CableCard for any DIY HTPC. No more OEM only restriction for ATI OCUR tuner.

One of the big problems is getting a product key, the guide lists a supposed "generic" one, but i wouldnt be surprised if that doesnt get shutdown quickly.
 
Wow, that looks like a pretty amazing solution - thank you for posting this link! I've been trying to get the 'holy grail' of HD digital cable on a PC since 2005 when it looked like Firewire from a set-top box was going to be the trick. This is a lot more elegant, though still a hack; perhaps one of these days Microsoft and CableLabs will drop the act and let the technology filter out to everyone without such silly limitations :)
 
i cant believe it took this long for someone to figure this out. this might be the slowest crack ever on the net.

btw, microsoft definitely isn't the ones holding cable cards for pc's back. they want it, bad. they know how much value will be added to media center if it could control your digital cable without a stb.
 
i read that today and was very happy... if we could get a decent amount of cable cards online to purchase at a decent price with the Key number so we dont need to use a generic one we will be all good to go...

I would love to have espn HD on my TV, but as of now i dont even pay for HD cable... the only thing I watch on cable are Sports.... I dont think i will be paying $25 more a month for HD sports... i dont know, we will see...
 
...and now eBay is completely void of the ATI tuners and the few that are up are going for more than double what they were going for a week ago.
 
I'll stick with my HD-PVR's thanks. I don't want any DRM on my TV show recordings.
 
why do I feel like things are going more "right" in the world today...
 
I see you did put them in the Home Theater HotDeals/ForSale section first at least. ;)
 
^^ hey plug all you want with prices that good.

its actually tempting for me, but i do think id rather have the hdpvr since i know that will work forever. im pretty leery of spending $200 on a pvr solution that might be better right now, but also very possible (almost likely) it will be disabled in the future by the internet gods.
 
spacetrader said:
btw, microsoft definitely isn't the ones holding cable cards for pc's back. they want it, bad. they know how much value will be added to media center if it could control your digital cable without a stb.
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As best as I can tell, it is MS - at least in part - that is holding this up. Just as the original roll-out of Windows XP Media Center was only available to big OEMs, so too the technology surrounding Cable Card-based tuners is also tightly restricted by them. It may be someone else behind the scenes forcing MS to act that way, I'll grant, but right now no individual consumer or small computer builder can get hold of the combined hardware/software necessary for making them work.

That is what is so great about this crack: it gets past the toughest part of the whole thing, which was the OCUR-supported BIOS. The tuners themselves have been available, in small trickles, through the grey market. Things still aren't where they need to be for mass adoption, but the very idea that any computer can use a hack to get around the motherboard issue is encouraging. It means that MS could, if they wanted to, bust the whole thing wide open at any time. Now we just have to sit back, wait, and hope...
 
Dude. Seriously, shut up. You have no idea what your talking about. The on holding CableCard support back is simply CableLabs/ the cable industry and, by extension, Hollywood. The simple fear of 'HD quality" recordings showing up on torrent sites for download is what scares everyone; who would buy the DVD releases if "anyone" could go and download it??

MS has been trying to get this support in since MCE 2k5 was released, at that point the best they could do is bolt on ATSC broadcasts.
WilliamMGeorge said:
As best as I can tell, it is MS - at least in part - that is holding this up. Just as the original roll-out of Windows XP Media Center was only available to big OEMs, so too the technology surrounding Cable Card-based tuners is also tightly restricted by them. It may be someone else behind the scenes forcing MS to act that way, I'll grant, but right now no individual consumer or small computer builder can get hold of the combined hardware/software necessary for making them work.

That is what is so great about this crack: it gets past the toughest part of the whole thing, which was the OCUR-supported BIOS. The tuners themselves have been available, in small trickles, through the grey market. Things still aren't where they need to be for mass adoption, but the very idea that any computer can use a hack to get around the motherboard issue is encouraging. It means that MS could, if they wanted to, bust the whole thing wide open at any time. Now we just have to sit back, wait, and hope...
Click to expand...
 
CrimandEvil said:
Dude. Seriously, shut up. You have no idea what your talking about.
Click to expand...

You obviously have very strong feelings on this topic, and perhaps information I am not aware of, so I will defer to your expertise.

I wonder though, and perhaps you have insight into this as well, why Cable Card tuners exist at all if Cable Labs doesn't want people to have them? I definitely agree and understand that the 'threat' of pirated digital HD content scares various entertainment entities, but it seems that they should never have designed the tuner technology at all if that is their concern.

What has frustrated me in the past is that Dell or HP could (if they wanted to) get hold of all the necessary technologies to build a CableCard HTPC - but as an individual or small business I cannot. The current restrictions on getting CableCards and OCUR-compatible hardware (for the moment not counting this hack) seem like such an arbitrary boundary, and to a HTPC fan like myself it is very disheartening.
 
CrimandEvil said:
The simple fear of 'HD quality" recordings showing up on torrent sites for download is what scares everyone; who would buy the DVD releases if "anyone" could go and download it??
Click to expand...
Umm... i don't know much about the whole cablecard business bullshit, but i do know that there are 720p rips of just about every popular cable series on bittorrent, available for "anyone" to download.
 
