The End May Be Near for TV Set-Top Boxes

FUTURE SONY televisions with build-in cable capabilities may spell the beginning of the end for set-top cable boxes.
The electronics giant and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association recently struck a deal that will allow home viewers with the still-unnamed Sony TV sets to ditch their cable boxes while still receiving advanced cable services such as on-demand and pay-per-view.
The agreement could lead to many new interactive services, such as personalized programming guides, customized news and sports tickers, live onscreen chats, and increased on-demand choices. Customers will still be able to attach their own devices, such as digital video recorders, to the Sony sets.
The deal involves the country's six largest cable companies: Bright House Networks, Cablevisions Systems, Charter Communications, Cox Communications, and Time Warner Cable. The companies serve more that 82 percent of cable subscribers in the United States.
In 1996, the cable industry was ordered by Congress to allow electronics companies to compete for cable boxes, the result of which was the CableCard.
The cards are provided by a cable company and then inserted into competing boxes to unscramble the cable signal; TV sets currently can only receive a signal from a cable company, but not vice versa. The cards have proved unreliable and unpopular.
The new TV sets will still require CableCards, but technical problems are expexted to be eliminated, and two-way services will be available using the cable industry's tru2way technology.
Although Sony has agreed to start producing the new televisions as soon as possible, the company has not committed to a time frame in which the sets will be available in stores.

source: Computer Shopper August, 2008.