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Vista Media Center Plus CableCard Equals No TV
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jun 08, 2007 05:30 PM
from the that's-some-bad-math dept.
from the that's-some-bad-math dept.
notthatwillsmith writes "ATI's internal CableCard readers are finally available, and Maximum PC got hands-on time with a couple of Vista-powered systems built using the FCC-mandated technology. The short version? It doesn't work. From the article: 'The tech told me he'd receive training direct from Microsoft, but none of it covered internal tuners. We both agreed that the process should be the same, since the only difference is that the slots are inside the case, versus in an external box. The tech then proceeds to install the CableCards, connect the tuners to coax line, fire up the PC, and begin the software configuration. This step involves activating the TV Wonder with a product-activation code, and calling the Comcast office to exchange some information. We should have had a picture at this point, but we didn't.'"
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summing it all up.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:summing it all up.... (Score:5, Interesting)
So this product test was invalid and says nothing about the machines being tested, only the cable company tech who screwed it up before driving out.
Hilarious!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I was under the impression that the tech "had received his training direct from Microsoft" and then should have this kung fu that no customer should know how to do. of course should doesn't mean that he did, the test could still be faulty. On a different note, I find it interesting that you feel there is product knowledge that should be forbidden to the customer.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Computer Industry is held hostage by the Cable Com (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Computer Industry is held hostage by the Cable (Score:2)
I currently have analog cable and a digitizer card in a homebrew linux-based PVR box. Obviously it would be better to get digital cable or satellite and directly record the digital signal instead of re-compressing it, but I am confused as to whether this is possible. Never? Only for over-the-airways digital broadcasts? Only when using a cable-company-p
Re:Computer Industry is held hostage by the Cable (Score:5, Informative)
You could get an HDHomeRun. These are very nice little boxes that output a direct stream via ethernet. They can recieve both digital cable, and over-the-air digital broadcasts. They cannot decrypt premium content.
Another avenue of getting a direct stream is firewire. Your cable company can give you (FCC mandated!) a cable box that outputs the digital stream to your pc via firewire. You can normally even use this interface to change channels. Of course, when watching any premium content, firewire is disabled.
There are CableCard TV tuners for PC's as mentioned in this article. They can both receive AND decrypt digital cable. They will not work in anything but Vista (if at all), and the software is designed to allow you to view, but not record premium digital content.
So, you can upgrade to a digital tuner, and rip the streams directly to your HD, but you are not going to be able to record much that makes it worthwhile (Unless you're a sports fan). The best bet for getting ALL channels on your PC is still the analog hole. Yes, you're stuck re-encoding the video, but most capture cards do a great job of this. HD can be a bit tough to do, but it can be done.
As far as changing channels on your cable box, google up "IR blaster". Allows your PC to be a universal remote control.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The analog hole (at least for the premium channels) is going the way of the dodo in the not to distant future when they cut off analog broadcasts and begin transitioning people to HDTV with all of those set top boxes (for those who don't know or care what HDTV is or just want to keep their coax television and have it work). Once the transition has begun the cable monopolies will move rapidly to reduce the number of channels that t
Wow that IS informative... (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't think of a show in the last 5 years that I have been the slightest bit bummed out about missing.
Re:Not Exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
This is all about denying the customer the ability to watch TV through anything other than a cable co device, it's just paying lip service to the law so that they're not obviously in violation of it. This will only get worse too once switched video gets deployed.
Parent
Bummer (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You probably also believe that bi-directional CableCARD 2.0 is a good thing.
Here's the deal. CableCARD's don't need to do anything at all other than decrypt TV signals if the customer paid for them. It doesn't need to send data or be activated by an on-site tech or any of that crap to do the job. The device it's plugged into can do the upstream requests, and the authorization codes can be pushed
Way too expensive (Score:2, Interesting)
You can pick up a TV for a couple of hundred bucks, or build a Myth system that works for less than half the cost of an equivalent media center pc, without getting so locked into a single vendor for any service.
Having a cable card inside your system is nice, but is it really worth all that extra money? I don't think so.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
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Say you're going away for the weekend, so you want to record the Sopranos finale, then record the latest episode of Dexter. These are on different pay-cable networks, so you can't record them both without changing the channel on your STB. Your PVR can't do this without some kind of control mechanism. Up unti
Crappy summary (Score:2)
Assuming it's the first, then maybe we have something to talk about here (though not something too interesting, considering that between Youtube and Joost the writing is on the wall for cable TV).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Cue Nelson (Score:3, Funny)
Getting down with the VCPs for the DRM message (Score:4, Funny)
Vista Retarded is here Sung by the V.C.P.s
[voiceover] The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history [auckland.ac.nz].
Vista "Retarded", is here...
And content not playin' playin', not playin' playin',not playin' playin',not playin' playin', not
playin' playin', not playin' playin',not playin' playin',not playin' playin', not...
In this context,Vista disrespects, so when I click to play, the display disconnects.
