CableCARD Tuners

iRpilot

Weaksauce
Joined
Oct 4, 2011
Messages
102
I'm digging the Ceton InfiniTV 4, but the price tag is a bit out of my price range.

My cable provider doesn't seem too enthusiastic about it either. It's 2 bucks a month to rent a CableCARD vs. $20 a month for their crappy Motorola STB... If I could find something priced decently enough it would pay for itself very quick.

The Hauppauge WinTV-DCR-2650 looks promising, but what are some opinions of it? I've seen very mixed reviews. Any other suggestions?
 
Those look like they would work. Trying to find specs on them... does it have one tuner per unit?
 
Those look like they would work. Trying to find specs on them... does it have one tuner per unit?

yes, they are discontinued so the only way to get them is used. For along time they were the cheapest route since ceton was the only other tuner at $400 and if you only need one channel then $100 is better than $400. But ceton dropped to $300 and now there are tuners by hauppauge and silcondust that record digital cable as well so people have been dumping the ati tuners for cheap on ebay.
 
I've really enjoyed our 4 tuner ceton card - dropped the cable box and use extenders; wife likes it too (a huge plus).

I'd stay away from the ATI cable card devices since they're no longer supported, only 1 stream and likely not to work in time.
 
I prefer the HDHomerun Prime. For roughly the same price, you can have it on the network for all your computers to use:

http://www.silicondust.com/products/hdhomerun/prime/

The ATI tuner was only sold to OEM bundles. I believe it came with an HP desktop. You could not buy it by itself when it was released due to licensing issues.
 
I have a ceton and love it. Got rid of the comcast dual dvr, and recording 4 hd shows at once is awesome. You can share the ceton on the network to multiple computers as well.
 
Ultimately I'd love to get the Ceton card, get a couple of extenders to watch in other rooms, and drop the cable dvr's.

Right now I'm on a newborn baby budget, and my cable bill is ridiculous. I could drop almost 20 bucks from my cable bill just renting a cableCARD. I already have an HTPC.

I just wasn't sure if there was anything cheaper than the Ceton card, with maybe just 2 tuners. If I could find something used for between $50 - $100 it would pay for itself in 3 or 4 months.

The Ceton cards are down to $260 now I think... I'm afraid I'm going to buy one on impulse and my wife is going to kill me. :eek:
 
I just wasn't sure if there was anything cheaper than the Ceton card, with maybe just 2 tuners. If I could find something used for between $50 - $100 it would pay for itself in 3 or 4 months.

Two ati tuners would be $60 to $80.
 
Ceton is 260 now, had dropped as low as 220 on Black Friday....kicking myself for missing it.
Some deals to be had on ebay, probably including some seeking quick profits on that 220 sale.
HDHRP is usually 230 IIRC.
 
IMO i would not mess w/ the ATI and go centon. You will love it. I'm more of a fan of there support going beyond supporting just the card.

I had a few issues w/ my xbox's and network. There guys helped me knowing the issue was not with there product. 4 tuners in HD is sweet. Being able to break apart the tuners (say 2 for the parents and 2 for Jr) is even better. The only thing I dislike is having to use it in windows media center.

They just started driver support for linux though.... I still need some kind of vm server software that enables PCI pass through and im set.

I was on the waiting list for the product when it frst came out. Loved it as soon as the box arrived...
 
I've had my Ceton InfiniTV 4 for awhile now and love the thing... I got it for $210 or so awhile back several months ago on a deal. Windows Media Center 7 + a 360 as an extender, works well... I use my 360 with my projector setup to watch TV this way and it's nearly perfect. I'd like a native way to make it use multiple hard drives for shows (other than a windows spanned volume, there are 3rd party solutions out there for drive pooling I'll have to play with soon) but coming from a TiVo HD I'm quite happy. Relatives find it pretty easy to use too, they got used to it in no time with my Logitech Harmony 650 remote.
 
I'm going to have to pull the trigger on the Ceton I think...

Or maybe, since I've been nice this year, Santa will bring me one?? :D

I've heard his RMA program sucks tho, so hopefully it works.
 
Definitely go with the Ceton or HDHRP, I have 2 of the HDHRP and they are working great.
 
Or maybe, since I've been nice this year, Santa will bring me one?? :D


Good luck with that :rolleyes:

I got shafted last year so I am going to put rat poison in some cookies I am going to leave out the night before. I already reported Santa to the BBB but didn't hear back on that either.
 
