kingwr

JohnW248

There is no reason that DirectTv and Dish should enjoy a closed system anymore.

Satellite companies are not subject to all the same regulations as cable companies, because local government agencies are not granting satellite companies local monopolies like the cable companies get.  Nor should they be.

 

 

Local Governments are prohibited from granting exclusive franchise agreements, per section 621 of the telecom act.  Most towns only have one cable provider because it's unprofitable for a second provider to come in and compete against an established provider.  But in quite a few towns there are overbuilders (eg. RCN) and telcos offering cable TV service (Verizon, AT&T, CenturyLink.) The loophole that satellite providers use is that they do not use public rights of way such as utility easements. But in reality since they are being viewed as competition for landline MVPDs they now have to play ball.  I think that is fair.

erkotz

kingwr

Satellite companies are not subject to all the same regulations as cable companies, because local government agencies are not granting satellite companies local monopolies like the cable companies get.  Nor should they be.

The FCC indicated that all "Cable-TV-Type Services" (Cable, Satellite, UVerse, etc) are being included in the propsed plan.  This is a good thing in my opinion.

This is a fantastic thing!  If they could create an open standard that all television distribution companies had to utilize that would make it easier for us all to consume content in the way we see fit utilizing a single tuning device.  No longer needing to get a new hardware setup whenever we want to switch from cable to satellite (or vise versa) would be very empowering to the consumer and CE companies.  Hardware manufacturers have the opportunity to distinguish their products and reach a higher level of mass market penetration. This does assume that the legislation goes through.  However, I see their temporary solutions for Fall of this year as a promise of future intent.  I hope I am not wrong.

erkotz

normychas

 

DMI

No one want's Ceton to fail. I have been waiting since 2004 to get my hands on cable card type device for PC. I can wait. Thing is, if device was to be released at March 31 2010 than there would be enough time to produce enough tuners, work out any bugs that will be discovered when the device gets into the hands of real testers (us consumers) and be ready by NFL season. What I am trying to say is that there will be problems once this device comes out and you do not want to be BETA testing in front of your wife when the next season of shows starts.

I agree. May 31 still gives me all summer to build a pc and troubleshoot issues with my system before the fall season of television and football begins.  Missing 2 episodes of burn notice is not exactly on the same level as not being able to catch week one of the nfl season. However i will say that I will be using my tivo to watch the world cup if it comes down to it.

Am I not a real tester?   I'm not the only one either - I know of several more outside of Ceton and I'm sure there are others I don't know of.

For what it's worth, at one point, the Ceton folks called me "Kryptonite for MOCURs" which is a good thing, I have been smacking the Ceton InfiniTV around for about 9 months now and have been helping make it more stable.  There have been times my TV shows "failed to record" so yours hopefully won't because of the fixes put in place due to my failures 

I am sure you are a good tester but here comes but...........

Problem is that Ceton still does not have large pool of testers out there. We all know that there are thousands of possible hardware and software configurations that can and will cause problems. Also quality of signal coming into the home where these devices will be located. Some people like my friend that does not post here but will be getting this as soon as I test it. He has problems with signal quality coming to his home (problem is somewhere on the street and addmited by Charter but not yet fixed) so it will be interesting to see how those type of issues will be handled. It is OK now for his set top box because it artiffects than comes back but I want to see how will ceton card handle these types of problems. I just hope that this has been taken care of and any other similar problems. 

I am excited and ready. It has been long 6 year wait for me but I can see light at the end of the tunnel and I hope that Ceton tuner is success.

Jonny561201

erkotz

kingwr

Satellite companies are not subject to all the same regulations as cable companies, because local government agencies are not granting satellite companies local monopolies like the cable companies get.  Nor should they be.

The FCC indicated that all "Cable-TV-Type Services" (Cable, Satellite, UVerse, etc) are being included in the propsed plan.  This is a good thing in my opinion.

This is a fantastic thing!  If they could create an open standard that all television distribution companies had to utilize that would make it easier for us all to consume content in the way we see fit utilizing a single tuning device.  No longer needing to get a new hardware setup whenever we want to switch from cable to satellite (or vise versa) would be very empowering to the consumer and CE companies.  Hardware manufacturers have the opportunity to distinguish their products and reach a higher level of mass market penetration. This does assume that the legislation goes through.  However, I see their temporary solutions for Fall of this year as a promise of future intent.  I hope I am not wrong.

That would totaly rule !!! That would make my year if I could get a Cablecard from Dish network or DTV... Never mind for getting a Draco tuner !!! hehe. And it's about time they are treated the same as cable companies are. Same should happen with U-Verse too, they should have a cablecard to make it all standard.

For people worried about the delay, don't worry so much. I personaly would have something delayed than rushed out the door. After all people want to get these home, drop them in their HTPCs and dump in a cablecard, then they just work the way they should. A delay should help with any issues.

 

rjairam

Local Governments are prohibited from granting exclusive franchise agreements, per section 621 of the telecom act. 

That's some nice reading, there.  However, local authorities control the access of the cable companies to communities through the franchise agreements that provide them access and right-of-ways required to access the consumers.  Sure, they may not be able to overtly prevent competition, but it is naive to believe that the regulation schemes in place with most local authorities doesn't create virtual monopolies, just as it does with electric, phone, and gas. 

