Ceton InfiniTV 4 PCIe and Charter On Demand

[tsellers205jm]

Has anyone been successful in getting the Charter On Demand to work on the Ceton unit?

It can be received on a Charter box by tuning in to Channel 1.

It can not be added through WMC (Windows 7.1) as it is not an option like adding in a QAM signal apparently is.

I tried adding Channel 1 with GuideToolSetup. I can add the channel number, but when you select it, it says the channel is not available or on the air.

Ceton says the On Demand setup information is proprietary to Charter and unsupported by Ceton.

Does anyone know a solution or work around? Losing On Demand is a significant trade off. Maybe buying your own boxes is a better choice.

TIA,

Terry

[Sharks]

Has anyone been successful in getting the Charter On Demand to work on the Ceton unit?

It can be received on a Charter box by tuning in to Channel 1.

It can not be added through WMC (Windows 7.1) as it is not an option like adding in a QAM signal apparently is.

I tried adding Channel 1 with GuideToolSetup. I can add the channel number, but when you select it, it says the channel is not available or on the air.

Ceton says the On Demand setup information is proprietary to Charter and unsupported by Ceton.

Does anyone know a solution or work around? Losing On Demand is a significant trade off. Maybe buying your own boxes is a better choice.

TIA,

Terry

Most cable companies do not support on-demand to cable card devices. The only cable company to my knowledge that does is Comcast and they only support it to Tivo's because Tive and Comcast have a special contract. Currently I have a Ceton PCIe6 Ceton card on Comcast and am unable to receive any on-demand content through the card.

[tsellers205jm]

Thanks for the quick reply.

[mdavej]

I think the main problem is the cable card can't send requests back upstream for On Demand to work. But honestly, much of On Demand is also on Hulu or the channel's website which is authenticated through Charter. So HBO Go, AMC, you name it, all have content you can watch anytime. Last time I tried On Demand on a cable box, it was horrible. Content was very limited, and much of it was SD. It's essentially worthless IMO.

[Sharks]

Not a problem, I hope the lack of on-demand doesn't deter you from continuing your use of a HTPC. Personally I feel it is a small price to pay for the other freedoms and lack of fees that you would otherwise have to pay for a cable operators DVR service, but I know others would disagree. I would also encourage you to dig into these forums a little from my information on what you can and can not do with a HTPC this site has been the best resource I've found for learning about HTPCs. Also welcome to the community. : D

[tsellers205jm]

Thanks mdavej. My last experience with HuLu was poor but that was YEARS ago. Is there a Hulu add-in for WMC Win 7? I am very new to this WMC thing and Ceton (< 1 month) having been a Dish Customer for 15 years. I like the idea of streaming to extended devices such as the Echo I have. My Netflix works good on my TV attached to my HTPC, but have not checked on my Echo. I will check into each Channel's website for programming. I have done that before on just my computer before I got Ceton.

I got the best deal Charter has ever offered in my area. Price lock for 3 years (not 1) and increase at 4th and 5th year. Right now I am getting free DVR and I think it is for 3 years also. Have to check that.

Thanks again Sharks. You are right about the extra fees for boxes and taxes, fees etc. My $90 bill is $135. I can't believe they don't give you one box for free. I pay $7 each for all 3 I have and only one is a DVR. It does seem to be a knowledgeable forum.

Terry

[mdavej]

I use a Roku for all streaming because the apps and the quality are much better than anything PC based. But you could shoehorn Hulu into WMC if you wanted using a utility called Relaunch. It isn't pretty and doesn't work on extenders (neither does Netflix). Netflix in WMC is pretty bad anyway (broken search, no profiles, no 1080p).

I got a pretty good deal when I first signed back up with Charter. I got a free DVR for 2 years. It sat in my closet the entire time. They wouldn't take it back without changing my package, so I kept it. It was so antiquated, I couldn't bring myself to ever use it anyway.

I have 5 Echoes and zero cable boxes, hence the grand total for all my fees for all 6 TVs is $2. The reason I got WMC in the first place was to get away from fees. There's no way I'd pay for any cable boxes or DVRs at this point.

[cwinfield]

I don't know about Charter but Time Warner Cable on demand is all available thru it's web portal so you can view it in a web browser.

[tsellers205jm]

I use a Roku for all streaming because the apps and the quality are much better than anything PC based. But you could shoehorn Hulu into WMC if you wanted using a utility called Relaunch. It isn't pretty and doesn't work on extenders (neither does Netflix). Netflix in WMC is pretty bad anyway (broken search, no profiles, no 1080p).

I got a pretty good deal when I first signed back up with Charter. I got a free DVR for 2 years. It sat in my closet the entire time. They wouldn't take it back without changing my package, so I kept it. It was so antiquated, I couldn't bring myself to ever use it anyway.

I have 5 Echoes and zero cable boxes, hence the grand total for all my fees for all 6 TVs is $2. The reason I got WMC in the first place was to get away from fees. There's no way I'd pay for any cable boxes or DVRs at this point.

The $2 fee is why I got interested myself. I took 2 of my HD only boxes back yesterday. I kept the Motorolla HD/DVR with a 160 Meg HD that looks like an old Big Dish Satellite receiver for On Demand for right now.

So far I have only bought 1 Echo. I am trying to pick up good deals on Ebay. It is a shame that Netflix won't work on the Echos, Nor will Amazon. But then the Charter boxes wouldn't have let those apps work either.

[tsellers205jm]

I use a Roku for all streaming because the apps and the quality are much better than anything PC based. But you could shoehorn Hulu into WMC if you wanted using a utility called Relaunch. It isn't pretty and doesn't work on extenders (neither does Netflix). Netflix in WMC is pretty bad anyway (broken search, no profiles, no 1080p).

I got a pretty good deal when I first signed back up with Charter. I got a free DVR for 2 years. It sat in my closet the entire time. They wouldn't take it back without changing my package, so I kept it. It was so antiquated, I couldn't bring myself to ever use it anyway.

I have 5 Echoes and zero cable boxes, hence the grand total for all my fees for all 6 TVs is $2. The reason I got WMC in the first place was to get away from fees. There's no way I'd pay for any cable boxes or DVRs at this point.

Forgot this question:

Will the Roku stream over the Windows media network, i.e. particularly the Echo extenders?

[mdavej]

Roku and Echo are completely independent of each other. Both can exist on the same network, if that's what you're asking. I probably have about 40 devices on my network, including many Rokus and Echoes. On any given TV, I simply switch inputs to watch Roku or Echo. A cheap universal remote makes handling multiple sources and inputs completely seamless. If you'd rather have it all in one device, get an Xbox 360 instead of Echo. It will run WMC, Netflix and other streaming apps. However the picture quality on the streaming apps isn't as good as Roku.

[DavidinCT]

Media Center was ever updated to support PPV or On-demand, It was a limitation with the Cablecard spec at the time (back in 2009, before the ehome team ended). Cablecard v1 is only 1 way, an PPV or on demand system requires a 2 way communication. There was a rumor of a Cablecard 2.0 that was coming in to production, that would support these features but, as far as I know, it was scrapped.

According to Microsoft, Media Center COULD of supported it but, there was no source to be able to use it. Tivo uses another method as I understand, it's not through the cablecard itself.