Cable operators and TV manufacturers have struck a long-awaited agreement designed to make it easier for consumers to get high-definition television from cable, ensure their ability to record most digital programs and preserve the value of older HDTV sets.
The deal, which is expected to be announced today, would open the door for cable-ready digital TV sets that could deliver HDTV without a separate set-top box. This kind of plug-and-play simplicity is crucial for digital TV, set manufacturers say, because about two-thirds of U.S. homes rely on cable to deliver their TV signals.
"If we can cross this hurdle, I think we can really open the floodgates for consumer interest" in digital TV, said David H. Arland, director of government and public relations for Thomson Multimedia, which owns the RCA brand.
The deal won't take effect, however, unless the Federal Communications Commission adopts a regulation applying the agreement to all cable and satellite operators. At least some of the provisions are expected to draw opposition from satellite companies, TV programmers and Hollywood studios, which were excluded from the private negotiations between cable operators and set makers.
Representatives of the cable operators' and manufacturers' trade associations declined to discuss the deal, which took more than five months to negotiate.
One likely sticking point involves the scrambling of HDTV signals. The proposed regulation would effectively bar cable and satellite operators from scrambling the signals all the way to the TV set, according to sources close to the negotiations. End-to-end scrambling would help guard programs against piracy -- a key goal for the studios and networks -- but it also would prevent older HDTV sets from displaying them.
Consumer electronics manufacturers and cable operators have battled for years over how to make TVs work with all U.S. cable systems, which use a variety of incompatible techniques to scramble channels and deter piracy. The FCC stepped in four years ago, ordering cable operators to develop standardized security modules that could be plugged into any TV set or converter box with a matching slot.
That order has borne little fruit, mainly because set makers balked at the conditions cable operators wanted to place on using the modules. But FCC efforts to spur the transition to digital TV helped drive the parties back to the negotiating table.
