Time Warner finally cleans up the channel lineup

Time Warner Cable in the Charlotte, NC area is finally addressing one of my biggest pet peeves with their service:  the organization of their channel lineup. 

If you live in the area then you probably received a letter in the mail with a flyer showing the new lineup that starts on March 30, 2010.  Click the image below for a PDF copy of the new lineup.

This annoyed me so much that I could not wait for Time Warner and used the features within Media Center to organize the channels in a way that made sense for me.  Click the image below to see what my custom line-up looks like:

The ironic part of it is that Time Warner’s new lineup looks a lot like mine.  Almost as if they sneaked a copy of my lineup.  For example, let’s look at my “Family” group versus the new “Kids & Family”:

Family		Kids & Family
50	ABC Family HD	200	Disney Channel East (HD – 1200)
51	Disney Channel HD	201	Disney Channel West
52	Disney Chanel West	202	Disney XD
53	Disney XD	205	Nickelodeon
54	Cartoon Network HD	206	Nick Jr
55	Boomerang	207	Nicktoons
56	Nickelodeon	208	TeenNick
57	Nicktoons	210	PBS Kids Sprout
58	Nick Jr	211	Discovery Kids
59	UNC Kids	213	Cartoon Network (HD – 1213)
60	PBS Kids Sprout	214	Boomerang
61	Discovery Kids	215	ABC Family (HD – 1215)
62	TeenNick	216	TV Land
63	TV Land	218	Hallmark Channel
64	Hallmark Channel	221	Family Network
65	FamilyNet	222	American Life TV

As you can see the channel lineups are almost the same except they have more gaps in their numbering.  Also they still have channels in the guide multiple times such as Disney Channel which stays in the non digital tier at 54 and is also at 200 in standard definition grouped with the other Family channels and is also at 1200 in HD.  On my customized lineup Disney Channel shows up once at 51 and in the best quality available.  The channel shows up on all my TV’s regardless of if they are HD or not (I still have on SD set left in the house).

Based on the new grouping I will definitely have less work to do to get my lineup the way I want but I still cannot use their lineup by default.  At the very least I need to remove the duplicates and replace all the SD version of channels with the HD counterpart but that’s pretty much it.  I really do not need to reorder or renumber the channels.

The only thing I am worried about now is that Zap2It updates my guide data correctly and on time so that I do not miss any recordings.  We will see what happens.

Sky Player available for Ireland Media Center users

I just received this press release from Microsoft.  More content is always a good thing.  Nice to see our European Media Center friends getting something this time around.

Full press release after the break.

Ceton tuner can run over the network!

HDHomerun stole some of the Ceton thunder at CES last month when they announced a dual tuner cable card product that would work over the network. Media Center enthusiasts where extremely excited at the possibility of setups this introduced including ditching Media Center extenders and using a full PC only setup.

Well it looks like more options are here as Jeremy Hammer has announced via the Green Button that the Ceton 4 stream tuner will work over the network too. Jeremy writes:

Computer A: Install Ceton MOCUR; Select “Ethernet Network” and “Ceton MOCUR Network”; Right click, bridge networks.

Computer B (Note: No tuners installed): Open MC; Go through setup. 4 tuners found.

Note: This was blocked behavior with the ATI OCUR driver. It is not blocked with our driver.

Here is the whole thread: Post at 4:23pm

Things just got a lot more interesting. I think that HDHomerun just lost a few customers. With the Ceton tuner having 2 more streams and an actual release date this seems like the tuner to get.

Mediaroom 2.0 Announced at CES

From Microsoft:

Today at CES, Microsoft announced Mediaroom 2.0, the new version of their award-winning IPTV middleware platform. The update enables service providers to more subscribers than ever before, delivering more content to more screens — both inside and outside the home.

Mediaroom 2.0 allows service providers to:

• Deploy Mediaroom as the cloud that powers their service
• Bring live, recorded and on-demand content to Windows 7 PCs via Windows Media Center with no additional hardware
• Expand their service footprint beyond the reach of their IPTV network by offering existing on-demand TV service to their entire broadband customer base
• Use Microsoft Silverlight and Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) Smooth Streaming for the access and delivery of on-demand content.
• In the near future, enable playback on compatible smartphones

Ceton Quad Tuner for $399!!!

The CES rumor mill is in full swing.  Zatz Not Funny is reporting that the Ceton Quad Cable Card tuner will be announced by Steve Ballmer during the Microsoft keynote on Wednesday night and that the quad tuner will ship during the first quarter for a price of $399.

If this turns out to be true these things will fly off the shelf.  I know I want want.  The ATI Cable card tuners were $300 for a single stream and it was a bulky box that connected via USB.  Looks like Microsoft may be getting behind this card in a big way.  Hopefully that support is what allows them to sell the quad tuner for $400.  This is great news if true.  Stay tuned.