The regulator is seeking comments "on how to encourage innovation," which basically means how to move past the total failure of the CableCARD system and on to something that will democratize how and where you can access cable video streams. If you're never heard about the CableCARD system, it's effectively the only thing keeping you from using your Xbox 360 as a DVR. A potential change could
open up cable signals to all devices, including your TiVo and Xbox 360.

And until very recently, you couldn't even get your Windows PC to be a DVR unless you bought it OEM from HP or Dell or someone, where they would install the CableCARD for you at the time of purchase. Quite opposite from the way people pictured CableCARDs would work—and how it will work shortly.

Just how bad is it? Ars Technica points out that in the FCC report, a grand total of fourteen non-leased set top boxes were available in the US at retail in 2008. That means that nearly every set-top box in the US is leased by a cable company, allowing them virtually unlimited pricing control and no incentive to innovate. Compare that to the 879 devices for sale in the truly competitive mobile industry, and you can see just how throttled the market is by the cable industry.

There's no telling what exactly is going to happen here, but at the very least it's good to see the FCC continuing their push for openness and sanity. We've waited long enough for something that's really not too much to ask. [ars technica]

As it turns out, Xfinity is just a rebranding of TV Everywhere—a free service that allows you to play your tv content on up to three authenticated internet devices. We already knew that would be rolling out in December, but Zats has specified an exact date of December 12th.

As for remote DVR scheduling, details are a little hazier. Comcast has "promised" that the feature is on the horizon, but no specific dates have been announced. [Zats]

In case you forgot, Sezmi plans to roll up live broadcast and cable TV along with web videos, on demand-movies and DVR functionality in a single, easy to navigate set-top box. Needless to say, this is a tall order, and most of us probably relegated Sezmi to the vaporware bin. However, trials of the product have begun in LA and a $25 million cash infusion from investors has given the project new life. In fact, it seems that Sezmi spent the last year working out deals with the likes of Sony Pictures, MGM Studios, Paramount Studios, Warner Brothers, Lion's Gate Entertainment and Universal Studios for on demand streaming, and ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC, Turner, MTV Networks Discovery Channel, Telemundo and Univision for TV content.

Sezmi plans to offer a tiered pricing plan that starts with Sezmi Select, the entry tier, which will offer all local channels (in SD and HD) as well as access to on-demand content for $4.99 per month. Sezmi Supreme will include cable and local channels for $24.99 per month.

If you are interested in participating in the trial, you can apply for the LA pilot here. If you are lucky enough to get in, the equipment and the service will be free of charge for three months, after which you will be offered a discounted price on the DVR and tuners which normally runs $300. [Sezmi via Variety and Zats]

Currently in beta with 5,000 subscribers, here's what we know:

• It's free with a subscription
• You authenticate up to 3 devices through Comcast.net or Fancast.com
• Video playback on Move Networks player
• Video on Demand content, though no word on HD content
• Streaming will count against Comcast's 250GB monthly bandwidth caps

But don't take our word for it. Watch the whole interview with Comcast's Amy Banse here:

What do you think? Does this sound better than Hulu to you? [NewTeeVee via mediaexperiences2go via Engadget]

The full story is over at Wired, and is quite interesting, but one of the effects achieved was to basically reverse Parkinson's disease in mice. You should head over to find more, including what they'll do to get around the need to thread fiber through your skull. [Wired]

The Griffin cable uses the Panasonic eXport port standard, which is approved by Apple under the "Works with iPhone" and "Made for iPod" programs. The eXport port technology is now available for licensing by other in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems manufacturers.

The port allows the IFE system to access and display the iPhone/iPod's multimedia content. as well as navigate through the user playlists, and content-metadata like artists or genre. Right now, you can find it in United Airlines—only in first class—and Continental Airlines' new Boeing 777s.

Hopefully, all airlines will now start including these ports in every single airplane seat out there, which would give me an excuse to stop flirting with stewardesses. If I were living in the sexy, glamorous, and not-very-SFW 70s, that is. [Runway Girl]

Now it appears they're at it again, although what the target(s) will be this time around is anybody's guess. A few of the names floated so far are Viacom Inc and Time Warner Inc.

It's most likely not Disney, said former Disney CEO Michael Eisner. "They may want to recapture their dreams of going after Disney, but not with Disney specifically," he said. "I am sure [Comcast] Brian Roberts and Steve Burke (COO) have Time Warner high on their computer screens."

