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How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

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Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#161

Post by eunoia »

BooneJS wrote: post #133
stephengillie wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NFL and other leagues have streaming on their own sites now. NFL is $75/year for all games on-demand.

after the games end. Live games are still DirecTV Sunday Ticket or some Sunday Ticket streaming service that only "some addresses" are eligible for.

Only in the USA. You get every game live if you purchase through a country that doesn't like American Football much.

Edit: To clarify, there are 3 tiers of GamePass. What you get depends on where you purchase and access from.

USA: only preseason live

GB, Mexico & maybe some others: regular season games live (no postseason)

Rest of the world: All games live + RedZone

Seems like they get paid a lot by existing corporate players for exclusive distribution rights in the states.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#162

Post by rasz »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #154
rasz wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

last time I checked the "900Mbps" topped out at 200mbit real data

I had the same experience but I did not expect much more from my power installation (a mixture of old and new cabling). This is still 200 Mbps, better than the Wi-Fi the device could get.

cabling is not the limiting factor, you can link them using plain cable (outside power installation) https://forum.openrov.com/t/teardown-of-a-homeplug-adapter/3...

200Mbps is their real PHY speed, 900Mbps is just a Scam

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#163

Post by BrandoElFollito »

rasz wrote: post #162
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same experience but I did not expect much more from my power installation (a mixture of old and new cabling). This is still 200 Mbps, better than the Wi-Fi the device could get.

cabling is not the limiting factor, you can link them using plain cable (outside power installation) https://forum.openrov.com/t/teardown-of-a-homeplug-adapter/3... 200Mbps is their real PHY speed, 900Mbps is just a Scam

Ah.

Thanks for the link, it is an impressive article and while I work in IT, the electronic may be a bit off my league (I just solder a bit around IoT devices and flash them).

I realized with your comment that I have never actually tested the plugs when they are next to each other (say, on an extender). I did not expect there would be a physical limitation below the advertized 1Gbps (I now all I got 400 Mbps I think but I am not at home to get that with a local iperf loop). If they cannot deliver close to that I would be pissed off :)

I have, again from memory, a 2x1Gbps tplink pair.

This said, my power cabling is sub par so this was the obvious reason for me for the lower bandwidth.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#164

Post by wil421 »

r00fus wrote: post #160
wil421 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mesh WiFi is costly and probably hard to maintain for elderly people. A cheap Ethernet cord would fix the problem. Move the router closer to the office.

Uh... my Amplifi is dead simple to setup. I bet the eero and others are as well.

Explaining to an elderly person that you are moving a router to extend the range is much easier than telling them they need a 2nd networking device with mesh networking capabilities.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#165

Post by 01100011 »

raverbashing wrote: post #113
01100011 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite. Tuners can be cheap or they can be expensive depending on the features you want. I don't think Broadcom's full-band capture tuner, which IIRC is basically a 2GHz ADC, is very cheap. It allows things like pre-tuning to adjacent channels which hastens channel changes. Security on set-tops is a big issue(as well as on OTT devices but STBs are crazy) and that may increase costs. Legacy interfaces like cable ca…

> Tuners can be cheap or they can be expensive depending on the features you want. I don't think Broadcom's full-band capture tuner, which IIRC is basically a 2GHz ADC, is very cheap. True, but a basic ATSC/DVB/ISTB shouldn't be too expensive. Maybe cable ones are more expensive, but the tech is basically the same. Satellite is pricier. > Cable box SoCs(usually from Broadcom) are beasts and also not cheap. They suppo…

TS decoding sure... handling section information and all that. But program guides and UIs are where the steamiest piles of shit lay.

On top of that, you have mfgs having to hack in power management support to meet european regulations and it's just a shit show.

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#166

Post by mjevans »

calhoun137 wrote: post #88

Slightly off topic, Comcast actually stole my mom's modem that she bought from amazon! What happened is most likely the modem she bought was supposed to be returned to comcast by another customer, but that person instead just put it up for sale on amazon. Every so often a charge for a box rental would show up on her bill, she would go to the store in person to show them the receipt, get a refund and the charges would…

If it's stolen why not refuse to activate the device and/or feed it only a "Stolen equipment detected, contact customer service rep" 'channel'?

Re: How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don't ask

#167

Post by myrandomcomment »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #159
myrandomcomment wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. The “Ads” are the reason I looked at the Roku and then said no. I was looking at an AppleTV also (I would have to convert some of my videos, but whatever) however the lack of an optical audio out kills that as I want the music to go to a different amp. So PC with Kodi and TV apps for Netflix and Amazon. The quest continues!

Do you need 4K? The 3rd-gen Apple TV has optical audio out but it's 1080p only. Very nice interface though. If you already have a 4K TV, does it really not have optical out built-in? My Roku TV has it and it's about as cheap as 4K TVs get.

So right now I have this -

Compute --> DAC DAC --> TV --> Sound Bar for videos (also TV apps output to sound bar) DAC --> Tube Amp (for music played from computer) Record Player --> Tube Amp Tube Amp --> 2 good speakers

Ideal would would be Apple TV with XM, iPlayer, Netflix, Amazon App - HDMI to 4K TV - TV to sound bar Apple TV with Optical to DAC to Tube Amp.

I have looked at some of the HDMI sound extractors but there seems to be limits on things you can play, having a remote, DRM.

Everything is controlled by Logictech Harmony.

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