A musing on cable cards

by Jeff Pelline

Cable cards that plug into your television for HD signals are supposed to be the wave of the future, but it's very slow going. This week I had a cable card installed in my Sharp television in Nevada City (http://www.nevadacitychamber.com/history.htm), Calif., and was told by the Comcast cable guy that I was only the third person out of 10,000 subscribers in the county to get one. One reason cable TV companies don't like them: The companies can't sell you pay-per-view movies without a clunky digital box. A cable card sure reduces the clutter around your TV, though.

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