Looking into the Bell's future through dishnetwork

08-02-2010, 10:23 AM

Since were looking into Bell's future via Dishnet, what are the long term effects of a change in ownership on existing relationships?

Would new owners look at the mess and decide to part ways with either DN or Nagra? Or both? What would DN do for an ECM testing ground with Canada being a nice sample size to play with?

Could that be why we aren't seeing the expected efforts to combat piracy since its really Charlie pulling the bigger strings and he has 'other' plans?

What if there were a merger of DN & DTV?
Would DTV be THE player and due to different technology, would Bell be left scrambling for another partner, or would that signal the demise of their DBS operations and signal the ramp up of the very delayed IPTV?

Given all the uncertainties, are they the right long term investment for your entertainment dollar?

08-02-2010, 12:53 PM

Having been part of a development team that that wrote code for sat. HD DVR's, it's a trivial task.
In our case, we made it trilingual, English, French and Spanish as the unit was re-exported back to the U.S. for an OEM application.
A set a variables pointed to 2 or 3 language lookup tables.

Since you brought up the *C case, I wasn't going to...
Au contraire, In the *c case, THEY specify the hardware and business requirements and contribute BOTH to the middleware and IPG layers completely.
Au contraire again, I firmly believe *C is in an excellent position to go it alone if needed, but that hasn't happened yet.
Being owned by Shaw, their belief is to control their own destiny, hence they created their own Internet service and divested themselves of @Home. They developed their OWN VOD product and STB client s/w as they did the lions share of the latest *C receivers, not like they did with the old legacy units, so given their very heavy participation and ownership of the code and specs, it's a small matter to transfer basically manufacturing to just about any shop with the necessary tooling. Why would they drop $1M for the IPG source code to Gist?
Why did Moto come to Shaw/*c to write the IPG for the major OEM customer in 3 languages. BTW, I did all the graphics on that one as well.
Those working with a certain major automotive manufacture might recognize the similarities.
Could Bev do the same, I think not!

Sure, but what does that have to do with feature set. I ran a poll requesting what features the users wanted and was able to deliver on a great many of them, some never before done in ANY STB's, can you as a Bev subscriber say the same?

08-02-2010, 06:17 PM

My bell refurb 5100 is JVC not echo. I have also seen RCA 311's out there when I was in the states a couple years back.

**classicsat** · 08-02-2010, 06:47 PM

I don't know its official name, Open CI or the like, but the receivers have PCMCIA slots, and you get a PCMCIA card and likely also an ISO-7816 smartcard from the provider. It is used widely in Europe and likely Asia..

08-02-2010, 08:53 PM

Bell's relationship with Dish Network is ideal. They produce good hardware, and work out most of the issues with the software and delivery system. All BEV has to do is copy what they do. Following the lead of a 13 million customer satellite company can't be a bad thing to do!

In sharp contrast, Starchoice picked a looser company to manufacturer their receivers and look what that got them! Motorola doesn't want any part of that business anymore, hence SC customers are stuck with a crummy PVR, that will likely never see a new feature.

I'm absolutely certain that BEV's relationship with Dish is a good one. I certainly hope they don't end it.

-Mike

08-02-2010, 09:37 PM

COMMON INTERFACE - basically as you described, a CAM module (PCMCIA) + an ISO 7816 smart card.

http://www.answers.com/topic/common-interface

I've used them on commercial Bev installs in the backs of Tandberg receivers.
Also noticed them as options for some of the DVB-PCI cards I've played with.
Used for legit subscriptions to pay TV using your own hardware.

Although all the descriptions say

It's unclear if the TV's have some form of PSK tuner for sat. reception.
Since the CI seems to be part of the Conditional access and not related to the decoding of the R.F. signal.

Does this technology expand beyond DVB?

08-02-2010, 11:41 PM

It IS ideal from the perspective of having little to no investment in the technology and being handed everything on a silver platter.

It would appears that Bells prime ability is to change a logo and phone number in the software.
Not very comforting if you ask me.

The downside is clearly that they loose control over their own destiny and are at the mercy of another company, for better as you suggest right now or worse, should that ever happen.

It limits them and their ability to create features of interest to the Canadian consumers, since they lack the engineering exposure.
It also lessens their voice with the bugs as Dish may chose to address their own issues first.
This arms length relationship may be the cause of many disconnects and denials when communicating with agents.

And as you pointed out, 13 Million subs, wow, so do you think Bev's paltry 1.8 M subs have any significant voice 'down there'?

**classicsat** · 08-03-2010, 03:03 AM

Not really. It depends on a DVB receiver for a host. And non DVB formtats mostly have their own security scheme, such as DCII and DirecTV (which DirecTV is, I believe, somewhat close to DVB). There are no Open-CI DVB-S receivers on the market in USA/Canada, and I doubt in the rest of the world also.

I believe Cablecard is based on the same core concept, but I don't know if it is the same wolf in different clothes.

**Sportsfan** · 08-03-2010, 06:12 AM

Cool. I didn't know there was such significant in-house development at Shaw/*Choice.

What were the features?

08-03-2010, 07:02 AM

And which ones were implemented??

-Mike

Welcome to Discuss Everything Forums...

Tags for this Thread

Thread: Looking into the Bell's future through dishnetwork

Thread Tools

Rate This Thread

Display