HD Cable Makes Long Trip to PCs
But Some Computer Makers Are More Bullish Than Others
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 2/25/2007 7:00:00 PM
The computer industry has been waiting for the cable guys to arrive since at least 1999.
Now, the long journey toward being able to view the best cable programming — in high definition — on personal computers is nearing its end. This spring, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and other computer makers plan to finally deliver PCs that will let their customers watch and record HD programming from cable networks like ESPN, HBO, Showtime and Discovery Channel.
The breakthrough? Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system, which includes the digital rights management (DRM) technology demanded by Hollywood and cable programmers to make sure it won’t be easy to blast their content into peer-to-peer piracy.
Before Vista, PC users could watch top-tier cable networks if they jumped through some hoops and connected their computers to a set-top box, but even then they could see the signal only in standard definition.
| Ready to Watch |
|---|
| Digital-cable playback on Windows Media Center will require customers to have: |
| * AMD’s ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner is currently the only CableLabs-certified OpenCable Unidirectional Receiver (OCUR) Source: Microsoft; Multichannel News research |
| Windows Vista Home Premium or Vista Ultimate |
| A digital-cable compatible PC, approved by Microsoft and registered with CableLabs |
| A digital-cable tuner* |
| Digital cable service |
| A CableCard supplied by their provider |
Not everybody’s celebrating. To some PC vendors, Vista’s cable support is still incomplete and they remain doubtful cable will eagerly support the connection of third-party devices to the coax network. The first crop of cable-enabled PCs, for example, won’t be able to access video on demand and other interactive services.
Gateway has no immediate plans to deliver a cable-enabled PC. Why not? “We haven’t seen a lot of excitement out of our channel partners” for such a product, Gateway chief technologist Kenn Walker said.
He added, while cable operators are all supposed to support CableCards, the credit card-sized devices that provide security features for accessing pay TV channels, “theory and practice may work out differently in different areas of the country.”
On the other hand, Michael Dell seems pretty gung-ho about selling cable-ready computers.
DELL’S CABLE PLAY
The PC industry’s ur-entrepreneur, who founded the company bearing his name and resumed the CEO mantle last month, showed off what he claimed is the first personal computer capable of receiving and recording premium HDTV programming during his keynote speech at January’s International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The Dell Home Media Suite bundle includes the company’s XPS 410 desktop computer, a tremendous 1 terabyte of disk storage and a 27-inch flat-panel monitor. The PC will be outfitted with a digital-cable tuner that lets the computer function as a digital video recorder and will include a slot for an operator-issued CableCard.
“This enables Vista PCs to tune, pause, view and record TV right on the hard disk,” Michael Dell said. “We think we’re perfectly positioned to make digital-media consumption easier for our customers.”
But the wait for that system may last for a few more weeks. The Home Media Suite wasn’t available in mid-February, even though he said it would ship when Vista became available on Jan. 30, or “soon” afterward.
A company spokesman on Feb. 13 said the bundle had not officially launched yet.
CableLabs requires all Vista PCs capable of receiving cable programming through an OpenCable Unidirectional Receiver (OCUR) device be certified by Microsoft and registered with CableLabs. As of mid-February, the cable consortium said there were no OCUR-compliant PCs registered.
In any case, the imminent availability of HD-capable PCs represents a notable milestone in the PC industry’s long negotiations to have cable unlock its programming.
The “protected path” technologies in Vista encrypt premium cable content using the DRM schemas from either Microsoft or Real Networks, and then prevent that content from being viewed on another PC (though it may be streamed to other “display-only” video screens).
A PC’s digital cable tuner also must support High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), a technology developed by Intel to encrypt HD video content as it traverses the physical cable link from the computer to a display device.
“Studios finally felt comfortable with Vista’s protected path,” CableLabs vice president of consumer video technology Kevin Flanagan said.
All the same, cable is keeping a tight leash on OCUR. Digital cable tuner devices may be sold only in conjunction with preapproved PC manufacturers — in other words, you won’t see a CableCard-ready tuner on retail shelves that could work with any Vista computer.
Today, there is just one supplier for OCUR devices: chipmaker AMD, whose ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner is the only tuner that has been tested and certified by CableLabs.
