Panasonic to make Boston the fourth tru2way market
Although the FCC has recently realized that CableCARD is a failure, it'll be years before anything changes; and even when things do change, the cable industry is probably going to support it for years to come. So we are still happy to see that Panasonic is continuing to try to push tru2way into more homes. Currently only available in Comcast areas of Chicago, Denver and Atlanta; Panasonic plans to add Boston to that list. The interesting twist here is that apparently Panasonic has given up on HDTVs with tru2way built in, and is instead pushing a set-back solution. Basically it would be a box designed to attach to the back of a Panasonic TV and presumably require it's own power but only one connection to the TV via HDMI. Then it would work just like the function was built into the TV -- this kind of defeats the purpose of tru2way, but it is better than a traditional set-top box sitting under the TV with its own remote. The problem is the set-back box doesn't have an analog tuner, which crazy enough is a FCC requirement, so Panasonic is also asking the FCC to waive this requirement, and honestly this is one waiver we would agree needs to be granted.