The analysts, in a word, were weary of such a move. [Reuters via Slashdot]

You can forward calls from your Comcast number to your iPhone, and it pulls voicemails from your Comcast home phone and Comcast email into a single inbox. (Though why you'd use the email inside of Comcast's app over the iPhone's actual email app is beyond me.) It'll also sync your iPhone's address book to a universal Comcast address book. The program guide is nice enough, with bookmarks and reminders, even if it's not the flashiest TV listings setup we've seen.

I got the occasional error message that the app ran out of memory, and it'd be nice to be able to do some account management, like order On Demand movies for later from my phone, program my Comcast DVR box, or pay the bill.

Overall, it's a surprisingly nice little app, provided you actually use your Comcast email address and have their Digital Voice service as your home phone.

[iTunes]

Being Monsters, you know they're gonna cost a ton. Four feet of "high speed" SuperThin cable has a suggested price of $90, going up to $100 for 8 feet, and $120 for 16 feet. Standard speed cables start at $80 for 1 meter, $90 for 2 meters, $100 for 4 meters and $120 for 5 meters. I'll leave the judgments to you guys in the comments.

Monster Introduces Breakthrough "SuperThin Cable™ for HDMI™"
— Developed in Collaboration with RedMere, New Powered SuperThin Cables for HDMI Are
Ideal for Elegant Flat-Panel TV Installations and Use with Mobile HD Devices —

New York, NY, June 10, 2009 - Monster, the world's leading manufacturer of cables,
AV accessories, and power conditioning products, today announced the introduction of
a new line of "Powered" SuperThin Cables™ for HDMI™ Cables specifically designed
for use with a wide variety of electronics devices, ranging from today's super-slim flat-
panel TVs to digital video cameras, home theater systems, gaming systems or portable
computers. The new Monster SuperThin Cables for HDMI are the first fruits of a
recently announced collaboration with RedMere, a leader in advanced silicon chip
development. Monster Super Thin Cable for HDMI products will be available in 4-, 8-,
and 16-foot versions in the DigitalLife line of products (DL HDMI HSMI-4, DL HDMI
HSMI-8, DL HDMI HSMI-16).Monster's Core line of cables for HDMI will also offer a
SuperThin cable design in 1, 2, 4 and 5 meter lengths.

HD Signals Are Boosted in the Cable Itself
With the introduction of SuperThin Cable for HDMI, Monster is continuing to follow
through on its commitment to provide consumers with a comprehensive range of high-
quality, reliable connectivity solutions for every need and budget. The key innovation
that made the creation of Monster SuperThin Cables for HDMI possible is the
RedMere™ MagnifEye™ Active technology. Requiring no external power supply the
technology enables industry-leading data speeds and ultimate-quality performance by
boosting the HD signals directly in the SuperThin cable itself. This eliminates the need
for heavy-gauge copper, making the cables extremely light, thin and portable.
SuperThin cables measure just 3.5 mm in diameter, approximately 65% thinner than
normal HDMI cables.

Noted Noel Lee, the Head Monster: "Monster built our reputation on thick, heavy
gauge high-quality cables with unequalled performance capabilities. Now, thanks to
our alliance with RedMere and the leading-edge MagnifEye Active technology, we're
able to provide our customers with the same level of Monster quality and reliability in
a brand new type of ‘magically thin' cable. The difference is immediately apparent –
SuperThin cables are much smaller and lighter, matching the sleek appearance of
the consumer electronics products they connect. Whether you want a totally clean-
looking virtually invisible installation option for your HDTV or you just want a much
better and more convenient way to access HD content while on-the-go, there's never
been anything like our new super-thin cables."

Digital Life™ SuperThin High Speed Powered Cable for HDMI (SRP) 4ft. $89.95, 8ft.
$99.95 and 16ft $119.95

Digital Life SuperThin High Speed Powered Cable for camcorder; Mini HDMI to HDMI
8ft (SRP) $99.95

Monster's Core Line of SuperThin Powered Cables for HDMI 1m $79.95, 2m $89.95 4m
$99.95, 5m $119.95.

"Super-Slim TVs Need Monster SuperThin Cables"
Monster's new SuperThin cables for HDMI are poised to usher in a new era of
convenience and elegance in high-performance cable management, both at home and
on-the-go. Featuring a built-in LED indicator that instantly lets users know they are
active, the virtually invisible cables are ideal for use in aesthetically designed home
theater installations utilizing flat-panel TVs. Consumers can literally hide the cables
away in plain sight, as well as fit them into any tight corners for a new level of
installation flexibility. Additionally, the compact and lightweight cables, which include
handy cable ties, are ideal for taking on the road with camcorders or other mobile digital
devices. Their easy portability provides users with a fast and convenient way to connect
camcorders or other digital devices to notebook computers or other display. For total
reliability and performance, the new cables feature corrosion-resistant 24k gold
contacts.

