If smaller companies all share a single design, that design will becomes a commodity, with the OEM’s only competitive edge on each other will be pricing pressure.

CableLabs isn’t doing anything differently than they have ever done before. They have been certifying STB/PVR’s from Motorola, Scientific Atlanta, General Instruments, Sony, etc… for years. They have a process in place, and when Motorola or Sony or any of the others designs a new STB/PVR, they submit it for testing and certification along with any necessary fees and await their certification. Once certified, they start producing and selling the STB/PVR. That has gone on without complaints from anyone that the barriers to entry in this business are impossible to overcome.

Suddenly, here comes a slew of whitebox PC builders that have yet to build their first cable-TV STB/PVR, demanding to be given special licensing treatment, lower fees and limited amounts of testing all because Microsoft announced a product that may or may not be available to these small OEM’s?

Your whole rant about the effectiveness of digital encryption is interesting, but that isn’t CableLabs’ cross to bear. Without Microsoft and its Media Center application, would any of these small-time OEM’s still be pursuing CableLabs blessing for any other product of theirs? Go complain to Microsoft that its too expensive to get into the cable STB/PVR business.

Do you really think that by decrypting cable that you’ll prevent the thieves from getting copies? Thieves will always exist. If there was a reasonable belief that you might be able to stop theives from getting high def copies I might buy into that arguement, but the truth is that this will not stop thieves from obtaining HDTV content.

Between leaks in the entertainment industry and technological change, you cannot expect this to eliminate piracy.

Right now you can get HDTV through attenna for most networks. Instead honest citizens are punished by higher prices and delayed technology. Cable Labs is nothing but a smoke screen for an old economic monopoly who can feel their power slipping.

Not quite, CableLabs job is to ensure that it’s as difficult as possible for a thief to decrypt a cable company’s signal.

I don’t put the blame on Microsoft for CableCARD Testing (however it ends up to turn out), but there are several others things they have done with the platform at limit smaller OEMs (Away Mode, Changers, etc). Even if Jim plans to help (define help? Pay for?) smaller OEMs here, if the set CableLabs fees stay the same for PCs and we pick say 40 OEMs out of the known 130. Microsoft helps pay 50% of the fee making it $75,000 per OEM and Microsoft picking up the other 3 million! In other words, no matter how they help (other than having CableLabs drop the fee), it’s still too much on both sides (I doubt Microsoft is throwing 3 million at this).

Chris Lanier