When will DIY CableCard be available?

T

Tempest

Weaksauce
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Feb 20, 2007
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Quote from CrimandEvil:

The release of Vista will bring Cablecard support (as well as whatever Dish has cooked up for the Sat market) but that will only apply to OEM systems, you won't be able to DIY for a while.
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Does anyone know when or if this will happen? Are there any articles or documentation that state this will ever be available off the shelf?
 
Do a quick search, we've discussed it before in detail.

Long story short, don't expect to be released as an end user type product sans a whole new PC.
 
IIRC that comment as before we knew exactly what was going down. Now, I wouldn't expect to see any sort of DIY Cablecard solution until someone hacks one. Hell, I don't really see any sort of third party PVR support for CC anytime soon. Maybe once they start releasing sub $1500 CableCard systems, maybe then we'll see something.

But I'm not counting on seeing any sort of DIY solution in the next year or two for the same reason why you're only seeing CableCard tuners on systems $2000+.
 
I'd be willing to bet you will see gray market products out once the cable card systems come out. Only time will tell.
 
I give it a year or so, when they realize few are buying the 2k+ systems... I doubt you'll ever see them on a B&M retailer shelf, though.
 
Murali said:
I give it a year or so, when they realize few are buying the 2k+ systems...
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Do you really think they'll care all that much if people aren't buying them? From the start they didn't even want to give us the option to use CableCards so why would they care if it succeeds or not?
 
CrimandEvil said:
Do you really think they'll care all that much if people aren't buying them? From the start they didn't even want to give us the option to use CableCards so why would they care if it succeeds or not?
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You don't think ATI will care much if they never recoup design costs?
 
Murali said:
You don't think ATI will care much if they never recoup design costs?
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Most of their CableCard tuner uses "off the shelf" (for ATI/AMD atleast) parts so no it's not really all that much. Not to mention it was probably subsidized by MS or whoever.

Either way AMD/ATI aren't the ones who really have a say in the matter; it's CableLabs and they've made it clear that they don't care about Cablecard support for the PC.

Either way I see the lack of any sort of "Cablecard ready" systems as a sign; MCE mostly sold without a tuner and theres really nothing stopping any OEM from certifying a line and then just selling the base model (without cablecard tuner) and advertising it as Cablecard ready allowing the end user to add a Cablecard tuner later on down the road.
 
CE is spot on. For the most part CC's are vaporware and I think will continue to be vaporware (i.e. no real released card available for the consumer).
 
Trepidati0n said:
CE is spot on. For the most part CC's are vaporware and I think will continue to be vaporware (i.e. no real released card available for the consumer).
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For sure, it's going to be a long time before you'll be able to walk into a Fry's and pull off an "ATI Digital TV Wonder" off of the shelves which is probably why ATI cancelled their consumer version (that, and, Cablelabs wouldn't allow them to release it). I highly doubt we'll ever see this tuner show up on places like Newegg as an OEM item due to all of the restrictions that have been placed on it's use.

While I'm sure we'll be seeing Cablecard equipped systems for sale (should be in the next two/three months) I don't really see any sort of DIY solution in the works for us which is completely stupid of them. If I could build my own Cablecard equipped system it would be worth it to me to go with Vista, order digital cable and possibly buy some 360s for use as extenders as well as upgrade my TV (finally gives me a reason too).
 
I wonder if we will see these OEM CC devices entering the system through "repair" hardware systems. I also wonder how HP for example will handle me purchasing a CC equiped PC then wanting to purchase a second or third CC adapter as an add-on. I believe that once the cablecard equipped PCs hit the market, demand for these as add-ons will increase and they will end up available to the rest of us....
















eventually.
 
not going to happen anytime soon.

i ended up deciding not to get a cc enabled pc from velocity micro for one reason: you cannot play back hd recordings on any pc other than the one it was recorded on. because of that, i decided to get the hd cable box from my cable company.
 
OK, I understand the media companies wanting to protect their investments (movies, premium content, etc.), but on the other hand the general public (including the DIY crowd) needs to be thought about.

Personally, I think the best option would be for a DIY cablecard solution that is only available from the cable companies. Sure, in a perfect world we could just go out and buy them off the shelf, but the world will never be perfect ;)

I'd be willing to pay $10 or so a month for each cablecard/pci interface, and since I watch/record a lot of TV that would be 3-4 of them in my system. If I can get premium content with them, then I wouldn't have any problems paying more to upgrade to HDTV digital, with premium channels like HBO and Showtime.

Of course, since that is all a fantasy, I'll stick with basic digital (just for the children's channels like Noggin) and only one STB. If the cable companies want more money from me, they have to do something to earn it.
 
farscapesg1 said:
OK, I understand the media companies wanting to protect their investments (movies, premium content, etc.), but on the other hand the general public (including the DIY crowd) needs to be thought about.
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Yep, they thought about you. Then they thought about the profits...then they stopped thinking about you :D
 
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