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Anyone interested should look into one or more of the following alternatives. They don't add any ads to the experience as far as I know. The exception being Tivo, but my understanding is that their ads don't interfere with watching the content. Each of these alternatives have varying levels of openness and freedom ranging from truly FOSS to not FOSS/OSS at all...

Ceton's products: http://cetoncorp.com/
Silicon Dust's products: https://www.silicondust.com/
Kodi's offerings: http://kodi.tv/
Tivo's products: http://www.tivo.com/

I've had a PC running Windows Media Center recording TV on the broad cast schedule for about 10 years now. It currently has 6 tuners (records 6 things at once) for cable broadcasts, and an older tuner to pick up FM on occasion. I can watch live TV/radio, schedule recordings or watch recordings from anywhere in the house that has a TV via Windows Media Center extenders, one Ceton Echo extender and a few Xbox 360s. I can watch iTunes videos or play music, Amazon streaming, or transcode (on the fly) pretty much anything else without any effort by myself or anyone else in the family. With RemotePotato, I can also do anything that I can do in the house from anywhere with a fast enough Internet connection. I can watch TV on my phone, my iPad, or any laptop (we all use OS X, but Windows is easier) in the house.

To put it bluntly, my PC that is slaved to broadcast/scheduled TV kicks the living shit out of every DVR on the planet you've ever seen or known about, especially the shitty ones that the cable companies provide. Whats more important, it means I'm not slaved to the schedule or the commercials.

There are many PCs that come with built in tuners still to this day, as well as a few laptops, though you won't find a laptop that takes a CableCARD as best I can tell, where as full sized PCs or devices like the HDHomeRun Prime do.

I'm fairly certain the only miss here is your analysis.

http://windows.microsoft.com/e...

http://www.silicondust.com/pro...

http://cetoncorp.com/

The only miss here is your knowledge on the subject. Either that or your a cable company shill still trying to kill the CableCARD requirement.

Yeah, if there was any serious "miss" in the HTPC/set top box arena, it was that Microsoft didn't market Media Center correctly. It does seem to be the top of the food chain when it comes to HTPC. I am a huge Apple fan, but I *almost* want to set up a WMC machine myself.

I've had a PC running Windows Media Center recording TV on the broad cast schedule for about 10 years now. It currently has 6 tuners (records 6 things at once) for cable broadcasts, and an older tuner to pick up FM on occasion. I can watch live TV/radio, schedule recordings or watch recordings from anywhere in the house that has a TV via Windows Media Center extenders, one Ceton Echo extender and a few Xbox 360s. I can watch iTunes videos or play music, Amazon streaming, or transcode (on the fly) pretty much anything else without any effort by myself or anyone else in the family. With RemotePotato, I can also do anything that I can do in the house from anywhere with a fast enough Internet connection. I can watch TV on my phone, my iPad, or any laptop (we all use OS X, but Windows is easier) in the house.

To put it bluntly, my PC that is slaved to broadcast/scheduled TV kicks the living shit out of every DVR on the planet you've ever seen or known about, especially the shitty ones that the cable companies provide. Whats more important, it means I'm not slaved to the schedule or the commercials.

There are many PCs that come with built in tuners still to this day, as well as a few laptops, though you won't find a laptop that takes a CableCARD as best I can tell, where as full sized PCs or devices like the HDHomeRun Prime do.

I'm fairly certain the only miss here is your analysis.

http://windows.microsoft.com/e...

http://www.silicondust.com/pro...

http://cetoncorp.com/

The only miss here is your knowledge on the subject. Either that or your a cable company shill still trying to kill the CableCARD requirement.

you mean something like http://cetoncorp.com/products/infinitv-4-pcie/ ? record up to 4 HD channels at once if you have a cable card from your cable tv provider

Build a Windows Media Center PC, add a CetonTV card

In Requirements, Ceton wrote:

PCI Express Low Profile [...] 1 PCIe slot

jedidiah wrote:

Just buy a Mac Mini or any ION machine on Amazon.

I've seen Mac mini and ION nettops, and they don't have a PCIe slot. They'd need something that plugs into USB or Ethernet.

I made my own. http://cetoncorp.com/

So you just need the right tuner ... one that can handle CableCard(s) ...

http://www.cetoncorp.com/products.php

Problem solved.

You don't need to get around HDCP to record cable. Many cable boxes have firewire outputs you can use, or better yet, use CableCard (e.g. http://www.cetoncorp.com/products.php).

a very compelling platform to destroy traditional cable.

Such a platform exists, but it's in the form of RSS feed readers and automatic downloaders.

The closest thing you can get to the legitimate version of that is Windows Media Center with CableCARD hardware. Ditch the cable boxes for an HTPC and XBox 360's, and it'll cut a significant cost off the bill from leasing fees.

At least, that's what I'm gonna do once Ceton gets their act together.

Like I said... vaporware that has no real connection with reality. It is just something that Windows Lemming trolls like to bring up in some sort of vain attempt to knock down any non-Microsoft alternative.

You can buy actual tuners right now and use them on any Win7 machine that fits the requirements (dual core CPU, 2GB RAM, HDCP-compliant GPU). The old requirement of a special bias is now gone, as I said, and the market for these tuners is spinning up. So yeah, sounds like vaporware to me ...

I can (and have) connected an HD-PVR to a $200 ION box.

Not anywhere near the same. HD-PVR is just a component video capture system and requires re-encoding the video, and still requires a STB with IR blaster. A CableCard tuner skips all of that, avoids re-encoding, and can have multiple tuners in a single package (see the Ceton card using M-card CableCards). And external USB CableCard tuners will work just fine on an ION box like the Aspire Revo 3600 (dual-core Atom, 2GB RAM).

Of course a device that has hoops that NO ONE wants to jump through won't be terribly interesting.

Those hoops are now gone. That's why other companies are starting to get into that market.

If CableCard PC devices were out there in the wild in significant numbers than they might get hacked for all sorts of reasons (the least of which is Linux support).

Back that up? ATI CableCard tuners are easily available. Buy one. Hack it. Make it work with Linux.

I thought you only needed one m-card (which is apparently the follow on to the cable card but does multiple streams)? I'm new to this, but I thought I could take the m-card out of one of my comcast cable boxes once it was authorized and put it into another device like a TiVo?

Yes, the m-card will handle multiple signals, and there are some TiVO boxes that will accept it. But there are no PC-based solutions that work with it yet. The ATI tuners can use them, but you still need 2 tuners. Supposedly, there will be some multi-tuner cards coming soon.

If you want to look into what's possible, the The Green Button forums has a lot of information, at least about using Windows Media Center. But if you plan to bring HD content into your PC, it's the only option, unless you only want over-the-air channels.

For me, the hybrid was the best choice. I get about 13 channels of HD from the local stations. I use the HDHomeRunner for that. Then I've got an "IR Blaster" hooked up to the cable box, and I can record/watch those channels in SD. I put all that together with less then $600 (not including the TV).

Note that FCC regulations prohibit encryption on the re-broadcasted local channels, so you'll always have clearQAM on those stations