Ceton InfiniTV 4 PCIe for $169 AC + FS @newegg
 

linky [newegg.com]

coupon: EMCYTZT2218

This could be for email blast members.. If its a repost, please let me know and i will delete it..

Have been wanting to get a hdhomerun prime hdhr3-cc for couple of days, and saw this.. actually, i missed the hdhome run for $129+fs few days ago...

i might pull the trigger on this one. would someone know the advantages of this over hdhomerun (other than it being a pci card)? i am planning to get one of these for insight cable in lexington,ky

Ceton InfiniTV 4 Quad-tuner PCI Express Digital CableCard HDTV Tuner $170 + Free Shipping
 

Newegg has Ceton InfiniTV 4 Quad-tuner PCI Express Digital CableCard HDTV Tuner for $200 - $30 off promo code EMCYTZT2218 = $170 with free shipping. Thanks rsriram22

Note: This tuner requires a valid cable provider subscription and Cable Card from your provider, please check for compatibility with your carrier.

Price Research: Our research indicates that Ceton InfiniTV 4 Quad-tuner PCI Express Digital CableCard HDTV Tuner is $29 lower (15% savings) than the next best available price from a reputable merchant with prices starting at $199. - yuugotserved

This post can and should be edited by users like you :)
 

Product Review: Ceton InfiniTV 4 CableCARD tuner review [engadget.com]

Good price, cheapest I've seen.

I've been looking for a hdhomerun prime hdhr3-cc as well and will probably wait until I see that $130 deal again. Thanks for the post thought!

By far the best PC part I have every bought. My SSDs are sweet too!

4 tuners is the other advantage.

Runs pretty hot. Hard to cool within specs in a small htpc case inside a cabinet with the back of the cabinet cut out and a large hot AVR on the shelf below it. :D

can i record 3 different shows simultaneously and watch 1 (a fourth one) on the tv with this 4 tuner card? (assuming all 4 are DRMed aka 'copy once'd)?

Using software that supports protected content (Windows Media Center) yes.

I bought pre-ordered one of these when they were first announced 2-1/2 years ago. I had to wait five months before the first production run started shipping. Best $399 I ever spent. At $169 it's the best deal anywhere. Did I mention that I now own three of them? Fantastic product and the best support you'll ever find.

stupid question, but if I get this can I ditch my comcast DVR box but still get all the programming right?

yes you can...

I have the USB version, i love it! And i already returned my cable box. WMCE is great with the rosewill remote :)

Info please
 

How? More please on this topic as I am in same boat. TY

The idea is you get a "m-card" from you provider (not satellite dish providers, but the cable provider, say comcast) and do a self install (to avoid the truck roll 'fee'). during self install, call up comcast and get the card activated and check you get all your SD/HD channels and you should be good to go.

the flip side to this is that you cannot get any PPV or On-Demand programming using these cablecard tuners....

oh and by the way, your DVR box fees should go away and you should be charged ~2-3 bucks per month as cablecard 'fee'.

hope this helps..

You will most likely need a Tuning adapter which the cable company should provide for free. I have xbox 360 as extenders in all the rooms that I want TV in. I love my Ceton!

Great Deal!
I'm going to hold off a few months though, in order to see how good Ceton's new hardware will be. The Echo and Q should be pretty sweet, and I'm sure there will be an updated tuner card coming as well.

The new tuner will InfiiTV6 with 6 tuners instead of 4.

Having paid $430 and waited 6 months to get it, I have to say, it is well worth the $430, and an absolute steal at $170.

If you really need the hexa-tuner, be prepared to pay full price, like we did with the InfiniTV4 2.5 years ago.

It depends on the cable operator. Time Warner users and Charter users generally will. FiOS and Comcast users won't. Cox can go either way. Most of the rest do not need them.

www.thegreenbutton.tv is the place to read about setting it up. It is very straight forward, and you probably already have 90% of the hardware needed.

http://customer.comcast.com/help-...-cablecard

For Comcast:
I would get this if cable weren't such a bundled ripoff.

For those that are raving about this, why did you choose a pcie tuner over a network-based tuner, like the hdhomerun, aside from the option of a 4th tuner?

That's the only benefit, 4th tuner. The Prime's firmware finally became stable again on the 8/23 beta.

From people who own both, they all say the HDhomerun Prime tunes channel changes way faster then the Ceton, even though its networked =). Go figure. I admit, the Prime does tune as fast as a STB and behaves great esp if you have 2x on gigabit. Networked tuners allow you to hide them, makes a big difference if you need a TA and dont want crap messing up the feng shui of your theater setup. Yes, looks matter for theater setups.

I used to have one of these (bought it last year when it was $400 and a month wait), but sold it and later bought a HD Homerun. Both work great and are easy to setup, but I prefer the HD Homerun since it's external and can be used by any device on my network.

Well... after having 2x ATI DCTs for a few years, and then AMD dropping support for it and Verizon switching to simulcast, there was no one else but Ceton that had an alternative on the market.

Ceton cornered the market, everyone else is a "me too"

Besides, having an internal tuner was not a problem since HTPC is already in an nMedia case in the entertainment center fitting right in with the rest of the AV equipment.

Network tuner may be a good alternative to people who employ multiple HTPC's through the house. We have 1 HTPC and 4 MEdia Center Extenders connecting 5 TV's in the house, and it works just as intended. Copyright protected content can be played on any of the TV's and they all share the guide and recording schedule. Just the way Microsoft had intended it to work.

Don't want to derail the thread but thought someone here might know:

If I get the HD Home Run prime, but choose later to not have cable, can I still use it to take the antenna feed and watch that? In other words does it have a QAM tuner?

I bought one from amazon for $199; it's been quite good, although I had some issues setting up (crummy Gigabyte mobo PCIe slot issues).

Can you watch TV on a linux pc without an extender?

for that matter can i can watch TV on a linux PC using HD Homerun prime?

Hoping amazon will match this (I have a lot of amazon GC credit). Trying the "found a lower price" link:
http://www.amazon.com/Ceton-Infin...+infinitv#

Yah, unless you just want a single PC TV tuner forever, the hdhomerun is so much more flexible, can watch on any Win7/8 PC or Xbox 360 too. Not sure what else would compel anyone to these for the price.

You seem to be somewhat confused.
QAM is the type of signal you get over cable.
ATSC is what you get OTA with an antenna.
HD home run prime does not have an ATSC tuner. So, it won't work for receiving OTA programming.
you'd need the non-prime hd home run for that.
hd home run (non-prime) can tune clearQAM and ATSC, but no support for encrypted QAM channels since it has no cablecard.
hope that's more clear now.

Do InfiniTV or Homerun have android apps for simple mobile (or shall I say remote) viewing?

Answering my own question, I suppose Plex can do the job.

At the time that I purchased the cost per tuner was in favor of the Ceton because of specifically that 4th tuner. That one extra tuner was big in our household. I now own 2 of them in one HTPC for a total of 8 tuners. Then a pair of XBOX 360's around the house as extenders. It is great to not have to pay the extra box fees as the second tuner was cheaper and allowed greater flexibility. More importantly we now have all our recording co-located as well as our recording menus. Then to boot these can easily be converted to work as network tuners too. I just ilked the flexibility at price point I got from it. TBH it is mostly a personal choice :)

I'm trying to decide between the Ceton and the Silicondust 3-tuner device.

How long/wide is the Ceton card? From the pictures, it looks like it may collide with the memory on my old Gigabyte mATX motherboard. :confused:

I just chose it because of the 4th tuner and because I thought a card inside the case was a neater solution. I was also leery of USB and hangups associated with that like its ability to consistently sleep and wake up.

But the 4th tuner was the biggest driver.

I didn't really see an advantage to the Silicon Dust tuner except cost. Although now I see that keeping it outside of the box is good for heat dissipation. My Ceton gets hot. I don't think I can put it into a cabinet without some more work with fans in the case and cabinet at least if I want to stay under 65 C.

I never really understood the sharing of the tuner thing. I guess that is for folks that watch a lot of Live TV? I have extenders at my tvs that don't have the htpc connected to it. I can watch Live TV on them.

Here's my ceton with 2 fans zip tied to it. You don't want the ceton to overheat. I had my 6850 right next to my ceton for about a year then both started getting hot. I move the 6850 put new thermal paste on and the fans for the ceton card.

I use 2 turners on my pc dual monitor so I can watch live/internet and record one channel or to an xbox360. The other 2 are wireless n 5hz to 2 pcs with dual monitor.

It was a hassle to get everything running and there are some issues but feels awesome to know I get hd in 4 rooms for my family.

Both the InfiniTV and the HDHR Prime are supported under linux, but only for Copy Freely (CCI 0x02) content. There is no solution for Linux with Copy Once content.

