[sci.electronics] cable TV and better black boxes

tims@infidel.lanl.gov (Tim Sullivan) (10/04/90)

I have just come home from a tense, angry meeting of a local cable TV
board. It occured to me that much of what was causing the tension
between the public representatives and the cable company ought to have
a technical solution.

For the sake of brevity, I won't go into the details of the current
issue, but it could be solved by "black boxes". (The cable company
isn't proposing to install them since when they tried a few years ago
they lost half their subscribers.) Now as I understand the objection
to these boxes, it is because the descrambled signals come out on
channel 3 and you have to select which channel you want to watch with
a switch or remote control special to the box. This prevents
unattended recording of shows on different channels by your VCR among
other things.

Now my question is: Why can't someone make a box that will take all
those channels coming in, descramble the ones you've subscribed to,
and put them all out at once on a cable to your tuner so the tuner can
do its thing?

Given the heat generated by this issue such a box should be a billion
dollar item, so I figure there must be some technical limitation that
makes it hard (I can't see any reason why it would be impossible). Can
someone enlighten me? I know nothing about how signals are scrambled,
but the description of the items being put in our lines indicated they
were strictly passive devices. What makes this problem hard?

Tim Sullivan (tims@infidel.lanl.gov)

jws@thumper.mlb.semi.harris.com (James W. Swonger) (10/04/90)

 The problem is not hard per se. If anyone was suitably motivated, that
sort of box could be developed. Instead of one output stage and a selector/
tuner, you would need a gang of outputs along with input and output traps and
summers. What you would end up with is a box with about 5X the circuitry.
(Assuming 5 pay channels. You also must be able to make assumptions about
where the pay channels are located in the channel block or be able to 
select which ones to decode).

 Since most people watch only one channel at once, or at most watch one and
tape another, most of the extra circuitry will be idle. I doubt that the 
difference in price would be justified - neither the cable company nor the
majority of the customers would be willing to pay that much extra for the
feature.

vail@tegra.COM (Johnathan Vail) (10/04/90)

In article <TIMS.90Oct3212314@infidel.infidel.lanl.gov> tims@infidel.lanl.gov (Tim Sullivan) writes:

   Now my question is: Why can't someone make a box that will take all
   those channels coming in, descramble the ones you've subscribed to,
   and put them all out at once on a cable to your tuner so the tuner can
   do its thing?

1) It would be the equivelent of N cable boxes where N is the number
of channels.  By current standards, you need to descramble each
channel independantly.  Anyway, much too impractical and infeasible.

2) The cable co would lose revenue since you need only one of these
boxes and then could attach as many sets as you like.

3) the tvs and vcrs used would all have to be "cable" ready, an in a
consistant way.  there is no consistancy between cable ready things
now.


Cheaper Solution to Taping:

A programmable remote control.  It can be programmed to turn the vcr
on, set the cable channel of the box and start the vcr running.

Problems:

1) not compatible with all cable boxes.

2) you still have to pay the remote control rentals since they
typically block the access if you don't

jv

"The hippies won't come back, you, say
 Mellow out or you will pay" -- |). |<.
 _____
|     | Johnathan Vail | n1dxg@tegra.com
|Tegra| (508) 663-7435 | N1DXG@448.625-(WorldNet)
 -----  jv@n1dxg.ampr.org {...sun!sunne ..uunet}!tegra!vail

elmquist@nachos.SSESCO.com (Chris Elmquist) (10/05/90)

IMHO, the best way to solve this problem is to get the TV and VCR
manufacturers to provide descrambler loops on the back of the
piece of equipment.  The loop brings out the signal after the tuner
but before the detector (or some such connection) so that you
can externally descramble it and feed it back into the TV for
display.

This way, you rent the descrambler equipment
from the cable company, connect it to your TV or VCR, and then
use the tuner/timer capability of the piece of equipment as it
was intended.  This would *really* be "cable ready"... 
-- 
---------------------------
Chris Elmquist, N0JCF
elmquist@nachos.ssesco.com

whinery@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu (Alan Whinery) (10/05/90)

In article <TIMS.90Oct3212314@infidel.infidel.lanl.gov> tims@infidel.lanl.gov (Tim Sullivan) writes:

>Now my question is: Why can't someone make a box that will take all
>those channels coming in, descramble the ones you've subscribed to,
>and put them all out at once on a cable to your tuner so the tuner can
>do its thing?

>Tim Sullivan (tims@infidel.lanl.gov)

I don't understand. It sounds to me like the box you are proposing does
just what every cable box I've ever had -- in four different states -- has
done. There's a high bandwidth signal coming into the back, a series of 
passthroughs (for free channels) and descrmblers for subscribed channels.
Most cable companies pass the unsubscribed pay channels through, so you 
can listen to the sound and wish you could see the picture.

