General TA question with regard to PCIe tuners
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kd6icz
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General TA question with regard to PCIe tuners
If the TA is simply to provide upstream communication to the DAC, why would I need more than one connected to my WMC PC with multiple PCIe InfiniTV's installed? Couldn't one TA handle 12 or more tuners?
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cwinfield
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It is a firmware limitation for equipment cisco sta1520 is 6 there is a model out there that can handle 8 but not sure which one it is. Not to mention what combination of tuners your using...
One "Multi-Stream" CableCARD (M-Card) can decode up to six simultaneous channels.
The Cisco PKM908 will decode 8 channels simultaneously and is a current product (some of the earlier M cards such as the 800/801 are EOL). So an 8 channel tuner would be possible when cable systems upgrade their headend equipment to control and work with the new card format.
It has to be a PKM908 with PKEY_2.0.1 (or later) firmware. If it has PKEY_1.5.3 FW it is still limited to 6 streams. On the TA firmware I believe it was build 1901 (maybe 2001, I forget) that enabled 8 stream support. I'm unaware of any operator that has the PKEY_2.0.1 FW deployed outside of lab testing.
It's worth noting that the CableCARD's bus is limited to 200mbit/sec, which gives a theoretical maximum of about 10 HD channels, or 40 SD channels (you might get 1 or 2 more HD depending on the bandwidth used, but you're going to start getting into scenarios where you can hit problems, especially if your operator uses stat muxing).
One "Multi-Stream" CableCARD (M-Card) can decode up to six simultaneous channels.
The Cisco PKM908 will decode 8 channels simultaneously and is a current product (some of the earlier M cards such as the 800/801 are EOL). So an 8 channel tuner would be possible when cable systems upgrade their headend equipment to control and work with the new card format.
It has to be a PKM908 with PKEY_2.0.1 (or later) firmware. If it has PKEY_1.5.3 FW it is still limited to 6 streams. On the TA firmware I believe it was build 1901 (maybe 2001, I forget) that enabled 8 stream support. I'm unaware of any operator that has the PKEY_2.0.1 FW deployed outside of lab testing.
It's worth noting that the CableCARD's bus is limited to 200mbit/sec, which gives a theoretical maximum of about 10 HD channels, or 40 SD channels (you might get 1 or 2 more HD depending on the bandwidth used, but you're going to start getting into scenarios where you can hit problems, especially if your operator uses stat muxing).
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kd6icz
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Hmmm... I guess I didn't provide enough info. One PC with two Ceton PCIe InfiniTV 6's installed. An M-Card in each tuner. I'm in a Motorola market but that should be irrelevant. Why can't one TA be the upstream for both cards?
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blueiedgod
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Aren't TA's paired to the CableCARD they are supplied with?kd6icz wrote:Hmmm... I guess I didn't provide enough info. One PC with two Ceton PCIe InfiniTV 6's installed. An M-Card in each tuner. I'm in a Motorola market but that should be irrelevant. Why can't one TA be the upstream for both cards?
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kd6icz
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According to TWC they just need to be active in the billing system to function. They're not paired to any specific CableCARD or account. But the TA does clearly state it's good for up to 6 tuners. I'm just asking the inquisitive question of why only 6 if all its doing is providing a path of communication. Now if it was doing the actual tuning or injecting an intermediate frequency to down convert a OOB channel to in band then it would totally make sense why the limitation.blueiedgod wrote:
Aren't TA's paired to the CableCARD they are supplied with?
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erkotz
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Short answer: you need one per CableCARD.
Long answer: TAs have a run-time (not persistent) pairing with the CableCARD. Also Motorola and Cisco TAs are limited to resolving 6 channels (though I think build 2001 of STA-1520 firmware may support 8). Because of how the standards work, you will need one per tuner.
Long answer: TAs have a run-time (not persistent) pairing with the CableCARD. Also Motorola and Cisco TAs are limited to resolving 6 channels (though I think build 2001 of STA-1520 firmware may support 8). Because of how the standards work, you will need one per tuner.
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