RHFtech Help Desk (and more)

The glacial change from analog TV to all-digital is confusing and maddening for most people. We are whipsawed by a continuing flow of abrupt changes to our decades-old habits. All we want to do is watch television. Is that too much to ask for? Although these changes are announced long before the implementation dates, the proclamations are often ignored due to our overly busy lives. We are inundated with information. Today, there is too much information to absorb much less act upon until we have no choice.

Recent changes to the Cablevision system have a lot people in a dither about needing to add cable boxes to TVs that previously did not need them. Many of these TVs are in spare bedrooms, in playrooms or basements and are infrequently used.

Cablevision wants you to add cable boxes to all your televisions. It is in their interest. Though many of the newly installed cable boxes are free for the first year or two they will eventually result in increases to your monthly cable bill. Cablevision is not interested in providing you with options that do not require a cable box. Cablevision does not want you to switch to the Internet for video. It is harder for them to charge a premium for Internet-delivered shows. They do not want you to think you have choices.

There are alternatives, if you have an HDTV with a built-in QAM tuner.

I recently wrote Do you need a cable box from Cablevision?

• NO, if you have an HDTV with a QAM tuner.
• YES, if you have standard definition TV or an older HDTV without a QAM tuner.

Most HDTVs sold in the last 3-4 years have QAM tuners. They can display the digital over-the-air (OTA) broadcast station signals sent out from Cablevision. These are stations like WCBS HD or WNBC USPORTS, channels 2-1 and 4-4 respectively. I can receive more than 20 of these stations on my HDTV in Weston without a cable box, including Cablevision News 12 Connecticut (105-12). (See Do you need a cable box from Cablevision? for more information.)

This got me thinking,

“What would I add to an HDTV that is connected to Cablevision without a cable box in order to provide a more complete viewing experience?

If the HDTV is Internet-capable, the answer is as simple as connecting it to your Internet connection via Ethernet wire or a WiFi adapter. Most Internet-capable TVs provide connections to Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Video-On-Demand, Blockbuster On Demand, Flickr and a variety of other services.

If you have a Netflix subscription you can watch lots of movies and TV shows streamed over the Internet directly to your HDTV. Similarly, Amazon Video-On-Demand lets you buy or rent the video you want to watch streamed to your television. You may also be able to watch television shows via Hulu. This makes far more economic sense for seldom-watched TVs than paying a monthly fee to rent equipment from Cablevision.

Another alternative if your HDTV is not Internet-capable is an Internet-capable Blu-ray player. Many moderately priced players have Internet features like the HDTVs described above. These players let you watch video and other material from the Internet. They also play Blu-ray, DVD and CD optical discs.

A third alternative is to attach one of the major gaming consoles—the Nintendo Wii, the Microsoft Xbox, or the Sony PlayStation 3—to your HDTV. They all connect to the Internet and deliver video content similar to the alternatives mentioned above. Netflix and other services’ video can be shown using these gaming consoles. The also play optical discs and the PlayStation 3 includes a built-in Blu-ray player.

You might not need a cable box and end up saving money.

Beginning on June 15, 2010 many Cablevision customers were distressed to find they could no longer view TV stations on their televisions without a cable box. I have heard this from clients, friends and on several heated discussions on Facebook.

This is not true.

They now see the message below or something similar if they live in other parts of Cablevision’s territory, when tuning to an old, analog station, like 2 or 7. This message is technically correct yet misinforms Cablevision’s customers, making them think there are no channels they can view without a cable box.

All digital over-the-air (OTA) broadcast channels are unencrypted and available for viewing. These are the familiar New York OTA TV stations—WCBS, WNBC, WNYW, WABC, WWOR, WPIX, WNET and WLIW. Digital channels have numbers like 2-1 or 4-4, rather than the single number analog stations like 2 or 4.

