DCR-2650/Cablecard Dilemma

[soccerdad]

I am at a crossroad and am not sure where to go. I have long dreamed of being able to easily record anything I pay for and came close to getting an HDPVR. It kills me to tell my wife we can't record something or have to record SD analog (mine sucks). I did not really like the blasting/firewire solution and held out for the cablecard. On the surface, cablecard is the cleanest solution around. Two tuners and no blasters. Cool. But I did not understand the impact that the broadcast flags would be on my system. Virtually all channels on my system are copy-once except for the main networks. I am very impressed with the new built in solutions for the DCR-2650, but am only able to use it for a minumum amount of recording. I found a program, wtvwatcher to convert the non-protected wtv files to dvrms files so comskip will work. Martin's network recorder work is cool and a way to get the flagged files recorded. But to play them back, the only solution is to do it in WMC7 and then come back to NPVR.

Another long standing goal has been to use the PVR program as our gateway to live TV and recording. This worked in the analog days, but I have only been using GBPVR/NPVR for recording/playback and have had to use a STB for normal viewing.

So the dilemma. NPVR can do much of the recording, but not the playback of the drm stuff. WMC7 can do most everything I want, but I don't have an xbox for an extender. And, well,... its WMC7. I have spent so many years on this forum, I is REALLY hard for me to even think of using WMC. But the WAF is critical and the STB and PVR solution is kind of limiting and I just don't see a nice way at this point to go back and forth between WMC and NPVR. I own the DCR now, and probably should have looked into all of this more before buying it. With the new support for switched digital tuning adapters, it works really well in WMC7.

So for now, I am working on setting up the WMC7 system and see how the wife likes it. I will keep digging and testing the stuff on this great forum. I have learned so much over the years and your patience has been unbelievable. This is my hobby and it the thought of moving to WMC7 leaves me kind of empty. I will set up a test box with some old tuners and keep up with what you are doing but I will explore WMC for now. Hopefully we will get ATT or Verizon to offer stuff in our area. I hear they don't use copy flags at the moment. But who knows.

Thanks for listening to my tale. And thanks for all the help.

Soccerdad

[mvallevand]

My feeling is if you are happy with Media Center and you don't need a client it is your best choice on the host If you want PC clients or don't want to live with the limitations of using the xbox360 as clients you still need NPVR for those copy-freely files. I have been investigating the possibility of a building a plugin to the WMC database so you could use NPVR on the clients, but MS don't document the database and it is also different from the Recordings.xml file that exists on my Vista dev box and I don't want to pay to upgrade just for this.

For my needs NPVR with the HDPVR is the better solution. I will be upgrading my machine one year and I like the thought that all my archived videos can move with me.

Martin

[lovemyram4x4]

For WAF I'd have to say 7MC has NPVR beat by a long shot and if you're used to using what's supported by NPVR for extenders then you won't be losing much/anything going to media center extenders, in the liveTV/DVR you'll be gaining the ability of watching everything you pay for. Though my experience w/ NPVR is limited at this time, 7MC has a nicer looking and more functional UI(I don't if I've missed something but I can't seem to go into menus in NPVR while playing something w/o it stopping). 7MC is one of the easiest to set up especially w/ cablecard tuners(all your channel mapping is pulled right off the cablecard). If you want a cheap low powered quiet extender DMA 2100/2200(can be found NIB on ebay) fit the bill, D-link/HP/Samsung have nice extenders but cost much more and harder to find.

If you need any help w/ setting up(both standard or custom) 7MC and/or w/ what it can/can't do I'll be glad to help out.

[Northpole]

@soccerdad,

I was thinking about getting the DCR-2650 but now I'm not so sure. I was wondering who your cable source is? You mentioned ATT & Verzion, do they seem to have less copy flagged channels?

[lovemyram4x4]

Uverse uses IPTV not cablecard so at this time it's irrelevant what the copy flags are set at, FiOS in most markets are all copy freely.

[soccerdad]

I am on Time Warner Cable, who as far as I can tell has the most universal "copy-once" flagging policy. Accross the country, they flag everything they can. My understanding is that Verizon (FiOSs) is not copy protected. I also understand that comcast does not flag much. The bigger question is what will they do in the future. Basically, if they can determine for some business reason (like any way to make more money), then they can turn on the flags at any time. I also understand that sometimes they will just flag a single show or episode, thus killing your recording. It seems that the FCC lets them do about anything they want with this, with the exception of the standard OTA kings (FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS) They need to be in clear, QAM, and not flagged.

I don't quite get how the FCC made the cable companies offer cablecards, made them provide self install kits, then just allow them to flag everything. This makes it useless to everyone unless they use a Microsoft product. (or go through the extreme hurdles imposed by CableLabs, who somehow approves what applications "protect" digital rights.) Unfortunately, I doubt that SiliconDust, Hauppauge, TiVo and Ceton have enough power or user base to get this to change.

That said, the DCR-2650 is a nice unit and seems to work well as long as you have a good signal. BUT, you will likely end up on MC7 if they flag much content.

[lovemyram4x4]

One thing that helps all those FiOS markets that are still all copy freely stay that ways is most of their cablecards are unpaired which makes it so you can't watch anything unless it's copy freely, so anytime they inadvertently or for any other reason set the flags to anything else they a lot of complaint calls, they have however been putting the copy flags on the markets that they've updated to support both Motorola and SA encryption but they've seemed to have stopped that effort for now.

The only real hurdle to get Cablelabs cert is the money, that's why Microsoft is the only one to step up, it's the same reason why they have a media product that arguably works better but is limited to what features they decide to give you(aside from hacks and addins).

[Northpole]

@soccerdad & @lovemyram4x4

Thanks for the input. We're going to be moving soon, away from a comcast market to a quest/century tel/charter market. I've not heard good things about them, but perhap att uverse is available.

[mikeh49]

In my Charter market, all of the "non-premium" cable channels (at least the ones I care about, USA, TNT, FX, AMC) are copy freely. I can't speak about HBO, etc. since I don't get those. I've been recording off the cable box using firewire for 3 years.