Review: Ceton InfiniTV 4 Quad CableCARD Tuner – Part I

[rekd0514]

What is the ETA on Part II and III? I am excited to see how this works with the new Vail refresh. 😀

[mikinho]

I’m not sure to be honest, I was unexpectedly out of town last week when I wanted to publish and I’ve been spending this week getting caught up on work.

They will be published soon but rather not give an ETA since I’m still getting caught up with work.

The bad news is that I had to give one of the cards back to the owner but I believe I did all the dual InfiniTV4 testing I wanted to already.

For Vail, what I can tell you that it isn’t very exciting.  Yes you can get it to work with network bridging but just 1 extra possible point of error at the moment.  Sticking it in Windows 2008 R2 or Aurora was a lot more fun and in my opinion more useful for a virtual HTPC.

[rekd0514]

I am curious if were you using the newest version of Vail as it is quite a bit different. I am not sure if it makes the Ceton install easier in it or not though.

I couldn’t even get Vail to install correctly on the old version in a test PC I was using, but it worked flawlessly using the new refresh version that came out August 16th.

https://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer/Downloads

I wonder if we could get Ceton to make a good solution to make it work well with WHS, because I think it would make a really nice setup for a lot of people. To have one PC for backups/media/TV would be ideal!

[mikinho]

I initially tested with the early beta and then with August refresh (I’m digging the OSX backups).

The reason it is not as useful is that there is no Media Center on Vail.  So you are only using the Vail box as the host with network bridging to a W7 HTPC.  It is more useful on W28K R2 or Aurora since you can run a virtual HTPC that does the recording.

If your cable provider does lock down shows then SageTV or MythTV should be able to install on Vail and utilize it better.

[Anonymous]

Just a thought but can’t you run WHS in a virtual environment and make that your backup comp since it shows as a different computer on the network?

[rekd0514]

Well in my search to see to there was a beta in the works for Vail I found this vote. Tell everyone you know to vote yes. I will put this on the green button forums as well.

https://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer/feedback/details/557815/include-media-center

Spread the word!! 😀

Join the connect program here first.

http://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer

[mikinho]

[quote=”Acostanavy”]
Just a thought but can’t you run WHS in a virtual environment and make that your backup comp since it shows as a different computer on the network?
[/quote]

My normal Vail is a virtual with a dedicated drive for the storage pool and backups.  The system drive is a dynamic VHD on a SSD drive.

Just for testing the Ceton I setup a dedicated Vail system running an Atom D510.

[mikinho]

[quote=”rekd0514″]
Well in my search to see to there was a beta in the works for Vail I found this vote. Tell everyone you know to vote yes. I will put this on the green button forums as well.

https://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer/feedback/details/557815/include-media-center

Spread the word!! 😀
[/quote]

I doubt we will see this happen in Vail but I suspect virtual tuners will have a much bigger role in Windows 8 and we’ll see that supported in WHS as well.

[rekd0514]

You have to be positive! 😀 It seems like doing things virtual makes everything far too complicated for the average user. Not that this isn’t for the the advanced user anyways.

[Aaron Ledger]

Mikinho, regarding the up to 60 second time for the tuner to be available, you stated:

[quote=”Mikinho”]
Yes the ATI DCT has the same limitation.  It is required by OCUR tuners.
[/quote]

What exactly is going on during this time? Is it waiting for some specific signal that gets broadcast periodically to know that it is authenticated? If that is the case, I guess there’s nothing Ceton can do to improve the response.

[mikinho]

Hi Swoon, the delay is on Media Center’s side to validate the OCUR tuner and DRM.

I don’t believe Ceton can improve it on their side but with the pending changes to CableCARD specifications perhaps Microsoft could take advantage of the change to allow usage on Copy Freely channels immediately.

I’m not at home but when I am I’ll update with exactly what is going on in that minute.

[Nmarconi]

I have decided to make the switch from xbmc to w7 wmc so i can dvr cable tv.  Previously, i asked if i should upgrade my amount of ram from 2gb.  I lucked out and had 8 gb of ddr2 800 become available from another pc upgrade.  So now i have an E8400 and 8 gb of ram.  The question now is the GPU.  Currently i am running a 9600 (with audio over hdmi via spdif hookup to mobo), but i am thinking of making the switch to ATI, which should allow bitstream audio.  Will there be a significant performance difference in the mce ui between the 5000 series?  I am planning on getting a 5670, but should i be looking at the lower levels?  Also, will 1 gb ddr5 make a difference vs 512 mb ddr5.  I do not game at all, so that should not be a consideration.  I just want the best ui experience possible, without wasting a ton of cash.

[mikinho]

Check out this thread on different opinions of the ATI 4xxx vs 5xxx cards: [url=http://www.missingremote.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=198&topic=3839.0]Looking for video card with best HDMI picture[/url]

[autoboy]

The Video card will not affect the UI experience.  The amount of video RAM will have no effect on the video playback capabilities.

[Andrew Van Til]

[quote=”autoboy”]
The Video card will not affect the UI experience.  The amount of video RAM will have no effect on the video playback capabilities.
[/quote]

Once you get beyond a certain level that is true, but at the lower end the playback experience is related to GPU performance and video RAM speed.

[Author]

Posts