[Monster]

Right now, Comcast's top tier plan allows 50Mbps downloading for $189/month. Theoretically, as great as 100Mbps would be, it would run $380/month (no, the price probably won't scale that way). Still, if $380 were the price and you download a lot of movies and stuff, you just might break even. Let's see...if a DVD is $15, that's 25 pirated movies to reach your subscription price. And on 100Mbps, that's downright doable. In, like, an hour.

The rumor has credence as Comcast promised 100Mb connections by this year. But that was way back in 2008 so most of us forgot about it. [the Inquirer]

But perhaps it's time to examine the cable industry's lease model. Is having all of those logo-branded boxes on the balance sheet worth the pittance consumers pay to rent them? Is it worth dooming customers to a clunky experience when a third-party box could do the job better? Heck, gaming consoles, DVD players and other CE devices could simply double as cable set-tops if the cable industry could just finally… let go. All of this was supposed to happen years ago, by the way, with set-tops proliferating at retail. But it never came to pass for a variety of reasons. And now competition is fierce, online video is the boogeyman and gee… wouldn't it be nice if all those advanced boxes were out there right now?

Using Apple and AT&T as an example, the author notes that both companies are notoriously closed minded, but third party development has made the App Store wildly successful—and AT&T has benefited by letting Apple control all of the hardware and software issues. He even questions whether or not an Apple "iSetTop" for the cable industry would be a "competitive superweapon."

I doubt that the cable industry is ready for Apple to step in, but it appears that cable providers are starting to realize that change is necessary. Spending big bucks for subscriptions each month is increasingly unnecessary, and its only a matter of time before our televisions are all connected to the internet in some form or another. It's nice to know that that there are at least a few forward thinkers in the industry, but everyone is going to have to get on board with this in order to survive. That having been said, the article kind of glosses over the problem of pricing and customer service—an issue which really needs to be addressed first and foremost. Obviously, this would go a long way in retaining customers who might think about jumping ship before cable can catch up with the technology. Hit up CableFax for the full argument. [CableFax]

Sounds crazy, but he cites the historical example of rural telephony, where the public owned the wire, not private companies. It'd work like this: A city or neighborhood would all have fiber run to it at once, and then you'd purchase a share of the fiber and connect to whatever ISP you want. There'd be a connection point where any company could pay to set up equipment and offer service, which is sort of how it works in Amsterdam, Slater explains.

Once a normal thing, it's now a pretty powerful idea, choosing your ISP—in most places, you don't have a choice. There's Comcast. There's Time Warner. Or whoever the local monopoly is. Choice breeds competition: Where do you think cable companies are rolling out fiber-fast internet? It's not a coincidence it's where Verizon or AT&T are offering high-speed internet. And this could be the way to speed up the painfully slow rollout of Godzilla internet in the US, especially in those rural areas. [Fora.TV via digg]

This guy HAS to be related to Christian Slater. I was like, "Hey it looks like Christian Slater giving a lecture." And then the name "Derek SLATER" popped up. Speaking of, did anybody that watch show he had on NBC, where he had the split personality, before it got canceled? Surprisingly not bad.

Essentially, Verizon argues that Cablevision is trying to pump all this bandwidth through their crappy cable infrastructure, and it won't hold up, with bandwidth hogs lowering everybody else's speeds. Furthermore, the true speeds will be slower once users have to deal with the speeds of the servers they're trying to access. Oh, and also, nobody wants such high speeds.

But then they start bragging about how fast their service is. But wait, I thought no one wanted fast speeds and, in any case, fast speeds were impossible to actually get thanks to slow servers? Which is it?

The fact of the matter is this: Cablevision is offering higher speeds at lower prices than you, Verizon. You can make your BS contradictory arguments all you want, but no one is going to pay you much mind. Offer up higher speeds at lower prices. That is what people will notice.

Bring on the battle of the high-speed providers, I say. [Verizon Policy Blog via Boy Genius]

Now, founder and "Head Monster" Noel Lee is cutting prices on top-of-the-line cables for high-definition TVs, effective in June. An 8-foot HDMI cable that currently sells for $129.95 at Best Buy will be priced at $99.

On Monday, the company also lopped $10 off the price of its most basic—but rarely stocked—HDMI TV cable, to $29 for a 1-meter length. And it introduced two new lower-cost HDMI cables in 2-meter and 4-meter lengths for $39.95 and $59.95. Competitors' cables of similar length can be found online for as low as $5.

