Media Center TV Pack!

OEM only? Feh... Use a product that's designed to the needs of this community instead. Only a tiny % of VMC users have tuners in them, and even fewer have them hooked up.

A friend of mine at MSFT says the #1 use for VMC is the photo viewer. Is it any surprise that it doesn't meet our needs as a media center/pvr?

Can someone explain to me what has been referred to as "DirecTV support" in connection with Fiji? I have seen numerous recent references to anticipated DirecTV support not being included, or that because the h.264 support will not be included, DirecTV support will not be included.

What was the "DirecTV support" that folks were hoping to see? If it HAD been provided, how was it expected to interface with a DirecTV receiver?

Thanks.

PS. According to one of the blogs on ZDNet:

"I’ve also heard from a couple of testers that Microsoft is not planning to release Fiji publicly until September 3 at the CEDIA conference in Denver."

HDPC-20 is the Direct TV USB based tuner for vista media center
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=1375844

It allows you to get full HD Direct TV in media center.

currently only a phantom product.

I think HP is now shipping the OEM tv pack version of VMC since their media center pc's now have the option for the digital cable tuner and an internal tuner. TV pack would be required for this to work. The option wasn't there a week ago.

If anyone has an HP d5000t recovery disc's with TV pack, I wouldn't mind getting my hands on them!

Well, if it has been released, there was no official announcement... and there are a number of people participating in the fiji beta that still aren't talking and seem to still be under NDA... so from what I've been able to gather this is either not fiji or the date on that article is wrong.

Due to the lost posts on avsforum:

For anyone looking for the links to download, I think they're somewhere in this post:

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/25/...howThread.aspx

There used to be a really nice post that had links to all of the necessary files with mirrors and even the h264 dll.

Anyone happen to have all those details handy?

Thanks to Google Cache and the original poster tsb:

x86 version


Netload
http://netload.in/datei9351a01cf8164...f1/AVS.zip.htm

Rapidshare
http://rapidshare.com/files/135847666/AVS.zip.html

MegaUpload
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0GFT4JXF

MegaShares
http://d01.megashares.com/?d01=5555097

More:

http://www.uploadjockey.com/download/4590732/avs.zip



x64 version


More:
http://www.uploadjockey.com/download/7640765/avsx64.zip

Netload:
http://netload.in/datei0449d6dfefde1...AVSx64.zip.htm

MegaShares
http://d01.megashares.com/?d01=b89ffd6


x86 H.264 Decoder
http://www.uploadjockey.com/download...ta_decoder.zip

Anyone using the vmcNetflix Plugin having trouble with the since installing this? I have had issues getting movies to start correctly.

Is the link above the Beta?? Will it stop working Aug 31??

The link is not beta- but final.

I don't have any 3rd party plug-ins myself, but I read somewhere (thegreenbutton perhaps?) that a lot of plug-ins are broken with the new 'Pack.

the decoder replacement is beta though
it will expire on 8/31

I read on one of the other forums (the Green Button i think) that you are supposed to install Microsoft's PlayReady PC with the TV module. I did install it but I see no difference in anything. What does this program do - and was it really necessary?
Thanks

Here's the source *The green Button - thread 281532):
Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008
Code Name: Fiji

The Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 is an upgrade to Media Center functionality released in Vista Home Premium and Ultimate. However, there are some important notes and installation instructions you should be aware of before attempting to install the package.

Important Notes:

-The Media Center TV Pack is only being released externally via licensed OEMs. Therefore, installation of the TV Pack must be on top of a clean Vista SP1 install. There is no upgrade from Vista RTM or previous versions of Windows XP Media Center Edition.

-Media Center TV Pack cannot be uninstalled. If you need to revert to Vista SP1 functionality, you will need to clean install Vista SP1. However, you will be able to upgrade to Windows 7 betas and OS RTM releases post Vista.

-Media Center TV Pack is dependent on PlayReady for playing and recording protected content. This should be installed or you will not have access to protected content.

