Normally I’d review something like this myself. But I not only work for Sling Media, but I’m the Beta Manager on the Slingbox PRO-HD. So that really wouldn’t be appropriate. Instead here’s a roundup of coverage I’ve seen so far:
SlingCommunity - Blog
SlingCommunity - Review
Zatz Not Funny
EngadgetHD
Engadget
PC Magazine
CNET Crave
CNET - Review
Washington Post
Ecoustics

EDIT: And more coverage:
The Gadgetress
Engadget
EngadgetHD
jkOnTheRun
Gizmodo
Obsessable
TG Daily
TWICE
Silicon Alley Insider
TVPredictions
TechSpot
SlashGear
Multichannel News
ZDNet - The Mobile Gadgeteer
TheStreet.com
Electronista
Electronic House
Boy Genius Report
eHomeUpgrade
ZDNet - The Toybox
Obsessable - Product Page

The Motorola MTR700 and the Cisco STA1520, which we knew were slated for Wave 60 certification testing at the end of June, have both passed, as reported by Multichannel News. With both major vendors’ Tuning Adapters certified, cable MSOs should be able to soon begin offering them to customers soon to support Switched Digital Video (SDV). This is a little bit behind schedule, the Tuning Resolver (as the Tuning Adapter was then known) was expected in 2Q08. But even coming in a few months late it has been an impressively quick development cycle for the cable industry. It is known that Motorola started working on their unit last July, and they were revealed to the public last August. So it has been just about a year from the start of work to certification, which is really not a lot of time to develop, test, and certify a new product.

As recently revealed, the new 9.4 TiVo update includes Tuning Adapter support, so TiVo users will be ready for the TAs as soon as the cable MSOs make them available. As Bright House, Cox, Time Warner, and others all implementing SDV, the TAs will be increasingly important. Pricing for customers is not yet known, except for Cox which announced plans to provide the TAs to their customers free of charge.

Reader Glenn pointed out in a comment that the details of the Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) first signed by Sony, and then additional CE vendors, have been revealed in an FCC filing. Both Multichannel News and Light Reading’s Cable Digital News have taken a look at the MOU, and now it is my turn. So, let’s look through the MOU for any interesting tidbits.

The MOU refers to the ‘Founders’ repeatedly - these are the cable MSOs: Comcast Cable, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Bright House Networks, Charter Communications, and Cablevision. New two-way devices are referred to as Interactive Digital Cable Products (IDCP), in contrast to the one-way Unidirectional Digital Cable Products (UDCP). Under the terms of the MOU, the Founders agree to support tru2way on all of their digital cable networks by July 1, 2009 - except for Charter which has until July 1, 2010 to complete their roll-out. The MOU also codifies that the tru2way specifications will be the sole means for IDCPs to access interactive cable services.

While consumer electronics adopters must adhere to the tru2way specifications and license, innovative features that are not specified but that are consistent with the specs and license ‘are allowed and encouraged’. That seems to leave room for innovation, but it remains to be seen how narrowly ‘consistent’ is evaluated. To help ensure solid support for tru2way the cable MSOs have to eat their own dog food, as it were. After July 1, 2009 (again, July 1, 2010 for Charter) the Founders agree that at least 20% of their STBs will support tru2way. That holds until they’ve deployed at least ten million tru2way-enabled STBs. This is to ensure a sufficient install base that the Founders will have a vested interest in ensuring solid support.

Since tru2way is largely a firmware specification, and specifications can evolve, the Founders agree to support any given version of the tru2way Middleware used by an Adopter’s product for five years from the date of that version’s first certification. So, in effect, that should guarantee a minimum product life of five years. Of course, it could easily be longer as Adopter’s products could receive firmware updates, and the Founders could support a Middleware version for longer than five years. Clearly it would be up to the Adopter, the CE vendor, to provide updates to newer tru2way Middleware versions, which is only fair. And to help ensure that is possible, there is an equal access provision in the MOU. Any given tru2way Middleware revision will be available to Adopters at the same time it is available to Founders. So the MSO’s won’t have any unfair advantage in being able to bring newer features to market first.

