A good DVB-C card?

[niceified]

I'm going to be getting digital cable soon, and I want to be able to record digitally and then burn to DVD. Can anyone recommend a good DVB-C card for this?

[W3ird_N3rd]

Depends a lot on where you live. For example, in The Netherlands, you can forget it, totally.. It's possible to make it work but totally unsupported (no supported CAM).

I assume you are not getting everything FTA? In that case you should check with you cable company for a supported CAM.

And what is your assumption of "good". Just make sure it has a common interface. I have to admit, I don't have any experience with these cards, but I would say the biggest difference between different cards would be the software.

Also check out http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=75876

"Even though resulutions, framerates, bitrates and audio for SD streams looks like it is DVD compatible, DVB video streams must not be DVD compatible. While bitrate is usually not a problem, the GOPs can be longer than allowed for DVD. While many players can handle that (if you get your authoring program to accept the streams), it could lead to playback problems (stutter, or picture freezing)."

[niceified]

Is the CAM needed for all channels, or just the extra Pay channels? If it makes any difference, my cable company is Cox.

[W3ird_N3rd]

Is the CAM needed for all channels, or just the extra Pay channels? If it makes any difference, my cable company is Cox.
Depends. I don't know Cox, but I assume you are living in the USA.

I'll tell you something about the Netherlands again, here most cable companies do have a "free" package. If you're paying for analog you get this package, usually the entire analoge package digitalized and some extra channels, and if you pay some more on top of the analog subscription you get even more (like porn and movie channels).

The problem is that most companies encrypt everything, even the free package, and only have one or two (non-interesting) FTA channels, just for testing to make sure a customer's smartcard is not defective.

There is one, very very small company broadcasting the "free" package really FTA.

There is another pretty big company who DOES give you the "free" package FTA, but they never said anything about it and are not advertising with "unlimited decoders" or anything like that. So the encryption could come back any moment. You never know.

For the "free" package you have to buy a smartcard, which is usually very cheap. Why not FTA? I'm not sure. But it requires you to buy a much more expensive PCI card (with CI slot). Even better.. Since they don't support any CAM, there is one CAM that works which is very expensive (Alphacrypt 3.05 approx. €100), but it could stop working any day when they update the encryption to a newer version. Which will render your investment a 100% useless. I heard they will do that just a few weeks from now :angry:

Back to you. You will have to figure out if your cable company gives you the "free" package FTA or not. I don't know how big they are, but if they are big you could ask here and hope somebody else is also connected by Cox and able to tell you. You could also look for anyone nearby who already has a digital cable decoder. Shut it down, rip out the smartcard, turn it on and see if you can see any channels.

If there is no smartcard at all.. The free package could very well be FTA.

I hope Cox is more nice than Dutch cable companies. I'm living in the area where nothing is FTA and no CAM is supported, so I'm getting a dish instead. The satellite company does support a CAM, so it's much better for me.. But that's offtopic for you.

Sorry if this post is a bit blurry, I've been up for hours and am feeling a bit strange :eek:

[GaveUp]

US cable providers don't use DVB for broadcast. Instead they use QAM. A MyHD or Fusion capture card will receive the unencrypted channels fine which varies by provider, though, technically you should be able to receive all OTA HD chanenls. That is all you will be able to receive.

[CityK]

US cable providers don't use DVB for broadcast.Although that is true for the most part, it should be noted that some networks have, and some small networks may even still use DVB-C. I know, through word from a user, of one small network that was using DVB-C as of last year....as an aside, "broadcast" is the term for terrestrial over/off-the-air (OTA) transmissions ... cable companies don't broadcast, else you wouldn't recieve a cable bill ;)
Instead they use QAM.This is incorrect in of itself, and, unfortunately, is a widely made error. True, QAM is used. However, QAM is not a transmission format. QAM is simply a modulation scheme. Case in point, DVB-C uses QAM too. The systems used for digital cable in the US conform to ITU-T J.83, Annex B / SCTE whatever its called now (formerly SCTE DVS-031)....the move in the cable industry is towards the OpenCable standard, which will eventually replace the systems currently in place (which, from my understanding, are mostly proprietary derivatives of Motorolla/GI systems).