I Wouldnt touch the Ceton now honestly. Too many extra strings attached to still pay more then the HDHR Prime. Its only 230ish new on amazon & newegg. You loose 1 tuner off the deal, but 3 is still enough for most people.
 
The HDHR still has a few bugs. Look at AVS. While the Ceton pretty much works perfectly for everyone.
 
bastage - Not trying to start a Ceton vs HDHR war, but really just curious: what strings are attached to the Ceton that aren't with the HDHR Prime when you consider DRM, etc?

Outside of the HDHR running over network, it still needs a PC to be on to record/watch live tv and the dynamic pooling of tuners unique to the HDHR has it's own issues. Have heard very good things about it, however.

Personally, my Ceton has worked very, very well... to the OP - I'd recommend getting as many tuners you can as once you have that many available, you'll want more. If you're running extenders concurrently, those each use their own tuner so you'll want extra to perform recordings in the background.
 
Thought I may chime in on here. My ceton experience hasn't been stellar so far. There are a few bad bugs with it. For example, my usb version of it seems to reset itself, dropping usb connection randomly. A fix is in the works but for the past week or so, mine has been nearly unusable.
The other problem I've had with it is related to the cable co, mine is Twc, and with them, sdv error:1 and subscription required messages pop up daily. Sometimes even the regular local channels stop working. I still have a week or so to return the product, and I'm seriously thinking of bringing it back.
 
How exactly does the Ceton work? Could I get the extended basic cable package from comcrap...then extend it to the rest of my house?

Thus I would not have to pay for any set top boxes? This would cut my cable bill so far down it would pay for the ceton in 4 months time.
 
Not to get off topic, but if I have, lets say a Ceton in my HTPC recording to a home media server, and an extender in another room. Can I watch the recorded shows through the extender and can I assume it would use processing power from the server. Also, can I watch live TV through the extender and assume it would use processing power from the HTPC the card is in?
 
It's not tough to google those questions and have them answered.
 
It's not tough to google those questions and have them answered.

I'm pretty sure every question ever asked on a forum could be answered by searching google. So besides build guides and for sale threads, wouldn't that pretty much render 99% of all posts on here worthless?

I'm not sure why its such a big deal for me to ask a question on a thread I started that users with first-hand experience are posting in.
 
I'm pretty sure every question ever asked on a forum could be answered by searching google. So besides build guides and for sale threads, wouldn't that pretty much render 99% of all posts on here worthless?

I'm not sure why its such a big deal for me to ask a question on a thread I started that users with first-hand experience are posting in.

To answer your question, yes you can use your extender for both of those things.

But, those are pretty basic questions that would come up on a first pass with google. The value of a forum is really in asking more complex/nuanced questions and having a discussion related to them.
 
How exactly does the Ceton work? Could I get the extended basic cable package from comcrap...then extend it to the rest of my house?

Thus I would not have to pay for any set top boxes? This would cut my cable bill so far down it would pay for the ceton in 4 months time.

It does exactly what your cable box does, decodes the cable signal using a hardware card to decrypt (the CableCARD). Yes, you could replace all of your STBs with these or you could use 1 system with a Ceton and share the tuner to multiple other systems in your house.
 
To answer your question, yes you can use your extender for both of those things.

But, those are pretty basic questions that would come up on a first pass with google. The value of a forum is really in asking more complex/nuanced questions and having a discussion related to them.



Ok my bad, I just didn't know if there would be any encryption or HDCP issues with the cableCARD being in one device and the recordings being written to a server. I'm pretty sure the cableCARD has to be paired with a MAC address. I thought I had read somewhere about issues with encryption and multiple machines.

The concept of an extender is pretty simple so not much explanation needed there.
 
I wish satellite TV companies weren't so paranoid about satellite signal fraud and there were similar devices for use with their programming.
 
Ok my bad, I just didn't know if there would be any encryption or HDCP issues with the cableCARD being in one device and the recordings being written to a server. I'm pretty sure the cableCARD has to be paired with a MAC address. I thought I had read somewhere about issues with encryption and multiple machines.

The concept of an extender is pretty simple so not much explanation needed there.

