Verizon and the Tru2way threat!

[tvwatchingdude]

The cable industry is coming out with tru2way. Pretty soon all new tv's will be tru2way capable, and you wont need a cable box.

Verizon still requires a box. I heard a while back that verizon wanted to introduce Vuekey, which would also be built into newer tv's and then you could ditch the box.

Its been a while now, and there is no news about vuekey. But plenty of news about tru2way.

My question is where is this vuekey, verizon has been pushing. Have they given up.

Not having to have a cable box will be a big incentive, especially with all these flat screen tv's

, and cable would be able to beat verizon.

Cable is already cheaper than verizon, and if you dont need a cable box, they will be even cheaper.

My question is what is fios going to do? what is the latest news on this VUEKEY?

 

[riffjim4069]

The cable industry is coming out with tru2way. Pretty soon all new tv's will be tru2way capable, and you wont need a cable box.

Verizon still requires a box. I heard a while back that verizon wanted to introduce Vuekey, which would also be built into newer tv's and then you could ditch the box.

Its been a while now, and there is no news about vuekey. But plenty of news about tru2way.

My question is where is this vuekey, verizon has been pushing. Have they given up.

Not having to have a cable box will be a big incentive, especially with all these flat screen tv's

, and cable would be able to beat verizon.

Cable is already cheaper than verizon, and if you dont need a cable box, they will be even cheaper.

My question is what is fios going to do? what is the latest news on this VUEKEY?

First, Cable is not "cheaper" than Verizon FiOS (Fios is less expensive than Time-Warner in the Dallas TX area, and Comcast and Cox here in Virginia). Additionally, it is 100-times more reliable. More over, there were perhaps thirty-some HD channels in the Time-Warner lineup and even less being offered by Comcast here in Fredericksburg VA. FiOS TV just added another 300K subscribers during 1st quarter, and they are on their way to adding more during the 2nd quarter and are on their way to having between 3.2 - 3.4 million TV customers by the of the year. Also, there technicians and customer service blow Cable out-of-the-water.

Tru2way technology sounds pretty cool, but since I have three HD DVRs it won't be saving me any set-box-boxes unless these new HDTVs also have hard-drives and DVR features build into them. Moreover, although FiOS doesn't want to "do" tru2way being forced by the Cable Cartel, their systems can be fitted to support the new technology.

 

[JPL]

First, Cable is not "cheaper" than Verizon FiOS (Fios is less expensive than Time-Warner in the Dallas TX area, and Comcast and Cox here in Virginia). Additionally, it is 100-times more reliable. More over, there were perhaps thirty-some HD channels in the Time-Warner lineup and even less being offered by Comcast here in Fredericksburg VA. FiOS TV just added another 300K subscribers during 1st quarter, and they are on their way to adding more during the 2nd quarter and are on their way to having between 3.2 - 3.4 million TV customers by the of the year. Also, there technicians and customer service blow Cable out-of-the-water.

Tru2way technology sounds pretty cool, but since I have three HD DVRs it won't be saving me any set-box-boxes unless these new HDTVs also have hard-drives and DVR features build into them. Moreover, although FiOS doesn't want to "do" tru2way being forced by the Cable Cartel, their systems can be fitted to support the new technology.

I agree with what you wrote here. First off, Comcast is more expensive than FiOS is around here. And I get 109 HD channels vs. their 40. Second, it's going to be many years before Tru2Way becomes a real threat. What will Tru2Way mean initially in the cost of new TVs? How long before Tru2Way TVs become the norm?

Not saying that Verizon shouldn't take the threat seriously, but they have quite a bit of time before having to respond. I believe their plan is still to move to IPTV. If that's the case, then I don't know how Vuekey fits into that scheme.

 

[riffjim4069]

I agree with what you wrote here. First off, Comcast is more expensive than FiOS is around here. And I get 109 HD channels vs. their 40. Second, it's going to be many years before Tru2Way becomes a real threat. What will Tru2Way mean initially in the cost of new TVs? How long before Tru2Way TVs become the norm?

