BOCR CableCARD Tuners (M-Card) Coming Soon From Ceton Corp?

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re: BOCR CableCARD Tuners (M-Card) Coming Soon From Ceton Corp?

chrisl — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:55:07 GMT

Dale: More infomaiton on those differences are here

Reader Mike got everyone some more information on this card. Short version, it is a true BOCR with OCAP, M-Card, and Bidirectional support.

msmvps.com/.../1285606.aspx

re: BOCR CableCARD Tuners (M-Card) Coming Soon From Ceton Corp?

Dale — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 19:42:07 GMT

"If you have a CableCARD, you have a bidirectional card. There is no such thing as a unidirectional CableCARD. S-Cards and M-Cards are both bidirectional."

How can this be? One of the major limitations always listed for the CableCard architecture was uni-directional. I assumed this meant that the OCUR was uni-directional also, since the architecture for bi-directional didn't even exist. What have I missed? Are Mcards actually going to exist soon (ones we can rent from the cable provider)?

re: BOCR CableCARD Tuners (M-Card) Coming Soon From Ceton Corp?

chrisl — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:34:55 GMT

Without having the specs, I don't see how you can say that. BOCRs will use a distributed version of OCAP. Half the the BOCR, half on the PC.

ATI and Ceton are listed as current licenses of OCAP.

Remember, that web page just lists basic information. We know that CableLabs and ATI are working on the same, no reason not to think another company can't get their first.

I've e-mailed them to try and get more information, no telling at this point what they can (or will) make public (if anything).

And yes, Bidirectional cards do exist. If you have a CableCARD, you have a bidirectional card. There is no such thing as a unidirectional CableCARD. S-Cards and M-Cards are both bidirectional.

re: BOCR CableCARD Tuners (M-Card) Coming Soon From Ceton Corp?

dvr man — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:15:39 GMT

THis is a dual cablecard . Bi Directional cards and specs do not exist. This will not allow Cable to provide their own OCAP Guide or services but will offer dual tuners.

Even the "PCI form factor" cards use USB and the PCI slot is just mechanical.

re: BOCR CableCARD Tuners (M-Card) Coming Soon From Ceton Corp?

chrisl — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 13:09:10 GMT

jebbbz: It would be technically possible, but CableLabs spent years developing OCUR with all the specs and requirements it has now. That's not going to change, and they will not certify anything for PC use tat doesn't comply to the existing specs.

re: BOCR CableCARD Tuners (M-Card) Coming Soon From Ceton Corp?

jebbbz — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 06:42:32 GMT

Would it be possible to design an "All-In-Wonder" DCT that could simply record cableco-encrypted content to a PC hard drive and only decrypt and decompress it on play back through the tuner's own video out? Given the original encryption is good enough for broadcast over cable it ought to be good enough for for storage on an disk drive without CableLabs worrying about unauthorized decryption. I would think this would not require a special OS or BIOS for the host PC. Only the tuner/video card hardware and firmware would have to be hardened against attack by hackers. Or is there some technical reason the original encryption has to be replaced by PC-specific encryption?

(OK, I'm a low-end kind of guy and would rather get a TiVo HD to supplement my El-Cheapo HTPC than buy an OEM VMC PC with CC DCT.)

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re: BOCR CableCARD Tuners (M-Card) Coming Soon From Ceton Corp?

Kevin — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 01:50:36 GMT

Maybe this is why Sony is selling DCTs on their own. They need to clear out their inventory of external tuners before they are obsolete. I cannot fidn DCTS at dell.com either. Maybe this is why. Maybe everyone knows the next gen is right around the corner.

re: BOCR CableCARD Tuners (M-Card) Coming Soon From Ceton Corp?

chrisl — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 22:15:34 GMT

In terms of licensing, ATI had to get the internal and external certified separately so I'm not sure about that.

I also noticed that Ceton was from Kirkland, so I assume Microsoft might have one or two of these in their offices.

re: BOCR CableCARD Tuners (M-Card) Coming Soon From Ceton Corp?

dondu — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 22:06:10 GMT

re: USB vs. PCI. As a user, I might prefer USB because I think an unstable USB device has lower odds of hanging my entire PC. I would think that a PCI device costs less to manufacture than a USB device, but I might be wrong (there are pleny of examples of very low cost USB devices).

I would guess that the reason the internal version of the ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner is a USB device, is because ATI probably started with it as an external USB device, and then when they were asked "what about an internal version?" they wanted to minimize their development costs, so they just came up with different packaging for the exact same board. Licensing / certification costs with CableLabs might have been a factor.

I was wondering where Ceton came from. They appear to be located in Kirkland, WA (less than 10 min from Microsoft). All of their products (listed on their website) are related to CableCard. Someone posting as "Ceton" was soliciting HD-DVR-related opinions on the AVSForum starting Jan'07, and "Ceton Corp" is listed as under "OpenCable Applications Platform license and CHILA signators include CE manufacturers, software, silicon, and support companies." as of Aug'06 (72.14.253.104/search).

re: BOCR CableCARD Tuners (M-Card) Coming Soon From Ceton Corp?

chrisl — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:10:23 GMT

That would be the idea. As I talked about in the linked to post, one of the concepts behind the OCUR project as an "upgrade path". However, there are still some issues that come up so we will have to wait and see based on what else Ceton may provide.

re: BOCR CableCARD Tuners (M-Card) Coming Soon From Ceton Corp?

dondu — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:06:52 GMT

I wanted to add: If you have an OCUR-capable PC from a licensed OEM, you should be able to just plug this new card in (and load drivers). You should not have to buy a new OEM PC with this card.

So if this card comes out soon, I should be able a single one of these to my existing dual-DCT Velocity Micro HTPC, (using the registry hack) to get 4 tuners.

(And I'm going to need to change my terminology. I've been using "DCT" as shorthand for "ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner [Internal/External]".)

--Don

re: BOCR CableCARD Tuners (M-Card) Coming Soon From Ceton Corp?

chrisl — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:04:51 GMT

Yep, the cost is one of the biggest things here. A single one of these tuners replaces $600 worth of current ATI OCURs. Even if it launches at a high price point (say $350), it would still be a better value then a single ATI tuner.

I'm not sure the PCI aspect is that great, I personally like the USB 2.0 aspect of the ATI tuners. However, we don't know much about the hardware aspect of these other than the block diagram provided.

Software support is an interesting idea here, and I have no idea how this would work. OCURs don't support two-way communication because of hardware limitations, so it is hard to say whether a software update for Media Center would be needed for that two-way communication to work. Since it is a hardware issue, my first guess would be no.

Another issue here is OpenCable/OCAP support, which would need a software update in Media Center but we don't know if it is included based on their webpage.

re: BOCR CableCARD Tuners (M-Card) Coming Soon From Ceton Corp?

dondu — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 20:45:13 GMT

I think this is an awesome development, and I hope that we see it actually make it to the market.

-- As you note, this would provide dual-tuners on a single card. Today, dual-tuners will cost you $600, so I am very hopeful that this product will represent a significant price drop.

-- This is a PCI card, and not a USB solution like the current ATI Digital Cable Tuner. (Some people might not be aware that even the internal ATI DCT uses a USB connection.)

-- However, without changes to Vista Media Center, I don't think we can actually achieve BOCR. So if this is a BOCR card... Does this suggest that Microsoft might be further along with bi-directional support than we have thought? Or does it mean that this manufacturer is offering hardware support for something where the required software support might never appear?

--Don