Comcast Offers Trial Of Microsoft TV Software

Anonymous Howard writes "Designtechnica has a news article about Comcast and Microsoft announcing an agreement to test digital TV services using the "Microsoft TV Interactive Program Guide (IPG)". The trial is scheduled to start this fall using Motorola DCT2000 set-top boxes. The software is designed to help network operators get more value from on-demand and other digital TV services." There are some more details in an article over at CNET News.

Will it mean...

[rekkanoryo]

Will it mean that instead of having only the current half-hour's programming shown in the interactive guide alongside ads, there will no longer be ads, leaving room for an hour and a half's worth of programming information? If not, it's no better than the worthless crap they're serving us in the DCT boxes now. Everyone I know that has digital cable from Comcast doesn't want to see ads, they want to see an interactive version of the TV Guide Channel.

Ads, Ads, Ads

[felonious]

If anyone out there really thinks there will be no ads then they are in complete denial. As long as humans inherit this earth and view tv in all it's various forms then there will be advertising. It might be passed off as programming but it's still an ad.

"Value"

[Wesley Felter]

The software is designed to help network operators get more value from on-demand and other digital TV services.

Is there any benefit to cable customers? Is this basic program guide any different from the basic program guide that's built in to all digital cable boxes?

Microsoft always delivers!

[wfberg]

Like in 2000?

For Microsoft, It's "Inactive TV" [businessweek.com] (businessweek)

And 2002?

[zdnet.co.uk]
Microsoft likely to miss key test on interactive TV(and they did)(zdnet)

Microsoft software vs. cable set-top box software

[Amit J. Patel]

The cable set-top box I have (AT&T digital cable) is really awful.

• It misses keypresses -- the receiver light blinks, so the hardware received the keypress, but the software just ignores it.
• It's really slow -- you can see the text being drawn on the screen
• It's buggy -- the wrong show sometimes gets described, which is really amusing/annoying when I'm watching Discovery Channel and the program guide shows the description of an adult movie.
• It's ugly -- but maybe I've been spoiled by the less harsh colors and more readable text used by TiVo.

Although I'm not generally a big fan of Microsoft software, in this case I'd put my bets on Microsoft's software being better.

Amit [stanford.edu]

It's about time they do something

[Alien Venom]

Anyone who has Comcast knows that channel switching and doing stuff on that box is damn slow.

You'd think that for as much as one pays for digital cable, they could have ad-free channel browsing -- but no.