Looks like there’s two fixes for you! The first fix involves a wipe and install of Windows 7 to test the new Media Center capabilities (recommended if you have a blog not unlike me, and you plan on writing about it).

The second fix involves downloading a new patch from Microsoft that resolves the problem for you. The problem of the unavailable program guide, that is.

~Jaker

Yes, this Media Center concept just won’t die! It’s an endless pursuit of perfection, and I may be one step closer.

For Christmas I received an HDHomerun tuner. This thing is pretty sweet. It’s a network-based tuner, so you just plug it into your cable/antenna, then plug it into your network. Then any machine on your network can see it and utilize it as a tuner. Even Media Center treats it as a real tuner! I did some playing around with different setups and currently have the HDHomerun broadcasting ClearQAM stations (which, albeit, is not very many). Still, the concept of having it as a network tuner is awesome.

This tuner brought my attention back to my Media Center. Why, oh why can’t I have HD cable on it? Why am I trapped in STB-World, limited by substandard hardware leased to me by Time Warner Cable? Why must CableLabs be so stingy and only allow OEM/certified machines use of a CableCARD tuner?

These were difficult questions, and required research. Again. I thought perhaps someone else had figured out a way around these things. Or perhaps someone had an alternative method of getting legal HD cable on a Media Center. My research came back empty. It was still the same as it always was: you needed a certified machine, which required a “special” BIOS with specific ACPI tables with vendor-specific information, and a “special” version of Windows Vista, which I learned was just a COA with two product keys–one for Vista and one for the CableLabs activation.

Wait..COA? When I did my initial research last summer, no one said anything about a COA. I never looked there previously.

When I learned of the COA number, I turned off my XPS 420 desktop and checked the COA sticker on the back, positive that this was just another dead end and that I should give up.

That’s when I saw it.

On the far right corner of my COA, there was another 25-digit number. I couldn’t believe it. I had a CableLabs certified PC!

Almost immediately after this discovery, I did some research online, and found the fabled ATi TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner on eBay and bid on it. I then proceeded to do two reinstalls–my XPS became my Media Center (Vista Home Premium x86), and my old Media Center became my desktop (Vista Ultimate x64).

After installing the MCE TV Pack 2008 and any related patches, my Media Center was ready to rock. It now sits connected to my TV, anxiously awaiting for it’s tuner.

This could be my moment to be released from the cable box!

Ironically enough, my cable box died over the weekend, so I had to take the wonderful piece of equipment into the TWC store at Mayfair Mall. The line was non-existent, which made me happy. I walked up to the counter and told them what was wrong, and they gave me a new tuner. Before I left, I told the person behind the desk of my plans to switch to a CableCARD tuner hooked up to my Media Center. I was both shocked and amazed by her response:

Amazed because she seemed to understand what a Media Center was. Either she owned one, or these things are actually starting to take off.

Shocked because TWC is obviously in the nickel-and-dime business. I was told the cost of this endeavor. To get a CableCARD, it requires a truck roll, since they need to activate it. Essentially, for a TWC tech to come out to my apartment, insert a CableCARD in a slot, make a phone call, then walk away, it’ll cost me “around $40.” What was even better was the rental cost of a CableCARD, which comes out to approximately $5/month. Yes, that’s half of the cost of my current rental fee for my cable box, but I figured it’d be a tad better (I read that Comcrap–I mean–Comcast offered these things for $1-2/month).

Alas, this is bad news, but I’m not bothered by it much as I’m still rolling with a machine that’s capable of being a cable-ready Media Center. I’ve got a possible alternative anyway..

The cable box I have now already has a CableCARD. I haven’t read into any of this yet, but I might be able to just remove the CableCARD from my existing cable box and put it in my digital cable tuner. If all goes to plan, I’ll save $40 and have a spare cable box to use as an over-glorified coaster. If all doesn’t go to plan, then I got a chance to test it.

For now, it’s the waiting game. I should have the ATi tuner this week or early next week. And trust me–I’ll be testing this as soon as I receive that unit.

