After learning that some were having success
adding ATI Digital Cable Tuners to HTPC they built themselves, we knew it was only a matter of time before it would be possible to make it work on any computer, but we have to admit we never thought it would happen this fast. The Green Button forum member DanITman posted some directions and links to everything you need to make ANY Vista or Windows 7 computer support digital cable. The hack is very simple actually, it just uses a modified version of VistaLoader to emulate a Sony OCUR compliant computer's BIOS. The real beauty is that it can easily be installed or uninstalled and if Microsoft were to black list the Sony BIOS, emulating a different BIOS would be trivial. The only potentially unworkable caveat at this point is if you are using an Dell OEM Windows PC using the OEM key, this will break your activation, but hopefully a solution for that will be discovered shortly as well.
posted May 6th 2009 1:37PM
Maybe MS doesn't care if CableCard is hacked. This post has been up for a few hours on the Green Button(MS Owned) and still hasn't been pulled.
cool.
Can't wait till this goes to linux and i can get it in my mythtv box.
I don't see why the cable industry should care about this hack.
You still have to pay for cable and rent a cablecard...
Exactly, but why lock it down to point that (impressive) hacks such as these are necessary to get at the content you're presumably paying for?
There's a single ATI Cablecard tuner on eBay for $200. I'm not spending $400 to hack something that might stop working with a Windows update.
Ahhh, take that cable labs, a thumb in your control freak micro managing eye.
Iscariote: there really isn't a way windows can detect this. This hack boots before windows so windows thinks it a normal part of the BIOS.
Yeah, this is pretty much the same way Vista is pirated I believe, using an emulated BIOS, or something to that effect.
Either way, this is a big win for us. Its not like the DRM was broken anyway. It isn't.
Very cool. If this holds up until fall TV season, I'm all over this. I wonder what the cable companies that have to do the card installs will think if this becomes more widespread?
I also still wonder what MS's and CableLabs will do for media center and switched digital video or tru2way?
Thanks to all who've worked on this... Stupid CableLabs should support this functionality, not limit it.
But do we need the Windows for Cable Card version?
No
Media Center is decent tech. Make it work with any provider of choice or it might just die.
Don't let it die, MS.