Cisco Tuning Adapter Firmware Updated

Sometime in the last 24 hours my Cisco STA1520 Tuning Adapter was updated to the latest firmware. We knew the firmware existed and was out in the wild thanks to Ben Drawbaugh over at Engadget HD but there was no specific release date. Well I finally got my update. For those that do not know I live near Charlotte, NC and I have Time Warner Cable.

It definitely was not an elegant notification on the update though. I read that Ceton had updated the InfiniTV-4 firmware and drivers so I did the update. Everything seemed to be working fine until I woke up this morning. I had an SDV issue with one of my recordings. I checked the Ceton diagnostic web page for my tuners and saw that my tuning adapters were not working properly. I then checked the firmware of the SDV adapters through the CETON diagnostic screens and sure enough the tuning adapters had been updated.

Silicon Dust ready to make HDHomerun Prime Announcement?

Silicon Dust updated their Facebook page with a new profile picture and the following message yesterday: “Thursday night…need to get ready for PRIME time.”

We have been waiting for news any day now and it looks like something is right around the corner.

One step closer to a PC as an extender

Engadget HD has a post about the new amendments to the Cable Card spec just announced by CableLabs.  The first and most important for Media Center users is that cable card tuners can now be shared across the network. 

Ceton has already said that their tuners could be shared but the feature was disabled due to the CableLabs spec.  Well now they can turn that feature back on via a firmware update.

This also means that Silicon Dust can enable the feature in their tuner out of the gate and the HDHomeRun Prime will work just like the regular HDHomeRun.

So now all we need is the PlayReady DRM to catch up and allow the CopyOnce content to stream to another PC in the same manner as an Extender and the dream is a reality.

Things are coming together nicely.  Slowly, but nicely.

Ceton Tuner Finally Shipping

According to EngagetHD the Ceton Quad Cable Card tuner is finally shipping to those that pre-ordered the tuner.  While this is great news the excitement needs to be tempered a little bit since the units ready to ship will not cover all of the pre-orders placed to date.  Hopefully Ceton can get more of the tuners into the marketplace and finally build up a healthy supply.

I am a guest on the Windows Media Center Show

The latest episode of the Windows Media Center Show was just posted and I am the guest this week.  Click on over to Ian Dixon’s website to listen.

For those of you discovering the site after listening to this weeks episode, Welcome.  I hope you like what you see and decide to stay and subscribe.  The purpose of the blog is to talk about Windows Media Center and HTPC’s from a layman’s perspective.  I try to stick to what an enthusiast would want to do in their home without getting overly complicated.

Check out the last post to see what’s coming up in the next few weeks and thanks again for dropping by.

– Andres