Better Late Then Never? DirectTV’s HD Tuner May Launch with Windows 7

It has been a few years coming, but it looks like DirecTV may finally launch their infamous tuner when Windows 7 comes in mid-2009. The evidence to back this up is a driver that comes installed with a pre-beta build of Windows 7. As with anything beta, do not assume it will make it into the final build. I think more then one person got burnt assuming that with the TV Pack.

Ed Bott

H.264 support is a prerequisite for full satellite support, both here in the U.S. and overseas. The presence of a signed driver in this beta build suggests that DirecTV’shardware is ready to go – or at least ready to test. That’s excellent news for digital media enthusiasts looking for an alternative to CableCARD tuners, which have a well-deserved reputation for being flaky and expensive.

No word if you will have to buy an prebuilt computer with the proper DRM restrictions on it ala CableCard.