snarlydwarf;584456 Wrote: > .... If what the people in Engineering tell me downstairs is accurate, > they -must- provide local TV stations unscrambled, so just need a > tuner.) > > Add in the "cable card" chaos, and I really don't see a reason to get > an alternative cable box... keeping the price down is crucial. Why pay > $300 for what I can get for free from Comcast? I don't want to see > Facebook on a 42" screen. Comcast's "On Demand" works well > enough......
Yes, locals are a "must carry" for cable co's per FCC regulations. You can usually get the locals in HD via QAM tuners, but the cable co's are not required to offer program data via QAM so few do so. I do think there is a market for third party cable boxes though. The typical Scientific Atalanta and Motorola boxes offered by the cable co's have horrible video processing and very limited feature sets. In fact the FCC just finalized some new CableCard and M-Card regulations to make this a reality with universal compatibility among cable providers. How long before we actually see third party hardware in the market is another story. :) -- toby10 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ toby10's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12553 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=82366 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
