Dell Doing CableCard-Capable PCs Standard For $900
CableCard is a significant part of how Media Center PCs could get a significant leg up on alternative DVR solutions, allowing for recording of high definition digital cable signals, but it has been mired in complicated unnecessary DRM and poor OEM support since Vista launched a year ago. Dell is hoping to put a serious dent in the problem by shipping every single XPS 420 with support for CableCard.
CableCard support requires a PC to be certified by CableLabs as having a protected path, meaning that for certain protected content it can prevent you from being able to have control over the signal, that everything is locked down. This has to be done before the PC is sent to you, not after, which makes it so difficult. By shipping all XPS 420s as certified, Dell is helping get a ton more PCs in the marketplace which are already certified, you can just pick up the digital cable tuner later.
Wouldn’t it be nice if, down the road, all new PCs were certified and capable of just plugging in the digital tuner to get HD cable to work? It would make a difference, and change the marketplace from its current stagnant, and failing, condition. Right now, you need the rare locked down PC, but if all of them ship with such support, it’s not that big of a deal anymore, and opens the market wide open.
