CableCARD Deployments Creep Past 53M
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Not even 1 million for non Cable STB users. And a majority of that is the more popular Tivo.
article wrote:and a mere 617,000 of the removable security modules in TiVo boxes, TVs and other retail products with CableCARD slots, according to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association’s latest report to the FCC.
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True... But the number is a little misleading. I would like to see the average number of tuners for leased equipment vs. customer owned. I bet leased is 1.5 tuners per card vs. Owned is 3 or 4 tuners per card.
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The number should in fact be exploding.
The STBs that don't use the CableCARDs are over a decade old, because boxes made before 2006 were grandfathered out of the requirement to use physical CableCARDs. STBs made before 2006 tend to also not support H.264 though, and to squeeze into less bandwidth, more cable companies are adding H.264 channels, and therefore need to replace those 13+ year old boxes.
Unfortunately the integration ban was lifted last year, and we may start seeing new STBs that integrate them instead of using the physical cards again, which the cable companies will flock to for their replacements.
The STBs that don't use the CableCARDs are over a decade old, because boxes made before 2006 were grandfathered out of the requirement to use physical CableCARDs. STBs made before 2006 tend to also not support H.264 though, and to squeeze into less bandwidth, more cable companies are adding H.264 channels, and therefore need to replace those 13+ year old boxes.
Unfortunately the integration ban was lifted last year, and we may start seeing new STBs that integrate them instead of using the physical cards again, which the cable companies will flock to for their replacements.
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I was forced to pick up a stand alone STB due to the promotion I'm on. (Luckily the phone rep screwed up so they gave it free for a year)
It's a brand spanking new Arris non-DVR single tuner HD box. Yep! It still has an M-Card! However the little "digital adapter" they're issuing to customers for the digital conversion must be integrated because they are barely bigger than a CableCARD.
It's a brand spanking new Arris non-DVR single tuner HD box. Yep! It still has an M-Card! However the little "digital adapter" they're issuing to customers for the digital conversion must be integrated because they are barely bigger than a CableCARD.
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I suspect there are contractual agreements with manufacturers to buy cablecard boxes, and also a lack of sufficient supply of the non-cablecard boxes.STC wrote:If anything it shows MSOs aren't cutting back on using them.
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The numbers are WAAAAY off, or someone else is lying somewhere else...and a mere 617,000 of the removable security modules in TiVo boxes, TVs and other retail products with CableCARD slots, according to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association’s - See more at: http://www.multichannel.com/news/techno ... RNlSX.dpuf
TiVO claims to have 2,000,000 subscribers. I would guess that 90% of those are with cableTV services. That would mean that there are at least 2,000,000 CableCARDs out there...
Only Ceton and SiliconDust know how many of their tuners are in service, but a few years ago, Microsoft released their statistics for WMC, and it was 8,000,000 in use globally. They didn't break it down by region or type of service.
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Not quite a lie and the numbers are probably pretty close. I followed the source link in the article you linked to. Here is text from that document:blueiedgod wrote:The numbers are WAAAAY off, or someone else is lying somewhere else...and a mere 617,000 of the removable security modules in TiVo boxes, TVs and other retail products with CableCARD slots, according to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association’s - See more at: http://www.multichannel.com/news/techno ... RNlSX.dpuf
I think the numbers are pretty close but the journalism was a bit sloppy. The author should have cut and pasted the text; some information got lost when he tried to put it in his own words.CableCARD Deployment and Support. The five cable operators who are required to
report today – Cablevision Systems, Charter Communications, Comcast Corporation, Cox
Communications, and Time Warner Cable – have deployed approximately 586,000
CableCARDs for use in retail CableCARD-enabled devices. When the CableCARDs deployed
by the next four largest incumbent cable operators are included, there have been over 617,000
CableCARDs deployed for use in retail devices by the nine largest incumbent cable operators.
By contrast, those nine companies have more than 53,000,000 operator-supplied set-top boxes
with CableCARDs currently deployed.
CableCard is a United States-only technology. TiVo and MCE are used in many countries. The number of worldwide MCE and TiVo users can't be used to indicate the number of CableCards.blueiedgod wrote: TiVO claims to have 2,000,000 subscribers. I would guess that 90% of those are with cableTV services. That would mean that there are at least 2,000,000 CableCARDs out there...
Only Ceton and SiliconDust know how many of their tuners are in service, but a few years ago, Microsoft released their statistics for WMC, and it was 8,000,000 in use globally. They didn't break it down by region or type of service.
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In addition to the fact that this is worldwide as mentioned above, the TIVO numbers probably also include anyone who has ever had a TIVO lifetime subscription. There are likely to be quite a few of these that are inactive or no longer using the product.blueiedgod wrote:TiVO claims to have 2,000,000 subscribers. I would guess that 90% of those are with cableTV services. That would mean that there are at least 2,000,000 CableCARDs out there...
The 600,000 number sounds much more accurate.
That number is so misleading it's insane. That has to be including every single user who has clicked on the WMC logo or opened the program one time, which is going to be potentially millions when you consider WMC is the default player for many video types in the past two versions of windows.Only Ceton and SiliconDust know how many of their tuners are in service, but a few years ago, Microsoft released their statistics for WMC, and it was 8,000,000 in use globally. They didn't break it down by region or type of service.
Even if we're going to ignore how insane that claim is, that is 1% of the WMC user base worldwide and highlights how crazy it is that people around here think things like 2000 people signing a petition are going to have a chance to save this program.
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The 8,000,000 number was based on the percentage of users they said launched WMC at least once in one month, July 2011 I think. But yeah, it did say most of those were just looking around and closed it within 10 minutes.That number is so misleading it's insane. That has to be including every single user who has clicked on the WMC logo or opened the program one time, which is going to be potentially millions when you consider WMC is the default player for many video types in the past two versions of windows.Only Ceton and SiliconDust know how many of their tuners are in service, but a few years ago, Microsoft released their statistics for WMC, and it was 8,000,000 in use globally. They didn't break it down by region or type of service.
Also, it has never been the default player except for .wtv and .dvr-ms files which are unusual for non-WMC users. If you click on any .avis, .mp4s, or .mkvs it will most likely open Windows Media Player, not Windows Media Center.