TVSquad

As you can tell from the screengrab, Cannon PC isn't ready to sell a consumer model with 6 CableCARDs just yet. But the company wanted to show that it is possible. Windows Vista Media Center only includes native support for 2 CableCARDs, so the trick isn't just designing a system with a huge hard drive, massive amounts of RAM, and space in the box for 6 tuners. The company also had to adjust the software to allow additional CableCARDs.

You can see the results yourself in a YouTube video posted by Cannon PC.

Back in the day before everybody wanted these newfangled digital cable, satellite, and OTA HDTV tuners, you could easily cram 4 or 5 standard definition TV tuners in any old PC and record half a dozen TV shows at once. Now you can relive all that excitement, with an uber-expensive home theater PC capable of recording up to 4 digital cable programs at once.

Cannon PC has announced the availability of systems with dual CableCARDs. And the companly plans to release quad CableCARD systems soon. CableCARDs let you watch digital cable television without a set top box.

There are three models in Cannon PC's Pro AV series, the LX, EX, and RX series. All three have a Blu-Ray DVD drive, a 28-in-1 card readers, gold plated audio connectors, and USB and Firewire ports. The EX model gets a 12 inch HD touchscreen and up to 6GB of storage space, while the RX unit is a rack mount system.

Prices range from $4000 to $6500, and that's without the quad CableCard option. So if you've got your heart set on one of these puppies, you might want to start saving. And then keep saving.

[via Engadget]

Digeo may have killed its plans to release two set top boxes direct to consumers earlier this year, but that doesn't mean you won't find a new Digeo box running the company's Moxi software in your living room anytime soon. The company is still developing new boxes for cable television operator

Light Reading uncovered a few (very few) details about a new CableCard-enabled high definition personal video recorder from Digeo. CableLabs sent out a press release highlighting some of the technology that will be on display at next month's Cable Show, and one of the devices is the Moxi HD DVR 3012.

The set top box will use Digeo's Moxi software and will be able to record up to two programs at once. But that's about all we know about it at the moment.

[via Zatz Not Funny]

TiVo and cable industry officials have announced plans to develop an adapter that will let TiVo users watch and record switched digital video channels without a set top box. Even though you'll need an external adapter to play, this technology will only work on TiVo units with CableCard support, which effectively means that Series2 TiVo owners need not apply.

Switched Digital Video is basically a new method for delivering digital video channels to your home. Because you're probably only watching one channel at a time (or recording one or two channels while watching another), there's no real reason for a cable operator to transmit all 300 channels to your house at the same time. But since there was previously no way for cable companies to know which channel you wanted to watch at any given time, they simply transmitted all the channels at the same time.

Switched video enables two-way communication. If you want to watch C-SPAN, your box will send a signal upstream telling the cable operator to start sending the channel your way. The upshot is that cable companies can offer more channels using the same bandwidth.

You should be able to pick up a shiny new switched digital video adapter for your TiVo HD or Series3 TiVo from your cable company during the second quarter of 2008.

Okoro Media Systems has unveiled its new "entry level" media center PC with CableCard support. And while Okoro has never been known for releasing low-cost machines, the OMS-CX100's $1795 starting price makes the phrase a bit hard to swallow.

You get an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33GHz processor, 1333 MMHz front side bus, 2GB of DDR memory, a 320GB hard drive, NVIDIA graphics card with 256MB of RAM and HDCP output. But we're betting an awful large chunk of the price comes from the ATI digital TV tuner. Slap an over the air HDTV tuner in there instead, and we imagine the price would come way down.

Of course, a few years ago, people were paying $10,000 for HDTV sets. Prices come down if you give them enough time. And if the high priced technologies are widely adopted. But with CableCard PC tuners driving up the costs of media center PCs, we're not sure there will really be enough early adopters to help drive the price down over the next few years. Especially when you can get a high definition TiVo for a few hundred bucks or a generic cable company PVR for just a monthly fee.

[via Chris Lanier]

It's been a while since ATI first announced the ATI TV Wonder USB CableCard tuner for Windows Vista. But for the most part if you want a CableCard tuner in your PC, you've had to buy a preconfigured machine from someone like Niveus or Okoro.

Now Sony is selling the ATI TV Wonder as a standalone box for $299. That doesn't mean you can just plug this puppy into any old machine and get your high definition cable. You'll need a certified Windows Vista PC. But this does open up the possibility of adding CableCard support to your low-end Windows Home Premium/Ultimate machine instead of buying a $3000 media center.

[via Engadget]

The Vaio LT HD is hardly the first all-in-one PC we've seen from Sony. But it does pack a few things we haven't seen before from one of these PC-in-a-monitor style computers:

• A Blu-ray burner
  
• ATI Digital Cable Tuner (for CableCard)

The Vaio LT also includes an impressive set of specs, inclduign a 22-inch 1680x1050 pixel wediscreen display, a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, 802.11n, and an ATSC/NTSC TV tuner.

There's also a standard definition version that loses the Blu-Ray and CableCard features. Both models should be available in October, with the HD version weighing in at about $2900 and the SD model running about $1900.

[via CNet]

Our sister site Engadget has scored some juicy tidbits about the new low-cost HD TiVo we've been hearing so little about.

Apparently the new box will not follow TiVo's Series1/2/3 naming convention. Instead it will be known as the TiVo HD. Actually that's pretty much it for the new stuff. The rest is all pretty much as we'd expected based on some leaks last week. The TiVo HD will have a 160GB hard drive for recording 160 hours of standard definition or 20 hours of high definition TV. There will be two CableCard tuners, and there may or may not be an ATSC tuner for capturing over-the-air signals.

