Ceton Digital Cable Quad-Tuner Card

[ilovejedd]

Thought I should mention HDHomeRun's coming up with a dual-tuner CableCARD. I think they're also in talks with Cable Labs if content marked Copy Freely can be allowed on third party PVR software. Here's to hoping...

[pcostanza]

Do recordings of premium channel, made by MCE from a cablecard device, play in WMP?

The answer is no. I tried both HBO and Showtime and got the same message. Also, while I can play any non premium channel on any W7 computer on the network, this is not the case with premium channels. MS obviously had to make some deals in order to do some of the things they wanted to.
If you ever need a sample video file, let me know and I'll send you one.

[whurlston]

When you say "non premium", does that include channels like SciFi HD and TNT HD or are they included in premium with HBO/Showtime?

[pcostanza]

My definition of premium is HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Starz....things my cable company makes me pay extra for. Syfy is working fine for me. Just tried TNT and it works fine. And, for laughs and giggles, I tried W7's convert to dvr-ms on the 2 premium channels and that didn't work either. I remember in early Vista testing, a few testers were able to get around burning to dvd with these stations but that was with the first gen cable card tuners. Don't know anyone now who can do this.

[whurlston]

Bah, I don't care about HBO, Showtime, Cinemax or Starz. Been without them fo 5 years so I don't need them now.

Just out of curiosity, can you watch the recordings from the non premiums in GBPVR if you add them to your Video Library? Or WMP for that matter?

[pcostanza]

I hear ya on the premiums. Due to my paying for cable tv, internet and telephone with my cable company for years, they give me HBO free for life ($13.99 a month) I don't buy any other premium. However, twice now they've given me Showtime for free for 1 year. I'm in the middle of the second year! Can't complain though I pay $177 a month for all 3 services (including 2 cable cards at $1.98 a month).
.wtv files, either recorded with the cable card or digital tuners have always worked for me in GBPVR. No reason to convert to dvr-ms. The remote even works fine.

[whurlston]

.wtv files, either recorded with the cable card or digital tuners have always worked for me in GBPVR. No reason to convert to dvr-ms. The remote even works fine.

Awesome. I just wasn't sure if there was a flag that would prevent them from being used in another app. Looks like it's time to start looking into creating an "MCE recording source" for GBPVR so we can schedule recordings directly from GBPVR.

Anyone know when the Hauppauge tuners are coming out?

[pcostanza]

Anyone know when the Hauppauge tuners are coming out?

Ceton is rumored to be out about the end of March. Silicon beta testing starts in April and the only rumor I saw about Hauppauge said they were being very quiet but in Sept. 09 it was said by the end of 2009! I've seen guessing at sometime shortly after Ceton but we all know how that goes. How many were we teased with at last years CES show that still haven't seen daylight?
Let me know if you need any help testing an MCE app.

[mkenyon2]

So, pcostanza... you record shows using W7 MCE, but can watch through GBPVR. Do you stream to any devices, like MVP or PCH?

[pcostanza]

So, pcostanza... you record shows using W7 MCE, but can watch through GBPVR. Do you stream to any devices, like MVP or PCH?

I have an A110 and stream GBPVR but anything I record on my Media Center PC I usually just copy to a thumb drive and watch from there. I had problems having 2 systems in the network running mvpmc.
Many times I use VideoReDo to strip the commercials and then encode to H.264 (they just released VRD TV Suite 4 with H.264 addon.......works great).