~Jaker

I’d really like to know what’s going through Microsoft’s head right now. Let’s examine the life of a unique product that Microsoft released:

Stage 1: Release the product to limited OEM’s, and have high system requirements.

Stage 2: Release an upgrade to the product, but keep it to OEM’s. Overhaul the user interface and lower system requirements. Release updates to improve stability, and begin the process of creating an avid user base.

Stage 3: Release an update to the product, but incorporate it with a mainstream product. Overhaul the user interface, include new features, all while keeping your avid user base happy.

Stage 4: Release a highly-anticipated update, but keep it to OEM’s. Include support for several new features, but keep some very important features out of the picture.

You’ve probably already picked up that I’m talking about Microsoft’s Media Center technology. It started out as a very limited-exposure product, became more popular with MCE2005, and received mainstream attention in Vista.

Since Vista was released, Microsoft has been hinting at a secret project that was codenamed “Fiji.” At first it was thought that Fiji was a kernel update that focused on Media Center. As time went on, things got really quiet and Microsoft didn’t say much about it. Then within the past month Microsoft released a statement about Fiji, saying that it supports new standards (ClearQAM for us, and some DVB stuff for Europe).

It was hoped that Fiji would be the ticket for DirecTV’s HDPC-20 tuner, but thus is not the case either. Nor is there any h.264 support.

At least there’s support for new standards. And the ability to use analog and digital tuners. But there’s a catch. Unless you’re a tester or you’ve purchased a new machine from a vendor, you’re not going to get this update. It’s OEM only.

Allow me to rant on this for a moment..

Way back in the day when I first started testing Media Center, my grand vision was having a home theatre PC that controlled all of my media. I didn’t want a lot of boxes, and eventually I wanted to get a case that looked like it was a part of a home theater setup. It was a grand vision, and still is–just partially realized (I’m still missing the case).

There’s a lot of people out there who live and die by Media Center, but don’t rely on a OEM to get them there. They’re like me: building a machine how I want it, plug it into a TV, and stand in amazement at how cool the media center concept is.

When I’ve dedicated a high-performance PC to power my Media Center, it’s an insult when a major update is released that completely writes you off. When something goes mainstream, I don’t think major updates should go through the OEM channel. If anything, they should release it for general use, but not through Windows Update. They’d keep the general population happy because their “you need your OEM to hold your hand through this” updates would not go mainstream, and they’d keep us enthusiasts happy because we have access to updates that we can install if we so choose. 

Nevertheless, I’ll end my ranting. Despite the fact that this update is OEM only, you can still get the update through “other” channels. And that’s what this post is about.

I acquired KB953272, and despite Microsoft saying it only works on a fresh install, I was able to install it on my machine just fine. My TV settings were wiped, but it only took a couple seconds to get everything back together.

Having the “Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008″ installed for a short time, I’ve noticed the following differences:

- Native ATSC support. My ATSC channel lineup looks correct now (10.1, 10.2, etc. instead of the oddball 10xxx channels).

- Better UI usage. When I re-ran the TV signal setup and told VMC to use 1080p, it changed the colors a tad and spread out where things were laid out on the screen. It feels much nicer, where previously it felt like the middle of the screen was a little crowded (or like VMC knew you were on a widescreen, but it still kept things within a 4:3 setup).

- Better Guide. In the old guide, VMC would only get the main channels (10, 18, 24). Any subchannels were ignored, and the media guide displayed no data. Now all channels are detected and the entire channel guide is listed. Very cool!

- UI Quirks. Not sure if it’s because of the update itself, or because of my “unsupported upgrade path,” but the UI is a little jumpy sometimes. If I’m watching live TV with a caption showing the current program, pressing the up/down buttons will bring up another dialog under the previous dialog with the channel changer. I have to wait for that previous dialog to disappear.

- Speed. Many parts of VMC feel faster, while other parts feel a bit sluggish (mostly when accessing the network to playback files. The playback is fine, but navigation seems a tad slow).

- dvr-ms is dead. Long live wtv! Unfortunately, nothing but Media Center plays it..

Now begins stability testing. Let’s see how well this upgrade works in the long run..

