There has been a fair bit of news re CableCard this last few  weeks:

• Ceton have started shipping their InfiniTV4 tuner to almost unaminously fantastic reviews. In fact I can’t remember a piece of Media Center related hardware which has been so well received.
• CableLabs have amended the CableCard specs to allow tuner sharing – to be more precise each tuner in a physical card can be paired with a different PC. This is great news for Ceton who have already allowed for this in how their hardware works and probably just need a firmware/software update to implement, but it is essential news for Silicon Dust who are looking at producing a networked tuner.
• CableLabs have also allowed Copy Freely material to be transmitted in the clear. This isn’t big news for Media Center users but it is exciting my sage using friends who will now be able to view at least some premium content (not that there is much marked copy freely)
• Not such good news for ATI Digital Cable Adaptor user on FiOS where a change from the broadcaster is likely to break their ability to view TV. Ceton have already pached their firmware for this change but ATI are no longer supoorting their card so it seems a patch is unlikely from them.

With the exception of the last point this is really good news and must be particualrly pleasing for Ceton Silicon Dust.

Ben Drawburgh has done a fantastic job of covering this news over at Engadget HD

http://hd.engadget.com/2010/08/15/cablelabs-amends-ocur-spec-tuner-sharing-and-mythtv-are-on/

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/16/verizon-fios-simulcrypt-rollout-will-break-most-cablecard-tuners/