The “Q”

Ceton’s “Q” is a DVR set-top box that packs tons of features into a nice, stackable form factor. Think Windows Media Center on steroids. But don’t call it that—OEMs building entertainment devices on Windows Embedded are quick to point out that it’s not Media Center. We won’t get into that debate here, but just know that it builds on everything that’s great about Media Center, and the experience is very, very similar.

As you might expect, the “Q” is a CableCARD box, and it’s designed to be your home media hub. The “Q” connects to your network through Ethernet or with a MoCa adaptor. With six tuners, a 2TB hard drive, and a slot-drive Blu-ray player, it’s easy to see how it could ably host and deliver content throughout the household.

The “Q” will come loaded with the features you’d expect in Media Center plus a number of extras. While you won’t be able to install your own add-ins like you might on a Media Center PC, Ceton’s talking about an API and marketplace that we’d imagine might show Microsoft how the Extras Gallery should have been done all along.

Ceton's custom skin persists throughout the interface

They’re also talking about content services—none in particular, but anything would be an improvement over Media Center, since Netflix and CinemaNow are really the only decent options there. More importantly, they plan to integrate an aggregated, universal search feature that will allow you to discover and access content across sources and providers [See Universal Search, below].

The “Q”’s interface comes stylized—skinned, if you will—and it’s customizable. You’ll be able to choose a look that best suits your tastes, including (thankfully) the standard blue aura we’ve all come to recognize.

Ceton says the device will support a wide range of media formats, which we hope means they’ll be including codecs for formats, like .mkv, that aren’t natively supported by Windows Media.

The “Echo”

The "Echo" has a nice, small form factor

Ceton describes the “Echo” as a next generation Media Center Extender. It’s been years since we’ve seen anyone offering extenders to the market, but this device finally gives Media Center households an alternative to the Xbox as a second-room device.

If you already run Media Center in your home, the sleek “Echo” box will deliver all the features you’d expect to see on any Media Center Extender. Paired with the “Q”, it takes on even greater functionality to support the additional capabilities of Ceton’s box, including the ability to customize the look and feel, independent of the appearance of the “Q”’s interface.

You could argue that the handful of first- and second-generation Media Center Extenders failed for two reasons: price and performance. Ceton claims to have addressed both of those problems. The “Echo” boxes we saw were very responsive, both as a Media Center Extender and when paired with the “Q”. As for price, we’ll have to wait and see, but Ceton states they’ll come to market with a “much more attractive price point.”

The “Q Companion”

With tablets and smart phones finding their way into many homes and living rooms, device manufacturers have learned that these second screens provide a rich opportunity for discovering, managing, and controlling media. Ceton plans to take full advantage of this, planning apps for Android, iOS, and Windows phones and tablets.

The "Q Companion" app lets you discover content visually

At their technology preview, Ceton showed prototype apps on Windows Phone and a Windows 8 tablet. They demonstrated features like browsing for movies and shows, searching for content, viewing detailed program information, scheduling recordings, managing your recording priorities, selecting content from online services, and watching movie trailers. Ceton intends to offer these features and more, including the ability to control TV playback.

The idea is that your mobile or tablet device allows you to manage your media hub without disturbing the on-screen experience. And certainly the benefits of using a keyboard and quickly perusing content visually is much more immersive and productive than fumbling through menus and lists with your remote. Outside the home, these apps will give you access to schedule recordings and manage your content remotely.

Universal Search

While add-ins for online content services offer access to vast media libraries, the fragmented experience that individual services’ apps create is frustrating and confusing to consumers. Which service has what content? WHO CARES and why should anyone care? This is a problem plaguing so-called smart TVs with apps, and it’s an issue I’ve personally claimed is one of the biggest issues facing TV usability today.

TiVo has the best provider-independent search and browse capability to date, but throw your own media into the mix—recorded shows and movies, music, and videos—and finding or discovering content gets even more convoluted. Nobody’s solved this problem. Until now.

Ceton plans to introduce a “universal search” solution that aggregates content across services and sources. Browsing and searching for content will yield results from everywhere—online, on TV, or on your set top box. You won’t have to know or care where the media resides. If it’s in your collection, in the program guide, or available through one of their online partners that you subscribe to, it will be included in the results. Select a video, and you’ll be watching it without opening any service’s app and or wading through their menus.

Later This Year

Ceton isn’t talking specifics about timing, price, or services, but they are saying we should expect to see these devices later this year. We often joke that “later this year” is CES code for next year, but we’re optimistic that that won’t be the case here.

From a hardware perspective, Ceton’s devices look pretty close to production ready. We noted that the main set top box lighting was too bright for a home theater environment, but that’s something they intend to correct. Overall, these devices are well-designed and solidly manufactured.

As for the software, they’ve set a very high bar for themselves. Their demos showcased a limited set of capabilities, but from the list of features they rattled off, there’s a whole lot of custom software they need to build and test. We’re talking about content applications, aggregation services, customization tools, and mobile apps for six different devices on three platforms. That’s a whole lot of software engineering!

The most likely candidate for the first product to market would be the “Echo” extender. Because it’s a full-blown Media Center Extender, it can stand on its own without the “Q” platform. Ceton already has retail distribution channels in place to get the product on shelves, both virtual and physical, and that could give them an opportunity to meet an immediate need for Media Center users who don’t want an Xbox in the bedroom.

The timing on the rest of the platform will likely depend on their engineering backlog, CableLabs certification (if necessary), and content partnership deals.

Whether you want to call this Media Center or not, one thing is certain: Ceton has demonstrated a family of entertainment devices that promise to fill a need that many households have today. This multi-room media center hub has the potential to popularize and improve upon one of the best home media platforms available.

