Sony to end of Cable boxes?

[ganthc]

Sony Sees End of Cable Boxes - AOL Money & Finance

Apparently Sony has entered into a deal with the top cable companies to do away with the cable boxes we have all come to know. I am just curious how dvr's will be handled? I had a cable card for a while, and I liked it. I am going to get it again for my 42a10 hdtv upstairs.

[limacharliewhiskey]

Originally Posted by ganthc

Sony Sees End of Cable Boxes - AOL Money & Finance

Apparently Sony has entered into a deal with the top cable companies to do away with the cable boxes we have all come to know. I am just curious how dvr's will be handled? I had a cable card for a while, and I liked it. I am going to get it again for my 42a10 hdtv upstairs.

It'll be interesting to see what this means for those of us with current TVs. From what I can tell, they seem to be talking more about the next generation of TVs which will have some sort of cable-compatible device built into the TVs. I don't think there will be a way to get rid of set-top boxes for those of us currently using them with our current TVs.

I think DVRs will still need a separate box. But maybe they can get smaller in physical size. My current STB is pretty big and heavy, compared to all of my other home theater equipment. Only my old-school laserdisc player is as big and heavy as my cable STB.

[dugpa]

I'd be happy if they just updated cable boxes with newer technology. Motorolla hasn't updated the boxes most cable companies use in years. 160mb is way too small for recording much HD content, and given current drive prices there's no good reason not to beef them up. The chips they use in them are still horriblly slow by todays standards.

[Ruined]

Its a shame something like this wasn't done 5 years ago. It will take time for standardization and all the CEs to incorporate it. Meanwhile tons of people will be buying the non-compatible HDTVs for the digital switch over the next 1-2yrs, losing out on this tech.

For the record, CableCard was a joke - many cablecos like Cablevision didn't want it to work and deployed broken & outdated cards on a regular basis. Hopefully this will receive better support.

[ganthc]

Yeah, the thing with cable cards was that they were one-way, so the cable company lost out on money to get you to possibly order payperview items. I think this is a tech that will be more in the future, but I think the cable box is an unnecessary item. Perhaps TVs will come with harddrives to really end the need for set top box.

[dugpa]

Originally Posted by ganthc

Yeah, the thing with cable cards was that they were one-way, so the cable company lost out on money to get you to possibly order payperview items.

Actually, that's a misconception the cable companies would like you to believe. Cablecards have been capable of being two way for years now, as it's only a matter of the hardware on the host device, not the card itself. But the cable companies don't want to support them, and don't have to by law as they do with oneway support. So there are no services that take advantage of two way cabelcard and thus manufacturers don't bother with them in their hardware.

[chlngr1970]

Originally Posted by ganthc

I am just curious how dvr's will be handled? I had a cable card for a while, and I liked it. I am going to get it again for my 42a10 hdtv upstairs.

A while back, LG had a TV wth the DVR built in. It was only for the OTA antenna, but I bet it would be quite easy tech wise to get it to work with the Cable cards, and such. That could be one way to handle it. The big down side I see to that is, if the DVR feature of your TV goes down, you are now without a TV while it is getting repaired.

j

[ganthc]

Originally Posted by chlngr1970

A while back, LG had a TV wth the DVR built in. It was only for the OTA antenna, but I bet it would be quite easy tech wise to get it to work with the Cable cards, and such. That could be one way to handle it. The big down side I see to that is, if the DVR feature of your TV goes down, you are now without a TV while it is getting repaired.

j

Not if they made it a removable part on the TV. It could be simple to have a tray that you could eject that held the harddrive and machinery for the DVR.

[chlngr1970]

Anything is possible, right? It shouldn't be to hard to do, as long as there is access to it...

j