Dumping WMC...back to Tivo

[Gilrock]

Well my love affair with WMC was short lived. It just didn't work out for our family. I'm sure a lot of it had to do with using a Windows 8 PC and maybe other tuners cards would have worked out better but I just couldn't deal with having to reboot a PC to get the TV working 3 times in 4 days. I moved to WMC after being fed up with several things on my Tivo Premiere units and not liking the Netflix application on Tivo. For WMC I was using a Ceton Infinitv 6 Eth with a Windows 8 PC. For some reason every so often we would turn on the TV and it would say I had no TV signal. I would check the tuner diagnostics and several tuners would show green but one or two would show red. After trying several different things the quickest solution seemed to be just rebooting the PC and restarting media center. And to be honest I didn't research WMC enough to know that Microsoft appeared to be turning it's back on WMC. Nobody liked using the Xbox 360 as an extender mainly because the angle of the remote was terrible and because we are big Netflix users and didn't want to pay for an Xbox Live Gold membership to watch it. The media center remote I bought for the upstairs PC had no option to control the TV which annoyed everyone. But the nail in the coffin was when the TV signal problem started happening more frequently. I know a lot of you are still in love with WMC and I'm sure I could spend a bunch of money to use a different HTPC and maybe a different tuner card and a different remote but the family decided they were happier with the Tivo even though it had some issues.

The good news is I decided to move up to the new Roamio Pro and a Mini and I'm happy to report that the Roamio has solved all my complaints about Tivo. I was tickled pink to see how fast the interface runs now and I've finally got the updated Netflix experience which looks awesome and Pause in Netflix now works immediate instead of taking 5 seconds.

I'm not completely dumping the home theatre experience though. During the holidays I got a Raspberry Pi up and running with XBMC so I can access all my movies, photos, and music that are stored on my NAS using the Pi which has run rock solid so far.

If anyone wants a good deal on an almost brand new Ceton Infinitv 6 Eth or a one year old Tivo Premiere (2 available) feel free to contact me.

Well I guess I won't need to post here anymore...good luck and have fun.

[STC]

Yep, it's something I am considering when our HTPC falls over sometime in the future. It works 100% but it certainly was a long road getting it there. Always quirks to overcome. I have too much to do now and far less time for Media Center tinkering. Let's face it the interface is getting long in the tooth compared to what's out there now.

The new TiVos and Minis/Streams look just the ticket. Unified search? Yes please. Perhaps the price will even be lower by the time I need new gear...

Good luck!

[makryger]

Sorry it didn't work out for you. After reading through many people's experiences, I've concluded that the ceton tuners simply do not provide a seamless and stable dvr experience. In my case, I would get the spinning ring every time I turned on my tv, and if I tried to watch tv before it did it's spin, then I would get a no tuner issue. I would get intermittent poor signals requiring a signal booster, one of the four tuners just never worked, and the cable card lost authentication periodically.

After buying an silicondust hdhrp tuner, literally all my problems disappeared.

[STC]

^ Ooo a twofer

[aeblank]

So glad i dumb-lucked into sd tuners. Dodged a bullet there.

[mdavej]

My SD tuners were total crap when I tried them a few years ago. I got bogus tuner not available errors constantly. My Cetons have been pretty solid. So I guess YMMV. I had problems similar to the OP a long time ago. Turned out to be caused by DMR (play ready, etc.). Once I fixed that, it's been smooth sailing.

[adam1991]

The original Ceton PCIe 4 tuner, for which I paid $433 total (including shipping) and waited the new, low time of 8 weeks to get, is a great piece of equipment.

[Gilrock]

You really think I care if you are happy with your Ceton. Doesn't make me feel any better. Try upgrading to run your hardware using Windows 8.1 and then get back to me in 3 months. Sorry but the "works for me" crowd can take a hike.

[werds]

You really think I care if you are happy with your Ceton. Doesn't make me feel any better. Try upgrading to run your hardware using Windows 8.1 and then get back to me in 3 months. Sorry but the "works for me" crowd can take a hike.

If you didn't want a counterpoint to your post you shouldn't have posted it? I mean if I went to a forum and posted about how brunettes are hotter than blondes I would be remiss in not realizing that I would also get responses attesting to how awesome blondes are right?

BTW good luck with the Tivo, as long as it works for you that is all that matters in the end right? For me WMC has been a dream (with some slight teething issues at times) but it has surpassed almost anything I could have hoped to get out of what started as an experiment

[adam1991]

You really think I care if you are happy with your Ceton. Doesn't make me feel any better. Try upgrading to run your hardware using Windows 8.1 and then get back to me in 3 months. Sorry but the "works for me" crowd can take a hike.

Sorry, I wasn't clear.

The original Ceton tuner, which I purchased, seems to me to be a great piece of equipment. I explained carefully how mine was one of the originals; everyone who was there at the beginning knows what I went through to get it, back when it first came out of beta test. My God, there were long threads detailing everyone's order date, expected delivery date, and final delivery date. It was truly like owning a Model T.

