Blocking of Hardware Audio signals by Microsoft/AMI - Page 3  

You have not made any point.
Show me any thread where you have suggested modifications to core (not fringe) functionality of the PC TV, as important as what is in this thread ?

This problem is not going to be solved without Microsoft putting conscientious workers in position to fix these problems and a realization that top management at Microsoft simply may not even be aware of how incompetent their mid-level management chieftains are in steering their multimedia business.

These mid-level chieftains at Microsoft need to be Fired, and also, I do not believe that the problems will be solved any other way.
I have described many problems, but there are many more I have not had time to detail.
The problem needs to be dealt with at its root.
The Microsoft multimedia managers need to be Fired by the top management there.

I want to continue to stress that what I have talked about here is core functionality.
Down-the-middle stuff which any conscientious worker in Microsoft Multimedia could not possibly miss.

This does not make sense. You are claiming that Vista, which was designed with HD Audio compatible chips in mind, would disable known audio input ports, when we know that all of these ports are explicitly supported by the HD Audio 1.0 specification.

The Vista code must be written to assume the simultaneous presence of the following supported signals:
Microphone, LineIn, CDIn, AuxIn and S/P-DIF In

That is in the spec.
Both the ALC888 and the AD1981HD have separate pins for these inputs.
In fact, it looks like the Microphone is stereo, incompatible with the CD-IN signal.

I am not interested in knowing the details of some guy's prattling about what he thinks HD Audio is about. That does not address this issue, which is that the pinout is on every motherboard I have encountered, including new ones, to allow TV Tuner cards to connect CD-IN to the motherboard to allow the motherboard Audio chip to receive this signal and allow that input to be used for TV Tuner audio input.

Furthermore, it should have been possible to determine whether or not the pins connected to the MIC or CD were floating or connected to a device. That should have governed what selectable devices showed up in the Vista menu in question.

Microsoft's long term audio technical partners Creative Labs have reserved a prominent top edge position on their Soundblaster, as I have already shown, for their CD-IN connector to allow explicitly adjacent TV Tuner cards to connect this CD-IN signal directly to the Soundblaster card's Audio mixer chip to perform the same function.

I would be interested to know where you are seeing in the specifications that CD and MIC are an either/or activation.
Interesting that you have not named a few motherboards which document this limitation, yet.

The motherboard differential amplifier used for the CD-IN signal is for the motherboard manufacturer to implement and they are continuing to implement it in order to deliver this signal to the audio chip.

I have never said anything about a different screen, ever.
That is total waste.

Closed Captions in a separate External Window, as was implemented by ATI in the All In Wonder line, should be implemented in all TV Tuner implementations.
This allows the user to scroll back the Closed Captions if they missed a particular word or were on the phone for 1 or 30 minutes or more, allows watching lyrics of songs or speeches when the accent or delivery is hard to understand, allows search for a particular word, allows language translation of the words live or operating on the Recorded CC file saved by online translators, etc.

It does not make sense that free extra information about the show you are watching is not presented in as useful a manner as possible in a separate window, a window which can be tucked out of sight behind other windows until needed. That way it can be active 100% of the time without obscuring the TV picture.

I am amazed that Microsoft themselves have not yet implemented this separate External Window for Closed Captions and given it away as part of the OS.
Especially since Closed Captions are legally required.

What the heck have Microsoft Multimedia managers been expending those limitless engineering dollars on over the past 3 years ?
Microsoft Multimedia managers must be Fired and replaced immediately.

You think I should go into the Pothole filling business if I think the city is too slow in filling the potholes with the monies they have at their disposal ?
Just imagine all those businesses we all could get into, when huge companies millions of people depend on, malfunction.

Now here is a guy who knows what he is talking about.
However, dirty money is dirty money -- leave it for the criminals.

I have described the sequences of events which led to the loss of Hardware Audio signals such as CD-IN and Composite Audio.
In the most recent scenario 2 weeks ago, I upgraded the motherboard BIOS to last month's release and immediately lost access to the audio from CD-IN and Composite on the Dvico FusionHDTV5.
I reinstalled the old motherboard BIOS released a year ago, and then Dvico could again receive audio from CD-IN and Composite Audio.

