Contents sharing within my network TV-6

[kp4akb]

I have been using the PCI-e card for over a year and have a Ceton Echo. Decided to place a computer for use with my main TV.
I am using Tuner Pooling, meaning I assigned 6 tuners to each of the three computers on my network. They all can record but the contents can not be shared by the computers. I understand the content protection thing but other providers including time warner let you share recordings among their boxes. I keep hoping Ceton will be cost effective over all.

All we want is to view the contents that we pay for in any place within our IP address

Where am I going wrong?

[staknhalo]

If you record something that is copy protected, it can only be viewed on the one actual machine that did the recording; or an extender. No way around it.

Edit: For non-copy protected content, as long as the recording storage folders are shared between all the PCs, there should be no problem.

[JohnW248]

To solve this issue requires an engineering change order with cable labs and then probably MS would have to modify playready to work within homegroup.

Best method would be to organize the villagers with pitch forks and torches to storm the cable lab castle. By themselves, hardware vendors can't do this. Programmers could drop the CCI 0x02 copy once, but so far they've only wanted to tighten it, or MS would have to work with cable labs on the homegroup idea. Since ehome is gone, the MS part is probably right up there with softsled.

[foxwood]

I have been using the PCI-e card for over a year and have a Ceton Echo. Decided to place a computer for use with my main TV.
I am using Tuner Pooling, meaning I assigned 6 tuners to each of the three computers on my network. They all can record but the contents can not be shared by the computers. I understand the content protection thing but other providers including time warner let you share recordings among their boxes. I keep hoping Ceton will be cost effective over all.

All we want is to view the contents that we pay for in any place within our IP address

Where am I going wrong?

What are you doing wrong? You're paying a Cable Provider who is deliberately preventing you from taking content that you recorded on one box and playing it on another box. Other Cable companies don't do this for most content, only premium channels, such as HBO and Showtime.

To be allowed get any Copy Protected cable content at all onto a PC took years of jumping through hoops laid down by the cable companies. The only way that Microsoft (and so far, Microsoft is the only company that has provided software to do this at all) could set it up so that you could see your protected content on multiple screens is to use Extenders. The Cable companies set the rules that prevent sharing protected content between PCs.

[erkotz]

To solve this issue requires an engineering change order with cable labs and then probably MS would have to modify playready to work within homegroup.

Best method would be to organize the villagers with pitch forks and torches to storm the cable lab castle. By themselves, hardware vendors can't do this. Programmers could drop the CCI 0x02 copy once, but so far they've only wanted to tighten it, or MS would have to work with cable labs on the homegroup idea. Since ehome is gone, the MS part is probably right up there with softsled.

There is no CableLabs requirement to restrict recordings to a single PC - merely that they be protected.

[adam1991]

I have been using the PCI-e card for over a year and have a Ceton Echo. Decided to place a computer for use with my main TV.
I am using Tuner Pooling, meaning I assigned 6 tuners to each of the three computers on my network. They all can record but the contents can not be shared by the computers. I understand the content protection thing but other providers including time warner let you share recordings among their boxes. I keep hoping Ceton will be cost effective over all.

All we want is to view the contents that we pay for in any place within our IP address

Where am I going wrong?

OK, so let me ask: what's the point of spreading those six tuners across three discrete PCs?

Anyway, you're swimming against the tide. Make one machine be the recording tank using all six tuners, and use extenders at all remote TVs to play back what's stored on that recording tank.

What provider do you have?

[JohnW248]

There is no CableLabs requirement to restrict recordings to a single PC - merely that they be protected.

Ok, so how did we wind up here with copy once restricted to the machine that made the recording (Tivo or MC), I don't imagine there is any interest at MS to work on this so is anyone else working on handling protected content on cable with a different distribution scheme in the home (besides the mythical ALLVID system)?

[kp4akb]

Fellows, I want to say that I would like for the Ceton product to work for all of us. But the "powers that be" are stacking the odds not only against us but against Ceton --- if we can not access the contents in multiple home computers or Android (etc) device.

