Today marks the beginning of the end for that terminally ugly device in the living room: the TV set-top box.
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts is expected to announce at the opening of the Consumer Electronics Show an “open platform” that allows hardware and software manufacturers to develop devices and applications that will run successfully on any cable-TV system.
Dubbed “Tru2way,” the open platform is expected to be deployed in cable systems serving more than 90 million US homes by the end of the year.
In conjunction with the announcement, Panasonic plans to unveil a portable DVR/DVD player developed for Comcast that utilizes the technology. TiVo, Samsung and others also plan to deploy devices that piggyback off of the platform.
The cable industry’s rollout follows moves by Google, which has been pushing a similar agenda, and Verizon Wireless, which said in November it would make its wireless service compatible with devices and related software it doesn’t sell.
It would be a mistake, however, to write an obit for the set-top box. Like the compact disc, the device is expected to stick around, albeit playing a diminished role.
“The set-top box is not likely to disappear but evolve” into other uses for TV viewers, said Jupiter Research Vice President Michael Gartenberg.
In an interview with The Post, Roberts, who is scheduled to give the first keynote address by a cable CEO in Consumer Electronics Show history, said the impact of an open platform “could be a potential game-changer” for the cable industry.
“In the past, the cable industry had two things that didn’t work for the consumer electronics industry,” Roberts said. “The first was that the cable box was a proprietary closed system. The second was that there was no interoperability between cable companies.”
With “Tru2way,” however, Roberts said third parties “can now work with cable to create more innovation and better interactivity – and that’s never happened in our 40-year history.”
But others were a bit more suspect. “The allure of openness is always a great thing, but in the end what matters is who’s willing to adopt it,” Jupiter’s Gartenberg said.