ATI stops shipping CableCARD tuners due to bugs, will resume soon
By Ryan Block 
posted Apr 5th 2007 12:32PM
posted Apr 5th 2007 12:32PM
There are a lot of puzzled people out there wondering what the hell the holdup is with the CableCARD PCs that supposedly launched. We have, after all, been promised CableCARD media PCs since Vista's launch in January; a couple early units have made it into the hands of extreme early adopters, but where are all the rest? Well, we finally have some answers from a trusted source close to the situation: ATI's stopped shipping CableCARD tuners to OEMs, and put pressure on its partners to hold off on further sales until it can get some issues worked out. The unfortunate irony here is that the bugs holding untold numbers of potential users back are relatively minor, only affecting switching between digital and analog in a very small number of Scientific Atlanta networks -- in other words, definitely not a showstopper, just an inconvenience. ATI's apparently already got a firmware remedy for the issue and sent it off for certification weeks ago, but once CableLABS is involved you know things aren't going to be pretty (or expeditious). The good news is ATI is expected to resume shipping DCTs at the end of this month, meaning your wait -- which you recently resumed -- will once again be over for those who haven't already thrown their arms to the air and snagged a TiVo Series3.[Thanks, Keith]
Booooooo!!
That best sums up my feelings about the Vista/CableCARD debacle.
I bet people with home brewed PCs wouldn't mind the bugs...I would in fact welcome them.
heh...cablelabs certification...lotta good that does since they missed these issues the first time around.
But that's the cable industry for us, more interested in making sure their butts are covered than makeing sure the consumer has a highly functional device
I don't believe that they are only 'minor problems'for a second. For an up-to-date look at the amount of work it takes to get one of these set up and running, read this: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2959
At any one point there were mutliple representatives from three different companies in the room to set up a cablecard PC: Dell, Time Warner, Microsoft.
It's that or simply pay $9 to rent a HD DVR (albeit shitty) from your cable provider.
CableCard have been an industry orphan for far too long. I use one with my TV.
It's good that ATI/AMD and also Nvidia are now invloved as they will kick the tires and shake out the issues afr quicker than the individual users.
I can't wait for these to become available to individual system builders rather than OEMs. It WILL happen.
Whatever bugs they have they can't be as bad as the ones in Motorola DCT-6412 PVR; unfortunately, the cable industry makes more money from Motorola's unit so there...
I have a Pace TDC 775 HD DVR from Bresnan. The firewire port on the back of the box is actually active and functional as a digital video output. My media center PC is a Mac Mini. I can use the firewire port to capture video and not have to worry about any of this stuff.
Better yet, the box has a functional eSATA port on it so I can expand drive capacity indefinitely!
Sure it has its quirks but it works and I can capture video from it in full HD quality.
--Shane
Here's the original article:
http://dailytech.com/AMD+OCUR+CableCard+Bug+Delays+Media+Center+Shipments/article6805.htm
I went ahead and got a Tivo Series 3, i'm tired of waiting for a vista based media center, and the only ones available right now, or even "soon", are over 2 grand. You can snag a series 3 for about 650. Of course you can do more with a media center, but a series 3, my divx capable upscaling dvd player, and my appleTV is more than enough for me. I'll get a vista cable card machine after they work out the bugs.
As a side note, i'm not surprised ATI and Microsoft are having trouble with CableCard. The cable companies themselves are having loads of trouble, so much to the point they really discourage customers from getting cable cards. They are really going into this kicking and screaming. My cable company (its a small local one) went so far as to tell me that they didn't support cable card at all over email, only to find out they did when I called them. They tried to give me the run around and say that they charge more for cable cards, but when I pressed them they told me that it was just the standard box rental fee. Then they tried to dissuade me with the lack of features blah blah blah no pay-per-view or digital music (who the hell uses either of these in the time of Netflix and ipods?) They then told me that they had been having a lot of problems with it and they were having to send techs out to fix them almost weekly and I would have to pay for any additional visits from a tech because I insisted on cablecard, plus that her supervisor would be pissed because he hates having to deal with cablecards.
Sorry, i just needed to vent my frustrating experience with cablecard, and I'm not even dealing with Vista.
@StinkyChink
Yeesh, no need to get sarcastic...
This is only my third box with firewire ports. I had the Motorola DCT-6412 from Comcast in two different markets. Both of those had functional firewire ports as well but a number of people reported that theirs were diabled. I guess whether or not they are actually enabled depends on the market you are in. Point me at the law that says they MUST be enabled. I have not heard of that one...
I was just saying that if you don't mind capturing in real time it is a fairly painless way to get full quality video.
For a long time firewire was the only way to get digital video between devices. The ports on these DVRs were actually designed to be used with Digital VHS decks. Some early HD displays had firewire ports on them as well but that seems to have disappeared now that we have DVI and HDMI.
Never mind...Found it...
http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/02/01/does-your-cable-box-have-a-firewire-port
ATI support sucks
go read up on their HDTV tuner
Wow this made my day. I hope those asshats at Cablelabs never figure this out. Its a real shame that these guys bow to the MPAA, their product used to be somewhat useful, now they are just a bunch of "yes men."
(no I don't pirate stuff, I just want CE equipment that I control. Hell, It's MINE!)
I love to build PC's. I'm pretty good at it, and crap like this is just so anti-consumer. I especially love building HTPC's. Guess its back to building good gaming PC's for people because this shite does not fly with me.
The interesting part of the cablecard story is that as of sometime this summer, cable cos will no longer be allowed to ship "integrated" set top boxes. Instead, the boxes will have to have a cablecard slot, with the cablecard handling the decryption portion of the work. Should make for some fun times. Course the STBs will won't be portable across cable systems, which was the point of all of this, but hey... a lot of stuff should break when this happens...