4K cable box coming from Comcast this year

[qlj555]

Comcast announced its brand-new Xi4 box that supports 4K UHD content and will be available later this year to customers. It will also continue to provide content, and said customers will be able to stream “hundreds” of titles from its Xfinity catalog, including Outlander, Power, Playing House, Satisfaction, Suits and movies such as Rocky Mountain Express, Ultimate Wave Tahiti, Antarctica, Fighter Pilot and Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia. Sounds like you’ll at least be able to show off how sharp that new 4K TV is.

 

Comcast will follow the Xi4 will a new box, the Xi5, next year, which will add support for HDR programming. The company declined to say how much you’ll need to pay for its new boxes.

 

Source: http://www.technobuffalo.com/2015/05/10/4k-cable-box-coming-from-comcast-this-year/

 

[NeatSquidYT]

As opposed to routers that don't support 4k....

 

 

 

I KNOW SOME MAY NOT BECAUSE THEY'RE BAD, BUT YOU GET THE POINT

 

EDIT: Misread post

[winningsince1337]

This is gonna cost (between service and the box) no less than however many hundred dollar bills than can be shoved up the average ass any time...

[The Benjamins]

too bad I do not want 4k TV, I want 4k internet streams, VOD, and Downloads(payed or not). I dont even have Cable TV anymore, and will never get it again.

[Sauron]

Yeah, I really needed another overpriced, pointless drm box in my life.

[ionbasa]

Just for those of you wondering, this is all possible because of the move to DOCSIS 3.0+ equipment and SDV (Switched Digital Video). 

 

All of the new 'set top boxes' by cable companies actually have built in DOCSIS modems + SDV. The switch to SDV actually freed up a lot of bandwidth due to cable companies dropping analog clear QAM channels in favor of encoding using digital to save bandwidth. SDV also allows that a channel occupy bandwidth only if someone connected to a node is actually watching and tuned on the digital channel (thanks to two way communications between the head end and set top boxes).

 

All in all, this is just a fancy Video Over IP and SDV implementation. It isn't just Comcast that is using this technique, but TWC as well (allowing them to get 300Mbps of bandwidth now). Now all we need is the rest of the industry to play catch up. For Fiber providers (like Verizon FIOS and ATT Uverse) this will be a piece of cake as their STBs are nothing more than network media decoders using Video over IP, so it will cost less for them to implement as only customer premise equipment needs to be upgraded.

 

For satellite and terrestrial broadcast subscribers though, it will be a rough transition to say the least. I'm not even sure if current satellite encoding techniques even have enough bandwidth available for UHD transmission, we'll need something new to replace DBS and DirecTV's proprietary system. As for terrestrial ATSC broadcasts, there is definitely not enough bandwidth to even do 1080p. Looks as if well have to wait for ATSC 3.0 which will have 28 Mbps bandwidth per 6 Mhz block.

[NateGSR117]

I would rather have gigabit Internet

[Toddwjp]

we cant provide internet that does 4k because its to difficult.

 

cable no problem. its the same network guys, the exact same one

[ionbasa]

we cant provide internet that does 4k because its to difficult.

 

cable no problem. its the same network guys, the exact same one

Well, yes and no. 

DOCSIS 3.1 will allow theoretical speeds over gigabit. Right now with DOCSIS 3.0, we can't really do that. Most cable ISPs only have headends with either 8 or 16 channel bonding.

 

Meaning:

8 bonded channels * 38 Mbit/s per channel =~ 304 Mbit/s download. Uploads are about 1/3 the speed of download using DOCSIS. Now imagine having anywhere from 100 to 2k houses per node. Needing to somehow load balance the available bandwidth to each modem.

 

It doesn't look pretty. Part of the problem is that cable companies can increase the number of bonded channels up to 24 channels using DOCSIS 3.0, but 24 bonded channel modems for consumers don't exist at the moment (you can thank Cisco and Motorola for that).

 

What will likely happen though is that most cable ISPs will upgrade their headend to DOCSIS 3.1 equipment. With that comes new modulation techniques and rates, such as QAM 4096, higher frequency ranges, and more bandwidth. 

 

 

Maybe once DOCSIS 3.1 becomes standard in a few years, then gigabit per house would be an obtainable goal. Unlike what many people believe, copper can push gigabit out, and even more. We just need better modulation, more channels, and broader frequency ranges. There is misconception that copper cant effectively push gigabit, but it can, we just need to fast track the industries upgrade cycle.

[mrswagbhinav]

That's nice honey .... I canceled my cable and switched to online streaming. It's free and it's more convenient. 

[Trik'Stari]

No. Just no. That's all there is to say to this.

 

Comcast, you are no longer relevant, just stop offering cable, upgrade your network, and stop eating babies.

[ionbasa]

No. Just no. That's all there is to say to this.

 

Comcast, you are no longer relevant, just stop offering cable, upgrade your network, and stop eating babies.

So you'd rather have the industry not upgrade to better equipment and help with the rollout of UHD?

If you read my two posts in this thread, by them offering UHD they are also improving their infrastructure. The same infrastructure that does internet services.

 

They more or less go hand in hand. eg: more SDV streams means more bandwidth available for things like internet services.

[Trik'Stari]

So you'd rather have the industry not upgrade to better equipment and help with the rollout of UHD?

If you read my two posts in this thread, by them offering UHD they are also improving their infrastructure. The same infrastructure that does internet services.

 

They more or less go hand in hand. eg: more SDV streams means more bandwidth available for things like internet services.

I'd prefer to see traditional cable/satellite television die off completely, leaving us with netflix/youtube. There's no reason for it to continue to exist.

[bob345]

Comcast - "Go ahead, record 4 4k channels simultaneously"

 

You - *tries streaming 4k online*

 

Comcast - "we're sorry, but we dont support that kind of bandwidth"

[ionbasa]

I'd prefer to see traditional cable/satellite television die off completely, leaving us with netflix/youtube. There's no reason for it to continue to exist.

You do realize that traditional cable and satellite carriers do more than just move video streams around, right? Most also provide other service like internet connectivity, backbone networks, voice communications. 

 

If we lost all of those traditional providers, where would that leave us in terms of infrastructure?

 

As for video services in specific, ATT allows customers to stream video feeds to their devices over the Internet. FIOS may soon be doing something similar with a la carte programming. 

Companies like comcast and TWC will soon be doing the same thing.

 

TV is still a viable option for those who want regular programming and are willing to pay for the service. Most local and public feeds are already available via terrestrial broadcast, but good luck getting something entertaining on those channels other than your local news stations affiliated with the big 4 (NBC, ABC, FOX, & CBS).

 

The industry is currently headed towards Video over IP and SDV, with that will come more advancements in both internet and video services. Nothing wrong with upgrading the infrastructure.

[Glenwing]

Please read the news section guidelines. Do not just copy-paste from the source.