We got find methods for us to reconnect to new codecs by the network effect.
Bout to lose your fair use. Microsoft's institution. Infect your computer with D.R.M. pollution.
Cause when we click on, the sound is gonna be down. You won't believe how we ow shout out.
Burn can't cause we locked out, Sample can't cause we locked out, act up from north,west, east south.
[Chorus:]
Everybody (ye-a!), everybody (ye-a!), let's get into it (Yea!).
Get stoopid (click on!).
Vista retarded (click on!), Vista retarded (click on!), get retarded.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Yeah.
Lose control, of privacy and goals.
Won't run too fast cause, bloat makes it slow.
Won't get away, your locked into it.
Y'all hear about it, Gutmann'll do it.
Get Vista, be stoopid.
Don't worry 'bout it, Ballmer'll walk you though it,
Step by step, you'll be restricted
Patch by patch with the new solution.
Transmit bits, with D.R.M. pollution
Claim the contents irresistible and that's how they move it.
[Chorus:]
Everybody (ye-a!), everybody (ye-a!), let's get into it (Yea!).
Get stoopid (click on!).
Vista retarded (click on!), Vista retarded (click on!), get retarded.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Yeah.
Playin' playin', not playin' playin',not playin' playin',not playin' playin', not...
C'mon y'all, let's get Do-do! (uh huh) -- Let's get Do-do! (in here)
Right now get Do-do! (uh huh) -- Let's get Do-do! (in here)
Right now get Do-do! (uh huh) -- Let's get Do-do! (in here) Ow, ow, ow!
Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya...
Let's get ill, that's the deal .
At the gate, Microsoft restricts your will. (Just)
Lose your mind this is the time,
Y'all test this will, Just and download still. (Just)
Rob the resolution, from your monitor or to your speakers.
Get pixel-ated and suck.
Yo' movies past slow-mo' in another head trip.(So)
Locked in now cannot correct it, so be ig'nant and left apoplectic
[Chorus:]
(yeah)Everybody, (yeah) everybody, (yeah) get locked into it.
(yeah) Get stupid.
(click on) Get retarded,(click on) get retarded (yeah), get retarded.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Vista retarded (ha), Vista retarded is here.
Whoaoa
Yeah.
You Cukoo! (A-ha!) -- It's Po-Po! (is here)
Be a Fool! (A-ha!) -- M.S. Tool! (be their)
Like Voodoo! (A-ha!) -- You cukoo! (out here)
Ow, ow!
Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya...
Playin' playin', not playin' playin',not playin' playin',not playin' playin'
[fade]
Digital Cable on MCE - HDHomeRun (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.silicondust.com/wiki/products/hdhomeru
Two tuners and plugs into your Ethernet network. You can watch content from any computer on your network.
Works with MCE 2005 and Vista MCE - both 32 and 64-bit versions.
Works with SageTV, BeyondTV, etc.
Works with MythTV under Linux.
Mac support is rumored to be coming soon.
Linux review:
http://servers.linux.com/servers/07/04/18/1531247
Re: (Score:2)
Forgot to pay my cable bill..... (Score:5, Funny)
Product-activation code? (Score:3, Funny)
Official Statement From Microsoft (Score:4, Funny)
To be fair it's probably the cable card(s) (Score:5, Informative)
In three months, I've had 5 or 6 different cable cards in my Series 3 Tivo. Only one has worked the whole time (it's got a dual-tuner, so it needs two). Some never worked at all; others refused to unlock the premium channels I'm paying for; still others have been fine for a few weeks then suddenly stopped working.
For once I'm willing to give MS the benefit of the doubt and assume that the problem is Comcast and the crappy cable cards their cartel has concocted.
Re: (Score:2)
Cablecards and Tivo S3 Working Fairly Well (Score:3, Informative)
The long version... (Score:2)
Sounds exactly like my experience with Cable Card (Score:4, Informative)
I had Time Warner Cables techs come to my house a few more times with replacement Cable Cards but they could never resolve the problem. They gave up and blamed the problem on my TV. They said the TV needed a firmware upgrade (I didn't even know my TV had upgradeable firmware!). I contacted a local home theater company and they sent one of their techs to my house to upgrade my TV's firmware.
After that upgrade, Time Warner Cable tried again but could not get the Cable Card to work. The TWC person at my house was on the phone with someone at the "head end" trying to get advice on how to fix this problem. Despite digging through some very cool diagnostic screens on my TV and trying every option available, Time Warner Cable never did the Cable Card to work in my TV.
I gave up and called TWC to let them know I would be bringing their card back.
For all of its hype, Cable Card definitely sucked donkey balls. I have a very nice Sony HD set that is supposedly "Cable Card ready" but the Cable Card just didn't work reliably. It's too bad. The time that I did get to watch channels like Discovery HD was very cool.