I installed the TV module and it seems to work fine but I just noticed that my DVDs don't play back in 5.1 (I only get 2 channels). I don't know if this was an issue before TV module or not as I just started ripping my DVDs to the HD and setting everything up. I'm getting "PCM multichannel" on the Onkyo 705 display when I play SD movies off the HD. I can play a Blu-Ray disk (not ripped) and it plays back in 5.1 without problem. I just found this post on The Green Button which has me wondering if this problem could be due to the Windows TV module.

From The Green Button:
"I can play DVD's back with no problem and everything sounds as should. VMC is sending the full 5.1 signal to my receiver.

The same can be said for QAM channels broadcasting a show in Dolby Digital. It works as should.

The problem I am having is with my ripped DVD collection. A while ago, I took a bunch of my DVD's and ripped them to my hard drive. After many hours of conversion, I converted all the movies into MPEG format. The DVD's that were dolby digital 5.1 surround that I ripped played back in dolby digital before the TV Pack update. Now they don't, they just play as pcm stereo.

This all has to do with the new codecs that the tv pack installs. Vista MC now uses the new Microsoft DTV/DVD video and audio decoders. For some reason, those decoders are not used in Media Player. As far as I can tell, the settings for the new decoders can't be tweaked in any way (graph edit, etc).

I have tried some registry hacks to change decoders, but it doesn't work."

Has anyone else seen this?

Bumkin, mind providing a link to the post on Green Button? I can't seem to find it. Currently installing VMC and not being able to play back my ripped DVD's in 5.1 would be a major issue for me.

Looks like beta testers are pissed.

WMC TV Pack: The Ultimate Windows Screwjob You Didn’t See Coming

http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/rob...-screwjob.aspx

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/3/2...howThread.aspx

Mary Jo Foley's take:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1518&tag=rbxccnbzd1

Chris Lanier's Take:

"Fiji will go down in history as one of the worst coordinated projects to come out of Microsoft in a long time."

http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/archi...7/1643863.aspx

Here is the link
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/per...ad.aspx#284358

I'm in the process of trying out the TV pack... they did improve the TV setup stuff quite a bit. It accurately detected my tv signal and set everything up, they also added a signal strength option for each ATSC tuner, the guide setup went much faster since they changed it to download in the background instead of making you sit there and wait for the entire guide to download.

So far it's going well, sucks that they have a new file format though.

Anyone has stuttering while watching TV channels ??
I am experiencing this from the moment I have installed the TV pack

The deliberate exclusion of features in this update "pack" (though it clearly is not an add-on) has compelled me to cut the cord with my last windows-based machine. I just wish  had blu-ray playback capabilities . . .

I just wonder if windows update will give us the appropriate updates for the TV Pack version of VMC when they come.

who knows, maybe after CEDIA all will have H.264 AND the TV Pack upgrades.

I was leaning towards giving Vista a shot and upgrading from XP Pro and BeyondTV until I saw that Vista only supports two ATSC tuners and two NTSC tuners. With OTA analog TV about to become extinct next February, having support for only two ATSC tuners is an absolute joke. My current setup has six ATSC tuners so I don't think I'll be making the switch anytime soon.

Is the Media Center TV Pack still limited to just two ATSC tuners?

There's a very easy registry hack to enable up to four(?) ATSC tuners with non-fiji Vista.

The TV Pack unlocks them.

I don't see any exclusion of features I care about. You simply install a codec and you have support for any video format you want. I don't see what the issue is.

oem only means oem only

and its up to 4 of each type of tuner in vista ultimate eg;qam, cablecard, atsc, ntsc
home premium is still locked at 2

^^I'd wait for CEDIA before being so sure MS is going to screw the DIY/old OEM users.

I still have hope for a H.264 announcement at CEDIA.

Here's what I found on the Microsoft website regarding Vista Media Center:


If VMC will support more tuners than that you'd think they'd list it on the official website. Even with four tuners it still falls short of my needs. This is exactly why Microsoft should stick with creating a basic OS (or at least try and create one that works the way it's supposed to without all the bugs) and leave the extra bells and whistles to the aftermarket companies that can get it right. I think I'll stick with BeyondTV for now. After all, if it ain't broke....