MP and CableCard (1 Viewer)

[martoq]

Has anyone gotten MP to work with a CableCard? Further does MP even support a CableCard at this time?

 

[dman_lfc]

Yes MP works with Digital (DVB-C) & Analogue Cable.

DMAN

 

[martoq]

Yes MP works with Digital (DVB-C) & Analogue Cable.

DMAN

I appreciate the response but I was referring moreso to CableCard, the PCI card that is supposed to replace the STB for most companies? I have done some further reading though and aparently you cannot even get a Cablecard for a PC unless the PC has passed CableCard's "evaluation" licensing.

Heres a link with more information: http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/specsformats/CableCARDprimer.php
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[dman_lfc]

OK...

Well CableCard is relatively the same as a CAM (Conditional Access Module) used in europe and other areas for some time for DVB. Today we support varying PCI & USB TV Card devices which have a CI (Common Interface) slot to decrypt the stream on your HTPC system.
This is also possible for DVB-S broadcasts in NA.

For cable in the US we only support Analogue at this time. Although there are PCI / USB ATSC tuners out there in the market place which will work with cable (i.e. Dvico Fusion) we rely on the Microsoft ATSC provider as part of XP. Unfortunately this provider only supports OTA broadcasts so at the moment we're quite restricted.

When Vista finally comes along we should be able to take advantage of the new ATSC provider for cable broadcast and also inherient in the new M$ OS PVP-OPM (Protected Video Path - Output Protection Management) and PVP-UAB (Protected Video Path - User-Accessible Bus), a solution designed to ensure that the system is compliant with CableLabs (NDS - grrrr) specifications and which encrypts video as it passes through the PCIe bus.

So the short answer is...

When Vista & PCIe cards for Vista MCE hit the market with CableCard slot support on the cards then we'll give it a go provided M$ has open API's for non MCE developers. We'll also need the CableCard slot SDK from the TV Card provider if this is proprietary. My understanding is this won't be.

DMAN

 

[martoq]

OK...

Well CableCard is relatively the same as a CAM (Conditional Access Module) used in europe and other areas for some time for DVB. Today we support varying PCI & USB TV Card devices which have a CI (Common Interface) slot to decrypt the stream on your HTPC system.
This is also possible for DVB-S broadcasts in NA.

For cable in the US we only support Analogue at this time. Although there are PCI / USB ATSC tuners out there in the market place which will work with cable (i.e. Dvico Fusion) we rely on the Microsoft ATSC provider as part of XP. Unfortunately this provider only supports OTA broadcasts so at the moment we're quite restricted.

When Vista finally comes along we should be able to take advantage of the new ATSC provider for cable broadcast and also inherient in the new M$ OS PVP-OPM (Protected Video Path - Output Protection Management) and PVP-UAB (Protected Video Path - User-Accessible Bus), a solution designed to ensure that the system is compliant with CableLabs (NDS - grrrr) specifications and which encrypts video as it passes through the PCIe bus.

So the short answer is...

When Vista & PCIe cards for Vista MCE hit the market with CableCard slot support on the cards then we'll give it a go provided M$ has open API's for non MCE developers. We'll also need the CableCard slot SDK from the TV Card provider if this is proprietary. My understanding is this won't be.

DMAN

Awesome, thats exactly what I was looking for. Looks like I will be waiting till the end of this year before I build. I did see this at CES: http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/06/atis-ocur-worlds-first-cablecard-hdtv-tuner-for-vista-pcs/ [/url]

Now if only my gear could run Vista.

 

[cfaslave]

Will MediaPortal ever be able to use CableCard?

I'm sort of resurrecting an old thread, but I thought the thread was relavent to my desire to get CableCard support without having to use Microsoft's Vista MCE. I wonder if CableCard will ever be accessible by Media Porta, BeyondTV, Sage or any other HTPC software program. I did a little research on the topic and then talked about it on my blog
http://brentevans.blogspot.com/2007/...-come-for.html

In summary, I don't see how Media Portal, Snapstream or Sage etc. will be able to pull it off. Read the long (probably to long) post linked above if you are interested as I'd be interested in everyones opinion on this. Some day I really want to be able to use my HTPC to tune all channels I pay for without worrying about a cable box. The HDHomerun gets me part of the way there, but I want more