Engaget reports that TiVo also plans to bring TiVoToGo to Series3 boxes, although you'll only be able to transfer standard definition programs from your set-top-box to your computer. While the move is mostly aimed at placating copyright holders who are worried about high quality digital copies of their shows being loosed on the internet, it would also take most users a pretty long time to transfer HD quality programs from one box to another even on a speedy home network.

Gizmodo has scored some photos of what could be TiVo's promised sub-$300 HDTV recorder. With the Series3 TiVo still retailing for $800 (although you can often find it on sale in the $500 to $600 range), the company's existing HDTV recorder is still kind of in the early adopter category. While cable and satellite providers are offering generic HDTV PVRs for a monthly fee, it's kind of hard to justify the cost of a Series3, no matter how good the reviews are.

A $300 box could change that. If you look closely that the blurry pictures, you can see two CableCard slots, meaning you'll be able to record two shows at once, or record one and watch another. It's certainly not as pretty as the Series3, but you might be able to chalk that up to the fact that it's a demo unit. The remote control is also reportedly lighter and cheaper feeling than the Series3 remote.

It's not clear yet what corners TiVo cut to get the price down. Will it be THX certification? Some of the input/output features? Does it have a slower processor, and how will that affect broadband performance? We can't imagine that the cheaper version won't sport broadband features like TiVoCast and Amazon Unbox, since that seems to be where the industry is headed.

What do you think will be missing from the new HDTV TiVo? And how do you think TiVo will prevent this unit's sales from eating into Series3 sales? Or would you expect this to be the replacement form the Series3?

Sometimes you've just got to have the best. And so when Vidabox announced their new Magnum line of home theater PCs, our eyes lit up a bit.

This little monster includes an AMD 6000+ dual core CPU, up to 4GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA 8600GTS video card. Oh, did we mention support for Blu-Ray, HD-DVD and CableCard? You also get up to 9TB of storage.

To top things off, that 12'1 inch display on the front of the box. Yeah, it's 1080p. We have no idea why you'd need 1080p on a front panel display that's really more of a secondary display since you'll probably be putting the Magnum under your ginormous flat screen TV anyway.

So what's the catch? The Magnum's starting price is $7,999. That's right, the base configuration costs more than a lightly used car. When Vidabox mentioned on its website that you should call for pricing, we knew the Magnum wouldn't be cheap, but wow. Just wow.

[via Engadget]

HP may have decided to stop selling media center PCs designed to fit in your living room, but the company is adding some serious digital video punch to two upcoming desktops.

The m8010y and d4890y desktops will include Intel Q6600 Core 2 quad processors, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS graphics, and a combo Blu-Ray/HD-DVD drive. To top things off, they'll come with an optional ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner.

I can't imagine these PCs will run under $1500 to $2000, and at that price, you might as well slip them into a fancy case and stick them next to the TV. But it might be nice to pick up one of these machines for the office so you can use it as a workhorse and PVR at the same time. Then you just use your Xbox 360 media center extender in the living room.

Like sands through the hourglass, media center PC makers are starting to release home theater PCs that are capable of handling CableCards. In layman's terms, that means you'll be able to get high definition television from your cable company without ordering a separate cable box.

S1Digital is the latest company to enter the game. It ProLine and Home Series media center PCs will be able to support up to two digital cable tuners. Other options include HD-DVD and/or Blu-Ray playback, 1080p HDMI output, and 7.1 channel sound.

Keep in mind, these are high end units that will make an $800 HD-capable Series3 TiVo look cheap.

Come July 1st, cable companies will no longer be able to ship cable boxes with built-in security. Motorola and Scientific Atlanta are ramping up production of CableCard boxes to meet the deadline.

Motorola has already begun shipping some boxes with HDTV tuners and PVR functionality.

The FCC rule doesn't require CableCard specifically, but that's the only technology currently available that meets the standards set by the FCC. Motorola and Scientific Atlanta are both working on boxes that use downloadable software for their security, but neither company will have a finished product available until next year at the earliest.

The upshot for PVR users who don't want to buy a new box from either company? Maybe the cable installation guy who comes to help configure your TiVo Series3 will finally know what to do with a CableCard soon.

[via Connected Home 2 Go]

It must be CableCard week. Gizmodo got a good look at Niveus's new CableCard receiver, and the folks at AnandTech got to try out the upcoming ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner -- with mixed results, to put it mildly.

For starters, it took 2 days to get the CableCards working with a Dell PC. And that's with the help of representatives from Dell, Time Warner Cable, and several phone calls to Microsoft and AMD. Most users aren't going to have to sit through all of this, because the TV tuner is an OEM-only device, and will come preinstalled with selected devices. But since Dell and other computer manufacturers can't control everything, you might be on a first name basis with the cable repair guy shortly after you order an ATI CableCard system.

When the new tuner works, it does what you'd expect: allows you to receive digital cable channels on your TV. This is a one-way data stream, so no video on demand or electronic program guide for you. But since you can only install these cards on Windows Vista systems with Vista Media Center, that's probably not a problem.

Right now, the tuner is a little buggy. Sometimes it has trouble picking up digital cable channels, but that should be fixed before AMD officially releases the product. The bigger issue is whether AMD can guarantee it won't take at least two days for every users to configure the system.