The real answer to this will be in a revision to the procedure to setup the tuners–maybe a chat link you could send the numbers on, etc. You can send automated hits on T-W with the phone menu so you can re-authorize if necessary without a service call or other intervention.

Besides the security constrains, T-W heere at least wants to make sure the system works when they leave. My VMC was the first cable card install that they did in this district although there are a number of tivos and CC tvs.

The next hurdle is SDV which MS says they’re working on as well as relaxed DRM for cable card recordings.

Very timely article for me, I’m considering delving into a cablecard equipped system and this was a great read. I do have a question, HP only sell single tuners, in your article it said you were going to be installing a second. Where did you get the additional tuner if HP won’t sell you an extra? Dell does sell dual tuners, but I specd out a system on their site and it is roughly $500 more than the deals HP is currently running, which is quite a bit more for one extra tuner. Keep up the great work!

My big video acquisition this year was a $12 (with federal coupon) digital converter box for a 13″ analog TV in my kitchen! I wish they made those boxes in white to match my TV and the rest of the appliances.

Guess I’ll use all that time I spare to read and make programs…
The day HD gets rid of DRM, I’m buying!

That’s why I think that somebody needs to develop a closed system MCE HD machine…only then will MCE really take off for mass use. And I’m not talking about those $1,500 on up Niveus or Lifeware machines.

I’m completely empathize with the issues you face. They are exactly what I tackle every day at my new media center company. I witnessed too many times these nightmare scenerios when I was at Velocity Micro, and I knew there had to be a better way.

Well, a year later and I have 100% satisfaction with my CableCARD media servers. That’s because they are locked down and built from the ground up to do nothing but run Media Center as it was supposed to. It wasn’t about the hardware, it was about the OS load and more importantly, the ecosystem it was installed in. My company is owned by an A/V integrator, so we come across issues in the field before our dealers do. Right now HDMI has been our biggest headache, and I guess you can say that’s a victory for us if CableCARD is a distant second.

Since we’re “slamming trunks” like our dealer network, we know how to properly train them in their own environment how to install and service these machines.

So far it’s worked out very well. We sell a line of very expensive media servers to people spending six figures on their home theaters. They may have never even seen Vista before, much less know what Media Center IS. But when shown what it can do, they are willing to write large checks.

So then it’s up to our dealers to make sure everything is 100% by the time they leave the job site. Because, like every other component in the rack, the customer just wants to sit down with his remote and enjoy his toys at the end of the day, not deal with the headaches that we’re all so familiar with.

It can be done, and I would suggest that we have done it.

Best,

Chris Morley

http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=2127

And if I didn’t insist on CableCARD tuners this system would be ridiculously easy to set up and maintain.

But to each his own, and if price were not an issue and TV were the only factor, then for the average consumer I would rank TiVo HD above Media Center, for sure, simply because it’s an appliance and not a complex system. But it sure is expensive!

We just got two TiVos with dual cablecards on Verizon FIOS in August. After suffering for a year using the Verizon DVR we couldn’t take it anymore. The service guy came and set up the cards; Verizon doesn’t let customers set up cable boxes or cards themselves. He only walked in with four cards, two for each box, and didn’t need to do any trial-and-error swapping. It was all working before he walked out the door and took about 45 minutes.

Whatever problems exist seem like they may be on Comcast’s side, which wouldn’t surprise me. We switched from Comcast using a non-HD TiVo to Verizon a little over a year ago. Comcast’s service guys were smart and friendly but their cable boxes and software were horrible. Really, the Verizon DVR wasn’t much better. There’s too much lowest-bidder action going on there, and no understanding of UI design at all.

We are glad to be back with the TiVos; since we left they’ve added a bunch of great stuff like Swivel Search and transfer between boxes. I thought about going with Media Center or MythTV, but the last thing I wanted was another couple of computers to maintain.