FCC chairman Ajit Pai is proposing to close the book on a cold proceeding that was once red hot: New regs on the navigation device market meant to spur over-the-top video competition to cable.

On Aug. 14, Pai circulated an item entitled "Expanding Consumers' Video Navigation Choices; Commercial Availability of Navigation Devices," which was a blast from the past.

But since Pai was a strong opponent of new cable set-top regs--proposed under his predecessor, Tom Wheeler--it was likely not a revival of the issue for further consideration. It isn't.

An FCC spokesperson confirmed that, instead, it is officially closing the still-open proceeding, and with an exclamation point. "This item would terminate the proceeding in which the prior Commission proposed imposing complex and unnecessary regulations on the navigation device market that generated bipartisan opposition within and outside the agency, and serious concerns from a wide range of stakeholders and experts, including the U.S. Copyright Office," they said.

Wheeler's proposed rules would have required pay TV providers to offer consumers a free app, controlled by the MVPD, to access all the programming they pay for on a variety of devices, including tablets, smartphones, gaming systems, streaming devices or smart TVs. That, in turn, would make it easier for consumers not to have to rent boxes from their provider.

Pay-TV providers are also would have been required to provide their apps to widely deployed platforms, such as Roku, iOS, Windows and Android.

The rules would also call on MVPDs to support integrated search for linear and VOD, alongside other video services accessible on the device, such as OTT offerings. Pay-TV providers would also have been barred from discriminating in search results or promoting the pay-TV app over other sources of programming in the search function.

Cable ops pushed back hard on the new regs and Wheeler could never lock down the three votes he needed before the election, and Pai, who opposed the regs, replaced him.

It got so far as being scheduled for a vote but was pulled from a September 2016 public meeting agenda at the last minute. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel supported providing more choice and lower-cost options for navigation devices, but had issues with the proposal to have the FCC backstop app licensing agreements, and reached out to programmers to clarify their problems with the item. Programmers said they still had many.

The FCC must still vote to close the docket, but Pai almost certainly has the two other Republican votes to do so.

More than half of TV viewers -- 52% -- say they watch their favorite shows online, while 48% watch through an MVPD set-top, according to Hub Entertainment Research's annual "Conquering Content" report, published last week.

Hub said this year marked the first time since it began tracking viewing patterns in 2014 that viewers are "more likely to say they watch a recently discovered favorite show from an online source than through their pay TV set-top box."

The report reinforces last week's Parks Associates study that found viewers favor subscription video-on-demand services over virtual MVPD services.

Related: SVOD Services Still Dominate Paid OTT Landscape

Hub noted that cable/satellite set-top box use has "been steadily declining over the past several years." In 2014, 64% of viewers watched their favorite show via an STB (either live, on a DVR or through the MVPD’s video-on-demand platform). At that time, just 31% said they watched their favorite show online (via an SVOD service such as Netflix, Hulu or Amazon, through a network or MVPD site/app, or through other online sources like iTunes).

The past year saw a 12% jump (from 40% to 52%) in the online viewership preference.

“These findings suggest that the aggressive investment SVODs are making in original and exclusive content is paying big dividends,” said Peter Fondulas, co-author of the study and principal at Hub. “In this research and other recent studies, we see clear evidence that high-profile online exclusives generate buzz that draws consumers to these platform, which not only helps attract brand new subscribers, but also builds loyalty among current customers.”

Hub's Jon Giegengack, co-author of the study, characterized the SVOD companies as transforming themselves "from technology companies that distribute content, into entertainment companies that create it."

Giegengack also observed that the amount of new content "is greater than the disposable time available to watch it." He predicted that in the future, "the share of total TV time may turn out to be a more important way to evaluate platforms than looking at the number of subscribers.”

Hub conducted its research in October among 2,214 U.S. consumers with broadband access who watch at least five hours of TV per week.

During the VCR’s heyday, the overused joke was that grandma just could never figure out how to get that blinking “12:00” to turn off. Today, more devices than ever are attached to the TV, including ones aimed specifically at getting people age 65 and older to keep in touch with family and friends while also watching their favorite TV shows.

One such device is becoming available on Amazon as of Sept. 19 – the $149 SentabTV, a device that promotes features including photo sharing, video chats and phone calling and an emphasis on making social media easier for a demographic that usually isn’t inclined to use Facebook and the like.

According to U.S. Census data, by 2040 there will be 82.3 million Americans 65 and older, and it’s a digital market that’s been largely ignored, according to Gordon Schenk, California-based senior VP of business development at Sentab, a European firm.

“The demographic watches live linear programming 78% of the time, and our solution…allows the individual to watch their existing [pay TV], with the social features overlaid on top of that, and also be connected to family, friends and caregivers,” Schenk told Next TV. “One of the neat features of our digital media player, compared to the Rokus and Apple TVs out there, is we have a patented feature set where you don’t have to switch any inputs. Once the box is installed…you never have to switch inputs again, and watch TV as you normally would.”

Existing live, linear cable, satellite and telco services can be connected via HDMI cables to the SentabTV, and a $10 monthly subscription adds services including making audio and video calls directly from the TV; photo and video sharing; a newsfeed; games that specifically target cognitive retention; and an online community and marketplace section.

“We have a perceived gap in social media that relates to the senior community,” Schenk said. “If you look at the numbers for Facebook, 65 or older is almost in the single digits. Being able to get a creative way for them to be social is our focus.”

Sentab said some senior residency groups in the U.S. are testing the set-top and services. Future add-ons could include health and fitness tracking via Bluetooth, Schenk said.

WASHINGTON — The cable industry is at war with Silicon Valley giants — and the U.S. government itself — over a small, black box.

And the stakes are high enough to jeopardize the most crucial part of the business relationship with a consumer — the point of first contact, specifically the first images a viewer sees when turning on a device — as well as the security of the signal. The prize is the vast trove of viewing data collected from MVPD-provided set-top boxes that is surely and not so slowly upending the $70 billion advertising market.

Content companies, unions and legislators have weighed in vigorously against Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposed new rules for set-tops, counterpunching with major concerns that “unlocking the box” would leave valuable cable programming vulnerable to content thieves, copyright violators or powerful edge providers such as Google, who are looking to edge out MVPDs and remonetize their content for free.

Wheeler billed the proposal as a win-win, in part because he says that such a new rule would open up the retail market for set-tops, as most cable subscribers pay rental fees for their devices. Never mind that no one likes a box, and cable operators, recognizing consumer demand, are offering set-top-free alternatives.

