The company is also in over 30% of digital TV and set top boxes and an increasing presence in automotive and data storage.
As well as his post at Channel 4, Mr Cox is also chairman of the digital TV stakeholders' group, which was set up last year to promote digital TV and advise the government on policy.
But without a digital TV tuner, or a cable or satellite set-top box that can convert a digital signal, consumers won't get any TV at all by 2009.
Besides obviously needing a CableCard-ready TV set (most new digital HDTVs have to have CableCard slots), there are a few downsides, like you can't access your cable company's onscreen programming guide and you can't order pay-per-view or video-on-demand programming (at least not using your remote), but the real deal killer for us is that you won't be able to use it with a digital video recorder.
The software will be used in non-PC devices like TV set-top boxes, digital cameras and DVD players.
If that occurs, digital cable could migrate from the box above the TV set to the inside, just as analog cable did.
The fight over a precious piece of turf in the Digital Age -- the top of an American tv set -- is about to get a lot rougher.
"Digital TV uses the same picture quality as a current TV set - it's just the receiver that will be different, " said Which? in its April report.
And about 40% more will be able to view the digital signal through a digital cable or satellite set-top box on an analog TV they already own.
Here's the scoop: CableCard is literally a card that you pop into the back of your TV set so that you can get rid of your digital cable box and plug that coax directly into your digital TV (it's sort of like how you can use analog cable on a cable-ready analog TV without a cable box).
With nearly 23 million U.S. subscribers, plans to expand internationally, and deals with all the major TV manufacturers and set top boxes to embed Netflix in the digital dashboards of internet enabled devices, Netflix appeared unstoppable.
With an elegant, user-friendly interface, unparalleled speed and performance and a broad content line-up, the DivX TV platform is easy to implement and can be supported on virtually any kind of Internet-connected consumer electronics device, including digital televisions, blu-ray players, gaming consoles, pay-tv operators set-top devices, multimedia storage devices, and even mobile phones.
ENGADGET: DivX unveils its new form as online video-to-TV enabler
The Peerless drive, for instance, which uses big cartridges that hold up to 20 gigabytes of data, might be useful for in-car digital audio players or as a removable drive for storing video in a TiVo -like TV set-top box.
Sony made its first attempt at the market for interactive TV in late 1999, when it signed a deal to provide three million digital set-top boxes to Cablevision Systems (nyse: CVC - news - people ) subscribers in the New York City area.
DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld) technology looks like being the favourite, set to overshadow current TV services rolling out on 3G networks.
Whitehaven's Tesco store has seen sales of digital set-top boxes rise by 1400% since the end of July, and digital TV sales were up 280% in the same period.
Almost any existing analogue TV, even a black and white one, can be converted with the addition of a digital set-top box.
Why not push digital music and video stored on a PC or set-top box with a hard drive to any TV or stereo system in the house?
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