Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition (CERC) urged FCC to reje...
Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition (CERC) urged FCC to reject NCTA and Time Warner petitions for reconsideration of agency’s cable-ready labels for new DTV sets (CD Nov 29 p5). Signaling no letup in battle between consumer electronics and cable industries…
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over DTV set labels and other DTV-cable compatibility issues, CERC argued that real problem was OpenCable specifications for advanced digital cable set-top boxes and integrated TV sets, not set labels adopted by Commission. In 10- page filing with FCC, CERC criticized cable industry for not supporting digital cable boxes “capable of competition with the MSO-distributed products now on the market.” Group said it was “cable industry compliance, not the labels, that needs to be reformed.” CERC also said NCTA was seeking to “turn this labeling proceeding into a substantive mandate that all OpenCable-reliant DTV receivers must include the ‘1394’ interface” favored by cable and broadcasting industries for digital sets. CERC said cable industry’s own focus group studies showed that “the labels previously recommended by NCTA are… not good enough.”