Is a set-top box an evil design against humanity?

Introduction:More than a decade ago, cable television established the pay radio and television industry with the help of set-top boxes, taking the lead in enjoying the digital dividend of information transmission.Now, set-top boxes have become a mountain that crushes cable television, and are even referred to by some ordinary people as evil designs against humanity,Bringing the entire industry into a predicament, Hong Kong Cable Television Broadcasting has been shut down

Introduction:More than a decade ago, cable television established the pay radio and television industry with the help of set-top boxes, taking the lead in enjoying the digital dividend of information transmission.

Now, set-top boxes have become a mountain that crushes cable television, and are even referred to by some ordinary people as evil designs against humanity,Bringing the entire industry into a predicament, Hong Kong Cable Television Broadcasting has been shut down.

However, the development of cable television cannot be separated from set-top boxes in the short term!

oneHistoricalproduct

The history of set-top boxes has exceeded 40 years, and from the beginning, they were born for pay TV.You can enter the article "Cable TV is 75 years old, where will it go in the future?" to learn about the history of set-top boxes.

The first addressable pay TV decoder, also known as the predecessor of set-top boxes, was born in 1980, in the same era as analog mobile communication. This technology implements peer-to-peer communication in a unidirectional broadcast network. This is more difficult to implement than in bidirectional communication networks and is an important invention.

In the era of analog television,The encryption of television signals began with RF filtering and later introduced video baseband encryption technology. Now it seems to be the encryption technology of Pediatrics. At that time, it was absolutely high-tech, and every step was innovative.

Addressable pay TV set-top boxes have turned public goods into market-oriented products, monetized low-cost broadcast signals, and even become a case study for economists.

Encryption technology has given birth to the pay TV industry, which has led to a large amount of high-quality TV content and promoted the prosperity of the TV industry. Mobile communication only began to introduce encryption technology after digitization.

The broadcasting network is naturally a regional closed one-way communication network that does not require interconnectivity. Encryption technology follows the path of "closed=secure", and the implementation cost can be efficiently digested by the broadcasting transmission, which continues into the digital era.

2. Digitization

The advancement of semiconductor technology enables the implementation of complex data compression and decompression algorithms using hardware, which can reduce the cost of digital channel coding and enableIn the 1990s, radio and television became the first large-scale digital communication industry.

Digital Video Broadcast (DVB), also known as DVB, has standardized encryption technology to become a branch of the pay TV industry near the bottom.

The special application scenarios of encryption technology make it difficult to standardize the transmission of encryption keys, and must be independently established by CA company based on DVB channels. The DVB organization has defined thisConfidentiality AgreementAllowing multiple CAs to participate in market competition, and also defining the DVBCI technology standard that separates the entire encryption black box hardware module, from a hardware perspective, to achieve machine card separation. Continuing to innovate in this direction is to download CA technology, which can achieve software and hardware separation of security modules and improve the level of industrial division of labor.

However, the security separation not only harms the vested interests of the set-top box, but also runs counter to the Technology roadmap of "closure=security". The separation of the machine card and the downloading of CA technologies have been resisted for a long time. Only the separation of aircraft cards in Europe has achieved success, while the separation of aircraft cards in China and the United States has failed. You can learn more about it in the related reading at the end of the article.

3. Carrying the Pot Hero

The digital set-top box itself is a computer system, which can be integrated with personal computers and the later Smart TV industry, and become a fast, iterative and upgraded Consumer electronics.

However, under the concept of "closure=security", the encryption system must be bundled with the hardware black box to make the cable set-top box a special black box tool, which is contradictory to the openness of the Internet, hinders cable TV from participating in the three networks integration, and is difficult to introduce technological innovation, let alone to create a technical standard suitable for the independent, market-oriented and industrialized development of cable set-top boxes.

Cable television is gradually being surpassed by the internet in terms of transmission capacity, and set-top boxes can only be customized according to each fragmented market, making it difficult to form economies of scale. The cost has remained high for a long time, gradually entering a vicious cycle, and losing its value as a presence.

In addition, under the sound wave of IP broadcasting in the cable TV industry, the upstream chip manufacturers reduced their support for cable TV DVB, and the technical level of cable set-top boxes has been stagnant for a long time, losing innovation power from the source.

For example, the mainstream TV chips nowadays are 12 nanometers, some are 7 nanometers, while cable TV set-top boxes mainly use 28 nanometers technology, and some are still using DDR3, which is half the cost-effectiveness of DDR4. Even more, cable TV is widely used in network standard definition set-top boxes, which are still 180 nanometers old technology and use DDR2, which is very outdated and consumes a lot of power. Moreover, most of the usage time exceeds 10 years, entering a period of high failure rates.

Continuing with this, the set-top box market will continue to decline, and set-top boxes will become the biggest obstacle to development and the last straw that will crush broadcasting and television.

Backward technology and higher charges have led some users to roast that cable set-top boxes are evil designs against humanity and give up cable TV when they have a new choice. Cable TV is making things worse.

The market-oriented development of Digital media player has a variety of varieties, ranging from tens to thousands of yuan, which can meet the personalized market needs of different users and stimulate rapid technological progress. Cable TV set-top boxes, on the other hand, can only develop in a highly closed manner and have become the backbone of outdated technology with "closed=secure".

4. Broadcasting and TV set-top box marketIt can be very large

The cost of set-top boxes is low. If the cable network, set-top box and secure market are separated based on the separation of machine card or downloading CA, the set-top box can become a rapidly updated and iterative Consumer electronics, which is convenient for the rapid upgrading of cable TV transmission technology standards.

If cable TV is upgraded to DVBC2, it can significantly improve the transmission efficiency of the broadcasting network and improve the level of public service. Hundreds of millions of sold UHD TVs also need external DVBC2 UHD set-top boxes to form an independent and huge DVBC2 set-top box market and stimulate technological innovation of set-top boxes.

If cable television can build a unified national market with basic ultra-high definition broadcasting and television transmission functions, drive the development of the ultra-high definition industry, promote the upgrading of television media to ultra-high definition, and promote the integrated development of television mediaIt is possible to promote the government to introduce industrial policies that support the development of cable television.

At that time, receiving cable TV ultra high definition broadcasts will be an essential feature of set-top boxes and televisions. People choose their favorite TV sets or set-top boxes from the market according to their own preferences. The voice of roast that set-top boxes are anti human evil designs will naturally disappear, and the technological innovation of TV sets will also accelerate, otherwise they will become the display of set-top boxes again.

(Currently, some regions have implemented downloading CA technology based on Taixin, allowing them to freely use their televisions to directly watch digital TV live programs, without the need for customized set-top boxes to watch live TV.)

After the entire article is completed, if you feel it is beneficial for the development of the industry, please feel free to like or discuss comments!

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