Latest Ceton InfiniTV 4 Info Thread - Page 14

I think I'd rather lose recordings than take my chances with an in-place upgrade. Of course, it really isn't much of an issue for those of us who don't have many copy once channels .

GSR, thanks very much for your help.

I am one of the early adopters and I am coming up on 1 year anniversary with Ceton. It has been rock solid. Of course, my previous set up with ATI DCT's was rock solid as well.

My inexpensive $400 HTPC (AMD Athlon II X3 435 Rana, AMD/ATI 785G mobo, 750 Gb PATA!!! hard drive, DVD-ROM, 8Gb DDR2!!! RAM, 1X Ceton + 4x Mygica ClearQAM tuners all in Moneual Y601B case) is always on, does the updates at night, and sometimes reboots on its own after updates. The only reason I know it rebooted is because extenders would say they need to be reconnected in the morning.

I have 2x Linksys DMA 2200 and 1X Linksys DMA 2100 extenders in the bedrooms, and HTPC in the livingroom all connected to a full duplex gigabit network. I just purchased HP X280N for a planned TV in the Family room.

The 6Tb server is also on the same network, but in the basement where it is cooler, which is where the digital collection is stored and acessed.

Added HULU, youtube, classic TV, NASA TV, and a few other integrations.

I just started running MCEBuddy to convert recordings to H264 and store on the server to save space and to get rid of the commercials.

System is rock solid, although I did have to modify the entertainment center by cutting a 5" hole in the back and mounting a 120 mm fan in it to draw the warm air out of the entertinament center. Before I did that I would get an occasional BSD due to overheating in the summer.

How well does MCEBuddy work? Somewhat interested in this...

I was lucky enough to find out that my provider does not copy protect DVR recordings, which is quite nice!

Hahaha, once I get them working correctly.



















No. lol.

The Ceton alone was about $400, how did you get all that other stuff for free?

I was scanning the posts just now....
Wait a minute, rewind here.
First, I still have not got my card running yet.... but before I spend any more of my time trying to get this thing going, talking to tech support, posting here, etc.
Are you saying that you cannot save/edit (do whatever I want with) the shows you record?
If I don't have total control over everything I record then I have no desire to even have this thing....

Take a show... edit out commercials. Convert to any format I like. Watch on any computer or media player. (BTW: what format are these saved in?)

There has to be a way to do this as just about every popular tv show (HD with commercials edited out) can be downloaded through usenet.

Copy Freely: Save,move, play, edit w/ anything that supports the file format.
Copy Once: Save, move, play only w/ machine that made recording or it's extenders.
Copy Prohibited: Live play on machine using the tuner or its extenders.

How things are flagged depends on your provider and area, for me everything is copy freely including premium channels(I haven't tried buying any PPVs), some providers have only clearQAM channels(normally what's available OTA) copy freely, other are in between.

Well, if ever get it running I'll let ya know!!!
Ceton...based on my diagnostic logs I've been sending seems to think I have a bad cable card. Calling to get a replacement.

>>>>new card coming tomorrow!

Hopefully this device will be done a lot better than the HD-PVR at launch - lots of hardware issues with those in first revs.

Don't forget to factor in the extra CableCard rental every month. It would take me 10 months to break even, then the Ceton would start saving me money.

Will the Hauppauge support network tuners???

I want to buy this to use with my HTPC but Cox are being a bunch of idiots. They say they do not have m-cablecards even though they are mandated by FCC to carry them. Any ideas?

New card.... about 2-3 hours with a tech at house or on phone. Still no luck. I give up. Sending back to Amazon before my return window disappears!
Maybe my Ceton is defective... whatever it is I have invested to much time in it for that amount I will use it.
So back it goes :-(

Tell them you have a new Tivo and want to know if they have the cards that works with it. Don't mention m-card...just blather on and on about how wonderful it will be to dvr several shows at the same time. Most likely the guy has no idea what you meant by M-card.

They should support Tivo...everyone does...which means they have mcards.

Finally, I have InfiniTV installed the way I want it.

