Latest Ceton InfiniTV 4 Info Thread - Page 3

Are most shows in Comcast copy freely like FIOS or copy protected?

I would guess that is dependent on what your local Comcast is doing. Here in Houston most of the Digital Starter Tier was not protected. We had our local digital conversion in May which added a bunch of HD channels to the tier. It seems like all or at least most of those new channels are protected. My brother lives nearby and he has Digitial Preferred and much of that is also protected including any new channels in that tier that came on stream in May conversion.

I would not reccomend anyone build a strategy around the assumption that what is copy freely today will be copy freely tomorrow. My brother has Sage and while Sage is a wonderful piece of software and has very nice extenders the lack of DRM on Sage meant he would loose tons of channels. He has his Sage deployment on hold after a significant investment in time and money over the changing status of copy protection. He personally hates WMC but it can play the content today and tomorrow... too bad the WMC extender market is down to a single offering.

This is what bothers me the most about WMC right now. I don't want to buy an XBox 360, but that might be what I end up doing anyway.
I could go with individual HTPC's, but I like the idea of shared recordings. I'm not sure how viable the Linksys, HP and D-Link extenders still floating around on ebay are.

CFC

Yup, I just need to weigh how much I want central recording vs. flexibility of a stand-alone HTPC.

CFC

Copy Protected Contenr is the strongest argument for a Windows Media Extenders... don't mix up what a WMC Extender can do vs.. a garden variety extender. If you are running PCs all over the place the recorded copy protected content is all over the place. Not with a WMC extender though. The storage is on the WMC that is extended.

For me recordings are not so much the issue eihter way. I don't record that much I just want to watch any content in whatever room I am in. Also I don't want to pay for a cablecdard rental.

Which brings us all back to where MS should write software that allows a WMC 7 box to act as an extender to any other WMC 7 box in the Home Group.

Are the Ceton cards compatible with FIOS? Also you say you can transfer shows you recorded off of FIOS?

I read somewhere the price is suppose to drop to around $270.

Yes, FIOS uses a CableCard system, so the Ceton (and any other CableCard device) is compatible.

Yes, you can get a Ceton InfiniTV4 for about that price now.

CFC

So is it better to have one that plugs in to your network like the SiliconDust HDHomeRun PRIME, or one that goes into your HTPC? I'm kind of leaning towards the network type.

I assume he means hd prime which is external and connects via Ethernet rather then pci express.

Yes. It connects to the router.

The ceton is also a network tuner btw.

The differences in the approach between Silicon Dust and Ceton is essentially a software design approach assuming the Prime cablecard devices works like the HomeRuns do. While I have the Ceton and feel it is a very good tool there is much to be said for the Silicon Dust approach to the software. Sadly, the hardware designs compromises for each don't make any sense from the customer perspectrive.

The customer ideally only wants to use one cablecard. 4 tuners without dynamic tuner allocation is a mismatch just as 3 tuners with dynamic is a mismatch for most folks. Four tuner is enough for all but the most demanding situation if you have dynamic allocation. 6 tuner solutions that require two cablecards is not an economic approach. 4 tuners would easily be enough for most folks if they were assigned on a first come, first serve basis dynaically.

Because TV Signal Setup in Media Center is so tedious you don't want to do it very often, that is the beauty of the SiliconDust software design and the weakness of the Ceton Network Tuner software. With the SiliocnDust approach you set the PC up so that TV Signal Setup thinks all the tuners are available all the time. When you are running at a particular TV you only run out of tuners when they are all acutally in use. With the Ceton you can have no access to a tuner at all even though none are being used anywhere in your Home Group.

On the Ceton a simple thing like the PC with the Ceton 4 being powered off while a Client PC has a tuner being accessed and you break TV Signal Setup. Think UPS here and don't down the PC hosting the Ceton card without cruising your house to make sure one PC somewhere doesn't have Media Center minimized with a tuner tuned.

I have run the TV Signal Setup with the Ceton many times, too many times in fact. 4 tuners one cablecard and dynamic allocation is from a practical point of view the way to go. That combo would be cost effective to buy, cost effective to operate and would provide sufficient tuner access for quite a number of PCs and WMC extenders. Unfortunately that is not a product combination we get to choose.

Life is much better than it was before Ceton and SiliconDust put their products in the market but each strategy is slightly flawed. 3 tuners even with dynamic allocation is not enough. A 6 tuner Silicondust solution would almost be an embarrasment of riches. Realistically, with 6 tuners dynamically allocated, you would really never run out of tuners. Too bad it costs Comcast users a hundred dollars a year to rent the second cablecard required to drive the tuners 4,5 and 6.

Most of the time you will never have tuners 5 and 6 doing anything in a dynamically assigned environment unless you're providing cable television to a dormitory.

With the Ceton 4 tuners is not enough to handle every TV or PC I have in the house that are frequently used a 4 tuner SiliconDust would though...

So if those 4 tuners were dynamically allocated I would be hard pressed to ever run out of tuners. I do have an HD Homerun feeding ATSC from the roof. The Homerun helps so I am can better take advantage of the 4 statically assigned cablecard tuners. Still with a Ceton 4 and an HD Homerun providing the locals I have to have two Extenders in places I would prefer PCs and my wife's PC does not have access to a cablecard tuner at all. All this gear and it's not enough, crazy really.

I ordered my ceton card at microcenter since they finally updated the pricing and will pick it up after work today. I called comcast and scheduled an appt for Sunday since they only let techs install them here. I was told since I have two DVRs (one for my father and one mine to be returned when I know the ceton is setup properly) the cost of the cablecard is $9.xx a month.. Is anyone else paying this much for a cablecard? Its a bit ridiculous IMO when a standard non dvr box costs the same.

Saw them on Zon for 299 yesterday...

Can I watch 3d content through this tuner? What do I need. I have read mix things on this. the cable company told me I can't.

Just talked with a rep at my cable company and was told an m-card would be $1.99 a month.

I'm getting my cable card for free. You can work with your cable company. they are very flexible, especially when you tell them you will go with someone else.

I have to pay for my cable card...but then I am getting teh FiOS Ultimate Bundle with 35M/35M Internet, Ultimate HD TV, and FiOS Voice all for $80 a month...so I cannot complain.

I'm going to throw a scenario out there and you guys let me know the plausibility of it working or not.

Say I were to have 2 HTPCs and a server. The server houses the Ceton card with 2 tuners linked to HTPC1 and the other 2 linked to HTPC2. That way I can watch live TV on each HTPC and have the ability to record at the same time. I saw earlier in the thread about using software iSCSI to have recordings stored on a different computer...in this case on the server.

At this point we now have all recordings on the server but they will not be able to play on both HTPCs since half the recordings are linked to one and the other half are linked to the other. My question is can the recordings be transcoded or remuxed in order to alter the copy protection or get rid of it altogether? I don't know anything about WMC / 7MC so bear with me but will it even recognize and play a recording if it is any other file other than .wtv?

I am getting the employee discount. Which, for the first time ever, is actually a good deal!

AFAIK, yes, provided your vid card supports it.

Nope, can't do it.

CFC