Sony Announced a Deal with the National Cable and Telecommunications Association to develop TVs that have Digital Cable Box Technology embedded directly into their TVs. This would create the first true Digital Cable Ready Television. These TVs would be able to handle advanced features such as Video OnDemand and Switched Video; features that only Digital Cable Boxes can support. They will be embedding the TVs with the Cable Industry's "
Tru2Way" technology, which will enable anyone to create devices that work your Cable Providers as long as they are a Tru2Way partner. Tru2Way used to be known as
OCAP. Sony signed the deal with the 6 Cable Providers (Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Charter, Cox, Cablevision and BrightHouse). These providers account for 82% of the market. Although Sony is leading the drive, other providers such as
Samsung,
Panasonic and
LG have also signed on.
Cable Rant thinks this will not cause any immediate changes for the Cable Industry as it will take a few years for these products to come to the market and it will only be useful for customers with new TVs. The Cable Industry will still make money from the Cable Cards required to get the service. Even though the Cards costs on average about $2.00 versus $7.00 for boxes, the Cards are a lot cheaper and represent a higher profit margin for the Cable Industry. You have to remember the Cable Industry would not invest into this technology unless they thought they would make more money. This is a great plan, because the Customer would be spending the money for the Cable Box to be embedded into the Television, not the Cable Industry.
The only industry that has something to fear are the electronic stores such as Best Buy or Circuit City. If the TV comes with the Box embedded, customers won't need to purchase an HDMI wire for their Cable Box. Attachments at the purchase represent a good amount of profit for these guys. Granted Customers will still buy HDMI wires for other devices, the loss of the HDMI wires for the Cable Box will represent millions less HDMI wires sold each year. Fortunately, for the electronic companies, they have a few years to think of a new way to gain that money.
