Point the finger almost anywhere you want. After all, there's plenty of blame to go around. Cable companies didn't really support it. TV manufacturers charged extra for it. The people who designed it left out a few things. And the federal government — it started the whole mess.

I'm talking about CableCARD. Never heard of it? That's not surprising. It was supposed to make your TV-viewing life better, but it ended up just making things more frustrating and expensive.

Like most fiascoes, CableCARD started with the best of intentions. The FCC decided that consumers needed "digital cable-ready" TVs, which would do away with traditional set-top cable boxes. These TVs would have onboard cable tuners — and they'd also have a slot for a CableCARD, which would handle customer ID/authorization and decode premium channels. Because the government can do anything it wants, especially when that thing is for "the public good," the FCC forced CableCARD onto the industry by banning cable companies from offering set-top boxes at some future date. (The actual date keeps changing. For now, it's July 2007.)

Complying, TV manufacturers started making sets with tuners and CableCARD slots. Cable companies started providing CableCARDs — physically, the footprint of a PCMCIA Type II card. And what a technological wonder it was. The card simply plugged into the slot, and the set-top box was gone forever. Clearly, your life was suddenly immeasurably better. Except for one thing. CableCARD sucked.

The first thing that customers noticed: Their CableCARD-ready TVs were expensive. Early on, the price difference was truly staggering. One Pioneer plasma TV with CableCARD cost almost $1,000 more than the identical model without it. Price differences did drop to about $40, but something extra is never free.

The second thing that customers noticed: Some of the most important TV features — pay-per-view (PPV), video-on-demand (VOD), electronic programming guides — didn't work on a CableCARD TV. It was a one-way device that couldn't interact with your cable company. So, consumers paid a lot more and got a lot less. Your government at work!

Sure, CableCARD had some benefits. First, it did eliminate that tremendously unsightly set-top box (which was always the first thing that anyone saw when they entered your living room). Second, accordingly, you needed only one remote to control the TV — no separate remote for a set-top box. Third ... well, I can't think of another benefit. Sorry.

The fundamental problem — where do I start? — was that CableCARD was a half-baked technology, and federally mandating its adoption was a premature mistake. Ironically, CableCARD is already obsolete. A CableCARD 2.0 standard is being prepared that supposedly will fix many of the limitations and problems of the original. CableCARD 2.0 is known as Interactive Digital Cable Ready, and as that name implies, it should fix the non-interactivity problem. But TVs with original CableCARD slots won't be compatible with 2.0's interactive features. And frankly, after getting burned on 1.0, how many people will willingly pay extra to take a chance on CableCARD Part Deux?

The new standard is also a bad bet because it, too, may become obsolete, fast. Software standards known as OpenCable Application Platform and Downloadable Conditional Access System are being developed that may provide all the functionality, ease of use, and security that today's HDTVs need.

So, what's the bottom line? Six million CableCARD-ready TVs have been sold, and fewer than 3% of the slots actually have cards; that's a lot of wasted money. After offering CableCARD for 2 years, TV makers have started to delete it (with 80% fewer models available this year than last year). Cable companies aren't sorry to see it go; they derive mucho income from PPV and VOD, and CableCARD didn't allow for them. The only life support for CableCARD is that it does work well for some cable customers, and it's fine for home theater PC systems like the Microsoft Vista Media Center, with its Internet access and proprietary program guide. Beyond that, CableCARD probably won't be inducted into the Pantheon of Great Audio/Video Technology.

Fortunately, there's a happy ending to all of this. After studying the CableCARD specs, I've discovered an extremely useful application that even the original designers didn't anticipate. To take advantage of it, here's what you do: Find a scrap of paper and write down your complaints about CableCARD's utter lack of functionality, then wad up the paper and stuff it into the slot on the back on your TV. Thanks to the space-age technology of CableCARD, the contents of your note will be transmitted instantly to the FCC. Highly paid government officials will leap into action to address your concerns and mail you a refund check. After all, the FCC is always acting in your best interests. And the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions.

Read the update to this story!

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UPDATE - November, 2006

The federal government is reading my innermost thoughts again. Last month, I slammed the FCC's decision to force CableCARD into new TVs. You'll recall that CableCARD is essentially a cable box in a PCMCIA Type II card.

Brilliant idea, except for the facts: 1) CableCARD is fundamentally flawed because it can't support features such as interactive program guides, video-on-demand, and pay-per-view. 2) It has created its own incompatibility nightmare because CableCARD 2.0 may allow all of those features, but 2.0 cards won't work in TVs that already have CableCARD slots. 3) The whole thing could become obsolete very soon because of new software standards.

Meanwhile, 6 million TVs with CableCARD slots have been sold. If you estimate that a slot added $300 to the cost of a TV, then we've paid $1.8 billion for all of those slots. But less than 3% of those 6 million TVs actually have cards plugged in — which means that each working CableCARD has cost consumers $10,000! Any way you price it, CableCARD has failed in the marketplace, and manufacturers have virtually stopped putting the slots in their new TVs.

That will now change. Reading my deep thoughts, the government rigged up a lawsuit, and a federal appeals court upheld the FCC mandate requiring cable companies to distribute the failed CableCARD. The FCC's deadline: July 2007. Words cannot describe what I am thinking. And apparently my tinfoil hat can't prevent the government from listening.

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