The Clicker: CableCARD and OpenCable

Engadget has probably the best summary of CableCARD and OpenCable I've seen online, covering all the basic issues and pointing fingers as to where it has gone wrong. The FCC forced the cable companies to play fair and adopt an OpenCable/CableCARD system, but it turns out in practice that it's difficult to actually make approved products that can take advantage of the functionality because of a lengthy, time consuming review process. Since it's so important for companies to get their products first to market, and the competing interests of cable companies wanting to perpetually rent you their own box, it's likely to die as an actual useful feature before it's even gotten a chance to show up in many products.

When TiVo announced a standalone HD TiVo, complete with CableCARD support, I wondered why TiVo said it would take a year to get to market. Perhaps this is one reason.

Comments

[Randle]

Actually, this is a pretty bad summary of the issues regarding OCAP and CableCARD, in that several important and relevant facts are wrong. Check out my comments to the Engadget article.