Thank you for opening this UP !

[Rickt1962]

Its nice to go to ONE spot to get info with others you trust on here.

My Question was is Win11 WMC solid that you can walk away from like WMC on 7 ? Which is the best ! I am being forced out with my old machine

[Kevin Chalet]

It's rock-solid, but anything involving CableCard won't work (just like it doesn't work on recent versions of Windows 10).

Depending on your scenario, there may be other/better options. E.g for a headless WMC TV recording machine, Windows Server 2022 is a fantastic candidate: much less bloated and 10 years of support.

[Rickt1962]

I know DRM channels will not work after Win7 what about the open channels on my Cable Card on Comcast ?

[dkm]

My understanding is the Digital Cable Advisor and PlayReady DRM don't work on Windows 10/11 so Cablecard won't install at all.

If that's not the case, and Cablecard does work in 10/11 just not for PlayOnce DRM protected channels, I'd love to know that. I'm in the same boat -- really don't want to run Windows 7 anymore, but I'm on cablecard but without any DRM protected channels. It's just for access control.

[Kevin Chalet]

If that's not the case, and Cablecard does work in 10/11 just not for PlayOnce DRM protected channels, I'd love to know that. I'm in the same boat -- really don't want to run Windows 7 anymore, but I'm on cablecard but without any DRM protected channels. It's just for access control.

CableCard is not available here (since it's basically a US-only thing), so it's not something I've ever tried, but if you are a DVBLink for IPTV user, you should be able to point it to the decrypted stream URLs provided by your HDHomeRun Prime (the address should be something like http://[IPv4 address of your HDHR Prime]:5004/auto/v[channel number as defined in the provider lineup]).

If you're not a DVBLink user, the other option is to use Tvheadend (that natively supports CableCard since the 4.3 version) + the HDHomeRun BDA driver + an HDHomeRun emulator to achieve a similar result (but much more reliable than DVBLink in my opinion).

Since it requires a bit of setup, it's not something I'd recommend if you're not willing to get your hands dirty. Nothing complicated, but it's definitely more involved than simply following a wizard in WMC
If you're interested in learning more about this approach, I blogged about it last month: https://kevinchalet.com/2023/07/05/conn ... o-dvblink/

Of course, both options will only work for channels that are encrypted but not marked as copy-never/copy-once (i.e non- DRMed channels). For that, the entire hardware/software recording chain would need to be certified... and WMC (on previous Windows versions) was one of the very certified options

[Rickt1962]

If that's not the case, and Cablecard does work in 10/11 just not for PlayOnce DRM protected channels, I'd love to know that. I'm in the same boat -- really don't want to run Windows 7 anymore, but I'm on cablecard but without any DRM protected channels. It's just for access control.

CableCard is not available here (since it's basically a US-only thing), so it's not something I've ever tried, but if you are a DVBLink for IPTV user, you should be able to point it to the decrypted stream URLs provided by your HDHomeRun Prime (the address should be something like http://[IPv4 address of your HDHR Prime]:5004/auto/v[channel number as defined in the provider lineup]).

If you're not a DVBLink user, the other option is to use Tvheadend (that natively supports CableCard since the 4.3 version) + the HDHomeRun BDA driver + an HDHomeRun emulator to achieve a similar result (but much more reliable than DVBLink in my opinion).

Since it requires a bit of setup, it's not something I'd recommend if you're not willing to get your hands dirty. Nothing complicated, but it's definitely more involved than simply following a wizard in WMC
If you're interested in learning more about this approach, I blogged about it last month: https://kevinchalet.com/2023/07/05/conn ... o-dvblink/

Of course, both options will only work for channels that are encrypted but not marked as copy-never/copy-once (i.e non- DRMed channels). For that, the entire hardware/software recording chain would need to be certified... and WMC (on previous Windows versions) was one of the very certified options

Well my Channels on Comcast are not DRM or copied once so no limit