WilliamMGeorge said:
You obviously have very strong feelings on this topic, and perhaps information I am not aware of, so I will defer to your expertise.

I wonder though, and perhaps you have insight into this as well, why Cable Card tuners exist at all if Cable Labs doesn't want people to have them? I definitely agree and understand that the 'threat' of pirated digital HD content scares various entertainment entities, but it seems that they should never have designed the tuner technology at all if that is their concern.

What has frustrated me in the past is that Dell or HP could (if they wanted to) get hold of all the necessary technologies to build a CableCard HTPC - but as an individual or small business I cannot. The current restrictions on getting CableCards and OCUR-compatible hardware (for the moment not counting this hack) seem like such an arbitrary boundary, and to a HTPC fan like myself it is very disheartening.
Click to expand...

CableCard exists because Congress mandated that cable companies allow consumer purchased equipment (even equipment not purchased from the cable co.) on their CATV networks. in 1996. They charged the FCC with enforcing that mandate and 13 years later, Cable companies are still fighting it tooth and nail FCC has granted delay, after delay, after delay because The cable industry keeps changing how they want to implement the solution that satifies the 1996 mandate.

The purpose for CableCard is to allow the cable companies to maintain control of the security of their networks while allowing consumer to purchase the tuning and navigation hardware.
 
WilliamMGeorge said:
I wonder though, and perhaps you have insight into this as well, why Cable Card tuners exist at all if Cable Labs doesn't want people to have them? I definitely agree and understand that the 'threat' of pirated digital HD content scares various entertainment entities, but it seems that they should never have designed the tuner technology at all if that is their concern.

What has frustrated me in the past is that Dell or HP could (if they wanted to) get hold of all the necessary technologies to build a CableCard HTPC - but as an individual or small business I cannot. The current restrictions on getting CableCards and OCUR-compatible hardware (for the moment not counting this hack) seem like such an arbitrary boundary, and to a HTPC fan like myself it is very disheartening.
Click to expand...

you don't know because nobody really does. there is some serious insider-backhand-fingerf'n going on with the execs at the media corporations. hollywood doesnt want any distribution but they want sales, microsoft wants distribution but hollywood thinks a htpc is the devil and a store-bought htpc is uncrackable, reality shows that eventually- no matter what -technology will find a way to get people what they want. history has proved that markets that don't adapt to technology get left behind. so take it how you want it- it's basically been a clusterfuck of politics for the last decade and it might take another 10 years to sort out legally.

the way it's going though, it's exactly the same path as mp3's. dvr is mp3. they will never figure it out, they will fight it until all of a sudden everyone is using high-def dvr's without a single bit of help from commercial markets. then they will make dirt-cheap hardware and shit for everyone to use, so they can have the slightest chance of ever making money again.
 
spacetrader said:
you don't know because nobody really does. there is some serious insider-backhand-fingerf'n going on with the execs at the media corporations. hollywood doesnt want any distribution but they want sales, microsoft wants distribution but hollywood thinks a htpc is the devil and a store-bought htpc is uncrackable, reality shows that eventually- no matter what -technology will find a way to get people what they want. history has proved that markets that don't adapt to technology get left behind. so take it how you want it- it's basically been a clusterfuck of politics for the last decade and it might take another 10 years to sort out legally.

the way it's going though, it's exactly the same path as mp3's. dvr is mp3. they will never figure it out, they will fight it until all of a sudden everyone is using high-def dvr's without a single bit of help from commercial markets. then they will make dirt-cheap hardware and shit for everyone to use, so they can have the slightest chance of ever making money again.
Click to expand...


Exactly, Cable company (and by extension Hollywod) are only "allowing" us to use our own hardware because the Government is forcing them to. But they are intentionally sabotaging their own "efforts" to comply. First it was CableCard, this device allows consumers to buy TVs that can receive digital cable without having to use a set top box. But wait. They can only watch one channel at a time. No picture in picture, no recording a channel in the background.

People complained, FCC said.. no this isn't what we meant. So CableLabs releases a multi-stream CableCard that allows consumers to watch a channel while recording another and have picture-in-picture. But both of these devices don't allow PPV or Ondemand, or Interactive program guides. So CableLab devised a new CableCard revision that allow the two way communications that would enable PPV, OnDemand, IPG, etc.

But before any hardware was release, they said, "No, we don't want to do this" and dumped CableCards. They devise a new system called OCAS that would have electronics manufacturers place a chip in the devices that consumers bought. That chip would run an operating system that the Cable company pushed to the subscriber through their network. That operating system would do in software what the CableCards did in hardware without having to install a card.

So that's where are today... nowhere. CableCard S, CableCard M, CableCard "2", and OCAS are all virtually incompatible with each other. The Cable companies keep changing the implementation which prevents the consumer electronics industry from settling on a system that would satisfy the 1996 mandate that Congress put the FCC in charge of enforcing.
 
Spacetrader, ryan - thank you! That does bring me up to speed on some aspects of this story I was missing. Quite a mess, isn't it? It is unfortunate that the heads of media companies are so out of touch with both what consumers want and what technology is capable of (both what it could do to help their profits and what it will do in the long run even if they try to stop it). Rather reminds me of how politicians tend to be out of touch, but no need to start down that long path here :)

Thanks again!
 
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