The Official Vista Cable Card Thread - Page 4

It's vendor specific and you won't be able to get the info to do it yourself. And yes, it basically is a custom BIOS.

All the content protection paths are present in Vista and the current drivers for AMD and NVIDIA video cards, so we don't have to do anything extra there...

Thanks again. Could a big MB vendor say ASUS produce a line which has this custom bios and be cablecard ready?



Which would also mean DIYers don't have to do anything extra when they have a cablecard ready MB and the Vista key. Could a big cablecard turner vendor take the burden of signing compliance agreement with MS and distribute the Vista key to DIYers in a stand alone way?

Yes theoretically a mobo vendor could, but it's a thing with cable labs saying the WHOLE system must be certified.

see answer above about ATI selling cable card tuners directly. Although they have stated multiple times that they are pursing the ability to sell directly to the end user.

Not likely - Asus would have to certify an entire system and sell it preconfigured. Cable Labs has stipulated VERY large fines for breaking compliance - per incident. Also, you would not be able to buy the COA's for digital cable support - you have to be direct with Microsoft.

AMD could not sign a blanket compliance letter for DIY systems because they could not guarantee compliance by the hardware that could be used in the system. There are strict requirements in terms of HDCP, Macrovision, etc...

Hi Chris!

Thanks so much for all the information that you have provided on this topic. I am very interested in purchasing a setup that will allow me to use the DCTs in a pc. I have a question for you concerning vendor compliance. What if for example Velocity Micro should fall out of compliance for whatever reason. Would this invalidate my system if after a certain period of time goes by the company fails or no longer wants to offer DCTs even though the system I bought from comany X still meets the requirements for DCTs? I'm close to pulling the trigger on a system either through VelocityMicro or maybe Dell if I can verify that the XPS410 is indeed DCT ready. The price of a VelocityMicro system is at minimum 2k that supports DCT. I would hate buying one only to have it stop working becuase the company fell out of compliance. I would be left with nothing but a door stop.

Are the systems quiet? I need to have a quiet system. I noticed that you install your Vista MCE systems in and origen case. I'm not familiar with these cases as I have an arisetec HT-400 case with an acousti-pak foam kit installed in the case, and it is very very quiet.

Efrain

Yes, Cable Labs has the ability to shut off keys, but perhaps my terminology above was wrong. The whole reason they monitor the keys every 90 days is so that if there's a rogue vendor out there shilling DCT in a way that invites piracy, they can shut them down without affecting other users. We of course are very interested in selling the product for use the way it was designed for, so you shouldn't worry.

And yes, the systems are very quiet. There is foam dampening where the HDDs sit and rubber grommets where they screw in. We use Arctic Cooling Freezer HS/F and the fans on those are susbended with rubber grommets. The fans are low noise and I believe them to be as quiet or quieter than PVRs on the market. At 5ft I registered a 1dB increase over ambient room noise. (with every machine turned off in the room)

Well, with all this macrovision junk that limits what we could do with our recorded copy, it's just not worth it. And I wanted to hand over my money to ATI, too.

I can get DVD quality movies just by taping the shows through SVideo, my current ATI AIW setup, and a HD cable box from Verizon..and I can back those up as often as I want . Just like taping a show on a VCR in the old days..

They trusted us (with a one foot pole to keep us in reach, albeit) in the VHS days, but apparently Hi-Def content we can't be trusted with..

Chris Morley, Thanks so much for your valuable info!

Please tell me if I have this straight: Even with the Blu-ray drive option, TV shows recorded to the hard drive cannot be archived to disc? Can they be copied (or moved) to another external hard drive? If your main computer should die, despite the location of your recordings, you can't play your recordings on any other "DCT certified/compliant" computer, just the original one which is now dead? What is the proper name for this whole restrictive protocol? [I'm expecting some acronym like DTCP+, HDCP-pro, Vistalock, CGMS2007, 5C MKII ] I at least want to know my enemy's name.

I thought they already announced a fix for that problem on the day of it's official release.

To echo most everyone above, Thanks for the info Chris. It's much appreciated.

The Question I have is what's the rational behind the 2 tuner limit? I know Microsoft has a 2 OCUR tuner limit but that's really just an arbitrary software limitation. The same restriction exists in MCE 2005 but there is a relatively straight forward Registry hack that will allow you to have basically as many tuners as you want (in MCE 2k5 that is). One of the MCE Devs (Peter Rosser) even did a HOWTO of sorts on his blog.