As for guide data, which was long a bone of contention over OCAP, any Founder’s digital cable system which carriers a CBS broadcast signal (which is pretty much all of them) which contains the Gemstar-TV Guide EPG data and where that Founder has an agreement covering the Gemstar data, must not block or remove said data from the CBS signal. In English? Well, Gemstar-TV Guide has an agreement with CBS to carry their EPG data. This data is used by a number of TVs, VCRs, DVRs, DVD Recorders, etc, to provide a simple on-screen EPG. The data is carried in the VBI, the vertical blanking interval, and are not part of the video itself. This has been an issue in the past as some cable MSOs have stripped out this data from the broadcast when processing the network feed for redistribution, hence making it inaccessible to CE devices that rely on it for their EPG.

So this agreement means that the Founder agree to not block or strip the data, when it is carried by the local CBS affiliate and they can legally do so, of course. This provides CE vendors with a data source for a ‘native’ EPG, as opposed to relying on the tru2way MSO-provided EPG, or a out-of-band EPG downloaded separately, as in a TiVo. The broadcast EPG does generally lack the full level of detail found in a downloaded EPG, or even the MSOs EPG, but it has the advantage of being readily available in the received signal and gives the CE vendor the ability to process and use the data as they wish, unlike the tru2way guide which comes as-is.

While the agreement seems to treat tru2way as the primary means of navigation, Adopters are free to overlay their own ‘native’ navigation with four prerequisites: 1. It must be initiated by the user each time (such as through a remote action), 2. it must be only for navigation (no ads, etc), 3. It must be transitory (sounds like once the action is complete it should return to tru2way-mode), and 4. it must appear the same on all channels. So no special ABC navigation screen that isn’t used on NBC, etc.

There is a ’sunset’, or exit clause for the MOU. Starting July 1, 2009, if fewer than 500,000 new retail IDCPs are connected to the Founders’ networks within any given 24 month period then the Founders are no longer bound by the MOU. Basically, if the Adopters, the CE vendors, don’t hold up their end of the bargin and produce enough IDCP devices, then the cable MSOs are no longer bound to spend their money supporting tru2way on their networks and they’re free to stop, try something else, etc. Considering the number of TVs, DVRs, etc, sold at retail in this country each year, this shouldn’t be a problem - if and only if the CE vendors step up and start tru2way-enabling a sufficient number of device models. So the ball is in their court.

Licensing for the IDCPs will be under the existing CableLabs licenses, with some amendments. Certification of devices will be through CableLabs IDCP testing. Once a vendor has had five mutually agreed upon devices certified by CableLabs, then they are eligible to self-certify future devices. This is one of the compromises in the agreement. CE vendors didn’t want the expense and hassle of going through CableLabs for each new product, while the cable industry didn’t want the potential havoc caused by bad devices being connected to their networks. So now once a vendor has proven their competence level through CableLabs certification, they can be free of that requirement.

Under the MOU CableLabs will establish a Founders Advisory Board (FAB) which will apparently serve as a kind of arbitration group when changes to the tru2way hardware specification are proposed. As the board is currently specified there are nine votes - one for each of the Founders, and one for the CE Adopters as a block, one for the IT Adopters as a block, and one for the content providers as a block. That means that, should they vote in unison, the cable MSOs would always carry a majority. And you’d actually need two MSOs to break ranks and vote with the other blocks to swing the majority. But the vote is also only advisory and non-binding, so I’m not sure what it is in aid of other than as an opinion poll for the parties involved. And, of course, the FCC still has final say in the end.

CableLabs also agrees to approve or disapprove any new digital output system or content protection system within 180 days of the proposal being submitted by an Adopter, on a ‘reasonable and nondiscriminatory basis’. This will probably come into play with technologies akin to TiVo’s TiVoGuard, which protects TiVoToGo transfers. As CE vendors look to innovate and develop whole home distribution systems, etc, there may be new technologies developed to satisfy the rights holders that their content is being protected. And if CableLabs disapproves the technology, or simply fails to act within 180 days, then the Adopter can appeal to the FCC which is expected to handle the appeal in a 90-day process. Remember that a while back the NFL and MPAA tried to block TiVoGuard and TivoToGo, but the FCC approved it.

