Cablecard?

[Rob Seastrom]

Alex Fraser <beatnic at comcast.net> writes:

> Machinations of the telecommunications industry.  Law to get rid of cable cards passes House...
> [[http://www.lightreading.com/cable-video/set-top-boxes/house-votes-to-kill-cablecard-mandate/d/d-id/710079]]

Laws that prescribe use of a particular technology implementation tend
to be deeply flawed.  Not to mention even people who "like" the
CableCard will agree that it is a POS and is super dated.

What you want is not "cable card", what you want is to be able to get
by without a cable company provided STB.

The question is whether there continues to be a mandate to allow
access over a broad selection of COAM (customer owned and maintained)
devices.  I have no idea whether it's in the law or not; I haven't
read it.  If you read the article, though, it looks like Comcast is
working with Tivo on the technology to make this work.  Other
organizations of which I am aware have had no trouble making clients
for stuff like Roku, Apple TV, Android, and laptops working in a way
that keeps the content rights holders placated.  So the mandate might
come from consumer demand rather than the law.

Anyway, stuff to think about.

-r