PUSHING BACK

But a lot of people don’t see it the FCC’s way, and have pushed back on various aspects of the proposal — including on matters of privacy, copyright, diversity and more.

In just the past two weeks, House Judiciary Committee leaders from both parties have told Wheeler his proposal puts copyrights at risk. Other House Democrats, apparently unsatisfied with a Wheeler explanation of the proposal’s backing in a meeting with the House Democratic Caucus, said content creators are hardly applauding, even listing those who have weighed in against the plan.

RELATED:Content Commentary: Producers, Programmers and Affiliated Groups Against the Set-top Proposal | Get complete coverage of the FCC's set-top proposal.

Cable operators for years have been trying to get the FCC to drop its hardware-based CableCard solution for promoting competition in the set-top and navigation-device market. MSOs have long viewed the removable Cable-Card module as a clunky, hardware-based alternative to a software solution for set-top security.

The seeds of the current proposal are in the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Reauthorization Act (STELAR), which renews statutory licenses that allow satellite-TV providers to retransmit broadcast stations to their customers for five years. The mustpass bill was used as a vehicle for getting rid of the CableCard mandate, but it turned into something of a runaway train after an FCC advisory committee included the gateway device proposal, which calls for disaggregating cable content and data and repurposing it alongside over-the-top offerings for one-stop video shopping, among its recommendations. Wheeler climbed aboard.

But the chairman has run into bipartisan pushback from Congress and opposition from many in Hollywood, minority groups and others, all looking to put the brakes on that train.

Google has been pushing the notion of gateway devices for years, seeing an opportunity to promote OTT video alongside traditional TV fare and get access to set-top data in the process.

Cable operators have opposed what they continue to brand the “AllVid” approach — from a previous gateway effort under Julius Genachowski, the FCC’s chairman during President Obama’s first term — because they say it is an unnecessary technical mandate that opens their content and data up to piracy, as well as to edge providers eager to monetize cable programming without sharing the new wealth. Plus, they say an app-based approach to video navigation is already transforming the industry.

Wheeler has said his plan would not mean rebuilding networks or “all the other horrible things” the industry has cited.

Armed with the statistic that 99% of boxes are still leased, and the congressional mandate (or at least language) that the FCC is supposed to promote the availability of competitive video navigation devices, added “unlock the box” — the FCC’s slick, online branding of the effort to disaggregate set-top information, to the list of regulatory initiatives meant to promote competition. With the help of Democrats on the commission who voted with him, that would make cable content and data available for repackaging by third parties.

Obama is now very publicly on board, having made his support for the set-top box proposal part of a larger initiative to get federal agencies to promote competition across all sectors.

The president also came out very publicly for the FCC’s Title II reclassification. But while that was greeted with cheers from congressional Democrats, there has been plenty of pushback from his own party, likely stemming from the fact that all those advertisers and unions and studios and distributors with concerns about the propsal are constituents, too.

Why are cable operators apoplectic that the prospect of competing with devices and apps? Is cable just trying to keep others from milking its cash cow?

Cable operators say no. They say they’re moving away from set-tops themselves, partially because TV is evolving towards an app-driven environment and partially because — at least according to the American Cable Association, which represents smaller, independent MSOs — boxes don’t make them much money.

Cable MSOs also fear that disaggregation of channels would mean they can no longer guarantee programmers the channel positioning for which they’ve negotiated, or companies the ad placement that they’ve paid for.

Comments by Public Knowledge fueled that fear. The Washington, D.C.-based public interest group argued that contracts shouldn’t trump the FCC rules.

It has also been argued that Congress’s mandate that the FCC promote the commercial availability of boxes does translate to promoting new competitive services that rearrange that disaggregated content so it can be integrated with online video competitors.

There is also the privacy issue. Cable operators are required to adhere to set-top information privacy protections, while edge providers (as the FCC chairman keeps reminding them) are not.

The Wheeler proposal, as advertised, would require third parties to self-certify their compliance with similar rules to get access to the set-top data, but cable operators fear that approach is too hard to police. They have reason to be concerned.

Both Google and Amazon have told the FCC that even such a voluntary quid pro quo is unnecessary and should be scrapped.

The set-top proposal has set minority programmer against minority programmer — in one corner, BET founder Robert Johnson; and in the other, TV One president Alfred Liggins and Revolt TV CEO Keith Clinkscales. It has also divided Democrats. A few support Wheeler’s proposal as a proconsumer, pro-OTT move, but many others have big concerns and want the FCC to back off until Congress gets the results of studies of its effects on diversity.

If the FCC does not back off, cable operators — the National Cable & Telecommunications Association has filed 394 pages of documents in opposition to the proposal — have promised to sue.

While some lobbyists and FCC sources on both sides of the issue and the political spectrum argue the NCTA misplayed its hand by pushing for an end to the CableCard regime, NCTA president and CEO Michael Powell disagreed.

“Public Knowledge and [DVR manufacturer] TiVo have pressured the FCC on AllVid since 2010, and with the late arrival of Google seeking free access to content through regulation, I think this FCC was going to move forward regardless of STELAR,” Powell told Multichannel News. “In fact, the FCC is doing this despite Congress clearly rejecting calls for the very proposals that seem to have found favor at the FCC.”

Perhaps at the FCC, but not so much on Capitol Hill. Among those who worried about the new rules are prominent Democratics on the House Judiciary Committee, who’ve written letters expressing worries about copyright protections, and the Congressional Black Caucus, which has aired its concerns about the proposal’s effects on diversity.

Wheeler declined to comment for this story, but his press secretary, Kim Hart, echoed his talking points in a statement. “Lack of competition in the set-top box market means 99% of pay TV subscribers are forced to spend hundreds of dollars a year to lease set-top boxes,” she said. “This proposal aims to provide new options for consumers to access the content they’ve paid for, while at the same time protecting that content from illegal use.

“Chairman Wheeler appreciates all the input he has received on the proposal. He looks forward to working with all stakeholders to bring real competition and choice to consumers.”

Wheeler has doubled down on the proposal, saying recently that it had to get done. And though he has also professed to being willing to adjust it to assuage concerns about copyright and ad deletion, Powell is unconvinced.

“We have heard that in almost every proceeding and it usually comes out awfully close to the way he says it is going to come out,” he said.

