Cisco Unveils Their Tuning Resolver

Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 by MegaZone

Following quickly after Motorola unveiled their MTR700 Tuning Resolver, Cisco has unveiled their tuning resolver as well, the STA1520, which looks like their RTG100 cable box. (Remember, Cisco purchased Scientific Atlanta, and they’re starting to use their own branding on products that formerly would’ve has the SA branding.) Cisco is calling it a ‘tuning adapter’ instead of tuning resolver, which I also noticed the NCTA reps doing during today’s conference call, perhaps that’s the new industry term? I wish they’d just pick a name and stick with it, I don’t think ‘tuning adapter’ is any better than ‘tuning resolver’, and at least the latter has been used for a while.

Like Motorola’s MTR700, Cisco’s STA1520 will be demo’d at the upcoming Cable Show, and it will be part of the Wave 60 certification process with CableLabs, so it too could be available by early July.

Via Light Reading’s Cable Digital News.

About MegaZone

MegaZone is the Editor of Gizmo Lovers and the chief contributor. He's been online since 1989 and active in several generations of 'social media' - mailing lists, USENet groups, web forums, and since 2003, blogging.    MegaZone has a presence on several social platforms: Google+ / Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / LiveJournal / Web.    You can also follow Gizmo Lovers on other sites: Blog / Google+ / Facebook / Twitter.
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  • http://thecrazywaterezboard.yuku.com Bruce

    Whoo-hoo! Fantastic…TWC in Raleigh has already started moving HD channels to SDV, although my TiVo S3 seems to be unaffected for sometime after initially receiveing “Channel not available” messages…But great to here…

  • http://hdtivo.wordpress.com HDTiVo

    If the characterization of “some” interface testing with TiVo is accurate, put another mark down for forgeting Q2 “availability.”

    By the way, what will “available” mean? ;)

  • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ MegaZone

    Since the Wave 60 certification is at the end of June, it isn’t going to street in Q2. Early Q3 at best I’d say.

    And available means available for cable MSOs to distribute, that’s not in question. Both Motorola and Cisco have said the boxes will be sold to MSOs.

  • http://hdtivo.wordpress.com HDTiVo

    So available means a fully tested and approved (by MSO) device delivered to the MSO in “quantity?”

  • http://vincea.livejournal.com Vince

    This was some of the best news I read yesterday. Most of the tuning resolver news that I’ve seen recently has been in regards to the Moto resolver (probably because I read Zatz blog and Mari is a Moto employee). I hadn’t seen anything about an SA resolver. Poof… news that they’re not just working on one but they’re about as done as Moto. I’m a Cablevision subscriber that is about to lose some channels to SDV (nothing important but a few that I’d watch occasionally) and my area is a Scientific Atlanta (Cisco) area.

  • Hemo_jr

    So is this ‘tuning adapter’ the Tru2Way device? Or is that something different?

    If the ‘tuning adapter’ and the Tru2Way thingy are one in the same, this appears to be a bulky white elephant that I would rather not have. One more thing to troubleshoot if things go wonky, another device to find an electrical outlet for, another set of cables and power cords to not organize, another box to heat up my hose and increase my carbon footprint. One more thing to buy/lease from Comcast. And I will probably need three, one for each TiVo HD/S3. So much for trying to eliminate the cable TV box (I bet it won’t sit on my LAN and talk to all my TiVos, but require a dedicated box for each one).

    But it will probably turn out to be something I need to watch the shows I want in HD. So I will more than likely end up with a bunch. But I am going to try and become a late adapter for this one.

  • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ MegaZone

    I think you’re confused. There is no ‘tru2way device’ per se. Tru2way is the new-ish marking name for OCAP and OpenCable. It refers to a collection of standards that device builders can use to build products that support two-way cable services – SDV, VOD, PPV, and more. Including advanced cable services like Time Warner’s ‘Start Over’, on screen caller-id, etc. Tru2way devices are just rolling out now, first as tru2way-enabled cable set-top boxes, and later this year as TV sets from Panasonic and other vendors. And TiVo is known to be working on a new box which will support tru2way.

    The Tuning Resolver is something else. It is a solution to the problem of UDCPs – Unidirectional Digital Cable Products – not being able to tune SDV – Switched Digital Video – channels. That’s all the Tuning Resolver is meant to do – SDV-enable UDCPs. It isn’t a tru2way device, tru2way is much broader than that.

    And yes, you need a Tuning Resolver for each UDCP. It is a dedicated transceiver for that box, connected over USB. And you’ll need it to access ADV channels.

  • Glenn

    Anybody else getting a bit of a queasy feeling about these devices? Is it just a coincidence that both vendors have used an existing STB shell to pour the electronics into? Is it perhaps possible that in fact these are reduced function STBs, i.e. with a new software load? Meaning that in fact they will be quite expensive, relatively speaking, and that the likelihood they will end up being “free” to CableCARD customers is shrinking rapidly?

    I’d like to hear about plans to shrink these things back to the dongle we all originally imagined. Seems unlikely that’ll happen any time soon though given the likely volumes. If it does happen it won’t be for a while…