Hooking up the system was a snap, although the cable box and VCR had to be removed first.
Microsoft has just brought the eventual death of the cable box closer.
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If you want to record The Sopranos, you have to set the cable box to HBO and tell the MX when to start and stop.
Rather than continue to fight a losing battle to replace the cable box, the company refocused on making it iPod-simple to watch shows across all of its devices.
At first I hooked up the cable box to the new TV via component video cables and the new DVD player via HDMI (with optical out to the sound system).
Digital video recorders--the cable industry's answer to TiVo (nasdaq: TIVO - news - people )--allow users to record programs on a hard drive inside the cable box, as well as to pause or rewind live TV.
The FCC let it be known last week in a Memorandum Opinion and Order that a single standard wasn't actually required, as long as the IP interface on the cable box used an industry standard -- the Commission did bless the DLNA Premium Video Profile as a suitable example.
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Besides meaning you have one less ugly component to deal with, getting rid of the cable box also usually means better picture quality and you don't have pay rental fees for your box any more (though we have faith that the cable companies will eventually find a way to charge seven bucks a month for CableCard rentals).
The old cable box decrypts its set of data and discards the Passage bits, while a Passage-enabled box decrypts only the Passage-encoded video.
Hedging his bets, he'd like to sell chipsets to the cable-box makers themselves.
The connection between the positive battery cable and the fuse box could degrade over time.
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The box will still ship with a micro-USB to USB cable in the box, allowing the handset to plug into a deskbound computer or a mains charger with a USB socket.
Kevin Hause, who tracks interactive business for IDC, thinks that it is too soon to say whether Sun will be able to dominate the cable set-top box market, as cable operators are hedging their bets on various operating systems.
The Cable or Satellite box can be used for VOD or be used to watch normal TV.
Sony could overcome this hurdle by conveniently including that requisite HDMI-out cable in the box, but as it stands, you'll only get the standard micro-USB cable and charger dongle.
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Since its founding, TiVo has evolved into the ultimate single solution media center by combining its patented DVR technologies and universal cable box capabilities with the ability to aggregate, search, and deliver millions of pieces of broadband, cable, and broadcast content directly to the television.
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Since its founding, TiVo has evolved into the ultimate single-solution media center by combining its patented DVR technologies and universal cable box capabilities with the ability to aggregate, search and deliver millions of pieces of broadband, cable and broadcast content directly to the television.
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Wonderfully, unlike the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the Wii U includes an HDMI cable right out of the box.
Write it down: this may have been the day that the cable set-top box business came down with a terminal disease.
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Neither company's effort has done anything to shake the shared stronghold of Motorola (nyse: MOT - news - people ) and Scientific Atlantic (nyse: SFA - news - people ) on the cable set-top box industry.
If that occurs, digital cable could migrate from the box above the TV set to the inside, just as analog cable did.
Imagine downloading a software upgrade for your cable box from the Internet or upgrading your printer with a mouse click (for more on PLDs click here).
Unfortunately, the sad tradition of not including an HDMI cable with high-definition, HDMI-enabled consoles continues here, with only a (standard def) RCA cable included in the box.
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There are two exposed metal connectors, used to pair up with the proprietary magnetic USB charging cable (the only accessory that ships in the box), but the housing appears to be properly sealed.
One half, Motorola Mobility, got the cellphone and cable set-top box units and ex- Qualcomm exec Sanjay Jha as CEO.
Xbox One has the BluRay drive (at last) and at least the tantalizing prospect of being your cable box, too.
The Vybe works with any sound source such as a gaming console, TV, computer, or mobile phone using a standard audio cable (included in the box).
Worse is the dilemma posed by Mr Gates, who wants the entire cable industry to accept the Microsoft standard for the set-top box.
The recent speculation that Apple will move into the set top box business in partnership with one or more of the cable operators sounds like a logical way around this impasse.
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