Floppyhead – Digital Media and Streaming

Ceton has announced their upcoming M-Card Digital Cable Tuner. From their website:

Connect your Microsoft Vista Media Center PC to any U.S. Cable TV Company including Comcast, Time-Warner, Cox, Charter, etc., to watch and record Cable programming via the new multi-stream, bi-directional CableCARD, the M-Card. Pause, rewind, fast forward, and record live TV utilizing Media Center’s Digital Video Recorder.

The multi-stream aspect of this tuner should lower prices of media center PCs since you do not have to have 2 separate DCTs. Hopefully that will save almost $300 for users.

The website is slightly cryptic about whether this card can handle switched digital video. Ceton says the card is bi-directional, which would leave me to believe that the card could handle switched digital video. Hopefully that is the case, and would be a large step in the right direction. I am waiting to see if ATI announces a card of their own.

Maybe M-Card Tuners is why Sony is selling DCTs on their own. They need to clear their inventory. We shall see I guess.

Via Chris Lanier’s Blog.