Ceton InfiniTV 4 Quad-tuner Card $220 newegg

[thedarkwolf]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815706001

Usually $300. I have the haupenpage 2 tuner card and it is all I need but if this was $220 when I bought I'd be very tempted. Quit paying the cable company to rent a HDDVR.

 

[mikeford]

Too bad it comes a couple days after Silicondust Prime 3 tuner dropped to $169 at I think Newegg and amazon. I was initially thinking of using a Ceton card, but going with a network device allows a very small HTPC, and I jumped on the first deal.

 

[grkM3]

how does this decypt pay channels like hbo without using the cable box?

edit never mind,it uses a cable card

 

[manimal]

Do these allow other devices in your network to access streams? Havent looked at these things in a year or two.

 

[BornStar]

You can either share the tuners with another computer which would allow you to view live TV or record shows on that TV which likely wouldn't be useful elsewhere or you can get a Media Center Extender (Xbox 360 is the only currently supported one) which allows you to access live and previously recorded shows away from your primary HTPC. As far as I know this tuner is only supported under 7MC (Windows 7 Media Center).

 

[driveeuro]

Do these allow other devices in your network to access streams? Havent looked at these things in a year or two.

You can use this for 4 seperate streams. So you could have 4 HTPCs in your house. I think Cablecards are free (through Comcast at least), so you could eliminate your DVR/HD Box fees.

I'd love to do this... but I know the wife would have a hard time getting used to... meaning she would make me return it. lol

 

[mikeford]

Do these allow other devices in your network to access streams? Havent looked at these things in a year or two.

Best to do some reading at www.AVSforum.com one of the issues of card vs network device is the sharing of tuners and content. Much depends on your cable provider and which flag they set in the DRM. Some won't share or stream except to certain types of "extender" boxes. Time Warner cable I believe sets the copy once flag, which allows storage on the system with the tuner card, but not sharing or playback on any other PC.

 

[wirednuts]

. Time Warner cable I believe sets the copy once flag, which allows storage on the system with the tuner card, but not sharing or playback on any other PC.

barf. off to look for a circumvention around that crap. fuck that.

 

[GTFan]

You can either share the tuners with another computer which would allow you to view live TV or record shows on that TV which likely wouldn't be useful elsewhere or you can get a Media Center Extender (Xbox 360 is the only currently supported one) which allows you to access live and previously recorded shows away from your primary HTPC. As far as I know this tuner is only supported under 7MC (Windows 7 Media Center).

Some corrections here...

- the tuners are not shared, they have to be allocated to each PC. The Silicondust HDHomerun Prime allows for dynamic tuner sharing.

- MythTV also supports the Ceton card now.

- other extenders are supported, including Linksys DMA2100/2200, HP x280n, and D-Link DSM-750. All of these are discontinued but the Linksys is still readily available on fleabay. The HP is the best of the batch.

 

[thedarkwolf]

You can use this for 4 seperate streams. So you could have 4 HTPCs in your house. I think Cablecards are free (through Comcast at least), so you could eliminate your DVR/HD Box fees.

I'd love to do this... but I know the wife would have a hard time getting used to... meaning she would make me return it. lol

Using my xbox 360 as an extender really isn't that much different than my cable box. Mainly it is just getting use to my remote operating a bit different. Anything is better than paying comcast $18 a month for their crappy hddvr box. It isn't as stable as a cable box though. I have had my computer loose the tuners and had to reset the computer twice now since I set this up two weeks ago. .

 

[LikeLinus]

I've got a Ceton InfiniTV 4 in my media server for my house. I've had it since Feb of this year and it's an amazing little card. I have HTCPs hooked up in 3 rooms and use Windows Media Center w/ XBMC for everything other than Live TV. There's a nice little utility that places a menu item for XBMC in WMC and you can switch between them easily.

I already have a media server running 24/7 and it was a no brainer to spend the extra cash ($250) for the 4 tuners that Ceton offers. The first cable card is free from Comcast. I've been very happy with it and the wife and kids even approve. It took them a litttle while to get used to it, but now they love it.

I REALLY wish XBMC would get their act together as fars PVR and support Ceton. I didn't know MythTV supported the Ceton card now. I'm going to have to go look into that. I've never used MythTV.

 

[Craig234]

I have a really basic question about this, which is basically, do I want it? I need to know the pros and cons, what it does.

So far, it seems it 'provides 4 tuners' so when you figure out how to install and use it in an HTPC, you can record 4 shows. It provides some reduction in cable device fees.

I'm not clear on much else than that, which isn't terribly compelling, just 'nice to have' contrasted with the potential headaches using a new system. Any use with PS3?

Is it usable for capturing tv/games/ps3 for use in a video editing program?

Almost everyone seems to praise it, so I'm sure there's a reason.