I installed the card in a media server (i3-2100 running Win7) with sleep mode enabled, so it does NOT run 24/7, yet it is reliably serving multiple clients. Yes, that's right!

The big problem in doing this is the card doesn't like any Win7 power mode other than "high performance" (no sleep) when the media server is only streaming to remote clients (i.e., not displaying video locally).

So I left the server in "high performance" power mode, but installed a a batch file that constantly tries to put the server to sleep. It monitors whether network I/O is above 100 Kbps (i.e., TV streaming to remote clients) and whether media center is running (i.e., someone is watching TV locally at the server). If either is true, the script lets the server stay on. If both are false over a period of about five minutes, the script puts the server to sleep.

For siutations where you want to watch TV on the client, but the server is asleep, I installed login scripts on each client machine that wake the server (WOL) before media center is started.

Now I have a setup that is much better in terms of efficiency than multiple cable STBs.

After going through all of this, I can really see the benefit of installing the card in a WHS 2011 machine running something like the "lights-out" add-on. However, I wanted the box to double as a "Win7 HTPC" for optional connection to a local video display/stereo.

I am wondering though, are there any other options for extenders besides the Xbox360? I don't need nor want to buy another gaming console just to watch live tv in another room of the house.

It seems that the Network Tuner Sharing seems like a hit or miss....so wondering if this could be used to watch tv in a different room...

Unfortunately, the only other extender options are discontinued models:

- Linksys DMA2100 and DMA2200 (only difference is the 2200 adds a DVD player)
- D-Link DSM750
- HP MediaSmart Connect - x280n
- Niveus Media Extender - EDGE (was around $1500 )

Some of these can still be found if you search hard enough, but it will very likely be cheaper to just go with the base model XBOX.

Generally speaking it's cheaper to get a used (or even new in box) Linksys extender on fleabay. They're available for less than $100 shipped. Same for the HP x280n, which is arguably the best extender.

Might have to be a little patient to get the best deal though, some of these go for crazy prices.

The HP x280n is the best extender.

Just thought I would share my experience with the Ceton tuner installation today.

The Infinitv tuner card came in Thursday, had it installed and everything went without a hitch. Of course Comcast was nice to tell me that the CableCard wasn't available in the self-install kit yet until August 1st. So I had to schedule the tech to come out on Saturday with the card and getting it activated. No big deal.

Today the tech came out in the afternoon, told him what I needed done and had already prepped the system for the card. Guy didn't actually know anything about the Ceton (Tuner card lesson 101 time!). Course he was taking notes as I was explaining it to him so I told him that next time he will know what to do.

Cable tech was actually a nice guy and got into computer talk. Installed the card, went in w/o a hitch and pulled up all the info needed to activate the card on the Ceton Tuner Diagnosis screen. Tech was quite impressed that all the info he needed to activate the card was right there on one screen, plus the fact that it has 4 tuners (vs the 2 he currently has). Called it in, and all of the remaining red negative signs turned into check marks and before long everything is now activated. All that was left was setting it up in MC which went without a hitch (thanks to the prep work I did prior to the visit).

The tech was saying that he like this system in setting it up so much better than the Tivo because they've gotten so many service calls every two weeks each time the firmware in the Tivos gets updated then the CableCard quits working. He then asked me about the tuner card and where I got it. Looks like Ceton will be making another sale pretty soon!

I tuned in to some of the HD channels and quality is great, plus the fact that changing channels within MC is quick and painless. Haven't tested the recording functions yet but will work on that later tonight.

Other than that, my install was successful and went well without any problems. I was also glad that the CableCard the tech brought out worked too, as I have heard and read many stories on how the cards were defective or didn't want to activate.

Now to read on Network Tuner Sharing!

I have no idea what he's talking about, because this never happens on Comcast with Tivo here. I've been through multiple Tivo updates and the pairing with Tivo HDs has never changed. Pretty much rock-solid, in other words - I'm running cards originally installed 3 years ago and have never had a card issue once they were properly paired.