ATI brings CableCARD to the PC with Digital Cable Tuner

From the article:

/me crosses fingers that someone will figure out a hack to get this to work with MythTV.

This is effectively a digital cable terminal all built into the tuner card?

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Currently Running:
Too lazy to update this with my current hardware, I'll redo it during my next install =)

Another link that includes pictures of the internal version.

From the article:

This sounds like very bad news. I hope HD-DVD/Blu-Ray products don't show up with this same sort of crap.
I'm hoping to someday add a HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drive so that I can watch them on my vintage SONY HDTV, which lacks HDMI ports.
I don't want to steal stuff, I just want to watch it!!

And as for the CC tuner, I just want to watch Sopranos in HD on my own DVR! I don't subscribe to cable right now, because their DVR sucks. If I could record and playback stuff on my Myth box, I'd consider subscribing. Right now though, most of the QAM stuff is available to me OTA, and the premium stuff is all locked away behind the ever-inaccessible cable card encryption....
Sorry, off soapbox now. I know I'm preaching to the choir here. I need to get a blog...

I along with others in this forum and the entire the Linux community have experienced how poor ATI's support for Linux is. (Tried getting an ATI All in Wonder TVout working). Until ATI/AMD OpenSources or provides real Linux support for their Video card and tuner drivers they can keep this crap. I'll buy from more Linux friendly vendors like Haupuage or SiliconDust, and rent the premium content when it comes out of DVD.

I think you're missing the big picture here. It doesn't matter whether this piece 'o crap sinks or floats. What's interesting is that a big company (ATI/AMD) is going so far out of its way to pander to the interests of DRM, that they're releasing a completely ridiculous product. Most people who are interested enough to read the article, can't or wouldn't use it.

OTOH, your point about ATI is well taken. Will it ever be safe to use the AMD/ATI combination, particularly if the video is onboard? Suppose I buy my next Myth board with AMD/ATI on it. Maybe it willl decide to degrade my video if it doesn't like what it sees (broadcast flag)? That's something to think about, given what they've done here (double-team DRM, between the tuner and BIOS).

ugh... so if i understand this right, in order to watch CABLEcard equipped cable on a computer, you'll have to buy a pc from one of the big manufacturers (since the ATI card only comes OEM). then you have to use Vista with a encryption ready monitor. plus there's no guarantee of DVR capabilities and CABLEcard is a technology that may already be on its way out.

something tells me the mythtv community will not be early users of this technology. in fact, why would anyone use it unless they are forced?

Yes, that's how I read this.



It's shiny! Hopefully, viable alternatives will continue to be available. I worry about this integration crap, where the MoBo participates in the handshake. What's next? Crippled GPUs and CPUs that refuse to play anything over 480p without a DRM check?

How about Apple's announcement today. How far would you need to transcode HD programming to get it to work on that? Ok the phone looks cool. Mmmmmm shiny......

Actually I read it supports non DRM H.264 and I recall seeing a script round here to export to H.264. ding... http://www.reddawn.net/~jsprenkl/mythtv/

Now all you need is a way to fool iTV into thinking the MythTV backend is iTunes and content on iTV. I would bet a myth2itv would be on the way.

It mentions being able to tune both NTSC and ATSC, and being a USB device it must have some sort of encoder built in for the NTSC. I'm guessing it's probably MPEG-2.

Personally, I would be happy with this device if it worked in MythTV, I could buy it alone, and it was less than $200. Heck, I would probably pay $300 for it. I have no real need for the extra features in CableCARD 2.0. I just want to be able to have the opportunity to get digital channels for more than just the 4 broadcast channels in the area. (My analog signal on Time Warner Cable is pretty crappy, worse than analog broadcast sometimes.)

Cool! Well, maybe. That's probably how they manage to squeeze it over WiFi and run on a cheap processor.

iTunes videos are encoded to about 1.5mbps, which should be low enough to squeeze over most WiFi connections. It copies the file over the network connection and caches it on the internal hard drive. I'm guessing that even with a poor connection you could let it buffer for a while before watching, or maybe even queue up videos you will be watching. It has 40GB to buffer to, which is about 58 hours of video at that rate.

yeah... the ati cablecard thing is scary. sounds like soon nearly every peice of hardware will need to play nice with DRM. that will be a nightmare... and possibly cause a rebellion. plus end up getting hacked anyway. silly...

new iphone is slick, but too expensive for me to ever get one (that's what i said when the ipod came out and now i have one... so, go figure).

the appleTV will be 802.11n (and capable of 720p), and the new Airport Extreme Base Station also announced yesterday (not at the keynote) will be 802.11n. that will be fast enought to stream HD, no? sounds like that's the direction they're going with it, and will probably start selling content on iTunes at 720p soon. it looks like a cool peice of hardware, but essentially an ipod for your TV. might be a cheap frontend for MythTV, though, if it's hackable.

My god would you look at the size of the thing!
I guess all that DRM crap takes a little processing power as the damn tuner is bigger than the laptop it is connected too. The cable companies can keep their 5c encrypted crap content for all I care, I am actually hoping this whole DRM fiasco causes the resurgence of broadcast TV as they will soon be the only thing not locked down...



Heh, that's funny. You do realize Hauppauge makes no linux drivers right? They are completely linux unfriendly. The wonderful bunch of developers on the IVTV project are what makes the pvr cards work so wonderfully. Silicondust OTOH rulez!!!!!

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MythTV box: Opty 170, MSI K8NGM2-FID, 1.5 GB PC2700, Seagate 7200.10 400GB, Lite-On Combo drive. PVR-150, HDHomeRun. Antec Sonata, Freezer 64 Pro. Oh so quiet.

You are right IVTV should be thanked. I should have said pcHDTV (HD-3000).

To defend, I was recalling Cecil saying on an interview during tllts show that he conacted Haupuage and they provided API, which is diffrent from providing drivers. My mistake.



http://www.tllts.org/dl.php?episode=149