InfiniTV6 question

[RealCodeGuy]

Does this tuner take a special cable card or will any multi-stream card work? I thought multi-stream cards were limited to 4 streams? I am thinking of getting one to replace my HDHomerun Prime. My two InfiniTV4's tune channels so much better than the HDHomerun on the exact same wire. The OOB lock and signal strength is just stronger and more reliable with the Ceton tuners. I am hoping the Ceton network tuner will provide the same performance as the internal tuners.

[Motz]

The M-Card spec is 6 streams. so any will work.

http://www.cablelabs.com/opencable/prim ... rimer.html

The development of the replacement interface specification was originally called the Multistream CableCARD Interface Specification. It updated the security system to support triple-DES (3DES) or FIPS PUB 46-3, added support for up to 6 simultaneous transport streams, and made use of the serialized interface, similar to USB-2.0, to achieve lower host receiver costs and higher data transfer rates. While doing this, the card maintained the original PCMCIA physical interface for backward compatibility.

[erkotz]

Does this tuner take a special cable card or will any multi-stream card work? I thought multi-stream cards were limited to 4 streams? I am thinking of getting one to replace my HDHomerun Prime. My two InfiniTV4's tune channels so much better than the HDHomerun on the exact same wire. The OOB lock and signal strength is just stronger and more reliable with the Ceton tuners. I am hoping the Ceton network tuner will provide the same performance as the internal tuners.

Multi-stream CableCARDs are required to support at least 4 simultaneous streams. There is no (practical) upper limit on the maximum number of streams, but the data bus to the CableCARD is 200Mbit/sec, which puts a practical technical limit of about 10 HD streams, or around 40 SD streams.

The M-card spec actually only requires support for 4 streams minimum (but has no specified upper boundary). I am working on an Engineering Change request to increase this to 6, mostly for administrative reasons. Modern Cisco/SA and Motorola CableCARDs already can process 6 HD streams, so this is a non-issue for InfiniTV 6 customers. There is no such thing as a "2-stream" card, contrary to what you might hear from a cable CSR.

[RealCodeGuy]

Thanks for the clarification.

[Motz]

aka Eric knows his cable cards!

[Diverge]

Does this tuner take a special cable card or will any multi-stream card work? I thought multi-stream cards were limited to 4 streams? I am thinking of getting one to replace my HDHomerun Prime. My two InfiniTV4's tune channels so much better than the HDHomerun on the exact same wire. The OOB lock and signal strength is just stronger and more reliable with the Ceton tuners. I am hoping the Ceton network tuner will provide the same performance as the internal tuners.

Multi-stream CableCARDs are required to support at least 6 simultaneous streams. There is no (practical) upper limit on the maximum number of streams, but the data bus to the CableCARD is 200Mbit/sec, which puts a practical technical limit of about 10 HD streams, or around 40 SD streams.

The M-card spec actually only requires support for 4 streams minimum (but has no specified upper boundary). I am working on an Engineering Change request to increase this to 6, mostly for administrative reasons. Modern Cisco/SA and Motorola CableCARDs already can process 6 HD streams, so this is a non-issue for InfiniTV 6 customers. There is no such thing as a "2-stream" card, contrary to what you might hear from a cable CSR.

Out of curiosity, do you know if the dreaded NDS cablecards that cablevision uses support 6 streams?

I was kinda confused by what you said. Multi-stream CableCARDs are required to support at least 6 simultaneous streams, but The M-card spec actually only requires support for 4 streams minimum.

[erkotz]

Does this tuner take a special cable card or will any multi-stream card work? I thought multi-stream cards were limited to 4 streams? I am thinking of getting one to replace my HDHomerun Prime. My two InfiniTV4's tune channels so much better than the HDHomerun on the exact same wire. The OOB lock and signal strength is just stronger and more reliable with the Ceton tuners. I am hoping the Ceton network tuner will provide the same performance as the internal tuners.

Multi-stream CableCARDs are required to support at least 6 simultaneous streams. There is no (practical) upper limit on the maximum number of streams, but the data bus to the CableCARD is 200Mbit/sec, which puts a practical technical limit of about 10 HD streams, or around 40 SD streams.

The M-card spec actually only requires support for 4 streams minimum (but has no specified upper boundary). I am working on an Engineering Change request to increase this to 6, mostly for administrative reasons. Modern Cisco/SA and Motorola CableCARDs already can process 6 HD streams, so this is a non-issue for InfiniTV 6 customers. There is no such thing as a "2-stream" card, contrary to what you might hear from a cable CSR.

Out of curiosity, do you know if the dreaded NDS cablecards that cablevision uses support 6 streams?

I was kinda confused by what you said. Multi-stream CableCARDs are required to support at least 6 simultaneous streams, but The M-card spec actually only requires support for 4 streams minimum.

Oops - I had a typo in the post - I've since corrected it. Sorry for the confusion. The M-Card spec requires that CableCARDs support a minimum of 4 streams. They can support more. SA/Cisco and Motorola (and I'm 99% certain NDS) all actually support 6 streams.