[opendtv] Re: News: The Real Fight Over Fake News

  • From: "Adam Goldberg" <adam_g@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 16:33:15 -0400

Partial apologies for pedantics, but both "digital cable ready" and "cable
ready" have specific legal meanings with respect to Title 47.  See, 47 CFR
15.123(a)-(b) and 47 CFR 15.118(a).

I have no doubt there are plenty of "clear QAM" receivers out there, built
anytime from 2002 or so, on.  But, (here's the key) I am unaware of any
non-anecdotal surveys which have real hard data on how many/what
proportion/etc of receivers are "clear QAM".  However, it is clear that
"digital cable ready" receivers are decreasing in number (and will at least
until the tru2way "digital cable ready" receivers are successfully
marketed).

If you can cite a study, news report, or something which has real numbers on
clear QAM support, I'd be very interested to see it.

-----Original Message-----
From: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Manfredi, Albert E
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 4:09 PM
To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [opendtv] Re: News: The Real Fight Over Fake News

Tom Barry wrote:

> Also an increasing number of new TV's sold are now digital
> cable ready, at least for unencrypted QAM.  And probably
> many more will come out with the 2 way integrated non-cable
> card thing, whatever that new standard is called that Sony
> recently has been trumpeting.

Adam Goldberg wrote:

> The non-CableCARD thing is called DCAS.  The new thing Sony
> has been "trumpeting" is either called OCAP or tru2way.
>  Either way, they're different.  And DCAS is apparently
> dead (as reported in Communications Technology mag on June
> 1).
>
> I wouldn't say that an "increasing number of new TVs sold
> are now digital cable ready".  It's probably better to say
> that a diminishing number of TV models are digital cable
> ready.  (Trend is DOWN not UP)

Actually, what Tom said is, I think, very true:

"Also an increasing number of new TV's sold are now digital cable ready,
>>>at least for unencrypted QAM.<<<" (I added the emphasis)

He's talking about sets that you can plug into cable systems and, just
like their NTSC forebears, receive basic, unencrypted cable programming,
sans cable STB.

It turns out that even my 2004-vintage Accurian box had a cable TUNER in
it, although no QAM demod. It was only good for those cable systems that
pipe through 8T-VSB, as some did (maybe still do). You can set it to
tune to all the cable frequency channels. As far as I can tell, it's
mostly only the CECBs now that cannot receive unencrypted QAM.

For example, the January 2007 Samsung HDTV STB is fully capable of
receiving basic, unencypted cable. So are Sony TVs, Samsung,
Philips/Magnavox, LG, ...

Bert
 
 
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