Related

Read our original post from CES.

Listen to our interview with Ceton’s Chief Marketing Officer.

Watch this and other videos on our YouTube channel.

Be sure to check all of our CES coverage at The Digital Media Zone.

Download the interview or listen, below.

Be sure to check all of our CES coverage at The Digital Media Zone.

Today, at the Consumer Electronics Show, Ceton is inviting the press to their suite to show off what they’ve been working on, and it should excite a lot of people in the Windows Media Center community! First up, they’ve decided to produce their own Windows Media Center Extender! For the last couple of years the Microsoft Xbox 360 has been the only option available to extend the full Media Center experience around your house, but the Xbox wasn’t always the perfect fit for everyone. While Microsoft has gone a long way toward making the Xbox a much better media consumption device, mainly by adding built-in Wireless N and making it almost completely silent, some people still just don’t want a gaming console. Ceton must have also decided that one way to ensure sales of their InfiniTV CableCARD tuners continued, was to help expand the Media Center community by giving consumers more options for spreading Media Center throughout their entire house.

If you haven’t already built your own home theater PC then Ceton’s other “technology preview” might be right up your alley! Ceton has been prototyping the development of their own set-top-box built upon Windows Embedded Standard 7 and, of course, an InfiniTV CableCARD tuner.

Hardware isn’t the only thing Ceton produces though. They’ve been hard at work on software enhancements to Media Center also. Feeling quite dissatisfied with the current online video streaming services offered in Media Center, Ceton is working on their own online media streaming hub plugin. It would offer the user the ability to search for the content they want across multiple providers, all from one interface. No longer would you need to open separate apps, or surf to different websites to find the content you’re looking for. It would all be available from one central app, right within Windows Media Center! They also have companion apps for tablets and mobile devices, including Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8.

All of these products, the Windows Media Center Extender, set-top-box and software enhancements, are being considered by Ceton as technology previews. As such, they weren’t willing to give any potential release dates or pricing information.

This is a developing story, so check back later for pictures and more details.

Be sure to check all of our CES coverage at The Digital Media Zone.

TotalMedia Theater prompts you to choose a player every time you insert a DVD

Credit goes to Entertainment 2.0 listener Mike for getting us to dust off this old hack and adapting it to the latest version of TotalMedia Theater. To eliminate the prompt screen and always use Media Center to play DVDs and TotalMedia Theatre to play Blu-ray and HD DVD media, you’ll need to use the Registry editor, regedit.exe. If contemplating that raises your blood pressure, you may want to just put up with the prompt. If, however, you feel plenty comfortable mucking around in your registry, then follow these directions. But remember: you can seriously screw up your system if you don’t know what you’re doing here. Tread cautiously. As with any system update, it’s a good idea to create a restore point before making changes like this.

First, find and delete the following registry branch:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\AutoPlayHandlers\Handlers\ArcSoftTotalMediaTheatre

Then find and delete the ArcSoftTotalMediaTheatre key in the following branch:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\AutoPlayHandlers\EventHandlers\PlayDVDMovieOnArrival

After making these changes, Media Center will no longer prompt you to select a player for DVDs—it will just play them the way it always did.

Highlights

Kinect. This update more fully incorporates Kinect into the dashboard navigation experience—not using the awkward motion and gestures introduced earlier, but with your own voice. Say “Xbox, Netflix” to launch the Netflix app or “Xbox, Play” to start playing a video. Many general navigation commands like “back” and “home” are also supported.

Bing. New to Xbox is Bing search. Slide to the left of the Home hub to search for anything: music, tv shows, movies, games. Results are aggregated from across LIVE services, including Netflix, Hulu, and the Zune Marketplace. Looking for a TV show? Bing will find all available episodes, by season, then let you choose which service to use if it appears in multiple places. And if you have the Kinect, searching is as easy as saying “Xbox, Bing Firefly.”

Zune Marketplace. The Marketplace gets a Metro-style refresh, including the music and video players. A Last Night on TV promo tile in the Video hub jumps you to a menu of the previous night’s shows that you can conveniently purchase in the Video Marketplace. And if you’re not yet a Zune Music Pass subscriber, you can take advantage of a 14-day trial with unlimited access to the music and music video libraries.

TV. Many people already enjoy the ESPN app on their Xbox, but a more significant TV offering comes to the Xbox now via Verizon FIOS. Comcast’s Xfinity and HBO Go services will follow. You must be one of their TV and Internet customers to use these services—this is not a cord-cutting solution.

Netflix. The Netflix app has been refreshed with new features, including 5.1 sound and subtitles. Curiously, though, it looks and functions more like the previous version of the dashboard than the new one. And the Xbox forums are full of complaints that the Watch with Party feature, which let you watch Netflix titles simultaneously with other Xbox live users, is gone.

Hulu Plus. Hulu Plus gets a Metro-style makeover, and the overall experience is quite impressive. The app integrates nicely with the dashboard, and even without a Hulu Plus account, you can browse the extensive library of content through a series of tiled hubs.

YouTube. If you’re a YouTube addict, you’ll appreciate the new YouTube app on Xbox. It showcases popular videos alongside your own subscriptions and playlists in Metro-style hubs and tiles. Curiously, Bing search doesn’t yet include YouTube results, so you’ll have to search separately in the YouTube app, and you won’t have the advantage of voice search with Kinect for some reason.

Video. The lineup of video services is growing significantly—almost weekly—and most of the services sport the fresh, new look of the Dashboard. Syfy, Today, and TMZ have already joined the earlier offerings, with MLB, VEVO, and VUDU coming soon.

Media Center. In case you’re worried that the latest update eliminates Xbox’s ability to function as a Media Center Extender, you can stop worrying. Media Center is still there, it’s just buried in the My Video Apps and My Apps sections.

