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DCT Tuner Support

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gtgray:

--- Quote from: JimH on August 03, 2012, 12:32:50 pm ---What is a DCT Tuner?

--- End quote ---

Jim, Your unfamiliarity with the acronym speaks volumes.  DCT = Digital Cable Tuners. Support for same is what many here have been begging for a long time now. I thought 17 might have brought it to the party, clearly it is still has not significant priority to JR. MC 17 is a great product, its only glaring weakness is its lack of support for cable tuners (DCT).. It is patently obvious that if DCT support was going to part of MC 18 it would already be a major part of the planning.

JimH:
I'm sorry you think I'm an idiot, but by Digital Cable Tuner, do you mean Cablecard devices like those from SiliconDust and Ceton?

glynor:

--- Quote from: gtgray on August 06, 2012, 12:24:17 pm ---Jim, Your unfamiliarity with the acronym speaks volumes.  DCT = Digital Cable Tuners. Support for same is what many here have been begging for a long time now. I thought 17 might have brought it to the party, clearly it is still has not significant priority to JR. MC 17 is a great product, its only glaring weakness is its lack of support for cable tuners (DCT).. It is patently obvious that if DCT support was going to part of MC 18 it would already be a major part of the planning.

--- End quote ---

I think maybe you misunderstand the term somewhat.  MC supports my Digital Cable Tuner (a Hauppauge HVR-2250).  It also supports digital cable tuners available throughout the world (DVB-C).

It does not currently support CableCard tuners (Ceton mainly), though JRiver has repeatedly said that this is something that they'd like to support, if it proves possible to do so.  Unfortunately, supporting CableCard is NOT a simple process, which is why SageTV and many other competing PC DVR applications never did and never will (directly).

Basically, you have to bow down and kiss the feet of CableLabs, who hates CableCard and wants to destroy it, and pay them a metric crap-ton of money.  Some of the original restrictions have been lightened somewhat over the past year or so, but we didn't see a flood of applications supporting the Ceton cards, so I suspect there is a lot more to it than just signing up for API access (and implementing some sort of draconian DRM scheme).

I wonder if CableCard isn't going to be eliminated altogether over the next few years in favor of integrated third-party systems (like what Apple is likely to do)...

glynor:
I should also note, that I would like to see this too (I will buy a Ceton card immediately if this is the case).  However, allowing it to work ONLY with Copy-Freely content (like the third-party SageDCT plugin and all the similar "hacky" ways to enable support in other applications) is a deal-breaker.

With my cable company, there is VERY little content that I care about that comes with the Copy Freely flag, and all of that would be easier to capture another way.

CableCard is crapped up with so many DRM restrictions that I'm very skeptical that this could ever meet my needs.  But, to even have a chance, it would have to be full-fledged first-party support similar to what they have in Windows Media Center.

I still think I'd be better served with another HD-PVR or two though...

ckewinjones:
Glynor is right:  the DCT category includes more than the CableCard-based devices like my Ceton InfiniTV4.  Nonetheless I suspect that the CableCard devices are what the original poster was referring to.

I have to say a word in defense of SageDCT.  It is unfortunate that a software shim like SageDCT is necessary (because Sage was unwilling or unable to play by CableLabs' rules), but given that it was needed, SageDCT is anything but "hacky."  It is a quality implementation of a public standard protocol for communicating with CableCard-based devices.  As long as that protocol doesn't change (and as a public standard, it shouldn't), SageDCT will continue to work reliably.

It is of course true that it works only for Copy Freely content (again, because Sage wasn't interested in providing DRM'ed content).  I'm very lucky because my provider (Verizon) marks content as protected only when the content owner absolutely insists on it.  If they ever turn copy protection on for New England Sports Network I will be in a world of hurt.

If JRiver were to sign up for the whole CableCard DRM program and provide full support for the Ceton card, that would be a powerful motivator for me to move from SageTV to MC for video.

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