Cable card readers for PCs

[radford]

Ive been whining about this for ages. They took forever to come out with it and then they forced you to buy a whole PC. You couldnt buy the cable card reader and add it on to your PC.

I guess I missed the news when it first came out. They say new card readers will be on the market that will work with all PCs including one from Hauppauge. It says the end of 2009 but itll probably be 2010. They hint at gross out prices though with Ceton saying the price will be between 300-600 for their card. It seems like many posters are saying they would pay around 300-350 for one. Hopefully some super cheapo generic knockoffs will be coming out close behind these models.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/09/09/media-center-cablecards-freed-from-oem-requirement/
http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/09/11/ceton-is-set-to-take-over-the-cablecard-pc-tuner-market/
http://www.gearlog.com/2009/09/hauppauge_to_sell_cablecard_tu.php


And someones figured out how to do it already with existing readers, article way back in May.
http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/05/12/how-to-install-a-cablecard-tuner-in-your-diy-media-center/

I hope we can say goodbye DVR and hello super smart media center that can eventually control your whole house.
Theres also talk about super beefed up DVRs though with the new chips by INTEL, so who knows what will happen. I guess there would still be no VOD and PPV and other two way things using this cable card interface but it would give PCs access to all the other regular cable programming with the much better Media Center interface and features. It would also save on the monthly DVR cost though that may not be true since the first DVR is usually given to you at a very low cost or even supposedly "free".

However, some firms do make you pay a fair amount for one and many firms charge a lot more after the first one, if you have more than one.

[radford]

Thought Id add some info about it just in case anyone is thinking about getting the ATI.

Amazon has them though they are out of stock at the moment. The ebay prices I saw were terrible.

$249
http://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Digital-Cable-Tuner-Ntsc/dp/B000VOG04A

Another thing Ive read was that this current generation cable card 1.0, couldnt do two way communication. Supposedly because of that they couldnt do VOD, PPV, cable channel guides and all that.

Also, even more alarming they couldnt do SDV, which more and more channels were switching to. There are reports that many people cant get most or all of the HD channels and anything beyond the basic cable 0-99 channels. That sort of defeats the whole point of getting this.

However, luckily there are posts at websites that say ATI is coming out with firmware to allow access to SDV channels with their ATI OCUR devices. How can they do this when cable card 1.0 only does one way communication?

Well primers on cablecards state that cable card 1.0, is capable of two way communication and that the info posted around the net is erroneous. They say its the devices such as TIVO or ATIs OCUR stuff that are limited to one way communication.

http://www.opencable.com/primer/cablecard_primer.html

Then what does cable card 2.0 add? Im not sure, but they talk about it in the primer.

So far if you get the ATI device , to get SDV which allows access to all the channels except I assume PPV and all that extra stuff --- you need WIN 7 and the firmware update for ATI. Im not sure if the firmware is out yet.

Another thing my local cable firms says and so do posts on the net, you must have a tech come out and install the card. The CSR didnt know if they charged extra for this. Also he claimed the card had to be programmed for that particular device and he didnt know if they had any for ATI OCURs in my region.

If you have two DVRs in many places you will save a substantial amount of money if you get the ATI and use it for several years. They generally charge 20 bucks here for the second DVR so the ATI would be paid off in 1 year though you would also have to factor in the cost of the cablecard rental which is generally a few bucks a month - S or M card. The M card is capable of multiple streams of video so you dont need several cards to watch and record more than one channl at a time if your device allows that. The S card I think only allows one stream.

The other problem --- I think the ATI only lets you watch or record ONE channel at a time while the Ceton coming out supposedly next year will allow 4 streams with one M Card cable card.

Ive read the ATI has an analog and digital tuner --- does that mean you can watch or record at least the analog channels and the almost full cable channel listings (except for PPV etc) at the same time? Maybe someone with one can comment.

Even at $300, if thats the price of the Ceton, it would be much more attractive if you dont need several cable cards with their rental fees. That would be several ATI cards and at least two ATI OCURS vs. 1 Ceton and 1 Mcard and you dont have to mess with any hacks like you do with the ATI.

Another thing Ive read is in the past as recently as May people were having lots of problems with cable cards and ATIs. Some people say the Mcards have more problems than the S Cards and since the ATI as far as I know cant use more that one stream of video from the card, I guess it makes more sense to get the S Card if it is more compatible.

One other thing Ive read the early review at Analog describes the OCUR as having an analog tuner too the one in the 650 card. Does that mean it has QAM too? So you can get two streams though they wont both have access to most of the digital channels if this is true. I supposed you can always add a Hauppauge card I assume since MC or WIn7 can handle multiple tuner cards.

On ATIs site they do list QAM and analog so I assume you can watch and record more than one channel at a time with the ATI but it would mean you could pick from the OCUR/digital tuner --- any channel you wanted to watch or record besides PPV and VOD etc. However the other choice of show airing at the same time --- you would have to choose from the usually very limited list of QAM channels that are unencrypted or the analog set of channels via the analog tuner.