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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

#71

Post by k3oni »

rb808 wrote: post #43
dgzl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the past year, I've been trying to convince my grandparents to ditch cable for internet TV, and the transition has been surprisingly difficult. After two attempts (I don't live near them), I am still not successful, however I did reduce the TV/phone/internet bundle from $250 to $200. Next time I see them, I'm coming prepared with the items that prevented me from succeeding before, and hopefully I'll be reducing t…

powerline networking is your friend.

This, they have some nice ones with over 900Mbps now out pretty cheap and they work as expected.

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

#72

Post by crispyambulance »

raverbashing wrote: post #50

Do you really wanna know how much it costs? Look at similar streaming hardware (think FireStick, Roku, etc) The hardware (heck, even the software) is the same or very similar for the most part. Smartphones made the hw price (and form factors) go down a lot. If your decoder is DTV or Cable there's an extra cost related to the receiver, but that has also getting cheaper as well. Long gone are the times of the first rec…

Yeah, the actual core of the device is going to be roughly something like a chromecast.

Almost certainly no asics, so the cost is going to be dominated by commodity parts-- displays, audio-visual jacks and then there's the branded plastic case, graphics, labels.

There's an iFixit teardown of the chromecast here: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Chromecast+2015+Teardown/501...

Basically, 5 or 6 IC's and related trimmings--- BOM cost? I am going to guess around $35-- that's what google sells it for. Since they're making money not on the device itself but rather the online activity that becomes enabled from using the device, I expect the retail price would be roughly the BOM cost.

A little more money if you're looking at a proper set-top, I guess, though I haven't actually seen a cable box in a long time. Are they roku-sized now, or just huge mostly empty boxes?

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

#73

Post by PhasmaFelis »

dionidium wrote: post #33
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption may be that any worthwhile article will immediately be "reported on" (restated with no new information) by a dozen other sites. Edit: I'm not saying that's a good thing, guys. I agree with dionidium.

Right, exactly, which is to trivialize original reporting beyond the dictates of fairness. An original piece of reporting and the blog post that summarizes it are not equivalent content .

Indeed. Just to be clear, I agree with you; I only meant to clearly state the OP's faulty assumption.

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

#74

Post by dpeck »

reaperducer wrote: post #19
drblast wrote: post #5

I have the same reaction every time I read about any cable company, and that's, "WTF are you all still giving them your money for?!" They have a monopoly on a dying service you literally don't need at all, and most people hate having to deal with them. The pricing and contracts are antagonistic to customers. Is it just momentum at this point?

you literally don't need at all Unless you live in a place without broadcast television, or little broadcast television, and with little to no internet service. So pretty much 20% of the United States. The nation is much larger than the east and west coasts.

cable tv without broadcast... does that combination exist anywhere?

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

#75

Post by sjm-lbm »

captainmuon wrote: post #18
LanceH wrote: post #3

I would really like to buy a box that was sophisticated enough to cache which channels I have and what is showing on those channels. They all seem to do a very slow refresh every time I switch between menus. It's now a distant memory being able to switch between channels instantly. I should at least be able to page through the menus quickly.

I always thought about putting multiple tuners in the box, and just decoding multiple channels simultaneously. Then to switch a channel you would just "put another window in the front". You could have a predictive system that would decode the three most likely next channels and start decoding them. In the best case, this would move the latency of the first switch close to zero, and of subsequent switches to 1/2 or 1/…

I have a (pretty old) TiVo that lets you do something similar to this - there's some button on the remote (I honestly can't remember what it is called) that lets you cycle between the tuners. It works pretty much like you describe - if a bit more manually - and has the added benefit of not requiring you to type a multi digit channel number every time you want to hop between your favorite channels.

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

#76

Post by rootw0rm »

scrooched_moose wrote: post #48
radicalbyte wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is running an Ethernet cable not an option?

Unless both rooms are on the first floor above an unfinished basement it usually isn't.

pulling wire isn't rocket surgery.

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

#77

Post by jplayer01 »

adrianmonk wrote: post #66
mikeash wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The allure of channel-surfing and just leaving something on in the background seems to be huge for some people. Getting stuff on demand is great, but it does require a bit of thought.

Streaming services probably can and should cater to that more. I think sometimes the psychological aspect of it isn't appreciated. The whole point of plopping down on the couch and turning on the TV is to decompress. It's great that streaming services allow you to choose what to watch when, but if you've been figuring things out and making decisions all day, that's what you want to get away from. Traditional broadcas…

There's an unofficial streaming site that treats shows like TV channels, and provides channels for movie genres. Even when I paid for Netflix, it was just so much more convenient to go to the other site because I could click on a show (or the random button) and I'd have something running until I closed the tab. It's really the best format I've seen if you aren't intent on binge-watching a show from beginning to end.

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

#78

Post by lozaning »

rb808 wrote: post #43
dgzl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the past year, I've been trying to convince my grandparents to ditch cable for internet TV, and the transition has been surprisingly difficult. After two attempts (I don't live near them), I am still not successful, however I did reduce the TV/phone/internet bundle from $250 to $200. Next time I see them, I'm coming prepared with the items that prevented me from succeeding before, and hopefully I'll be reducing t…

powerline networking is your friend.

Last time I tried this I had extreme packet loss if I plugged the two converters into outlets on different breakers, do you know if this is still the case?

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

#79

Post by megaman8 »

drblast wrote: post #5

I have the same reaction every time I read about any cable company, and that's, "WTF are you all still giving them your money for?!" They have a monopoly on a dying service you literally don't need at all, and most people hate having to deal with them. The pricing and contracts are antagonistic to customers. Is it just momentum at this point?

i suspect the remaining customers aren't very price sensitive, and not the type to try something new to lower their bill by a huge amount. the cable companies have realized this and decided to milk it for all it's worth.

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

#80

Post by Serow225 »

dgzl wrote: post #25
drblast wrote: post #5

I have the same reaction every time I read about any cable company, and that's, "WTF are you all still giving them your money for?!" They have a monopoly on a dying service you literally don't need at all, and most people hate having to deal with them. The pricing and contracts are antagonistic to customers. Is it just momentum at this point?

For the past year, I've been trying to convince my grandparents to ditch cable for internet TV, and the transition has been surprisingly difficult. After two attempts (I don't live near them), I am still not successful, however I did reduce the TV/phone/internet bundle from $250 to $200. Next time I see them, I'm coming prepared with the items that prevented me from succeeding before, and hopefully I'll be reducing t…

MOCA 2.0 via a Motorola adapter works great for me.
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