Ceton announces new 6-tuner outboard whole-house DVR system - Page 3

Originally Posted by Blue

From what I've read over at the Tivo Community Forum, at the time it will initially be launched until they complete new software (who knows when), Tivo's new extender will actually permanently steal one of the Elite's 4 tuners. Thus, if you hope, as I do, to have multiple extenders in little used rooms knowing that you'll only have 1 or 2 TVs in use at the same time (maybe 3 on a rare, rare occasion), the Tivo solution won't work very well. So now it's a race between Ceton getting the Q and Echo to market and Tivo not just getting their extenders to market, but also finishing new software, which won't be available at the initial launch, to allow active management of the tuners.

I hope Ceton gets this thing out soon. It sounds like the better product as compared to Tivo -- if for no other reason than because it will have 6 tuners versus Tivo's 4 -- and I've been putting off dealing with new wiring for months thinking one of these two products was just around the corner.

Originally Posted by ybsane

This looks promising: http://www.cable360.net/ct/52277.html

Originally Posted by Operon

One of my early analysis of Ceton's system was the ability or lack thereof to sling media to mobile devices across the lan or to the Internet. It seems that Tivo is a step ahead of Ceton within this realm. Despite the inelegance of locking each tuner to the remote box and unlike my Moxi/Mate solution or Ceton's, consumers can be a a fickle lot and may prefer receiving media on their iPhone and consider their home displays as secondary devices. Who knows. I'm looking to replace my Moxi and I am hoping Ceton gets its act together and brings their product to market.



This seems a bit behind the curve considering Arris' home gateway that is available on some cable systems.

Originally Posted by wco81

Tivo was an announcement at a show. No prices or shipping dates, right?

All this stuff is starting to smell like vapor.

Originally Posted by videobruce

Why on earth would anyone need six tuners?? Even four tuners is hard to figure.

Originally Posted by DSperber

Supporting simultaneous "live" watching from TV's around the house, as well as "recording". Each activity requires a dedicated tuner.

Better safe than sorry.

And it's a "Whole Home" solution that's being offered. It's not hard to imagine all six tuners being used when it's divided up among a family.

Originally Posted by videobruce

Why on earth would anyone need six tuners?? Even four tuners is hard to figure.

Originally Posted by Blue

I'm not ready to call them vapor yet. Tivo had said late summer; now they say fall. Ceton has always said this year if I'm remembering correctly, so they are way off from failing to meet the expectations anyone should reasonably have. Still, I'm impatient.

As to the comment above about feeding Ipads and the like, true, Tivo has announced plans for that, but it's just not very important to me. I recognize I'm likely in the minority on this, but I want to watch sports, shows, and movies on my big HDTV. I surf and do email on my Ipad and laptop. I really don't need to see TV on the little screen or do surfing or working on the little screen. Maybe if I could download a bunch of recordings to my computer and take them on a trip, I'd be interested, but I'm not much of a techie, so I wouldn't know how to do it. Plus I've always heard that most of the good content is flagged so you can't do that. If I'm wrong, please correct me, because it could become a decision point if either Tivo or Ceton would let me take recordings with me on trips so I can watch sitcoms and premium channel movies on vacation.

Originally Posted by Operon

While I generally agree with your sentiments about the "little screen" a manufacturer who dismisses mobile devises as points of delivery does so at their own peril. I for one would appreciate receiving recorded media from my DVR to my work PC. Though the appeal of watching video programming on an iPhone or, to a lesser extent, a tablet is to me suspect, as I ride the subway I see enough people albeit younger folk watching video on their iPhones to merit its attention.

Originally Posted by wco81 

Year is half over.
Is this going to be a real product?

Originally Posted by wco81 

Year is half over.
Is this going to be a real product?

Ceton Q Update

Since previewing the Q at CES in January we’ve learned more about Microsoft’s plans for Windows Embedded, the operating system on which the Ceton Q is based (at CES we demonstrated the Q running on Windows Embedded Standard 7). While Windows Media Center is available with the consumer version of Windows 8, it is still unclear whether Media Center will be offered in the next version of Windows Embedded. We expected that question would have been resolved by now but it’s hasn’t. So, what to do???

We’ve been discussing a few different options internally for a while and frankly we haven’t decided the best path forward yet. What we have decided is that the Ceton Q as previewed at CES will not launch this year as we planned 10 months ago. It’s possible the Q will launch in 2013, either as initially envisioned or perhaps re-envisioned, but we can’t guarantee that at this point. We know there is a ton of interest in the Q and that this news will be disappointing to a lot of you but we think it’s important to be upfront about where things stand.

Ultimately, we want to make sure that we deliver great products that customers will love for years to come. Given the flux at Microsoft around some of the key components we were relying on, we simply don’t feel we can do that with the Q at this point.

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Originally Posted by DSperber 

I suspect it has to do with MS's licensing and DRM agreements with Cablelabs, that allow M-Card's to be used in TV tuner products under the tight DRM control of Windows Media Center and Win7 as the prerequisite to allowing copy-protected content to be delivered, recorded, and decrypted.
Essentially the Q is an outboard version of a Ceton M-Card-enabled TV tuner card, living in a standalone Windows machine running Windows Media Center.