Ads. Yep, ads as in advertisements. Specific tiles in the new dashboard hubs are used for static and video advertising—and not just for Microsoft stuff either. One static tile jumps to an interactive ad for Netflix, but it’s a dead end for people who already have a Netflix account and the app installed. Another tile is a full-motion video promoting World of Warcraft. Move over it, and the audio from the ad abruptly cuts in. Yet another video tile is peddling some new Lincoln vehicle.

Design. The new design should put one big question to rest: Will Metro translate to the big screen? The answer is an emphatic “yes,” but that shouldn’t be a surprise. Metro design has its roots in Windows Media Center, and this reworked experience takes from the best of that while learning from Microsoft’s experience designing for devices like Zune and Windows Phone.

Overall, we think this is a great update for the Xbox. It introduces not only a fresh redesign for much of the UI, but it also adds new features and services, with plenty more on the horizon. Sure, it seems a bit laggy as apps load and unload, we wish they would have updated the DLNA experience, and the LIVE Gold subscription upsell to use video services you’re already paying for is annoying, but the Xbox 360 is clearly a multi-dimensional entertainment device now. Over a decade ago, Microsoft put its sights on owning the living room. This update leaves little question about how Microsoft intends to accomplish that.

Gallery

If you’re using your Xbox primarily as an extender, you may just want to consider having it launch Media Center automatically each time you turn it on. The attached video shows you how to Launch Media Center from the new Xbox dashboard and how to automatically launch Windows Media Center on startup.

Instructions

Skip Through the Guide with Remote Shortcuts

Skip forward and backward by three or twelve hours at a time in Media Center’s guide by pressing the Fast Forward and Rewind or Skip and Replay buttons on your remote, respectively.

Show a Specific Network’s Programming Lineup

To see all the shows a specific network has scheduled for the coming days, use the navigation arrows on your remote to move to the left and select a specific network.

Filtering the Guide

Using navigation arrows on your remote control to move to the left in the guide to the Categories, where you can choose any category and filter your provider’s content.

Using these tips together, you’ll find that your use of Media Center’s guide will be more effective and efficient.

Instructions

Select Media Only in the Tasks strip

Click Yes to confirm the change

At this point, Media Center will switch to full screen if it wasn’t already, and a lock icon in the upper-right corner will indicate that it’s in Media Only mode.

To exit Media Only mode, select Exit Media Only in the Tasks strip. Note that Media Only mode doesn’t prevent keyboard users from accessing the start menu or task switching to another running program—it just removes the window control buttons from interface, which is most useful for touchscreen applications.

Aerodrom is a new application and plug-in that lets you play audio, video, and photos on your Windows PC or in Windows Media Center using AirPlay. Released earlier this month by funkyf@ctory development, Aerodrom runs in your tray and broadcasts your Windows XP, Vista, or 7 PC as an AirPlay destination. iTunes and your iOS 5 iPhone, iPod, or iPad then list your PC, by computer name, in the AirPlay devices list.

Aerodrom is available to download on funkyf@ctory’s web site. Licensing the full version for up to three computers costs €9.99. A limited demo version is also available at no cost to give you a taste of the product’s capabilities and determine if it will work in your environment. Funkyf@actory development also released AerodromMCE, a plug-in that provides some integration with Windows Media Center. While this plug-in is free, it does require that you have the full version of the application installed.

First Look

Funkyf@actory provided us with a review copy of Aerodrom for our evaluation, and we spent an afternoon putting the application through the paces on two different Windows 7 Media Center PCs. You can run Aerodrom in Windows alone—without Media Center running—or you can set it up to integrate with Media Center, so we tested both configurations.

Installing and running Aerodrom in Windows worked exactly as expected with no additional configuration required. Aerodrom runs as a background application and puts an icon in your system tray. The PCs on which Aerodrom was running appeared in iTunes and on the test iPhone and iPad as AirTunes targets. Selecting one of the computers while playing music on the iPhone caused the audio to switch to the selected computer’s speakers.

Similarly, playing video or viewing photos on the iPad and selecting one of the PCs running Aerodrom launched a full-screen video overlay on the computer, providing close to immediate response and playback. The video screen includes a floating panel that offers basic shuttle and volume controls and a close button, but we could also control playback from the iPad, as we’d expect. Video quality and audio sync was flawless, but that can be impacted by any number of factors on your home network.

In testing, we noticed that the Aerodrom PCs didn’t always appear in our devices’ AirPlay menu. While remote speakers and an Apple TV always appeared as expected, the Aerodrom PCs sometimes disappeared from the list of available output devices.

Additionally, we learned that you need tweak the preferences if you want Aerodrom to run in the background when you start Windows. Right-clicking on Aerodrom’s tray icon displays a menu. You can select Preferences, and then configure the app to start on system startup.

Media Center Integration

We installed AerodromMCE, which adds an Aerodrom tile to the Extras Library in Windows Media Center. After installing the add-in, we expected AirPlay playback to work in Media Center just as it did in Windows. But when we tried sending video to the Media Center PC from an iPhone or iPad, we only heard sound with no picture. If we minimized Media Center, the full-screen video was playing on the desktop. It took a bit of research on funkyf@actory’s site to finally learn that you have to configure Aerodrom to integrate with Windows Media Center, even after you’ve installed AerodromMCE. It would be nice if this was an option that could be selected at installation time.

