Jesse Caulfield

or

Windows Vista + ATI OCUR = Not Interesting

Long ago, while neck deep developing our next-generation media-center set top, we settled on a Linux-based OCUR built on the Java OCAP framework.

However, the role of vendor to the cable industry is not easy, and for us the biggest obstacle to bringing a cable product to market is CableLabs certification. It does not come cheaply, quickly, and is by no means a guarantee of any sale whatsoever.

At the time I started the project there were essentially only three options to build a cable receiver for the North American market:

1. License a certified reference design kit from Broadcom, Motorola or Scientific Atlanta
2. License and build on top of an existing CableLabs tested and certified OCUR hardware device
3. Build your own platform from basic principals (board, chips and software) and then push it though the gauntlet of development, testing, re-development, re-testing, etc.

Option one was limited, as Broadcom will only return calls from folks with very deep pockets and industry backing and Moto+SA want nothing to do with upstart outsiders.

Option three has the benefit of controlling the ingredients (and unit costs) of your hardware stew, but it’s a multi-million dollar gamble with, again, no sales guarantee when you’re done.

Option one was frustrating. Option three seemed irresponsible. Option two therefore was the least bad.

However, after contacting the product and business managers at ATI I was disappointed to learn that their recently approved OCUR technology will only be licensed to major PC manufacturers, and that the systems they can only build a bios-modified system running a special version of Windows Vista Home.

That’s too bad. ATI got it right by developing their product early, and their OCUR is the only certified product available today. Of you’re building a PC-based digital cable receiver, theirs is the only product on the market to make this possible.

The take-away lesson: CableLabs certification of the PC-based OCUR was begrudgingly given only to satisfy the North American cable industry’s legal mandate for platform diversity.

What does this mean for PC-based television products?

ATI says they may started selling their OCUR to the public after a sufficient number of OCUR-compliant PCs are out in the market

Bios-crippled Windows Vista (with digital cable OCUR) system may or may not sell well. There are approximately 14 million copies of Windows XP MCE sold, so there is a large, trained user community accustomed to viewing TV through a PC, and Sony, Toshiba, HP, Dell, and Gateway all have CableCARD-ready PC’s coming. However, the systems in the pipeline will place such restrictions on recorded media that their acceptance is in doubt.

Additionally, other, very exciting media-centric PC-based systems sponsored by the likes of Intel and AMD are not designed to comply with CableLabs restrictions, and so it’s not clear that the OCUR systems will produce any lasting impact on the market.

Adding eye-candy and a digital tuner will not mark a sea change to the watching-TV-on-a-PC market.

My company wanted to use OCUR is a temporary one-way receiving technology, using it to add broadcast television to our media center line-up. Later, we intended to upgrade the system and support Opencabel Host 2.0, adding interactivity will the program stream.

So what now?

IP + MPEG4 = Interactive TV without the baggage

References:

1. OCUR Specifications
2. ATI Digital Tuner
3. A Few Notes about the CableCard

Below is a news report about Cable company harping against the CableCard mandate.

Cable companies are right to say the CableCard mandate is bogus. However, it’s only bogus because the Gov’t is presupposing a technical solution, and not focusing on the desired result.

The desired result was to enable consumer choice on television. This means the ability to pick what to watch (a la carte programming), what they do not want to watch (V chip), and what features they want to pay for (3rd party set top box).

Congress thought this could be achieved by decoupling hardware (set top) from the service, thinking that by extracting conditional access (CableCard) from the rendering platform (set top), consumers could then buy a new platform with whatever advanced features they wanted.

The reality is that conditional access remains so tightly woven into the service, content so tightly protected, and the technology (patents) so closely licensed, that bringing a new cable box to market with CableCard certification is nearly impossible for a startup.

Furthermore, certified set tops with new, enhanced features like dual-tuner, HD and PVR are expensive yet remain feature crippled when compaired with even modern cell phones. Cable company cost ranges between $200 to $250 wholesale, and there is no rational argument that such a platform could be considered a legitimate consumer electronic device any consumer would purchase.

The result is that North American cable business may change the way it handles conditional access, from internal ASIC to external CableCard, but the consumer will see no benefit.

News Report from The Bridge Media Group.

“The cable industry has been saying for months that once the newly-established CableCard mandate took effect consumers would be forced to pay more for their leased set-top box. Now the mainstream press has picked up on the story, and the cable crowd could be facing increased subscriber angst as well as higher STB costs.

Thanks to the FCC ruling that requires cable operators to use the same technology in their STBs as set-tops sold at retail by non-cable companies, the industry, not surprisingly, has said that it will be forced to pass the increased costs on to subscribers. (The rule only applies to digital cable boxes deployed after July 1.) The regulation is designed to allow cable subs the ability to plug a CableCard into any STB and receive their cable TV services.

Regulators say the rule will give consumers a choice when purchasing a set-top from any source – whether that be from their cable provider or not. The cable industry, however, will have to pay more to implement the strategy and will be forced to pass those expenditures to customers – somewhere to the tune of $2 – $3 per month.

