MCE 2005 = junk?, also HDTV tuner cards (need general HTPC help)

I have been using MCE 2005 with the ATI HDTV Wonder card primarily as a HDTV DVR and it has been working great. I am not using FFDShow, but the video quality is excellent with the NVIDIA Decoder.


MDP-130 seems to be a good card, but if you are looking for a full fledged DVR (that can automatically schedule programs, shows an integrated TV guide etc. basically what TiVo does) then you are out of luck. MDP-130 is NOT supported by MCE 2005 or any other major software PVR applications. The MyHD software (that supports the MDP-130) supports only basic time shifting which is far from what a true DVR does. MIT has no plans for supporting a full fledged DVR for MyHD as has been mentioned in the MDP-130 thread.


On the other hand, the ATI HDTV Wonder card works excellently under MCE 2005. The earlier ATI drivers did have problems that caused some people heartache in getting the ATI HD Wonder working correctly under MCE 2005, but with the latest drivers (since Nov 2004), the installation of ATI HD Wonder under MCE 2005 is a snap. The video quality is excellent and the integration with MCE 2005 works perfectly.


If you are looking for an HDTV DVR, the MCE + ATI HD Wonder is currently your best choice.


I wish the MDP-130 was supported by the mainstream PVR apps (like SageTV, BeyondTV etc.) but I have heard nothing hat indicates any of them are planning for the support.


If you have more specific questions about MCE or ATI HDTV Wonder, I will be happy to answer them.

Thanks psxjunky (and mosquito) for clearing that up (BTW, the WAF is an issue)! I do have a lot more questions. First though, what would I be missing out on by getting the ATI HDTV Wonder instead of the MDP-130 (QAM?)? It looks like they both have dual tuners, and I assume the output goes through the VGA or DVI out on my video card (to my TV)?


Will the ATI HDTV Wonder work w/o MCE ok? If so, what should I use as my guide? Oh, and does the remote work okay w/o MCE?


I'm also trying to make sense of what I can and can't record. Am I correct in thinking that I can't record:

HDTV from HBO and other premiums (from Comcast [or DirecTV])?

Any digital signals from cable?


I can record:

*everything* that's OTA, correct? Will that ever change?

all analog cable channels?

some digital cable channels?


With MCE, I guess part of what I don't understand is whether it's an application that runs on top of the OS, or if it's really integrated into the OS (so you can't exit out of it and run ZoomPlayer w/ FFDShow or TheaterTek)? That's something I'd really like to get cleared up! Thanks again for your help,

--Kyle

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You are quite welcome

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MDP-130 supports recording unencrypted QAM from your cable. MDP-130 also supports a hardware based decoder.


Only with ATI you get support from a fully functional PVR application (MCE).


So you have to see which one is more important to you. In my mind the ability to record QAM is the only real advantage of the MDP-130, because the hardware based decoder is a moot point if your computer has decent horsepower and if your video card is decent enough (ATI 9200 or above)


To me having full PVR support (and not just basic timeshinting) is so much more important that I am willing to give up QAM for this. Also, with QAM you mostly only get re-broadcast of the OTA channels anyway. Premium channels (like HBO) will never be "in the clear" on cable HD, so neither solution will allow you to record it today.


MCE 2006 is supposed to support cable card, so you will need that in order to be able to record premium HD content from your cable provider.


Other than that ATI and MDP-130 are basically the same. Both use the same high quality OTA tuner. Both use the same software based analog recording (bad).


Last but not the least, with ATI, hooking up your display (TV or monitor) is slightly easier since your video card is the only one outputting video. With MDP-130 you need to use a loopback cable from the video card into the MDP and then from there you have to hookup the display ... probably slightly more complicated as I see people asking question about this all the time.

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Not *just* "ok", the ATI HDTV Wonder works fantastically well with MCE 2005 If you don't care about using the ATI MMC application (which is what I'd recommend), the installation takes all of 15 minutes.


I am not sure what you mean by guide - the TV guide or the installation guide ?


TV guide is built into MCE. MCE gets its TV guide from Zap2it.com, which is the same company that provides TV guide service for all leading PVRs e.g. TiVo, DirecTV, ReplayTV, SageTV, MCE etc. You get 14 days of guide listings (both analog and digital channels combined into the same guide) and can schedule recordings in all sorts of way (timed repeated, keyword based, favorites based etc.). MCE also provides a very good conflict resolution system. If you are familiar with TiVo or ReplayTV or the like, MCE can do everything those boxes do and more.


