Watch TV/Cable on PS3 in the USA

The UK has had PlayTV for a while now, but it appears we are finally going to be able to watch TV on the PS3 in the US - at least those of us wtih HDHomeRun Prime devices will be able to. I can't wait for this firmware to be released!

I recently made the jump to CableCard, and was thinking about building another HTPC for the game room, where we have no tuner. This completely solves that problem!

http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/05/hdhomerun-prime-is-the-first-cablecard-tuner-to-deliver-live-tv/

You will also need the HDHomeRun Prime receiver to plug the CableCard into, about $129. This version of the firmware hasn't been released for the Prime yet, I'm running the latest beta right now and the HDHomeRun doesn't show up on my PS3 yet. I'll report back when it is up and running.

HDHomeRun is not a Happauge product. It's from SiliconDust. I have 100% signal coming off my 7db attenuation splitter port, no problem here at all, but I'm FiOS. The 3db port off the splitter goes to my Verizon router. SiliconDust does not have a USB device. If there was a CableCard USB device, it would be extremely bulky, as the M Stream CableCard is the form of the old PCCard/PCMCIA card.

The HDHomeRun Prime has 3 cable tuners within. I also have a two-tuner HDHomeRun non-CableCard tuner, which receives either ATSC antenna or unencrypted digital cable (ClearQAM). All 5 tuners are available within my Windows Media Center, and all can be recorded and/or watched simultaneously. I don't have to perform any manual "switch inputs" as you mention.

The limit of tuners on Windows 7 is four of each type, not two. So you can have 4 analog, 4 digital antenna, 4 ClearQAM, and 4 CableCard tuners at the same time. There's an application called TunerSalad ($5) that ups the limit to 12.

I have not had any issues with encryption, or HDHomeRun or PC lockups, and these are not new installations.

I stream TV to two dedicated HTPCs, my home office PC (which I'm on now and watching cable TV), and one iPad2.

Verizon charges me $3.99 per month to rent the CableCard, which I think is a rip-off, but it beats paying them for their DVRs and set-top boxes. The only real disadvantage is that a movie recorded on one HTPC cannot be viewed on another if the channel is marked as "do not copy". This is mostly true with the big movie channels only, such as Cinemax, Showtime and HBO. The regular channel recordings work just fine on any of the systems.

To make this relevant to my post, the reason the do not record channels will work on the PS3 and not many other systems out of the box is because they support the standard required to do so. I think it's another advantage for the PS3.

My goal wasn't to be defensive, just wanted to make sure there was no confusion in the event someone wanted to go down this path.

I see what you mean about two tuners, the SiliconDust ones have three.

I got to thinking about this, it would be pretty neat if it works through Remote Play. Along the lines of what is talked about in this article.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andyrobertson/2012/12/18/vita-and-playstation-3-create-gaming-perfection-for-families-if-only-they-knew-it/

Beta firmware for HDHomeRun Prime released yesterday. Have tested it here, works great. Picture quality on PS3 is fantastic. All channels working, even encrypted channels.

Project:Connect beta – HDHomeRun® Prime users to have DLNA support

The SiliconDust team is happy to announce the first Project:Connect beta release. Head over the http://my.hdhomerun.com/beta and sign up. A valid email address and HDHomeRun® Prime (HDHR3-CC) device ID is required.

Key Features:

Serve live content to MPEG2 capable DLNA/UPnP renders.
Serve live copy-protected content to DTCP-IP certified renders.
Beta users will utilize the standard DLNA UI offered on devices; we encourage productive feedback. As a part of Project:Connect, we will be enhancing the User Experience based on our roadmap and your productive feedback. We are extremely interested in your likes, dislikes, and feature requests. Connect with the HDHomeRun® community via the Project:Connect forum: http://www.silicondust.com/ext/forum

Works through DLNA. Yes it shows up on the Video section. Yep, all the channels appear. There is no guide yet, but if you are like me and you have a dedicated game room setup, it eliminates the need for a cable box if you just want to be able to put on a certain channel, for example if a game is on. So right now at this point, you have to know what channel you want to watch. The encrypted channels work because the PS3 supports DTCP-IP.

I'm hoping at some point there will be an app. It would not be difficult to take this all the way and give it a guide and DVR capabilities. As I mentioned in the first post, they already have these capabilities in England.

It already is being used as a DVR in England, so it is already happening, has been for a while.
http://uk.playstation.com/playtv/

I don't know about your PS3, but one of mine has 500gb, the other 320.

I do agree, that's not much space for recording, but it would be an interesting study.

I'm an HTPC geek too, I started with GBPVR about 6 years ago on Windows XP, been using 7MC ever since Windows 7 was released as beta. I'm watching Throw Mama from the Train on Epix2 in the corner of the monitor I'm typing this on as I speak.

It did stink when the free guides went away for GBPVR. That's one of the nice things on 7MC, free guides.

XBMCbuntu would be nice. No Windows licensing cost, easy install, etc.