I bought one of these at $220 last December, also from Newegg. One of the best component purchases I've ever made. It's not without its drawbacks and quirks, but if you're reasonably tech-savvy (or know someone who is) and can use a card with its capabilities, it's easily worth the $170. It basically allows you to ditch your STB and watch and/or record up to 4 channels at once (provided you subscribe to them), be they SD or HD.

It allows you to view recorded shows (including copy protected ones) on "extenders" connected to other TVs, that are networked to the PC this card is installed in (right now the only in-production extender is the XBox 360, but Ceton is coming out with its own extender later this year). You can also view non-copy protected shows on networked PCs that have Media Center or Media Player installed. You can even dedicate one or more of it tuners for exclusive use by networked PCs that have Media Center, allowing you to mimic the card's features on those PCs, including recording and watching copy protected shows. If you use Media Center, the program guide updates automatically and is free (buh bye Tivo fees).

There are several potential cons, though:

--You need a bit of tech savvy to install and work these cards as they can be finicky sometimes (often having less to do with the card than with the cable company and DRM SW).
--They run a bit hot, usually in the low to mid-50 C's
--Every now and then they fail to record an entire show, or crash and require a reboot
--They tend to need fairly strong and clean cable signals
--They can't record over-the-air broadcasts--they are cable, Fios (and Dish?--not sure) only
--Some cable companies require these huge and silly "Tuning Adapters" for them to work (but they're usually free)
--They can't handle or record Pay Per View or On Demand shows automatically
--They don't make bad shows better

It sounds worse than it is. Most of the time you forget that it's there and it just works. Oh, and they have great customer service.

Card dimensions
 

See dimensions in the FAQ at http://cetoncorp.com/product-support/

A bit of an aside, but I recently found out that you can't view ripped DVDs via Media Center on TVs connected to Media Center extenders like the XBox. You can watch copy protected shows recorded on your HTPC, but not ripped DVDs that are stored on or accessible from your HTPC, even though you can watch them on your HTPC directly. So extenders won't completely duplicate the functionality of an HTPC.

Note that I'm referring to DVDs ripped to VOBs. There are workarounds that allow you to view them via MP4s and such, but they're kind of clunky and generally lose the DVD navigation functions.

On the other hand, you CAN watch ripped DVDs on a Media Center PC that is networked to your HTPC, as well as NON-copy protected shows recorded on it. But you can't watch copy protected shows on it. To do that, you have to dedicate at least one InfiniTV tuner to the networked PC. But then you can only watch copy protected shows recorded on it on that PC. Kind of annoying that you can't do all of these things on an extender or networked PC, but you can't right now.

Wait no thermal paste on Ceton card right? Just fans?

MIne never had a problem in my big pc case. But then I got fancy with my thin htpc case. That's where I had to install some extra fans and move the card to a horizontal full sized slot for better air flow around it.

Problem is I hate to spend more money tinkering with my case as one of these days I will just buy a Tivo instead if they come up with a decent extender. I don't have a ton of time to monkey around with it either especially given that MS isn't exactly improving the software.

I wouldn't say ripping a DVD to H.264 is clunky at all. You don't need chapters when you can instantly skip to any point in the movie. It takes up way less room too.

The dumb part is WMC sees the shows as Videos and not movies so they are not stored or rather shown in Movies.

Another note is I tried to have my cake and eat it to with this card and my gaming video card. I tried to make my dvr my gaming machine as well. Didn't work. I had it attached to a monitor and a tv. I could theoretically play a game on my monitor and watch a show on the tv, but it isn't really made for that. You get mouse issues where you can off screen and then have to hit CTRL-ESC or something and get it back to the monitor.

The sound is an issue too. I needed 2 sound cards and I think I had them working at the same time. some games though didn't allow you to change your sound source so they didn't work. And then I think the whole thing slowed a bit when you were gaming and someone was watching a show on the tv.

At the time I didn't want an extender as I thought my htpc was more responsive when directly connected to the tv than an extender. Plus I had a nice little setup with minimal cost with some SoundStick powered speakers plugged directly into my htpc for my tv sound and the Windows remote let me control the volume (important since the Soundsticks don't come with a remote.) Anyway I ended up buying a whole new 2nd pc rig for my dvr.

Now I am thinking when I move I will turn that into a 2nd gaming pc and dvr and just get a 360 an extender. On a side tangent, today I was playing Battlefield 3 and I swear I was doing great when no one was home. It seemed very responsive. Then when my wife and kids came home I was started doing worse.

And soon enough it dawned on me that maybe I wasn't just tired or a bunch of super players suddenly got on the server, but maybe just maybe it is was because of they were streaming Netflix to the 3ds/Ipad and watching Storage Wars in another room via the 360 connected to the WMC pc. And that all that network action was slowing me down just enough reaction-time wise.

It looks like the card may just have to clear the lock that holds the memory in place so as long as the memory is installed first you should be fine hopefully.

Can you watch premium channels (HBO, Starz, Cinemax, etc) on the Ceton? I am currently using a HDHomerun Prime on Comcast and come to find out the HDHomerun Prime does not allow viewing or recording of those premium channels. Other than that I am very happy with my purchase but if anyone can confirm the Ceton Infinitv works with premium channels on comcast or other providers I will be giving it a try.

Holy crap! I've actually been looking into this within the past 2 weeks. Perfect timing since I'm still putting together my dream HTPC. SWEET!!!! In41.

i can get all ppv by calling in to order, then the channel is active...

it takes about 35 seconds

Can this card be used to receive those cable movie channels such as HBO and record the show without encryption?

Your experience does not accurately reflect a correct setup with this card, for multiple reasons.

While I appreciate the time it took you to write all of that out, discouraging other users based on things you can fix needs to be addressed.

First of all, you say that this card is not made for gaming and watching tv at the same time; not only do I watch tv/movies on my hdtv, I can play BF3 in Eyefinity across 3 other monitors at the same time.

In terms of your mouse issues, you need to understand better how windows functions, and what mode your applications are running in. If you set your WMC to run in windowed mode, but full screen, as with your games, you will get fairly predictable behavior. There is a great app for this called The Maxifier [com.au]. It is free, and is crucial to a multi-monitor TV tuner setup.

Sound is not an issue for me at all, I use onboard sound with my motherboard, an Asus P8Z68-V and my graphics card (Radeon 7970). If you take the time to configure windows sound, you can set most applications correctly to get the behavior you are expecting. Further, there are other 3rd party applications than can enhance this, without using another physical card. (you can even make virtual cards..)

Now, in terms of the cost of my graphics card..I wanted to be able to run 4 screens at the same time on one card. I did this successfully with just about every 6950 2gb card on the market, but they really couldn't handle Eyefinity + TV very well. (20+ fps doesn't cut it for me).

If you are looking for a simple multimonitor setup, I see no reason a single 6950, let alone 7950 couldn't do the trick. A 7950 which has dropped significantly in price can easily run 4 monitors (as I had one previously).

If anyone is interested, or doubts what I say, I can shoot some video later tonight.

Back to work for me

Edit: If any of you have the card or are getting one and want tips/advice, feel free to PM me, I've spent a LOT of time getting my setup as user friendly as possible, and I love it. The real shame is how little time I have for TV, and how much Cox charges.

Edit2: Forgot to add, I have a Xbox360 in my mother's room for her to stream Media Center. It boots straight into it, she doesn't play games, and it works perfectly.

Excuse the noob question but I don't have time to tea all pages. People say u can use an Xbox as an extender, will a PS3 do that too?

Absolutely! I've had my Ceton for almost 2 years now. Can watch and record everything I subscribe to. I also keep a STB for ONDemand stuff, the kids tend to still use that alot. As far as I know, the HDHomerun Prime should do the same, assuming you subscribe.

No. Xbox or the older Linksys extenders are your only options right now....althoughg Cetons new hardware is due out by years end.

I can watch and record premium channels on my HDHomerun Prime including HBO and Starz on Comcast.

Love my Ceton. Had it a year, 4 tuners I can record HD on all 4 while watching on 2 with my Q9400 and 2x1tb seagates and an ssd. So much better than paying Comcast 13/mo for 2 tuners, a terrible interface and 160gb of storage.

I'd be happy with getting one of these, but media extenders aren't cheap and the only xbox 360 I have has the RROD...lol

QAM is unencrypted cable, if you want to watch over the air TV, you need an ATSC tuner. You can get those (single tuner) from Meritline for under $20.

These are designed for a CableLabs approved device, as far as I know there is no Linux distro that has been approved by CableLabs.

You should be able to write the drivers for these and use them with Linux, but you won't get encrypted and copyright protected content.

Remote potato, and Ceton has its own companion app, as well.