Is CATV around Los Alamos abnormal? Or am I missing your point?

Alan Whinery 
whinery@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu

whit@milton.u.washington.edu (John Whitmore) (10/05/90)

In article <229@nachos.SSESCO.com> elmquist@nachos.SSESCO.com (Chris Elmquist) writes:
>IMHO, the best way to solve this problem is to get the TV and VCR
>manufacturers to provide descrambler loops on the back of the
>piece of equipment.  The loop brings out the signal after the tuner

	and allows any channel you tune to be descrambled, regardless
of whether you paid extra for that particular 'premium' channel.
It's necessary for the cable company to know exactly which channel
is being unscrambled, and whether that particular channel SHOULD be
descrambled.  

	A less elegant solution is available in 'universal remote
control' systems; program it to change the cable box's channel
selection and activate the VCR.  It'd be nice if such a system
could change over to a local antenna, and aim it, as well.
	Then all we'd need is a box that can watch the stupid
taped TV show, and tell us not to bother...

		John Whitmore

markf@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Mark A. Fullmer) (10/05/90)

>From: whit@milton.u.washington.edu (John Whitmore)
>	and allows any channel you tune to be descrambled, regardless
>of whether you paid extra for that particular 'premium' channel.
>It's necessary for the cable company to know exactly which channel
>is being unscrambled, and whether that particular channel SHOULD be
>descrambled.  

Not if each channel has information encoded saying 'I'm HBO' or
'I'm V-Cable Pay channel #2'

The decoding box could then be programmed (through the cable).

I beleive Zenith does something similar to this in one of their
high-end tee-vee systems.


/*
markf@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu, maf@falstaff.mae.cwru.edu
		Don't take reality too seriously
*/

Ordania-DM@cup.portal.com (Charles K Hughes) (10/05/90)

  And, of course, we ALL know the best solution...make scrambling illegal!

[ No smileys, it may sound like an absurd idea, but it can't be any worse
than making work on sundays illegal ]

Charles_K_Hughes@cup.portal.com

elmquist@nachos.SSESCO.com (Chris Elmquist) (10/05/90)

In article <8627@milton.u.washington.edu> whit@milton.u.washington.edu (John Whitmore) writes:
>	and allows any channel you tune to be descrambled, regardless
>of whether you paid extra for that particular 'premium' channel.
>It's necessary for the cable company to know exactly which channel
>is being unscrambled, and whether that particular channel SHOULD be
>descrambled.  
>

True... but as long as we're redesigning cable TV systems and TV and
VCRs, let's just encode the channel number onto the signal so that
the descrambler will know what channel the tuner as been set to.


>	Then all we'd need is a box that can watch the stupid
>taped TV show, and tell us not to bother...
>
>		John Whitmore

Good point...

-- 
Chris Elmquist, N0JCF
elmquist@ssesco.com

huopio@lut.fi (Kauto Huopio OH5LFM) (10/06/90)

In article <8627@milton.u.washington.edu> whit@milton.u.washington.edu (John Whitmore) writes:


> 	and allows any channel you tune to be descrambled, regardless
> of whether you paid extra for that particular 'premium' channel.
> It's necessary for the cable company to know exactly which channel
> is being unscrambled, and whether that particular channel SHOULD be
> descrambled.  

I think that in digital scrambling systems like the Sky Telwvision
uses in Sky Movies, that should be not a big problem..

--kauto

--
****************** Kauto Huopio (huopio@kannel.lut.fi) **********************
*US Mail: Kauto Huopio, Punkkerikatu 1 A 10, SF-53850 Lappeenranta, Finland * 
*****************************************************************************

rbrink@hubcap.clemson.edu (Rick Brink) (10/09/90)

From article <1990Oct4.133730.28246@mlb.semi.harris.com>, by jws@thumper.mlb.semi.harris.com (James W. Swonger):
> 
The only thing missing from this discussion is the politics behind the
selection of boxes, and services.  Many cable companies are running on a
shoe-string equipment budget.  Little or nothing is spent on equipment,
so that the investors can grab a maximum profit.  If any of us were to
start-up one of these companies, things like quality of signal, selection
of services would be a concern.  But cable TV is not the relm of qualified
managment.  It's just a shell game for someone to make money with.  You
can buy better equipment from the back of Radio-Electronics than most 
Cable companies "rent" you for less than 1 years rental.  But try to 
find a company that will give you credit for using your own box.  They
will likely as not, disconnect you for having illegal attachments.

When is "Satellite cable" comming.  I'm pissed that ISDN is lagging so
far behind.  I'm tired of all the censorship.  We loose broadcasts in
our area when a schoolteacher on a sitcom talks about birth control.

Enough bitching, back to sci.electronics

chiang@iris.ucdavis.edu (Tom Chiang) (10/09/90)

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