Motorola's new lineup of MPEG4 HD STBs

by Ben Drawbaugh, posted Jan 3rd 2008 at 1:13PM

Moto's VP was just saying that MPEG4 would take over cable too, and so it begins with its first MPEG4 STB. This new lineup of cable set-top boxes will have all the bells and whistles including; MPEG2, MPEG4, OCAP, CableCARD, MoCA and most interestingly Dolby Digital Plus -- you know the new codec commonly used on HD DVDs. We can see where this is headed already, first we'll see these new boxes in the wild and before you know it new channels will require the latest hardware -- sound familiar? It should, it's how the satellite providers did it. In the long run this will help cable bring us more HD, but considering cable co's are footing the bill for all these boxes, we'd suspect the MPEG4 rollout will take much much longer than it did for either DirecTV or Dish.

[Via Mediaexperiences2go.com]

Filed under: Set-top boxes, Cable, Fiber

Tags: CableCARD, DCX3400, Dolby Digital Plus, DolbyDigitalPlus, MoCA, Motorola, MPEG2, MPEG4, OCAP, OpenCable

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Maxx @ Jan 3rd 2008 3:09PM

That is very pretty. I would love to have it in my home. I wonder when Crapcast will roll these out ? I didn't see anything about HD size other than generous. Anyone know ?

Neutral

Joe Maki @ Jan 3rd 2008 3:29PM

So will this obsolete the TiVo HD units?

Neutral

Jim Mallory @ Jan 3rd 2008 4:41PM

I've heard that the Tivo HD units have an MPEG-4 decoder (don't know if it is AVC though.) Vista Media Centers will probably only need a CODEC upgrade. It will obsolete every Cablecard TV in existence as none of them have MPEG-4/AVC decoders.

Neutral

John B @ Jan 3rd 2008 3:32PM

BWA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

Cable companies going to be footing the bill for these boxes? You're kidding, right? I've been forced to "rent" both of my cable boxes from Scamcast for years now. They're clearly not footing the bill for my two boxes and I certainly don't expect that "rent" to decrease or disappear when (if) these new boxes come along.

Neutral

Jim Mallory @ Jan 3rd 2008 4:19PM

It could be worse...Comcast could ask you to pony up a few hundred dollars for the new box (maybe give you the first one free) and ask you to pay a lease fee (Like DirecTV). I think it is going to be a very long time before you see these commonly deployed.

Neutral

John B @ Jan 3rd 2008 4:26PM

Actually, I could probably accept that *IF* going to MPEG-4 meant that they'd be able to offer channels THAT I ACTUALLY WANT TO WATCH! Right now we're forced to pay out the rectum for tons of channels that we don't want just to get the ones that we do want; and because they've pretty much saturated their bandwidth it doesn't look like there will be a lot of HD improvement (or overall channel improvement) anytime soon.

Yes, I know that that particular issue comes down to "a la carte", but if going MPEG-4 actually means that they would offer more channels (perhaps international channels?) that I'd love to see, I could almost -- almost -- go for paying for the box up front.

Neutral

Jim Mallory @ Jan 3rd 2008 4:58PM

Comcast has been adding 3 - 4 HD Channels every other month for at least the last six months here. Yes, they aren't moving as fast as DirecTV or Dish but they are adding channels. I think you will see Cable Companies go all-digital (get rid of the analog) before they go MPEG-4/AVC. But at least there is an upgrade path.

Neutral

FAUguy @ Jan 3rd 2008 9:00PM

Too bad it will take Comcast another 2 years before we even see these boxes in the homes.
They still haven't released the Motorola boxes that were shown at CES 2007!

Neutral

Iridium @ Jan 3rd 2008 10:03PM

I would gladly pay $200 for a box if it meant that I could keep it for whatever cable company I choose and they would drop the $10-15 rental fee from my monthly cable bill.

Just about everyone with cable has paid for thier cable box many times over. Hell I have a Pioneer Voyager box that is probably 7 years old rented by 2-3 people. Somehow I don't think the box is worth over $700.

Just a way for the cable companies to rip you off some more. Just like encrypting digital channels even though all TV's sold today can decode digital cable including the HD content. If I pay for the channels I shouldn't have to rent a crappy box that has already been paid for.

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