Scant hours after the SDV tuning, DRM-relaxing firmware update for Vista and Windows 7 Digital Cable Tuner users became available,
Missing Remote let us know Microsoft has come through on the other half of its
CEDIA promise by pushing the Digital Cable Advisor to Media Center Extras galleries everywhere. This half should enable all Windows 7 PCs to work with the CableCard tuners, sans-OEM requirement or
inconvenient hacking. Sure
we could ask for more from Windows 7 Media Center, but for now Netflix and these two (in less than 100 days) will have to do.
Read - MCE: Digital Cable Advisor Tool Available Now!
Read - ATI DCT Firmware update pops up on Windows Update, DRM-free MCE recordings are a go
posted Nov 6th 2009 10:19PM
Hey that reminds me, I have a net top with Nvidia Ion and a dual core Atom N330. I want to make it into a DVR with Windows 7, but I have no idea how best to do it. I have Comcast. Any ideas?
Get a TV Tuner..
Yeah, find a better forum to post your (off topic) question
Nick
Visit the Media Center Community and Help at http://thegreenbutton.com/
Get a better PC, because your nettop won't work (at least not well). One of the requirements for DCT in MC is 4 GB of RAM. Even if you can get the update to install, I don't think you'll like how slow it will run.
The only news from Microsoft that will interest me is ZUNE HD AVAILABLE WORLDWIDE!!!!
Sweet, now give me some F'ing HARDWARE!!! Where are you Ceton? Hauppauge? ATI? i don't care. 4 tuner under $250 wins...
$250 ???? wishful thinking. Expect it to be closer to $500 than $250
maybe next summer.. come on now have faith. good competition maybe?
Windows Media Center really is some awesome software.
I figure there would be a anti-trust lawsuit against that by now lol, seriuosly though i value media center higher then most of the MS software out there.
It is ridiculous how good Media Center is. I can remember, not three years ago, spending hours and hours on configuration to get my software to do half of what it can do under MC.
try apple my lass she's the cream of the crop :P
she'll take ya straight to the T00000000000000000000000000000P
Until she shits the bed with a kernel panic, she's so bad her shorts make my hair static!
When MCE 7 releases an update that will let me use my 6 qam tuners (3 HDHomeruns), I'll switch from BeyondTV to Windows 7.
Until then, no dice.
Cedia said, the advanced entertainment pack will allow 6 tuners of the same type instead of 4 tuners of the same type, but only be available to oems.
How much f*%#ing tv do you watch to need 6 tuners? Seriously, I hardly every use the 2 that I have in my media center box.
I really only need 4 tuners, but tuners are cheap.
I started adding 5 minutes of padding to my shows and liked the padding so much, that I added another set of tuners.
Once you pad everything, you won't want to give it up.
What on earth could you POSSIBLY need 6 tuners for?
Oops I had this window opened from last night and didn't refresh the page. You answered my question above. Apologies!
yo yo ma
f'in a we must be watchin' the itchy and scratchy show :P
I'd love to have my U-Verse work on my PC, but too bad I guess.
I'd love PC and Xbox 360 support as well. Blame AT&T.
I absolutely love Media Center. It's a shame it hasn't become a standard. The way it has been marketed it appears as TV for your PC, when it fact it is TV from a PC. The interface is brilliant. I fear Verizon FiOS and ATT U-Verse will win this race though. Both great products.
U-Verse still doesn't allow playing television on your PC without a TV tuner.
Seeing as my U-Verse Box is connected via ethernet, I don't see why this isn't possible with some software that could be integrated into Media Center.
Considering you can use FIOS in Media Center via cable cards, I'm really not sure where you stand.
I'm thinking something that doesn't require extra hardware.
england and spain may be here to stay.. and we're not gonna budge. but we're def. gonna wipe a booger from our sugar piez :P
$225 billion in market cap, and the company has trouble writing basic English: "Tool will evaluate end users PC characteristics" [sic].
Sad, really. Nobody at Microsoft seems to care much any more.
When Apple advances their little toy called AppleTV to have real features such as DVR, CableCARD, etc, then you can talk.
BTW: The last time an Apple fanboy wanted to play "He look, big Microsoft has a grammar mistake", we found quite a few in Apple documents. And as the Apple fanboys like to point out, Apple is not exactly a poor company.
Don't know if this is common knowledge, but the ATT U-Verse interface is made my microsoft, and very similar to Media Center (in style, not necessarily in function).