Nope. Microsoft only plays nice with Microsoft in this case.

You might want to ask your cable company if you can have a free digital tuner. I get 2 "free" with comcast.

Yup, building my own set-top-box with one of these cards was great. Like many people, I paid a full $399 and waited months for this card to come out, and it was totally worth it. Can't believe they're less than half the price now. I have a main HTPC running in the living room and XBox 360 extender in the bedroom. Some great things about it:

- Windows Media Center is a gorgeous, fully HD interface that makes Comcast STBs look like crap
- Everything is shared between the main HTPC and the extender, so unlike TiVo or a multi-DVR setup there is just one box (the HTPC) that records all of our shows, and they are streamed live to the extender that uses a shared guide, shared recordings, etc. with the main box
- Experimental commercial-skipping software (works about 75% of the time in my experience) lets you watch your recordings without ever having to skip ahead
- All the space you can afford to cram into the box (1TB in my case). Never again think about whether or not you want to record in HD or SD (it's just HD every time), or if you need to clear space to record your shows, etc.
- 4 tuners means we never run out of streams; I can be watching one thing in the living room, my fiancée in the bedroom, and we can still be recording two things
- Windows Media Center can be extended with things like PlayOn for watching Netflix, Hulu, etc. It's not 100% reliable, but it's pretty good
- No On-Demand, but also no annoying Comcast popups either or lame advertisements taking up space in my guide
- The satisfaction of knowing I'm not giving Comcast an extra XX dollars a month on equipment rental (one CableCARD is included in my Comcast service, so I don't pay for anything but the channels)

Note that you need a decent network to make this work. I have wired ethernet to all my rooms so it's no problem. People do wireless as well but you need a good signal. We're looking at buying a house, and when we do I may run two separate CAT-6 cables to every room so we can have two side-by-side networks: one for computer and Internet traffic and then another just for television.

I built my box for about $1K, but coulda done it cheaper (I wanted a Blu-Ray writer, separate SSD for the operating system, etc.). But when you think about it, if you already spend over $1K a year on cable service and however much you put into your fancy LCD/plasma TV(s), why wouldn't you invest in giving yourself the best user experience possible for when you're actually watching it?

Dan.

Do you actually subscribe to those?

I have no problem watching and recording HBO and Cinemax with Ceton.

Oh yeah, Remote Potato is great. My HTPC is in Seattle, WA and when I was on vacation in rural Ontario, Canada over 2000 miles away I was live-streaming my recordings from home. It was in pretty low-def, but still, at some point we all started living in the future and didn't even notice it.

Dan.

Most people I know (including my self) got in on the Linksys deal on newegg a few years back for $80.

You can get XBOX for under $150 on Black Friday. Ceton Echo will be $170 initially, but will probably drop under $100 within a year.

There are a bunch of discontinued extenders on ebay for under $100.

Yes I definitely subscribe to them. They are viewable on our two comcast cable boxes/DVRs.

Always scan CL for anyone wanting a 360.

Home Run Prime should be able to tune those too, as long as your CableCard is properly paired up with the unit.

There may be a very rare case where your provider flags those as "record never" which does not allow a Cable Labs approved device to record them on the hard drive.

Hey guys I am on of the developers of the Ceton Companion app here at Ceton. You will see me all over www.thegreenbutton.tv forums as well. Just so you guys know our apps work with all Tuners on any Windows 7 Media Center PC, so just not our card. It is a companion app for windows media center with our branding. Supports iOS, Android (Google Play + Amazon App Store), and Windows Phone.

if you have questions let me know.

I just checked HBO and here is the CCI info: CCI Protection protected-copyonce

You should be able to record and view on the original recording device.

Correct, or stream it to an extender as well.

On a side note the issue can run deeper than just a proper pairing. I learned this when I purchased and installed my second Ceton card. The previous one had all the premium channels and pulled them in fine, when the second was installed it caused a mess whenever I attempted to look at those channels (Media center would claim that subscription is needed etc etc)

After chasing my tail for several months with Comcast and Ceton customer service I finally got an installer who understood the issue. Funny enough this installer had NEVER installed a cable card at any residence before mines! Having the Cable Card properly paired is only part of the problem, there is also provisioning and properly sending out the valid channels authorization listing. What he told me to do was that Comcast merely treats each Cable card as if it was its own set top box. So the cable company needs to individually and specifically push the correct and updated channel listing and authorization to exactly that Cable Card.

Once the installer explained this to the service rep on the phone I had full access on the new cable card.

Hope this is helpful info to someone out there! :)

Running two ethernet drops is a good idea if your are running cable anyway, but you don't need it for media center traffic unless your are running seriously heavyweight computer applications if you use a decent gigabit Ethernet switch with jumbo frames enabled on everything that supports them. I have 6 desktop machines and several laptops, iPads, smartphones, etc. running on a single network with multiple WiFi networks.

The single gigabit Ethernet connection on m MCE PC handles all the traffic to it with ease (3 active extenders, 4 total).

At this price, I may buy a 2nd card.

Yeah its weird the two installers had dispatch verify the correct channel codes were assigned to the cable card. In the HDHomerun log it shows those premium channels as subscribed but they just come back as a black screen in QuickTV and Windows Media Center.

Hi folks… First off, thanks in advance to anyone that may be able to provide feedback to my questions below!

I've been looking into my first HTPC build for many months now, just trying to figure out what all the pluses and minuses would be if my wife and I move away from our TimeWarner cable 2 dvr setup. I’ve also been trying to save up money for the build. This is the cheapest I've seen the Ceton, which I believe is my preferred option over the HD homerun prime and I would love to feel confident enough to go ahead and jump on the Ceton while it’s at this price even though I don’t have all my other HTPC components, yet.

I have a couple of questions and would appreciate any feedback from anyone who already has a Ceton setup…

... of note, my current plan would be to use Windows Media Center and we already have two Xbox 360s we can use as extenders...

1) Regarding recorded shows, especially for sports. With our current TWC dvrs I will often times set a show to record and then start it about 15-45 minutes in so I can skip through commercials and half time. Would this be possible with the Ceton? In other words, start watching a show from the beginning while the recording is still in progress.

2) Regarding live tv; If I’m watching a show live, is the show automatically recording (buffering) up to an hour, or more, of what I’m watching live so I can rewind the live show?

3) Regarding live tv again; It sounds like with four tuners I could be watching a live tv show in the living room and my wife could be watching a live tv show in the bedroom… and we could actually be performing two other functions like recording two shows – all at the same time. Is that correct?

4) One last scenario, if all four tuners are taken up recording shows, could we still watch shows that we had previously recorded?

Once again, thanks in advance for any feedback!!!

What this tuner do? Is it to get cable hdtv to your computer so it can play in media center? I will have to pay monthly to get a cable card to be used by this tuner, right?

No, you can't but yes you can. This is not a DVR; it just receives the signals. It does not record or watch shows. You need something else to do the recording and watching. If you have the something else then yes you can do all that.

That sounds right to me.

There was a time when we had to pay for a cable provider's box, such as DirecTV. I think the cable card is something the federal government and cable companies have designed so that we are not required to pay high prices to cable providers. We only pay about $4 to the cable provider and use equipment such as this from other companies.

My guess is that the law prevents the cable company from charging for more than the cable card.

That is a problem. People should not be required to be technical to watch television.

1. and 2. I had recording problems early with my ceton and sports had a tech come out and get the signal up. Running splitters on coax causes big drops for me. All shows are like recordings mine is set to 30 min. buffer. I take brakes come back to the tv rewind to where I was and skip ahead commercials. Everytime you are watching live it starts recording the channel. I can't count the times I've saw something and no one else and backed the show up. Once you change the channel it's gone unless you click to keep recording. I think you can be watching a channel click record and it can start from the beginning of that channels buffer. You can pause a show and snip a picture from the pc.
3. yes
4. yes. I'm not sure how the xbox extenders act.

Media center lets you set to record a series even repeats or only new. If a series has a wierd time schedule I let it record repeats incase I miss large sections of beginnings or endings.

You make way too many assumptions.

I've had this card for over a year....it's great. PITA to get everything setup correctly but once it's setup it's pretty awesome.

-Allan

Does she know you are watching her in the bedroom?

Thank you for volunteering to announce yourself here. If you don't get much response then it might be that it is so unusual for developers such as you to get involved like this that they don't believe you.

Okay, so I have a question. I assume that the cable card is essentially the same thing that Tivo uses. Tivo has made use of the cable card non-technical. Has Ceton also automated most everything for setting up a cable card so it is as non-technical as for Tivo or is it something that needs more work?

No problem. So overall the cable card setup experience is all done through Windows 7 Media Center (we don't actually control this setup at all as it is all built in). I just had my friend set it up by herself to see how it would go.

