Wednesday, September 05, 2007

A MediaCenter PC with Four CableCards



CEPro has an article announcing that Microsoft is adding support for four CableCards and also announcing partners for Media Center Extender.

For those of you unfamiliar with CableCard - it is a device that allows a home theater PC to record encrypted content from Cable Systems. It is extremely locked down and has lots of copy-protection to keep you from using the content as you might want to, but it does allow the time-shifting of those encrypted channels. Previously, the Vista Media Center could support no more than two CableCards.

As far as Media Center Extenders, this has been a sore spot for many as the only extender device you could use with your Vista Media Center was an Xbox360 - you know the noisy, prone-to-break game box that wasn't really made to be an extender. :This will be very good news for those with the Vista Media Center.


UPDATE: After reading Chris Lanier's Post about this, I realized I failed to point out that this four-Cablecard tuner system will only be available to custom installers. Bummer for everyone (except the installer)! That really takes away from this news for the average joe like myself.

Read The CEPro Article


via MissingRemote