InfiniTV

It is no secret that we like the Ceton InfiniTV 4 CableCARD tuner around here or that we are always looking for new and interesting ways to make use of our favorite media front-ends such as XBMC. Thanks to mcheng89 in the XBMC forums, we can now make use of the Ceton InfiniTV 4 in XBMC. He has put together a modified version of the PsuedoTV plugin that allows XBMC to tune into the InfiniTV 4 with a little help from VLC. By building on PsuedoTV, the plugin includes a customizable EPG. It is not a complete DVR solution, but it is an interesting option for tapping into live TV from XBMC and especially from XBMC-compatible devices such as the Apple TV.

Some clever hacks over on the XBMC forums have managed to get Ceton’s infiniTV 4 working with XBMC. With the plugin you can stream video from Ceton tuner, share a tuner with multiple clients, stream TV over the Internet and using PseudoTV you can get a user interface to control it.

The Digital Lifestyle

Just a quick note: Ceton has released a new driver and firmware today for the InfiniTV. I have been using them for about a week and have not encountered any issues.

For our MythTV users (I've got a system running myself) check out this three part blog on adding Ceton InfiniTV support to your MythTV 0.24 system courtesy of developer Ron Frazier.

With the pending release of the SiliconDust HD Homerun Prime, I was getting pretty excited about getting a cablecard tuner for MythTV. However, then something wonderful happened...Ceton decided to drop the price of the InfiniTV 4 card to $300. I hadn't been very interested in the card before simply because it was a bit out of my desired price range. However, at the new price, it was barely more expensive than the Prime, and it gave you a 4th tuner to run off the same cablecard. After thinking about it for a few weeks, I decided to cancel my HDHR Prime preorder and take a chance on the Ceton card.

I said take a chance, because I knew that the Ceton card wasn't yet supported in MythTV. However, I had some ideas how I could hack support into myth 0.24, and failing that, I was under the impression that the trunk code of mythtv (which will eventually be 0.25) already had the code necessary to work with the Ceton. So I figured one way or another, I was covered with the caveat that I wouldn't be working with a proven, tested system. 

• Ceton InifiniTV 4 in MythTV 0.24 - Part 1
• Ceton InifiniTV 4 in MythTV 0.24 - Part 2
• Ceton InifiniTV 4 in MythTV 0.24 - Part 3