But Powell said he would take Wheeler at his word. “If he sincerely is going to work on an order that doesn’t just take these things into account, but actually addresses and removes them as a concern, I think everybody will be happy.”

In the meantime, unease appears the order of the day.

SIDEBAR: The Nays Seem to Have It

The FCC has collected the first round of comments on the navigation-device proposal. The heated rhetoric suggests the high stakes involved, which include privacy and copyright protections — and potentially billions in advertising dollars. Here is a sample of the yeas and nays for the proposal in its present form:

NAYS

Roku: While streaming-device maker Roku has been cited as one of the companies whose content could benefit from the “unlocked” set-top, it strongly opposes the plan. It says the market is already moving toward choice, and the proposal could slow that with a lengthy rulemaking process that creates a de facto technical standard.

Comcast: The nation’s largest cable operator says the FCC proposal is illegal, increases consumer costs, endangers content protection, jeopardizes security, facilitates piracy, weakens consumer privacy protections and creates an unworkable standards-setting process. (Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?)

Dish Network/EchoStar: The Charlie Ergen-owned satellite provider and tech firm say the regime proposed by the FCC is unworkable for satellite, deeply flawed for all MVPDs and would “disserve the public interest and threaten competition in the video marketplace.”

Hollywood: The major movie studios, joined by the Independent Film & TV Alliance, recording industry associations, creative unions — SAGAFTRA, IATSE and the Directors Guild — and others say the proposal will allow allow third parties to scrape data, repackage channels and monetize content without notice or compensation to content creators or distributors.

Communications Workers of America: In its filing, the union says it was all for consumer choice and competition, but the proposal would force MVPDs to give away their programs and guide information to some of the wealthiest companies, like Google.

Association of National Advertisers: ANA says that under the proposal, there is great potential for overlaying or replacing ads and degrading content, leading to the draconian effects of “less content, fewer distributors of programming, higher costs to consumers, and less innovation.”

Arris: The set-top powerhouse warned the FCC that to the extent it is expected to monitor the security of third-party boxes, it said security vendors “do not always have the capability to confirm that their security solutions are properly integrated on devices or apps.”

YEAS

Writers Guild of America, West: The WGAW paints MVPDs as gatekeepers, so it sees the box as a platform for online distributors “not sanctioned [as in distributed] by the gatekeepers” to get noticed.

Amazon: The online retailer and OTT firm commended the FCC on the effort, pointing to the “scarcity of choices consumers have to access and locate MVPD content, and the untapped potential for significant competition in this space.”

Consumer Video Choice Coalition: This group, which counts Google as a member, produced a YouTube video to make its pitch, though it says renting a box from the cable company is required, and it’s isn’t. The message is the simplicity and choice that is being prevented by mandated cable box rentals, but would be “unlocked” if the proposal becomes a reality.

Public Knowledge: PK president Gene Kimmelman said the FCC was aiming to end a “$15 billion per year ripoff” and challenge the “cable monopolies.” PK said the FCC has unambiguous authority to promote both app and device competition and that programmers and distributors would benefit.

Get complete coverage of the FCC's set-top proposal.

WASHINGTON — Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler has taken a “not to worry” approach to some of the issues that are concerning cable operators and broadcasters about his new set-top box proposal.

Wheeler dismissed concerns from both groups when asked if his proposal to give third parties access to program information in cable set-top boxes meant that those third parties could replace or delete TV-advertising content — or repackage it, for instance, with new ads on an opening screen or channel guide with search-based advertisements, a la Google.

The rules ensure that such a scenario would not happen, Wheeler said. According to sources within and outside the FCC, in meetings before the proposal was made, the chairman’s office also assured concerned broadcasters that their ad-supported content would be protected.

MARKET WILL DECIDE

But when the text of the set-top box proposal was released, the introduction talked about proposing to leave “the treatment of advertising to marketplace forces,” as is the case with the current set-top regime.

That left at least one FCC source critical of Wheeler’s plan wondering just how much leeway the marketplace would have to monetize cable and broadcast programming in new ways.

There is language in the section about what third parties — such as Internet-search giant Google or an app developer — would have to pledge to do to get access to set-top content. In addition to adhering to consumer-information privacy regulations and passing through emergency alerts, third parties would be required to “adhere to children’s programming advertising limits.” That’s in part because the FCC said it was concerned that navigation device developers “would violate advertising limits during programming for children.”

Either the FCC plans to make third parties, rather than programmers, responsible for making sure the content being repackaged through new guides and searches and devices meets children’s ad limits, or it appears to be anticipating that those third parties would be supplementing the children’s programming with advertising that might exceed those limits. The FCC source said that wording was troubling.

Broadcasters have tried to leverage the set-top proposal as another shot at cable operators, suggesting the FCC is right to look at the cost of boxes — rather than, say, retransmission-consent fees — as a driver of higher cable prices.

But one broadcaster source said station owners were also concerned about the FCC respecting their programming deals with cable operators, as well as with a company like Google having the ability to change a channel lineup or sell ads against broadcast programming without stations getting any cut of that new revenue.

The source said broadcasters had “heard all the right things” from the chairman’s office.

Attorney Paul Glist, a privacy expert and counsel to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, told reporters in a conference call that Wheeler’s assurances about ad policies were not comforting. Such promises were effectively empty, he added, since they could not be monitored or enforced.

Google uses all of its access to information to monetize its ads, Glist said. In this case, he said, it would be doing so “without any compensation to the programmers.”

For all of the chairman’s mentions of what would not be permitted, he said, there were no restrictions on monetizing the search function.

A senior official said that the language about children’s advertising was related to issues raised about the placement of pop-up ads on Smart TVs in kids programming that the cable operator or broadcasters did not authorize or get to monetize, and the possibility that could happen on third-party navigation devices. The FCC currently has no rules that would prevent, say, a car company from striking a deal to place a pop-up ad on an LG Smart TV.

POP-UP AD CONCERNS

That would mean a third party could strike a similar deal for pop-up ads on the new set-tops that, for instance, Google could monetize. The FCC official said that is indeed the case, but the agency is aware of programmer concerns that could violate agreements about the branding and feel of their content. That’s why the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking asks if rules are necessary to prevent such ads and what the agency’s authority would be, the official said, adding the FCC was not ignoring programmer concerns.

No one has filed a complaint about Smart TV pop-up ads yet, the source noted, but that might be because they’re not yet prevalent.

