dick_grayson

Yo. I'm looking to get a new tv sooner or later and noticed that a few Panny Plasmas come with something called "CableCARD"

CableCARD™ ready: With CableCARD compatibility, you no longer need a cable box to access digital programming from participating cable providers.

Do other brands Sony et al. have something like this? Would Panasonic's one even be worth it or couldn it somehow limit the number of channels I get and so on? Also, I'm looking for a 35-40 LCD or plasma HDTV, so any recommedations are welcome. I'm reading up as much as I can on the htf, by the way. I'd be using it for dvds, sports and gaming (what else is there?)

Thanks.

bulldozer3

my Sony WEGA 50 inch HDTV has cable card... i cant use it though since my cable provider dosent support it yet, but they claim they will soon.

Spiky

Actually, I would guess lower to midrange HDTVs will be more likely to support Cablecard than high end. But I doubt the distinction will be price range, just check for it if this is a feature you want.

dick_grayson

gotcha. thanks all.

richard98

I think you have this reversed. The presence of cable card compatibility would mean that the TV has a built in Cable and HD tuner. From what I've seen these tuners are not built into lower end HDTVs.

The cablecard serves as a mechanism for the cable company to communicate with your TV. In our area, comcast can scramble/unscramble the digital channels (101-170, 400-449) by sending a signal to either the cablecard or the cable box.
We recently purchased a Sharp 32" lcd for a brightly lit sunroom. I believe this was the right choice for this use, but we would have gone with a plasma for any other room in the house. The Panasonic plasmas look very good.

Red Dog

My Sony Grand Wega is Cablecard ready, but I don't have a cablecard for it because 1) I have a HD-DVR connected so I can get all the channels through that and 2) I get most of the HD channels 'in the clear' (meaning that come in just from the cable line itself).

If you don't get a HD-DVR from the cable co, then I could see the attraction of the cablecard option. Keep in mind that if you use a cablecard rather than a box, you cannot order PPV and use VOD. Also, I'm not positive about whether the premium channels are supported on it.

dick_grayson

thanks. I was worried about a cablecard's limitations (ppv and so on), so I'll probably just ignore whether it has one or not.

Spiky

I think we have a semantics issue.

Also, note that all low-mid HDTVs will be required to have an HD tuner (in fact, the dates for the first group were just moved up), and many of these will throw in the digital cable tuner, just as virtually all analog TVs now have an analog cable tuner in them. This is the market that is more interested in having an easy, if under-featured, tuner at the ready.

Both HD and the internal cablecard are still bleeding edge. Whatever is happening right now is hardly an indication of future products.

mrhan

I use to have the cablecard but returned it for the box because of the above mentioned limitiations. BTW, it does decode premium channels such as HBO, etc.
Not having the onscreen info is what eventually got me to go back to the box.