But there’s another way to get a new technology approved. If four members of the MPAA agree that the new system provides adequate content protection, then that technology will be automatically approved by CableLabs.

If tru2way is sunset and CableLabs defines a successor to CableCARD or tru2way (such as DCAS) then Adopters who are party to the MOU may participate in the development of the successor.

The definitions have some interesting tidbits. Under the MOU, ‘Digital Cable System’ only covers systems with one or more QAM channels, operating with a capacity of 750MHz or higher and with a minimum of 5,000 basic cable subscribers.

Not a lot of information, really, but it is clearly a compromise with some give and take by both the cable MSOs and the consumer electronics vendors, which is what we needed to un-roadblock two-way cable development. It is interesting that Charter gets an extra year to complete their tru2way roll-out, compared to the other five Founder MSOs. I guess Charter must be further behind in their progress than the others. Of course, I just happen to currently reside in Charter territory. Note though that the dates are for completion of deployment, some areas already have tru2way support and many more will before the year is out.

One of the major issues for the Comcast TiVo deployment has been the need for a truck roll. The software development was predicated on the ability of the cable MSO to remotely deploy the software without the need to send out a technician. But that didn’t quite work when Comcast started deploying the software, the infrastructure for remote deployment wasn’t really ready to face the real world. But now TiVo’s Tom Rogers says that’s changing, according to Multichannel News:

Rogers said this software-downloading capability “will be ready shortly,” enabling MSOs to upgrade the features of the set-top box without requiring an expensive truck roll. This “auto flip” — an automated modification that can be done remotely — is vital to the next generation of DVRs, he said, noting that the first implementation will be on Comcast systems in New England.

According to Rogers, it took 18 months to develop the auto-flip capability for Comcast, and 10 months of that was just developing the statement of work! I guess we know why it took so long for the TiVo Comcast software to appear. Though, having worked for, and with, a number of large corporations in my career, I’m really not surprised. Rogers also has a gift for understatement:

He said that “the infrastructure that enables [the service] proved not to be very stable” at first.

No kidding. There is some more in the article if interested.

Friday marked a status conference between TiVo and Dish Network/EchoStar before the trial judge (transcript is here, thanks to Mainer_Ayah at InvestorVillage). Nothing was really accomplished, they’ll meet again on September 4th for a contempt hearing on the injunction against Dish Network. And it looks like the court will not be considering Dish Network’s claim of a workaround with their new software. The court will also consider enhancing the damages awarded to TiVo.

And, seemingly in response to the court not considering their workaround, Dish Network & EchoStar filed suit against TiVo in a Delaware court, asking them to find that their new software does not infringe on TiVo’s ‘389 patent. A victory would allow them to continue selling DVRs with the new software without threat of further litigation. However, it seems highly unlikely that the case will reach the court in Delaware before the Texas court meets again in September. So it isn’t clear what, if any, impact this will have on the existing case.

Multichannel News has some good coverage of the situation.

CableLabs has created a new, streamlined approval process for consumer electronics companies that wish to produce tru2way capable devices for interactive cable services. Part of the new agreement allows CE vendors to ’self-certify’ tru2way two-way cable products. Formerly CableLabs required all two-way devices to be submitted for testing and certification by CableLabs itself. Samsung is the first CE vendor to sign the new agreement.

The agreement also allows CE vendors to formally participate in CableLabs processes and includes a license to use the tru2way trademark. The new agreement consolidates and simplifies two separate licenses, the CableCARD Host Licensing Agreement (Chila) and the OpenCable Application Platform Implementer Agreement. Formerly both were required for any CE vendor who wished to implement tru2way in their devices.

Via Multichannel News and Light Reading’s Cable Digital News.