Satellite is independent of these requirements, and thus can and should be allowed to operate independent of those controls, IMO.  The folks pushing most for more regulation of satellite companies is, of course, the cable company lobby.  They managed to get the satellite companies stuck with the carry-all rules, which denied lolcal broadcast networks over satellite to viewers in 100s of markets, because satellite companies were forced to carry 12 additional channels of crap in Atlanta, for example.  This was done, not to make service better for consumers, but to try to beat competition in Washington that the cable-companies couldn't beat in the marketplace, and our gullible and/or corrupt Congress when right along with it.  If you want more regulation heaped upon satellite companies, you will further see their ability to compete degraded, and that will eventually bring about their demise.  How is that better for anyone?

kingwr

rjairam

Local Governments are prohibited from granting exclusive franchise agreements, per section 621 of the telecom act. 

That's some nice reading, there.  However, local authorities control the access of the cable companies to communities through the franchise agreements that provide them access and right-of-ways required to access the consumers.  Sure, they may not be able to overtly prevent competition, but it is naive to believe that the regulation schemes in place with most local authorities doesn't create virtual monopolies, just as it does with electric, phone, and gas. 

Ummm... states and municipalities are falling all over themselves trying to get Verizon to wire them up. The cable lobby pushes hard to keep them out but they ultimately fail. And that's the long and short of it. Nothing, short of lack of capital is going to keep MVPD competitors out. In New Jersey's case, Verizon negotiated a statewide franchise, despite massive opposition from Cablevision and Comcast. So even if home rule did have the final say (it doesnt), municipalities WANT video competition.

I don't think the Atlanta suburbs have caught up to Metro NYC in this arena.  I can draw a line inside my neighborhood where Charter ends and Comcast starts, and that line is the city limits.  No reason why either Comcast or Charter couldn't lay a few extra 100' of cable to get to those additional homes, which were all built by the same builder, are in the same price range, and have the same demographic.  No reason, of course, except that the cable franchise agreements prohibit it.  The Comcast cable probably passes through the right-of-way in my front yard to get to those homes outside the city limit.  Can I get Comcast?  No way.

PS:  It this kind of BS that has kept me on DirecTV since 1993.  Thanks for reminding me of that.

You have to understand how the cable companies operate. Truth be told if they asked nicely enough they'd be able to get rights to wire customers in overlapping territory. AT&T and Verizon have overlapped in a few places. But the large MSOs won't because they are in cooperation with each other and there is basically a gentleman's agreement with each other to stay out of each others' territory that goes beyond the franchise agreement. In fact they share a lot more than you'd imagine, including headend facilities and fiber feeds. There are smaller providers such as RCN that are called "overbuilders" that wire up parts of town. There are also municipal cable operators. But the cable companies cooperate quite a lot, which is why cable companies can get MSG HD and local cable news (News 12) with no problems yet "phone company TV" can't.

EdG0000

 I just posted some info in another TGB thread that answers your questions.

Ed

Ceton Corp.

 

EdG0000

Pre-order program - the pre-order program is available through Zones only. If you want to make sure you get one of the units from the first production run then you should put your order in right away. It will be first-come, first-served.

It appears Ceton changed their mind about the pre-order being exclusive:

ihttp://www.cetoncorp.com/buy.php

Click here to place your order with Cannon PC

Click here to place your order with Fluid Digital

Click here to place your order on Zones.com

Anyone purchased from Cannon PC or Fluid Digital before?

Hello WhatHappend, this has been talked about at length in the Ceton Tuner card thread under Hardware.  Although at this point I dont blame anyone for not venturing in there.  CanonPC is actually a maker of HTPCsm, and for the longest time were one of the few providers of ATI Cablecard tuners.  If you are feeling cautious I would go with Canon PC.  I dont think a lot of people are familiar with Zones or Fluid Digital, but I dont think you would have any problems with any provider.

Zones has been around forever - I mean since the PC 486 days. They have both a PC and a Mac site.

 

 Hey guys,

 I am sorry I haven't dome this sooner, but I just wanted to let everyone know who Fluid Digital really is and where we come from.

I have been an A/V Integrator for 35 years and I am the only one of the original MS OEM CableCARD partners that is an A/V Integrator. We are in the Woodlands Texas (just north of Houston) and we sell our products to a vetted network of ESC's (Electronic Systems Contractors) in the four state area (Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas).

Fluid Digital is a wholly owned subsidiary of Home Entertainment Inc (my retail store). We carry lines like McIntosh, Sonus Faber, Def Tech, Sony, Samsung, Stewart Filmscreen, Yamaha, Denon, Integra, etc. Go to www.homeentertainmentinc.com to see more.

We re not a part of Cannon P, but Gregg is a good friend of mine. Our relationship is simple. Gregg is contracted to build our PC's per our specifications. We design, sell, and support the units. We don't sell our servers on the internet, or to individuals in states where we have dealers. We do sell them to individuals outside of states where we have dealers.

That is probably why you guys have not heard of us even though we have been around since the CableCARD program at Microsoft started. That and the fact we kept our heads pretty low when Vista was around.

If you have anymore questions please let me know.

 The above poster sounds like a nice guy, but I'm thinking the post should be modded.  Why dredge up a 1 month old post to make a statement about something completely off-topic and irrelevant.  An advertisement at that.

 Let me add something useful to this topic... in case anyone is accidentally led to this thread by a search for the Ceton Infinitv 4 card.

 The new release date has been moved. Here is the newer / relevant thread:

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/t/89258.aspx

Also you could change the subject when you post as it could confuse.

Kevin Buttcannon, I don't give a damn about Fluid Digital.  Stop advertising.