Chris Lanier's Blog

I have been following that thread as well. you pretty much summed up what is currently in the thread. I'm close to pulling the trigger on a sysem, but $2600 bucks for the configuration that I'm looking at is a lot of money! I knew it wouldn't be cheap. There is the Dell XPS 410, but I haven't been able to find any information as to when they will be offering the DCTs as an option to buy them. the XPS 410 would definately be a cheaper way to do DCTs. I could pull the motherboard from the Dell case and stick it in my Arisetec HT-400 case. That's assuming that I can the XPS410  motherboard can fit inside my case. If not then I might as well go for the Velocity Micro system... Decisions, Decisions...

"Customer's system will dial into CableLabs servers to authenticate that the key from Microsoft is in an acceptable range and will tell them which manufacturer it came from (every 90 days to verify that it's authorized)"

I assume they will provide a way to get this done via a telephone as well? Otherwise I don't know how they will account for folks without an internet connection... Unless they're going to advertise the system as requiring one for cablecard functionality.

Can we get a link to the thread?

Link to the thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=771387&page=1&pp=30

An internet connection is already required to use a digital guide in Media Center so I don't see that being a factor at all.  I couldn't imagine using Media Center without a guide, not sure how the folks in countries where it's not supported do it!

Why oh why limit it to 2 tuners?!

so to clarify, if you are watching say DiscoveryHD (or a protected channel) from your Xbox360 extender, the max res you can get over component or VGA is 540p correct?

Is the two tuner limit all that constraining?  Could you not add OTA tuners as well and use them for network shows and use the CableCard tuners for cable only channels.

Ahh. A dial home feature... nice! So first off I guess this rules out people who don't leave their PC connected to the Internet (yeah I know you can't get guide data then, but maybe some people just download the guide periodically, more like TiVo than a 24/7 connection).

And what happens when the cable labs server is down on one of those 90 day intervals? I mean we all know that once someone finds out its address, people are going to launch denial of service attacks on it like crazy in "the name of fair use." If that happens, does it mean your cablecard is disabled until their server is back online? Or does it continue to function even though you theoretically exceed the 90 window?

There are always hitches there. What happens if the day I have a recording scheduled in HD is my 90th day. My internet happens to be down that day. I can still record TV, but not today because I can't access cablelabs so my tuner is disabled? Better hope Internet stability increases to 100% uptime.

Why would anyone buy a cablecard system? This all sounds ridiculous. I'm never an advocate of breaking the law, I think DRM is a great way to protect intellectual property, but this just seems to go too far. I know I'm writing cablelabs. I hope everyone else here does too.

Why would anyone buy a CableCard system?  Because you want to be able to record all of your HD channels.  Your only current option is to buy or rent a PVR from your cable co.  I have a SA8300HD from my cable company and it is horrible compared to MC - even if the MC box is completely locked down.

The cable box is locked down even more and has a horrible UI, no decent search, limited ability to add hard drives, no way to hide unsubscribed channels, etc.

CableCard is NOT the only option. It is the only option Microsoft currently supports. Firewire is available too. We need to convince Microsoft to add Firewire support internally in a Vista upgrade rather than relying on a (dead?) third party tool (firestb).

I refuse to be locked down like this by the industry. I am NOT a criminal. What ever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? Why do we all get treated like criminals when only a small subset commits a crime?

I mean think about this. It's tied to your Windows license key... What happens when Windows Vienna comes out, you have to buy it from your OEM I guess... how else would it have the correct license key that CableLabs can check up on?

What happens when your motherboard dies... Can't just go to newegg and buy one, nope, need an OEM part.

Tuner dies? OEM

Say a year from now you want to upgrade your CPU. When you bought the PC, AMD was best, a year from now say Intel is best. Well you can't just swap out the motherboard because your OEM probably only sells AMD. So you're stuck with Intel, and you're stuck on whatever processor line your OEM uses.

This is pure garbage and nonsense to me. Why is it no one is really trying to do anything about it?

I really wanted to setup a media center in the office and connect to it with extenders around the house... and I really wanted HD and a clean digital signal.  This means I need about 4 tuners.  This means there is no way I'm buying into this cablecard fiasco that has been crippled from the start because the cable companies want you to buy on-demand/PPV services with their STBs.

I think I'm sticking with [widely available] SD analog tuners and waiting a few more years for IPTV to become more than a test market and maybe be integrated into Media Center... at least then it'll work in digital HD (with cheaply expandable HDD storage and multi-room recorded content sharing) without renting cards and kissing the rings on the royal CableLabs hand.  Xbox360 IPTV is a start (if you're in a test market for IPTV), though I don't know if it will share the recorded content between rooms at all (even Tivo can do this now AFAIK).  Unfortunately the Xbox IPTV experience is not integrated with the other media features in any way.

Maybe the other answer is to get a couple Tivo S3s and 4 cablecards (would be pricey, but cheaper than a digital cable Vista Media Center).

Actually more research shows Tivo is also CableLabs' B*TCH.  The Tivo S3 has very similar limits with cablecards to Media Center with cablecards:  You have a 2-tuner limit per box, and you can't share recorded digital cable content between boxes even in the same house (the S2 can share analog content - it can't use cablecards so doesn't have the restriction).

So much for centralizing your DVR content in your home and watching it from any room... you'll have to go to the room that has the right shows recorded.

I keep hearing "it's better than not having it at all" or "it's better than the STBs"... well that's correct, but it's not better enough for the great majority of people to want to fork over $$$ for it, which is exactly what CableLabs wants: to keep the majority of $$$ in their proprietary systems with PPV.