C|NET: Cable Companies Lose Round in CableCard battle

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/Cable+companies+lose+round+in+CableCard+battle/2100-1033_3-6107359.html?tag=nefd.top' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/Cable+companies+lose+round+in+CableCard+battle/2100-1033_3-6107359.html?tag=nefd.top</a><br /><br /></div><i>"The cable industry suffered a blow on Friday when a federal appeals court upheld the Federal Communications Commission's mandate requiring cable operators to distribute a technology called CableCards, which will allow digital cable subscribers to get rid of their cable set-top boxes. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously supported the FCC's "integration ban," which requires cable operators to separate encryption functions from basic decoding capabilities in their set-top boxes. Separating these functions allows cable customers to plug their cable line directly into a TV set without the need for a set-top box. The CableCard device is about the size of a thick credit card, and fits into a special slot built into digital TVs and a growing number of consumer electronic devices, such as TiVo's digital video recorder and most HDTV sets."</i><br /><br />This article makes it sound like the hold-up with cable cards is the cable companies, but when looking at TVs with a friend last month at a local Best Buy, there was exactly <b>one</b> Sony TV there with cable card support. So to me that means that the problem lies someplace else: the manufacturers of the TVs don't seem to care about cable card support. Am I missing something here? Are there more TVs on the market with cable card support, and I just didn't see them? Or is this a USA/Canada thing where the US market has cable-card TVs and the Canadian market doesn't? That's what's happened with integrated HDTV tuners - TVs in the Canadian market don't have then, but many US-based TVs do.

[gmontielh]

:D One of the best "inventions" lately. I am pro for clutter elimination. One box less. Should be manadatory.

[Jason Dunn]

:D One of the best "inventions" lately. I am pro for clutter elimination. One box less. Should be manadatory.

Does your TV have it though? When you were TV shopping, was it hard to find a TV with cable card?

[randalllewis]

Nearly a year ago when I was shopping for my first HD TV, there were a few models with cable card support. As I recall, these were all higher priced and large (42 inch plus) models. It seemed like a good feature...but I went with a set without cable card support because they were "one-way" devices and didn't provide for the channel guide and other two way features. My experience is that I use those features on a daily basis, so I am happy with my choice. The sales guy told me that future models would have two-way cable cards but that the one-way sets would not be compatible with them. That may have been sales hype, but it rang true for me.

A year later if there are fewer models with cable cards, it seems that the manufacturers may have made the gamble that the technology wasn't going anywhere soon as long as the cable operators opposed it. The manufacturers are trying hard to drive HD prices down and dropping cable card readers shaves a little more off the price. And if the FCC prevails, it wouldn't seem to be too tough to put a reader on a new model.

[Jason Eaton]

I think it is a combination of issues, in the grand old chicken and egg fashion.

Cable companies don't want them as they take a chunk out of sales with the current one-way capabilities (no pay per view etc), decoder box 'rental' fees, etc...

TV manufacturers see it as an additional cost that isn't very viable as very few cable companies support it. As high end televisions inch toward comodity pricing, cable card support looks like an easy corner to cut and keep profits up.

Until someone finds a way into our wallets/purses to feed their vaults with cable cards, it is a consumer benefit rather then a business benefit, and those aren't always compatible.

(A couple months ago while shopping, cable cards were in a handful of models but the feature was never pointed out or put into a value position by sellers, you might have had more look for consumer education on the use of torque screws versus philips head screws.

My current set has one collecting dust, my cable company -only one in area- does not support them.)

[Felix Torres]

The problem does start with the cable companies.
Last year, there were actually more models offered with cablecard than this year.
(Remember the "cablecard is dead" thread of a few weeks back?)
The manufacturers designed them and built them and they sold...sort of...
But with a price war building up, manufacturers looking to squeeze costs out of their sets figured that if the cablecos don't support the cards, then there would be a competitive advantage in *not* having one. :?

For now, the FCC has been putting the pressure for cablecard on the cable companies and on the set manufacturers on the ATSC tuner issue. The cablecos are fighting while the set manufacturers folded on the tuner and the result is HD consumers lose both ways: Cablecard is stalled and the tuner mandate seems to be killing CRTs, come january.

Somebody ought to remind the FCC that with 70% of the market getting cable, getting cablecard deployed is a whole lot more important than propping up local broadcasters' new digital revue streams...