CableLabs Approves Tuner Sharing and DRM Free Copy Freely Content

Aug 15, 2010 by

Ceton-InfiniTV-4-011-croppedOne 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.

Jeremy Hammer, VP of Systems Integration for Ceton has stated that the company is already working with the developers of MythTV to bring the InfiniTV4 to the popular Linux based HTPC software.

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  • http://twitter.com/mikinho Mikinho

    No Adam, you got it right. I got a little over excited about it for my particular use case. Sorry. You are more accurate in that it probably isn't as important for most Media Center users.

  • http://thedigitalmediazone.com/2010/08/19/entertainment-2-0-90-week-of-a-thousand-tuners/ The Digital Media Zone » Blog Archive » Entertainment 2.0 #90: Week of a Thousand Tuners

    [...] CableCard approves spec change [...]

  • http://thedigitalmediazone.com/2010/10/19/ceton-infinitv-4-network-tuner-sharing-working-in-latest-beta/ The Digital Media Zone » Blog Archive » Ceton InfiniTV 4 Network Tuner Sharing Working in Latest Beta

    [...] Ever since CableLabs approved CableCARD devices to enable tuner sharing owners of the Ceton InfiniTV 4 have been waiting for Ceton to release the firmware that would turn this functionality on. While it hasn’t been released to the public yet, beta testers of the quad tuner CableCARD device can now do just that. Tonight I installed the latest beta firmware, bridged the connection between the tuner card and my ethernet adapter, and setup a secondary PC to use the InfiniTV 4. Once everything is setup on both ends, you simply go through the standard guided setup process on the secondary PC(s) to setup the tuners, as you would any other tuner device. After that it works just like any other tv tuner. I was able to instantly start watching live HD television immediately, without any noticeable lag from the streams being broadcast across my network. [...]