Our man Ben @ EngadgetHD has been live blogging from CEDIA

He has brought us OFFICIAL great news!

1. Media Center will officially support SDV for CableCard Tuners
2. CableCard tuners will work on ANY PC! No longer has to be an OEM machine! (I had to use a refurbed Sony VGX-XL3)

Source: EngadgetHD

To the enthusiasts out there that are familiar with this, you're probably freaking out at the possibilities. As for the rest of you who think I'm a nutter, I'll translate. Media Center lately has had an uncertain fate. No one knew what the future for Media Center held since manufactures were ceasing production of extenders and CableCard DRM made life so horrible, that only the enthusiasts knew how to use it.

With DRM being relaxed, any consumer can add a CableCard tuner, and extending the product life of current CableCard tuners with the newly added SDV support -> a spark of life has been put back into Media Center! It means MS really hasn't forgot about us at TGB.

I'm sure there will be more information to come. But as there is a new hope for Media Center, they still have a lot of work to do to expand their audience beyond the enthusiasts.

Happy Tuesday! Chris Lanier is a great source for Media Center information. He posted this last week http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/archive/2009/09/03/1720490.aspx

I've been so busy that I almost missed it!

I've complained in the past about CableCards and the DRM that ensues: http://www.peterf.net/blog/2008/10/10/WhyIsCableCardDRMBad.aspx

Chris's information comes in two flavors:
A: Next firmware will support SDV (switched digital video)
B: Next firmware will support relaxed DRM on specific channels

Now while nothing is final until I see it on my tuners and working, this is a bright ray of sunshine coming for those of us in this deep hole. By "us", I mean the early adopters that knew they could get screwed at any moment since there was no public roadmap on how to handle different cable TV specifications.

What does this mean?

• Current ATI DCT owners will not get left behind as their Cable Operator moves to SDV
• Many current owners will be able to get the same channels as their Tivo/Cable operator box
  
• All recordings will no longer be laced with DRM (only recordings that are requested to have DRM will be laced)
• Opens a window for DCT users to watch TV episodes on other computers since the extender model was the only way to watch DCT DRM laced shows previously. You will be able to watch DRM-less recordings on other computers

I expect all of this to be Windows 7 only. Always good to support Vista, but I won't complain.