That was a couple of summers ago. I haven't had the time to see if TWC here in Milwaukee has figured-out the mysteries of the Cable Card.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If your using a DVI or HDMI cable, this simply is not true. When using these cables, you get an uncompressed video feed from the box. In fact, I've often found the cable box to provide BETTER video output than the card. For some reason, the MPEG decoder chips built into these TVs sucks ass. Or at least that was the case with first generation cable card ready TVs.
Analog hole... (Score:2)
Time for a new kind of PVR (Score:5, Funny)
I refer of course to Personal Video Rendering, ie locally generated real-time TV. Even modest AI can handle the retarded talk shows and formulaic sycophantic interviews.
Just imagine: you can watch computer generated random pointless drivel such as 'my boyfriend left me for a transexual limbo dancer and now i am marrying his mother' with 5.1 surround whooping and hollering from the audience for as long as you like (with artificial repetitive and annoying 'advertisement' breaks, of course), then decide to watch a blu-ray hd film. The software would automatically flip to rendering 20 minutes of a sports game, followed by 30 minutes of tedious analysis by virtual sports presenters before showing the film. Artificially intelligent filtering would then cut many of the scenes and redub profane dialog no matter what time it was being watched. Monitoring daemons would flag the kind of shows that you like to watch and then 'cancel' them.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
The content lords must be proud! (Score:3, Funny)
Hardware Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Simple solution (Score:3, Informative)
Without knowing that and resetting this pairing nothing that could be done would force the cards to work in the PC. It has nothing to do with the new hardware, the operating system or anything else. Simple matter is these are complex devices interfacing with even more complex systems. And the supposedly knowledgeable technician didn't understand this restriction.
Unfortunately, the article makes it appear that the technician was knowlegeable and should have been able to solve the problem. In reality the inexperienced technican created the problem and insured the installation would fail by testing the cards.
Don't be silly. (Score:5, Informative)
The bonding actually occurs at the head end, not in the card.
They have to call up and give the head end reps the device ID and card ID so that the system can start transmitting the correct key stream with which the card will be able to decrypt and use to get at the symmetric content keys.
The cards themselves can be tested in a sandbox environment where the technician can control the encryption process, registration in the sandbox, and then verify the decryption.
Parent
The joys of speakerphone (Score:3, Interesting)
and
Remember, that's Microsoft-proprietary!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Fedora:
Boot and login
Plug card reader in
Wait a few seconds
A nice little window that has the files on the MMC/CF/MemoryStick appears on the desktop
Done.
so, bzzt. Try again. I've got a Lexar multi-reader that I've used for every format under the sun and FC 5, 6 and 7 all work great.
Depending on what hardware you try, you could end up mucking about on google groups under windows f
Re: (Score:2)
M$ and the DRM obviously (Score:3, Insightful)
also how do they lock them down to the oems only?
what happen if you put non dell ram, video card, or other things in to a dell system with a cable card? will that lock you out?
Yes, Microsoft Again. You can't polish this turd. (Score:5, Informative)
Could it be that this product was pushed out the door without sufficient testing with different cable cards, cable systems and all the silly things that cable companies are doing just to be different? Naa. Has to be Microsoft.
It WAS NOT THE CARDS. They were tested before they left the shop and tested AOK.
Did you read the fine hands free phone conversation between the M$ tech and the cable guy? We can count the ways they lie to everyone. First, they sent a ringer - an experienced tech with inside contacts at M$ but they forgot to tell that inside contact in advance. Let's quote the fun that follows:
Translation: We lie to reviewers and send them out special equipment so that everyone gets a more favorable impression than they will if they actually buy the product.
Translation: They don't work but we are going to sell them anyway. The first tech wisely wants nothing further to do with this call and pushes it up to a second, who was not there, and third person you and I would never get to talk to, even if we spend $7,000 on a maximum rippoff, hi-death Tivo. The embarrassment mounts as two of them sit broken.
Things only go downhill from there. One of the cards had been "qualified" by the beast but neither worked. The tech devolves into typing "Microsoft-proprietary information" on a command line, a command so complex it had to be emailed but could not be shared with customer. After four hours, the tech gives up. The next day does not go much better.
Still, this represents a best case scenerio. How many of us will get a M$ or vendor Product Manager's email to make this thing work?
An bonus funny was the secret command:
c:/windows/ehome/ehribjob.exe \OCURNregister
Is this guy a Linux user or what?
Oh how I love Vista and digital restrictions. It does not get any worse than this.
Parent
Re:Yes, Microsoft Again. You can't polish this tur (Score:3, Informative)
That they were tested before they left the shop is why they didn't work in the field! You can't just move a CableCard from one device to another. Once paired with a device they need to be reset before they can be paired with another. They've been paired to equipment in the shop; they weren't reset and thus could not then be paired with the machines in the field.
I wouldn't be surprised if the cable company itself could not r
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Think of the children! (Score:5, Insightful)
Remove "from Microsoft" from that sentence. It rarely matters who it is, there will be problems.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Things are vastly different on Vista! It's changed the way I use my computer. It no longer works, so I no longer use it. I had to borrow a friend's "leenux" just to type this!