Even with Windows Media Center integration selected in Aerodrom’s Preferences panel, the experience in Media Center seems, somewhat ironically, less tightly integrated than on the desktop. We found that to view video through AirPlay, you have to launch the Aerodrom plug-in from the Extras Library, and then select the Media Center PC as the AirPlay destination on our device. Unlike Aerodrom in Windows not running Media Center, the video won’t just appear when you select the Windows PC in iOS’s AirPlay menu. You must first launch the Aerodrom plug-in on the PC, then select that PC as the target device. When we tried launching the Aerodrom plug-in after selecting the PC as the AirPlay target, the video would not play on the PC. The same was true when sharing photos with AirPlay.

AerodromMCE lets you control the streaming video not only from iTunes or your iOS device, but also with your Media Center remote. We noticed that we could pause and resume video from within Media Center, and at one point we tested the skip and ff/rew buttons, but we could not get that to work consistently. Controling video playback from within Media Center caused the local iPhone/iPad controls to appear out of sync with the video. We also noticed that selecting the Aerodrom PC as the AirPlay destination for video causes the video to restart from the beginning. This isn’t standard AirPlay behavior, and it could be annoying if you’re trying to watch a longer video like a movie on different devices or in different rooms.

First Impressions

Aerodrom and the AerodromMCE plug-in bring AirPlay to Windows and Windows Media Center. If you own one of the newer iOS devices that supports video streaming using AirPlay and you use a Windows PC or home theater PC (HTPC) to watch video on a big screen, Aerodrom may be a great app for you to consider. It helps bridge the gap between iTunes and Media Center, letting you send music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and more from any iTunes library in your home or from your iPhone, iPod, or iPad to your computer.

Aerodrom just launched in November, and this first major release has some rough edges that we’d like to see ironed out:

• Selecting an Aerodrom PC as a target device should not cause video playback to restart from the beginning.
• Local control of the video is handy, but if the scrubber and playback state get out of sync with iTunes and iOS, that can be a hassle.
• Playback in Media Center should be easier, ideally mirroring the full-screen behavior in Windows (and on Apple TV) that takes over the screen without having to launch a client plug-in.

All-in-all, though, this is the best option we’ve seen so far for bringing AirPlay to Windows and to Media Center. So if that’s something you’d like to support in your home, you may want to get out your currency converter and spend the €9.99 for this app.

The plugin is currently in beta, and is included with the latest beta driver for the InfiniTV tuners. Download it here.

The plugin is no longer in beta. It is now included with the latest production release of the drivers/software (version 1.5.4304.06-20111017). Download it here.

Source: Ceton

Streaming Customers

If you subscribe to the Unlimited Streaming plan with no DVDs, little will change for you. The streaming service will continue to carry the Netflix name, which is no surprise since the Netflix brand is now plastered on hundreds—if not thousands—of consumer devices.

DVD Customers

DVD subscription customers who do not also have streaming will move completely to the new Qwikster service.
You’ll go to a new web site, qwikster.com. Hopefully, Netflix will move its DVD customers’ accounts to the new service seamlessly, though they may require an explicit confirmation to transfer your account information.
For a premium fee, you’ll also be able to rent games from Qwikster. They’ll be sent to you through the mail just like DVDs and Blu-ray discs.

There’s a distinct possibility that third-party apps allowing you to see or manage your Netflix DVD Queue will cease to function properly.

Streaming + DVD Customers

12 million people—the largest share of Netflix customers—subscribe to both unlimited streaming and DVDs by mail. These customers will be most impacted by the recently announced service changes. They’ll likely experience the same changes as the DVD customers discussed above, but they also stand to lose the most in terms of service benefits.

Netflix has been slowly whittling away at the features previously available to customers of both services. There was a time when titles in your DVD Queue showed up automatically in your Instant Queue. Not anymore. And you can no longer manage your DVD Queue from the consumer devices and apps that enable home or mobile streaming.

What other benefits will Streaming + DVD customers lose?

If you’re looking for a title on Netflix now, you don’t have to care about whether it’s in the disc library or the streaming library—you don’t have to think about it. You just search once, and it will show up if it’s in either. With this split, you’ll have to go to Netflix to see if a title’s available for streaming and to Qwikster to see if that same title is available on disc. If it’s not available on one service, you’ll have to go look for it on the other.

When you find a title on Netflix now, you can add it to your DVD Queue or (if it’s available for streaming) to your Instant Queue. You can also see if it’s in either queue and play it on the spot if it’s part of the streaming library. All this can be accomplished from the information page for any title. In the new model, you’ll only be able to add DVDs to your queue on Qwikster and play or add streaming titles to your Instant Queue on Netflix. Neither service will have access to the other service’s library or queues.

The Netflix DVD Queue lets you know which of the titles in your queue are also available for streaming, and you can play any of them directly from your queue. The new services will likely not let you cross-reference or compare your queues in any way.

Recommendations will be specific to the ratings you’ve provided in each service, since the rating and recommendation engines will likely be unique to both. For example, if you tend to not rate streaming titles after watching, but you do rate discs when you return them, your recommendations for streaming may not reflect your actual viewing interests.

And in Media Center…

At the Digital Media Zone, we recommend Windows Media Center’s Netflix plug-in as one of the best Netflix implementations, and while it is primarily focused on streaming activities, it still offers some visibility into the DVD and Blu-ray libraries and your DVD queue. It’s likely that after the Netflix/Qwikster split occurs, these features will go away—specifically (a) browsing your DVD queue for titles that are available for streaming and (b) searching for titles regardless of whether they’re only available for streaming or on disc.

And of course we’d hope that the transition won’t cause any loss of service in these applications when the split occurs, but at this point, it’s anyone’s guess what’s going to happen.

