What you're looking at here is a picture of the board that makes the new
HDHomeRun CableCARD tuner work. You might notice the four squares on the right, those are the tuners, yes there are four -- don't get too excited -- but one of 'em is for the out of band data and can't actually be used to record HD. But that's still one more usable tuner than
initially announced at CES and the best news is that the price remains the same at $249. There isn't a hard release data yet, but the goal is to release
the beta details in the coming weeks, then submit it to
CableLabs for certification and then finally have it in your HTPC in time for the holidays -- when exactly do holidays start again? The actual case isn't done yet, but there won't be a hump like the classic
HDHomeRun and as you can see the gigabit network tuner's connections are all on the back including one coax, one USB, power, and a single CableCARD slot for all three tuners -- the USB doesn't do what you're thinking, it's for the
Tuning Adapter. Contrary to some reports -- a USB version isn't on the table and we can't say we're surprised as that wouldn't be Silicon Dust's style. A picture of the connections on the prototype after the jump.
posted May 11th 2010 4:02PM
Hey Ben,
Could you explain the what it takes to get a cable card supported HTPC? I know it has to do with Cable Labs certifying the software and it has to be licensed for PlaysForSure because that is the DRM cable cards use right? That is kinda where it breaks down for me on what exactly it takes to get cable card support into other HTPC software. Also I know WMC is cable card supported, is there a table of other supported software? SageTV, BeyondTV, MythTV, etc.
Also do the new proposed rules change any of that if they are passed? I would love to get Cable Card support but I don't think I am ready to go back to WMC7.
@Rothgar CableLabs needs to certify the hardware and software currently. As of this point in time, MS is the only vendor to have stepped up and certified their OS to provide a protected path for the CableCARD hardware. MS calls their content protection PlayReady and not PlaysForSure. Currently, Windows 7 Media Center is the only HTPC solution that you can use to get CableCARD.
There have been some comments to the FCC to open up CableCARD to software solutions in a way that they don't have to go through the current certification process, but nothing has been set in stone by the FCC.
@swoon Thanks for the tip. I really want to move away from my HDPVR solution to cable cards but WMC7 is just a bit too locked down for my tastes. Lets hope they open up CableCARDs at least a little bit more. Either way I doubt MythTV will be adding DRM support any time soon.
@Rothgar I would think it will be more likely that a Windows-based solution would get access before a Linux solution. A company like Sage could choose to license PlayReady if they want to pay MS the fee of something in the neighborhood of $10k or $15k. I'm not 100% sure that licensing PlayReady gives access to the CableCARD device, but I think it does. Even if a company were to access the content using PlayReady, I believe that they still are required to follow the CCI flags so the content would be just as locked down as a Windows Media Center solution in that case.
@Rothgar
The CableCARD tuner must decrypt the cable signal and then if the content is marked Copy Once (or worse) it must protected it with a CableLabs certified DRM. Right now the only DRM that is certified is Microsoft's PlayReady, but originally Real's Helix was also certified. Not aware of any other DRM trying to get certified at the moment.
As for what it takes for software to use a CableCARD tuner, basically it has to get certified and support PlayReady. Technically it could probably work without either, but that would essentially be hacking the system. And even if you hacked it, you'd still have to hack PlayReady if you wanted to watch Copy Once material. I doubt hacking the spec would be that hard since it is based on IPSEC and UPnP, both industry standards. But since they are using IPSEC to secure the communication between the software and the tuner, you'd have to figure out a way to impersonate Media Center which would probably mean discovering a leaked key -- not likely, but that is how they cracked AACS.
The FCC might remove the CableLabs software certification requirement. They requested comments as to why they should or shouldn't but that process will take another 4-6 weeks before the FCC decides on the matter. Then who knows how long to put it into affect.
@Rothgar
This whole "protected path" stuff worries me. It seems like it's bound to cause trouble in an MCE setup just like it would in a Tivo. Some things might be inaccessable on certain nodes due to carelessly set DRM flags.
That's the whole point of the whole "certification" rigamarole after all. They want to make sure the consumer is similarly "limited" regardless of what sort of device they're watching on.
Does it still not support analog channels?
That is why I couldn't use the older one. I have Comcast and most of our unencrypted channels are still analog and won't work. I love the idea, though.
@(Unverified) It is only a digital tuner. Analog is going away pretty quickly. I think in many areas, Comcast is eliminating analog entirely.
I have two ATI cablecard tuners and each of them will stream 2 HD channels at the same time,so I don't see what the deal is with this. They cost almost the same also.
@HJTravels The most major thing would be that ATI tuners are now discontinued.
@HJTravels I don't know what you have, but I have two ATI DCT with cablecard and each one gets ONE signal at a time. Each in it's own box, each with it's own tuning adapter. I got mine back in 2008 with a Dell XPS 420 and they cost $250+ each so it was $500 for two tuners. This makes the Ceton and SD solutions real bargains plus it works with a single cable card for a single rental.
John
@johnw248 It should work on your system also. I'm using Windows 7 and a newer PC. You also need to update the firmware in your Ati boxes (or cards) and use the newer Multi-stream cablecards. They probably didn't have those out when you got your system. You should then be able to run two streams down for each Ati reader.
Could you technically run this and a Cetin card at the same time to go above the tuner limit since the limit is for tuners for each type of card?
@Brian - No, I believe the limitation is on the actual number of tuners, not cards.
@jbish It goes by each type. Currently Windows 7 is limited 4 of each type except for special OEM keys that allow up to 6. Like right now I have 4 QAM tuners and ATI 2 CableCARD tuners, I can still add 2 more ATI CableCARD tuners but I cannot add anymore QAM tuners.
So I am interested to know if this could allow the 3 tuners from the HD Homerun and 4 tuners from Ceton. I don't really know if each is considered a different type of tuner or not.
@Brian No, with the retail versions of Windows 7, it's four tuners of each type: NTSC, ATSC, Clear QAM, CableCARD. So if you have the Ceton, that maxes out the CableCARD tuners. If you use the SD with Three you could add a single ATI DCT for four tuners or you can use a SD CableCARD with a SD HomeRun for 3 CableCARD and 2 ClearQAM, etc.
John
Now if only they did a Satellite version of this...DVB-S2 please!
Won't Ceton have their OEM 6-Tuner model out by the time this arrives ?