I know everyone around here only cares about gaming, but I genuenly find the TV integration on Xbox One very interesting. You see, I work for a massive cable company and while I don't have much first hand television knowledge (I work for their Online division) I was speaking with a few people that do and they shared some interesting thoughts... 

Initial thoughts from the media is that their TV approach is similar to Google TV, using IR blasters. However upon further discussion people at my work believe that there has to be a missing piece that we have yet to see which will make Xbox One revolutionize TV.  They would not tout "TV! TV!" as loudly as they did and then present a solution identical to Google TV with IR blasters which is half baked at best.

They must have something up their sleeve as they had a collective grin while holding back the details, as if they feel they've cracked the 3rd screen puzzle which even Apple hasn't been able to solve yet.

So what could it be? How are they pulling off what really did look like the future of the living room? 

I have 3 theories:

1. Seperate CableCard enabled TV tuner. Network enabled.  Go to Microsofts XBox One site. It says "Advanced TV Hardware Required" in fine print. What the heck is Advanced TV Hardware?

2. Small, DVD-less Xbox 360 re-designed as a Media Extender that has coaxal input and plugs in to Xbox One. Those rumors of the small box that did media only make a lot of sense...could even throw X360 backwards compatibility in to the mix.

3. Something new and mindblowing no one has seen before

I would guess advanced hardware = your cable box.

This. I really don't think we're missing a thing. It's a Google TV. If it was any other device then it's a complete fail. 

If the Xbox One could replace my cable box, I would consider getting one just for the TV aspect of it. Cable boxes (in Canada, at least) are overpriced and (some) still run the same clunky UI at has been around for over 10 years now.

This is certain...however there has to be more to this than just only HDMI cable box support.

Pulled from the Xbox One QA:

Q: Do I need to have a specific cable or satellite TV provider to watch live TV on Xbox?

A: Our goal is to enable live TV through Xbox One in every way that it is delivered throughout the world, whether that’s television service providers, over the air or over the Internet, or HDMI-in via a set top box (as is the case with many providers in the US). The delivery of TV is complex and we are working through the many technologies and policies around the world to make live TV available where Xbox One is available.

Techincally the Xbox One currently does not have the ability to implement OTA signal or coaxal cable (no plug). This makes me think addons...

If people are thinking of posting in one of my threads and a reply like this is all they can add to a topic, just keep it to yourself and don't post...

I'm so sick of constant negativity around here. 

If a cable company has an IPTV service, could the Xbox One (or other devices, like tablets) access that TV service from just an App, without the need for a cable box?

Hi there.

Yep I love multimedia as much as I do games. I love TV series, Love movies, music and games. Love socializing and love to use Skype. As you can imagine for me Xbox One blew away PS4 conference. The PS4 still seemed a toy or a gimmicky Games console. Wereas the Xbox One seemed to grow up with me. and grow up with the industry of today.

As it stands I expect PS4 to be 100GBP less due to missing multimedia functions and we will see if they have multitasking.

It can but problem is that IPTV just isn't there yet for many reasons... One reason why cable box is needed here is because guys like Rogers, Comcast etc want to keep tracking TV viewership themselves and probably don't feel comfortable with Microsoft having access to this data directly. Cable delivery aside, the way cable companies insert ads in to a television stream VS how ads need to be inserted in to IPTV like setup is drastically different. Advertising is the main source of revenue for cable companies and the backend for ad delivery through IPTV just isn't there yet...

What Microsot has to do with Xbox One right now is offer the cable companies the ability to track show viewership securely like they would directly with their cable box and at the same time integrate with the service better than something like Google TV does. In a few years, once IPTV gets figured out, the Xbox One integration with TV will be sublime. 

@ OP - since you work on a TV cable company... one thing i didn't get is, out does the xbox change the channel of the cable box trough HDMI? i don't think that is possible. Here in portugal (don't know in the rest of the world) we have cable TV providers with DVR, time travel 7 days back and some other particular features, if the OS on xbox one doesn't have this particular features in mind, keep cable box just in the background and use xbox one only is not a valid option (we already know that DVR will not be available). Unless, of course, MS work with every cable company out there (or one per country) to create a special UI for that country/service. titan work MS is getting into.

edit: epiphany, just realize how it works...  the ir port in the back is not for a receiver, its to blast IR into the cable box receiver... ahhhhh never mind...