Information about DVDs like this one soon won't show up in Media Center's Netflix plug-in

Ceton InfiniTV 4 USB

We’re now living in a golden age for home theater PCs (HTPC). For most people, the most important feature in an HTPC is live TV and DVR functionality. If the HTPC doesn’t handle live and recorded television, then many of the family members will never use it. That is why CableCARD tuners are so important to the progress of Windows Media Center as the leading home theater PC platform. With a CableCARD tuner you have the ability to watch and record cable television from any channel in high definition. 2011 has been a great year if you’ve been considering building a CableCARD-equipped Media Center PC. In the past, the only option for a multi-stream CableCARD tuner was the Ceton InfiniTV 4. While it is a fantastic device it has a somewhat limited reach because it required an open PCIe slot in your computer. This left small-form-factor PC owners out of the game. Ceton’snew device, the InfiniTV 4 USB changes all of that. Their latest offering gives the ability to record four shows at once from a small USB box that can be connected to virtually any Windows 7 PC.

Hardware

The beautiful black box measures in at only 1″ tall, 5.25″ wide, and 7.25″ long. The design approach was clearly minimalistic. The only side that has anything on it, other than graphics or vents, is the rear. You won’t find any lights on the front. Some people will surely like that there aren’t any lights on the front that could be seen as distracting, while others will definitely wish that there were lights to indicate how many tuners are in use. The top and bottom of the all black case is peppered with cooling holes. This is one area where Ceton was able to take something that was necessary for the function of the device and still make it beautiful to look at. The vents aren’t just a grid of holes. They’ve stylistically placed them to give it a very cool look. Around the back of the tuner you’ll find the coax cable input to the far left. The device is tall enough that they didn’t need to use a dongle this time around. To the right of that is the slot for the CableCARD. Next to that is the USB port, and to the far right is the port for the A/C adapter. Remember, the CableCARD is designed to stick out by about a quarter of an inch, so don’t try to jam it in any further. This is to give you something to grasp on to when removing it. Also, when inserting the CableCARD ensure that the manufacturer label is facing up, and that the end with the two rows of holes is the side that is inserted first. When you’ve pushed it in all the way it will feel like its snapping into place. It would have been nice to see a USB A female jack on the tuner also. This could have been used for plugging in a tuning adapter if your cable company is using Switched Digital Video. Instead you’ll need to plug the tuning adapter into your computer.

Installation

Installation of the Ceton InfiniTV 4 USB isn’t very complicated, and Ceton provides detailed instructions for every step along the way. Of course, before you even purchase a CableCARD tuner, you should run Microsoft’s Digital Cable Advisor from within Windows Media Center. It should be located in the Extras Gallery. If it’s not in there, go to Tasks > Settings > General > Automatic Download Options and click the Download Now button. After a few minutes the Extras Gallery icon will be available on the Extras strip within Media Center. Run the Digital Cable Advisor, and it will inform you as to whether your computer is capable of supporting a CableCARD tuner. This step needs to be run before setting up your new tuner. Once that is complete plug everything into the tuner device, and connect the InfiniTV to your computer.

Diagnostics

Diagnostic Tool

Every cable operator tends to implement their CableCARD system a little different than the rest, so the ability to effectively diagnosis any potential issues is critically important. Ceton offers a web page built into their InfiniTV tuners for accessing all of the diagnostic information for the tuners, CableCARD, and your connection to your cable provider. To get to the web page simply open Windows Explorer and select “Network” from the left-side navigation pane. Then, under Media Devices, you will find the Ceton InfiniTV USB. Just double-click on the InfiniTV option and it will open the diagnostic web page in your default web browser.

The diagnostic web page for the Ceton InfiniTV 4 USB is broken up into sections for the individual tuners, CableCARD, System, Tuning Adapter, and a Log and Help section. From the tuner sections you’ll get detailed information about whether each tuner is tuned to a channel, its signal strength, copy protection status, signal to noise level, temperature, and more. The CableCARD page is the most useful during initial setup of the device. This page displays card authorization messages, number of channels available, channel maps received, and out of band information. The System tab displays information about the InfiniTV including firmware version, hardware revision, how long it has been online, and details about its connection to your network (all CableCARD tuners are treated by Windows as network interface cards). Firmware updates can be done from this page also. If your cable provider is using Switched Digital Video, you’ll need a tuning adapter, and you’ll be able to get information about the tuning adapter’s status on that page. There’s also a Log tab which will really only be necessary if you’re having difficult issues to fix. The Help tab just links to Ceton’s support site.

If you’d prefer not to use a web browser, Ceton also offers an application that you can run from the Start menu. It offers much of the same information, but in a more user-friendly way. You won’t need to know the ins and outs of cable television to use the Ceton InfiniTV Diagnostic Tool. If you have an issues getting your new device setup, this is the first place you should look for help. The Diagnose tab of the application also offers the ability to collect information about your system for sending to Ceton for help. You can describe the problem you’re having and provide them with information about your cable company before it analyzes your setup and creates a zip file to transfer via their support system. The Update tab also provides for an easy way to update the device’s firmware

Overall Impressions

Processor Utilization Graph

For our testing we used two separate computers. The more powerful box had an AMD Phenom 9500 Quad-Core processor running at 2.2Ghz and 4GB of memory. The less powerful machine was the Earth by Low Carbon PC (view our review) which has an Intel Atom D525 processor running at 1.8 Ghz and 2GB of memory. The AMD box represents a more powerful computer that could be used as a higher-end HTPC while the Earth fits the niche of a gorgeous and tiny small-form-factor HTPC that looks great in the living room, and works well as an entry-level HTPC. Both machines were running Windows 7 with Service Pack 1.

On the more powerful AMD-based machine we never noticed any hiccups in terms of computer performance. No matter how many shows we were recording the main show that we were watching kept on playing without missing a beat. There weren’t even any noticeable delays in system responsiveness. On the Atom-based PC we didn’t really notice any issues until we started pushing the limits. Watching one show while recording three others caused occasional blocky video in the show we were watching. Of course this is primarily due to the lower powered hardware, but we have to believe that the box’s external architecture is eating up some extra resources that a PCIe card doesn’t.

