Ian Dixon had Scott Evans from Microsoft on The Media Center Show this week along with AMD talking about AMD Live!

A lot of information dropped today about Hauppauge HD-PVR’s Component Capture device.  I’ve been meaning to do a whole big post about this and how it relates to Media Center and other products like SageTV but never found the time so here is the quick version.

Some information about the device, it is a single input (also has passthrough) Component video capture device that encodes to H.264 (13.5Mbs max) at up to 1080i  It is expected to go for around $250 in early May, produces AVCHD recordings perfect for authoring to Blu-ray Discs, etc, etc.  Product page is here.  It will not work with Media Center out-of-the-gate, Media Center doesn’t support H.264 capture.  Expect that part to get added in Fiji, but I doubt Hauppauge is working directly with Microsoft here so no clue when working Media Center support will be added.  This has ramifications in the content protection field; expect content owners to start looking at enabling ICT on Blu-ray Discs.  That means a max output of 540p unless HDMI-HDCP is used.  Brent Evans has the blog to subscribe to for up-to-the-minute information on the device.

I'm questioning if the 13.5Mbps can be changed via a registry entry, the encoder can do more.  Price is high at the expected $250/device; you also have to add your two cable/satellite STBs that connect directly which puts you at CableCARD prices for a dual tuner setup. Upside is all content is unprotected and no OEM PC is needed.  SageTV will benefit greatly, they will now have a true HD PVR and Extenders to boot.

Engadget HD confirms the obvious that DIRECTV tuner testing is part of the Media Center beta.  I’m not happy with whoever keeps leaking this stuff BTW.  You got into a private beta, be happy and keep your mouth shut.  It was clear DIRECTV was a part of this, leaking it means less opportunities for beta access in general.  You thought over a year wait for this beta was bad, wait until the next when it skips any type of public access and goes only to Microsoft employees and partners. On the plus side, hardware loan agreement because include a PC so the tuner works without a special BIOS.  This puts the chances for a retail consumer installed device pretty high.

Ben Drawbaugh is posting about his first day with a Dell XPS 420 which he just got to ditch his TiVo’s.  Ed Bott has a similar overview of his CableCARD setup.