When people on a forum like this claim that that is not an important development, they cannot possibly truly be the Real Users they pose to be here. That fraud needs to be exposed otherwise it Confuses the role truly Conscientious workers at some of these companies must play to recognize serious problems and solve them.

There are scores of people working at Microsoft right now who are being paid 6 Figures to solve problems just like this one, Not create them.

In the PC context, there is no such thing as Composite Video, alone.
Where have you seen a Composite Video plug fed into a PC without the 2 pin audio along with it.
This 3 pin interface, if you actually used PC TV Tuner cards, which is the only thing we are talking about here, like Dvico's, is called the "Composite" Input Source.
Both Dvico and Asus use the same cable which includes these 3 pins plus another one which if I recall correctly is an S-Video connector.
On the back of the 3250HD Scientific Atlanta Set Top Box, the corresponding 3 output pins are lined up in a vertical column together of 3 pins, white, red, yellow.
This is how SciAtl describes these 3 pins:
"8. Video and Audio Out: Connect an RCA cable to Video Out and Left/Right Audio Out to send analog video and audio signals to a standard TV or VCR. This signal is SDTV."

Clearly this wording implies that even Consumer Electronics devices treat these 3 pins as a 3 pin set.
It is absurd to continue to classify Composite Video as a separate technology.

There is no way that any HR person at Microsoft responsible for Multimedia hiring is actually earning that 6 figures, if in fact that claim is correct.

I remember that issue with Windows Movie Maker 2. At the time, I was accused by members of this forum of being a Microsoft supporter.
On forums like this, so many of the participants are accustomed to reading mouths who are bought by one party or another. It is confusing for many of these people to believe someone is simply here to tell the truth, wherever it leads.

Reinstalling the old BIOS version is not a solution to the problem.
There needs to be a federal prosecutor driven investigation into this theft of functionality out from under the user who has already paid for this functionality. That is a crime.
And the Microsoft manager of multimedia responsible must be Fired immediately.
The sequence of events makes clear that future motherboards will not allow the CD-IN signal or the Composite Audio signal to be used by the user.
There is no reason to obsolete these signals and I do not see anything that Microsoft is positing to replace them.

There is no new functionality in this motherboard available after the upgrade.
In fact, when one looks at the page on the motherboard web site where the upgrades are listed, there is no detailed description of what has changed in each upgrade.
This is a scam. A Microsoft/AMI driven scam.
And a high proportion of Microsoft's customers simply cannot afford to be ripped off.
They buy their house PC as a 5 year or more investment and cannot afford to add anything else to it or purchase and install a new Operating System (OS).
The purchased computer system must work and continue to work. Anything that Microsoft is doing that inflicts a type of forced obsolescence must be treated as a serious crime and those managers responsible must be punished.
Federal prosecutors should put the development managers of these 2 companies under oath before a Grand Jury to ascertain the truth and find where the fault should lay.

There are 100,000's of users using the CD-IN signal to decouple the TV Tuner audio and allow it to be volume controlled individually.
The rest are not aware that this can be done.

Claiming that no one is using the CD-IN signal, when the main audio card manufacturer, time-honored Creative Labs/Soundblaster, still reserves its most prominent top-edge position for this CD-IN connector, is nonsensical, and indicates a determination to defend Microsoft and AMI which must indicate that this is determined paid public relations work on your part.

I am well aware of the origins of the CD-IN signal, but its presence on the motherboard has evolved into much more critically important usage. And that is why Creative/Soundblaster reserves its prime connector position for this CD-IN connector and describes its purpose as being for TV Tuner cards, Not CD Audio players. (e.g. Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio)
http://support.creative.com/manuals/
"5. Aux In connector Connect an analog CD cable (available separately) from the analog output on an audio device like a TV tuner to this connector. "

Again, attempts to marginalize the core functionality of CD-IN and Composite Audio simply bring into stark relief the absurdity of discussion in forums like this where discussion is dominated by public relations workers.

Do you see anything that Microsoft has done so far, even in the newer operating system Vista, to solve the problem of loss of Composite Audio in and allow the user to receive the Composite Video/Audio signal from the Cable Set Top Box ?