If, on the other hand, you were asking about installation guide, here is what you do --


1. Install MCE

2. Install the HDTV Rollup update from Microsoft

3. Install the HDTV Wonder driver from ATI

4. Shutdown the machine and install the ATI card

5. Reboot, the card gets detected and set up automatically

6. Launch MCE and setup digital TV channels that you want.


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Correct. You can't record ANY premium HDTV content from the cable. The only cable HD content that you can record with MDP-130 is the ones that are "in the clear" ... which, in most cases, are just the re-boradcast of the OTA channels.

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Yes. You will be able to record everything OTA with either cards. As long as you buy the card before July 01, 2005, the hardware will ignore the boradcast flag.

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Am I glad that you asked this question (I just tried to explain this in detail in another post).


The operating system Windows MCE 2005 is exactly same as Windows XP Pro (except the domain join feature). So you can do EVERYTHING with MCE that you can do with Windows XP Pro (except join domains).


The "MediaCenter" application (the correct name for which is eHome Shell) is *just another application* that runs on top of the OS. If you never launch the application, you will never know the difference between MCE and Windows XP Pro. Think of the Mediacenter application just as ZoomPlayer or TheaterTek ... both of which you can launch and quit.


So you can use ZoomPlayer, TheaterTek and any other application that you want in your MCE machine. in fact, if you think of the Mediacenter application as the front end, you can even launch ZoomPlayer or TheaterTek *from within* Mediacenter (using the "More Programs" feature), so they look perfectly integrated.


Hope these answers your questions.

HDTV Wonder can't record HD off of cable. QAM-capable HD cards are of limited value, at best, since very few HD or SD digital cable channels are unencrypted and indeed in most places none are. Providing your signal is good, OTA HD beats cable and sat HD for PQ anyways. The downside to HDTV Wonder, is the fact that in MCE, you can't use the analog tuner. You must have a separate analog tuner (NVTV, WinTV, etc.) which has hardware decoding. Thye heart of the matter is that ATI put a different kind of analog tuner than that found elsewhere. HDTV Wonder has its own remote which does not work inside MCE (you would use the MCE remote then).

One of the nice things about MCE is the fact that it has built-in guide functions for both analog and HD.


As with all tuner cards, video output is through the video card.


Lastly, MCE is a shell application that runs over XP. You can exit out of it. In fact, you don't have to start it at all. It is an option to have it start automatically after bootup. Sure, it doesn't work with ffdshow, but the hardware (as well as playing software and decoders) are narrowing the gap significantly with post-processing software.


Hope this helps!


Cheers,

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The above is not quite true. It's true that MCE and ATI don't support using the analog tuner in the HDTV Wonder with MCE, but it can be made to work with a complex install sequence published elsewhere in this forum ( http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...64#post4971164 ).


There are also tricks to making it the only tuner, and the above may be sufficient, or you may need a different sequence.


My understanding is that the reason the analog tuner isn't supported is that it doesn't have hardware MPEG2 encoding (it needs to be done in software). So, CPU load goes up some when the analog tuner is in use. Also, MCE doesn't know that only one tuner can be used in the HDTV Wonder at a time, so in some situations, it could attempt to use both and one will end up blank).


Finally, the HDTV Wonder's remote (Remote Wonder) does work with MCE, though not all functions are on the remote. To get more keys working, there's an MCE driver for it. The advantage of this remote is it lets you move the pointer using the remote.


John

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My impression was that you need to install a hardware-based NTSC card before you install the HDTV Wonder. Or is that only in XP and not MCE?

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It all depends on what your definition of a true PVR is. If you consider a VCR with timed programming feature to be a PVR, then sure, TitanTV supported hardware can be considered a PVR On the other hand, if you are used to real PVRs like TiVo, ReplayTV etc and expect the same kind of capabilities from TitanTV, you are in for some big disappointment.


TitanTV website is not what I consider a truly integrated EPG. Yes, you can schedule timed recordings thru the TitanTV website, but it is just a shortcut method of creating a time based recording (as in saying start recording on 02/19/2005 at 5:00pm and stop recording at 5:30pm).


With a truly integrated EPG based PVR (like TiVo, SageTV, MCE, BeyondTV etc.) you get a much better way to schedule and manage recordings. For example, you can say record every episode of "The Simpsons" regardless of when they are aired - EXCEPT for those episodes which I have already watched.


