CableCard, Multi-Tuner PC Card and HTPC

[LikeLinus]

Ok, so I built an HTPC about a month ago and I'm now running Win7 64bit and XBMC. Well the family LOVES it. So I went ahead and I've ordered parts for another HTPC for another room and this is going to be my Media delivery method of choice.

Now I'm wanting to get into the whole Live/Recorded TV aspect and it's something I just don't know enough about. I want the ability to watch and record on two tvs at the same time.

I'm looking at this card
http://www.zones.com/site/product/in...l?id=003201915

Which is a 4 tuner card that appears to do exactly what I want. It appears that all I need is 1 CableCard from Comcast (free) and that card.

Has anyone does a setup like this? Use this card? Or do you have any other suggestions for achieving what I want to do. Hauppauge or something else that can do this?

My setup is a WHS machine that has 6TB of internal storage. It streams all movies, tv and music to my house. I'd the idea of having one central point for all media and using the HTPC as a front end to the TVs in the house. One box does it all.

Any ideas to do this in a cost effective manner would be great

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Even though I don't have this card I can answer some of your questions.

First, it currently only works with Windows 7 Media Center. Supposedly it's in beta testing with SageTV but it may be a while before it's ready for primetime with Sage.

If you're planning on plugging the InfiniTV4 into your WHS you can cancel that idea. WHSv2 doesn't support 7MC services. Most people using one with WHS have a dedicated HTPC that records the shows along with automated processes that name and copy recorded shows to their WHS. That's nice but it doesn't do much for watching live TV from various TVs from a single Ceton card.

To do that you'll currently need an extender like the Xbox 360, along with a HTPC. There are also some extenders available that are no longer made like the Linksys DMA 2100. You could also wait until Ceton is finished with the tuner sharing beta. When that happens each TV could have its own HTPC with a dedicated tuner from the Ceton assigned to it.

Personally I'm waiting a couple more months for the HDHomeRun Prime. When it's available it will be a networked tuner solution so tuner sharing won't be an issue like it currently is with the Ceton.

 

[frowertr]

Even though I don't have this card I can answer some of your questions.

First, it currently only works with Windows 7 Media Center. Supposedly it's in beta testing with SageTV but it may be a while before it's ready for primetime with Sage.

Just wanted to add that SageTV doesn't actually support that Ceton card and probably never will due to DRM licensing issues. Now, that doesn't mean that it doesn't work as evidenced by this thread. But there is no official support for it so don't expect SageTV to help you with problems.

You will find that this same "theme" of not supporting Cable Card products will be across the board with most DVR software companies. No one other than Microsoft's WMC can afford the fees associated with DRM.

 

[50]

I have this card and with the latest firmware you should be able to do what you want relatively soon. They just recently enabled tuner sharing among multiple PC's, but the person who wrote software to enable this has taken his code down and there's no official release from Ceton yet.

You can create a simple batch file that copies your recorded shows to your WHS pretty easily. One thing to keep in mind though is that most cable providers set record flags for copy once. This means that you can ONLY watch your recorded TV (OTA channels are restricted from this DRM btw) on the HTPC you recorded it on. This is a major dealbreaker for most and I would check with Comcast to see if they flag their content.

 

[LikeLinus]

50, yeah I saw that. Is the code still out there in the wild to use (even if not officially on the site)? Someone on AVS said it was coming "very soon", but who the heck knows when that will be.

It's not a deal breaker for me if I can only watch the recorded shows on the TV I recorded it. I just want to have a single source for all my media and have everything powered by an HTPC on the front end. That way I do not need DVD players, HTPC and Cable box. I'm down to one device for content. I really don't care if the media is stored locally since It can't be shared to all devices.

 

[Binky]

If you have access to free off-air channels (i.e. you're close enough to the broadcast towers), it is very easy and cheap to record/playback up to about 4 simultaneous streams with just Win7. There's no DRM issue on off-air recordings so you can share it around the house easily.

Win7 can distribute live TV to extenders only (e.g. xbox360), but they can read files made by other Win7 machines without problems.

 

[guachi]

The downside of the Ceton card is it has 4 tuners. You will be tempted to record lots of shows. And keep them because you have lots of hard drive space. You will record and watch shows just because you can.

But all kidding aside, there are some negatives - the cable company installer could be retarded, the CableCARD could be bad, lots of shows may have 'copy once' flags, the signal may need to be boosted because of the quad tuner.

I love mine to death. Recording more than 24hrs of shows per day. I use VideoReDo to strip out commercials and correct any audio/synch errors and HandBrake to encode to .mp4 for future watching.

Head on over to thegreenbutton.com (official Media Center website) as that appears to be the home base for discussion of the card. The manufacturers post there.

 

[LikeLinus]

This is actually possible right now. Ceton firmware has the Tuner Sharing built in and people on the green button are doing the tuner sharing without using the utility. The utility was pulled because Ceton is going to announce tuner sharing within the next 30 days (so they say) in their newsletter.

So everything I wanted to do is actually possible at this time, but I decided to upgrade my receiver and I've put off the cablecard for a month or two. I wanted to go all HDMI and use the AVR as the switcher. I picked up a Denon 891 and I'm going to put it to good use!

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

AVS Forum is reporting that Amazon is now carrying InfiniTV4 tuners and they are in stock. Apparently Ceton finally caught up with all backorders so now one can be had with no waiting.

 

[LikeLinus]

Ceton redesigned the InfiniTV 4 card to be easier to produce. They were having production issues and the redesign solved the problem. They now can produce more cards and get them out to the market. Good stuff!

 

[Emulex]

is the infinitv 4 going to be compatible with the next gen cards since cablecard is such a massive epic fail in design?

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

is the infinitv 4 going to be compatible with the next gen cards since cablecard is such a massive epic fail in design?

It's a bit difficult to design a device to be backwards compatible with a cablecard that doesn't yet exist. No doubt Ceton and others will come out with new devices that will be compatible with upcoming cards but we may not see those cards for 3 - 5 years from now. In the interim I hope Ceton does a redesign to implement SDV functionality directly into their tuner cards, if possible, so separate SDV tuners are not necessary.

 

[deathbyburrito2]

I installed a Ceton this past weekend. Other than the two techs (two separate visits) it took to get the cable card installed and activated I love it. Of course up until then I was recording any channel that wasn't clear QAM (locals) using Comcast DTAs into analog capture cards. The quality of the audio left A LOT to be desired.