Chris Lanier

Lumberg!

Actually, it sounds more like a "I'm going to need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday too" type of scenario to me :-)

Wow, that is crazy.  So much for good design.  What about all the videos on Channel 10 showing how the Xbox 360 is a great media extender for cablecard?

This depresses me.  I have such high hopes for Vista's media center.  Nice to see a $3000 computer and a $400 Xbox not perform as they should.

Here's some even more depressing info on regarding OCUR:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_video

I had been patiently waiting for Vista, saving money for a completely new MCE box... I accepted that to get this new Tech I'd have to spend a pretty penny. Then the first downer was the limit of 2 OCURs Max in Vista. I took in stride. Then I started trying to find some information about people using CableCard from my cable provider (TWC). I came across the Tivo series 3 discussions which lead directly to researching "Switched Video Network" or "Switched Digital Video Network" an the article on Wikipedia.

I turns out that CableCard 1.0 (and therefore OCUR) only have a bout a year or so of life left, at least in major cable markets. So that was the last straw for me. I could no longer justify spending ~$4000 (probably more) simply to get access to HD for *maybe* a year or so... Back to the miserable STB DVR for me... =(

SDV looks like a monkey wrench in the works... although you have to realize SDV uses QAM (same as cablecard, STBs, etc. already use), just that the client has to request a channel for it to actually broadcast to the neighborhood node... basically like what VoD does now except that it's broadcast to the neighborhood instead of just a single STB.  This could theoretically work into cablecard 2.0 plans (2-way cablecard).

It still sucks though as most of the HD digital content will still be locked down by the golden handcuffs of cablecard (nothing new beyond local HD channels will be broadcast in the clear).

I've been looking into unencrypted QAM tuning in MCE using QAM tuners such as the HDHomeRun or DViCO Fusion, but it's all up in the air if there will ever be good support for the channel mapping from Microsoft or if the cable companies are going to lock down ALL the QAM channels with cablecard... so analog tuners are the backup plan (at least on cable, analog isn't going away for a good while).

The thing about CableCard 2.0 is, yes, it will indeed work with SDV. But, it's a big BUT, the bidirectionality has to be supported by the underlaying device (Tivo, OCUR, TV, etc) otherwise the CableCard 2.0 just reverts back to 1.0 compatibility. Tivo has already said that Series 3 will not support CableCard 2.0 (in 2.0/bidirectional mode)...

So, we assume for a moment that the same limitation will likely apply to OCUR units from ATI and whoever else might have one in the works. And we add in the fact that you can't buy an OCUR yourself. Basically it looks like we'd be stuck buying yet another high dollar HTPC to get OCUR's that support CableCard 2.0...

I'm waiting to see what the Dish and DirecTV come up with. But I'm not holding my breath, and I'm certainly not buying new hardware now in the hopes that either satelight solution will be viable for a Do-it-yourself enthusiast.

Oh yeah and Chris, Houston was/is the primary Test bed for TWC's SDV Network...