I don't know if I'm over speculating or just too excited but do you suppose the advent of the DTV tuner may coincide with the new satellite going up next month? I've been with DirecTV for 6+ years and have been very satisfied with QOS,even through the 2004-2005 hurricane season here in FLA. This will open up a whole new world for VMC I'm sure.

HighDef:

I don't know if I'm over speculating or just too excited but do you suppose the advent of the DTV tuner may coincide with the new satellite going up next month?

I'd love to see the D* tuner card released, whatever the excuse.  I don't see that it'd be dependent on a new bird, though.  D* already has MPEG-4 STBs on the market, including an HD DVR.

If D* is waiting on any infrastructure before announcing the card, I'd think it would be Single Wire Multiswitch.  SWM will make D*'s cabling more similar to digital cable.  You'll still need a D* tuner for each TV, but a single coax run can carry both OTA and SAT, and pass through splitters.

True, SWM doesn't have any direct bearing on a D* tuner for PCs, but I can see folks at D* wanting to make a concerted marketing push.  "Look, folks!  We've made cabling easier, we've got more HD local channels and we're adding a tuner card for Windows Media Center!"

Umm i dont think that is the case with the tuner, that sat. main purpose is to get us our HD channels...
This is the projected schedule:

Coming in September:

A&E
CineMax
Food Network
HGTV
History Channel
MHD
NFL Network (Full-Time)
Starz!
The Movie Channel
The National Geographic Channel
The Weather Channel
Versus/Golf


Fall 2007:

Bravo
Cartoon
Chiller
CNN
FX
Sci-Fi
Sleuth
Speed
TBS
USA


December 2007:

The Tennis Channel

Spring 2008

Disney Channel
Toon Disney
ABC Family
ESPN News
MGM


Plus we will be getting Video On Demand, through the sat and our home network, with over 2,000 HD movies to pick from

I believe the sat is scheduled  for June, its wil then take about 10 weeks to get the feeds to us, so we are lookin around laber day

FWIW, my guess is you'll see the D* MCE tuner released around the same time as Fiji, the update to Vista Media Center.  Rumor has it that Fiji is due out around the end of this year.

Kinche:

HighDef:

I don't know if I'm over speculating or just too excited but do you suppose the advent of the DTV tuner may coincide with the new satellite going up next month?

I'd love to see the D* tuner card released, whatever the excuse.  I don't see that it'd be dependent on a new bird, though.  D* already has MPEG-4 STBs on the market, including an HD DVR.

If D* is waiting on any infrastructure before announcing the card, I'd think it would be Single Wire Multiswitch.  SWM will make D*'s cabling more similar to digital cable.  You'll still need a D* tuner for each TV, but a single coax run can carry both OTA and SAT, and pass through splitters.

True, SWM doesn't have any direct bearing on a D* tuner for PCs, but I can see folks at D* wanting to make a concerted marketing push.  "Look, folks!  We've made cabling easier, we've got more HD local channels and we're adding a tuner card for Windows Media Center!"

Thanks for the info on the Multiswitch.  I hasn't heard of that one yet.  Much better than buying a $50 antenna for each set and then trying to figure out a place to hide it and still get good reception.

Digital Freak:

Are you able to say if each D* "box" will have single or dual tuners?  Would be really nice to have only two "boxes" for a total of 4 tuners....

That is up to DirecTV. Right now it looks like two tuners per black box.

multiples of 2 work just fine for me..  I would want 4+atsc

Hey, that's in my area of ownership (N tuners). I'll see what I can do. :-)

Mmm...  N tuners...

I'm ready to order.  Whom should I call? 

No promises. Plus you all already know how to do it. Not that I advocate that. :-)

I will switch to DirecTV the day this product becomes a reality.  I actually like my cable company (Insight), but the CableCard thing has me ticked.  Right now I'm switching using a manual switch box between my MCE and my digital STB which is a pain in the neck.  I record HD on the STB and SD on the MCE, mainly so I can watch SD stuff on my now seriously outdated extender in my bedroom.  I'm not going to spend another $3500+ to get a comparable system to what I have now just to get CableCard, and I'm not going to spend $1500 for a cheap HP and downgrade my computer system either. 

Sorry for the rant but it seems to calm me down a bit to rail on about CableCard every chance I get.  :)

JessZahn:

No promises. Plus you all already know how to do it. Not that I advocate that. :-)

Sorry.  I should have been more specific.  Please allow me to rephrase:

Mmm... N HD-capable DirecTV tuners for Windows Media Center...

babyike:

I will switch to DirecTV the day this product becomes a reality.  I actually like my cable company (Insight), but the CableCard thing has me ticked.  Right now I'm switching using a manual switch box between my MCE and my digital STB which is a pain in the neck.  I record HD on the STB and SD on the MCE, mainly so I can watch SD stuff on my now seriously outdated extender in my bedroom.  I'm not going to spend another $3500+ to get a comparable system to what I have now just to get CableCard, and I'm not going to spend $1500 for a cheap HP and downgrade my computer system either. 

Sorry for the rant but it seems to calm me down a bit to rail on about CableCard every chance I get.  :)

Could not agree more here. As a DIY person for my Media Center, the fact that I can't add a Cable Card system to it, ticks me off. So if Directv offers it, and I get my locals in HD, I would move in a heartbeat. I already have a dish on my roof (the old owners had directv) ready to go !

DavidinCT:

Could not agree more here. As a DIY person for my Media Center, the fact that I can't add a Cable Card system to it, ticks me off. So if Directv offers it, and I get my locals in HD, I would move in a heartbeat. I already have a dish on my roof (the old owners had directv) ready to go !

You would actually need a new 5-LNB dish to get those MPEG-4 locals.  If you have lived there more than a year, chances are an installer would still need to come out and swap dishes.

I'm waiting for the mini 5s instead of that damn sail..   but looks like I'll be going with whatever is available before the fall scifi in hd comes out..