Not saying that Verizon shouldn't take the threat seriously, but they have quite a bit of time before having to respond. I believe their plan is still to move to IPTV. If that's the case, then I don't know how Vuekey fits into that scheme.

Yep, tru2way will not be installed en mass for quite sometime. Additionally, tru2way is an open standard that can be licensed by anyone...however, Verizon claims tru2way is a proprietary standard that has been designed for tradition cable. We shall see.

 

[markjrenna]

It will be interesting how Motorola and Cisco embrace Tru2Way from a Downloadable Conditional Access (DCAS) point of view.

I don't see them willingly providing it.

 

[tvwatchingdude]

That doesnt answer my question. I wanted to know what is going on with vuekey. Verizon should do something so that newer tv's will just be able to plug in the cable.

The guy who said he had 3 hd dvr's is not mainstream. That is really expensive every month, and most homes only have one dvr. And with tru2way, tv's will have hard drives built in.

Everyone loves these flat screen tv's to hang on there wall and put in there kitchen. its such a drag to have a big ugly set top box.

On long island cablevision is cheaper than fios. Thats why i said what i said.

i want to know whats up with vuekey. what is fios gonna do.

Nobody like STB's. STB's are ugly, more clutter, and having everything built into your tv is so much better.

Fios should do something about this, so that its customers dont have to have a set top box either.

 

[markjrenna]

LOL Maybe we don't know the answer but we tell you what we know or think.

 

[riffjim4069]

I don't know what Verizon is doing with vuekey other than, "we are working with CE manufacturers." I honestly don't see much reason to support vuekey technology in new HDTVs so Verizon will probably have to support tru2way at some poing in the future. As far building hard-disks into HDTVs...Mitsubishi already tried that by buiding them into some of their CRT RPTVs and DLP, but it wasn't well received and people preferred an external HD DVR for a variety of reasons. To be honest, I think the hard-disk DVRs will disappear when flash memory gets a little cheaper (2-3 years?) and external hard-drives will be used for expanded and archived storage. Perhaps flat-pannel TV with tru2way and 250GB of flash memory will become standard in the not too distant future. In any case, I think Verizon is hoping tru2way support will be so slow to roll-out that newer/better technologies will replace it before it gets any momentum. We shall see.

Finally, at one time I owned three "Digital Cable Ready" HDTVs w/Cablecard. I actually stuffed CableCards into them to make sure they worked (Verizon's cable card not locked down to a device so you can move them around to other devices within your home), but I never had a reason to use them in the TV since I HD DVRs. Offhand, I think most cablecards are installed into Tivos and not nearly as many in HDTVs.

 

[HDNewser]

Slingbox-type features coming to DVR?

Judging from how the questions were worded in a FiOS questionnaire I answered last week, Verizon seems to be considering enabling customers to access the shows recorded on their DVR through the Internet, like Slingbox. Wouldn't that be kewl!

 

[JPL]

I honestly don't see much reason to support vuekey technology in new HDTVs so Verizon will probably have to support tru2way at some poing in the future.

The problem with this is that Verizon's a slightly different architecture than traditional cable. What do they do with VOD, e.g., which is now IP? Ditto guide data, which is also IP. I don't believe Tru2Way supports that. If Verizon stuck with QAM for its linear feeds (which I think they'll do for a few years yet), that means if they supported Tru2Way, many of the benefits wouldn't be realizable on FiOS. Yeah, you'd be able to get their channels, but with no guide data... no VOD... I think that's still problemattic.

 

[tvwatchingdude]

You would think someone from fios would have an answer

 

[riffjim4069]

You would think someone from fios would have an answer

I don't think anyone in the tru2way, vuekey or DCAS camps have an answer at this point. Verizon will continue to push vuekey as a ANSI standard, but they will still be playing with the tru2way folks just in case. Personally, I would love to see Verizon deploy the EchoStar T2200S deployed using vuekey in test markets later this year.