA that 99% of users don't need. Plus, even if the gateway were free, I wouldn't use one, as it gives Comcast access to my network, Comcast controls the firmware on the router, the service should demarcate with a DOCSIS connection and an IP address. The ISP shouldn't be providing DNS, much less DOCSIS hardware much less a router or wireless access point for the customer's network.
> 
> What I have now, and want to remain using in the future is one cable coming in, going to one modem that I own, I get my DOCSIS signal and IP from the ISP, everything else I provide. I'll have to upgrade my 8x4 modem to DOCSIS 3.1 when I move to a Comcast area and get faster service (depending on what is on promo at that point in time).


Like me, your expectations and requirements are not typical. I still think that the average Comcast HSI/CATV customer is more comfortable renting their gear.

I only rented their gateways at first (the DPC-3941T and then the XB6) because I was not sure that I would stick with their HSI service long enough to warrant purchasing my own equipment. But while I had them, I found the Comcast gateways perfectly adequate for my needs.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

chiguy50 said:


> Like me, your expectations and requirements are not typical. I still think that the average Comcast HSI/CATV customer is more comfortable renting their gear.
> 
> I only rented their gateways at first (the DPC-3941T and then the XB6) because I was not sure that I would stick with their HSI service long enough to warrant purchasing my own equipment. But while I had them, I found the Comcast gateways perfectly adequate for my needs.


The problem is, half of the customers don't have a clue what they're even renting or buying. There's really no good reason why an ISP should be used for DNS, much less for a modem, much less for a router and Wi-Fi APs.

A Comcast gateway would probably do what I need, but fundamentally, why should I pay them more for something that they control, when I can get something much cheaper that I own and I control? And I believe their gateway forces you into using their DNS as well? Why would a customer want to use Comcast DNS, now that we have quad 1, quad 8, and quad 9 as options? I use quad 9 as my primary, quad 1 as my backup for DNS.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Bigg said:


> The problem is, half of the customers don't have a clue what they're even renting or buying. There's really no good reason why an ISP should be used for DNS, much less for a modem, much less for a router and Wi-Fi APs.
> 
> A Comcast gateway would probably do what I need, but fundamentally, why should I pay them more for something that they control, when I can get something much cheaper that I own and I control? And I believe their gateway forces you into using their DNS as well? Why would a customer want to use Comcast DNS, now that we have quad 1, quad 8, and quad 9 as options? I use quad 9 as my primary, quad 1 as my backup for DNS.


Most people don't want to learn how to manage a router/wifi AP. The vast majority of people wouldn't even know what DNS was if you asked them. They want their home wifi to work the same way as their cellular service. They want to turn on their phone, tablet or Roku and have it just work. And they're willing to rent a box and allow someone else to manage it to make that happen. (unfortunately that's not the reality of what renting a wifi AP gets you, but that's it ultimate goal)


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## chiguy50 (Nov 9, 2009)

Dan203 said:


> Most people don't want to learn how to manage a router/wifi AP. The vast majority of people wouldn't even know what DNS was if you asked them. They want their home wifi to work the same way as their cellular service. They want to turn on their phone, tablet or Roku and have it just work. And they're willing to rent a box and allow someone else to manage it to make that happen. (unfortunately that's not the reality of what renting a wifi AP gets you, but that's it ultimate goal)


I agree 100%, and I find no fault with those who make that choice for whatever reason. To each his own. But from a purely economical perspective, it makes no sense to rent if you anticipate a usage window of two years or more (conservatively speaking, and in most cases it will be much shorter). Even the small risk of equipment failure outside of warranty coverage is unlikely to apply during this period, particularly if the purchase is made with a credit card that provides free extended warranty service.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Most people seem to have no problem paying hundreds or thousands in rental fees over the years. For routers and STBs. I don't get it but people obviously don't mind spending all that money.


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## zalusky (Apr 5, 2002)

aaronwt said:


> Most people seem to have no problem paying hundreds or thousands in rental fees over the years. For routers and STBs. I don't get it but people obviously don't mind spending all that money.


I assume they rent because it is too technical for them and they want the assurance of somebody to call. As we know Xfinity likes to make it difficult when you own it.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> Most people don't want to learn how to manage a router/wifi AP. The vast majority of people wouldn't even know what DNS was if you asked them. They want their home wifi to work the same way as their cellular service. They want to turn on their phone, tablet or Roku and have it just work. And they're willing to rent a box and allow someone else to manage it to make that happen. (unfortunately that's not the reality of what renting a wifi AP gets you, but that's it ultimate goal)


This stuff isn't rocket science. Routers are quite easy to use unless you want to really delve into the weeds, and those are available too. Most people have managed routers, because at one point, cable companies didn't offer their own routers.



aaronwt said:


> Most people seem to have no problem paying hundreds or thousands in rental fees over the years. For routers and STBs. I don't get it but people obviously don't mind spending all that money.


The same reason people buy $50k trucks with loans and do all sorts of other dumb things with money.


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## chiguy50 (Nov 9, 2009)

Bigg said:


> This stuff isn't rocket science. Routers are quite easy to use unless you want to really delve into the weeds, and those are available too. Most people have managed routers, because at one point, cable companies didn't offer their own routers.


Maybe it's not rocket science to you and many of us on these fora, but most folks are unwilling to take on networking management (even though we know that most of the actual management is automated with the user simply selecting a few basic settings).

