Ceton InfiniTV 4 for $263.99 at Buy.com

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by drewg

Most "tuners" are built to handle both QAM and ATSC, and will switch between the two modes. Its possible that the Ceton card could handle ATSC with the appropriate driver and/or firmware changes, but they don't seem inclined to support that market.

Are we using the term "tuner" in the same way? When I say tuner I don't mean something like an HVR-1600, I mean the part of the HVR-1600 that knows how to process ATSC or QAM signals. While ATSC is somewhat similar to QAM, it seems like the error correction functionality required in ATSC tuners would be complicated enough that not all QAM chips would support ATSC tuning. In general, I would think if you implement an ATSC tuner you'd basically get a QAM tuner for free, but no vice versa.

Of course, given that TVs need to ATSC tuners, and they don't need QAM tuners, it could very well be that most off-the-shelf tuners that can be integrated into CE devices have ATSC tuner. But, I would sort of think the cable box market by itself would be a big enough market to create demand for QAM tuners without needing to support ATSC.

Originally Posted by drewg

Why would anybody want to use the Ceton for clear-QAM or ATSC anyway? Just the density of having 4 tuners in a single PCIe card? The price of a popular dual-tuner card (2250) makes it cheaper to just get 2 of them...

I wouldn't buy a Ceton card or an HDHR Prime with the intention of using it as a QAM tuner, but I do think its a nice added feature. If I bought one to use with copy-freely content, at least I could continue using it with Clear QAM content if copy protection flags go up.

[drewg]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Are we using the term "tuner" in the same way? When I say tuner I don't mean something like an HVR-1600, I mean the part of the HVR-1600 that knows how to process ATSC or QAM signals.

A "tuner" is made up of the analog tuner that captures the signal, and the digital demod, that decodes it. Both need to understand the difference between cable and over-the-air broadcasts.

I ass-u-me that, as you said, the TV market is big enough that most people making tuners and demods would make them capable of both. But you're right, the Cable STB market is large, and there may be chips that do just cable. I would imagine that they are simpler/cheaper to make, since they don't need to worry about ATSC complexities like multipath interference.

Drew

[Mitch G]

Originally Posted by drewg

Why would anybody want to use the Ceton for clear-QAM or ATSC anyway? Just the density of having 4 tuners in a single PCIe card? The price of a popular dual-tuner card (2250) makes it cheaper to just get 2 of them...

Drew

My cable company is going all digital, but they are going to leave the standard cable channels in clear QAM - but they will be in standard def. Currently I have two HDHRs which should be sufficient. But, I was also thinking if I want to add more tuners, I would want to add the Ceton card so I have the option of adding a cable card for hi-def later on.

So, does anyone know if the card can work without a cable card for clear-QAM?


Mitch

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Mitch G

My cable company is going all digital, but they are going to leave the standard cable channels in clear QAM - but they will be in standard def. Currently I have two HDHRs which should be sufficient. But, I was also thinking if I want to add more tuners, I would want to add the Ceton card so I have the option of adding a cable card for hi-def later on.

So, does anyone know if the card can work without a cable card for clear-QAM?


Mitch

From the ceaton site.

Q: Will the Ceton InfiniTV 4 tune analog, Clear QAM and/or ATSC channels in addition to encrypted digital cable channels?

A: The Ceton InfiniTV 4 will have the ability to be used as a ClearQAM tuner in a future firmware update. As a digital cable TV solution it will not support ATSC or analog channels. There are many low-cost ATSC/analog TV tuners available on the market that you could add to a Media Center PC if you require analog TV support in addition to digital cable TV.

[Mitch G]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

From the ceaton site.

Thanks
I had poked around the site but wasn't able to find the answer

Thanks again

Mitch