You need an HDTV with a QAM tuner to view these channels. Your older standard definition TVs CANNOT receive digital channels without an intermediary device like a cable box that converts the digital signal to analog. Most HDTVs sold within the last 3 years have built-in QAM tuners. (QAM is an acronym for quadrature amplitude modulation, which is the format used in encoding and transmitting digital cable channels.)

You can tune to the digital OTA channels if you know how. This will vary with the HDTV and remote control. Check your manual for instructions on how to do this. You may be able to have the TV scan automatically for these channels.

You will NOT be able to see analog stations, like 2, 3, 4… or any non-OTA cable channels like CNBC, CNN or A&E, without a cable box.

Below is a partial list of the unencrypted digital OTA channels my HDTV can receive in Weston, CT, without a cable box. Your stations should be similar if not identical. Note that there are some cable-only channels on the list like News 12 and C-SPAN.

It would be surprising if you answered, “No.”  Except for cable company executives, we all feel that our ever-increasing cable or satellite TV bills are too high. However, even the executives understand how customers feel about these rising rates. The content producers, like Disney or Fox, are probably the major force at work causing this inflation. Cablevision tried to hold the line, in two high profile, publicly-reported fights with content producers HGTV/Food Network and ABC/Disney/ESPN.

Before cable and satellite TV
Once upon a time, we paid nothing for TV content. If you grew up before cable and satellite TV, when television shows were only broadcast over-the-air (OTA), you understand. TV stations and networks made their money from selling advertising. OTA still exists in most places but the selection of OTA shows is a small fraction of what cable or satellite TV vendors offer. If you live in outlying parts of major metropolitan areas you may not even get OTA.

No OTA here
Here in Southwestern Connecticut we do not get OTA TV. We are too far to receive the signals from New York City or Hartford, CT and too close to these cities to justify our own TV stations. If you live here and want to watch TV you need to subscribe to cable or satellite. The subscription television alternatives in this part of Connecticut are Cablevision, Comcast or Cox cable (depending upon where you live), DirecTV, Dish TV and AT&T U-verse. Verizon FiOS is available for a small part of Greenwich, CT.

Prices for TV services are similar for these vendors. Competition is the primary reason. Cable companies, AT&T and Verizon offer triple-play package deals, bundling television, phone and Internet services. The pricing for these packages is superior to buying the services à la carte. They also offer packages of TV channels rather than selling them à la carte.

An à  la carte menu?
Many people, including me, would like to buy our TV channels one-by-one rather than having the limited menu of choices. I want premium channels like Cinemax, Showtime, TMC and HBO. I don’t want sports, foreign language or kids channels. Unfortunately, that is not an option. If my family wants to watch TBS, TCM, the History and SyFy channels, we have to pay for Disney, HGTV, ESPN, FOX Sports and many other channels we do not watch. We never watch them but we have to pay for them. It is a tax, only not a government imposed one. We pay to keep sports channel costs low enough so that our sports-loving neighbors can watch beach volleyball along with the myriad professional sports shows. I wish it were otherwise. It is not.

How much does the cable company pay?
Recently a list of 2009 wholesale TV prices was published on the web. It was eye-popping. Did you know that sports channels comprise most of what we pay for each month? In 2009, ESPN charged cable companies $4.08 per month per subscriber, $48.96 a year. FOX Sports charged $2.37 per month. C‑SPAN was a bargain at $0.05.

I used this list to calculate what Cablevision is paying for non-premium cable channels. The SNL Kagan information was incomplete. Cablevision offers non-premium channels that are not on the list. The total monthly cost for the channels I could identify was $23.95 per subscriber.

Separate from deals for new subscribers or triple-play customers, Cablevision charges $55.95 per month for Family Cable, which includes broadcast basic. About half of that subscription price goes to pay ESPN/ABC/Disney, Viacom, FOX, NBC/Universal, and the other content companies. Cable companies also have to maintain substantial plant and equipment, provide customer service at our houses and over the phone, pay employees, pay taxes and make a profit.

Perhaps a better question is, “Why do we pay so much for TV sports channels like ESPN?”