Also, you have control over whether to record first runs as well as re-runs, or only first runs. You get a MUCH better conflict management system, and can prioritize your favorites (so if you have only two tuners and 3 things are scheduled to record at the same time, you get a choice to select which two to record -OR- based on the priority you have set, your two most favorite shows get recorded.


If for some reason a shows gets rescheduled or the time changes, your recording schedule is automatically adjusted. You don't get that with simple timed recordings.


You can also do things like keyword based recording schedule - e.g. if "Gone With the Wind" is not in the guide right now, but you want to record it the next time it airs, you can go ahead and schedule a keyword based recordings so that next time the movie airs, it will automatically record for you.


I don't believe any of these is possible with the TitanTV integration. With TitanTV, I believe, you have to maintain your recording list pretty much on a daily basis - i.e. you have to bring up the guide every day and schedule what you want to be recorded for the next day or so. With a truly integrated EPG, you basically set it once and forget about it and it will keep on managing all your recordings for you.


It has been a long time since I used TitanTV, so if things have changed since then, someone please update anything I mentioned above.


I think it all boils down to how much you want the PVR box to do for you. If all you need is an occasional recording scheduling or two, then the timed recording solution provided by TitanTV will work just fine for you. On the other hand if you are totally dependent on a PVR (like some of us are) and don't want to miss a single episode of your favorite show, then the TitanTV is definitely not going to be adequate (unless you have time to maintain it every day ... but then again, if you have the time, why do you need the PVR in the first place )


Just to be clear, I am not trying to say that MDP-120/130 is not a good piece of hardware; on the contrary, from everything I hear it seems to be an excellent hardware solution. It is just the lack of support from any true PVR application that disappoints me. Also the developers of MyHD have no interest in developing a full fledged PVR application (or get the MyHD cards supported

under one of the existing PVR apps like MCE, SageTV, BeyondTV etc.) ... so that doesn't shine any rays of hope either

Hey psxjunky,

I just wanted to say thanks again for all the detailed info. It's been very helpful. Sounds like the HDTV Wonder is what I should use - only problem is I'd like to be able to record analog cable too - I assume that's not possible with the HDTV Wonder (but would be with the QAM compatible MDP-130)?


I thought I'd try the method to use the HDTV Wonder as both analog and digital tuners, but I'm bummed by the idea that I may miss a program if MCE tries to record an analog and digital program at the same time (which from what I understand can't be done). Can you recommend a good, inexpensive analog tuner card that could be used in addition to the HDTV Wonder and would work well in MCE?


Also, are you using the Remote Wonder? With the Win XP driver on ATI's site? How well does it work in MCE?


BTW, I just started setting all this up (I got an HDTV Wonder for just $149 at CompUSA this week). I plan to use the NVIDIA DVD Decoder (and I don't use NVDVD, correct?), but I don't understand how to do the scaling (resize to 1440x960 or 1920x1080) for playback on my HDTV. It's a Mits 55859 which accepts RGBHV in (from my VGA to RGBHV breakout cable). I can setup the custom resolutions in PowerStrip, but what do I need to do with MCE and the DVD Decoder? Maybe I'll figure this out on my own, but thought I'd ask for some guidance... Take care,

--Kyle

Kyle - you are very welcome.


You CAN use the analog portion of the HDTV Wonder to record analog cable (using some of the methods mentioned above), but since the HDTV Wonder uses software based encoding, the recording quality will not be very good.


You probably already know this, but MCE 2005 supports up to TWO hardware based tuner cards along with ONE HD card to support upto THREE concurrent recordings.


If you want to regularly record analog cable, your best option would be to get a Hauppauge WinTV PVR card. The Hauppauge 150MCE works very well with MCE 2005 and is available for just around $60 with FREE shipping at Amazon.


You can probably find another analog tuner for a little less (like the AVerMedia M150 or ATI e-Home Wonder) but the Hauppauge cards by far has the best support and reputation.


With a hardware based analog tuner you will free up the HDTV Wonder to record all your digital TV while you can continue to view/record analog cable.


For the remote, I use the Philips MCE Remote. As somone mentioned above, you can use the ATI Remote Wonder with MCE with the right plugins, but I preferred to use the MCE remote since it is so well designed for the MCE interface.


For the decoder you are right, just use the basic version of the NVIDIA Decoder and you will be all set. As long as you are using an external receiver for your audio decoding, you don't need to get the higher versions of the NVIDIA Decoder.


For your video resolution questions, you need to let us know which video card you are planning on using. The latest NVIDIA drivers already support the HDTV resolutions out of the box, so with a supported card, you don't need to play any magic tricks to get this working


Good luck !