CableLabs Approves Tuner Sharing and DRM Free Copy Freely Content

[UncleJohnsBand]

Found this on the HDHR site.......

From Digital Media Zone

From the post on the HDHR site it appears they have a cablecard solution ready to go.....

[UncleJohnsBand]

The HDHR unit for cable card also has 3 tuners....

HDHomeRun® PRIME™ – three tuner CableCARD™ HDHomeRun® for Windows 7!
Say goodbye to the cable box… watch and record premium cable TV channels on any Windows 7 computer on your home network!

A lot has happened since the CES announcement – the upgrade to triple tuners, the production form factor hardware, successful on-site testing at CableLabs® and Microsoft® facilities, vendor meetings, sales meetings… everything is coming together for a successful launch this year.

[johnsonx42]

I honestly have a feeling this will end up making very little difference to the users of 3rd party TV apps. Everything worthwhile is going to get flagged "CopyOnce"; what will really drive users crazy it that it will be on a show-by-show basis, so at first it will look like they're receiving all the standard cable channels, but as they start using it one show after another will fail to record with the DRM flags set.

Hopefully I'll be proven wrong.

[whurlston]

Yeah, I'm not crazy about the copy once flag. I attempted to use firewire once and gave up when I could not record NBC's Heroes due to the copy once flag and that's just a broadcast TV show.

The good news is that Nick has stated the the HDHR Prime does not differentiate between Clear QAM and Copy Freely so Copy Freely encrypted content (if you can find it) should work with GBPVR from 0 day.

[UncleJohnsBand]

I am not overly familiar with how the DRM is going to work. Will I be able to get my HBO shows to record on the PC and then view them via NPVR?

[re-Barr]

When Jasonl says "Copy protected channels will continue to only be playable on either the PC that recorded them or extenders that extend that PC." that would mean that the PCH should still be fine with one of these cards right? If that is the caseI may give this a second look.

[johnsonx42]

Will I be able to get my HBO shows to record on the PC and then view them via NPVR?

NO. All HBO shows will be flagged with DRM. Only CableLabs certified media applications (read: Microsoft Media Center) will be able to record and play back DRM'd content. There will NEVER be an exception to this.

[johnsonx42]

When Jasonl says "Copy protected channels will continue to only be playable on either the PC that recorded them or extenders that extend that PC." that would mean that the PCH should still be fine with one of these cards right? If that is the caseI may give this a second look.

I don't think a PCH is a media center extender. As far as I know the only Media Center Extender available is the XBOX 360. But I may be wrong.

[sub]

Will I be able to get my HBO shows to record on the PC and then view them via NPVR?

HBO is unlikely. The mileage will vary on other channels, and is pretty much up to your cable provider. Infortunately there is no guarantee they wont get more restrictive in future too, even if the majority of channels are available today.

They can effectively mark channels as either 'copy freely' or 'copy once'. It sounds like 'copy freely' channels will be usable in apps like NPVR. Hopefully they'd only use 'copy once' sparingly, with the majority of the channels/shows using 'copy freely', but we'll have to wait an see. Its quite possible they'll only mark the locals to be 'copy freely', which would be damn annoying.

[mvallevand]

I don't think a PCH is a media center extender. As far as I know the only Media Center Extender available is the XBOX 360. But I may be wrong.

The PCH's do not support the Microsoft family of Media Centres. They also don't support dvr-ms or wtv formats and DRM was never made available. There are a few dedicated media extenders from Linksys,HP and D-Link.

I am 100% happy with HBO (Canada) and all the premium channels I get via NPVR extended to the PCH. While I only get one tuner, my cableco does provide timeshifting of Canadian and American networks with both east and west coast feeds so I have repeats and six hours to play with which is like two tuners.

Martin