Niveus, Lifeware Stretch Media Center with Support for 8 CableCards, 10 Extenders
Microsoft worked with these two vendors to double Media Center's current capacity. Coming Soon: Lifeware's LMS-810 "High Density TV" server and Niveus's Pro Series n9.
At CEDIA, Lifeware is showing eight high-def streams from CableCard distributed to 11 displays—one local TV and 10 remote TVs via Xbox 360 Media Center Extenders.
Most importantly, according to Moorer, eight tuners allows users to build up their movie libraries, setting keywords in Media Center to record any movie featuring their favorite directors, actors, genres....
With its 12 TB of RAID 5 storage, the Lifeware LMS-810 is a great place to build a video library.
For its part, Niveus is coming out with the Niveus Storage Server Cargo Edition. Based on the Windows Home Server platform, the product boasts up to 16 TB of scalable storage.
By allowing five additional Extenders, to boot, households should never have to fight for their content.
"This has finally fulfilled the vision we've had," says Moorer. "You have a gigabit network in your home, and the network switch is your video switch. You've got an ecosystem of Extender devices that you can put with every TV so you're really starting to simplify."
CableCard is famously painful to configure in PCs. So now Lifeware and Niveus are recommending eight of them?
Moorer says that, with CableLabs' latest firmware, "CableCard got remarkably easier."
In any case, he adds, "They're not a pain once they're set up. There are some isolated CableCard set-up issues but it only occurs once."
For its part, Lifeware has dramatically increased its resources for CableCard support, according to Moorer. "We have a world-class CableLabs authorization support team," he says. "Once authorized, CableCards are almost bullet-proof."
He says that these days it takes about 30 minutes to authorize one CableCard. "With eight, it doesn't take that much longer.
It isn't clear if more manufacturers will be able to support eight CableCards ad 10 Extenders in the future.
The capability is not part of some formal service pack from Microsoft. Instead, the functionality emerged as part of "collaborative work" between Microsoft and these two vendors, says Collins.
"These are partners that are taking Media Center to the next level," he adds.
Check back today for more Media Center images from the CEDIA Expo 2008 show floor.

Lifeware is at booth #410 at CEDIA Expo 2008.
Check out more news from Lifeware at CEDIA 2008
With its 12 TB of RAID 5 storage, the Lifeware LMS-810 is a great place to build a video library.
For its part, Niveus is coming out with the Niveus Storage Server Cargo Edition. Based on the Windows Home Server platform, the product boasts up to 16 TB of scalable storage.
By allowing five additional Extenders, to boot, households should never have to fight for their content.
"This has finally fulfilled the vision we've had," says Moorer. "You have a gigabit network in your home, and the network switch is your video switch. You've got an ecosystem of Extender devices that you can put with every TV so you're really starting to simplify."
If One CableCard is Difficult, is this 8x Worse?
CableCard is famously painful to configure in PCs. So now Lifeware and Niveus are recommending eight of them?
Moorer says that, with CableLabs' latest firmware, "CableCard got remarkably easier."
In any case, he adds, "They're not a pain once they're set up. There are some isolated CableCard set-up issues but it only occurs once."
For its part, Lifeware has dramatically increased its resources for CableCard support, according to Moorer. "We have a world-class CableLabs authorization support team," he says. "Once authorized, CableCards are almost bullet-proof."
He says that these days it takes about 30 minutes to authorize one CableCard. "With eight, it doesn't take that much longer.
More 8x10 Systems on Horizon?
It isn't clear if more manufacturers will be able to support eight CableCards ad 10 Extenders in the future.
The capability is not part of some formal service pack from Microsoft. Instead, the functionality emerged as part of "collaborative work" between Microsoft and these two vendors, says Collins.
"These are partners that are taking Media Center to the next level," he adds.
Check back today for more Media Center images from the CEDIA Expo 2008 show floor.

Lifeware is at booth #410 at CEDIA Expo 2008.
Check out more news from Lifeware at CEDIA 2008
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Article Topics
News · Product News · Media Center · CEDIA · Multiroom Video · Exclusive · Media Center ·About the Author

Julie Jacobson, Editor-at-large, CE Pro
Julie Jacobson is co-founder of EH Publishing and currently spends most of her time writing for CE Pro, mostly in the areas of home automation, networked A/V and the business of home systems integration. She majored in Economics at the University of Michigan, earned an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin, and has never taken a journalism class in her life. Julie is a washed-up Ultimate Frisbee player with the scars to prove it. Follow her on Twitter @juliejacobson.
2 Comments (displayed in order by date/time)
I saw this at the show and they were much easier to set up than the previous models.
Page 1 of 1 comment pages




It would be great if these supported SDV cable cards since BH is rolling it out this month ... shame