Here are the basic steps.

1.) Call up your cable company and ask for a cable card (this is probably the hardest step to be honest as sometimes they don't know what you mean)
1.1) When you call ask for a self install, which basically you will go pick it up. Or else they will charge you around $50 for a "truck roll out fee" which is uncessary.
2.) With cable card in hand go into Windows Media Center and under Extras -> Extras Library you will see the "Digital Cable Advisor", it is a picture of Coax. Simply run it and it will assess that your PC is fit to have a cableCard in it.
3.) Close Media Center, turn off pc, insert PCIe card and turn PC on.
4.) Download & Install our drivers from our website
5.) Insert CableCard
6.) Under Settings -> TV -> TV Signal -> Setup TV Signal... then follow on screen prompts
7.) From here it is pretty straight forward, basically you enter zip code it downloads guide data and such. Then you get to a very important step in the process in this which is to call your Cable Company to "Activate your cable card"
8.) We have some of the phone numbers here: http://cetoncorp.com/infinitv_sup...ctivation/
9.) When you call basically just ask to activate your CableCard, they will ask for some serial numbers which will display on the screen inside of Media Center
10.) Make sure you have them read it back... wait about 5 to 10 minutes (sometimes longer)... TV should be working!

I hope this helps. It seems long, but overall once it is setup it is smooth sailing.

As for PC specs you don't need anything too crazy...
I run an AMD Athlon II X3 processor with integrated Radeon 4250 graphics
I have 4GB of RAM and a 1TB had drive for recordings. For my main hard drive I have a small 32GB SSD so it flies!
With this everything is pretty awesome and netflix streams perfect inside of media center. i3 is also a great option with HD 3000 or 4000 graphics.

Obviously I work for Ceton but:

1.) Yep this is completely possible. When you schedule a recording you have all sorts of settings that you can set on it inside of Windows Media Center. Once a show starts recording it will show up inside of your Recorded TV section. You can start playback at any time (at start, during, after) and skip right through commercials. I do this all the time for basketball.

2.) So yes and now here.... There is a live "buffer" which is default to 40 minutes (you can change this inside of the registry though). So you can skip back and forth through that buffer with no problems. It is important to realize though that if you change the channel that buffer is gone and it overwrites your buffer with the new channel, also if you watch 30 minutes of the show and you press record it will create a new recording at that moment in time (not at the beginning)). Some quirks with it, but overall I am happy with how Media Center handles Live TV.

3.) This is absolutely correct, 4 Live TV or streams at the same time. So 2 recordings + 2 live channels (on an extender for instance)....

4.) Absolutely! If all tuners are in use you can still do anything else you want including watching one of the live recordings or any other show that has been recorded in the past. In the case where all tuners are in use and you try to go to a channel that is not being recorded it will prompt you with a tuner conflict and ask you if you want to cancel a recording.

I hope this helps.

No problem, I have actually been using SlickDeals for years. I love this site and it has saved me so much money it isn't even funny. I am not usually on the boards though unless for some reason one of our products is featured or someone is canceling my order on $200 Samsung Series 9 laptops :(

Thank you again.

That sounds a lot like the procedure for Tivo too. So if people have problems with the cable card then they know it might have been that they skipped a step.

I already sent them PMs and Rep +1, but I wanted to publicly thank B3261 and Motz for responding so quickly to my inquiries.

I've literally been looking over this stuff for months if not almost a year. I finally pulled the trigger and purchased the Ceton from Newegg tonight. So now I have to find some good slickdeals on my other HTPC components.

Thanks again!

Motz or B3261. I have a question about the unable to record the buffer on a live show. Can you back up into the buffer, say 15 minutes, then press record and it will record from that point? Weird how TiVo and Comcast can record that buffer yet Microsoft didn't find that important.

Also, what is the plan going forward for Ceton since Microsoft has publicly stated it will not support Media Center going forward?

Yes, with Windows Media Center, the Ceton InfiniTV fully supports premium channels (provided you subscribe to them).


I'm not sure that's an accurate statement. Microsoft is continuing to sell and support WMC in Windows 8. That means that you're good through at least EOL for Windows 8 - something around 2025. To be honest, I don't expect to be using the same DVR regardless of it being an HTPC, TiVo, or MSO-owned DVR in 13 years.


As I've mentioned in prior Ceton threads, I am also a Ceton employee (as is Motz). If a mod would like to PM me, I will be happy to email from my @cetoncorp.com email address to confirm.

To answer the other question, the Ceton uses an M-Card (and Tuning Adapter, if applicable). These are the exact same hardware that modern TiVos use, and pairing them is identical from your cable operator's perspective.

Ceton has automated verifying if the CableCARD is paired (we have a utility with checkmarks which go green when those steps are met). You will still have to call your cable operator and read them the numbers. Also, in the unlikely event where your operator is having difficulty, feel free to open a support ticket with us and we will be happy to step in and get things sorted out.

STEP 9. Nightmare.

I bought the HdHomerun Prime last week otherwise I would have maybe bought this Ceton card. Either way the concept and steps are the same in getting the Cablecard activated by your cable company. I have Time Warner and they bounced me around and finally I talked to someone. Well, after 1 hour on the phone, the dude couldnt' activate my card. I dont know if its his ignorance or if the card is faulty but this is becoming a big headache. However, once you get past the really crappy setup, I read that you "set it and forget it". You can record with a great guide (Better than standard DVRs) and the fact that I can have Media Extenders all over the house EACH with a DVR, is simply amazing. Would cost me $20 per HD DVR box from Time Warner.

If anyone knows any tips on how to get the M-card activated please PM me or just post here for everyone's education. Things like, once they "activate" it from their end, how do you test that it is activated?

I can't speak for the HDHR, so I don't know how to tell if it's activated on it. However, on the InfiniTV, our diagnostic utility has checkmarks which go green when it is properly activated. For the InfiniTV, there is some information in our installation manual.

TWC's activation team is normally pretty good about getting things right (I am personally on TWC and have had many, many cards activated) so I'm surprised you're running into so much trouble. I can generally get a card activated in 2 minutes when I call. Perhaps there is something wrong with your CableCARD or HDHR?

Worst case, if you are unable to make the HDHR work and end up purchasing an InfiniTV, we (Ceton) will be happy to step in and sort things out with your cable operator if they are still unable to get you up and running on an InfiniTV.

Hello,
I really appreciate the presence of Ceton employees on this thread. I have a question regarding my plans on ditching my monthly $40 DVR fees from Verizon FiOS.

1. Is it better to build a mini HTPC for the purpose or recording shows only or use my new built I5 2500k PC with a GTX 670 card?

2. As far as extenders, I don't plan on buying an Xbox just for that function. Will the Echo be my only other option as far as extenders goes?

3. Would the Echo channel guide mimic the one in WIndows Media Center?

Thanks in advance.

That's interesting. perhaps its because i called on a saturday night but I was on the phone for over 1 hour with a guy and I called back a few minutes after we hung out and got the same guy. Must be a lean department. I called TWC's cable card dept (East). I'm going to try the West number tomorrow to see if they do anything different. He kept saying he was sending "heads" over which I dont know what that means but I have read on forums to request sending "cold hits" to the card.
Either way, good to know Ceton has good customer support.

A mini or cheap HTPC can cost very cheap, $100-300. You can also get a cheap netbook or used desktop on craigslist. If you have enough resources and dont care about energy you can just use your main PC as long as you leave it on all the time.

For extenders, however, you can get an used xbox that's live capable for like $100 now, so why not go with an Xbox. There are no other extenders that are current other than the xbox. The linksys and other ones that came out a few years ago are going for around $50+ on ebay and their functionality is alright. I've seen xboxs on craigslist go for as little as $75 with 1 controller AND xboxs are Logitech Harmony compatible.

1. I recommend dedicated PCs, only because people tend to constantly tweak your main PC. The key to a reliable HTPC is to not constantly be tweaking it.

2. The Xbox (and soon to be Echo) are the only extenders currently manufactured. There are some older extenders from other companies, such as D-Link and Linksys, but they haven't been made for a couple years, so you would have to buy used ones.

3. The UI on an extender is nearly the same as the UI at the PC - you will feel right at home.

As far as I know there's only one department at TWC, so I'm not certain who you spoke with. My guess is he was sending "hits" and not "heads" - which would make sense. Without knowing details of your setup, I don't know what to ask, but the TWC folks generally know how to straighten things out, so I'm surprised you are having so much trouble.

Just as a follow up it turns out that the members here are correct. The HDHomerun Prime does work with premium channels. I was given wrong information on another forum and from Comcast support. I had to reinstall Windows Media Center on my machine along with play ready and delete their temporary folders in between to have stupid DRM reinstall and initialize properly. This is apparently a problem with certain Windows updates as it breaks DRM occasionally.

