Converting to digital cable, need advice for HTPC

[mdonovan]

I currently am using DirecTV and the analog outputs into a Hauppauge 1850 (I think that's the model). DirecTV has raised their rates yet again, and they are now more expensive than cable, so time to switch.

I wondered if anyone can advise me which Hauppauge interface I need to interface the digital cable into my HTPC. I find it all a bit confusing. The analog was easy, out from box and into PC card. Is it that simple for digital as well? I know it's kind of an open ended question, but I would appreciate your thoughts.

Matt

 

[troymt]

If you are cable bound then one approach would be to ditch the Hauppauge and go all digital with cable cards and the Ceton Infinity 4. No more cable box and cable cards price per month is usually cheaper than having to lease one of their receivers. Not sure what your HTPC has under the hood but WMC7 with that card is really nice. Not to mention getting to record 4 shows at once.

 

[mdonovan]

If you are cable bound then one approach would be to ditch the Hauppauge and go all digital with cable cards and the Ceton Infinity 4. No more cable box and cable cards price per month is usually cheaper than having to lease one of their receivers. Not sure what your HTPC has under the hood but WMC7 with that card is really nice. Not to mention getting to record 4 shows at once.

This card looks very interesting. I need to take a closer look at it. I'm using Vista Media Center now and it's working great. I'll need to see if it will support this card. I was going to get a second card to record while watching another show, but this may work better. Thanks for posting.

Matt

 

[sic0048]

The only other option really is to look at the Hauppauge HD-PVR card or the not yet released Hauppauge Colossal card. These cards card record the component output of the STB. The colossal card sounds like it will be able to record unencrypted HTML outputs too.

Of course with these cards you can only record 1 stream per card, and you need a STB for each tuner. So it isn't as clean as the Ceton Infinity 4 for straight cable source when using Windows 7 as an OS. But it does have some advantages too. First, the source doesn't matter, so if you end up switching back to satellite in the future, the Ceton card won't work, but you could still continue to use the Hauppauge cards. You simply change out the STB. Also, it works with a lot more OS than the Ceton card.

Just some more things to consider.

 

[piper_chuck]

I currently am using DirecTV and the analog outputs into a Hauppauge 1850 (I think that's the model). DirecTV has raised their rates yet again, and they are now more expensive than cable, so time to switch.

I wondered if anyone can advise me which Hauppauge interface I need to interface the digital cable into my HTPC. I find it all a bit confusing. The analog was easy, out from box and into PC card. Is it that simple for digital as well? I know it's kind of an open ended question, but I would appreciate your thoughts.

Matt

If you've been happy with DTV and your setup, give them a call. I've found that their customer retention people are very willing to cut rates, provide new receivers for free, etc in order to keep a customer. Of course if you've had issues and are ready to make the switch to cable, the cable companies are also often quite willing to provide incentives to switch.

In the past I've gone back and forth between DTV and TWC several times due to price. In the end I keep going back to DTV, largely because I hate the TWC DVRs and the way they arrange their channels, so now I just use the possibility of switching to bargain for better rates from DTV.

We're within 2 weeks of moving to our new house. I was originally hoping to get a bundle of services to simplify things. After looking at all the options I finally ended up with AT&T for local phone service, TWC (Roadrunner) for internet, and DirecTV. By the time I added the options, the price of all of these individually was essentially the same as a bundle from TWC.

 

[GadgetBoy]

Hey guys:

I own the Ceton card and let me say it is impressive.

I run Windows Media Center on a box running Windows7. My PC is connected to my plasma in my living room and content is streamed to 3 additional TVs via XBoxes. The PC is pretty powerful - 6 cord AMD with 6gigs of RAM.

The cards are hard to come by. I was on the waiting list with CannonPC for over 6 months before I received it. You can buy them on eBay, but you are looking at $650 (vs. $400 from a vendor). And they do go for that price. I inadvertantly forgot to cancel one of my orders (I place an order with two vendors) and an extra card arrived in the mail one day. Rather than return it, I put it on eBay. 3 days later it sold for almost $700.

TheGreenButton.com is a great resource for this topic. I would suggest you browse their forums. AVSForum.com is as well.

I have a friend who owns 3 ATI CableCard readers and experiences problems from time to time. ATI readers are USB also, which can make for a sloppy install. They are also hard to find, but can be found on eBay. With the introduction of Ceton's card, you are starting see the price of them drop.

Feel free to ask any other questions.