If you've tried to pump your fully-paid-up cable connection into, say, a computer running Windows Media Center, you've probably come up against the closed nature of pay-TV and the severe limitations of CableCARD. And what about satellite TV? Don't even think about it.

The FCC wants to blow open the market for third-party video devices, scrapping some of the current (failed) CableCARD rules and adding satellite providers to the list. The idea has a certain obvious simplicity to it: encourage huge innovation in the video content marketplace by crafting rules that allow third-party boxes to easily access TV shows and on-demand content from both cable and satellite providers (technically, the rules could cover all multichannel video programming provider distributors, or MVPDs).

But DirecTV has been making the rounds at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), telling staffers in the various Commissioner offices that Chairman Genachowski's idea for cracking open TV is terrific so long as it applies only to cable. DirecTV wants an exemption, just like it currently has one from the CableCARD mandate.

The company has filed a recent series of ex parte notices (PDF) with the FCC that detail these meetings. In them, the company makes a point that we are sympathetic to: "it is not clear that increasing access to Internet content through MVPDs’ set-top boxes will spur broadband adoption."

One of the big goals of the new inquiry on set-top boxes is to spur Internet access. It's driven by the finding that 99 percent of US households have a TV while only 76 percent have a home computer. Make it possible to browse the Web and check e-mail through a set-top box, using the TV set as a screen, and a new set of Americans can suddenly get online. (If this isn't yet conjuring up shades of WebTV [now MSN TV], it should.)

But a scheme that could open up video content would be far more interesting, depending on the final rules. If set-top boxes and third-party devices like PS3s, Xboxes, PCs, Apple TVs, and TiVo could easily access, manipulate, and store cable and satellite programming, the potential for innovation would be enormous.

Rather than scrapping current industry efforts, such as CableCARD and the it's-coming-real-soon-now tru2way middleware program, the cable industry is pushing a plan under which it could continue to use tru2way while satellite could use its own decryption and middleware system. One box would support multiple standards; just take the box anywhere you go in the US, subscribe to any video service, and it should be able to output a signal.

In cable's view, this is just a matter of fairness; if cable needs to open up, so should satellite.

Satellite wants nothing to do with such a plan to open its content, though. Satellite broadcasters were exempted from the CableCARD rules back when they were first proposed on the grounds that the satellite market was more competitive than cable and that there was more competition in the satellite set-top box market. DirecTV says that all these things remain true and that it should continue to be exempt from any future rules on the topic.

A tale of woe

For now, though, consumers will continue to be seriously frustrated by the state of video openness. One agitated Comcast subscriber from Oregon recently filed his tale of woe with the FCC.

You see, our hero had purchased a TV and a few other devices that were capable of tuning unencrypted (ClearQAM) digital cable channels. "I have several ClearQAM-capable devices which I was using to view and record the digital services to which I had subscribed and am still paying to access," he wrote. "While the "navigation" was problematic (i.e., no fixed mapping between 'cable channel 63' and 'ClearQAM channel 67-3'), it was a minor problem.

Until November 11, 2009, when "without prior notice, Comcast of Oregon began encrypting all digital services except those corresponding to the analog basic services What remained in the clear were mostly local broadcast and public, education, and government (PEG) channels, with a few shopping channels. Even though I was still paying to access enhanced (digital) services, I was no longer able to use the CPE [customer premises equipment] I had invested in to view those services."

The man could pay for a CableCARD (and pick up a set-top box), but he had "purchased CPE both for enhanced capabilities and to avoid paying 'double' It is exactly this kind of situation which prompted the Cable Consumer Protection Act of 1992 The clear intent of the legislature was that CPE should not only be allowed but should be promoted in the interests of the consumer and the industry as a whole."

Without the ability to access a TV signal, would the VCR ever have flourished? Would TiVo ever have shown us the incredible power of a DVR?

Now, thanks to the encryption, the man fears the we have "returned to the dark ages, similar to the time when Ma Bell controlled what you could attach her phone lines According to Comcast of Oregon, it is sufficient for me to be able to schedule the recording of a show two days in advance (the limit of the on-screen program guide in the full-feature cable box I have been provided), with the additional requirement that I attach the VCR only to that box and must also program that VCR to record that signal. I cannot schedule two different channels to be recorded 'every week' or even 'day after tomorrow'—a task that was trivial using the CPE I have already invested in."