Windows 7 Media Center : Setup Guide, Knowledge Base & Support - Page 145

And actually turn off the feed and let my htpc to go into idle (not sleep) when the tv is off and nothing should be showing in wmc?

I'm having an issue where AVI's are sometimes out of sync. I'm using Sharks codecs, setup via this guide. Is there an easy fix for this? Would I be better off using MPCHC as an external player, or does that complicate things?

I need my HTPC to run like a dedicated device, as my family uses it and they are not tech savvy.

You should probably rely more on a Harmony remote for that stuff. The only thing that program's going to do is go straight to live tv when wmc *starts*

We enjoy "The Dick Van Dyke Show," and the other day I saw that one of the subchannels for a regional broadcast station is carrying the program (in addition to TVLand), so I added it to the Windows 7 Media Center schedule (on the channel's cable number, not the OTA signal which we can't get).

The next day when I checked, though, the program hadn't recorded and we had the following message in 7MC:


OK, I thought -- I've seen this before. Sometimes it's a mistake, other times it's a deliberate decision not to allow recording of a particular program. What has me scratching my head, though, is the following:

The PC is in the family room. We also have a DVR in the bedroom that's not connected or networked to the PC in any way, each one has its own separate coax feed off the box in the basement. As an experiment, Sunday afternoon I set 7MC (through our Ceton InfiniTV4 PCIe tuner) and the cable company DVR each to record "Dick Van Dyke" via cable on that same channel at the same time. I was surprised to see that, while the show did not record on the HTPC, it did get recorded on the DVR.

Now, the DVR is a Motorola DCX3400 series, with a CableCARD in the back just like the PC. So what gives -- why can we record that show through the DVR CableCARD, but not the PC CableCARD? Aren't they the same thing? Why would the copy flag be active on one but not the other?

Anybody have a clue as to what might be going on?

My apologies if this belongs in the Ceton thread instead of the 7MC thread.

I just bought one of Assassin's HTPCS (they are insane, by the way).. easy, reasonable pricing.

The only (small) issue I have is that sometimes when I get out of Windows Media Center, I get a loud blaring noise. This is fixed by turning the TV on and then off. (I assume it has something to do with HDMI). This doesn't happen on any of my other devices so I'm assuming it's something driver related? Didn't happen on my previous machine either.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Ok, I know it’s written in the guide on how to setup external players, but I need to confirm some things, or really the behavior I should be experiencing. To get BD play back, I need to purchase TMT, PowerDVD or Windvd, to name a few. OK, I do the install of the software, and I now notice there’s a plug in associated with the software in MC, ok, so now I need to add the external player in the media browser configurator for BD playback. Now, when I click on the BD ISO from media browser, media center should minimize and then the player should automatically start playing the BD correct? Now, how do I close the player when I’m done watching the movie, is this done when I hit the stop button? Or do I need to hit exit on the remote? Or hit the green button? And then media center is restored back to the BD I selected in Media Browser?

I’m doing trials of the 3 players I mentioned above, and they all exhibit slightly different behavior, i.e. I can’t get PDVD to start playing the BD, it opens in classic view, I have to use a mouse to hit the icon on the bottom left to select the disk, if remove PDVD from the external player in mediabroswer, It seems to work better, I select the BD ISO, and then I’m prompted by mce to select a plug in, I have both Pdvd and windvd installed, I select PDVD, After playing a BD, If I recall, powerdvd will try to close when I hit exit but since I’m using a trial version a second screen pops up asking to purchase it, and then when I close that screen with my mouse, media center is restored to full screen. WindVD seems to work the best with my remote (MCE), all functions work fast forward, chapter skip, menu, I can hit the info button for the popup menu while it’s still playing, but when I hit stop and exit with the remote, windvd does not close, I can then hit the media center button on the remote to get media center on the top window, while windvd is still open.

TMT is the only one that seemed to work installed as an external player in media browser, but it feels sluggish, and it wasn’t off loading the duties to the GPU correctly, GPU utilization was lower.

For now, I just need to know the expected behavior from the external player should be, how should it all function, and secondly, if I can play a BD from selecting the player from the MCE prompt(assume this is because of the plugin), what benefit is there to adding it at as external player. I’m a little confused.

No, its integrated Intel 2000, and its after watching Live TV.

Sounds like a HDMI handshake issue with your HDTV when exiting WMC.

You can try a different Windows driver to see if that corrects the issue.

Where do you recommend I get these drivers from?

This is an older driver that fixes the blue/black screen issue with some HDTVs and Intel drivers. It might fix your HDMI issue as well.

Its always in my FAQ for future reference but here it is again here.

Make a restore point before whatever new thing you try.

Oh, also try using optical for audio and the HDMI for video. Run both to your HDTV. This may completely remove the HDMI handshake issue from the system and you are left with identical sound as the HDTV can't decode bitstreamed HD Audio anyway.

I'm really sorry if this is obviously addressed elsewhere, but I'm finding it really hard to come up with a definitive answer.

I'm replacing the 8500 GT in my Dad's HTPC with a GT 440. As the new card is a lot more capable (the 8500GT could barely deinterlace 1080i), I want to set up his 7MC (x64) for the best possible image quality.

He watches live and recorded OTA programs, which are either 1080i50 or 576p.

From my recent perusal of the HTPC forum, it sounds like the best quality output is obtained through LAV Video + MadVR, and that the GT 440 is capable of this with CUDA. I'm especially interested in LAV's special "frame doubling" deinterlacing mode, which apparently produces a noticeably smoother picture.