One thing was never in doubt with the Ceton InfiniTV 4 USB: its reliability. We recorded over 100 shows in a weekend, typically with four being recorded at a time, on the AMD box, and it didn’t miss a single recording. It simply worked every single time we tried to record something!

Recording 4 Football Games at Once! Awesome!

If you’re saddled with Switched Digital Video (SDV) from your cable provider then you’ll be pleased to know that the Ceton InfiniTV 4 USB has you covered. We attached our Motorola tuning adapter to the PC via USB, installed the driver (which in this case was actually written and provided by Ceton in their driver setup utility), and after just a couple of minutes of time for the tuning adapter to pair with the cable company, we were watching SDV channels. We never had any problems with SDV, but the technology isn’t the most stable. If you do experience problems with an SDV channel, the most likely culprit will be the tuning adapter.

The only thing we weren’t all that thrilled about with the InfiniTV 4 USB was the temperature of the device. It definitely gets warm. The other disappointing aspect is that it never seems to really cool down. It appears that as long as it’s connected to the PC and everything is on, it will be running and some-what warm. We never experienced any issues though, so apparently the beautiful vents are also very functional.

Conclusion

One of the primary advantages that the Ceton’s InfiniTV 4 USB offers over its PCIe brother is that its USB port allows it to be paired with virtually any Windows 7 PC. With this new device from Ceton you’ll be getting rock solid reliability in a beautiful and tiny enclosure that can be hooked to just about anything. For many, cable television is the centerpiece of their home entertainment system. If that describes you then you can now build the home theater PC that is perfect for you without having to limit your case choices to options that are big enough for a PCIe card. The InfiniTV 4, whether you pick USB or PCIe, will cost you $299 and bring with it the ability to watch and record four simultaneous cable television shows. You can now send that awful DVR you’ve been using back to the cable company and build a quad-tuner Windows Media Center PC and have access to premium HDTV, along with all of your music, photos, videos, and movies. Thank you to Ceton for providing us with a review unit.

Update: The Ceton InfiniTV 4 USB can now be purchased on Amazon (Prime eligible) for $299.00.

Instructions

Select Settings under Tasks

Select TV

Select Recorder

Select Recorder Storage

Set the TV Recordings Drive. Under Record on drive, use the + and - buttons to flip through the available drives and choose your new drive. You can select any internal or external drive, but not mapped network volumes.

Set the Maximum TV Limit. If you’re dedicating the new drive to Recorded TV storage, then use the + button next to the storage limit to select the highest setting. The graph at the bottom of the screen will show how many hours of standard and high definition television you can store on the new drive.

Save your changes. That’s it! Windows automatically adds the new drive to your Recorded TV library, and all new shows will be recorded on it. All of your old shows will still appear in your Recorded TV library.

Hardware

The WinTV-DCR-2650 measures about 7.5” wide by 4” deep and is about 1” tall. The front of the device has four lights separated into two pairs. The first light on the left is the System light. If it’s red it means that it’s either not plugged into the PC, or the driver hasn’t loaded properly. The second light indicates the presence of a cable signal. As long as it’s solid, so is it’s cable connection. The other two lights are for the individual tuners. If they aren’t currently in use then the lights are not illuminated. If a tuner is currently attempting to tune a channel then it’s light will blink. Once it’s successfully connected to the channel the tuner light will remain solid.

WinTV-DCR-2650 Doesn't Include a CableCARD

On the back of the tuner you’ll find all of the ports for the various items that need to be attached to the device. On the far left is the standard RF cable signal jack. Next to that is the USB port. This is for the USB cable that attaches to the home theater PC. To the right of that is the power jack for the AC adapter, and to the far right is the slot for the CableCARD. Make sure that when you insert the CableCARD that the manufacturer label is pointing up. Don’t jam the card in too far either. The card is designed to stick out of the back of the tuner about 1/2″. This enables you to pull the CableCARD out as there isn’t a separate mechanism for ejecting the card. The only other thing that I wish the WinTV-DCR-2650 had was a USB port that could be used to plug the tuning adapter into. If you need a tuning adapter you’ll have to plug it into your PC instead. The physical appearance of Hauppauge CableCARD tuner is probably a love-it-or-hate-it proposition. I don’t dislike the shape and color of the case, but the frosted plastic lenses over the indicator lights look cheap to me. At the end of the day if you hate the design you can just hide the tuner, so how it looks shouldn’t really impact your purchasing decision.

Installation

Installing a CableCARD device can sound daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Hauppauge includes instructions to help you get the WinTV-DCR-2650 setup. On your Windows 7 Media Center PC the first thing you’ll want to do, if you haven’t already, is to run the Digital Cable Advisor Tool. You should be able to find that in the Extras Gallery within Media Center. If not, don’t worry, it’s covered in more detail in the Hauppauge instructions. After that is complete you need to connect everything to the tuner. Start by inserting the CableCARD into the back of the WinTV-DCR-2650. Then plug the USB cable from the tuner into your computer, and plug the AC adapter into the tuner and the wall to supply power to it. After doing that Windows 7 should detect it and install the drivers necessary. If Windows can’t find the appropriate drivers just insert the included CD.  Once the drivers are setup you’re ready to setup the tuner within Windows Media Center.

