[jermmd]

Link
Awesome product, plug and play for me on Windows 7 media center. I only have the three tuner version which is probably enough for most people. I had no cable card issues with Charter and now I have DVR functionality on all laptops and computers in the house. I had a Superbowl party last week and we watched the game on my projector via my wifes laptop. We started watching about 30 minutes after the game began and were able to fast forward, rewind, and skip commercials at will. We also could have been recording or watching up to 5 other shows with the 6 tuner version.

Joe M.

[srb]

I was an early adopter of the first available HD CableCARD tuner, the Ceton infiniTV4, because ..... it was the only one available at the time.  Now that it has some competition from SiliconDust, I though I might present some general information for those thinking about dipping their feet in this technology for the first time.
 
There are presently two HD CableCARD tuners available for the PC:
Ceton infiniTV4
- There are two hardware versions, an internal PCI-Express card and a USB 2.0
external unit, and both are 4-tuner devices.
 
SiliconDust HD HomeRun Prime
- External unit that connects to your router via Ethernet
- There are both a 3-tuner and 6-tuner version.  The 6-tuner version is really 2 X 3-tuner devices in one box.  Only the power cord is shared, and each 3-tuner section requires its own coax cable, Ethernet connection, and most importantly, its own CableCARD rental.
 
Both the inifiniTV4 and HD HomeRun Prime are CableCARD-only tuners, which means that they require a CableCARD from your cable company and work only with US Digital Cable service.  They will not tune Satellite or Over-The-Air ATSC signals via antenna.  They will also only work with Windows 7 Media Center.
 
Also it should be mentioned that a CableCARD tuner that replaces a Set Top Box or DVR will not be able to use bi-directional interactive features like Pay-Per-View or On-Demand.  Also, since many cable companies use Switched Digital Video (SDV) to supply more channels for a given bandwith, if your cable company (and your chosen channel tier) uses SDV, you will also need an external Tuning Adapter box to tune SDV channels.  The TA connects to the tuner with a USB cable, and most cable companies will provide it at no extra charge, if needed.
 
At first sharing tuners over your network among multiple PCs seems like a good idea, but keep these points in mind:
1.  If you use Media Center PCs for remote TVs, they will not share a central Media Center recording schedule, therefore if more programs are scheduled to record than the number of tuners available, the recording will fail, as Media Center is not able to give an alert that no tuner will be available.
2.  Many cable companies have Copy Protection on some of their channels, and these recordings can only be played back via the specific Media Center computer that recorded them.
 
For these reasons, the use of Media Center Extenders, like the XBox 360, are a more practical solution, as they are an extension of a central Media Center PC.  All recordings will share a central recording database and any Extender can play back a Copy Protected recording.
 
Steve

[jermmd]

Steve,

That was really helpful. I didn't realize that the cablecard was required. I have the older HDHomerun as well as the prime so I get OTA stations as well. Also, Charter did require an external box that they supplied for free with the cable card. The XBox media extender is nice but I don't have one. I didn't realize that recorded content on one computer couldn't be played on another PC. I guess I hadn't tried that.

Joe M.

[srb]

The XBox media extender is nice but I don't have one.

It's the only extender currently offered.  Linksys/Cisco previously had models DM2100/2200, but no longer offer them.  They are available used, but performance and menu control is known to be sluggish.  What I don't like about the XBox 360 is that even though the new slim model is supposed to be quieter, the external power supply has a fan that makes too much noise.  I'm hoping that someone will come out with a silent fanless extender.  I have never played a video game on the XBox and bought it only for extender use.  Perhaps Microsoft is no longer licensing extenders in an effort to control the market.
 

I didn't realize that recorded content on one computer couldn't be played on another PC. I guess I hadn't tried that.

Only if the show has Copy Protection.  Some cable companies have few channels that are protected, but my Cox provider has copy protection enabled on most all of the regular digital cable channels except for the local stations.  Also the general HDCP copy protection within Windows Media Center for Digital Cable does not alow for simultaneous HDMI monitors in Duplicate (or cloned) mode. 
 