Cablevision rents Scientific-Atlanta DVRs to their Optimum iO cable TV subscribers.

These DVRs have an awful user interface (UI) that make them painful to use. Finding a program to record is usually time-consuming and frustrating. After playing with one of these for a couple of months I went back to my TiVoHD and really appreciated how simple and elegant it is.

Cablevision recently fixed this issue by creating a web-based way for finding and selecting programs to record on iO DVRs. After you log in with your Optimum ID and password you navigate to the iO DVR link on the home page (pictured below).

This takes you to another web page that lets you control your DVR. If you have more than one you can select the one you want to program from the dropdown list on the upper right.

You can delete records, review and change scheduled recordings and select programs to record by using the three tabs at the top. Searching is easy and fast. I was able to find the next new, high-definition showing of NCIS in less than five seconds.

If you prefer to find programs to record by reviewing TV listings there is a tab for that too. Cablevision provides some pre-set filters (via buttons) that let you see only primetime shows, sports, movies, kids, and HD content. This makes it simple to find a movie to record.

I am impressed by how simple and well-implemented this website is. Props to Cablevision for fixing this user experience. I still prefer my TiVoHD. It does not require a computer to program it. But if I want to program my TiVo from a computer I can.

Companies and industries that do not embrace change often come to regret that decision. This is a story of how American cable TV companies failed with CableCARD. They delayed complying with an FCC mandate, consistent with Section 629 of the 1996 telecommunications law, to "…assure the commercial availability to consumers… of converter boxes… from manufacturers, retailers, and other vendors not affiliated with… [the] programming distributor."

The consequence to cable companies is declining market share as alternative technologies replace the cable TV subscription model.

CableCARD was their response to the 1996 law. CableLabs, an industry group, developed the CableCARD to allow consumers to buy rather than rent set top boxes. Cable companies were slow to deploy them; probably, rightly fearing that they would lose rental fees for boxes and remotes.

The only two devices I know that work with CableCARDs are newer TiVos and Windows computers with OCUR digital cable tuners. Using CableCARDs requires paying for an installer visit and a modest monthly fee. I pay $4/mo. for 2 CableCARDs in my TiVo. Renting a Cablevision DVR would cost me about $20/mo. That DVR is a weak approximation of TiVo.

Computers make wonderful DVRs. Microsoft has offered the Media Center application since 2002. It comes in Vista Home Premium and most versions of Windows 7. Media Center, along with commercial and free open source alternatives, works great as a DVR. It requires one or more CableCARDs to display cable TV encrypted digital feeds and premium channels. The OCUR tuner made this possible.

OCUR was hobbled by CableLabs. They required that they certify the computer if it included an OCUR. I once read that they charge the PC makers $10,000 per model for this "service". Only AMD made OCUR tuners. HP, Dell and some niche computer makers offered these as additions to a few models. Adding to the difficulty, if you didn’t buy the OCUR(s) at the time you bought the PC you could not add them later.

Not surprisingly, OCUR-enabled PCs were a minuscule percent of PC sales. I believe that HP and Dell no longer offer OCUR provisioned PCs and that AMD has exited the business. At the recent CEDIA meeting Microsoft announced that we will be able to buy OCUR tuners to install into our existing PCs sometime in the future. Hauppauge and Ceton announced they will make add-on OCUR tuners for sale next year.

We have many alternatives to cable TV, satellite TV or broadcast TV today. Some are disc-based, most are Internet-based. Netflix, Redbox, and many town libraries make it simple to borrow a DVD at low or no cost. Amazon’s Video On Demand, the iTunes store, Vudu and Roku boxes, websites like Hulu.com, CBS.com and many others compete with traditional cable TV.

I wanted to promote and install PCs with OCUR tuners and CableCARDs for my customers, beginning in 2006, if it had been easy and affordable. I did not because CableLabs made it too difficult and too expensive. I explored and found alternatives to Cable TV. My clients and my family watch video on our computers hooked to our HDTVs, just not cable TV. Computer-based alternatives to cable TV have been multiplying like rabbits. It is hard to keep up.

