Question for someone with deep technical knoledge

[Peluso]

I've been thinking lately about the Cable card concept forwarded by the Cable Industry. It seems to me that if dish/direct can build a satellite tuner that interacts with the TV in the cable card format, then they would be able to virtually eliminate the cost of the STB's and truly be on par with Cable.

Is this technically feasible? Does anyone know what's involved? It seems to me that the conversion of a digital signal from one format to another shouldn't be that big of a problem if the correct IC's are developed, but I'm not an engineer.

 

[korsjs]

I have been thinking the same thing for the past few weeks ever since the tvs have started to come out. I am not expert by any means, but I can't believe they could not accomplish something like that. It might not be able to do ppvs from the remote. I think they might be afraid of hackers, because something like that could probably be easily tampered with.

 

[mini1]

It would be great if they could have SatelliteCards. I can't see why that isn't possible. CableCards are already 1 way, so is satellite when not connected to a phone line. They have got to sign contracts with major TV makers, and start offering SatelliteCards. I think it is a great idea, and would love to see it happen. It would attract so many new subs, who want simple all the way. Their are alot of people who will not get satellite TV because they think it is too compicated.