SDV (Switched Digital Video)–What is it exactly and why is it upsetting so many?

I recall the days when the government passed a bill
back which forced the cable companies to play fair and allow for users
to access the entire library of channels with the use of a Cable Card.
The idea was simple: Cable Companies have a monopoly on regions and
services for cable television, and were essentially forcing users to rent their Set Top Boxes
for a nice profit to them. Cable Cards would allow users to purchase
Cable Card-enabled devices such as Media Centers, Televisions, TiVo’s,
etc, and therefore just pay for the actual television service, instead
of renting a box which was awful anyways. Fantastic news, right?

Well, so it was. For a whopping 3 years. Not much has changed with
Cable Cards in that time, and still only One-Way cable cards exist in
the market, but for the most part, they work great. You are able to
tune to all your digital channels, and while you cannot view On-Demand
channels, it’s a minor price to pay for the flexibility of using a more
robust device.

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