CableLabs Approves Tuner Sharing and DRM Free Copy Freely Content
For those on the fence about extenders or stand-alone low power HTPCs the choice just got a lot easier with tuner sharing.
One of the features that the Ceton InfiniTV4 was poised to offer was tuner sharing. This would allow you to have your InfiniTV4 in one HTPC and assign tuners to other HTPCs in your home. Unfortunately CableLabs put the kibosh on this rather quickly.
Luckily, they’ve seen the light and as of Friday, tuner sharing is now approved in OCUR devices. That means you can install multiple tuners in a single PC and spread them throughout your home. While Ceton will obviously be the first to benefit from this new feature after a pending firmware update, it was all but mandatory for Silicon Dust’s upcoming networked tuner.
While not important to Media Center users, CableLabs also approved DRM Free Copy Freely content. What this means is that other HTPC software will be able to utilize CableCard tuners for Copy Freely content. While this won’t get you HBO or Showtime in SageTV or Myth, it will get you any content that your cable company has not flagged with copy restrictions.
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