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Virgin Media with Windows Media Centre
spacepostman
Posts: 774 Forum Member
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Surprised there's not a topic on this with the increacing popularity of Media Centre PC's.
There are currently a number of issues when using the Virgin Media TV service through Windows Media Centre. Hopefully people will know of ways to fix them and put pressure on Virgin to better support it - ntl had plans to but not much has been mentioned since. I've heard a rumour the next generation of Sky boxes will be 'Sky Media Centres'/Hubs' that use a version of windows media centre.
Known problems:
- TV Guide Updates - often but missing lots of channels! Still no Movies24 or VCentral. Problems manually adding channels too. Who is responsible for the guide?
- VOD - the DRM (Digital Rights Management) software seems to virtually kill any attempt to use Video On Demand, not only pay-per-view. Although some people have had limited success, media centre contains no functionality to control VOD itself - very frustrating!
- Virgin Central, still appears as Sky One/Sky Two. Red button does nothing.
Getting tired now!
There are currently a number of issues when using the Virgin Media TV service through Windows Media Centre. Hopefully people will know of ways to fix them and put pressure on Virgin to better support it - ntl had plans to but not much has been mentioned since. I've heard a rumour the next generation of Sky boxes will be 'Sky Media Centres'/Hubs' that use a version of windows media centre.
Known problems:
- TV Guide Updates - often but missing lots of channels! Still no Movies24 or VCentral. Problems manually adding channels too. Who is responsible for the guide?
- VOD - the DRM (Digital Rights Management) software seems to virtually kill any attempt to use Video On Demand, not only pay-per-view. Although some people have had limited success, media centre contains no functionality to control VOD itself - very frustrating!
- Virgin Central, still appears as Sky One/Sky Two. Red button does nothing.
Getting tired now!
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Comments
The problem doesn't lie with my personal set up, it's just a combination of poor support from Virgin for Windows MCE and bad software within MCE itself, as well as a poor listings guide (the one on the STB is better).
ar you using MCE/XP or MCE/Vista? Because microsoft have been quite intently focusing on the teething problems they've been having with the Vista MC currently
Those babies still actually work? to what degree?
*digs out his old box*
It's going to be used with a Vista Media Centre computer. Whats the best setup then?
get yourself the netgear hub.
Got a link? I'm looking at a slingbox personally.
There are a few pitfalls, like not being able to access VoD or the as was then the Telewest menus. But not a huge problem.
The EPG in media centre IMHO is excellent, it can provide upto 3 weeks worth of channel listings, which is cool if like me you are going on holiday more than 7 days before it appears on the V+ EPG. Downside it does not have all channels listed!! So as an well you attempt to watch something on a channel not listed you have to manually add it, and then of course there is no programme information
You will most likely also need a Red Eye cable remote translater as the STB's use an unusual infra-red signal protocol, based on the IRDA standard. Basically the Red Eye goes on the front of your STB infront of its IR receiver. and the Media Centre IR Blaster goes on top of the Red Eye, it works quite well you just need to select the correct STB when configuring Media Centre, but the instruction you get with the Red Eye are pretty cool, and there is more info on their website... they cost about £35.25.
Also bery importantly you need a TV tuner for your PC, now you can use on with a RF input, but as the newer STB dont have this your might want to look for one with component input or S-Video... hopefully in the future there will be ones with HDMI but we'll have to wait and see... Many different makes and models and I will not comment on these as I have only used the
Hauppauge WinTV HVR1300 Analog & Digital. To be honest it not a bad card, probably better ones around now, but I did have problems with this card after a change of config on the PC that did not allow me to record programme in widescreen... but that is probably user error and also due to the fact I had just switched from an old CRT based TV to an LCD panel
The series link feature on Media Centre IMHO wipes the floor with the current V+ offering... I'll elaborate on this before someone says otherwise..
I have *cough* Holby City *cough* on series link (i'm sad I know but I like it) but this week it was not shown due to the football and Match of the day was on instead... but V+ still recorded it even thou the EPG said it was Match of the Day, Media Centre would not do this... Also say you are a programme on series link, but need to record something on another channel (and something else at the same time for the V+ box anyway) The issue you have is a conflict, you have to not record one of the shows, but then you remember the show you normally record is on the +1 channel... But the series link on V+ is not very clever it will just record on the channel selected. With Media Centre you can tell it to look on other channel to record new (and/or old) episode of the show.
Don't get me wrong Media Centre has it's problem, but the fact that the recorded programmes can be streamed to an Xbox 360 or other media centre extender is pretty cool... or even played on another computer in the house has to make life easier. And you physically have access to the recorded files to do as you please (archive off or burn as DVD to play on your DVD player...).. Ok so you can backup stuff on the V+ but...... if a show is 1 hour long it will take 1 hour to backup... Media Centre would be the time it takes to transcode and burn to disk... depending on the computer it could be as little as 20 - 30 mins... now thats a time saving.
If you are going to go the media centre route I would suggest you get at least 1 large hard disk drive (at least 300GB) as an average 1hr show on best quality is about 1GB. Also dont forget to buy a scart adaptor for your STB, the componet cables or Stereo audio cables and s-video cable, and then depending on how you intend to output to your TV you'll need more cables (old CRT TV you might need another scart adaptor and more component cables/s-video and audio, or new LCD TV either a VGA or DVI cable and audio cable).
The Green Button is a good website to look for ideas and advise and they have also published a book...
And there are plenty of blogs around media centre
Good luck and if you do go down this route keep us up to speed.
www.mythtv.org
I like the way you can have a backend server that deals with recordings et al, and lots of thin clients to connect to it.
Why? connecting my Virgin Samsung Box to my Media Centre PC is nothing to do with the internet/home network
I kind of assumed you wanted to stream wirelessly
Oh okay. No I dont, i dont think.... what would that let me do then?
you can get mediacentre hubs that'll let you pretty much network your home.
This is mainly because MCE is designed to be you control centre of TV and thats it.... the IR Blast is just set to change channel, if some how you could get an expensive remote and programme it with all the MCE stuff and the STB commands you'd be fine... but I dont know of a remote that can do it... but one of these Logitech remotes might do the trick.