It’s here. Ceton’s quad-CableCARD tuner, aka InfiniTV 4, has finally started shipping to those who pre-ordered – and the first few end user hands-on reports are trickling out.
The Ceton tuner is unique for the following reasons:
- There aren’t a lot of choices at the moment for CableCARD tuners. So anytime we see a company willing to devote nearly all of their resources to it we have to give them credit.
- This first version of the Ceton card is a 4 tuner CableCARD device. Yes you can record up to 4 shows all from this one card – including encrypted, digital cable HD shows.
- CableCARD has drawn a renewed interest from HTPC owners – particularly Microsoft Media Center users since MS ended the OEM PC CableCard requirement.
This tuner will cost you $400 so it isn’t cheap by any means, but it does seem to be a good piece of hardware. Here’s the first few reports: Read the rest of this entry »
Very nice! Hopefully the HDHomeRun Prime is still on track as well.
Yeah, as I mentioned on Brent’s site I’m waiting to see how the CableCARD HDHomeRun turns out before making a move. Although the suggestion that Microsoft is done innovating on Media Center has me down.
The Ceton looks great & I’m definitely pulling for the company. But I also am pretty interested in how SiliconDust will implement their CableCard device set to arrive later this year. SiliconDust just had their visit to CableLabs last week so things seem to be moving along there.
I got all excited when reading this, I’ve been waiting patiently for so long. I was one of the first pre-orders back in March on zones.com. I called them and they told me “Yes, we received a shipment of Ceton tuners, but all of those items were sent to MS for our contract with them.”
It’s really irritating reading news that “people are receiving their tunes and reviews are trickling in”, knowing that you got the shaft because you picked the wrong vendor to buy from.
Zones sucks. The card has been on pre-order so long, they don’t even show it in my order history anymore.
Booooo zones.com. You suck!
I don’t use MCE but I admire it. Still not seeing signs its hit the mainstream at all yet though. If it had you’d see lots of little pre-built boxes intended to be hooked up to your PC with just the right amount of CPU to run Flash videos full screen yet cheap and silent AND with a slot to install something like this. Instead we’re seeing lots of those boxes but without any internal slots, presumably intended solely to watch internet video on–Hulu and the like, and possibly DVD/Blu-Ray. LOTS. Meaning somebody must be buying these things. I hope this thing sells a lot of units, but at $400 I kind of don’t think it will.
Plus those early stories about multi-day semi-successful CableCard installs that involved three different support guys in the room for extended periods of time scared the bejezus out of me. I suspect most of that has been ironed out, but I’ve had enough trouble getting CableCards installed and working in my Tivo’s to make me wonder.
As far as I can see Centon is doing a bait and wait. I had talked to 2 of the 3 retailers and the numbers they they gave me were just downright jaw-dropping. One said they got 400 in and the other said they only got 50. Thats’s would be 500 cards or so for 2 of the 3 places that are selling the cards if the information is correct. The one place said they had 900 orders for the 400 cards, the other 300 for the 50 cards. Why won’t ceton be up front about home many cards have been produced and made available to the general public and not just “reviewers” or Microsoft employees.
Ceton needs to fess up and be honest with it’s customers.
I pre-ordered a Ceton card from Zones the day after they opened up the pre-orders and it came in the mail last Monday. I’ll finally have the FIOS guy in tomorrow to have my CableCard installed!
I know of one other person who also pre-ordered and since he already had a CableCard he was able to just plug and play, all is well. I’ve been using the STB in conjunction with my Media Center since late last year so I’m looking forward to getting rid of that thing.