Dish Network is offering Dish Hopper and this is their offer:

WHOLE-HOME HD DVR SERVICE.
Full HD DVR functionality on every TV, so you can pause, rewind and record live TV in any room. Plus, you can access your DVR library on all TVs so you can record a movie in the living room, start watching it in the bedroom and then finish in the kitchen.

Same programing as Time Warner so the question is--why does ESPN allow Dish to do it (WHOLE-HOME HD DVR SERVICE) and not Ceton products.

[staknhalo]

There is no CableLabs requirement to restrict recordings to a single PC - merely that they be protected.

Ok, so how did we wind up here with copy once restricted to the machine that made the recording (Tivo or MC), I don't imagine there is any interest at MS to work on this so is anyone else working on handling protected content on cable with a different distribution scheme in the home (besides the mythical ALLVID system)?

I think he means that CableLabs only required that there be some type of DRM in place. How computers respond to the Copy-x flag was the idea of some other entity; that CableLabs then said "yeah, that's fine".

Fellows, I want to say that I would like for the Ceton product to work for all of us. But the "powers that be" are stacking the odds not only against us but against Ceton --- if we can not access the contents in multiple home computers or Android (etc) device.

Dish Network is offering Dish Hopper and this is their offer:

WHOLE-HOME HD DVR SERVICE.
Full HD DVR functionality on every TV, so you can pause, rewind and record live TV in any room. Plus, you can access your DVR library on all TVs so you can record a movie in the living room, start watching it in the bedroom and then finish in the kitchen.

Same programing as Time Warner so the question is--why does ESPN allow Dish to do it (WHOLE-HOME HD DVR SERVICE) and not Ceton products.

You can, using 1 HTPC and multiple extenders. It's trying to use a 2nd, 3rd, 4th HTPC when you get into trouble.

[foxwood]

Dish Network is offering Dish Hopper and this is their offer:

WHOLE-HOME HD DVR SERVICE.
Full HD DVR functionality on every TV, so you can pause, rewind and record live TV in any room. Plus, you can access your DVR library on all TVs so you can record a movie in the living room, start watching it in the bedroom and then finish in the kitchen.

Same programing as Time Warner so the question is--why does ESPN allow Dish to do it (WHOLE-HOME HD DVR SERVICE) and not Ceton products.

"Whole-Home DVR" service based on WMC and cable-card tuners from Ceton, SiliconDust and Hauppauge works just fine with Extenders.

If you put a separate Dish DVR in each room, instead of a "hopper", you'd run into exactly the same problem that you're having with separate PC - separate recordings on separate boxes. Extenders (Xbox360, Ceton Echo or the discontinued Linksys and HP extenders) were delivering "hopper" functionality in 2008!!!

[foxwood]

There is no CableLabs requirement to restrict recordings to a single PC - merely that they be protected.

It's just that nobody has created a client that contains the necessary PlayReady bits that would protect that recording after it has been offloaded.

Or should I stop reading between the lines until you make that blog post, Eric?

[erkotz]

There is no CableLabs requirement to restrict recordings to a single PC - merely that they be protected.

Ok, so how did we wind up here with copy once restricted to the machine that made the recording (Tivo or MC), I don't imagine there is any interest at MS to work on this so is anyone else working on handling protected content on cable with a different distribution scheme in the home (besides the mythical ALLVID system)?

Because that's how MS designed it. There is no technical or licensing reason that, for example, softsled could not exist. Or PlayReady DRM keys shared across Homegroups (though dealing with Copy Once is a bit problematic, it could be delt with though).

There is no CableLabs requirement to restrict recordings to a single PC - merely that they be protected.

Ok, so how did we wind up here with copy once restricted to the machine that made the recording (Tivo or MC), I don't imagine there is any interest at MS to work on this so is anyone else working on handling protected content on cable with a different distribution scheme in the home (besides the mythical ALLVID system)?

I think he means that CableLabs only required that there be some type of DRM in place. How computers respond to the Copy-x flag was the idea of some other entity; that CableLabs then said "yeah, that's fine".

