beef_wellington

April 05, 2008 at 3:00pm

I've got a Motorola DCT6416 and there are drivers available so you can utilize the Firewire port. Your PC will pick it up as a TVtuner device and it's $14 a month from your cable provider. Check this link http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/post/154082.aspx It's little bit complicated but it seems to work.

docsharp01

March 07, 2008 at 8:19am

Excellent article and comments.
I think cable television is becoming extinct and will eventually be replaced by satellite TV which is becoming the norm, especially in locales outside the United States.

Black Falcon

July 30, 2007 at 6:52pm

Couldn't you just order the cheapest HTPC with an OCUR card and swap it into the next PC you build yourself? Then again what's the point if the card isn't worth the space it takes up?

WScottCross

July 23, 2007 at 1:35pm

I actually have a working Cablecard system from Velocity Micro. It wasn't completely without pain (one failed DCT and DCT shortage at VM) but it is working fine now and once I realized that my problem with XBOX360 extender failing was due to wireless card drivers it is even better. The cablecard install actually went pretty well once they found someone at Comcast who was able to authorize my cablecards.

Folding in memory of Sharon Sharp (9/21/47-5/16/05)

NuttyNut

July 21, 2007 at 11:12pm

For those who loves to bash Comcast, I bet you have never work with cable card, know what OCUR is, or have a clue what's involve in getting everything involved (media PC hardware, OS, drivers, and cable card.) working properly with each other; so pipe up and go crawl back under the rock you came from.

bountycode

July 02, 2007 at 8:19am

The web link in the Maximum PC mag is incorrectly stated as
www.maximumpc.com/articles/ocur

it should be

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/ocur

cmacnaug

June 13, 2007 at 9:57am

Hi Michael,

I had exactly the same problem! I even had the same comcast technician as you.

When I first received my system one of the internal DCTs wasn't showing up in the Network screen, I had to do some rewiring to get it to be recognized by the OS at all. It turned out later that it had older firmware (VM got this taken care of pretty quickly when the logged into my machine). After this hiccups I was in the same situation as you.

Velocity Micro S85 dual internal cablecards, Media Center simply wouldn't recognize them. I was really impressesd with the effort that comcast made to get this thing running ... they stayed at my apartment for 5 hours, and I had expected this treatment to be reserverd for the press. Velocity Micro's been pretty responsive as well, but between M$, AMD/ATI and Velocity Micro it is pretty hard to figure out where the problem lies. One problem is that until Media Center recognizes the cable cards, you can't get at the DCT diagnostic screens.

So here I am 7 weeks after ordering my system from VM with a $2800 box that doesn't work. I like these guys at VM, though, so I'll ride it out. Unfortunatley they are out of DCTs again so it looks like another (2+ week) round of waiting for cable card shipments for me. Then if that doesn't work I'll be waiting for VM to ship me an entirely new system.

MceUser

June 11, 2007 at 9:28am

The command you mentioned is incorrect (apart from the slashes). If you look close enough, you will notice there is no such file as ehribjob.exe in the location. You are probably looking for ehprivjob.exe. And the parameter is incorrect as well.

dharkfiber

June 11, 2007 at 7:10am

I think I may get a subscription again instead of "shelf-browsing" the issues.

bosunj

June 09, 2007 at 7:18pm

dedgar stated:

"Lately it seems that no matter what they try to do, it just isn't quite right."

Duh, YEAH!!!

But then again, what aspect of the American experience isn't thus infected??? Be honest with yourself.....

pcfxer

June 09, 2007 at 5:55pm

Why can't we blame Microsoft? Microsoft wants Vista to corner the market with media and digital entertainment-think Apple. Anyhow, it is quite possible to shut Hollywood up. Open source OS's scratch for Linux have been shutting up folks who don't play nice with them.

No blob? No support, BAM! No GPL-released code? See ya! Not secure? PEACE OUT!

The same can be done with Hollywood? You expect Grandpa to shell out $1000+ for something that he can maybe use. It's just silly. I have been trying, on the cheap, to get a PC into the living room and it is "do-able" but with issues like this MS should just say, "Hey, this doesn't work, it isn't reliable and will DETRACT from the Vista experience. You are the weakest link! Goodbye."

It's as simple as that. Why is it any different if we record HD on a PVR? I can take my drive from a PVR and load the files onto my PC which is networked. PVRs are also bundling USB/Firewire/CAT5 connections as well. So the difference between an HTPC and a PVR is what? The OS? The PC can game/e-mail? Yet they both can provide access to unsolicited material in HD.

cliftong

June 09, 2007 at 6:06am

Every new tech has it stumbling period but lately anything with DRM attached to it seems to have more than its fair share of mess-ups. I truly believe that the cable card concept was a good one until Hollywood got involved.
It seems like their mission in life is to punish people who actually pay for their products. Like for example the Tivo Series 3; why cant I use tivo-to-go like the Series 2. Why should I be penalized for purchasing a HDTV and paying extra for the HDTV package and pay extra for a HDTV PVR system but have less functionality than I do for using the standard def setup which is cheaper.
I don't know if these industries have a think tank somewhere that came up with the notion that if we abuse our paying customer so much they will take to the street like vigilantes and hunt down pirates. In the hopes that we will reward them some functionality of the content they already payed for.

Not to promote piracy but it's a little sad and restarted that the "pirates" come out looking like the good guys in this.

malebolgia

June 08, 2007 at 3:53pm

Best article I've read in a long time, I had really hoped setting up OCUR wouldn't be such a nightmare. I hope for Microsoft's sake this gets cleared up ASAP (WMC is such a nice product).

sc123

June 08, 2007 at 9:29am

I commend you on controlling the urge to push the tech out of the way and work on the problem yourself.

statewd

June 07, 2007 at 2:37pm

Will this feature (in its entirety) be in the August issue of MaxPC? Or in a shorter version?

bholstege

June 07, 2007 at 1:11pm

That series of phone conversations was one of the funniest things I've heard in a long time.

big_montana

June 07, 2007 at 12:54pm

No wonder you had problems, with Comcrap as your cable provider. Can't blame all the problems on Microsoft, AMD and PC vendors.

bland

June 07, 2007 at 12:46pm

I think a big problem with new technologies is they make everything idiot proof and plug and play. Im not saying it's a bad thing, in fact it's very good, but the problem is when it does go wrong it's getting next to impossible to fix becuase they hide whats really going on in the background making it harder to dig out.

soggybomb

June 07, 2007 at 11:56am

Its frustrating that things don't just work when you plug them in. Why can't people care enough to deliver a product that works as advertised?

dedgar

June 07, 2007 at 10:55am

Ya shudda known it weren't gonna work. MS was involved. (snicker)
Lately it seems that no matter what they try to do, it just isn't quite right. I don't know if it's just 'too many fingers in the pie', left hand not talking to the right, or what.