You bought a much newer, 6 tuner, ethernet-connected unit--and have had problems. I can't deny your assertions; I have to assume they are 100% correct.

My point really was, gee, at least we know they *do* know how to build equipment; is their later stuff (relatively speaking) junk? Did they take shortcuts or otherwise make bad choices on later gear?

[blueiedgod]

The original Ceton tuner, which I purchased, seems to me to be a great piece of equipment. I explained carefully how mine was one of the originals; everyone who was there at the beginning knows what I went through to get it, back when it first came out of beta test. My God, there were long threads detailing everyone's order date, expected delivery date, and final delivery date. It was truly like owning a Model T.

I was one of those people! I ordered from all 3 approved vendors, figuring that Ceton, as they threatened, would cancel out the other 2 orders when 1 of them shipped. Boy, was I surprised when I received all 3 tuners, and $1200+ charge on the credit card. Luckily, they were so hot, I was able to sell 2 of them on ebay for $600+, which basically paid for the one I kept.

I don't think people appreciate what they have. Going from PCI internal NTSC tuner to ATSC was an upgrade. Then, migrating to network attached ATSC/ClearQAM HomeRun was an upgrade, then adding ATI DCT was really the icing on the cake (no more boxes to rent, and IR blasters to deal with). Then, upgrading to InfiniTV4 was revolutionary! 4 tuners on one card with a single CableCARD rental!

We recently migrated to the InifniTV6 ETH, and that was an upgrade from PCIe InifniTV, since now there are no coax cable going into HTPC, at all. Just a single network wire.

[hoff247]

I bought Gilrock's ininitv eth6. Upgraded from hdhomerun prime. So far so good. Running on windows 7 premium 64 with 4 xbox 360 extenders. I could definitely see a delay in tuning speed. It took about 3 sec to change a channel on hdhomerun and probably about 5 with the ceton. But the extra tuners makes it worth it. Only problem I have had, and its only happened a couple times is that I'll try to watch tv and it will say no tuners available to satisfy request. I run Ceton diagnostics and problem clears. But so far family loves having dvr's in all their rooms.

[LuckyDay]

You really think I care if you are happy with your Ceton. Doesn't make me feel any better. Try upgrading to run your hardware using Windows 8.1 and then get back to me in 3 months. Sorry but the "works for me" crowd can take a hike.

He posted a response relevant to the topic you created. If you don't want to hear stuff like this, why would you create a thread detailing why you're leaving?

Do you care what other people have to say about their experiences or not?

That was a crappy attitude for you to come at someone with a response to the thread YOU created.

[barnabas1969]

I think I bought one of blueiedgod's Ceton InfiniTV4 tuners back in 2011. I paid $525 to an e-bay user named ireland75 (e-mail address started with mcollins). Anyway, when I got the ITV4, I thought it was great... it only displayed error messages about every two days, and required a reboot every few days to keep working. That seemed good to me at the time. Then, I bought the HD HomeRun Prime, and it would run without a hiccup for 6 months at a time. How times change.

[Polen]

Works for me...

[barnabas1969]

My point was that each person has a different level of problems that they will tolerate. At first, I thought the ITV4 was fantastic... but then I learned that the grass really was greener on the other side.

[volfan6415]

My point was that each person has a different level of problems that they will tolerate. At first, I thought the ITV4 was fantastic... but then I learned that the grass really was greener on the other side.

Barnabas, I think this is part of the problem but I also think there is a significant quality control problem at Ceton. Which when combined with your observations would explain why some people report zero problems with the infiniTV4 and others just can never seem to get there's to work. I for one fall somewhere in between. I have one of the originals as well and mine for the most part has been rock solid, i have had a few of the common problems mentioned here but for the most part they have been ironed out. I think i likely have a higher tolerance and was one of the lucky ones who got a better unit.

I used to think that part of the difference could be explained by the fact that as a standalone network device the SD tuner did not have to rely on a pc at all other than the receive the encrytped stream and that this likely explained some of the stability differences between the two tuners. However, given that there have been just as many complaints about the ETH as the PCI versions I am more inclined to think that something is just off with Ceton's engineering or manufacturing process.

[STC]

Different strokes....

[blueiedgod]

I think I bought one of blueiedgod's Ceton InfiniTV4 tuners back in 2011. I paid $525 to an e-bay user named ireland75 (e-mail address started with mcollins). Anyway, when I got the ITV4, I thought it was great... it only displayed error messages about every two days, and required a reboot every few days to keep working. That seemed good to me at the time. Then, I bought the HD HomeRun Prime, and it would run without a hiccup for 6 months at a time. How times change.

No, mine would have been in September of 2010, and my ebay is the same as this. By the time 2011 rolled around, prices on ebay dropped, since Ceton was able to fulfill all of the back orders.