Fellows, I want to say that I would like for the Ceton product to work for all of us. But the "powers that be" are stacking the odds not only against us but against Ceton --- if we can not access the contents in multiple home computers or Android (etc) device.

Dish Network is offering Dish Hopper and this is their offer:

WHOLE-HOME HD DVR SERVICE.
Full HD DVR functionality on every TV, so you can pause, rewind and record live TV in any room. Plus, you can access your DVR library on all TVs so you can record a movie in the living room, start watching it in the bedroom and then finish in the kitchen.

Same programing as Time Warner so the question is--why does ESPN allow Dish to do it (WHOLE-HOME HD DVR SERVICE) and not Ceton products.

You can, using 1 HTPC and multiple extenders. It's trying to use a 2nd, 3rd, 4th HTPC when you get into trouble.

This concept is no different than WMC + Extenders. If you use a single PC + Extenders, you get the same experience.

There is nothing preventing someone from implementing a DRI client (with WM-DRM support) which allows Copy Once content to:
be watched on any PC in your house
Moved to another PC (still Copy Once)
Copied to another PC in your house (now Copy No More)
Burnt to BluRay (now Copy No More)
Streamed across the Internet to another PC

Just because WMC did not implement it, does not mean that it is disallowed.

There is no CableLabs requirement to restrict recordings to a single PC - merely that they be protected.

It's just that nobody has created a client that contains the necessary PlayReady bits that would protect that recording after it has been offloaded.

Or should I stop reading between the lines until you make that blog post, Eric?

That's basically correct. Technically CableLabs only requires WM-DRM (or Helix or DTCP). The handoff to another scheme, like PlayReady, is whatever is allowed by the "chain of trust".

[kp4akb]

I am not an activist but it seems to me that some how if the FCC requires the cable companies to offer a cable card, then we should be able to receive the same services without having to pay a rental fee to them for equipment. I would suggest that the companies that provide equipment could provide us with the guidance on how to approach the issue HomeGroup TV DVR with Ceton products and/or other products.

Right now Time Warner offers Whole House HD-DVR. I have not had a chance to check out the cost of this service but I will in the morning.

[staknhalo]

We already told you, 1 HTPC + however many extenders and you're set.

[Motz]

For multiroom viewing a cable provider provides you additional boxes in the house usually at a cost. The Whole Home HD-DVR solution via infiniTV and Windows Media Center are Windows Media Center Extenders such as the Echo or Xbox 360, which provide this functionality.

[foxwood]

Right now Time Warner offers Whole House HD-DVR. I have not had a chance to check out the cost of this service but I will in the morning.

Right now, I have a Whole House DVR consisting of a PC with an InfiniTV4 connected to the TV in the living room, and 2 extenders connected to the TVs in the bedrooms. I can start watching a program in any room, stop it and pick it up where I left off in any other room - that includes "protected content". I can add programs to the schedule on any of the screens - the user interface is exactly the same on each TV.

I pay my cable company $4 month rental for my cable-card - I don't pay for a set-top box or "extra outlet fees".

Did I miss something?

[kp4akb]

foxwood and firends, you did not miss anything, I am doing that with an Infinity 4 and an Echo.

When the TV 6 was announced I assumed Incorrectly that because it was a network device that all computers in the network would be able to share contents. Again, my ignorance. In my house we also use computers with large screens (23") to watch individual TV.

Imagine if I go to RedBox and rent a movie and they tell me that I can only watch it in one DVD player. Consumers would not stand for it.

Thanks for all your responses and we should let this dog die.

[Phil Seastrand]

Imagine if I go to RedBox and rent a movie and they tell me that I can only watch it in one DVD player. Consumers would not stand for it.

I bet the content providers would love to implement this approach. In fact, they would probably like to limit you to one playing per rental.

[adam1991]

DIVX!

Back to the discussion: technically, the InfiniTV4 is a network device. It just happens to use your motherboard directly for network connectivity and power.

And technically, all computers on the network *can* share what the InfiniTV outputs--even your InfinTV4.

But that's way, way different from sharing recorded TV, the guide, etc.