Christmas it is. No idea or interest in knowing what Festivus is.

Maybe this is what Microsoft spent their Multimedia engineering budget on over the past 3 years:
working real hard to prevent their customers from receiving Cable content with this Cablelabs-based OCUR/CableCard crap architecture they have implemented in the Windows Vista operating system.

As I mentioned before, Microsoft should go back to these new found friends they have in the Cable industry and present them with a USB interface protocol specification to allow the PC to control the output channels and various other internal operations within the Cable Set Top Box.

There is a need for a reliable method to control the channel(s) output by the Cable Set Top Box (amongst numerous other operations within the STB) and infrared IR Blasters is nowhere near reliable.
In fact, with the Hauppauge HD PVR, this IR Blaster functionality does not work at all, even with the industry dominant 3250HD Set Top Box from Scientific Atlanta/Cisco.

Cable Set Top Boxes should be capable of outputting several decrypted output channels at once, some NTSC, some 1280x720 under the control of the PC.
Microsoft needs to Fire the incompetent Multimedia managers there first before entering into these negotiations with the cable industry.

I am well aware of the motivation behind OCUR. However, as is clear from the reaction to the ATI OCUR product offering and reactions of people even on this forum, the architecture on the PC is too restrictive and thus no one wants to use it nor buy it and thus the Windows OS software support for this OCUR architecture was a waste of money for Microsoft to implement.

Microsoft along with Intel represents the PC and, as a huge entity wields enormous market power. For Microsoft to be pushed around by the cable industry in this way as to waste its resources implementing such a restrictive TV Tuner reception architecture indicates that Microsoft is not making proper use of its market power.

That is exactly one of the reasons why I have recommended that current Microsoft Multimedia managers be Fired before Microsoft proceeds further in this Cable TV connectivity area.

Microsoft needs to flex its muscle in Washington, DC and with the Cable industry to fix this problem and allow acceptable freedom to return to TV reception into the PC, in this new HD era.

There was a time 15 years ago when NTSC signals were all scrambled by the cable industry. That was only freed up by Congress and legislation.
Microsoft needs to lead this fight again, or they will lose money and Microsoft's customers will lose practical access to the TV signal for the PC

Yeah, I mean, who wants to Watch TV, right ?

And here I am on this TV-oriented forum with thread after thread about what is called an HTPC and I have zero interest in it, have never read any of those threads, and I could not tell you or anyone what an HTPC is.

Yet here I am talking about $50 Tuner Cards and their interface to the PC and Windows.

And one thing is clear: anyone who does not recognize the importance of CD-IN (and Composite Video/Audio) to the TV Tuner interface to Windows XP, simply does not use these products in truth, has not really had the practical experience to Watch TV on the PC, and is really just posing as a Real User on this forum, while performing some sort of public relations role not driven by genuine personal interest.
Usually this faked interest is propelled by covert pecuniary inducement.

That is because you were not aware of how to use Hardware Audio sources like CD-IN or Line-IN with your TV Tuner card.
And because of this ignorance, you most like turned your TV Tuner off for large periods of time while listening to MP3 files, YouTube, movies clips and Windows' own audio generation itself.
Your TV Tuner experience with your PC was damaged by that ignorance.

Interesting you mention Blu-Ray. As I mentioned, I bought one as a lark (and to gather information, in truth) and a current movie to check it out.
The Cyberlink PowerDVD BD included software is giving me an error that it does not recognize my ATI 3850 brand new drivers.
I then downloaded and installed a 6 months old driver and it claims now that my 1920x1200 DVI monitor is incompatible with its output.
This is incredible.

However, other than this lark and information gathering, I have zero interest in Blu-Ray, as is true of most people who have any resistance to the media bombardment about this snazzy new technology.

I am well aware of this.
I was the one who recommended Windows XP implement this functionality 3 years ago.
On this forum, in fact.
For some reasons, the chieftains who run this AVS forum have decided to put those messages in a remote archive and thus access to those messages is not readily available.

However, this solution was not implemented in Windows XP.
And also, the Windows Vista implementation has Bugs which prevent Composite Audio from being Recorded.
Files recorded from the this interface to the Cable Set Top Box have video, but are Muted.