do they make a...

[xlr8shun]

digital cable (north american) tuner card with a hardware encoder?

yet?

will they ever?

they make it so hard and complicated to come up with a solution to record television so you can watch it when its most convienient to you. and im kind of looking for a simple 'plop a card in a box, and youre ready to go' solution.

im not trying to record things like hbo, showtime, cinemax, or even hd, just the 'basic' channels that happen to fall above the "standard" packages that cable companies offer.

my parents just got digital cable at their new home, ~200 channels, and they dont want to go the cable co. stb/dvr route, they're thinking about tivo (which is nice) but they want to be able to watch their recorded shows in upto 4 different locations in the home. buying 4 tivo's or renting 4 dvr's from the cable co. is going to get real expensive. if i can just build them 4 clients, and plop in a couple digital tuners with hardware encoding, i can give them so much more then what tivo or the cable co. can offer, with much more freedom, and in the long run, much cheaper.

only, after all my searching and looking, ive come to the conclusion that there isnt a solution available.. yet (if ever). am i overlooking something or is there just nothing on the market for this kind of thing. and if there isnt, why? what makes tivo or replaytv so special that they're the only ones that can do this sort of thing (with exception to the cable co. themselves)?

[dbfresh23]

Search for cablecard - but it's implementation in the PC is far from finalized. You can also check out www.vwbinc.com - they will be releasing the MediaReady 6000 later this year which has cablecard built in, along with a hefty price tag though. Even still, a MeadiaReady 6000 and a few MediaMVPs would be way cheaper then a Tivo, especially with their new price model.

[xlr8shun]

ah ha! cablecard is the keyword. thanks for the link also, i'll do some more looking around and see what i can find out.

[Crazedz]

Originally Posted by xlr8shun

digital cable (north american) tuner card with a hardware encoder?

yet?

will they ever?

they make it so hard and complicated to come up with a solution to record television so you can watch it when its most convienient to you. and im kind of looking for a simple 'plop a card in a box, and youre ready to go' solution.

im not trying to record things like hbo, showtime, cinemax, or even hd, just the 'basic' channels that happen to fall above the "standard" packages that cable companies offer.

my parents just got digital cable at their new home, ~200 channels, and they dont want to go the cable co. stb/dvr route, they're thinking about tivo (which is nice) but they want to be able to watch their recorded shows in upto 4 different locations in the home. buying 4 tivo's or renting 4 dvr's from the cable co. is going to get real expensive. if i can just build them 4 clients, and plop in a couple digital tuners with hardware encoding, i can give them so much more then what tivo or the cable co. can offer, with much more freedom, and in the long run, much cheaper.

only, after all my searching and looking, ive come to the conclusion that there isnt a solution available.. yet (if ever). am i overlooking something or is there just nothing on the market for this kind of thing. and if there isnt, why? what makes tivo or replaytv so special that they're the only ones that can do this sort of thing (with exception to the cable co. themselves)?

Yeah cablecard is the future at least if cablelabs has their way (and i hope they don't stupid fargamucking DRM crap).

At anyrate to answer part of your question their are no nor will as far as i know ever be or need to be hardware encoder HDTV tuner cards. The reason is (as has been stated before) is that HD content comes into the tuner already encoded theirs no encoding to be done as it is already encoded so no hardware is needed to do that hence no hardware encoder cards are avalible.

As far as cablecard goes the last i heard is that cablecard 1.0 isn't nor will it ba avalible for pc's and 2.0 requires pc's to meet cablelabs spec which is pretty stringent and just about nobody (unless you sell your soul that is) will be able to make a home brew solution so your just about stuck buying a commercial pc box to get it or go the cable co route. Either way it's designed to please the heck out of the mpaa and hollywood not you or me or any other end consumer because were all just theives and pirates anyway and will only take their precious content from the illegally (at least in their eyes) so were not to be trusted even so far as they could throw our nation because were just down right evil and only to be put up with cause they have to have our green. Ok maybe it's not quite that extream but it seems that way, at least they treat us all that way so the difference is virtually negeligable.

Sad but that's pretty much the choices at this time no cable support or buy into the represive industry sponsered government approved version that treats you and yours like your the lowest form of evil emaginable only to be put up with cause they have to have your dough.


Sorry this whole path they have us on just infuriates me no end i sometimes just want to mash my head into a wall to make the pain their causing dull somewhat.

Anyway the only hardware encodeing you need on a HDtuner is for standard non encoded analog signals if the tuner recieves them (some do some don't) other than that as i said other encoding isn't needed.

Cheers.