According to the National Cable and Telecommunications Association’s website, the FCC mandate “will likely cost cable consumers more than $600 million dollars per year in higher prices while offering no tangible benefits.” Said American Cable Association president/CEO Matt Polka, “The FCC’s regulations mean that box costs will go up for the same services customers are receiving today.”

Television industry commentator Phillip Swann said like most efforts by the government to create competition for a private industry, the CableCard ruling is destined for failure. He said the FCC doesn’t understand that cable subs don’t want to buy a cable box – or any retail STB.

“Consumers like the convenience of leasing their set-tops (because) there’s no up-front cost and its more convenient for the TV provider to send an installer to do the dirty work of connecting the box to the set.” Swann also said the new (post-July 1) CableCard digital boxes from cable operators will be more costly to manufacture, which will undoubtedly increase cable subs’ monthly bills.

The OpenCable Unidirectional Receiver is envisioned to be a digital cable receiver with a tuner, CableCard support and an IP interface.

OCURs are intended to enable multi-user, multi-room scenarios where multiple OCURs can provide digital cable programming over a home IP network to multiple Home Media Servers (HMS)

The session between the OCCUR (tuner/decoder) and the HMS (playback) must comply with Digital Receiver Interface (DRI) Protocol Specification

An envisioned OCCUR environment is a BIOS crippled PC running a special version of Windows Vista Home and is described below.
Fundamentally, an OCCUR tunes and decodes (via CableCard) digital cable content, then re-encodes that content with an approved Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology before transmitting the program stream to an IP address

Inside the device:

A few important requirements

• The OCUR must only use the CableCard to perform any and all conditional access functions
• Devices may implement one or both S-Mode or M-Mode
• The OCCUR may only use a CableLabs approved DRM system
• DRM systems may be de-authorized by the service provider
  The OCUR must allow for operating system and firmware upgrades by the service provider
• Devices may ONLY provide and support an output that complies with the Digital Receiver Interface (DRI) spefication

The CableCard is a hardware interface technology, the use of which is licensed by CableLabs.

CableCards exist to provide for secure decryption and protection of copyrighted broadcast content. Copy protection requirements are defined in the CableCard Copy Protection Specificaiton 2.0 (CCCP 2.0)

The present CableCard standard is defined in the document CableCard Interface Specification 2.0 (CCIF 20) issued March, 2005

All CableCards support two-way communication. The host device may support one or two-way communication with the cable network.

Tere are two types of CableCards which support the decoding of one or more stream at a time. Most cards issued today support multiple streams, so the operating mode typically depends upon the capabilities of the host device (1 or multiple tuners)

Types of Cards:

• S-Card: Supports only a single stream of transport data (audio/video, data, etc.)
• M-Card: Supports multiple streams of transport data

Types of Hosts:

• Single Stream Host: Can tune into only one stream (channel) at a time, regardless of the number of tuners available
• Multi-Stream Host: Can tune into more than on stream at a time

The Card/Host Combinations are straightforward

Note that the Multi-Stream host may accept or reject an S-Card. This depends upon the manufacturer and service provider implementations. However, most cards issued today are M-Cards.

Operating Modes:

• S-Mode: The maximum serial video transfer rate through the card is 40 Mbps, full duplex with one stream supported
• S-Mode: The maximum transfer rate is 200 Mbps full-duplex for any number of streams

There are four types of devices that may accept a CableCard
Each device is assigned a digital certificate at the time of manufacturer

1. UDPC: Unidirectional Digital Cable Product
   • Product Example: A very cheap basic cable set top box Single-Stream Host
   • Product category was created by FCC rules
   • Officially labeled as “Digital Cable Ready Receiver”
   • Licensed under DFAST
   • Requirements defined under the Joint Test Suite Conformance Checklist: PICS Proforma
2. M-UDCP: Multi-Stream UDCP
   • Product Example: A less cheap basic cable set top box supporting picture-in-picture
   • Same as UDCP, but uses an M-Card and operated in M-Mode
   • Same license and requirements as UDCP (?)
3. OCUR: OpenCable Unidirectional Receiver
   • Product Example: None exist today.
   • One expected example is the Windows Vista Media Center PC
   • Provides premium digital cable content to PCs
   • Decodes cable content and re-encodes with an approved DRM technology
   • Limited to S-Mode at this time
   • Licensed under CableCard-Host Interface License Agreement (CHILA)
   • Specifications and requirements defined in two main documents:
   1. 1. OpenCable Unidirectional Receiver (OCUR) Specification
      2. Digital Receiver Interface (DRI) Protocol Specification
4. OpenCable Host 2.0
   • Product Example: Most all modern cable set top boxes that do not support the Downloadable Conditional Access System (DCAS)
   • Supports 2-way communications with the cable system, allowing interactive programming and services including Video on Demand, Switched Digital Video, VoIP, etc.)
   • Uses one of three protocols to communicate with the cable network. The industry is pushing hard to migrate all systems from Aloha or DAVIC to DSG/DOCSIS
   1. 1. Aloha: Motorola Systems
      2. DAVIC: Scientific Atlanta Systems
      3. DSG/DOCSIS: Various Other Ssytems