So in a nutshell please don't let my previous comments sway you from the Ceton or HDHomerun products. As you might have read, there is a bit of research and possible extensive configuration that goes into these type of products. The cablecard has always been a tough standard for support and answers. I am just glad I was pointed in the right direction and honestly if I had another PCI-E slot in my server I might just try out the Ceton for the price.

Also I can vouch for PS3 media server and Remote Potato as they are incredible free products that allow me to stream from my server to my PS3 and other devices/computers.

Unfortunately it wont record the back buffer by default. There might be some hacks out there, but I am not certain. It might be some patent or something that wasn't licensed through the process.

I think MS still has some plans for support for WMC. It is a built in feature of W7 so they will support it until the stop W7 support and it is also in windows 8 pro. So overall I personally, as a consumer, am alright with this. I have been using WMC for a few years and I am very comfortable making it my main DVR for the future as well. There is a pretty strong community behind it.

Yep both will work with premium content. I agree with you that tuners and cablecard are a bit complex. However once you get them up and running you love them. I know I do :)

Yeah if you have to re-install or have a hard drive fail this could be an issue for show that are marked "copy once" usually premium channels. However this would be with any tuner, it is just how playready and the drm works :( Usually not a huge issue though.

I figure I would throw my 2 cents in. I have 2 of these installed (along with a HR Prime) in my HTPC & love them. I got my first one around Black Friday & picked Ceton because of the extra tuner. Cable cards range between $1.50 - $2.00 but usually the cable co will give you a credit of around the same amount (possibly a little more) for "providing own equipment".

Depending on how many cable boxes &/or DVR's you were renting from the cable co, this will pay for itself fairly quickly (assuming you don't have to buy a new computer or all new parts to build one)

One thing that is nice about the HTPC setup, is that you can expand you recording capacity with Terabytes of storage instead of Gigabytes.

I would strongly recommend that anybody is going the HTPC route to replace their DVR, to purchase an SSD drive. If you are going to use a computer that will be dedicated, then a 64 gig will be big enough (I still have 40 gigs free on mine, after installing Win 7, & all the updates). Also if you were planning on using watching HD channels, I would recommend setting up an gigabit wired network.

Some after market add ins to check out:

DvrmsToolbox, along with Comskip - This will scan the recorded shows & create a new file that marks where it believe the commericals are at, so when you watch it will skip over them.

RecordedTvHd - a recorded tv show interface which will show "posters" of the shows & will also group them by season & episode number

Tuner salad - If you have more then 4 tuners, you might need this to detect all of the tuners (for instance when I did a recent reinstall, it only detected 4 tuners, not 11)

Channel Logos - This will add channel logos to the channel guide

Issue: - The only issue that I have, is that I get the occasional "No signal" message when it goes to record a show, but Media center will try another available tuner so the show ends up recording anyways. I should be fair & say that I get occasional "Tuner errors" on the HR prime also.

I have had my Ceton card for 2 weeks. Loving it so far. Considering adding a second card so I never have to worry about not having enough tuners as this price point...

Regarding extenders, I'm using 5 Xbox 360s as my extenders. I got them all for under 50 bucks on EBay because they all have DVD drives which are either not working or are difficult to get to read a disc. They work 100% as extenders and for less then 50 bucks are a very budget friendly extender.

You forgot the need to connect the actual cable to the InfiniTV dongle, and then the dongle to the InfiniTV. :-)

IIRC this happens in step 3 above, right after "insert PCIe card" (which really means install the InfiniTV card into an available PCIe slot).

Be careful with the dongle connector as it and the jack on the card you plug it into are kind of fragile!

Also, in step 5, make sure to install the card the right way. The instructions explain how, and you can "practice" with the card before you install it.

Well, it's clunky if you have lots of ripped DVDs to convert, and prefer to use the original DVD menu structure for chapters and extras, like having movie thumbnails and summaries, etc. All of which are available on the server HTPC or networked HTPCs, but not on extenders.

QFT (quoted for truth)

Sadly, the FCC and Cable Labs and Microsoft don't agree with you and me.

Cool product :) Not that i would ever pay for cable tv to begin with, but nice to see another way for you to reduce their ridiculous fees :worship:

For the 5% ...
 

This is a great deal for 95% of the users. There are many great things that others will outline here, so I'll point out the issues with the technology. I have nothing bad to say about Ceton, it is just the limitations of any PCI/CableCARD device.

* Windows is best supported. Not everyone runs Windows. MythTV users need their eyes wide open before purchasing. Without running Windows, there are important limitations to any CableCARD product. I'm a Linux-guy happy to compile code, edit C/C++ code to get things working. I have given up trying to make TV recording work under Linux.
* PCI connections. The tuners are only for the machine they are inside. Network-based tuners can be accessed by any PC on the network. I think Ceton makes a CableCARD network turner.
* Stupid limits put in by Windows Media Center. Microsoft has made arbitrary limits to "protect" "average joe user" that don't usually apply to people buying these cards. Recording directly to NAS storage for example or a 4 tuner limit. If your NAS and network are fast enough, that shouldn't be an issue. OTOH, writing 4 1080i HD streams to a single HDD can be a challenge on shared cheap shared network storage.
* Digial copy DRM - only if allowed. That means you might be stuck with a PC in your family room to playback a few channels that your cable company has marked as "never copy." This DRM only works for Windows Media Center. No other apps support it thanks to the CableCARD industry group. I suspect live sports will see this copy-protection more and more. I have never seen this specific copy protection, but I've heard it is being enabled in more markets.
* On-Demand content access. A 2-way addressable cable box is required for On-Demand content playback and recording.
* Can't use the analog hole to time-shift premium content. There are a few devices that accept component 1080p input from the cable box and record perfectly, but those require a normal digital cable box from your provider. The analog hole also works with u-Verse ... which might be another consideration.
* This is a CableCARD-only solution. Hardly a real limitation, but it may be for some.

As you can see, only 5% would care about most of these issues, perhaps less.

For my needs, the Haupauge 1212 (component) recorder allows time-shifting of copy protected and on-demand content through the analog hole.
And the HD-Homerun 6-tuner model records other encrypted QAM channels using CableCARD.
And the HD-Homerun ATSC OTA tuner (HDHR3) records broadcast TV using a $20 home-built DB4 antenna that receives more signals than an expensive store-bought Antennas Direct model. Of course, TV receiption is an extremely localized thing, so my results are only valid for the 200 homes around my specific location. Still, an hour of time and $20 if wire, wood, washers and screws from HomeDepot to get better results than an $80, highly recommended, huge antenna that is much harder to mount and move around?

Broadcast TV isn't like you remember as a kid. I remember getting 3-5 channels. Today, 20+ miles away from the transmitters in my metro area, I'm receiving 71 channels without an amplifier. About 30 of those are undesireable religious, radio and ad-TV crap, but that leaves 40 channels that are interesting for some reason or another. There are about 10 Spanish language channels, if that interests you. My area also has a few Korean language channels. ABC, NBC, PBS and Fox have "subchannels" with different content. One of the local independent stations has 12 subchannels with all sorts of content. Use http://tvfool.com/ to see which channels you can receive pretty easily.

Again, this Ceton card is a steal of a deal for 95% of the people interested in building their own DVR, but it does have limitations that might be important to you.

Well if you want the extras it can be tedious and time consuming.

ripping the movie itself is about the same as ripping a cd. IT's a hands off process.

Anyway if you want the movies on extenders one can just rip 'em to H.264 even if you still preserve the ripped dvds somewhere else for the extras/menus.

What is the thinking behind that? I don't see much of a reason to get a SSD for a DVR setup except if to reinstall Windows without wiping any current recordings or to recover more quickly from a reboot.

You know, solid state drives have benefits way beyond quicker use. Longevity, heat, power usage.

Considering how cheap SSDs are now, it's beneficial to install everything on the SSD; and then use a 1tb-2tb drive for recording. It'll take some additional strain off the recording drive, and hopefully let it last longer.

is the 24p bug fixed yet? Playing back recorded shows always flashed the screen had to return it...

I don't think anyone's mentioned it yet, but I use this free program called MCEBuddy [mcebuddy.com] to strip out the commercials from the TV shows I record off my Hauppauge HVR-2250 (dual cable tuner). It also converts to mp4 or mkv, which I find awesome, because then I can watch everything in XBMC (which I find much cleaner than Windows Media Center)

You're stretching. Buying a 2nd drive so your other drive lasts some theoretical minute percentage longer seems to defeat the purpose and then some. You won't save any energy consumption or heat by installing a SSD as a 2nd drive. You'll add to it.