The FCC’s proposal is just that. It asks a lot of questions about how the FCC should achieve the overall goal of promoting competition in navigation devices. If cable operators and broadcasters want to protect their ad models, they need to make sure Wheeler’s proposal explicitly backs up his assurances about protecting those models.

The FCC released its agenda for next week's Feb. 18 monthly meeting, and access to video dominates the proceedings.

As expected, the commission is scheduled to vote on FCC chairman Tom Wheeler's new set-top box (actually, "video navigation device") Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to open up cable box data to third parties.

In addition, the commission plans to vote on a notice of inquiry into the ability of independent programmers to access traditional and over-the-top distribution platforms, which FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn had sought.

Third is an order allocating responsibility for closed captioning video and determining how captioning complaints are handled. That will be the latest in a series of decisions related to implementation of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act.

The FCC continues to work on a revamp of broadband Lifeline subsidies, which was not on the docket.

WASHINGTON — “Box” is probably the wrong fighting term to use about the current set-top fracas involving the Federal Communications Commission, multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) and Silicon Valley. It’s more like a bare-knuckles cage match over the future of access to video.

On one side are the MVPDs, who argue the marketplace is already opening up access to video programming without the FCC forcing providers to disaggregate their programming for reassembly by others.

The FCC — pressed by Silicon Valley giant Google, TV-maker Vizio, digital video recorder maker TiVo and others — stands on the other side, saying it’s time to break the MVPDs’ leased lockbox on programming and prices.

What’s at stake is nothing less than the future of television and how its viewers will consume it — and who can access the reams of valuable data MVPDs now use to sell to advertisers. The question of who can access that information also poses huge privacy and security issues for TV watchers.

In December, the Consumer Choice Video Coalition (CVCC) — backed by Silicon Valley giants including Google, TiVo, Vizio, Public Knowledge, the Writers Guild of America, competitive telecom carrier trade group INCOMPAS (formerly COMPTEL) and others — demonstrated a new set-top box for FCC staffers, hoping to convince the agency to crack open leased cable boxes for competing over-the-top providers. Of the 21 coalition members present, one-third were from Google.

Fast-forward to two weeks ago, and Google — which just topped Apple as the world’s most valuable company, at half a trillion dollars in valuation — hosted a similar demonstration of the coalition’s “competitive Navigation device solution” for Capitol Hill staffers. The proposal’s mere existence is a game-changer for third-party devices, and a potential huge victory at the FCC that cable operators and studios say would hurt their businesses, as well as consumers.

The FCC has proposed to require cable operators to make their programming available to third parties in a way that cable operators say would force them to re-engineer their networks and strip away copyright and consumer protections.

Google and others in the coalition said the proposal creates a “virtual headend” so that an MVPD’s signal can be viewed along with over-the-top offerings on a competitive device. That device could be a box, phone, tablet, smart TV, dongle or even a leased cable box.

The idea is that the device allows access not only to the MVPDs’ programming, but to content from the Internet, including Netflix, Amazon Instant Video and YouTube.

More worrisome for cable operators, it could allow these third parties access to the most precious of all screen space: the first thing viewers see when they turn on the TV. Might it be an ad from Google?

Cable operators, movie studios and others have formed the Future of Television Coalition to fight the proposal. It’s not that they don’t want their content side by side with OTT, they said (and that’s already happening in the marketplace without FCC intervention). Rather, they see the FCC’s move as an unnecessary thumb on the scale for the Googles and TiVos of the world.

“It disaggregates the provider of the service from their customer, which no business is really going to like,” one coalition source said. “And it gives third parties a way to come in and get revenue out of the ecosystem that devalues the content.”

Coalition co-chairman Alfred Liggins, the president and CEO of cable network TV One, said, “The ‘AllVid’ proposal is a brazen money grab by Big Tech companies that would do severe damage to the programming ecosystem, and in particular, niche and minority-focused networks.”

Cable operators argue that the proposal is essentially a revival of the AllVid proposal the FCC offered up in 2010. Wheeler and FCC officials, though, say the new plan is far from that.

Wheeler has pushed the plan with tough talk about the skyrocketing price of set-tops and the lack of competition. He went so far as to use a Public Knowledge/Consumer Federation of America chart at a press conference to illustrate why it’s necessary to “unlock” the box for edge providers and consumer groups. (Gigi Sohn, a top adviser to Wheeler, is the co-founder of Public Knowledge.)

At press time, cable operators and other members of the Future of Television Coalition hadn’t seen Wheeler’s notice of proposed rulemaking, so all they had to go on in formulating reasons why the FCC was on the wrong track were the painful (for them) memories of AllVid and the CVCC proposal.

Multichannel News talked to senior FCC officials who have seen the NPRM to get their responses to the cable operators’ key concerns — and they have a ton of them.

So, in one corner, from an NCTA filing with guidance from Future of TV Coalition sources, are the perceived blows the chairman’s proposal would inflict on a video-access marketplace if it unfolds along the lines of the proposal put forth by Google et al. In the other, top FCC officials, speaking not for attribution, weigh in with their responses.

Would this turn the “opening screen” — what viewers see when they turn on their TV sets — over to a third party?

MVPDs: The first screen could be “Welcome to Google” only, with ads down the side. How would a Cox Communications or Comcast subscriber get directly to their channel lineups (on the same channels) on that opening screen as well?

FCC: “While we cannot predict the design or interface that device makers and software developers may come up with, they will be required to pass through all of the content the consumer is entitled to receive. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking asks how that should be defined,” an FCC source told Multichannel News. “This proposal is intended to introduce competition in devices and apps available to consumers. If a consumer does not like the interface or user experience available on one offering, they could look for an alternative offered by a competitor.” In other words, what that opening screen will show is yet to be determined.

What happens to programming agreements?

MVPDs: Retail devices would have access to parts of the MVPD service from which they could create their own service offerings, without responsibility or compensation to programmers or MVPDs.

FCC: “The CableCard works the same way,” an FCC source said. “It gives an independent vendor such as a TiVo access to the MVPDs’ programming and guide information. And none of these things have happened.

“And on the compensation issue: If you think about this logically, if I’m a Comcast subscriber, I’m paying Comcast whether I’m using their box or whether I use a TiVo box,” the agency source added. “Comcast is then passing that money on to the programmers, based on the fact that I count as one of their eyeballs. They are also able to sell advertising based on the fact that I count as one of their eyeballs. Nothing that our proposal would do would change any of that. They keep their subs; they keep their subs’s money. We’re just saying you should be able to get a box or view it with an app on any device you want without disrupting any agreement between the programmer and the MVPD.”