I can view on one screen whether tuned channels or recordings have copy protection with a web interface for my Ceton card.  I would imagine there is probably something similar for SiliconDust.  If not, that information should be available in the Media Center Details screen separately for each recorded program.
 

 
Looking at my stats, brings up another subject.  My internal PCI-E card runs hot.  At the time they did not have the USB external model for sale.  I figured that a direct connection to the PCI-E bus might be better for avoiding pixelation when recording multiple HD channels rather than a USB interface anyway, but having an external unit is a good idea for heat management, not to mention for use with either a laptop or a small form factor PC that doesn't either have another available PCI-E slot or can't acommodate the card without physically running into obstacles.
 
Steve

[jermmd]

Looking at my stats, brings up another subject.  My internal PCI-E card runs hot.  At the time they did not have the USB external model for sale.  I figured that a direct connection to the PCI-E bus might be better for avoiding pixelation when recording multiple HD channels rather than a USB interface anyway, but having an external unit is a good idea for heat management, not to mention for use with either a laptop or a small form factor PC that doesn't either have another available PCI-E slot or can't acommodate the card without physically running into obstacles.
 
Steve

My units are seperate. I plugged them in a utility closet in the basement and haven't checked on them since. I have both wired and wifi internet at home but HD works best over the wired connection.  I'm wondering if I can use an external hard drive plugged into my router or recording PC and then access it on another PC.

Joe

[srb]

I'm wondering if I can use an external hard drive plugged into my router or recording PC and then access it on another PC.

Windows 7 Media Center will not normally let you designate a network share for the recording location, but instead will only let you choose a locally connected internal or external hard drive.  It is possible to use something like iSCSI to fool Media Center into letting you designate a network recording location, but it does not allow other computers to share that location.
 
You can add multiple network shared storage folder locations (whether a router-connected NAS or local storage on the main PC) for playback to the Media Center TV Library list on each computer, and each computer can playback recordings, subject to any per-show copy protection limitation.
 
You can share the locally connected recording drive with your other computers, but if you want to share a network storage location, many people use the Windows Task Scheduler and a batch file to automatically move completed recordings from the locally connected recording drive to a network location that other computers can access, even without the main computer powered up.
 
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1228796
 
Another reason I like to use an Extender is to resume playback of a recording in another room.  It's not quite as slick as Direct TV, where you can simply hit Pause and then Play in another room, but you can Stop the playback and browse to that same recorded show in the other location and Resume.  If you use another Media Center PC instead of an Extender, you would have to remember or write down the paused time location of the show, then manually locate that same time position on the other PC.

I originally thought my info might be helpful to those contemplating this particular SiliconDust CableCARD tuner, but did not mean to derail this Sweet Deals posting.  If there is enough interest, perhaps these relevant informational posts and discussions could/should be pruned out of this particular Sweet Deals topic and moved to a "CableCARD TV Tuners and Media Center Extenders" or similar topic elsewhere?
 
Steve

[jermmd]

Really helpful info. Thanks. Transferring recordings to another drive seems somewhat burdensome but if it can be done automatically it would be worthwhile. I wish Microsoft or the copy protection police didn't make fair use of media such a hassle.

I think a "CableCARD TV Tuners and Media Center Extenders" subject is a great idea. I can't believe this technology and HTPC's in general aren't a bigger topic on Audiocircle. I suppose AVS is pretty much the primary forum for most people and HTPCs don't get the audiophile respect they deserve.

Joe M.

[ctviggen]

I use a program called MCE file mover to move files from two HT PCs to my Unraid server.  I also use a commercial skipping software, though I haven't figured out how to network it (i.e., each computer runs an independent version, meaning each file is gone through twice).

Ah, skip commercials during the super bowl?  Isn't that why you watch the super bowl?    (At least for me, I didn't care about either team, so I mainly watched the commercials.) 

[ctviggen]

Oh yeah, on my downstairs HT computer, I purchased a 120 GB SSD, but only have about 60GB free (rest are just programs -- no data).  WMC wouldn't record football, so I just switched the record directed to my 3TB eSATA drive, which is really for backup, but I don't want to add a hard drive to my fanless HT computer.