HD Cable TV on HTPC... any solutions?

[EnergyFX]

I've been digging and digging but I can't seem to find simple answers on how to get Comcast HD on a HTPC without having to fart with a cable box.

Are there any solutions? It looked like cable cards were trying to break through the ice a year or so ago but there doesn't seem to be much current information on them available.

[suraswami]

hey, I used Kworld QAM cabaple Hybrid HD Tuner card. It does most unencrypted ones. But I am too searching for one that can get premium channels without cable box.

[timta2]

The situation with CableCards has been kind of a joke since day one. Comcast and the other cable monopolies are a joke also, but I'm sure you know this. Check out the section "Issues with CableCARDs" on the CableCard Wikipedia Page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CableCARD

[cincybengal]

I went through this ordeal myself and wasn't very satisfied with the results. The only way to view encrypted hdtv signals is through a cable card or hd box on a certified CableLabs pc, such as one purchased by Dell or HP. If you build your own pc, you can only view OTA signals in HD. I currently have an hd cable box connected to my Hauppage 1800 series tuner and it downgrades the hd signal to sd. However, I view the local networks in hd with a cheap antenna that came with tuner.

Some cable companies supposedly do not encrypt some of their hd channels, but the problem on all the tv cards I've seen is they all have coax or s-video in. Coax works fine for OTA hd, but cable boxes don't output hd on coax, they use composite, dvi, or hdmi for hd.

I got really pissed about this whole thing because after upgrading my entire network to wireless-n(with mixed results, I ended up running gigabit wire to my xbox3600), and buying a tv card, I could only watch local hd channels, what a joke. However, I did get rid of the dvr box on my plasma in the family room by streaming to xbox360.

Comcast may be different from Time Warner, but these cable companies seem to just want to control their entire signal to squeeze as much money out of the consumer as possible.

[EnergyFX]

I'm assuming the biggest hangup to all of this is that copyrightophytes don't want us to be able to stream high def movies through our HTPCs cause heaven forbid that some people out there will record those movies, burn em on a disk, and sell them illegally on the street... or p2p them.

So basically they are going to hold back a potentially billion dollar HTPC industry in order to frustrate the potential piracy problems.

logic=flawed

[EnergyFX]

how about this little guy

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/

If you ran HDMI from the cable box into this card and then ran HDMI or DVI-D from your video card to your TV then would you have true HD from the cable box > HTPC > TV?

[cincybengal]

That might work, but how much are you going to spend to save $10 a month on a dvr? That looks more like a video editing tool than a tv card, which it doesn't appear to be; it may be though.

The whole thing is a total racket by the cable companies. Why not let customers by tv cards with cable-card slots? Simple. Time Warner, for instance, rents cable cards for $1 per month. A dvr costs rents for $18-20 total per month. It's all about money. They can't really be worried about copyright stuff because you can record ota hd from the major networks. What's the difference, copyright-wise, in recording American Idol or Animal Planet? None I can think of.

I wouldn't mind not having access to on-demand programming on a cable-card to prohibit copying of movies, for instance. Rent a version with or without on-demand, or block on-demand from copying. I would love a simple solution to store recorded shows on my pc, though, simply for the extra storace space.

[EnergyFX]

Well, in comparison to a DVR a HTPC owns, hands down. The build I have in mind would have a 300Gb RAID 1 array for OS and programs and at least 2Tb RAID 0+1 array for media storage.

I would be more than willing to lose On-Demand and Pay-Per-View options if I could just let Windows Media Center run the cable and guide functions without a cable box.

Hell... charge me extra for an unscrambled signal if it's about money... I don't see people typically dropping the cash needed to buy or build a HTPC in order to save a few bucks each month on their cable bill. No, your average HTPC fanatic just wants the features of cable on a computer more than he wants to save $10 a month.

[cincybengal]

I was thoroughly disapointed with the whole cable situation. I've got 2 xbox360's I wanted to stream to, do away with dvr boxes, and have essentially unlimited storage capacity. Maybe one day the cable companies will wise up and open things up for their customers.