HDTV Forum

Hi All & cableguy619 --

With all these various "takes" dealing w/ Cable Cards, there's a most basic one perhaps being
overlooked...

Even IF one does manage to get it ( or them, if two are needed, as with TIVO HD ) to ever perform,
That S.A. 8300HD Will always do better, allow ( six ) specific definitions & screen selection choices
and Record HD !

Cable Cards do not permit On-Demand, Pay-for-View.

In my opinion, there's a lesser future - not more - for these cards.
eli whitney

eliwhitney wrote:Hi All & cableguy619 --

With all these various "takes" dealing w/ Cable Cards, there's a most basic one perhaps being
overlooked...

Even IF one does manage to get it ( or them, if two are needed, as with TIVO HD ) to ever perform,
That S.A. 8300HD Will always do better, allow ( six ) specific definitions & screen selection choices
and Record HD !

Cable Cards do not permit On-Demand, Pay-for-View.

In my opinion, there's a lesser future - not more - for these cards.
eli whitney

I don't think there's anything a cable DVR will do better than a Tivo. And that's the problem with cable boxes - they're proprietary. There is no open market. Cablecards allow the open market to make cable decoding devices and that can only improve the quality and features available (if they work). DirecTV was doing this for over a decade which allowed vendors like Philips and Sony to make receivers and DVRs that competed with each other and the quality improvements were evident and like night and day compared to the cable box technology available at the time.

TIVO HD is great... the only problem I have had with cable cards is the cable company - they don't know the product themselves!

>Cable Cards do not permit On-Demand, Pay-for-View.

The second generation of cards does.

In fact, TWCNYC is switching to a HD DVR that uses these cards 9the 8300 HDC), The cards are not available for TV sets yet, AFAIK.