Blair Birmingham, group product manager in AMD’s multimedia business unit, said for now the product will be sold only to PC manufacturers. While he wouldn’t disclose AMD’s pricing to the computer makers, he said as a line item the tuner might add between $200 and $300 to the cost of a cable-enabled system.
“Yes, it adds to the price of a PC, but it may or may not cut into their margins depending on how they’re pricing this,” Birmingham said.
Part of what contributes to the cost is that the tuner has fairly high processing needs, he said, because it must decrypt cable programming as it comes in from the CableCard then reencrypt it using a Vista-supported DRM system.
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
Still, Birmingham touted his company’s OCUR tuner as finally putting the PC “on the same playing field as other consumer-electronics devices” that support CableCard, like some televisions and TiVo’s Series3 DVRs.
“Premium content is always something our customers ask for,” he said. “People expect to get The Sopranos on their PCs, and we’re finally able to deliver that.”
In addition to Dell and other big computer vendors, one small company readying a system with AMD’s cable tuner is Santa Clara, Calif.-based Niveus Media, which makes PC-based home-entertainment systems.
Niveus’ Digital Cable Receiver, an add-on accessory for its core line of home-entertainment devices, includes two CableCards to allow users to record one HD program while watching another. That’s because products built to CableLabs’ multistream CableCard (M-Card) specification aren’t available yet. The company expects to ship the device in early March but hasn’t disclosed pricing.
“People are happy to have this as a starting point,” Niveus founder and CEO Tim Cutting said. “It’s nice to get cable on the PC without having to down-rez” — that is, convert HD fare into a lower-resolution format.
As noted, the first OCUR devices are unidirectional, meaning they’re unable to access any interactive digital cable applications provided by an operator, including VOD and on-screen programming guides. CableLab’s OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP), a technology that has yet to move out of the trial phase, is designed to provide this functionality.
But with Vista, Microsoft provides an electronic program guide, DVR features, parental controls, video downloads and other services — in effect, just about everything a cable company offers, Cutting said.
A Vista PC with a digital cable tuner “is not just a dumb connection,” he said. “It’s being wrapped with intelligence from Vista. The only difference is, if someone is loyal to Comcast VOD services or whatever, they wouldn’t be able to get those.”
Gateway’s Walker, though, believes it will take the introduction of two-way cable devices before the market really takes off.
“We think [two-way cable tuners] will garner a lot more support from the MSOs, because they can see how the existence of a tuner in a platform will enable enhanced revenue streams for them,” he said.
Walker pointed out that if a cable subscriber wants a Cable Card, operators have required a technician to make a visit. Installers typically also bring a regular cable set-top box — and show a customer all the features they’ll lose if they choose to use a CableCard device.
Cable maintains that it fully supports CableCards, a federally mandated technology to provide interoperable access to cable services that traces back to the Telecom Act of 1996.
“In the six years since CableCards became available, not a single violation has been recorded nor a penalty doled out to the cable industry,” the National Cable & Telecommunications Association said in a September 2006 report. As of December, operators serving 90% of U.S. cable subscribers have deployed 216,000 CableCards, according to the NCTA.
For operators, cable-ready PCs ultimately are something of a mixed blessing, said Kagan Research analyst Ian Olgeirson.
On the plus side of the balance sheet, delivering HD fare to new platforms, like a personal computer, enhances the value of the subscription. There’s also a benefit in that a CableCard-enabled PC allows an operator to avoid the capital costs of HD DVRs.
But there’s the issue of customer control: A one-way Cable Card renders VOD and other revenue-generating services inaccessible. There’s also potential for support problems if someone’s CableCard-enabled device is on the fritz.
“Any device that’s introduced with a CableCard, there’s a benefit and a potential threat,” Olgeirson said.
The clash of industries goes like this, in his telling: Cable doesn’t want consumer-electronics makers to package services around its programming, but operators would also like to see a cool new device that they didn’t have to pay for. The PC vendors and other consumer electronics companies, meanwhile, want to piggyback on the cable network but have their own interface to control the user “experience.”
“Both sides want to have their cake and eat it too,” Olgeirson said.
Digital Cable Takes the Lead
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01/09/2007
