I was looking at getting an ATI TV Wonder™ Digital Cable Tuner with cable card for my PC.  My understanding is that this is only sold with preconfigured PC that are approved for its use (reasons to do with cablelabs and DRM).  I see that people are selling them and was wondering if anyone had any experience with them working on nonapproved PC's.  My video card is HDCP compatable (Nvidia 8500GT) but I also understand that there is a digital PIN built into approved PC's that allow the device to work with a cablecard. 

Does anyone have any experience with this?

Right, it doesn't work unless you have a PC with the correct BIOS and a special product key (neither of which come with the tuner itself.)

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Chris Lanier
The Green Button Forum Moderator

I am a little confused?   If I buy one and get the product key do you thing I could get it to work on a HP s3300t PC. 

No, neither comes with the tuner.  You have to purcahse a new OEM CableCARD PC to get them.

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Chris Lanier
The Green Button Forum Moderator

he ment to say neither of witch com with the tuner they come with the prebuilt pc

You won't be able to get a product key and even if you did still wouldn't work you have to have the ocur enable bios.

 

Not going to happen unless you buy a compatible computer. The cards you see for sell are for people that already have the computer and want more tuners.

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Dell xps420 w/ dual ATI cable cards
Hdhomerun for QAM
Panasonic 50" Plasma fed by xbox 360
Panasonic 42" plama fed by xbox 360
3TB in storage and counting

I was looking on ebay where a few people are selling them.  They state that it came with there PC but they don't need them. 

 

Anyway it seems like the answer is a clear NO.  Thanks for the input.  If anyone ever finds a way around this please let me know. 

 

Thanks again

 

Jeff

 

 

Just as devil's advocate, and because I know nothing of the technology involved, if hackers can emulate OEM builders' bios to get past Vista activation, what is to prevent them from emulating whatever bios is required to get these devices working?

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* Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 in an Intel DG965WH motherboard with built-in dolby digital live audio output via SPDIF
* evga geforce 7600gs graphics
* VBox Cat's Eye 150 ATSC tuner
* Theater 550 Pro analog tuner

Hasn't been hacked yet as cable cards has a pretty good lock down on these systems. Also with the system having to go out and get guide data I wouldn't be suprised if it isn't checking complaince in the background

These systems are hard enough to get work with a cable card compliant pc I would hate to have to try it hacked. Plus cable companies are slowly catching up and soon will realize how to tell a cable card pc (digital key on back)

 

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Dell xps420 w/ dual ATI cable cards
Hdhomerun for QAM
Panasonic 50" Plasma fed by xbox 360
Panasonic 42" plama fed by xbox 360
3TB in storage and counting

dziring:

Just as devil's advocate, and because I know nothing of the technology involved, if hackers can emulate OEM builders' bios to get past Vista activation, what is to prevent them from emulating whatever bios is required to get these devices working?

1.)  Many of the hackers do not live within the United States, this technology is limited to the US only.

2.)  Hackers in the US will be less likely to touch it due to DCMA, and the lovely awards presented for breaking DCMA.

3.)  While it's easy to emulate a certain OEM's bios, it is much harder to emulate settings on a board which are encrypted, and NOT part of your normal motherboard bios.  Hence cable card and non cable card systems using the same board and being able to flash the same bios upgrades.  The cablecard portion is seperate from the standard bios.

-D

Activating a cablecard is not an easy hack. First you have to get the card from the cable company. Second they usually require a truck roll to deliver and install the card. Third the device (the only one I've found certified is the ATI device) has to have a host id number and then the cable card has a number. Once plugged in the installer has to physically call the head end and then the guy at the head end enters the host id number, the device number and the mac address to authorize the card.

In the case of the Windows HMC, the ATI device (which is a USB device) requires that the host computer has a certificate number in it's bios. Now the certificate numbers, the host numbers, and the cable card numbers are all unique and issued by Cable Labs so any combination can be traced (all cable cards can be polled by the cable headend).

John

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XPS420: Quad, 3 Gig, 650/1T internal, 1T eSata
Dual ATI Cable Cards (SA-800 M)
T-W W Valley (LA)
ATI Radeon HD3650 (DVI/HDMI)
2 Maxtor NAS (320/500)
3 Ximeta NDAS (each 500)
2 XP, 1 Macintosh X (10.4.11), HP 280N extender, Linksys DMA2100

JohnW248:

Activating a cablecard is not an easy hack. First you have to get the card from the cable company. Second they usually require a truck roll to deliver and install the card. Third the device (the only one I've found certified is the ATI device) has to have a host id number and then the cable card has a number. Once plugged in the installer has to physically call the head end and then the guy at the head end enters the host id number, the device number and the mac address to authorize the card.

Uh.... no one was discussing hacking the actual cable card activation, as this would be illegal.  They were simply trying to find a way to use the ATI Cable Card Tuner on a non-cable card system.

:)

-D

dravor:

JohnW248:

Activating a cablecard is not an easy hack. First you have to get the card from the cable company. Second they usually require a truck roll to deliver and install the card. Third the device (the only one I've found certified is the ATI device) has to have a host id number and then the cable card has a number. Once plugged in the installer has to physically call the head end and then the guy at the head end enters the host id number, the device number and the mac address to authorize the card.

Uh.... no one was discussing hacking the actual cable card activation, as this would be illegal.  They were simply trying to find a way to use the ATI Cable Card Tuner on a non-cable card system.

:)

-D

I've read about this like crazy, I don't think it would even be possable. It would be interesting tho, if someone attempted the emulation of the bios and actually got a postive result. I know there is a little script around that will tell if the Bios has cable cards support...

The problem that people run into, maybe the bios is ok, Maybe it sees the tuner, maybe you can get the OCUR "key", maybe windows thinks it's on the a correct type of machine...... you still have to deal with your cable company coming into your home, trying to get it all to work, and if you have an issue, even a small one, it could be hard to troubleshoot....

There are so many factors that come with Cablecards, it could be more trouble than it's worth....

There must be a way tho....

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-Dave

MCP, MCSA, MCSE 2003
Windows Vista Connected Exp:Home Theater for Technologists
Windows Vista Connected Exp:Home Theater for Sales professionals

Home theater specialist (10+ years)

I think the big problem with cloning a BIOS is that you can bet that the BIOS key is sent to Microsoft during the regular DRM update process.  If that key showed up twice, you can also bet that there is a process to disable all machines with that cloned key.  In other words, it might work, but not for long.

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-- Jim

I do agree that it it silly to restrict the DCT's to certain PC's. I don't understand how that deturs hacking.

I would never even consider messing with that.

Even if someone figures out how to watch a channel that they are not authirised for,
the CP would know you were watching it!

Unlike sattelite cards, these cards "talk" back to the CP.

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3 Sony Vaio VGX-Xl3's - Blu-Ray
8GB Ram - 12 Terrabytes
Logitech Harmony 890 / diNovo Edge
Vista Ultimate 64-bit OS
10 VGP-XL1B Disk Changers
40" Sony BRAVIA XBR5 LCD HDTV
Sony BRAVIA Theatre Micro System