[mythtv-users] CableCard Chain.

[Gary Buhrmaster]

On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 2:21 AM, Devin Heitmueller
<dheitmueller at kernellabs.com> wrote:

> .... They almost certainly doing this to increase rental income by forcing
> people to have more settop boxes.  I never intended to suggest
> otherwise.
>
> Devin

This is OT to the discussion, but I do not really believe this is true.
The STB's cost the MSOs quite a lot, and the rental fees would take
many years to fully recover (and by that time most people with any
knowledge have upgraded to a newer, bigger, hard disk STB for "free"
because they can by walking into the local office and asking for it).

No, the purpose of the STB's is to enable you to spend more
(on PPV/On-Demand), allow them (via digital tech) to broadcast
400 channels (of which you regularly watch 10, but someone
else watches a different subset, etc.), while protecting the
content they have agreed to protect via various DRM tech.

In the longer term, the STB as we know it today will morph
into being just another IP end-point, but there is still some
disagreement on exactly the approaches to take.  We live
in interesting times.

Gary