You said hands off process, what software are you using for large batch conversions? I ask because I added my Xboxes as extenders loooong after setting up my HTPC, so I have hundreds of DVD movies in original structure (.vob basically). I used to try transcode360 which worked for a month and then mysteriously stopped working and I have been unable to get it up again.

I have tried using DVDFab to convert to their Xbox preset and their other presets but all of them either fail to play on my extenders or have some seriously nasty sync issues.

So could you share what you use as an aside? :) Being unable to access those movies except on one PC has only been a minor issue though since the Xboxes allow the use of Netflix streaming and the Comcast Xfinity on demand apps. So my wife has been happy enough. I just want to have access to all the movies other than just in the living room!

I got an SSD for similar reasons, but also:

- Shorter boot time, generally faster OS operations
- Confidence that if I'm recording three or four streams that the various functions of the OS aren't going to contribute to write-performance issues

It's hardly scientific (and I'd love it if someone did the science to prove or disprove all these alleged advantages), but there are a few good theoretical reasons for doing it.

Dan.

Our drivers will actually handle this for you automatically. No need to spend the extra cash. I know the developer of My channel logos and tuner salad as well he is a great guy. I highly recommend MCL for logos though.

Woops, yeah there are a few little things that you need to do in there. Be careful with the little dongle too.



I <3 an SSD because it makes media center extremely snappy. Media Center is a relatively beefy program so the faster you can make it the better. Also if you have metadata, artwork, and just accessing the database that media center uses will be much faster. I don't think it is a requirement, but a recommendation. I also like having my Recording Drive being separate from my main OS drive.

WMC can see them as movies. First, make sure you add the containing folder to the Movie Library, not the Video Library. Second, you need to install an app that will set the metadata (the year, summary, cover image, etc) for you.

The Ceton Companion app will actually do the metadata for you, or, if you don't want all of the other stuff it does, you can install YAMMM (which is actually the part of the Ceton app that does the metadata). You do need to put each movie in its own appropriately-named subfolder (so the apps can figure out what movie it is), but then the apps will work in the background and automatically add metadata for any movie there. I think Motz (who has already posted in this thread) is the dev who has worked on these apps.

Edit: here's a tutorial [sevenforums.com]

The only way I could see this being plausible is it would avoid the OS spinning up the disk for things other than video recording. I'm not saying it's a good reason, but it is slightly plausible.

A hard drive has plenty of throughput for recording 4 streams and play back multiple streams at the same time.

Who cares how fast your WMC pc boots up if it is on all the time.

The thinking behind that was the experience using a Sata drive for the main drive. Using an SSD speeds up the response when using an extender or scheduling a show.

For example, when I was scheduling the shows that I recorded on my Replay, it could take up to 5 minutes or so, to show the show was scheduled (depending on how many times a day it played). With the SSD, these same shows showed they are schedule in 15-30 seconds.

So go buy a tivo and shut up? :omg:

kinda new to the multiple tuner setup so here's my noob question

can you have multiple outputs (e.g. hdmi out, two monitors) watch different channels using one (main) computer? or you need three separate computers/xboxes as receivers for each tuner/signal?

My shows show they are scheduled in a second and I have a regular hard drive.

I just double-checked it now. I was watching football (recorded) and recording 2 other shows. And I hit record on a 3rd in the guide and went to scheduled shows with a few clicks and it was there.

Since you're working on the companion app support and answering questions, I have one for you. Has ceton ever considered creating an app for PS3?

I'm very much looking forward to the Ceton Q to replace my box, but I'm a bit hesitant because we have 3 PS3s scattered throughout the house (no xboxes). Buying a ceton extender or xboxes will drive up the price for my upgrade.

I googled about this and there is a lot of demand for ps3 support. If you can, pass this one up as another request. Thanks!

The amount of data being written by the OS is 0.0001% of what WMC writes from all the recording it does.

For example, I am recording 4 football games today. One football game is 18 gigs. That's 72 gigs from 4 football games today. Windows7 would be lucky if it writes this much data to the hard drive during my hard drive's lifetime.

So in the real world the difference is 0.

Plus the point I was making even it there is a distinguishable difference what is the point of buying a second drive so the first lives longer. Save your money and buy a new hard drive when your first one breaks.

I have been doing computers for about 40 years. I taught myself IBM Mainframe Assembly language, as well as many other languages. When I first began researching tuner technology such as this it was confusing for me. There are many critical details that are not mentioned in the manufacturer's web sites. I suggest that someone go through this thread and make note of the questions and then ensure they are accurately answered in your web site, at least to the extent of referencing other sites.

The question of building a HTPC is an excellent question that you could at least point people to answers. When I search places such as Pricegrabber for htpc the most I get are cases; just cases. I like the idea of using a previously used PC as a HTPC but I prefer to not have to spend a lot of time on details such as will the card fit and such.

That is not an accurate description of Microsoft. Windows does many things for us that make it difficult to use for people that want to mess with it. In the rare occasions that Windows interfaces with the customer, such as when it is going to compact email data, customers think that Windows is malfunctioning.

You will never understand because you are convinced you are correct. For the benefit of others, SSD means Solid State Drive, which means no moving parts. The total absence of movement has very significant advantages compared to the old-style spinning platters. Spinning platter hard disk drives [wikipedia.org] were invented more than half a century ago.

If it truly is. If however it restarts on its own or must be restarted and you are missing a show being recorded, then most people will really care about boot time.

You need to read the context of the conversation. I did not start the conversation. If you feel a need to end it then you need to respond to the ones that started the discussion, but I doubt they will listen to that attitude.

You responded to comments about the state in which there are no programs being recorded with comments about the state in which there are programs being recorded.

We have a Tivo that is less than two years old. Yes, I know the Ceton is not Tivo but the reason the Tivo is relevant is that the hard drive went bad. Tivo insists that the hard drive in a Tivo gets much more use than most hard drives. I disagree but if it is true then the choice of hard drive for a DVR seems critical.

How many series do you have set to record? How do you have them set to record? (i.e. New only, new & repeats). How many times a day does the shows you record come on a day (talking all channels, not just 1).

When i used a regular drive, if the show only came on once a day or week, then yes it scheduled pretty quick, but the shows that my family likes to watch comes on a bunch of times per day (good example, would be Disney shows).

You care if there's a crash (which happens) and you want to get back into it quickly.

SSDs are a lot more energy efficient, run cooler and quieter, and are great if you want to leave your HTPC running 24/7 but allow your recording HD to go to sleep when it's not active (which is probably 90% of the time).

Traditional hard disk performance is affected by locality, caching and fragmentation as well. This was a big reason for me in choosing a secondary SSD, because If the operating system needs to read dozens or hundreds of randomly-scattered files from its store at the beginning of the drive at the same time as it's writing into several HD streams (or streaming existing data out to extenders) at different locations throughout the drive, it can certainly affect performance. I don't know if it would ever get bad enough to cause noticeable degradation or hiccups, but especially when I was building there weren't a lot of cases of people running 4+ simultaneous tuners, so it made sense not to want to find out.

Dan.

I Like using MCEbuddy. It seems to be the best at compressing the video, while keeping the quality decent. How ever not sure If I would trust the auto commerical detect & removal


Yes you can connect a TV as a 2nd monitor, but you would need to use a program called "The Maxifier" if you were to maximize the Media Center window on the TV (if you maximize the MC window, then it will take focus of the mouse cursor & act like the TV is only "monitor" that is connected.

You would need to know how many extenders you would want to connect & how many that would be in use at the same time, along with what you usually do on the computer & CPU Type & amount of RAM, to determine if your current computer is fast enough or not.

The computer will act like a "server" when the extenders requests a live show or recorded show & will stream the live show to the requesting extender. With 4 tuners on the Ceton, you can have 4 extenders watching 4 different channels at the same time on 4 different TV's (as long as nothing is recording), you would then need to subtract a tuner for each show that is being recorded at that time.

I don't know what a Replay is, but I assume that the SSD is/was not in the Replay; if that assumption is wrong then ignore the following.

There are too many variables here to make a clear case in favor of SSD. Is the amount of network use (when scheduling something) the same for both? Do they both use WiFi or do they both use wired? Is the algorithm used to schedule shows functionally equivalent? Are all the other relevant resources reasonably the same for both systems?

Never had that problem. Kids watch lots of cartoons. I just set a series pass though.

But anytime I would go through the guide and click on a handful of shows or two, I would see them scheduled right away. Not that it really matters. They get recorded all the time. I never had any problems that dictated a check of whether they are scheduled or not.

Yes thank you. I have an SSD bud. I know the advantages. Just saying that the advantages in WMC aren't what some here have stated. It isn't going to extend the life of your data drive any. And who cares about bootup when it is on all the time unless of course WMC crashes on you consistently. And if that's a problem then perhaps one should look to a different DVR solution.

