Niveus, Lifeware Stretch Media Center with Support for 8 CableCards, 10 Extenders

Niveus and Lifeware are developing the first and only Media Center products that support eight CableCards and 10 Media Center Extenders, doubling the capacity of other Windows Media Center machines.

For everyone else, Media Center supports only four CableCards and five Extenders (active Extenders, that is – only five can be used simultaneously).

Both Niveus and Lifeware have worked with Microsoft to enable these capabilities, which are not part of the new Media Center TV Pack or any formal Microsoft program at this time.

Lifeware's solution, dubbed "High Density TV" is the LMS-810, which supports two internal CableCards and up to six external CableCards (via the Lifetune Server LTS-600).


Lifeware's Lifetuner with six CableCards

Niveus, on the other hand, relies solely on external CableCard boxes. "We've gone completely outboard with tuners, especially because we're expanding internationally," says Niveus CEO Tim Cutting.

Niveus's Pro Series n9, to be released in 2009, will be the first Niveus product to support eight CableCards, thanks to the Intel Core i7 quadcore processor that supports eight threads.

"Streaming high definition to eight zones, you can imagine why eight threads could make a difference," Cutting says.

Who Needs That Much Capacity?

Do you really need eight digital cable feeds for a household?

Cutting says that Niveus is "seeing it a lot more in higher end installs," which is the market that Niveus serves. "We definitely have dealers that do three to four jobs a year, and they really go big."

That's no surprise to Kevin Collins, a CE channel advocate at Microsoft. He was one of the judges of Microsoft's Media Center Ultimate Install contest.

"A lot of dealers said they would have done more zones if they didn't have a five-Extender limitation," Collins says. "So they're definitely asking for it."

Smaller households, too, can find a need for all of that capacity. Lifeware CEO Seale Moorer says, "Even with a family like mine – two middle-aged adults with no children, who have a high propensity for TV – we still run into conflicts with four or five tuners."

Without the extra capacity, Moorer adds, "you might have to revert to video switching."

Heaven forbid.

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."

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