Chris Lanier's Blog

Chris,

The term "unidirectional" seems to imply first generation cable cards that only work in one direction. Since multidirectional cable cards should be available by the release of Longhorn, do you believe this article leads to the conclusion that the pending update to MCE 2005 in August (which accoridng to Neowin will support Native Digital Cable and Content Protection) will support unidirectional cable cards?

Not card_s_, there aren't any unidirectional cable cards for PCs yet, or are there? The news article is about Microsoft building such _hardware_. Surely Microsoft will have the software ready by the time they start offering that hardware, but you don't have to worry when the software will be available, because it won't do you any good without that piece of Microsoft hardware...

Microsoft won't be building the hardware, only the software. The cable cards are already in existence from your local cable company. A cable card reader would be purchased from ATI, NVDIA, or a variety of other manufacturers of tv tuners fro PCs.

It's hard to say (eg. I have no idea) if this would mean it is to be expected in the update. I sure hope it means that it will be in the update! =)

Adding to that, I would wait for either CableLabs or Microsoft to release something about it. The article is already several weeks old and nothing has come from either side.

So, it looks like a pure waiting game at this point (as if it wasn't before)

@lefty4: Read that sentence again:

"Cable Television Laboratories Inc. is expected to announce that Microsoft Corp. will build a new class of "unidirectional" devices"

It clearly says that MICROSOFT will build these devices. I understand that as meaning they will actually be sold under the Microsoft label.

When will you be able to plug a digital cable into your PC and record HDTV signals? It might be a lot sooner than you think. Maybe before the end of this year. I realize that's not the current conventional wisdom. Last month, Chris Lanier speculated that Windows-based Media Center...