The only answer here accurate was that is it will give you more responsiveness for anything read on the SSD or written. IF guide data and thumbnails are stored there like someone mentioned then an SSD will help that.

In my experience the guide is plenty responsive however with a regular hard drive. My guide comes up asap anytime I hit the button. Now perhaps I have a much faster setup than most and more RAM or something. My setup is overkill for a DVR. I have an IVY BRidge 4 core i5 chip in there. :)

Also when you wake your DVR from sleep you might see more responsiveness with a SSD. When mine wakes up from sleep it is a bit sluggish for 30 seconds to a minute. A SSD might reduce the sluggishness. I personally don't know if scans an index of your shows or scans the show titles directly from where they are stored.


Wrong. The guy said he sets up a couple of recordings and it takes awhile to see them scheduled. He says a SSD reduced this waiting period. I said my shows show up scheduled very quickly (quicker than his numbers) even though I have a regular ordinary hard drive.


Hard drives die. Who said anything about the choice of hard drives not being critical. That being said I have used all sorts of hard drives and never had a problem. The vast majority of them work fine for most people most of the time.

The OS doesn't do much writing. That's why it doesn't matter. I can easily record 4 streams and play back multiple streams at the same time on a regular hard drive which handles it with no problem. Do you think writing a few KBs here and there affects this? If so then you don't really have a feel for the numbers we are talking about.

6 gigs an hour is the rate at which my DVR records at based on the 18 GB size of the 3 hr NFL game I recorded today. That's roughly 6000 MB/3600 seconds or 1.67 MB/s. My 5900 rpm Seagate 1.5tb hard drive's throughput is around 100MB/s according to benchmarks. You can see, even with the slowdown associated with writing data all over the platter, how it can easily keep up with recording 4 shows, streaming 2 and writing the occasional kb to a log file or 100 log files. The throughput is 60x the size of one stream. And I don't have a very fast hard drive.

ReplayTv was a single tuner DVR that was Tivo's main competor in the early to mid 2000's One thing that was nice was that it had auto commerical skip, allowed you to stream one show from one unit to another (without having to "download" the show from one unit to another, along with downloading the show to a computer so you could edit out the commericals, if you wanted to save it. Replay only used IDE drives of a certain model type (newer type were not compatible).

For the use of an SSD, I would try using the setup without one at first, which is what I did. My setup is wired with gigabit switches/router. I did try using the default wireless on the Xbox360, which didn't work too well (at least with HD, it didn't)

Hello, I have a quick question about this. If I were to install this on one of my computers ( computer 1). Would I be able to stream live tv on my other computer in the network ? (computer 2) and (computer 3). Also, as xbox 360 it can be used as an extender . Which can stream live tv ?

Just finished building my HTPC... this will go nicely in there!

In order to watch live tv on other computers, you would need to designate tuner(s) to the other computer(s). The downside to this is that, the # of tuners that you designate, becomes exclusive to the other computer & not to any other computer (even the one that the Ceton is installed on. The is one of the downsides of the Ceton, as the computer that has a tuner assigned might not be using it, while another computer could use the tuner to record a show.

The xbox 360 can stream live both SD & HD cable tv, but I would recommend that you use wired ethernet & not use wireless (especially if your planning on watching HD shows)

You build a custom built home theater PC and complain it is hard to use.

I don't farking understand that logic at all.

If you want it to be EASY to use, BUY A TIVO.

Don't BUY a CUSTOM COMPUTER and complain it is hard to use. LEARN TO USE IT.

Any idea how much of a monthly saving by using a HTPC with cable card vs renting a single comcast HD DVR ?

I didn't see it mentioned but TunerSalad is a great app for adding beyond 4 tuners in WMC. I believe this is helpful for using network tuners and extenders.

There are many questions answered at http://cetoncorp.com/product-support/#1514
To answer the specific question on size,the InfiniTV is the form-factor of a low-profile PCIe card, and does comply with the specification. Any case/motherboard which complies with the PCIe specification for low-profile cards should support it. That said, there are some cases (especially SFF) and motherboards which actually do not meet this specification, and will physically prevent the card from fitting.

I will. There are about a million other people that won't. That is the problem. If you are a manufacturer like Ceton and you tell people what you said here then you will fail. I will be extremely impressed if you can sell equipment like this without making it easy to use. Can you?

BigDish said "it would avoid the OS spinning up the disk". Avoiding spinning up the disk implies the disk is not spinning. You replied by saying "recording 4 football games" which implies the disk is spinning. Refer to post #119 for the quote and your reply.

I replied by saying "You responded to comments about the state in which there are no programs being recorded with comments about the state in which there are programs being recorded.". I was replying to the post you replied to. The post about setting up a couple of recordings is not relevant to my reply.

You will probably insist I am wrong and that is fine. I will leave this for others to form their own opinion.

So every cable company is a bit different, Comcast will let you rent the first cable card for free, while others may charge $2 or $3. So ideally you would be saving the difference each month between what they charge for the cable card and the HD DVR (I think usually $10). Also if you are using multiroom they usually charge you for each box on each TV. With Media Center you can use an "extender" like an xbox 360 or our "echo" coming out this fall that will stream all of your content from your Main HTPC to tvs throughout the house. So you would save there.

My big thing why I switched (even before I started working for Ceton) was just the ability to record 4 shows at the same time and I have control over how big my storage is. I also really like the Media Center interface.

It is great software. Also though our Drivers for the infiniTV will do this for you as well. So if you have 2x infiniTVs you wont need TunerSalad at al.

I think overall HTPCs are tricky which is why a lot of people go the standard route. Here at Ceton we are always here to help and our support staff is pretty great (IMHO). I love settings up HTPCs for family members and friends, but they just have to be willing to deal with some of the quirks that come with it. I think hands down once it is all setup it is a better experience than any cable box out there.

We aim to make it as easy to use as possible. Usually the biggest problem that our customers have is actually getting and activating the cable card from their cable company and unfortunatelly that is out of our hands :(

Ceton drivers up the tuner limit to 32, I believe.

The end user won't know that the system is actually a Windows based. I have an 80 year old using it without a problem. Had I told them it was a PC, they wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. But, to them, it is just another "appliance" It boots directly into WMC, and it is locked into "Media only mode"

The remote controls both the "DVR" and the TV and they are none the wiser.

The only thing you got right is my post number. :)


The 72 gigs from the 4 NFL games I recorded yesterday just illustrated the wide gulf in drive activity between the DVR in WMC and the Windows 7 OS. The OS writes no where near this amount of data to the drive in a day let alone a year.

This gulf makes the wear and tear saved by adding a 2nd drive negligible or zero for practical purposes.

Sounds good.

However you obviously did all the setup for them since if they had done it then they would know it is Windows.

Isn't this deal dead? I see a $20 off now so its now at $179.99 w/free shipping not $169.99. Amazon has now lowered their price to match NewEgg's updated price as well.

Seems like it should be updated to $179.99.... I believe $169.99 was only a 48 hours sale on newegg.

I had mentioned it earlier, but others had mentioned the Ceton software now allows for more then 4 tuners, but for some reason it didn't want to work for me

Multiple Ceton cards works fine with latest drivers. Anyone with Fios I can tell you this is an effortless install. I plugged the ceton card in, inserted the cable card, installed the drivers, did setup TV in WMC and it gives a screen with all info that you then fill in online with fios self activation website. Done in 5 minutes.

I hear a lot of people say its difficult to get working, odds are thats a cable company problem.

In my area Comcast DVR costs $15.95 for 2 Tuners, so if you were to get the same amount of Tuners, you would need 2 DVR's (Total $31.90). The Ceton requires a cable card, which the first one is free and any after is $2

$170 / $31.90 = 5.32 months to break even (more, depending if you need extenders or not)

I did a reinstall of my system which consists of 2 Ceton PCI cards, when I follow the instructions (& using the latest install software) it only showed me having 4 tuners. If I'm doing an inital install, shouldn't all 8 tuners show up, or should I be setting it up with 4 & going back to have it "redetect" the other 4

Hi. For my HTPC, I have my OS on a SSD drive and my recordings on another drive. If my windows 7 install gets hosed, can I reinstall windows and still have the recordings be viewable? I read somewhere that the DRM on the recordings is tied to the Ceton card... and possibly the OS install... does anyone know if the second part is true? I'd like to be able to re-install win7 and still watch my old shows. Thanks.

Motz, wasn't sure if you saw my question from earlier. I've been following this thread and would be really curious if you had any input. I've copied my question below again for reference. Thanks

"Since you're working on the companion app support and answering questions, I have one for you. Has ceton ever considered creating an app for PS3?

