CableCards here to stay or suffering a slow death?
CableCards are one of the best requirements that the FCC mandated for cable companies lately but yet, most consumers are not aware of the option. Alan Stafford from PC World takes an in-depth look at the state of CableCards and it came out just the way everyone imaged: distraught. The slow death isn't caused by TV manufactures that stopped implementing them, but rather consumers not utilizing 'em. Last year at this time, the HDTV market was saturated CableCard support but if people weren't going to use the option, it was an easy cost cutting measure on the manufacturing end. Then there is the whole issue about two-way CableCard support. Who doesn't want to rid themselves of set-top cable boxes, but cable companies don't want to lose the income. The state of CableCards can be boiled down to a simple statement however, "Consumers don't know about CableCards and the cable companies aren't going to tell 'em."
[via PVRwire]
