Looking to replace Tivo - Thinking about Ceton

[pnolans]

I've been using Tivo's for years. I'm pretty tired of paying $20 / month .... I'm ok with the functionality of the Tivo, but
Tivo Desktop is pretty temperamental. I have used TV tuners in my PC's , but have had results that are both positive and negative.
I like to be able to save things like SuperBowls and elections onto a Hard Drive. I find that the Tivo is really easy to use.

I've heard that the Ceton is an excellent choice ... I'm reasonably competent with PC's and can certainly install a PCIe card.

I'd like some opinions from those of you who use them. About 10% of the reviews on Amazon are really negative.
I'm usually skeptical of those. Most of them complain about the Ceton customer service. That they are unresponsive
and /or willing to blame everything BUT their card. Of course, one would expect to occasionally run into a CSR
that needs re-education. That's natural.

BTW, I have Comcast in Colorado Springs. I have a CableCard in my Tivo, and that has worked well. I would expect that
Comcast and the Cablecard would not be a problem here.

So, what do you folks think?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Pat

[spanner]

I say give it a try. Ceton is not your only option, but it has worked very well for me. Going to a PC based DVR will probably not be as trouble free as your TVIO, but as you say you are comfortable working on computers you should be able to get a system up that you are pleased with. My only suggestion is to have a dedicated DVR PC up and working before if ever you make it a multi purpose PC. keep it simple.

[makryger]

From my experience, (and from reading these forums), if you want a system that works great and can definitely replace your previous DVR, but with a few distracting bugs, then Ceton tuners will fulfill your needs. If you want all that, with bugs to a minimum, then you may want to look at the Silicondust HD Homerun Prime ethernet unit. There are certainly plenty of people that have flawless experiences with both companies, and those that have negative experiences with both companies. But I like to look at review stars as a rough probability of whether soemething will go wrong- with 4 or 5 stars being a generally positive experience. Silicondust HDHRP has an aggregate 4+5 star rating of 87%. Ceton InfiniTV4 has an aggregate rating of 76%.

Given that you already have a cablecard, you just need to re-pair it. I'd recommend still saying its a tivo, because if you mention Windows Media Center, the customer service people get confused.

And I agree with spanner- better to have a dedicated PC. Everything non-htpc thing you install on it can affect your experience in weird ways.

[pnolans]

Thanks to both of you for replying. I have no problem with having a dedicated PC for that. As a matter of fact, I already have one that's close.

I'll just install a clean W7 version on a separate boot partition, and use that.

Thanks again,

Pat

[mdavej]

Personally, my SDs have been more problematic than my Cetons. Bogus "No tuners available" primarily. I've read such problems were eventually fixed, but I didn't keep mine long enough to find out.

[Ryan]

About 10% of the reviews on Amazon are really negative.
I'm usually skeptical of those. Most of them complain about the Ceton customer service. That they are unresponsive
and /or willing to blame everything BUT their card.

Hi Pnolans,

Unfortunately, I have to agree with those negative Amazon reviews, as well as the negative reviews on Newegg and other sites. I purchased an InfiniTV 4 back in November of
2012 and getting the promised functionality has been a nightmare. And yes, the quality of Ceton's support is my biggest complaint. Their responses have been slow,
inconsistent, and unhelpful. Direct questions have been completely ignored.

Recently, the interaction has taken a rather rude and uncooperative tone. It's true that they want to blame everything but the card, except that- at least in my case- they
won't specify what the problem could be, only that some "environmental factor" is causing a component of the card to fail. When I asked Ceton exactly what part they were
referring to, they replied "We're not going into detail, it would require an essay from an engineer." So why I am to believe this isn't just poor quality control?

My latest reply from Ceton was basically an ultimatum: they will allow a final RMA (I've only returned the unit twice before), after which they will no longer provide support,
or they will sell me an InfiniTV 6 for $200 plus sales tax and the return of my 4, with the implication that it may provide the performance I was supposed to get with the 4.
This just seems suspicious to me. What does everyone else think? Amazon has the HDHomerun Prime for about $120; I'd much rather have fewer tuners and a device that
works as promised, without the aggravations of Ceton support.