Under the CableCard regime, third parties are not required to display the guide in the same manner as MVPDs, but they are required to pass through a channel lineup, and that won’t change, the official said. “Any package that the consumer has paid for shall be passed through in full and displayed in full by the third party,” the FCC source said.

In addition to those channels being available in order, they can also be searched by category in a similar way as can be searched today. “If an MVPD can do that today and be in compliance with a third-party programming agreement, why wouldn’t a third party be able to do that?”

Would this proposal infringe on copyrights?

MVPDs: Device manufacturers would be allowed to infringe on programmers’ copyrights by displaying and copying protected works through manufacturers’ own services without permission or compensation.

FCC: “Nothing we are doing undoes any copyright protections that exist today.

“As part of our proposal, we would require that the copy-protection information be transmitted from the MVPD to the device or app, and that the device or app must honor that copy protection mandate from the programmer.” If the device doesn’t honor copy-protection rules, programmers would have the same redress as they do under copyright, the official pointed out, though that is not the FCC’s purview.

Would consumers lose modern features offered by the box, like Time Warner Cable’s “Start Over?”

MVPDs: Consumers would be denied access to many modern MVPD service features like voice search, starting a show in progress at the beginning and other interactive enhancements, which MVPDs rely on to ensure the quality of their user experience and to provide value to their customers and stay competitive.

FCC: If viewers want such enhancements, they can keep them. “We’re not telling anyone they have to give up their cable box. All we are saying is that, as a consumer, if you want to buy somebody else’s box, you should be able to. And who’s to say that new box won’t have those features or a different feature that consumers want?”

Wouldn’t the proposal require some sort of in-home adapter, not to mention added costs for consumers?

MVPDs: MVPDs must provide customers with a government-designed in-home, leased device in order to receive MVPD service on a retail device, raising equipment and energy costs for consumers. FCC: Officials said that sounded like AllVid, which they said was not the chairman’s proposal. “We are not designing a device. In fact, we are not even mandating a device. We are very pro-app, and software and competitive devices [in] whatever format these innovators want to develop in. We are just trying to encourage that. AllVid was two boxes. We were telling people we are going to design a box and you have to have two boxes to get your cable programming. But that’s not what we are doing here.

“In fact, we would love it if our proposal resulted in no boxes. The way of the future is not the box. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just hook up your MVPD service to your Smart TV and you could see everything?”

Would this complicate issues like privacy, and perhaps thwart emergency alerts?

MVPDs: Device manufacturers are not obligated to abide by Title VI consumer protection regulations such as, among others, privacy protections and emergency alert requirements.

FCC: “Our proposal specifically seeks comment on maintaining emergency alerting. The safety of the public is very important to the commission. Nothing that we do in our proposal to create a competitive marketplace will undermine emergency alerting.”

As to consumer-protection regulations, the official said that MVPDs do have different obligations under the Cable Act than device manufacturers. “Title VI applies to MVPDs only.” But the official said that those device manufacturers are already subject to some pretty strict privacy laws and regulations of their own, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission — citing a “ton” of consent decrees against app and device manufacturers and the fact they are subject to strict California laws on privacy, as well as strict European Union privacy regulations for any device or app sold in member countries.

Can this make it easier for hackers since there’s now a single point of attack?

MVPDs: Cable operators and other providers would have to use a common content encryption technology (DTCP-IP), creating a single point of attack for hackers. DTCP-IP also does not support today’s rapidly evolving video business models.

FCC: That is a reference to what CVCC is asking, said one official, and the chairman’s proposal “is not that.” He said the chairman’s proposal “recognizes there are a wide variety of methods for protecting content from theft and misuse, and TV providers ought to use multiple systems,” and so the proposal “does not prescribe any particular content-protection system” so those can evolve. But the proposal does recognize that third parties need access to those content protection systems, whatever they wind up being, so the proposal requires that a pay TV provider license at least one such system on reasonable terms. “There will be no government standard that we select, or even that we approve” and the FCC remains “tech-neutral” on hardware vs. software.

Doesn’t this force MVPDs to essentially give away their guide data?

MVPDs: MVPDs would be required to provide program-guide data, which they do not own, to retail devices, thereby exceeding their licenses with guide data suppliers.

FCC: The FCC will seek comment on the “exact level” of information that is needed to pass through from an MVPD to a third party in order to maintain all of the rights the consumer has paid for.

Could this focus on box-vs.-no box stifle innovation in next-generation technologies, not to mention the growing demand for apps?

MVPDs: Providers would have to support an expensive legacy technical solution, thereby interfering with plans to deploy next-generation systems and technologies (e.g., IP cable and IPv6).

Moreover, this would force cable operators and others to implement an inflexible, one-size-fits-all technology mandate that ignores the video marketplace transition to apps and creates a drag on innovation in the highly dynamic video-device marketplace.

FCC: “That, again, sounds like AllVid. This isn’t AllVid.

“It’s very clear by everything we have put out that we are very supportive of apps. We think apps are the way of the future and what we are proposing to do is tech-neutral. It does not mandate a box. If people want to develop a box and consumers are happy with boxes, they are welcome to them. But what we are trying to do here is let people innovate, whether they want to do boxes or something that is like the Amazon Fire stick or if they want to do an app. All options are open in the proposal.”

How would technology standards be decided for this new sharing arrangement?

MVPDs: The proposal relies on standards not yet invented or implemented and would take years to develop — by which time the “solution” will likely have become outdated.

FCC: On the one hand, the official said, cable operators have consistently said they don’t want the agency setting a standard and “now they aren’t happy with us wanting to let a standards body set the standards, a body we think they should be a part of. It is tough to have it both ways.

“We are requiring the standards be set by an open standards body with participation from MVPDs, CE manufacturers, app developers and generally following the executive guidance on open standards bodies. We don’t want to be in the middle of it. It is not a government-mandated standard.”

How does this proposal change what is already happening in the marketplace, with viewers accessing cable and over-the-top side-by-side without the FCC stepping in?

MVPDs: This is a solution in search of a problem.

FCC: “It is very true that some of the larger MVPDs make apps available to certain devices where they entered into contracts with those devices.