The CableCARD (that you will get from your cable company) is tied to the Ceton card that you pair it with. The encryption issue arises if your cable provider flags channels as 'copy once' - they are all different when it comes to this (e.g. Time Warner flags everything aside from local channels, FiOS flags nothing except for premiums like HBO/Cinemax). Recordings from channels that are flagged can only be watched on the machine they were recorded on.
 
Thought I may chime in on here. My ceton experience hasn't been stellar so far. There are a few bad bugs with it. For example, my usb version of it seems to reset itself, dropping usb connection randomly. A fix is in the works but for the past week or so, mine has been nearly unusable.
The other problem I've had with it is related to the cable co, mine is Twc, and with them, sdv error:1 and subscription required messages pop up daily. Sometimes even the regular local channels stop working. I still have a week or so to return the product, and I'm seriously thinking of bringing it back.

The subscription required message can be from low signal strength, FYI... might want to try checking in the diagnostics section regarding that. As far as the sdv thing, you do have the adapter if your cable uses switched digital video, right? (I assume yes but just checking).
 
The CableCARD (that you will get from your cable company) is tied to the Ceton card that you pair it with. The encryption issue arises if your cable provider flags channels as 'copy once' - they are all different when it comes to this (e.g. Time Warner flags everything aside from local channels, FiOS flags nothing except for premiums like HBO/Cinemax). Recordings from channels that are flagged can only be watched on the machine they were recorded on.

Ok that makes sense, thanks for explaining that. :)
 
Ok that makes sense, thanks for explaining that. :)

Also copy once means that if you reinstall your os you will lose the ability to play the files. I upgraded my media center to a ssd and when I reinstalled my os I lost the ability to play any of the shows I recorded(that were copy once).
 
I don't understand this DRM stuff. Can't you just rip the raw streams from the machine that is allowed to play them, and put them into clean container?
 
The subscription required message can be from low signal strength, FYI... might want to try checking in the diagnostics section regarding that. As far as the sdv thing, you do have the adapter if your cable uses switched digital video, right? (I assume yes but just checking).
You are correct and I am aware of the solutions. So far, I've had tw tech come and change my Ccard 2x, check the signal strength 2x (mine ranges from 0 to -2dBmv) and changed my TA 2x. It worked well for about a week,after which it was hit and miss.I wanted the op to realize it wasn't the smoothest of setups, and you will have issues with some things. The usb ceton resetting itself (resulting in partial recordings sometimes) being one of them.
 
I don't understand this DRM stuff. Can't you just rip the raw streams from the machine that is allowed to play them, and put them into clean container?

Nope, I don't think there are any tools to strip out the encryption.
 
You are correct and I am aware of the solutions. So far, I've had tw tech come and change my Ccard 2x, check the signal strength 2x (mine ranges from 0 to -2dBmv) and changed my TA 2x. It worked well for about a week,after which it was hit and miss.I wanted the op to realize it wasn't the smoothest of setups, and you will have issues with some things. The usb ceton resetting itself (resulting in partial recordings sometimes) being one of them.

I've had zero issues with my internal Ceton card after the initial setup (the toughest part is getting your cable company to activate everything properly). The USB one does have a rebooting issue, which Ceton is aware of and is working to fix. There's a thread over on AVS Forum about that, actually. Have you contacted Ceton? From all I've read about folks who have had issues with these tuners, their tech support has been pretty solid.
 
I don't understand this DRM stuff. Can't you just rip the raw streams from the machine that is allowed to play them, and put them into clean container?

I had a lot of legitimately downloaded music that I got from some service called Ruckus my college provided to us back in the day, but it was all in some windows protected format, so I couldn't put it on an ipod or anything. I could only play it on my computer because it every so often wmp would log into Ruckus w/ my credentials and download keys.

I found a program called Tunebite that essentially made several virtual audio drivers that played back each individual song and re-recorded them in a different unprotected format, thus stripping the DRM.

I'm sure you could apply the same concept to cableCARD recordings if somebody hasn't already, although it would obviously take a lot of time, processing power, and memory...
 
You are correct and I am aware of the solutions. So far, I've had tw tech come and change my Ccard 2x, check the signal strength 2x (mine ranges from 0 to -2dBmv) and changed my TA 2x. It worked well for about a week,after which it was hit and miss.I wanted the op to realize it wasn't the smoothest of setups, and you will have issues with some things. The usb ceton resetting itself (resulting in partial recordings sometimes) being one of them.
Ah, I see. Just figured I'd toss out info in case :).
 
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