I found this thread while I was preparing one of my own; I'll post a little later with my specific details, specifications, etc. I am interested in finding out what choice you
make and what your experience is like.

[pnolans]

Please do keep us up to date. I'd like to know how it works for you.

Thanks,

Pat

[STC]

+1 for Ceton products. No problems with iTV4, now a iTV6. HTPC on 24/7. If you want to sleep your PC best to go for the SD although that too can have its own set of wibblys to deal with. Basically YMMV with either set of products. Crap shoot it but do it with belief and determination and you should be fine

[MeInDallas]

I had been a long time Tivo user. Started out with the series 1 and kept buying them as the new models were released. I finally got so tired of all the problems I was having with the Premiere line that I started seeking out other solutions. I came across the Ceton cards, bought the InfiniTV4 and was so impressed with it. When the InfiniTV6 came out I bought mine right away. I've heard all the arguments on both sides, but have yet to see a stronger argument in staying with Tivo. I think the biggest thing that drove me to Ceton and WMC is that I got so tired of when there were issues with the Tivo's, they always blamed the cable company right out of the gate, and never took responsibility for problems and bugs in their software. Like clockwork, months and even years later, there always seemed to be a "fix" or software update that addressed the problems I would be having that were blamed on the cable company in the beginning. So they were Tivo problems, they just didnt want to admit it was on their end. This became a really huge turn off for me and a big frustration. I'm so happy I'm rid of Tivo now, and at this point in time I'm problem free and can record 6 channels. One really cool thing I like about WMC is that I can put several drives in the case, and I can make folders like "movies" or "documentaries" or whatever you want to name them on the different drives, and you can just move whatever show to another drive to save for later, or watch over and over. A lot of my favorite series I make a folder, and when they air I just move them off the main drive, to another drive, then I have them to watch during the summer months.

This is my experience, yours might be different. I've heard a lot of people say that you have to tinker so much with Windows Media Center, but I havent ever had to do that. I built it in the beginning, and I've added little things along the way, but reading these forums have helped me out so much. The big huge thing is that I dont have anymore monthly service fees from Tivo, and I dont care what anyone says, the guide on WMC is just as good if not better than what I had on Tivo. I never understood that argument. People would always say that WMC had duplicates etc etc, well Tivo had just as many duplicates it would record. I'm very happy with mine and I hope you will be too if you get one. People here are very helpful.

[slowbiscuit]

Personally, my SDs have been more problematic than my Cetons. Bogus "No tuners available" primarily. I've read such problems were eventually fixed, but I didn't keep mine long enough to find out.

They were fixed with last year's firmware releases that also added DLNA support (Jan '13). My Prime has been rock solid ever since, no missed recordings or tuner errors.

[barnabas1969]

Back when I bought my first HD HomeRun PRIME (I have two now), I had some problems like what mdavej reports above. I tried setting a static DHCP lease in my router, and the problems went away. Later firmware and drivers supposedly fixed the problem with dynamic IP addresses, but I still recommend giving your networked tuners (of any brand) a static DHCP lease.

My HD HomeRun PRIME tuners have been much better than the InfiniTV4 was. The InfiniTV4 PCIe was my first CableCARD tuner. When I bought the HDHRP, I was only planning to test to see if another issue was related to the tuner or not (it wasn't), but once I started using the HDHRP, the experience was so much better that I sold my ITV4 and bought another HDHRP.

The HDHRP has been more stable, reliable, and changes channels much faster than the ITV4 did. The HDHRP also eliminates the "spinning donut" and the 1+ minute delay before Media Center becomes responsive after waking from sleep.

Recently, I built a new HTPC in a much smaller case that doesn't have room for internal tuner cards. So, I bought two HD HomeRun "dual" tuners (ATSC or clear QAM) to replace the Hauppauge 2250's that I had inside the old case. They're just as reliable as the PRIME.

So, I have bought four Silicondust tuners, with zero failures. That's 100% success.

When I first received my InfiniTV4, it wasn't recognized by Windows consistently. I could get it working, but then after a reboot, it would disappear from Device Manager. Ceton support was very good. They cross-shipped me a new one, overnight, at no charge. I think they even paid for the return shipping.

