CableCARD is the technology created by the United States cable television industry in response to government mandates by the FCC to separate the internal functions of integrated set-top boxes and allow third-party manufacturers to sell devices with built-in cable tuners directly to consumers.

Existing integrated cable set-top boxes perform 4 basic functions:

1. Provide the ability to tune cable channels
2. Identify the customer and authorize the features they have subscribed to
3. Decode premium programming such as movie channels
4. Provide interactive 2-way communications for:
   1. interactive programming guides
   2. Pay-per-view
   3. Video On Demand

Because of the FCC mandate, new digital televisions and other devices which are labeled "Digital cable ready" have built-in support for function #1, cable tuning; they also have a slot for the current version of CableCARD (see photo here), which performs functions #2 and 3. The future version, called CableCARD 2.0, will include support for #4, interactive 2-way communications; however it is unknown exactly when these will become available (possibly 2007 or 2008), and existing "Digital cable ready" televisions will not be able to use their interactive features.

To make sure this changeover occurs, the FCC has banned cable companies from offering the traditional, "integrated" set-top boxes to customers at some date in the future (currently 2007-07-01, though it has shifted several times already).

A CableCARD is leased by the customer from the cable company, typically for a lower monthly fee than a set-top box. The card requires on-site installation by a technician, who reports the unique ID-numbers pre-assigned to the CableCARD and the digital television to the company headquarters. CableCARDs cannot be moved from one device to another without a visit from a cable company installer.

The U.S. cable television industry is also actively developing a system known as OpenCable which would supersede CableCARD and eventually render it obsolete. The current functions of a CableCARD would be implemented in new digital televisions and other devices that support the OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP) and the proposed software-based Downloadable Conditional Access System (DCAS). This would create a common hardware/software standard for digital cable television within the U.S.

Technical overview

CableCARD is the term trademarked by CableLabs for the Point of Deployment (POD) module defined by standards including SCTE 28, SCTE 41, CEA-679 and others. The CableCard is physically a PCMCIA type II PC card, supplied by the cable company, which is inserted into a slot in the host (typically a digital television set) in order to identify and authorize the customer, and to provide proprietary decoding of the encrypted digital cable signal without the need for a set-top box. The cable tuner and QPSK demodulator themselves are part of the host device, as is the MPEG decoder. The role of the card is to control the tuner, filter and process its output, and perform any conditional access and decryption functions. This results in an MPEG stream decoded by the host.

Uses

In most cases, a CableCARD is used by a consumer in their television to watch digital cable programming (Standard Definition and High Definition) without the need for a set-top box from the cable company. This requires a television with a special slot for the CableCARD and a built-in cable tuner; the card acts like a unique "key" to unlock the channels and services which the cable customer has subscribed to, and the television's remote-control will also control the cable channels. Televisions that support CableCARD should be labeled by the manufacturer as "digital cable ready", or DCR.

The card can also act as a cable modem controller, again with the host providing modulation and demodulation functions, and the card providing decoding and IP routing functionality; however this feature is rarely used, and depends on the cable provider.

Drawbacks

The drawback of current generation CableCARDs (version 1.0) is that they are one-way only. This means that most interactive programming guides, and all Pay-per-view and Video On Demand content are not available to users as there is no way for the host device to communicate with the cable provider. As of September 2005, only a few dozen high-end television models on the market in the United States are sold with CableCARD 1.0 slots. Some manufacturers removed the CableCARD feature on new 2006 models as they see them as a feature that will soon be obsolete. [http://www.hdbeat.com/2006/05/03/where-have-all-the-cable-cards-gone/ ^*

CableCARDS will also prevent DIY recording machines using software such as MythTV from recording digital cable channels, due to the requirement that the software and hardware be licensed before using a cableCARD.

CableCARD 2.0

A CableCARD version 2.0 standard has been in the works to address some of the issues with CableCARD 1.0, as well as add several new features. The new CableCARD 2.0 standard supports two way features such as Pay-per-view, Video On Demand, and advanced electronic programming guide information. CableCARD 2.0 is also supposed to allow for up to 5 channels to be tuned in at once. CableCARD version 2.0 will not be compatible with existing CableCARD 1.0 enabled products. Several DVR manufacturers have also held off on integrating CableCARD slots into their machines until the CableCARD 2.0 standard is finalized. Equipment with CableCARD 2.0 support is expected during 2006 or 2007.

Many cable providers in the United States have already begun to support CableCARD 1.0, with many saying that they also plan to support CableCARD 2.0 when the equipment becomes available. No cable providers in Canada currently support CableCARD.

External links

Cable television | Digital television | Digital cable