The NCTA held a conference call this afternoon to try to clarify the issues surrounding CableCARD and it included an open Q&A. I like seeing this kind of thing, the NCTA recognized they have had a major PR issue with CableCARD, and with the most recent flare-up in the blogosphere they decided to get in front of the issue. I applaud them for that, I felt the call was a straight-forward presentation of the history of OpenCable and how we got to the point we’re at today, and the Q&A session was free-flowing. Representing the NCTA on the call were Brian Dietz from NCTA’s Communications group, William Check, Senior Vice President of Science & Technology, and Neal Goldberg, Vice President & General Counsel.

I did miss a couple of minutes in the middle of their presentation when my cell phone dropped the call. I quickly switched to Skype for the rest of the call, lesson learned - use Skype for this kind of thing in the future. I don’t think I missed much though, when I got back in they were still covering the history and I’ve been following that since early days. I’ll listen to the recording to make sure I didn’t miss anything important. (Nope.)

One interesting thing, the NCTA repeatedly praised or mentioned TiVo when talking about CE companies that have worked with the cable industry to work out issues with CableCARDs and to develop the Tuning Resolver.

From my point of view there really wasn’t any new ground covered, but then I’ve been following OpenCable, OCAP, tru2way, etc, pretty closely for a long time. So I’d be a little surprised if they did cover something I’d missed. But it was a good overview of the situation and their arguments do make sense. They pointed out that there are only roughly 380,000 consumer electronic devices using CableCARD - that’s TVs, TiVos, PCs, etc. And the cable industry overall has over 65 million video customers in the US. So the total percentage if people using UDCPs who will have issues with SDV is pretty small. And all of those using CableCARD TiVos will be able to use the Tuning Resolver, and likely all of those with a PC using CableCARD. The big question will be those using CableCARD-enabled TVs - many of them do not have USB ports, which means no Tuning Resolver. Those units that do have USB ports will require a firmware update, so it comes down to vendor support.

Gary Merson of HD Guru asked why cable companies don’t remove the analog channels to free bandwidth for digital channels instead of using SDV. This would inconvenience those using analog cable without a STB, for example connecting it directly to an old TV. Well, I think those numbers really help explain it. While Gary made the argument that CableCARD customers are likely to be premium customers paying for higher service tiers, there are a lot fewer of them than there are subscribers using analog cable. Cutting off analog channels would inconvenience many more users than implementing SDV does. On top of that, cable MSOs would have to provide STBs to all of their customers, which would be an enormous expense. And basic cable customers don’t like STBs any more than premium customers do.

Also, under an agreement with Congress and the FCC, it is an all-or-nothing proposition. Cable MSOs are required to continue offering an analog basic tier, unless they eliminate all analog channels. Going 100% digital is an exception to the requirement. But that would be a radical change to many MSOs, and again a great cost.

There are other business reasons not to take that approach. With the digital conversion coming to broadcast TV in February 2009, providing analog service is a business opportunity for cable. Antenna users are faced with adding a converter box or other device (such as a TiVo) with a digital tuner, buying a new TV with a digital tuner, or switching to a new service - analog cable. Analog cable would allow them to connect directly to their existing TV without adding another device.

Gary also asked for some assurance that consumers who invest in new tru2way TVs and devices will not be faced with another upgrade in 3-4 years, as those who invested in UDCP CableCARD devices are facing. I think the NCTA’s response was reasonable. Cable MSOs are deploying tru2way-enabled STBs now, with Time Warner in the lead and Comcast currently in second place. Over the next couple of years this will be an investment in millions of STBs and hundreds of millions of dollars. So the cable MSOs are not going to be eager to make that investment obsolete. But they really can’t state “Tru2way will not be replaced in the next five years” or anything like that. Predicting the future in a technical field is risky business. And despite what some might think, the cable industry isn’t one large conspiracy and each MSO is free to adopt different technology and services, within the regulatory framework.

