Floppyhead - Digital Media and Home Theater Computers

A couple of months ago, Verizon dug up my front yard to install Fios in my neighborhood. Yeah me. I was/am excited to finally make the switch to fiber optic goodness.
I went to www.verizonfios.com to check out the available packages. The standard fair was available such as DVRs and set top boxes. [...]

I have been looking for a way to prioritize my tuners in Vista Media Center. Why do I want dictate which tuner is used as the default? Mainly to avoid digital rights management. I currently use the HDHomerun as a QAM tuner to receive unencrypted HD channels on my computer. This [...]

Sony made a splash in the media center world a couple of months ago being the first OEM to sell individual digital cable tuners, which are used to watch HD programming on premium cable channels. While you still need to have a computer with the special version of Vista that supported digital [...]

According to PCMag, Dell is planning on re-entering the Digital Cable Tuner market by this summer. Currently, Dell is not offering consumers the option to buy DCTs since the XPS 420 is not approved by CableLabs.
Dell’s new strategy will be a slight deviation from most OEM’s. DCTs require two things: 1) an upgraded BIOS [...]

SageTV has been adding all sorts of media center features to its product line, including clear QAM support and HD media extenders. They are completely out-innovating Microsoft. With all the features they are delivering, there is one lingering problem: SageTV does not support digital cable tuners and CableCards (i.e. cannot watch.record premium HD [...]

Another company has added themelves to the list of companies selling media center computers that support up to 4 digital cable tuners: Inteset. From CEPro:
With four CableCard tuners, the Inteset server can distribute to up to 5 media center extenders with four Live TV streams and one pre-recorded stream.

At $300 a piece, 4 [...]

S1Digital and Microsoft are hosting a Media Center event in Manahattan on December 5th. If you live or work in Manhattan, it might be worth checking out. S1Digital is a Microsoft OEM that sells media center pcs with Digital Cable Tuners so you can record cable HD television shows on your computer.
The average person [...]

Ceton has announced their upcoming M-Card Digital Cable Tuner. From their website:
Connect your Microsoft Vista Media Center PC to any U.S. Cable TV Company including Comcast, Time-Warner, Cox, Charter, etc., to watch and record Cable programming via the new multi-stream, bi-directional CableCARD, the M-Card. Pause, rewind, fast forward, and record live TV utilizing [...]

Someone has finally started selling standalone Digital Cable Tuners: Sony. This does make the LT series somewhat more interesting.
All I have to say is that it is about time. Just don’t get too excited because you still need to buy a digital cable ready computer with a special version of Windows Vista and and [...]

Computer Shopper has reviewed one of HP’s flagship media centers, the Pavilion Elite m9000t, albeit without a digital cable tuner. Is it me or have digital cable tuners fallen into obscurity?
Computer Shopper overall was impressed with the system. Looking at HP’s site, a pretty well-equipped system with a digital cable tuner and [...]