PC Mag got their hands on a pre-release Dell coupled with two of those ATI CableCARD decoders I spotted at CES (and a Blu-ray drive). Though the article is extensive (we’re talking screens and screens), I didn’t see much on how CableCARD content is protected. The author was able to view HD content streamed to his Xbox 360, but no word if/how we can access the raw recordings. I’ll go out on a limb here (ha!) and say they’re locked down.
There was no mention of price, though it can’t be cheap – which brings me to…
Niveus’ imminent $1500 dual CableCARD decoder. While it’s certainly sleeker than the ATI solution (x2), I have to agree that it’s “insanely expensive” – realizing one still must buy a paired PC. Ouch. Maybe that $800 (MSRP) TiVo Series3 isn’t as expensive as we thought?
(Thanks Glenn and Kevin!)
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Nuty costs... but so is the whole cert process :p
Agreed the review is lax in not mentioning anything about the DRM. Their own Gearlog podcast released just as they were doing the review (i.e. not knowing the results) literally drools at the possibility of transcoding to portable players, burning to DVD etc, all the stuff you'd want to be able to do if you were a real user, yet their reviewer didn't think of this? Odd.
Obviously you can assume its locked down. The question is whether there will be a way around that. I still say that if the content can be played with WMP, then we have a chance...
[And no, I'm not trying to steal content, I just want to watch stuff from cablecard on my Tivo or my iPod]
The Niveus guys aren't targeting mass consumers with their products, so they can get away with an expensive CableCard receiver to go with their media servers.
It's pretty slick.