However, I guarantee that tru2way will be replaced, someday. Probably not in the next 5 years, maybe not even 10, but it will happen. That’s just how technology works. Something bigger, better, faster will come along and the industry will shift. The cable industry tried to bypass CableCARD by going straight to DCAS, but when they lost that fight they were forced to invest hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, in CableCARD infrastructure. That will discourage any immediate push for DCAS, as they’ll want to recoup their investment. But DCAS, or something like it, seems to be the next logical step down the road. And when that happens it is likely there will be some new features that are not accessible to CableCard/tru2way devices. However, as more devices are upgradeable in software and firmware it is hard to say. Perhaps there will be a generic DCAS module that could plug into a CableCARD slot and add DCAS support to those devices. I wouldn’t rule it out, especially as the cable industry would probably like that to keep their CableCARD STBs compatible. But I wouldn’t worry about any of this in the near term.

They did say that the Tuning Resolver is a high priority for the cable industry and that development is still on track for summer availability. As I reported recently, it looks like early July will be the earliest possible availability date.

Ben Drawbaugh of Engadget shared his horror story of having his cable MSO try to talk him out of using CableCARD and the installers not knowing how to handle the install, and I have to second that. While Charter didn’t try to talk me out of using CableCARD, and the installers who have come to my home has been polite and courteous, they clearly didn’t have enough training and experience installing CableCARD. When I had my first install, as a TiVo Series3 reviewer, I could understand it as I was the first person in the territory to have CableCARDs installed in a TiVo and there weren’t even many CableCARD TVs installed. But over a year later the experience wasn’t much different. And when I’ve had trouble and needed support, the support techs are also woefully confused by CableCARD. As of the last time I called the automated system still didn’t have an option for CableCARD in the menus. Fortunately I’m fairly educated on the technology and determined (aka stubborn), and I was able to make a contact in my local office who has been willing to handle my issues without my dealing with the standard support system. The cable MSOs really need to do a better job on the customer service and support front with CableCARD.

I think Ben was a little confused on DCR+. My understanding of the DCR+ CE proposal pretty much agrees with how the NCTA sees it. It would be today’s DCR with the addition of limited two-way support for specific services such as SDV, PPV, and VOD. But it would not be an open platform for expansion and future services as OCAP is. Of course, specs can evolve so other features could be added to DCR+. However, at this point I personally think DCR+ is DOA. Consumer electronics vendors such as Panasonic and TiVo are already breaking ranks and developing OCAP/tru2way support, and virtually the entire cable industry is investing in OCAP/tru2way. DCR+ just doesn’t have the support to make it.

The call was recorded, and if you really want to know about the history and current situation I encourage you to listen to it, especially if you’re a blogger who covers this arena. It will be available after 15:00 EST today through May 25th (I guess they keep them for a month). Call 1-800-475-6701 and enter access code 920821.

A lot of bloggers were on the call, I know HD Guru, Engadget, Zatz Not Funny (which has already posted about the call), Multichannel News, and others were all on there, so keep watching for their posts.

Switched Digital Video (SDV) has been the bane of CableCARD users, notably owners of the TiVo Series3 and TiVo HD. SDV channels cannot be tuned by UDCP (unidirectional digital cable products) CableCARD devices, such as TiVo, as SDV requires bidirectional communication with the head end.

Enter the Tuning Resolver. As previously reported, the Tuning Resolver is a bidirectional communications terminal which is designed to connect to a UDCP via USB, to enable SDV support. Of course, the UDCP most people refer to when discussing the Tuning Resolver is TiVo. Release is expected in 2Q08, and it is eagerly anticipated by many users.

Now Multichannel News is reporting that CableLabs has received the first version of a PC-based testing tool which will allow them to test the Tuning Resolver’s functionality. The tool was developed by Solekai Systems in Boulder, CO and is known as the Tuning Resolver Interface Simulator (TRIS).

“We at CableLabs are encouraged by the flexibility this tool offers to allow us to validate the interfaces between UDCP [unidirectional digital cable products] and tuning resolver devices, and ultimately provide UDCP devices with the ability to access switched digital video services in the field,” CableLabs vice president of advanced media platforms So Vang said, in a prepared statement.

This brings the Tuning Resolver one step closer to release. Development was only agreed upon last August, so getting the box to market in 2Q08 is really a fast-track development cycle for the cable industry. Charter isn’t using SDV in my area (yet?), but I know there are a lot of TiVo users out there for whom the Tuning Resolver can’t arrive fast enough.