 

[thedarkwolf]

The only thing cable card tuners offer over any other computer tuner is it lets you view all those encrypted channels a normal computer tuner won't. In other words any channel you can get with a cable box you can get with a cable card tuner.

edit.
Should make that clearer. To get those encrypted channels you still have to pay for them. This won't get you free HBO but if you are paying for HBO you can watch and/or record it using one of these tuners.

One thing to keep in mind is these cable card tuners are digital only tuners. Comcast in my area still only offers my basic cable channels in analog so I had to buy a separate tuner to pick those up.

 

[GTFan]

Most Comcast areas do analog/digital simulcast now, so all the local channels are digital as well as analog. But this only matters for SD anyway, kind of a moot point for most folks.

 

[mikeford]

If HTPC was simple it wouldn't take forums to explain it. Read a FAQ, walking in the door the first time you don't even know which questions to ask. The answer to most questions though is no, or no not easily.

 

[wirednuts]

i think the centon tuner at this price is a better deal the the home run prime at $169

 

[Craig234]

The only thing cable card tuners offer over any other computer tuner is it lets you view all those encrypted channels a normal computer tuner won't. In other words any channel you can get with a cable box you can get with a cable card tuner.

edit.
Should make that clearer. To get those encrypted channels you still have to pay for them. This won't get you free HBO but if you are paying for HBO you can watch and/or record it using one of these tuners.

One thing to keep in mind is these cable card tuners are digital only tuners. Comcast in my area still only offers my basic cable channels in analog so I had to buy a separate tuner to pick those up.

I'm just trying to figure out what all the excitement is. So I can record HBO which I can already do with my $5/month Comcast supplied DVR.

 

[bovinda]

I'm just trying to figure out what all the excitement is. So I can record HBO which I can already do with my $5/month Comcast supplied DVR.

Well, that's true, but here are some other pros if you watch a lot of TV or have multiple family members: you can record/watch up to 4 channels at once (which I believe most cable-company supplied DVRs can't do) and you can move the files you want wherever you want or adjust how much storage you have rather than being limited to the DVR. I also like being able to integrate my DVR into my media center so that all my music, DVDs, blu rays, netflix, and tv is in one one spot, accessed through one front-end.

As for cons...well, I don't think HTPCs are easy to set up for most people, and there's the inevitable tinkering that comes with any PC-based set-up. Anyway, that's the dealio with these things, from my perspective.

 

[LikeLinus]

I'm just trying to figure out what all the excitement is. So I can record HBO which I can already do with my $5/month Comcast supplied DVR.

I have a single point of media distribution for my entire house. Each TV has an HTCP that can stream movies, music, TV shows, Live TV and Recorded TV from one box. That box I control and can update the look and feel of XBMC at any time. I can change the software or update codecs and they become available. I save $15 a month by not having to have extra boxes and I can store and share the recorded shows to any box in my house.

It's not for everyone because it can be a pain to set up, but once it's running smooth it is awesome.

 

[Eyeless Blond]

It doesn't seem to be cheap either, at least as far as I can tell. I'm looking into setting up a five-TV household with a Myth-TV setup, and I can't get it done for under $1500-2000, as far as I can tell, maybe more. It's expensive enough that I may as well just pay for the set top boxes from FIOS; at least they'll replace stuff if it breaks.

Anyone know where I can get a cheap Myth-frontend setup? That's what's really getting to me; I need something cheap that I can use for a frontend on the three standard def TVs we have.

 

[snowdogg187]

I am still running MCE 2005 on a Pentium 2. Mediacom is dropping analog so I am going to throw the Ceton Inf 4 in my main PC and see how it works. No Xbox or extenders yet but wouldn't I be able to view these recorded MCE windows 7 files on a WDTV?

Thanks and good luck to all with the switch.

 

[mikeford]

As helpful as we all try to be here, this is a hot deals forum, if you want to know HTPC you will get the best answers from the HTPC forums.

 

[thedarkwolf]

It doesn't seem to be cheap either, at least as far as I can tell. I'm looking into setting up a five-TV household with a Myth-TV setup, and I can't get it done for under $1500-2000, as far as I can tell, maybe more. It's expensive enough that I may as well just pay for the set top boxes from FIOS; at least they'll replace stuff if it breaks.

Anyone know where I can get a cheap Myth-frontend setup? That's what's really getting to me; I need something cheap that I can use for a frontend on the three standard def TVs we have.

I've only skimmed a few things about Mythtv since I'm running windows 7 but I did come across problems with being able to record shows using it. I believe windows 7 is the only option for recording shows flagged "copy once". I think how many channels/shows get that flag vary from area to area but I'm sure it would be a problem.

 

[GTFan]

I'm just trying to figure out what all the excitement is. So I can record HBO which I can already do with my $5/month Comcast supplied DVR.

Lucky you, it's more like $18/mo. here. You must be on some limited-time promo.

Not that it matters, a good HTPC or Tivo setup blows away the craptacular Comcast DVR anyway. I'll never go back to that junk.

 

[wirednuts]

htpc's are cats ass!