Open Windows Media Center and if it doesn’t automatically notify you that it found a new tuner then go to Tasks menu and select Settings. After that select TV, then TV Signal, then Set Up TV Signal. From there you just walk through the guided TV setup process. There are only a couple of new screens if you’ve never installed a CableCARD tuner before. The important one provides identification information for your CableCARD and it will instruct you to call your cable company to active the card. One of the nice things about this is that it even provides you with the phone number for your cable company right on the screen. Hopefully your cable company will properly activate your CableCARD and after you’ve clicked the “next” button a few more times you should be all set. Of course you’ll also want to make sure that you wired up the tuner well. You don’t want to have a bunch of cable splitters in your wiring or else your cable signal might be too low to give you a clear picture, or any picture at all.

Diagnostics

Accessing the Diagnostic Webpage

CableCARD tuners are a special breed of device, and sometimes that can make the initial setup difficult. The way a CableCARD works with your computer and your cable company’s infrastructure can also be quite dynamic, so it can be extremely beneficial to have as much diagnostic information available to you as possible. Hauppauge, much like Ceton before them, provides an entire diagnostic web page built right into their tuner. You find it by simply opening up file explorer, selecting the Network tree from the menu on the left, and then double-clicking on the Hauppauge OpenCable Receiver. This will then open up the diagnostic page in your default web browser.

The main screen displays the model number of your tuner, the device ID, and what version of the firmware is currently in use. It also provides links to deeper sub-menus for Status, Channel Lineup, CableCARD, Tuning Resolver, and links for downloading the latest drivers and installation instructions. The status menu is where you’re likely to spend most of your time. From there you’ll get more detailed information about the system, CableCARD, tuners, and tuning resolver (also called a tuning adapter.)  The pages for the individual tuners are ones that you’ll probably find the most useful as you’ll be able to see what channel they are currently tuned to, if the program is copy-protected, the signal strength, signal quality, and other details. The channel lineup can also be viewed by selecting that option from the main menu. It simply provides a list of every channel that should be available to you. This information is sent across the network from you cable company to the digital cable tuner. If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty details of the CableCARD status you can select the CableCARD Menu option from the main screen. There you’ll find every detail imaginable about the card. All of this information can really come in handy if you’re experiencing any problems. Try to use this data to help your cable company solve any issues you might have a lot quicker.

Overall Impressions

The big question of course is: does it work? The short answer is: mostly. For channels that aren’t using Switched Digital Video (SDV) the tuner works exactly how you would expect. Unfortunately Hauppauge is having problems with their tuning adapter software. Obviously we’re testing this before the device has officially launched, so it is possible that they’ll have this problem fixed prior to customers receiving their WinTV-DCR-2650 tuners. Currently they are telling us that the problem should be fixed, via a software update, “in the next week or so.” Also, one thing that owners might notice is that the first time a request is made to the tuner after a reboot the device can take about 10 seconds to tune to the channel. After that it only takes a couple of seconds to change channels. Most channel changes took between 1.5 seconds and 3 seconds. These numbers were about the same as other tuners we’ve tested.

Because the Hauppauge WinTV-DCR-2650 utilizes USB for it’s connection to your home theater PC many hope that it will work on essentially any Windows 7 computer. I say “essentially” because the only system requirements that Hauppauge states are the ability to pass Microsoft’s Digital Cable Advisor test. Unfortunately this didn’t work out in practice. Some of my testing was on a dual-core AMD Athlon computer, and on that machine the tuner worked without issue. However, I also tested on Acer Aspire Revo to see how it would perform on a low-power small-form-factor PC. This Revo is powered by an Intel Atom 230 processor with NVidia Ion graphics. On a fresh install of Windows 7 the Revo was unable to keep up with the demands of the WinTV-DCR-2650. Immediately after starting live television the processor spiked to 100% utilization.  The processor being maxed out also brought with it one major side effect: stuttering video. Just to rule out the possibility of something being wrong with the Revo, I tried on another Atom-powered machine and received identical results. After discovering this I went back to look at the numbers on the Athlon box I mentioned earlier. This isn’t the most scientific, but when watching live TV with the Hauppauge tuner the CPU was at about 35% utilization. After stopping the video CPU utilization dropped to around 15%. Clearly there were other things consuming resources on the computer at the time, but a 20% processing swing is pretty significant on a dual-core 2.7GHz machine. I want to be clear about the processor in the Revo. The Atom 230 is one of the oldest processors in the line, and it’s a single-core processor. We’ve tested machines with newer dual-core Atom processors, such as the Earth by Low Carbon PC, and had much better results with similar tests. On the Earth that we reviewed, which had a dual-core Atom 525, we used the Ceton InfiniTV 4 as a network tuner and it only took the CPU utilization up to 20%. The same test on this Atom 230 machine also pegged the processor.  We no longer have the Earth to test on, but given all of this its probably a safe assumption that an Atom 525 would be able to adequately handle the Hauppauge WinTV-DCR-2650.

Just to reiterate after that lengthy break-down, when the Hauppauge WinTV-DCR-2650 CableCARD tuner was paired with anything we would consider “a decent PC” then it worked without issues. There is a fair amount of overhead that comes with an external device like this though, and that should be taken into consideration if you’re planning to match it up with a very low-power PC.

Conclusion

The availability of CableCARD tuners at reasonable prices have been the final piece in making a Windows 7 Media Center PC not only the core of your household entertainment needs, but have allowed it to be the only piece you need. For years Windows Media Center has offered a fantastic interface for accessing all of your music, photos, and videos, but now that you can easily and cheaply make it your cable DVR opens up a world of possibilities. The Hauppauge WinTV-DCR-2650 is now solidly holding down the spot of entry-level cable television tuner for you home theater PC (HTPC.) It offers the ability to record two channels simultaneously from any cable channel you receive, for only $150. While Ceton’s InfiniTV 4 offers twice the number of tuners, and SiliconDust’s HDHomeRun Prime brings hardware-based network tuner functionality to the table, a dual-tuner CableCARD device for $150 that can connect to virtually any Windows 7 PC brings with it the functionality that you need at a price that is far easier to justify if this is your first foray into the wonderful world of HTPCs. The Hauppauge WinTV-DCR-2650 is available from Amazon for about $150. Thank you to Hauppauge for providing us with a review unit.