A MyHD or Fusion capture card will receive the unencrypted channels fine which varies by provider, though, technically you should be able to receive all OTA HD chanenls. That is all you will be able to receive.Indeed, it does vary on a case by case basis. However, I don't think there is actually any legislated requirement for cable co.'s to carry local broadcast HD channels (you always see people saying this is the case)...if there is, it would be outlined somewhere on here (http://www.fcc.gov/dtv/) (I've never checked...no interest). Lastly, some people are fairly "lucky" and receive some channels that one might consider of the "premium" variety ... typically sports channels...anyways, the local reception forms on AVS are a good place to check what unencrypted channels you may be able to recieve.

For Windows OS, currently retailing models you should look at are the Dvico Fusion 5's (Gold, Lite, USB), MIT MyHD MDP-130, OnAir USB Creator.

In Linux, you have a few other choices.

Not sure on the OS X side...perhaps the elgato stuff.

[niceified]

I've done a little more research, and it looks like Cox encrypts nearly all of their channels. I also found out that they can provide something called a CableCARD, which allows digital cable-ready TV's to recieve digital cable without a set-top box. Is that the same as a CAM, or is it something completely different?

[CityK]

Not the same "thing", but similar ... and part of the same express purpose -- i.e. their both part of a conditional access system.

The CAM (conditional access module) in a DVB-S/C devices is the decryption engine. It gets its the keys required to descramble the signal from a subscription smartcard.
A CAM is essentially a "PC Card" (PCMCIA ... i.e. think laptops) that plugs into the CI (common interface) on the DVB card. You then stick/slide the subscription smartcard into a slot in the CAM.

Ars wrote a nice "what and how" overview of the CableCard (http://arstechnica.com/guides/other/cablecard.ars) recently.

Anyways, no PC devices utilize them yet. It won't be for a while (post Vista in all likelihood). You might wish to keep your eye on this thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7264195&&#post7264195) as I just made the discovery yesterday that the Micronas MicViper reference design is 'digital cable ready' (i.e. "ready" implies just interface it to a CableCard device). Now Micronas is a IC designer, not a card manufacturer. However, VBox recently announced a card, their Cat's Eye e164, that is based off the Micronas reference design. Whether VBox will include in their product the same DCR feature as the Micronas reference design is unknown. As you can see, I asked Shimon about it, but his initial response shed no light on the matter....time will tell. Anyways, ATI will be bringing to market two cablecard pc devices (one internal card and one external usb device). They are currently unamed, but you will find them referred to as ATI "OCUR" (Open Cable Uni-directional Receiver)...Anandtech had some photos and short write up on them back in Jan (from their reporting on the CES).

[nebula8]

I don't know much about Cox, but you might consider looking into if they provide DVRs.
I have a DVR through Comc@st (Motorola DCT6412). The documentation states the 3 firewire ports are disabled and for possible future use. I have two units, and on both of them, one of the ports in back works, and I can cap transport streams of just about anything 1080i 720p 480p 480i
In my experience anything that can go on the DVRs HD can be capped, so no On Demand or PPV.
From what I have read, the 480 streams are easy to xfer to DVD compliant.

XP drivers can be found with a Google search.

[niceified]

That sounds like a good idea. Just to make sure, do these DVRs record digitally, or do they just capture and encode from the cable box's analog output.

[puffpio]

they record digitally
in addition, you don't even need a DVR box!

I have Comcast, and I have the HDTV package so I get a cable box w/ firewire ports, but no DVR

I can still do what nebula8 describes..just make sure the cable box is tuned into the right station (there are programs that can change the channel for you over firewire) and record the transport stream via another program.

[niceified]

Sounds awesome! :) Now if Cox would just hurry up and start simulcasting... lol.

[Blue_MiSfit]

It's sometimes very tricky to get the cable company to give you a box with a working firewire port. This is definately the best way to deal with digitial cable on the PC, and they know that.

However, there was legislation here in the US that forces the cable company to provide you with a working firewire port, you just have to lean on them a little :D

~MiSft