CableCARDs and HDTV

An anonymous reader writes: "HDTV is the next big thing. I attended the NAB conference in Las Vegas last week and everyone was pitching HDTV or asking about it. DesignTechnica has an interesting article on CableCARDS, which allows viewing HDTV through a CableCARD compatible HDTV set without needing a set top box. Cable companies are required to enable CableCARDs with card-compatible HDTVs by July 1, 2004. So here's some questions: Has anyone heard of CableCARD? Is anyone planning on buying a CableCARD compatible TV? How many people actually get HDTV in their area, and how many channels? HDTV is so hyped right now but seems that there is barely any deployment."

Comments

Re:I have one

[XanC]

That's "buffoon." Nice try.

Re:I have one

[nil5]

woop dee freaking doo (it was a joke)

Re:Set top boxes suck

[per11]

Amen to that. I would be happy if only my TiVo could record HBO. As it is, I would need to use a cable box to change channels and none of the cable boxes let TiVo change them (no, not even the Motorola).

HDTV is a Honey Pot

[Prototerm]

HDTV? No thanks.

I don't watch much television -- most of it is crap these days anyway -- and I'm not interested in watching sports of any kind -- so I have no interest in spending a lot of money on HDTV. If I want to watch a movie (not many good movies around, either, IMHO), I rent the DVD.

There's nothing wrong with the existing digital broadcasts of satellite or cable shows, particularly through something like TiVO. I strongly suspect that HDTV is being pushed on us (and legislated by Congress) to give content providers access to new DRM mechanisms designed to take choices away from us, in much the same way that Microsoft's "Littlebighorn" release will give us lots of pretty pictures to convince us to give up our Fair Use rights on the computer.

The way out of the trap is to avoid it in the first place. If few people buy this overpriced HDTV equipment, it sets the content providers back to square one. Oh, they'll screw us over eventually, but at least we won't give them the satisfaction of making it too easy for them.