[mosquito]

I had a hunch that this would be possible....


I have not been able to successfully record 2 programs at once, though. I have a FusionHDTV 3 Gold NON-QAM and bought an HDTV Wonder locally today. I think the tuning/recording issue boils down to drivers. I only worked at this for about an hour tonight, and haven't figured out the right way to install the cards and drivers to make it work. At times, the HDTV Wonder would actually install in XP with the Fusion drivers!!! ARGH!


Anyway, the MCE 205 Guide will recognize when there are 2 ATSC devices and will allow the scheduling of two programs at the same time, much like it will for analog tuners. I think this is just going to boil down to figuring out how to instal the two cards without driver crossover.


BTW, I'm also using an 8500 radeon, so I might need to upgrade the video card to make it all the way. We'll have to see.


If anyone else is testing this and has input, please post it here!

 

[jpk]

MCE2005 officially only supports one ATSC tuner, but does officially support two NTSC, PAL, or DVB-T tuners. No one ever said that two ATSC tuners wouldn't work, though. It's just not officially supported and we never said it would work.


As for the Radeon 8500, yes, I'd recommend very strongly that you consider upgrading to a device that ATI is officially supporting for MCE2005 such as the Radeon 9800 or X800, or nVidia GeForce 6800.

 

[Binnerup]

Quote:

Originally posted by jpk Jay P. Kapur Lead Program Manager Windows Media Center TV Team

Nice - so it's you we have to shout "ffdshow" at once in a while? ;-) Ok - maybe it's most important for DVD play, but what a killer for analogue tv too.


I must say 2005 tuned out very nice!

 

[Ben Jackson]

Quote:

Originally posted by mosquito Anyway, the MCE 205 Guide will recognize when there are 2 ATSC devices and will allow the scheduling of two programs at the same time, much like it will for analog tuners.

I'm a noob when it comes to HDTV input on an HTPC, but does the PCI bus have enough bandwidth to handle the recording of two HD streams at the same time?

 

[Ponziani]

It does easily, as two HDTV streams together would be in the 5-6 MBytes/sec range, versus 132 MBytes/sec maximum on the PCI bus. Isn't MPEG-2 encoding wonderful?

 

[Kei Clark]

I could be wrong, but I suspect that the Fusion and the ATI use the same Conexant chip, hence the driver confusion.

 

[jimwhite]

you beat me to it Kei !!! The "At times, the HDTV Wonder would actually install in XP with the Fusion drivers" was the key clue.....

 

[mosquito]

Quote:

Originally posted by jpk No one ever said that two ATSC tuners wouldn't work, though. It's just not officially supported and we never said it would work.

So you're sayin' there's a chance!


I did have both cards installed correctly at one time, and then I think the 8500 was causing me some trouble, so I wasn't able to tune in a channel. When they were both there, I was able to go to the DTV setup screen and find the signal strength, so it was finding the HDTV Wonder card.

 

[Steely]

Is there an "official" list of ATSC tuners that are certified for MCE 2005? I currently have an aging HiPix and would like to upgrade to something new, but would like for it to be compatible with MCE 2005. Is the FusionHDTV Gold QT card certified?

 

[mosquito]

No Fusion cards are officially certified yet. I believe only the HDTV Wonder and the VBox cards have been certified, although I do not know if the VBox cards are actually available ( http://vbox.to/product3.htm )


BTW, the only difference that I have seen between the HDTV Wonder and the Fusion card is that the HDTV Wonder will show the signal strength in the DTV setup screens. The Fusion card just shows "Unknown". I don' t think this is a big deal since you can use the Fusion signal checker if you are really concerned.

 

[abiharbani]

Mosquito, I have 2 questions:


1. what audio decoder do you use to get Fusion working under MCE?

2. I can't get the official release to tune in HDTV in the Fusion app. I can get it tune in HDTV mode in 2.61.01 though. Did you do a special install? I had the official release running fine in XP SP 1.


By the way, I have F3Q


Thanks,


-- Abi

 

[mosquito]

I'm using the ThaterTek NVDVD codecs. The only thing that I did with codecs was to ensure that the nVidia codec was preferred by MCE using this utility: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en


I believe that you have to kill some MCE processes in order to use the official Fusion App. I think MCE holds a lock on the tuners, even if you are not running the MCE app. I have not looked into that, so I do not know which processes they are.

 

[3rob3]

I kill all the processes that begin with "eh". I have heard that the only one you need to kill is ehreceiver, but I just kill them all, then reboot when I'm done.

 

[abiharbani]

Great thanks! I'll wait till NVDVD4 codecs are available as a one off.


-- Abi

 

[pat1284]

mosquito,

Where did you get HDTV Wonder BDA drivers that work on MCE? The latest ones on ATI's site are installed, but MCE 2005 does not recogzine the board with those ones.

 

[mosquito]

Make sure that you get the MCE2005 Update 1 from Windows Update. Somehow it miraculously changed the drivers from the ATI site to BDA versions. I had install Update 1 before I installed the HDTV Wonder and I still needed to install the ATI drivers from their support site. I'm not sure when the change took place, but it did. When I installed the drivers, everything said WDM. After rebooting, they said BDA. Must be some Microsoft voodoo.


BTW, I don't think Update 1 is a critical update....You have to manually select it. At least I did on Tuesday.

 

[Karyk]

Quote:

Originally posted by jpk MCE2005 officially only supports one ATSC tuner, but does officially support two NTSC, PAL, or DVB-T tuners. No one ever said that two ATSC tuners wouldn't work, though. It's just not officially supported and we never said it would work. .

Jay, as an insider do you have a response to this issue:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...66#post4503066

 

[mosquito]

IT WORKS!!!! I tried to upgrade to a 9600SE tonight and was having many problems. I think I got a bad card from ATI. But anyway, I went back to the 8500 and installed the HDTV WOnder first, hen installed the Fusion Software and driver and then installed the FUsion card. No crossing of drivers this time! I'm recording 2 digital channels and watching Celebrity Poker on the analog one!!


THIS IS AWESOME!! (But I o need to upgrade the video card...I get errors on 1080 channels...)

 

[jawgee]

Anyone try the Sasem HDTV tuner? How about (2) of them in one box? What about a Fusion + a Sasem? I'm assuming that (2) Fusions cannot work within the same box due to driver conflicts. Just curious about the possibilities...


Thanks,

jawgee