Anyway, I've been waiting of VistaMCE specifically for CableCard support. I'd really like to have 3 or 4 OCUR tuners, But if all I can get is 2 I guess I can live with it... If I have too...

Thanks Again.

I currently use a Toshiba Gigabeat S60 Portable Media Center device. When I sync it with my computer, Windows Media Player transcodes and syncs the last week's worth of recorded TV that was recorded in Windows Media Center. This works fine with both analog cable recordings and OTA HD recordings. I have read somewhere that this won't work once I upgrade to a DCT based setup. I want to know if that is that true for all recordings made using an OCUR device, or is it only for recordings that are marked "protected" (such as those from HBO, etc.). Anyone have any info?

Thanks,
Yogi

A fix for what?

Hey guys, sorry I have not had time to answer your questions.

Yogi-

Your only choice currently for viewing DCT content outside of your DCT certified system is the XBOX 360. Your portable media player is a no go.

As to more than two tuners - I don't know how or if we can get around this at this time or if it would make us in violation of the rules. This will certainly be something we will explore in the future as one customer wanted to buy two more tuners for his already maxed out configuration.

I will try to update my blog from time to time with more information when possible.

www.morleydigital.com

Is there any protection in vista/cablecard to stop you from backing up hd shows to another computer?

Wow. This stuff is so locked down it seems pointless for me. I'm constantly converting TV shows to my girlfriends iPod so she can watch them at lunch. Its also nice to be able to watch recorded TV on any PC in the house (we have 4). I can see locking down premium channels but not regular cable channels. Guess I'm sticking with analog cable and bit torrent for the channels I can't get.

Good question. I think you would be able to copy them to another PC, but just not play them.

I'm with you there. I do wish it was more open to stuff like that so it would be more attractive for our customers...

Yeah, That should work just like current CGMS-A recordings do today. You can copy them to other media, it's just not going to play back on a different device. You could back it up to a HD DVD or BD (Data, not video) and then copy it back to the machine you recorded it on to play it back.

It can only be played within Media Center on that machine you recorded it on (not in other media player, even WMP).

Chris

Chris Morley, I echo what others have said. This thread has the info in it that I've been searching for since the announcement well over a year ago. Finally some facts. I've bookmarked your blog.

Wow, that's really cool. I honestly had no idea there was really that little public info on the matter. I am glad that I could help out.

Could I upgrade that machine? For example, I want better video card, more memory, faster cpu...Would the upgrade invalidate the cablelab certification?
Thanks in advance.

Good question - my guess would be upgrading the motherboard would trigger a flag with Vista, but everything else would be ok. I will try to test this within the next week and get back to you.

I would love to know too Chris.

From my point, video card should be fine as long as it has the correct drivers (PVP-OPM, signed, CGMS-A, etc).

Memory is fine.

Faster CPU you might hit a problem, but I doubt much big (outside of standard Windows activation problems).

And Motherboard is where you would hit big problems, of course it would have to have the BIOS. And once you change motherboards that's also going to set off Windows activation problems.

Chris

Chris,

I purchased an $800 24" monitor about a year ago that does not support HDCP. As a result, I am not looking forward to replacing it to upgrade my Media Center box to support DCTs.

I don't plan on using the Media Center PC to watch TV/video on the local monitor, but will use XBox 360 extenders throughout the house to watch TV. Will the Media Center still work without a HDCP monitor?

Thanks,

Rick

If I had to make an educated guess, I'd say it'd record just fine and spit out to the XBOX 360 just fine - but good question. If I get a chance to try that out I'll let you know.

Will content recorded from an OTA tuner within a PC containing an OCUR tuner be locked down as well?

I would think so too. Hopefully it will just limit the playback to 540p on the non-DHCP monitor.

I wonder because when I installed MCE 2005 onto a PC without a sound card, the configuration wizard would complain and not start until I installed a sound card. Hopefully Vista MCE with DCT will still operate without a HDCP monitor.

the whole thing is ridiculous. can't believe I waited for it. not that I could even use the cards anyway since I built my own system. how idiotic is that. oh well, no point in even sticking with cable now. just stick to OTA for now and go to bar or friends houses for big ESPN games.

No.

On Xbox 360, I've gone of this several times (I think in this thread too).

VGA, always 540p.
Component, 1080i unless CIT is set on the show. If CIT is set, 540p.

Chris