Only 200,000 CableCARDs in Service

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060928-7856.html' target='_blank'>http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060928-7856.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"The recent release of TiVo's Series 3 dual-CableCARD machine has rekindled interest in CableCARD technology and resurrected old questions about how well these devices work and when multistream and two-way models will become available. Fortunately, the National Cable &amp; Telecommunications Association can provide some answers. Its most recent FCC filing gathers up the CableCARD-related activity of the six largest cable operators into a tidy package with a bow on top in order to make a point that most people already understand: CableCARDs are not exciting. Plus, they have problems. This is not how the report phrases things; in fact, it suggests an enthusiastic market for the technology and claims that there is a "significant deployment" of CableCARDs in the US. When you look at the numbers, though, this "significant deployment" looks more like a trial rollout."</i><br /><br />I am not surprised by the extremely few cable cards in service. This goes back to some of the questions in the thread about <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11094&amp;start=10">Fox Thwarting DVR Fast-Forwarding</a>. Plus, when you walk into a store these days and ask for details about TVs that support cablecards, it is very hard to get clear answers. What I was quite surprised by was the number of cablecards that have problems. For example - Cablevision reports having 10,120 cablecards in service, and it experienced 2,332 problems. Scary! Do any of you use a cablecard? What has your experience been?

[Janak Parekh]

From what I've heard, the cable companies actively dissuade consumers from adopting CableCARDs. They've also held up the development of future CableCARD versions. This has a major ramification on things like MCEs--I won't buy an MCE now, because it doesn't work with digital cable. (Then there's the fact that most cable vendors will rent you a box with integrated DVR for a heck of a lot less. ;))

--janak

[Crocuta]

Oh yeah, they do everything they can to convince you not to use a CableCARD. They only have them because the FCC requires it and they've fought the things tooth and nail in court (and lost). So if they have to offer them, then they do their best to see that they're as unattractive an option as possible.

But there's more to it than just strategic stalling; the front line cable folks seem to really hate them because of all the problems they have with them. I just had two installed in my new Tivo Series 3 and my experience was much, much easier than that of many people on the Tivo Community Forum. Many of them have been fighting to get their CCs working for days or even for weeks (in a couple of cases) and it's not about the Tivos as much as it's about the CCs. Mine also didn't work at first, but they did manage to fix everything from their end by sending various instructions and codes over the cable to the cards, but I may have just gotten lucky. Now it all works great and it's fantastic to have all the benefits of Tivo in HD with no set top box.

Thinking of how few CCs are out there, though, I realize there's probably a good reason for that. One thing they kept asking me (over and over) was if I understood that I wouldn't get the interactive program guide if I went with a CableCARD.

Well, of course, with a Tivo that means nothing since Tivo's own guide is the heart of the product. But if I just had a regular CableCARD TV and couldn't get the program guide, I'd be reduced to trying to find shows for 150 channels with a paper TV schedule. Not a pretty thought. And they also don't do PPV or on-demand shows. So I imagine this may have a lot to do with the relatively low acceptance rate for CableCARDs. To make it really attractive, you need CableCARD 2.0 (supports two-way communications) and the cable companies have been seriously dragging their feet on those.

If they would get off their hind ends and adopt this as the standard way of communicating cable, then CCs could be great. But for now, we can expect to continue seeing slow acceptance outside of the Tivo community.