Among the digital cable box, DVD player, home theater tuner, digital video recorder, and trusty VCR, your home
entertainment center is most likely cluttered with boxes! Some TV manufacturers have given consumers a way
around one of those boxes, and have started selling TVs with a built-in cable card slot. While this seems like an
easy fix, you may want to hold off on tossing your cable box for now.

So what exactly are cable cards? CableCards are roughly the size of a credit card, only a bit thicker. They slide
into a special slot on a CableCard-ready TV, and handle authentication and decoding functions. Cable providers,
due to new regulations, must offer CableCards to consumers who request them, and they can usually be rented
for around $2 a month.

The biggest problem with current CableCards is that they are not capable of two-way communications. For
normal TV viewing this is fine, but it prevents you from using interactive services such as video on demand, pay-
per-view, or interactive program guides. Also, CableCard sets don’t always work with TiVo and ReplayTV DVR
IR blaster technology (the technology that allows the DVR change channels according to your recording
requests), though solutions to this are in the works. Some companies, such as Motorola, are already working
to develop CableCard-ready video recorders, and cable operators are already thinking of ways to take advantage
of this new technology.

If you're thinking about buying a CableCard-ready TV set now in hopes of being ready for the new two-way
cards, you may want to think again. Not only will today’s CableCard TVs not be compatible with two-way cards,
nobody is predicting on when two-way cards will happen.

CableCards are a great solution to ridding your entertainment center of one more box, so long as you don’t have
a TiVo or ReplayTV DVR and won’t miss interactive digital cable services.