Electronics giant Sony and cable companies have reached an agreement to develop a more convenient way of receiving digital cable channels. The effort will allegedly result in the integration of all necessary technology from the user side inside TV sets.

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) and Sony said that the new standard will have all the required capabilities for next-generation cable systems, such as two-way communication. The technology is dubbed Tru2Way and will be based on Java. Development will be carried out by Sony and the cable industry's research arm, Cable Television Laboratories.

The new partners signed a binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) negotiated by Sony Electronics and the six largest cable companies – Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Charter, Cablevision and Bright House Networks.

“A national plug-and-play digital cable standard for interactive TV receivers, recorders and other products that is transferable and viable wherever you live is ideal for today’s mobile society,” said Edgar Tu, Sony Electronics’ Senior Vice President of TV Operations of America.

What the new technology, tru2way, means for customers and cable operators is that there will be no need for a set-top box. TVs will be able to receive digital cable signals directly, with all the features expected from a two-way interactive system. This also means that current set-top box manufacturers will probably have to eventually phase-out their production for the US market.

The question everybody poses is how and when will the new technology be implemented in actual products available on the market. A similar idea crashed a few years back. CableCard was another technology which promised the same thing, but was much more limited and was one-way. Sony and its partners had thus the opportunity of learning from the failures of that now-dead solution.