~Jaker

Of any personal software or hardware project I have ever taken on, Project Mythbox has undoubtedly been the most successful. Since that day, the Mythbox has undergone several iterations:

Version 1: Original Configuration, as seen in the original post.

Version 2: Original Configuration, except with a Hauppauge MCE-500 Dual tuner (MCE05)

Version 3: AMD Athlon64 3000+, 2GB RAM, 256MB 6800 Ultra, Hauppauge MCE-500 Dual tuner (changed around 03/07) (MCE05, and Vista Media Center x32/x64)

Version 4: Intel E6550 Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 320MB 8800 GTS (changed 02/08) (Vista Media Center x64)

It was version 4 that I switched from S-Video (which was converted to Composite anyway) to Component and noticed a great difference in video quality. The unfortunate thing was text seemed to be blurred a little bit, but the color quality was much greater.

At any rate, I’ve got a powerful Media Center rig that, at this point, doesn’t have any way to really display it’s power. There’s antenna TV hooked up (but few channels come in clear at all), a DVD player, and then the music/applications. It does a great job of playing music, but I’d like it to do a bit more.

To give this Media Center some video options, I could do the following:

• Get cable, but not use the set top box so the Media Center does channel changing. A good idea, but I can write off digital cable and HDTV, as it just won’t happen (CableCARD’s specifications are outrageous, and absolutely nix any homebrew projects like this).
• Get cable, and use the set top box and the Media Center together. Less equipment is better. I’ve done that with satellite, I’d rather not do it again. There’s also that HDTV problem–it’s not going to happen. I don’t want to lose picture quality.
• Get satellite, and use their set top box with the Media center. Again, less equipment is better. There’s always the chance that something will go weird (and it usually did. A personal favorite of mine was if you navigated to a channel that you didn’t subscribe to, you couldn’t change away from it unless you had the satellite remote). The same for HDTV here as well–you can’t get HDTV to a computer then to a TV. It’s encrypted and protected to way too many levels, and it’s not worth the trouble (or the chance of it downscaling a resolution).
• Ask cable and both satellite companies if they’re ever going to do anything about this. Ah, here’s progress! After calling Time Warner Cable, I was told that the only way I’ll get CableCARD functionality is if it’s built into my TV. There is a CableCARD reader for Vista Media Center PC’s (ATI’s OCUR), but the rules and licensing behind it basically prohibit any way I’ll ever be able to use it. Cable is out.
  Next was checking with satellite. Previous knowledge suggested that I check DirecTV, as they seemed to have something more concrete. Dish Network said they were testing a HTPC (Home Theatre PC) card, but it was still in testing. With DirecTV, all I could find was the same thing–still in testing, unreleased, and unknown. Until I found a forum post where people were voting on the next satellite technology they wanted. Once of the options was a “htpc20.” One image search later and I found paydirt! The DirecTV HTPC20 Dual-tuner. It’s still unreleased, but if they’ve got advertising and a product name attached to it (and calling sales confirms that the product exists), that’s a very good sign. While it’s still an extra box outside of the media center, it let’s the media center do all of the controlling. The only way DirecTV can drop the ball on this one is say something like “we’ll only support OEM products.”

So, my research was somewhat successful. I found the product that I’ll likely go with. Now I just have to wait for them to release it. Once that’s done, I think I’ll be able to close the Mythbox Project until the next big thing in A/V happens.

~Jaker

[Update 03/30/08: Microsoft has issued closed beta invites to selected lucky bastards in the Media Center beta group (sadly, I'm part of the group but didn't get an invite). Looks like they're testing out the next release of Media Center, dubbed "Fuji." There's even a disclaimer on the page for a hardware agreement with DirecTV. This is good progress, but that sadly leaves the greater public out. I'm betting we won't see anything until September at the very earliest.]

[Pathetic Plea to the Media Center Team: If you read this, I know my survey initially said I didn't have an HDTV or DirecTV. As an avid fan of MCE, I'd love to get in on this. I'm already waiting for the device so I can subscribe to DirecTV, and a gracious invite to the beta would only make that happen sooner. Search your hearts--you know this geek would be ecstatic. You can find me at jakertberry-at-hotmail-dot-com.]