Hauppauge has announced their HD PVR which will capture the signal from the component output of a cable or satellite STB. 

Jessica - I beg you to get MS to ensure that this works with MCE and Vista MCE ASAP! 

If MCE does not support this and Sage does (they have already hinted that they will) then you will lose a lot of users. 

Some people, like Canadians, currently have no way of getting HD into their MCE PCs so this is THE HOLY GRAIL!

By the way, if this card doesn't work in MCE then there is no point in bothering with the CGMS-A fix for Canada as no one here will be using MCE anymore. 

Get ready to leave then, I highly doubt Microsoft will add support for this.

---

Chris Lanier
The Green Button Forum Moderator

Chris - Moderator:

Get ready to leave then, I highly doubt Microsoft will add support for this.

Why not?  What is the difference between capturing unencrypted s-video and unencrypted component video?  It's not like you're circumventing any DRM.  This has technically been possible in the past but not at a price point for retail PC users.

I just don't think Microsoft will develop any type of support for it.  If Hauppauge does then that's a different story.

---

Chris Lanier
The Green Button Forum Moderator

Chris - Moderator:

I just don't think Microsoft will develop any type of support for it.  If Hauppauge does then that's a different story.

As long as it is supported then that would be great - I don't care who writes the drivers.  Do tuner cards need anything done by MS or could Hauppauge write the drivers to make it work?

If it is not supported then I will definitely switch.  I will download the trial version of Sage tonight and start trying it out - their extenders are also about $100 cheaper than V2 extenders.

holy jebus this is going to get expensive


2x HD capture cards

1x Sage server licence
4x sage client licence
1x new hdtv

new hd tv subscription, haha



there's no way we'll see support for this in mce 2k5 unless it automagically works, or a reg hack can enable it

vista? it'll show up in 10 years

Tikker - don't forget that you will also need 2x HD cable boxes or that funky IPTV thing that SaskTel gives you green folks!

With a card like this and the fact that Sage is likely lined up at the door chomping at the bit to get it supported, MCE both in Vista and XP are dead unless MS adds support.

The only saving grace for Vista MCE was CableCARD but due to how crappy it was all implemented, forget it.  These cards allow one to use ANY providor cable OR sat so long as there are component vid connectors on the back of the STB.

 

Also, this is yet another reason I am happy I joined the world of SageTV.

wayner9:

Tikker - don't forget that you will also need 2x HD cable boxes or that funky IPTV thing that SaskTel gives you green folks!

we just get different boxes

we already have STB's because microsoft doesn't understand how multicast works (ie, I really shouldn't even NEED a capture card, just input ethernet to the box and you're done)

This is great news, but I wonder how this is going to change things or if this is going to work without DRM?

My understanding is the industry (MPAA, etc.) considers component difficult to capture and therefore allowed premium content to be output from STBs unprotected as long as the output is component.

Is this suddenly going to change what our STBs are able to output through component?  Can the cable companies stop pay per view and premium channels outputting through component for example?

The other thought I had is, who is to say what is recorded doesn't get protected with DRM.  Microsoft for example, since they already have their DRM in place, could potentially support this card using Hauppage drivers, but then potentially DRM everything recorded from it (personally I wouldn't mind DRM as long as a downconversion/unprotection path is available for portable players, burning to DVD, DVRMSToolbox (and other utilities), and most importantly provide the ability to share top quality HD content with other PCs and extenders on the local network without any downconversion).

If it is truly DRM free and all content is available using it, I suspect this relatively simple card will have a much larger market that CableCard and DirecTV.  If Media Center then doesn't support it and Sage TV does, I suspect an awful lot of us will be running Sage TV in the near future.

---

STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote

It would be interesting to try to see them try to stop component outputs. I bought a HD cable box - an SA3250HD from Rogers Cable a couple of years ago.  This box has component and DVI outputs (no-HDMI) and Rogers says that they do not support the DVI outputs.  My main TV only has component inputs.  How can they now stop using component and render my box useless, unless they refund me the value of that box?  Even replacing it, at no charge, with a box with HDMI would not help me since my main TV does not have HDMI inputs.  I would want Rogers to buy me a new 50" TV with HDMI inputs (as if that will happen).

FYI - Rogers only starting offering a non-PVR cable box with HDMI this week - it is the SA4250HD.  They have offered a PVR box, the SA8300HD for a couple of years now and it does have an HDMI output.

I wonder if the box would even have the capability of shutting off the component outputs?

wayner9:

Some people, like Canadians, currently have no way of getting HD into their MCE PCs so this is THE HOLY GRAIL!

The other untapped "Holy Grail" is the unused Firewire port available on most STBs.

I checked out my father's cable STBs the other day and they have functional Firewire ports with 5C (DTCP-1394) content protection.

More and more I talk to people all over Canada who I find have functional Firewire ports on their STBs and more and more of them are not be able to use them because 5C protection is being turned on.

Here is a direct port, available today, to bring digital, protected HD content into Media Center PCs throughout North America and it is not being leveraged at all.  Compared to DirecTV and CableCard, writing a 5C compliant driver would be a total piece of cake for MS.  The image quality would be better than recording from component video because it would be a digital signal plus changing channels and powering the STB on and off would all be through Firewire too.

---

STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote

Yes, why isn't firewire supported in MCE? 

Chris can correct me if I am mistaken, but I don't believe that Media Center works with H.264 compression  for recorded TV. Unless the device also supports mpeg2 encoding it will have issues.

wayner9:

Chris - Moderator:

I just don't think Microsoft will develop any type of support for it.  If Hauppauge does then that's a different story.

As long as it is supported then that would be great - I don't care who writes the drivers.  Do tuner cards need anything done by MS or could Hauppauge write the drivers to make it work?

If it is not supported then I will definitely switch.  I will download the trial version of Sage tonight and start trying it out - their extenders are also about $100 cheaper than V2 extenders.