I'm very much looking forward to the Ceton Q to replace my box, but I'm a bit hesitant because we have 3 PS3s scattered throughout the house (no xboxes). Buying a ceton extender or xboxes will drive up the price for my upgrade.

I googled about this and there is a lot of demand for ps3 support. If you can, pass this one up as another request. Thanks! "

When I looked at Dvdfab's forum, it seems that people have sync issues with the latest version, but it seems that 8.0.7.3 seems to be the version that not too many people have had issues with.

If the show was recorded from a paid channel (Hbo, Showtime, etc) then you wouldn't be able to rewatch those shows if you had or wanted to do a reinstall. Shows recorded from broadcast channels, & regular cable channels (Disney, Nickelodeon, etc) allow you to rewatch those shows (at least it does for me & I have Comcast).

That's where I disagree. I think there is a market for more advanced products, and people do want these.

They work well in different situations, both easier to use, and more advanced.

Is it perfect? No.

Is it reliable and somewhat logical? Yes.

Of course I set it up for them. The question/note was that one does not "need to put that much effort to use TV" and the fact is, there is no more effort needed to use the system than any other system.

I have been doing DIY DVR since the 90's and I can tell you that WMC7 is by far the easiest to set up, maintain and operate. MSFT did a really good job on it. Most of the issues people have are from inferior or compromized (read cheap) hardware and improper sequence of set up, or bungling on the cable provider's end.

If one wanted a really, really simple way to watch TV, antenna and built in tuner in the TV is the way to go.


It depends on the cable provider, and the content owner's setting.

If you have Verizon FiOS, they completely ignore the content provider's setting, however Time Warner flagged pretty much everything, including Discovery, TLC and History Channels.

Thanks for the info. What if I had done a Windows 7 System Image backup when I set up the HTPC and now restored my OS drive with the image backup? Would WMC recognize it as the original install and let me view the protected shows?

Interesting scenario.. Let us know what you find out...

Of course people want advanced technology but most people expect the manufacturer to make it so they can use it. It is often true that simply by investing a few thousand dollars a product sells a few million dollars more and that is why most companies make the investment. It is foolish to not make a small investment when the return is significant.

Not everyone has someone like you to do the setup.

Then, this is not a product for you. But, I have to say that if a layman like me, who has absolultely nothing to do with computers, I am a chemist, can set it up, then someone who has a little bit more knowledge of computers can probably set it up even better, or perhaps faster.

There are simple steps that have to be taken in order, that have been outlined in this and other forums. Microsoft meant for the media center to be used by laymen like me, not IT professionals. Windows 8 will not have WMC included in the Professional, but only in Home versions of Windows, which makes sense.

If you would like someone like Assasin from AVS can build you one, or I can build you one and mail it to you, if you are interested. I have built about 2 dozen of these "whole house entertainment systems" in the Buffalo area.

Well, putting aside the cost of an HTPC including the Ceton card, each month you'd save whatever your cable company charges for a DVR minus whatever your cable company charges for a Cablecard. So if it's, say, $15 vs. $3, you'd save $12 a month, and in around a year and a half would pay for the Ceton.

But the advantages of the Ceton go well beyond the long-term savings. No DVR that I know of can record 4 channels at once. The program guide that comes with Media Center it excellent. And I've heard (but can't confirm) that the Ceton records in higher quality than DVRs. Plus, you can network the Ceton, which is uncommon I believe with DVRs (although there are multiroom DVRs, but they only network your cable boxes, not your HTPCs).

Actually, WMC is not going to be in ANY version of Win8 by default. In fact, you must have Win8 Pro to actually get WMC as an add in:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archiv...ows-8.aspx

It looks like the $40 offer to upgrade to Win8 Pro will allow you to get the WMC add on for free though.

Even if it costs $40 for an add on, it is well worth it. At least they are not making it only available to OEMs and only tied to certain BIOSes like they did with WME with XP.

It's actually even better though because the $40 is the upgrade from Win7/Vista/XP to Win8 Pro and will include the WMC add-on during this offer. I've seen a screen shot that shows WMC being $12.79 if you didn't upgrade.

You will not get the Video on Demand programming.

I have been working with computers for 40 years. I taught myself assembly language for IBM Mainframe computers long before IBM made a PC. I have read very much documentation. There is no reason why the documentation of this product cannot be improved. Telling someone that they need to read documentation is not an excuse for a company to not make a small investment. If this were a project written by someone offering it for free then it is understandable that the documentation would need improvement.

It is extremely easy to say that someone needs to read the documentation and it is usually relevant. When the documentation does need improvement, however, and someone says so then they often are told the problem is that they cannot read documentation. I am someone that can read and write documentation. Documentation should go both ways; people should read it and developers (software and hardware developers both) should write good documentation.

It must be equally acceptable to say that documentation needs improvement, when it does, as it is to say that someone needs to read the documentation when they have not.

Tivo sure does. We have three of them; each of them with 4 receivers and each are a slightly different model. I think Verizon offers 4-receiver DVRs for FiOS too.

Our first 4-receiver Tivo went bad a few months ago when it was about a year and a half old. The hard drive went bad and it is not covered by warranty. So for that reason and many others, Tivo needs competition.

You are more of "computer guy" than I am. I am just a chemist, no where near the level of computer sophistication as your credentials.

Perhaps I got lucky, but I was able to set up Media Center, even at the time when Microsoft locked it to specific BIOSes in 2005, and every subsequent version of the media center. I was able to add two ATI DCT's in 2007 to receive premium channels, and again, by following the knowledge base documents and on-screen prompts.

While Ceton has some documentation, the actual product is Windows Media Center, so, documentation comes from Microsoft, and it applies to any tuner that a person would use with the media center. There is absolutely no difference in connecting ATI Digital Cable Tuner, Ceton InifiniTV4, Silicon Dust HomeRun Prime, Hauppauge cablecard tuner. Some steps can be skipped if one were to use a Clear QAM or ATSC tuner. But it is all documented in Microsoft's knowledge base. The language may not be straight forward, but it is not too terribly technical.

Thanks for the correction. Still, I've heard bad things about many of them. E.g. smallish hard drives, so-so quality, ugly and clunky program guides, having to pay monthly guide fees, etc.

HTPC-based cards like the InfiniTV aren't for everyone and do have some drawbacks, but for the technically inclined, they're amazing.

And with Ceton's 6-tuner Q coming out in a few months, things should get even more interesting. In addition to the 6 tuners, it can be networked via HTPCs or extenders, has a built-in BluRay drive, and a 2TB HD. It's basically an HTPC without the PC hassles.

Sounds like fun, and I hope it was fun. I have had fun getting things to work. It can be fun learning how to inject code (programming) into a Windows application from another application. I can do that. I sometimes have fun trying to get Wndows programs to communicate with a Tivo box. I think I had fun about a quarter of a century ago when I installed a hard drive in a PC. I can do things like that, but I have gotten tired; especially when the documentation is not clear and there is no reason it cannot be improved.

I am mainly speaking for all the many people that are not as technically inclined as I. The Infinitv product description and related articles can be and should be improved for them. When I first began researching devices such as it, the product description was unclear to me. Note that when I say documentation, I am using the term loosely and product description is included in what I am trying to refer to.

Note that if someone were to ask my opinion of Tivo I would suggest running fast away if possible. Unfortunately that is not yet possible for everyone.

Yet I believe in giving credit where credit is due. One of our Tivo devices has a 2TB drive and the shows are as good as possible as far as I know. Occasionally the Tivo software is buggy but usually the cause of bad recordings is the4 fault of FiOS, but that is not often.

There are many great reasons to avoid Tivo. The hardware is poor quality, based on the hard drive that went bad. That would not be so bad if Tivo were to cover it by warranty. (The hard drive is WD.) Also Tivo costs about $14 a month. Tivo customer service does not exist for prime time in the west coast. And there is much more.

can anybody help me out with these 2 questions.

1) i read from earlier post that this runs pretty hot. my htpc have two case fan that moves very little air, but is dead silent. will this be an issue for me?

2) i get bad signal quality with time warner cable (so cal). when i use their cable box/dvr, everything works perfectly. but when i use their cable card along with the hdhomerun prime during primetime tv hours(weeknights 8pm-10pm), all the most watched channel quality turns to shit. sometimes i don't get a signal at all, especially for nfl channels on sunday (nbc, fox, cbs). will this help at all compare to the hdhomerun prime? the tech guy that came told me that cablecards for htpc requires a stronger signal, but from what i understand, their cable box have a cablecard inside also but it works fine.

Bought this back when it went on sale months ago for around $220. It has been a great purchase and even moreso with the NFL back on. My main TV hooked up to my HTPC has the most interesting game on while one my xBox 360's will have RedZone on and my other two xBox 360's will stream other games of interest.

I love Sundays.