It's been a busy week for
CableCARD HTPCs. First we caught the
Dell XPS 410 preview prior to spotting an unofficial announcement in the AVS Forum that
Velocity Micro would be shipping their CableCARD HTPC this week. Now we struck gold (we think) with the first official CableCard-
ready Vista HTPCs now shipping from
Niveus. As of today, both the Niveus Summit Series ($3,199
Rainier and $7,999
Denali) and Pro Series ($7,999 n7 and $15,999
n9) ship with HD DVD options and hot-blooded HD CableCARD-support. Keyword: "support," meaning you still have to spring an additional $1,499 to get the separate Digital Cable Receiver box with 2x CableCARD receivers like
we saw at CES. You'll also have to track down a local dealer to bring home the Pro or Denali models but at least the Rainier is available online and shipping in 2-3 weeks. As always with CableCARD, there's still a piece that's unclear: the CableCARD receiver still shows a "mid-March" ship date. Pffff.
[Via
Chris Lanier's Blog]
Read -- Niveus Rainier
Read -- Niveus Digital Cable Receiver
posted March 22nd 2007 11:13AM
Isn't it a little odd to be happy about the existance of hardware to support new DRM schemes?
I mean, doesn't anyone else find it quirky that we have the DRM foisted on us and then we can't get products that work with it?
The price is freaking ridiculous. They would sell more units and gross a higher profit if they cut the price. I wouldn’t pay more then a $2,000 to have a CableCARD system in my hands right now. Until then I will be waiting. Some companies are just too stupid on their prices. People wont pay $5,000 for a setu. Look at the TiVo Series3. People wont even pay $700 for that!
QAM (digital cable) is not a "new DRM scheme" it's been around for about 10 years, and CableCard for at least 5 years. Sorry to break it to you there chief.
Have to agree with the complaints on price though. Even the cheaper systems posted earlier clock in at $1700-2000. Why in the hell would anyone spend that when you can get a Tivo S3 for under $800?
Give me just enough CPU+RAM to do MPEG2 and AVC at 1920x1080/60p in a nice quiet HTPC case, with expandable HDD(s) for under 1 grand and I'm way sold.
Brian, take a look around Niveus' site. They are a boutique HTPC maker, all of their products are exceedingly expensive and always have been. Once DCT-equipped systems start hitting the major OEMs, we'll see some reasonable prices (after a bit of early-adopter bloodletting, of course).
Clear QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation)for use with digital cable is not new, and you don't need cable cards for that. You need cable cards for DRM encoded QAM signals. That's not all that new either. The point being the huge time difference between the foisting of the DRM system and the ability to use it, chief.
Why do so many people compare the HTPC with CableCard Support to the S3 Tivo?? People that want the HTPC don't just want to be able to record all HD channels to a large hard drive, they want 1 unit that does all their video/audio needs. 1 Unit to store as much HD footage from anywhere I want, 1 Unit to download and play SD/HD clips, 1 Unit to watch TV, and 1 Unit to play BD and HDDVD discs. I hate when people bring up the Series3 Tivo units amidst all this CableCard Support HTPCs, its not even comparable.
So it looks like any CableCard Media Center will need an additional 'black box' (Digital Cable Receiver) instead of just being integrated into the system. I thought this was the reason for Cable Cards in the first place - no need for additional black boxes? I've been waiting for 2+ years for this and it turns out that even if its Cable Card Certified, you'll have additional wires, additional power supply needs, etc...sucks...