The main thing that's bad about Ceton's support is that they want you to do it all through their website. They usually respond to each post within a few hours. But the back-and-forth on the support website makes the troubleshooting process take days. It would be much better if they just published their phone number and had live phone support... or even if they had live chat it would be nice.

While they did a really nice thing by cross-shipping overnight without charge, it took several days to get there... and I had to lookup their phone number online and contact Pam Hammer (one of the founders of Ceton) directly before I got a resolution.

To be honest though, I can't tell you much about Silicondust's support... because I've never needed any support from them. It just works.

[pnolans]

As an additional piece of info: I live alone in a 2BR apartment. I have no interest (at this time) in streaming video to another room. I do NOT have Gigabit switches or CAT6 cable. I have 100Mbs wire, as well as Wireless N. If I were to go for the SD HomeRun Prime, would I need to upgrade my wire/switches? If I use the Ceton PCIe card, that's one less port on my Network.

I DO like the external device tho. Both SD and Ceton have externals.

Thanks again,

Pat

[barnabas1969]

Both the Ceton InfiniTV6 ETH and the Silicondust HD HomeRun PRIME will work on a 100 megabit network. If you watch/record 6 shows simultaneously on the Ceton, you will be pushing the limit of 100 megabit.

You should not try to connect the PC wirelessly though. Make sure that the PC and the tuner are both plugged into your switch/router with a cable.

One of the nice things about the Ethernet-attached tuners is that you can hide them in a closet somewhere. This is especially nice if your cable provider uses Switched Digital Video (SDV), which requires the use of a Tuning Adapter (TA), because then you can hide the TA in the closet too.

I have all four of my tuners, both of my TA's, my switch, router, and some other stuff in a closet. The coax line for the CableCARD tuners, and another coax line for the ATSC tuners (this cable runs from my outdoor antenna) terminates in that closet, along with all my network cables. It makes for a very tidy setup in the living room.

[barnabas1969]

Oh, and you don't need Cat6 for gigabit networking. Cat5e will work fine.

[markyr17]

Definitely go with a silicon dust tuner. Ceton will give you loads of problems. Don't take my word for it, search around the Internet, and these forums.

[slowbiscuit]

Not to mention that you'd be better off avoiding a company that abandoned their Echo customers.

[barnabas1969]

Gee, guys, I was trying to put it in a nice way. But I do agree with the two posts above.

[blueiedgod]

Never had problems with either original InifniTV4 PCIe nor InifniTV6 ETH. I do have both, though, InfiniTV6 ETH, and 3x SiliconDust HomeRun Duals. All of them have been problem free.

[Scallica]

So, what do you folks think?

+1 for HDHR Prime. Let us know which tuner you decide on and how it works out.

[shoffert]

+ my 2 cents for using an external/network device

I've had the ITV4 since it was $400. The thing generated TONS of heat in my case. Yeah, you can put fans on it, etc. but why when you can use an external.

+ another 2 cents of mine for the SD HDHRP

My ITV4 was very unstable. It always seemed to be touchy with signal strength & s/n ratios. I had a solid signal to the little dongle they give you. But some channels would be great one day, and then show weak signals another day. I even bought one of those motorola BDA K1 boosters. I finally broke down and bought the HDHRP 3 or so months ago and haven't had a problem since, and I was able to take the booster out of the signal path.


I get that you're in an apartment and don't want to string cat5e everywhere, but a few thoughts:

1) I don't think the HDHRP needs to be connected to the internet. You should be able to use a small switch at your computer to connect the two devices via hard wire (then your existing wireless could provide the internet access). So, you'd have HTPC (Wired) > Switch; HDHRP (Wired) > Switch; and then HTPC (wireless) to internet. You could get by with a cheap 100mb switch, but you can usually find a cheap 5 or 8 port gigabit switch for $20 or less (I think I found a shellshocker for $5 a while back). You could probably use an old router if you have one, also. Smarter people than myself on this forum can probably give you better guidance on how to execute this.

2) If you do string cat5e everywhere, you can hang lights from it and have a mardi gras theme.