This just makes me laugh. As we pointed out in our "Truth About Monster Cable" series, buying high end cable is usually unnecessary. But hey, if people want to waste money on "the best" I can hardly blame Monster for selling it to them. As Noel Lee pointed out to USA Today: "It's ironic, when people buy Monster, they don't expect to pay (a) low price, so our lower-end cables don't sell very well." That's probably true—the people who buy these things might view the price as an exclusive barrier to entry, and therefore part of the allure. It will be interesting to see if this price tactic actually improves sales. [USA Today]

If you've never heard of Moxi or Digeo, you are forgiven. Although the company has been making set-top boxes for almost a decade in one form or another, this is the first time Digeo is selling a Moxi box to consumers directly. There are rollouts of similar-looking Moxi cable boxes in smaller markets across the US—the chance is slim that you have one, but if you do, you're damn lucky, because they are a hell of a lot nicer than any of the crap Motorola or Scientific Atlanta DVRs that cable companies usually foist on their highest-paying customers.

But the question here is unfortunately not, "Is Moxi better than a cable box?" even though the answer to that question is, "You know it." The question is, why should I buy one of these instead of a TiVo? And the answer is, at the moment, you probably shouldn't.

Price Breakdown
When the news came out, some people bitched about the price, but the truth is, Moxi HD does sit somewhere between the two comparable CableCard-compatible high-def TiVo models. It's got a 500GB hard drive, bigger than the 160GB on the $300 baseline TiVo and smaller than the 1TB found in the $600 TiVo HD XL. Once you factor in service, it's pretty much exactly on par:

• Moxi HD is $800 up front, or four $200 payments, or 20 monthly payments of $40.
• TiVo HD is $300 plus $300 for three years of service up front (more if you pay a la carte)
• TiVo HD XL costs $600 plus the same service pricing, so if you pay for three years of service up front, it costs $100 more than Moxi

In the rear, they are very much the same. Both Moxi and TiVo deliver HD video over HDMI, take a CableCard tuner from any cable company, and can have expanded storage by way of a drive attached to the eSATA port. The difference lies in the interface, and in the internet-based services that each box offers at the moment, always subject to change.

Note: I realize that I have left out CableCard-compatible Windows Media Center PCs. As a fan of the Media Center platform, I didn't do this by accident. It's just that we have yet to see a cool-running quiet set-top PC marketed widely to average users for a reasonable price that can compete with TiVo or Moxi. When that product comes along, you better believe it will be in the running.

Interface
The company that builds the Moxi has been talking about their interface since the beginning of time, and even brags about an Emmy it won for it. I can see why. It's a fun interface, a refreshing change from candy-colored ca-plop ca-plop ca-plop TiVo menu that you might well be sick of by now.

The interface operates a bit like Sony's Xross Media Bar PlayStation interface, with icons running along a horizontal bar. Whenever you pause on an icon, Recorded TV, for example, you instantly see a vertically aligned list of choices, in this case, all the programs you've recorded, grouped by show and listed in alphabetical order. Point to a particular show grouping, and suddenly each episode appears to your right, and you can move over to them and select the one you want. In most cases, it's a fluid experience.

My beef on the interface is that there are things you must learn that aren't readily obvious, and are not helped by the design of the remote. The Zoom button turns out to be the most important button on the whole thing, but you wouldn't know it from being so tiny. Zoom brings you in and out of the overlaid Moxi interface, unlike the centrally positioned Moxi button, which does, well, something.

Button confusion is combined with redundant motions or inconsistent behaviors. For instance, sometimes the back button will get you out of things, but sometimes it will not, and you are required to hit OK. You can move forward (right) or back (left) along the main icon menu, but if you pause, you can no longer move right, because that takes you into a new menu, so you have to left-arrow your way out if you want to keep looking at the icons. Hitting OK when you land on an icon is a no-no as well, since that takes you to secondary options: The thing to do when you get to the icon you want is to freeze. Usually. If you're confused by all this, welcome to my first week with Moxi.

You can get over a lot of the confusion by learning the behavior, but I don't remember ever having to learn TiVo behavior, or even having to look at the TiVo remote, which I have to do a lot with Moxi. My final frustration with the interface is one that may be remedied soon. There isn't great customization. I don't know how to sort recorded shows by date, and there are too many icons in the main menu for things I couldn't give a fig about, and there's no way, at the moment, to hide them.