“The problem is, today if I open up, say, a Comcast app on my Smart TV, I can’t search what is available to me through my Comcast subscription versus what is available to me from Netflix. I have to go into each app, search inside that app, get out, go to the next screen if I want to go to Hulu after that.

“The nice thing about being able to let unaffiliated vendors develop apps for devices is that we anticipate functionality very similar to what TiVo does today, allowing consumers to search across all the sources of programming that they have access to because they pay for many of these things. It will be easier for consumers to find the programming they want at the price they want to pay for it.”

Comcast is seeking to use and monetize the viewer data generated by its millions of set-top boxes.

The cable giant has talked about licensing the data from its subscribers with TV programmers and measurement companies, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The report says Comcast has talked with Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN, Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting and Discovery Communications. It already provides data to NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast.

Comcast also talked with Nielsen, but rejected an offer that would have paid $100 million for an exclusive license to the data, the report said.

As TV viewing fragments, it is difficult for sample-based research to prove an accurate count of who is watching what, and the data from millions of set top boxes is seen as a way to generate a more accurate picture.

Read more at B&C. 

Layer3 TV, the Denver-based “next generation cable operator,” has not yet outlined its go-to-market strategy, but it’s becoming clear – in bright pink and orange, no less – that the resulting service will operate in part on an IP-based device made by Pace plc.

The Donohue Report spotted the device as it passed through the FCC. Though short in technical detail, the device located is model number CI2516, and has a colorful, humorous sticker on its underside that reads:  “WOOO OOAHH!! Who Turned Everything Upside Down?”  The Pace-made device also sports a DOCSIS MAC ID sticker, meaning it's for HFC networks. U.K.-based Pace is in the process of being acquired by Arris for $2.1 billion.

Layer3 TV is expected to support a variety of IP-connected devices, but it has dropped hints that it will also offer its own consumer gear, including a set-top that would be capable of supporting 4K/Ultra HD. As for other hints, a job posting from March 2014 proclaimed: "Knowing what RDK is counts as extra credit!," an indication that the company was at least considering a platform that uses the Reference Design Kit, the preintegrated software stack being managed by Comcast, Time  Warner Cable and Liberty Global. 

Layer3 TV, which recently changed its logo, has been asked for comment on the device.

Update: "We don't comment on equipment filings with the FCC," said Layer3 TV's head of marketing Eric Kuhn. "However, we have promised to be a next generation cable operator, so maybe pink and orange is the new black?"

The finding at the FCC marks the first evidence of a consumer device from Layer3 TV, which is expected to launch its IP-based service this year. The Denver-based outfit has not announced its specific plans and product strategy and roadmap, including whether it will offer a direct-to-consumer service or work in partnership with existing MVPDs.

However, a recent FCC filing by the company seems to add fuel to the notion that Layer3 TV will operate as a virtual MVPD of sorts. It told the FCC in July (subscription required) that it’s possible to build a platform that looks and acts like a traditional multichannel video programming distributor from a Commission-requirements standpoint, but can still be innovative and compete head on with legacy pay TV service providers.

A person familiar with the company’s plan told Multichannel News that would be inaccurate to label Layer3 TV an OTT service because it’s aiming to become a “new class” of distributor.

Layer3 TV did describe itself as having a “facilities-based architecture” to the FCC, which is looking to define online video providers (OVDs) that deliver a linear programming stream as MVPDs. If defined as such, an OVD would have access to content through the FCC’s program-access rules, but likewise would have to negotiate for retransmission consent with broadcasters.

The July 22 ex parte filing — which describes a meeting between several staff members of FCC chairman Tom Wheeler and Layer3 TV executives, including co-founders Jeffrey Binder (CEO) and David Fellows (chief technology officer) as well as Kuhn  — appears to confirm that Layer3 TV is approaching its business as a bona fide MVPD with the rights and privileges that such status would confer.

Layer3 TV likewise proposed to the FCC that a “technology-neutral” approach would paradoxically inhibit competition and degrade the quality of content that consumers demand, were the FCC to jettison certain obligations aimed at protecting the consumer interest, including requirements such as Emergency Alert System compliance, closed captioning, limits on commercial audio volume and the provision of public, educational and governmental (PEG) access channels.

“Compliance with those legacy rights and obligations that remain applicable, regardless of the delivery technology, is neither impossible nor anti-competitive,” Layer3 TV argued. “Nor is such a requirement unduly burdensome for new entrants, as Layer 3 TV said it would soon demonstrate.”

Layer3 TV hasn’t announced a launch date, but it is gearing up amid the recent debut of OTT-delivered pay TV services such as Sling TV, Dish Network’s slimmed-down service for cord-cutters, and PlayStation Vue, a more-robust multichannel offering Sony is currently selling in seven markets: Dallas, Miami, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.

Of recent note, Layer3 TV added programming vets Lynne Costantini (now president of business development at TheBlaze and a former exec of Scripps Networks and Time Warner Cable) and Sean Riley (an exec with multiscreen video tech firm 1 Mainstream who is also late of Fox Networks) to its content advisory board, which is now led by its chief content officer Lindsay Gardner, a programming vet who was formerly with Fox and Cox Communications.

In June, Layer3 TV  raised a $51 million “B” round that extended its total to $80 million.

Layer3 TV, founded in 2013,  opened its Denver headquarters in September 2014. 

Marriott Hotels said Wednesday (June 10) it has partnered with Netflix to allow guests to access their existing Netflix accounts on in-room TVs at its hotel properties.

Hotel guests will be able to stream Netflix via a new TV platform powered by a set-top box.

Six Marriott properties will launch the service first, including New York Marriott East Side, San Jose (Calif.) Marriott, Princeton (N.J.) Marriott, Newport (R.I.) Marriott, Dallas/Fort Worth Marriott Solana and Bethesda (Md.) Marriott Suites, with another six scheduled to offer it later this summer, including San Francisco Marriott Marquis, Atlanta Marriott Marquis, Dayton (Ohio) Marriott, San Juan (P.R.) Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino, Anaheim (Calif.) Marriott and Marriott Marquis Washington, D.C.

Marriott said it will roll out the Netflix service to a total of 100 properties by the end of this year and another 300 by the end of 2016.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

Rentrak vice chairman and CEO Bill Livek has one person to thank for the moment that put the fledgling Nielsen competitor on the map: Barack Obama.