Disclosure: While Adam Thursby does mention this in this article, we want to make it very clear that he is a cable technician for a national cable company.
–Editor

As of August 8th, cable TV operators that offer set-top boxes for self-install are required to allow customers to self-install CableCARDs.  This is great for those of us who use Ceton’s InfiniTV4 or will be using one of the devices that will be launching soon.  You’ll save money by not paying for a truck roll and normally, CableCARD install just means getting the device into your tuner and making a phone call.
Like most things however, solving one problem can cause many others.  The vast majority of readers here, and those who use CableCARD tuners are very technically minded.  They typically know what they’re doing when it comes to PC hardware, software and networking.  Many even understand RF signals and what’s needed to provide a good experience.  The first issue that can come up however, is someone who is technically inclined believing that they have all the knowledge necessary to make changes to their cable system without all the information or needing a truck roll.

A full 50% of the trouble calls (TCs) that I’ve seen are the result of someone adding outlets, splits and using poor quality cable and equipment.  Let’s look at an example to show what I mean.  Understand, this isn’t me digging on technically inclined people.  This is me hoping people understand that paying for that tech to show up might be a better idea:

A year ago you got digital cable but had STBs provided by your cable company.  The tech showed up, did what he had to do and got you up and running.  Your STB has been running perfectly ever since, including internet and maybe even phone.  A year later you decide it’s time for CableCARD and a new tuner.  Good for you because the experience in Media Center can’t be beat.  Now that you can self-install CableCARD, you go to your local office, pick up a card and TA if needed and off you go.  You get behind your TV (or wherever your HTPC is) add a three-way splitter to power your modem, TA and tuner.  You bought some stuff at Radio Shack and paid good money so you figure it must be good stuff.

Once pairing is complete you have full premium digital cable in your HTPC.  Awesome!  You ditch the STB and move ahead with flipping your family to Media Center.  About two weeks later, you realize that you’re seeing a lot of macroblocking, channels are dropping and in general, the experience is starting to go south.  Your family is upset because the STB was always reliable and now you’re having issues.  Finally angry enough, you set an appointment to get a tech out to your house to take a look.  The tech knows that you have say, four outlets.  He arrives and discovers you now have six.  Oh, and he also notices that you have some really bad RG-59 cable with crimp on fittings.  The ones you paid good money for at Radio Shack.  Awesome.  Now he has to spend the next hour or more re-configuring your entire system in order to get you the levels you need.  In the back of his mind, he knows all of this could have been avoided had the customer simply called for an upgrade and paid for the service in the first place.

In the example above,  the customer thought he knew better.  The bad part is that not only did he not know better, but he spent a good bit of money for nothing anyway since the first thing I’m going to do as a tech is rip out the “Radio Shack Specials” he just installed.  Sure, he didn’t pay for the service call but still had to deal with the interruption and the lack of quality that has upset his family.

Many people who use Ceton’s InfiniTV4 tuner believe they can use the diagnostic pages to troubleshoot their issues.  This is a great start as Ceton provides a ton of information on these pages that cane be really helpful in finding issues.  Again, these pages are a great START.  To really see what’s going on however, you need other equipment that 99.9% of people don’t own.  As someone said to me earlier today, “signal level does not equal signal quality” and that SNR reading simply doesn’t provide the whole picture.

Solutions

Saying that something is bad without providing an alternative is easy.  So how do we fix it?  How do we ensure that a cable technician isn’t going to screw up our HTPC but still ensure that we’re going to get the best experience possible?  First, just suck it up and take the truck roll fee.  You probably know a lot more than that tech about your HTPC and you may even know more about how CableCARD works but you don’t know signal issues that can come up.  Because we’re combining two technologies, it takes different disciplines to ensure we get a system that’s going to perform as expected.

Let the tech do his job.  If he’s any good at it (and yes, like any other service position, there are bad ones) you’ll have the signal you need for a great HTPC experience.  Be sure to be ready to explain to him what you want since most, if not all cable techs, have never seen an HTPC and probably haven’t done many CableCARD installs.  The ones they have seen have been for TiVo so the concept of an HTPC goes beyond their experience.  If you work together with the technician instead of assuming that he’s going to screw everything up it’ll be a much smoother process.  Cable isn’t an exact science.  Many a time I’ve walked in to a home thinking I knew the solution and discovered that a second trip is needed because of something I missed.  It’s easy to do since so much goes into ensuring a good signal.  No one is perfect and we can all miss things.

Your job is to help him where he doesn’t have experience.  Getting the card into your tuner, bringing up the setup pages and the Ceton (or other company) diagnostics, etc.  He’s probably never seen these before so cut him a break.  Again, working together is a requirement.

Conclusion

You can take the $40 that you’d spend on a truck roll and head to your local Radio Shack if you want.  Pick up that CableCARD and have at it.  I wish you luck.  In my opinion however you’re better off working with your cable company and technician to ensure you get the best experience possible.  You’ll avoid a TC down the road.  While there, any cable tech worth his salt will make sure you’ve got a good drop, new splitters and fittings, etc.  (If you have any crimp on or blue colored fittings, make him change them.  RG-59 drop?  Tell him you want a new one.)

In the end, how you spend your money is up to you.  While having the option to self-install CableCARD is a good thing from a competition and freedom of choice standpoint, you’ll want to put a lot of thought into it before just grabbing one and giving it a go.