My 16 year-old daughter rarely watches cable TV. She likes the flexibility that watching video on her computer offers. She can have her messaging apps open and pause the video to talk with her friends. She is typical of her generation.

Cable companies should have embraced consumers owning their own set top boxes rather than resisting. They will soon regret that decision as more and more customers abandon cable TV for the cheaper, easier and more satisfying alternatives.

x

Technology changes, always.
Frisch’s third law

Cable and satellite TV began to replace broadcast television over 30 years ago. Internet video will replace cable and satellite TV, soon and in much less time.

What is a cable company president to do?
If I ran the cable company, I would make a lot more money than I do. I would also be thinking, “How do I shift from the historical value-added content model to the utility-pipe model of the future, without having my revenue and profits sharply decline?”

Cable has two advantages that are not eroded by changes in content distribution. They have very fat pipes and typically only one or two competitors for their customers.

Cable companies make money from subscriber fees for TV, equipment rental fees, Internet service and telephone service. They may be paid carriage fees by some cable channels. They also sell advertising on some cable channels. The latter two revenue streams are under attack as content rapidly moves to the Internet.

Have you ever watched a show like CSI or The Office on the Internet? You can if you have broadband. Cable gets no income from this type of content. Advertising dollars go directly to the content producers and there is no way for the cable company to insert their own advertising. Pay-video on the Internet will happen, just as HBO came to cable in the 1970s. Viewers will shift their video dollars from premium cable channels to premium video websites. Traditional TV viewers will decline as Internet video-on-demand (VOD) increases. Cable networks, like TNT, Fox News, and A&E, are likely to wither and die as viewers move elsewhere. The current economic climate accelerates this trend.

This leaves subscriber fees as the primary revenue, perhaps the sole source in the future. Most cable companies offer three services for which they charge: cable TV, Internet hosting, and telephone service. Historically, the majority of their subscriber revenue is from cable TV. Over the last decade, Internet hosting and telephone services have grown to be perhaps half the monthly bill. Yet landline telephones, whether old-style or VoIP are in decline.

Is TV programming in the toilet?
The value of traditional TV series content is eroding. Programs on cable TV seem to be reruns of reruns and old movies, except for sports and reality shows. In 1956, a free broadcast television series had 39 original episodes. Today most TV series produce about half that number. A premium channel, like HBO, often airs shows with as little as six episodes per year, and the show may only last one or two seasons. Further devaluing the series content are lengthy hiatuses, such as Lost or 24 recently had. The cost for less-and-less new content on cable keeps going up.

Why do we keep paying or has the future arrived?
There is a lot of chatter on blogs and forums about people canceling their cable TV subscriptions, going Internet-only. They watch sites such as CBS.com or Hulu.com. They subscribe to Netflix and use its streaming VOD service. They buy shows from Amazon’s VOD or Apple’s iTunes stores. And they save money.

I have a computer hooked to my HDTV specifically for these things. I use it more and more frequently. I really do not need my cable box or the service. What I do need is unlimited broadband.

Money talks, or is it greed?
Cable companies have figured this out and many are now capping your monthly bandwidth in order to forestall this shift. Time Warner Cable has been the most aggressive. They announced that they would provide unlimited Internet service for $150/month. Their CEO is not crazy but his rollout is ham-handed at best. Congress is considering legislation to outlaw caps. Someday soon, the cable companies may have no other revenue source.

We do not need cable companies for TV or telephone. We can employ our internet connection for telephone, using services such as Skype, Vonage or MagicJack, augmented by a cell phone. Google Voice, a reconfigured and rebranded GrandCentral, points the way toward future communications services. It does not require your cable company.

Figuring out how to transition from cable’s multi-service, premium-pricing model to being a utility provider, like an electric company, is a difficult thing. They will have to change their revenue model. They have little competition or regulation so their solution will be to gouge their customers, us. And they will get away with it.