It was the 2012 presidential campaign, after all, in which President Obama’s handlers selectively purchased advertising on networks based primarily on set-top box data, getting the message to young voters by buying time on shows not traditionally associated with that demographic.

“Obama put us on the map,” Livek said. “They [the Obama campaign] bought TV very, very differently. They bought television shows that you wouldn’t buy if you seek an 18-plus audience or a voting-age audience.

“Here they were buying programming like The Andy Griffith Show on TV Land, inventory that was completely mispriced for political,” he recalled. “That story replicates itself time and time again in other verticals.”

Rentrak, a 34-year-old company based in Portland, Ore., had already signed a few big clients, but Obama’s win insured a bluechip list of TV giants, including NBC, CBS, Fox and ABC owned-and-operated stations across the country.

And the list keeps growing. Last week, Rentrak struck two deals with units of ad behemoth WPP: An agreement to purchase the U.S.-based TV assets of its Kantar Media division, as well as a deal with ad buyer GroupM to provide local and national data tools. The deals come literally on the heels of an agreement with Zenith Media, a unit of communications behemoth Publicis Groupe, which announced it will be testing Rentrak data in several marekts as the basis for planning and buying local ads for Zenith’s clients. With those deals, Rentrak says it has contracts with all of the largest ad agency holding companies.

The Kantar Media deal, valued at about $98 million in Rentrak stock, will give the company a stronger presence in local and national TV measurement. With GroupM, Rentrak gains a client with about $105 billion in global ad billings that also shapes the relationship between TV networks and advertisers — GroupM led the push for C-plus-3 ratings, now the industry standard, in 2007.

At Rentrak’s Oct. 9 Investor Day in New York, GroupM global chairman Irwin Gotlieb hinted that the Rentrak deal could signal further changes in the overall industry.

Speaking via satellite from San Francisco, Gotlieb said that the TV landscape has changed dramatically over the past 10 to 20 years, yet viewership is measured using technology developed 50 to 60 years ago.

“If we’re going to have addressable TV, if we’re going to understand the intersection between media consumption and product consumption, if we’re going to have highly refined targeting, we have to move from sample methodology to census-based data,” Gotlieb said. “There just isn’t a choice in the matter.”

RAMPING UP RATINGS

With these deals and more, Rentrak is on the cusp of moving its TV ratings business to the next level. The company estimates that its TV-ratings business, which in 2009 accounted for less than $1 million in revenue, will top $56 million in fiscal 2015, an 80% increase from fiscal 2014’s $31 million in sales and growing the number of TV stations and cable networks it calls clients exponentially.

Wall Street is taking notice. Rentrak stock, once thought primarily as a takeover play (largely by bigger Nielsen), is now being bought on fundamentals and potential for future organic growth. The shares, which traded at about $72.07 per share on Oct. 9, are up 90% since the beginning of the year and have more than quadrupled from about $17 each five years ago.

New customers and new products on the horizon — including a planned overnight-ratings offering that would be a direct challenge to Nielsen — are expected to fuel that growth.

Rentrak initially made its mark by offering movie box-office results and video-on-demand viewership data, but its TV-measurement business will be the growth driver for the foreseeable future, Needham & Co. media analyst Laura Martin predicted.

Rentrak has added 117 television stations as clients in the last four quarters, and represents about 60 station groups with a total of 350 broadcast properties. Roughly 90 cable networks use Rentrak data — mostly channels too small to be rated by Nielsen — but that is about to change.

Rentrak could grow its cable client list to about 400 channels in the near future, Martin estimated, including some of the top 100 channels currently rated by Nielsen. And one of Rentrak’s biggest advantages — its services are priced at about 25% of Nielsen’s rate card — is helping drive growth, she said. About 100 of Rentrak’s TV-station clients have “stopped paying Nielsen entirely,” Martin estimated.

Rentrak’s emergence also is a signal of how much the media measurement game has changed in the past several years. Once the exclusive domain of Nielsen, whose overnight, age and gender ratings data have determined which shows live or die since the beginning of television, advertisers are seeking more detailed information on who is watching.

‘BIG DATA’ NEEDS

The advent of TV Everywhere, online and mobile video and social media has fueled the rising need for big data — demographics, household income and buying habits gleaned from millions of set-top boxes and other sources.

Unlike Nielsen, which gathers data from a sample of about 20,000 to 25,000 households around the country handpicked for the privilege, Rentrak gets its info from 26 million homes, representing about 60 million TV sets, from satellite TV providers DirecTV and Dish Network, telco AT&T and such cable operators as Charter Communications and Cox Communications.

Rentrak then takes that information, filters, crunches and extrapolates it, and combines it with such data points as household income and retail buying habits to present a total profile to clients. So while some advertisers may be content on getting data on whether a show is being watched by a key male or female age demographic, Rentrak customers are shown which shows are being watched by households with incomes over $200,000 annually who have bought a BMW in the past five years. It is a level of granularity that is becoming more and more commonplace.

While Nielsen’s data sample is smaller, it is also more representative, according to the company. And through its Buy and Watch segments, Nielsen too can provide clients — for an additional cost — with more detailed buying habit and income information.

Nielsen also has embraced social media: It tracks mobile TV viewing via a relationship with Facebook and TV-related conversations through a partnership with Twitter.

“Whether its social impact, over the top, over the air — because 10% of the country watches an over-the-air signal — or mobile or a tablet, cable or satellite, we measure it all,” Nielsen senior vice president of local media product leadership Farshad Family said.

ROOM FOR TWO?

While the two companies are obviously targeting the same universe of customers, they both believe they can happily coexist, perhaps even cooperate.

“The important question is where is this [measurement] headed,” said Nielsen executive vice president and managing director of local media Matt O’Grady. “Digital viewing and traditional linear viewing of video and TV are colliding, and so the measurement is colliding as well between big data and panels.”

He said Nielsen continues to work with big data and that mobile and tablet measurement is dependent upon effective use of big data.

But O’Grady stressed that big data is not a replacement for panel data, which gives the age and sex of a viewer. “There will always be a gold-standard high quality panel to use in conjunction with a big data source,” he said.

In 2011, Viacom had a highly publicized ratings spat with Nielsen, giving Rentrak the chance to show how its set-top data could be dramatically different from Nielsen’s panel method. “Not necessarily a watershed event, but it was supportive of the need for two [measurement companies],” Livek said.

