Thursday, January 20, 2005

f you're shopping for a new TV or personal video recorder (PVR) this year, you should know something about CableCard. At this month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, TiVo, Hewlett-Packard and others unveiled new products incorporating the technology. Most new digital television models including HDTVs now include CableCard hook-ups.

CableCard is an interface for digital TV that lets you plug your cable line directly into your TV set without the need for a set-top box. It's about the size of a thick credit card, and fits into a special slot built into digital TVs and a growing number of peripheral devices, such as a newly announced version of TiVo and HP's media "hub."

CableCard's first function--and arguably its most important--is to prevent people from stealing cable TV. Like a set-top box, it stores subscriber information and codes for unlocking and viewing scrambled digital-cable signals.

CableCard is meant to replace set-top boxes. But it does not yet replicate all set-top box functions. Notably, you can't yet use CableCard for services that require two-way interactivity, such as accessing your cable company's interactive programming guide or purchasing pay-per-view programs. Also, equipment that was made before the CableCard specification was created won't work with CableCard. That includes all current TiVo models.