I really need help understanding this whole TV tuner thing lol. I have Directtv. what kind of tv tuner do i need? and will i get all the channels i get with directtv or just like the local channels?
Basically what this means is that you don't have to rent a cable box from your cable provider (i.e. comcast) to get the "premium" channels and you can use your HTPC as your own DVR. (Usually channels 100+). Although you'll shell out alot of money upfront for the tuner (About $200), you end up saving in the long run.
For example, I have an ATI cablecard tuner in my HTPC. I can record 4 HD shows at once and this replaces my comcast dvr box. Since my HTPC is running Win7, I can use my 360 and ps3 to watch live or recorded tv from other rooms (individually or at the same time). Since I did this, my cable bill went down about $25 per month, so I got my $200 back in a little less than a year.
HOWEVER, I'm not sure that DirectTV has CableCard, but I want to say no just tracing the technology between the receiver and the dish in my head.
PBB, can you tell if this update works for the internal ATI card as well as the USB box? The internal card is $100 cheaper, and I'd go for that if it's just the same hardware minus a plastic case and power supply.
If you have Cox you can't simply get this and get everything. You still have to have one box for HD etc, or the cards will only show extended basic, maybe even the digigtal channels, but no HD or premium. At least that's what Cox told me. I have TiVo and in order to get all the channels to work I had to get one of the non-DVR HD boxes on my account. So they still get ya.
PBB, how many channels can one ATI cablecard tuner record at once? and how are you using you ps3 as a media center extender?
It might be that Cox in your area is using SDV (switched digital video), and the new ATI firmware update adds support for tuning adapters, so you can connect one to the PC via USB and then get all your channels.
Media Center is dead. Most cable companies encrypts the digital cable and requires CableCard. There is no retail CableCard available. If you want to use Media Center with your cable, you have buy it from the systems vendor that costs an arm and a leg.
That's the whole purpose of this update, so you DON'T have to buy it from the vendor. Since they announced it this summer, a few more CableCard tuners have cropped up and I hope that more do. True, they still run about $200, but for me its alot cheaper in the long run vs. renting cable boxes from Comcast. (Over the course of a year)
This is all well and good, but the ATI USB box is still $300. Kind of a rip. Anyone know a place to get them cheaper besides buying used on eBay?
Winst, the ATI internal Digital HD Tuner (cable card) is available for sale now and not just available to OEMs (and works on Windows 7). Its $200 or so. Dell sells is, Cannon PC, etc...
Good luck finding a working link to buy the ATI DCT. All the links I've tried are inundated, broken or want $300. The demand for this tuner skyrocketed in minutes.
is this update only available through windows update? cause it isnt showing up for me :(
OK.... SO I'm commenting about the post before this with that chickdude MIDI DRUMS thing,,,, WTEFFFFF WAS TAHT!>!?!??! LOL
Fail me for not really knowing this, but what exactly is the benefit to using a CableCard rather than a TV tuner with a cable connection (other than "premium content.") The TV tuner still gets access to every channel I can watch if I just plugged my TV in, right?
More HD, besides the fact that pretty much everything will be going to premium content. In my area, Comcast is cutting off analog in January, and leaving only the local channels in clearQAM.
As I see this screenshot... why does Windows NOT manage... to do correct screenshots? The windows have roundes corners, yet every shot you take... has the nasty edgy corners... it looks horrid... (but then again... it's Windows we're talking about. To be fair though, design-wise Seven looks pretty good imo... now please get it to work the way it looks...)
bibbit
bibbit @ Nov 7th 2009 11:01AM
If you have Cox you can't simply get this and get everything. You still have to have one box for HD etc, or the cards will only show extended basic, maybe even the digigtal channels, but no HD or premium. At least that's what Cox told me. I have TiVo and in order to get all the channels to work I had to get one of the non-DVR HD boxes on my account. So they still get ya.
Bibbit, I've got Cox and TivoHD, and the CC works fine with all channels, including HD. The Cox rep is falsely trying to sell you something you don't need (unless you have series 2).
This is still not showing up for me!
If only I was willing to pay $62.05 for something I probably won't watch. The $50 I save by only going with basic cable so I can at least watch local channel when I feel like it is much better spent on going out with people. It's not like I don't have enough to watch/listen to already. I don't need the potential to get farther behind. (Un)fortunately, there wouldn't be enough for me to make the jump to digital cable