Note: I shot that one-handed while a cat was pounding into my arm, begging for lunch, so pardon the helter-skelter framing.

Services
The big deal with set-top boxes these days—not just cable boxes but Blu-ray players too—is connected services. Everybody wants Netflix, Amazon On Demand, Rhapsody, Hulu, YouTube, your mom's private video stream (just making sure you're paying attention). Officially, Moxi only has Rhapsody and Flickr at the moment, but unofficially, by way of a special Windows background-server app, it has all of the above and more.

PlayOn (normally $40 but Moxi gives you a "free" product key when you buy one) lives on your Windows PC, using it to access Netflix and Amazon as well as Hulu, CBS, YouTube, ESPN and CNN, to grab video from the services and pop it up on the Moxi screen. Now, as you might imagine, some of it looks like ass, and because of the double bottleneck—internet-to-PC then PC-to-Moxi—quality suffers and there are lots of hiccups. But in theory, with the ideal all-ethernet setup, you can immediately make your Moxi do more than a TiVo can now.

PlayOn The Moxi also yanks vids and stuff from your PC or other servers on your network. Like anything else, though, there's limited file compatibility, and I'm not a fan of the interface. I could get it to see H.264 video on a network drive, but it couldn't play them. And although the manual says you can stream H.264 video from a computer that can decode them first, I couldn't find any of the media files I had on the PlayOn test PC for some reason, probably because it didn't have Windows Media Connect or other server software running. (Side Note: Don't be like me—don't rip your DVDs in H.264.)

I think even if the PlayOn service worked half as well as it had inside my head, I'd be happy, but the Moxi service in general still felt buggy, like it was still in beta, even though I am assured that it is not. In addition to the expected occasional trouble with CableCard (some as a result of my moving houses), I have experienced more mysterious problems. Even now, the system occasionally restarts spontaneously, and I can't go two days without noticing chunks of time missing from my favorite shows, like they'd been hand recorded by Richard Nixon.

Other connected perks do work nicely. Like TiVo, you can program it over the web, and that worked instantly, so much so that it was my preferred way to add shows, because I could just type in their names, and pick recording preferences afterward. I will give a special shoutout to the Ticker, which, once you figure it out, lets you browse news reports and other text feeds while watching shows. It's great, but I'm still not comfortable turning it on and off. (Apparently, more practice is needed.)

So I end as I began, with a strong interest in Moxi and the need for new TiVo competitors, but with the gnawing feeling that however much Moxi can advance, TiVo has a head start it will be able to exploit for years to come. I love that there are more entrants to this field—Moxi's "enemy" as it were is not TiVo but the total crap cableco DVRs that both are striving to replace. That said, though, you can only have one, and I think I'm going back to TiVo, old-school menus, silly sound effects and all. [Product Page]

In Summary

Interface look is refreshing change from TiVo, with lots to do while watching TV PIP

PlayOn capability technically means it has the most web video options available; Ticker great for news, sports and weather

Price up front is daunting, even though it's on par with TiVo pricing when you factor in service

PlayOn server software not the easiest to work with, only runs on Windows, and internet connection can be very sluggy.

Remote button layout is confusing; important buttons are not clearly identified

The package includes 15Mbps upstream, and it's $100 a month. And everyone in Cablevision's service area—suburban New York—will be able to get a piece. Verizon FiOS's speediest package now looks comparatively pokey: 50Mbps down, 20Mbps up.

On the other hand, while we're dazzled by insane internet speeds that were previously exclusively to cradles of technology like Korea and Japan, we shouldn't forget the otherwise miserable state of broadband here. As Cablevision deploys DOCSIS 3.0 with full force, Time Warner is pulling back on it following the backlash to its proposed caps in cities outside of Beaumont, Texas. Meanwhile, Comcast employs caps and throttling, while AT&T tests caps on its U-Verse service.

So it's still going to be a while before we can pat our ISPs on the back for the wonderful, speedy service they're providing. [Bits]

In other words, if they are not going to get the blood money they planned from CBB, they might not feel the need to roll out wideband (even though they are not implicitly tied). Alex Dudley, VP of public relations for Time Warner explains via his twitter feed:

@gigastacey it was scheduled as part of cbb trial, but we all know how you feel about that.

@netpro2k It doesn't...just that the rollout was scheduled with the trial and now all of it is on hold.

@Stryph Biggest cost is actually bandwidth allocation.

Obviously, if they are concerned about another major public backlash, they had damn well better come through with this. As a TWC customer, I will definitely be one of those people shaking my fist. [PCMag]