Since EngadgetHD has yet to post a round up of their CEDIA coverage (the show floor is still open), I wanted to highlight some of the Media Center news. I can’t say it’s lived up to Ben Drawbaugh’s predictions or my lofty expectations. As I tweeted after Microsoft’s off-site event earlier this week, “The news was good, but there wasn’t much of it.” Bottom line: Build your own CableCARD computers, SDV support on the way, less DRM for more portable recordings, multi-stream CableCARD tuner coming, and the DISH Network tuner initiative isn’t entirely dead. Also notable is what’s missing… Where the heck are the new Windows 7 media extenders, is AMD/ATI out of the CableCARD tuner business, and how about some more substantial Windows Home Server MC integration?
Media Center CableCARDs freed from OEM requirement
The OEM requirement on CableCARDs has been officially lifted, freeing Joe Six Packs all over from having to buy whole systems.
Hands-on with the Ceton CableCARD tuner
The Ceton CableCARD tuner is a single PCI-E card that uses one multi-stream CableCARD and offers the ability to record four HD channels at once.
Dish Network Media Center tuner hands-on
We’re happy to say that Dish was proudly displaying a Dish Tuner for Media Center 7 at its booth. The bad news however is that it was just a “proof of concept.”
Windows 7 to get a better version of Netflix than Vista
The Windows 7 version of the Netflix Watch Instantly still isn’t going to work on Extenders for Media Center, but it will include a more seamless experience than the Vista version does
For me the news was great. Up until now, I was worried that Ceton would never get their tuner to market. I’m not too concerned with extenders, satellite tuners, Zune integration, so I was satisfied with what was announced. However, if I was concerned with those things , I would be disappointed.
I also read this article that says that Hauppauge as well as some other companies are going to release CC tuners:
http://www.gearlog.com/2009/09/hauppauge_to_sell_cablecard_tu.php
Well, Ceton’s tuner hasn’t hit the market yet. It certainly sounds compelling, but $300 – $600 is a pretty broad price range. If Microsoft gets behind a refreshed line of extenders (other than the Xbox 360), I could be up for a new solution. In fact, I’m decommissioning one of my TiVo units today. We’ll save that story for a future post.
This is great news. I’m going to hold out for those Centon tuners and look into building a nice Media center.
SO I could put an extender in the bedroom that connects to the Win7 HTPC and loose my bedroom’s cable box right?
It would be nice to free away from the archaic I-Guide software. Also with the TV Everywhere initiative, I could still get some On Demand content via the web. Not to mention boatloads of free content in Media Center, Boxee, or other various online sites.
The way I see it is..
I’m not paying for a Tivo plus $12.95 a month for an archaic stretched SD user interface..
A Media Center PC is much more featured than a MOXI..
I could potentially rid myself of a DVR fee, and an additional STB fee $8.90 a month… with a 4 Tuner Centon card and 1 media extender. Plus get the glorious HD modern up to date user interface, along with countless plugins and third party media software.
cypherstream- I have an extender and it’s great for some things, like watching live and recorded tv, music and photos. Other applications are available but a little harder to set up.
I keep forgetting about TV Everywhere. Now, tru2way is almost irrelevant. The one fault that Tivo/media center had was on demand. With that problem solved (and I bet someone will have an app that puts it in the MC menu), there really is no reason for a stb.
And the icing on the cake is not having to pay Tivo/Cable co’s any money for dvr/stb services.
Dave- I would guess that we see the starting price at $599. I hope i’m wrong. I think $399 ($100 for each tuner) is fair. I’m hoping that we will eventually be able to stream live tv to another pc, because that’s about the only thing that an extender has over an ion-based pc right now.
I can’t wait to hear your Tivo story. I dumped them when they broke my S3 with a service update and wanted me to pay them money to fix it. That was a great conversation with a Tivo CSR.
@cypherstream–good point about the whole TV Anywhere thing. If they allow me to watch on demand stuff over their internet connection then you’re right, I don’t need tru2way or anything, I can just hook up a media streamer of some kind, something that can handle web video. Which of course could also handle Hulu, ABC.com, ESPN.com, etc. Wow, I don’t have to care if Tivo never does a Series 4!
The big whole in the whole WMC7 thing seems to be the extenders at this point, with everybody and his dog (Linksys, HP, Nivea, etc) who makes them seemingly announcing end of life in recent memory. I’m not even sure you’ll be able to buy one in six months or so. And I’m not prepared to put an XBox 360 in more than one room.