Ceton, a startup based in the Seattle area, has a cable TV card that can turn Windows Media Center-enabled PCs into centralized video hubs capable of shuttling video around the home to other TVs and displays, and all but eliminate the need for traditional digital cable boxes. Ceton says its product, the Digital Cable Quad-Tuner, can play back or record four simultaneous, high-definition TV channels when combined with one multi-stream CableCARD and a single RF cable connection.
Last Wednesday night, on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, tucked a small remark into a gadget-y keynote. And if you work in multichannel video, you're going to need to know about it. Soon. He said this (paraphrased): By March, consumers will be able to purchase, at retail, a gizmo that turns a Windows 7-based PC into a mambo-box, capable of displaying or recording four scrambled HD channels on as many HDTV screens. In other words, it shares a CableCard across four channels. This applies to new PCs with Windows7, as well as existing PCs, upgrading to Win7.
Listen to hosts Ben Drawbaugh and Richard Lawler discuss what they saw at CES, including hands-on with the Ceton Digital Cable Quad-Tuner card (Ceton starts at time stamp 23:56).
We caught up with Gary Hammer from Ceton this morning and snapped some pictures of the low profile quad CableCARD tuner that will be the first version to reach consumers. The card includes a little RG6 dongle so that it'll fit in either a full or low profile PCI-E slot and will be available late in the first quarter for $399.
Quick interview with Ceton's Jeremy Hammer at CES 2010. The CableCARD tuner provides four streams of HD, and is expected to reach the market on 3.31.10 for $399.
Discussion with Microsoft at CES 2010 about new HD tuners for Windows 7 Media Center including the Ceton Quad HD CableCard Tuner. By Neil Berman for theONbutton.
Watch the Ceton Digital Cable Quad-Tuner card being demonstrated during Steve Ballmer's CES keynote (the Windows Media Center and Ceton demo starts at time stamp 39:20).
Ceton will show off a four-tuner digital cable card for Windows 7 computers that will let users record or watch up to four HD cable channels at once on their PCs at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show this week. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was expected to highlight Ceton's Digital Cable Quad-Tuner in his CES kickoff keynote here Wednesday evening. The demo was to show the Ceton card on a Gateway SX Series desktop
This week we take a quick look at 2009 and the things that made Media Center news during the year … We also touch on Ceton’s cable card tuners as we anxiously wait to see when they’ll release.
Episode 54 is all about Ceton and their forthcoming CableCard tuner. Josh and I had the opportunity to get some of your questions answered by sitting down with Jeremy Hammer, VP of Systems Integration for Ceton.