My question is, is it possible to configure 7MC to use LAV + MadVR instead of the MS codecs, and is this setup reliable enough for daily use by someone who is entirely incapable of troubleshooting problems when they arise? If so, what software combination should I use (it looks like Shark007's pack might be able to do the job)? Or, should I just stick to the MS codecs and regular NVIDIA hardware deinterlacing?

One last question (I'm going over there tonight to install this for him and want to get it right first time) - what exactly is the 29/59hz bug, and who does it affect? We're a PAL country so broadcasts are 50hz - I'm hoping that means I can safely ignore it and install the latest set of NVIDIA drivers?

Thanks in advance

I'm having a strange issue with my recorded shows. When I record cartoons for the kids I just setup WMC to record new and rerun episodes of the series. I set the number of recordings to 10 and choose the keep until I watch option. So basically every cartoon series should record 10 episodes and then stop. Then after the kids watch a recorded show it would be automatically deleted - number of recordings would drop to 9 - and then another episode would be recorded to bring it back up to 10 recordings. This worked just as I hoped it would until a few months ago when I installed a new MB/CPU in my HTPC. This caused me to re-register windows and from that point forward it seems like WMC is stuck using the record "as many as possible" option eventhough I have "up to 10 recordings" selected. I've tried deleting the series recording and setting it back up but the problem never goes away. I'm not sure how to fix this and I'm getting tired of deleting tons of excess cartoon episodes. Has anyone ever had this problem before?

Is there a key on the remote that allows one touch deleting of recordings in the recorded tv view? It's really frustrating navigating menus over and over to delete multiple things and is even more fun because it decides to constantly "help" and scroll in the opposite direction and away from the items I'm wanting to delete.

04/22/12
SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime $149.99

http://sellout.woot.com/

This probably a stupid question, But what is the difference between the external filters "Lav Splitter" and "Lav Splitter source".. Should I be using one or the other or both ??

I have this CPU/MOBO combo and I'm trying to send audio to my receiver through the Digital Optical output of this HTPC.

• Core i3-2105
• GIGABYTE GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3

The issue is, I'm only able to output 2 channel sound instead of 5.1 and I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

Does someone have the shark pack settings for getting bitstreaming AND subtitles to work out of MKV files? I can't seem to get subtitles to work.

I suppose I should just learn Cantonese or Mandarin.

On the H264 TAB, select the Microsoft decoder.

What video card are you using? A lot of my frustration came from not using a video card that supported bitstreaming.

Anyone know where I can get a test sample of a copy protected .wtv file like something recorded from a cable card? A very short on comes with windows 7 Media center but I want something longer.

I have been running this setup for quite sometime now(roughly 1.5-2years) everything was working great till I upgraded to TMT5(was using tmt3 previously).

Since i upgraded to tmt 5 i get tons of stuttering during br playback. From br drive/iso/folder structure. Doesn't matter witch format or movie(tested tons and tons of sources/disc). Anyone have this issue happen to them as well?

If i play br structure in vlc no problem, if i play my sources on another pc with tmt3 no problem. So that rules out bad media or storage or hardware.

Formatted and fresh win 7x64 ultimate install + all software needed for htpc but nothing else, fresh and newest drivers, problem remains.

Could not find an old driver who functioned right either tested quite a few, only 1 that came close was 11.4 for video but audio sucked...(im using a ati 6850 card)

direct to tv or monitor or via my receiver problems still remain. Anyone have any ideas?

edit: when i say audio sucked it's more arround the lines of the functionality, audio would not resume on sleep or source change(e.g. like if i switched from pc source to another source on both tv or receiver tested stand alone and combined)

I want to just use LAV codecs in WMC7 for which i think i will need to edit the clsid's in the registry.

I can use g-spot to get the clsid's but does anyone know where the codec references are for WMC7 in the registry and will i also need to disable any of the microsoft codecs (which i know how to do) as well or will a reg edit suffice?

Thanks.

Try using this tool, it's much easier and safer than editing the registry.

http://www.codecguide.com/windows7_p...er_tweaker.htm

I did try that as an experiment but it didn't work, seemed geared around video codecs more than audio plus i prefer to do it manually so to only change what i need.

Suppose i'll have to manually search and edit the registry, done it before in the past but been a long time forgotten the references.

I think there is also a problem with the LAV splitter and HD audio formats (dtshd-ma, trueHD) as i can only get it to work using gabest during experimenting with sharks codec interface.

Thanks for the help!

So... The new Netflix web player looks great and works much better than the MCE player.

I have doubts we will see an update to the MCE player - though I am not totally giving up hope.

However.. Is there any plugin still working from the pre-MCE support days that will integrate the new browser player well?

xnappo

Yeah, I would definitely love to see that new browser UI in the WMC plug-in. It now looks like the Hulu Desktop app which I really like. I'm seriously considering giving up on the WMC app and finding some way to use the browser version either by launching it from within XBMC or WMC. I don't even mind the lack of 1080p or 5.1 sound compared to the PS3 app since I prefer the layout of the WMC plugin but the lack of remembering which episode I'm on really kills my desire to use the thing when I want to watch a couple TV episodes. I prefer the PS3 for movie playback in Netflix but the limited number of thumbnails they show really sucks compared to the WMC app.

Yeah, I just like everything being in WMC. Anyway have any hints on driving the web version from a MCE remote?

xnappo