Nielsen is still by far the world leader in providing TV-measurement data and it too offers clients a treasure trove of demographic, household and other data that sets the tone for the $70 billion U.S. TV ad market.

And though Rentrak is moving the measurement conversation toward more granular data, it’s still a long way from ever surpassing the TV-ratings champ.

With about $5.7 billion in revenue in fiscal 2013, Nielsen also dwarfs Rentrak, with fiscal 2014 sales of $75.6 million, financially. Even with the exponential growth rates expected by Wunderlich Securities media analyst Matt Harrigan over the next five years — he estimates 2021 sales of $475.2 million — Rentrak still would be less than one-tenth the size of Nielsen.

TRACKING TIMESHIFTING

Nielsen is grappling with shifting viewing habits and advertisers who are looking for ratings that reflect the propensity of most TV watchers to time-shift. Already the industry has adopted a C-plus-3 rating benchmark, which tracks viewership for the three days after a program originally airs.

As so-called “appointment TV” is being pushed further aside by DVRs, tablets, computers and smartphones, other networks and broadcasters have lobbied for a C-plus-7 rating -- which Nielsen also provides -- that would track viewership for seven days after a program originally airs.

While Nielsen argues that appointment TV is certainly not dead — according to its research, the vast majority of television viewing is still done live — it is not ignoring the changing landscape. The company has launched its own mobile measurement product which measures viewership on tablets and smartphones and is readying an approach to track viewership outside of the home — on tablets, computers, mobile devices and even in restaurants and bars — using portable people meters, or devices that hook onto a respondents belt or purse and track their TV viewing.

Nielsen began testing the devices — used for about a decade by Arbitron (now Nielsen Audio) to track radio listeners — for gauging out-of-home TV viewership in the Chicago market earlier this year, with encouraging results. It is currently figuring out its plans to move forward with the service in the near future.

“The market is headed to a place where the advertisers want to understand their audiences in a much more detailed, nuanced way,” O’Grady said. Nielsen this year introduced Local Buyer Reach, which includes purchasing information from 40 different categories including automotive, retail shopping and grocery sales. It has received strong interest, he said.

But Nielsen is still hampered by its sample approach, Harrigan said. “For the local markets, it’s just absurdly small.”

THINKING LOCALLY

“In Portland, there are probably 800 [Nielsen] meters, where Rentrak would literally have hundreds of thousands of TVs that we look at. Of those 800 people, if 25 go on vacation or are not watching the news, you will see a big dip in the ratings,” Rentrak corporate president Cathy Hetzel said. “We don’t have a ratings bounce because we have such a massive and stable database.”

Zenith Media chief data officer Rob Jayson said while the agency will continue to use Nielsen data in some markets; the intention is to eventually move to Rentrak data exclusively and is testing using the Rentrak data in several markets. While he said that could pose some risk, “the upside for this is immense. The downside, which is sticking with a broken system that we don’t believe serves our clients’ interest, is also big.”

Zenith Media is part of Zenith Optimedia, which has more than 7,400 employees in 262 offices across 74 countries. Parent Publicis Groupe is the world’s third-largest communications group, and the world’s secondlargest media counsel and buying group.

“The integration of data is definitely where the whole media industry is going, the ability to join the dots together and see what’s working,” Jayson said. “You just can’t do that under a small panel size or a diary system.”

Rentrak had long ago carved out a niche providing data on movie-studio box office and video-on-demand viewership for cable operators. But Livek, an industry veteran who took the helm in 2009, saw an even bigger opportunity — using the census-based data that Rentrak gleaned from set-top boxes and merging it with the demographic, household income and purchasing data to provide brand owners and advertisers with the in-depth information on buying habits they’ve been looking for.

“Most people thought you could never compete with Nielsen,” Livek said. “I actually felt that we could absolutely compete with Nielsen without competing with them at all, and that was in inventing a new category.”

That led to additional business with TV-station groups, as well as other smaller networks and ad agencies that use Rentrak information to track make-goods when shows don’t provide the agreed upon audience for advertisers.

In addition to its existing products in the TV Everywhere and online video arena, Rentrak also is developing an overnight product similar to Nielsen’s that could be released to the local market next year.

The trend may be toward the so-called “virtualization” of the set-top box as more of those functions get packed into the cloud, but that doesn’t mean traditional boxes will be going the way of the dodo anytime soon.

On that point, Arris is using the IBC show in Amsterdam to unveil a new, sleeker design for IPTV set-tops and video clients that are equipped with HEVC decoding and 802.11ac WiFi, with some models capable of supporting 4K/Ultra HD video.

The VIP4000 and VIP5000 series products being previewed at IBC are based on Arris’s KreaTV IPTV platform. But they also represent the first in a family of new designs that will support both telcos and cable operators and a “variety of software applications,” an Arris spokeswoman said.

Those products, the first to feature Arris’ new high-gloss, fancy set-top design, will be offered in several colors -- snow & copper; ice blue; “Arris orange” (they have staked their claim on this particular shade, apparently); tinted grey; premium umbra; and midnight purple. The front of model will also feature “fluted LED lighting”  that will allow color-customized branding. Arris expects to launch them globally starting next year.

Here’s the initial model lineup for each series:

VIP4000 Series (HEVC compatibility for HD)

-VIP4000: A compact HEVC 1080p60 HD IP set-top with an 80x80x13mm form factor equipped with 802.11ac 2x2 dual-band Wi-Fi antennas.  

-VIP4300 – Featuring a circular design and USB connectivity for DVR and time-shifting, this one decodes HEVC HD 1080p60 and features 802.11ac.  

-VIP4600 – A “fully featured” HEVC 1080p60 HD IP set-top, housing up to 1 terabyte of storage for DVR applications, plus 802.11ac.

VIP5000 Series (Ultra HDTV-capable)

-VIP5200 – An HEVC Ultra-HD IP set-top, supporting up to 4Kx2Kp30 with up to 1TB of storage and 802.11ac.

VIP5600 – A fully featured HEVC Ultra-HD IP set-top for UHD p60 with 10-bit color, plus 1TB of storage and 802.11ac.

Arris, which saw set-top and gateway shipments rise 8% in the second quarter, also extended the design theme to a new family of remote controls – a version with a full set of functions and short cut keys, a mid-level model with number keys and the “most important function keys” around the main navigation key, and a compact model with a small set of user keys.

So, the set-top box appears to be alive and well -- or at least is putting on a fresh face -- despite constant predictions of its demise.