Remember that, even back when things were much less complex, it was common to walk into a friend's house and see this:


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yeah I'm the only reason anyone in my family has functioning internet.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Bigg said:


> Not for internet. And if you had fiber available, you'd probably already be on fiber.
> 
> FiOS is far superior to cable, so yes.


Eh... As long as my streaming is glitch free, and I don't feel like I'm bottlenecking anywhere on my devices, I go with cheaper as most others do. Here in Philly, fios is everywhere. And yet Comcast manages to stay in business. Go figure.

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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

chiguy50 said:


> Maybe it's not rocket science to you and many of us on these fora, but most folks are unwilling to take on networking management (even though we know that most of the actual management is automated with the user simply selecting a few basic settings).


It's fairly easy to Google stuff or RTFM. I learned it somehow too back in the day. The manuals make it quite easy to set up your SSID, password, management password, wireless channel, DNS, etc.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

mlsnyc said:


> I thought FiOS's Mix-and-Match is national, but maybe not. Here in NYC, the price is the price. It's $99 for TV.... not: it's advertised as $99 but you'll really pay $124-$129 because of the $25-$30 in fees.


You don't even get the first cable card for free even if you're not using any of their equipment. Comcast gives you the first card free, at least in the Philly region.

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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dbpaddler said:


> Eh... As long as my streaming is glitch free, and I don't feel like I'm bottlenecking anywhere on my devices, I go with cheaper as most others do. Here in Philly, fios is everywhere. And yet Comcast manages to stay in business. Go figure.


Until you try to upload. But it is good that there are some people on inferior cable connections to keep the competition alive.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Bigg said:


> Until you try to upload. But it is good that there are some people on inferior cable connections to keep the competition alive.


Again, I didn't have issues on Comcast. And what are you uploading on a normal basis that is an issue? I didn't have any issues sending attachments on emails and syncing to cloud storage. I'm not uploading 4k movies anywhere. And whenever I send technique vids and such for work I send them a link from cloud storage and let them download it. In general, upload speeds are overrated. They're great for marketing, but otherwise, fast enough is generically good enough.

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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Bigg said:


> It's fairly easy to Google stuff or RTFM. I learned it somehow too back in the day. The manuals make it quite easy to set up your SSID, password, management password, wireless channel, DNS, etc.


Yeah but still when I pull up the wifi list on my iPad I see 3 distinct Charter APs , 2 AT&T ones, and just one Linksys. (aside from my own and my Sister's which have distinct SSIDs)


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dbpaddler said:


> Again, I didn't have issues on Comcast. And what are you uploading on a normal basis that is an issue? I didn't have any issues sending attachments on emails and syncing to cloud storage. I'm not uploading 4k movies anywhere. And whenever I send technique vids and such for work I send them a link from cloud storage and let them download it. In general, upload speeds are overrated. They're great for marketing, but otherwise, fast enough is generically good enough.


Sending stuff on Dropbox, YouTube uploads, online backup. It's not that often, but it would be nice to have at least 100mbps upload, if not more.



Dan203 said:


> Yeah but still when I pull up the wifi list on my iPad I see 3 distinct Charter APs , 2 AT&T ones, and just one Linksys. (aside from my own and my Sister's which have distinct SSIDs)


People have been sold this crappy provider Wi-Fi, instead of doing their own.


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## Sam Ray (Jul 30, 2012)

NashGuy said:


> Per FCC filing of 9/4/20:
> _"We...eliminate outdated CableCARD support and reporting requirements."_


Page 8 of the report says _We agree and further find that competitive market forces should incentivize cable operators to continue to support retail CableCARD devices_ and page 9 says _we expect that cable operators will make every effort to retain subscribers by continuing to support retail CableCARD devices, even in the absence of the CableCARD support rules_.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

Sam Ray said:


> Page 8 of the report says _We agree and further find that competitive market forces should incentivize cable operators to continue to support retail CableCARD devices_ and page 9 says _we expect that cable operators will make every effort to retain subscribers by continuing to support retail CableCARD devices, even in the absence of the CableCARD support rules_.


So? They would need to insert such language, given their position. (I'm assuming we can skip the obvious Roberts/VRA analogy, given current legislation on the table across the nation.)


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Sam Ray said:


> Page 8 of the report says _We agree and further find that competitive market forces should incentivize cable operators to continue to support retail CableCARD devices_ and page 9 says _we expect that cable operators will make every effort to retain subscribers by continuing to support retail CableCARD devices, even in the absence of the CableCARD support rules_.


Well that's delusional.


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## dbpaddler (Sep 25, 2004)

Sam Ray said:


> Page 8 of the report says _We agree and further find that competitive market forces should incentivize cable operators to continue to support retail CableCARD devices_ and page 9 says _we expect that cable operators will make every effort to shed subscribers by discontinuing to support retail CableCARD devices in the absence of the CableCARD support rules_.


Fixed it for you. No charge. 

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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Sam Ray said:


> Page 8 of the report says _We agree and further find that competitive market forces should incentivize cable operators to continue to support retail CableCARD devices_ and page 9 says _we expect that cable operators will make every effort to retain subscribers by continuing to support retail CableCARD devices, even in the absence of the CableCARD support rules_.


Good luck with that. Especially as they realize that linear pay TV is a lousy business to be in anyway.


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