HDTV + Cable: Sage, no; Tivo S3, yes?

[matterw]

Hey, I have always been baffled/bothered by the fact that Sage only supports OTA HDTV, but now I see in the Wall Street Journal an article about the TiVO Series 3 and the fact that it can record in HDTV over cable.

So, just to review, why is it that TiVO can do this, but Sage can't? I know that there are people trying to "cobble/hack" together a solution via the firewire port and such, but isn't there a better way? Am I just losing it?

Appreciate the feedback.

[Muchacho]

I can record unencrypted digital cable (comcast) with a HD home run. It works great- cost $160 for a two tuner device.

[malore]

Tivo can do it because they build their own hardware. In order to use a cable card the entire computer must be certified and support content protection throughout the system. Read this article.

[matterw]

Originally Posted by Muchacho

I can record unencrypted digital cable (comcast) with a HD home run. It works great- cost $160 for a two tuner device.

Is this ready for prime time? I see some stuttering, etc... kind of similar to the experiements that are going on with firewire and the STB...

Thanks , matterw

[matterw]

Originally Posted by malore

Tivo can do it because they build their own hardware. In order to use a cable card the entire computer must be certified and support content protection throughout the system. Read this article.

Thanks for the post -- very interesting. So, it looks like the industry wants to find ways to make $$$ and lock things down a little bit...

I wonder why you can't just have a device card that has a input in place of the TV and suck in the signal like the tv does?!!?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by matterw

I wonder why you can't just have a device card that has a input in place of the TV and suck in the signal like the tv does?!!?

Because CableCard isn't to protect the content while it's on the cable, it's to protect the content once it's in your home.

Europe already has conditional access systems for PCs, where you get a Cable/Sat card (DVB) and a CA module and a card from your provider and you can watch it on your PC. The technology is there.

Here, content providers want us to pay for content, but they don't want to give us access to it.

You can't simply get a TV card with a cablecard slot because CableLabs requires that you submit your system (and get it certified), that it will protect the content even after it gets decrypted with the CableCard module. Ie that it provides a sufficient level of DRM for the recorded content.

This is why so far only closed systems (which prevent user-access to content) are CableCard ready. And why only Vista (which will have support for OS level DRM), and even then only big OEM (ie Dell) systems (which will get some magic blessing) will be certified.

[matterw]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Because CableCard isn't to protect the content while it's on the cable, it's to protect the content once it's in your home.

Europe already has conditional access systems for PCs, where you get a Cable/Sat card (DVB) and a CA module and a card from your provider and you can watch it on your PC. The technology is there.

Here, content providers want us to pay for content, but they don't want to give us access to it.

You can't simply get a TV card with a cablecard slot because CableLabs requires that you submit your system (and get it certified), that it will protect the content even after it gets decrypted with the CableCard module. Ie that it provides a sufficient level of DRM for the recorded content.

This is why so far only closed systems (which prevent user-access to content) are CableCard ready. And why only Vista (which will have support for OS level DRM), and even then only big OEM (ie Dell) systems (which will get some magic blessing) will be certified.

Hang on a sec -- If I'm a little thick, then I appoligize in advance...

Here me out: Right now I plug the cable into my cable box, then plug the cable box into my TV. From what you are saying Motorola (the cablebox company) got certified or whatever -- fine. Why can't I plug the cable coming out of my Motorola cable box into a HDTV tuner card that is sitting in my computer to capture the HDTV siginal as my TV is currently doing? {similar to what people are doing with Firewire, but I want to do just with the cable out from the box}

Thanks.

[stanger89]

You can, but there aren't any (practical) cards that can capture HD. You have to record the downconverted SD. Further the RG6 cable out of the box is SD not HD.

ATSC/QAM HD cards can't capture raw, uncompressed HD that cable boxes output. You need a professional HD production card (>$1k) to capture uncompressed HD, and even then you need a couple hundred GB/hr to record it.

[gblinckmann]

Originally Posted by stanger89

You can, but there aren't any (practical) cards that can capture HD. You have to record the downconverted SD. Further the RG6 cable out of the box is SD not HD.

ATSC/QAM HD cards can't capture raw, uncompressed HD that cable boxes output. You need a professional HD production card (>$1k) to capture uncompressed HD, and even then you need a couple hundred GB/hr to record it.

I saw on Engadget a capture card for $250. I wonder if something like this could be used?

[stanger89]

It could but it falls into the "not practical" category. It doesn't provide any hardware encoding, so the storage and bandwidth requirements are massive. It doesn't support HDCP, so if your source is HDCP your SOL. And someone on AVS was having trouble because it only support YUV colorspace, and their cable box (or the way they had it hooked up) only supported RGB, so everything was all green.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by stanger89

You can, but there aren't any (practical) cards that can capture HD. You have to record the downconverted SD. Further the RG6 cable out of the box is SD not HD.

ATSC/QAM HD cards can't capture raw, uncompressed HD that cable boxes output. You need a professional HD production card (>$1k) to capture uncompressed HD, and even then you need a couple hundred GB/hr to record it.

True today, but Fujitsu has a h.264 encoder part that does full HD and is less than $100. In 3Q, a variant part will do full 1920x1080 encoding. It should work well. Since it captures HD via analog component, there is no HDCP issue.

Thanks,
Mike

[flavius]

What does that mean, practically speaking?

[Goodspike]

Originally Posted by matterw

Is this ready for prime time? I see some stuttering, etc... kind of similar to the experiements that are going on with firewire and the STB...

Thanks , matterw

The stuttering is a Sage issue. I had it with my Fusion card and now I have it with my Fusion card and the HDHR.