December 17, 2004
Quality Tweak
Try this registry tweak to improve the quality of your recodings.
(as always do this at your own risk)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Recording\EncodingQuality
2500000
4500000
6000000
8000000
Posted by RtvManiac at 06:50 PM | Comments (0)
December 05, 2004
Inside the extender
Wonder whats inside your extender?
Well I haven't been able to get any specifics on the linksys or HP extenders, but if they follow the reference design which they likely do.
There are two custom chips
The ATI Xilleon 225 300MHz MIPS CPU, dual-HD (high definition) capable MPEG decoder, audio decoder, dual display engine, , transport demultiplexers, PCI bus, USB, and hard drive interfaces.
Simular to the 220 chip in the Roku HD1000
Analog Devices Blackfin Processor processes high-quality streams of Windows Media® Video and Audio 9 Series content.
Posted by RtvManiac at 10:45 PM | Comments (0)
December 02, 2004
How good is the Extender?
How good is the extender, Well it has a lot more DRM than we would like , and it won't play divx or xvid formats. But it plays mpegs like those copied from a Replaytv or Tivo flawlessly. Even very high bitrates of 9000 mb or more.
Pros:
Live tv streaming is really good, very fluid and vibrant.
Navigation and channel changing is quick and resposive.
Network shares are easily recognized. You
(you do have to have them shared as all however because the extender accesses the host with a limited account, you can get around this however and force it to be an admin account but there is no real need for doing this, make the folder share all and you will be fine)
Mce2005 has an sdk and appears to support Java applets and web services.
Online content, "spotlight" has 3rd party content such as cinemanow, sessions at aol (an obreviated version) , napter and much more.
Cons:
Lots and Lots of Drm and microsoft is likely to embrace any future restictions placed on content by the studio just like Tivo (macrovision enhancements) Keep autoUpdates off and carefully read the notes on any updates offered. You may not want to upgrade to any future versions beyond 2005, be wary of anything that mentions longhorn or the trusted computer initiative.
The UI is annoyingly slow when exploring available media files.
Conclussions: Highly recommended.
Posted by RtvManiac at 08:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Are you upset you had to buy a free upgrade?
Ok , so you brought the oem, and paid bucks for something you should of got free.
How would you like to get screwed twice?? I'm the unlucky owner of both a zd7000 and a hp2215 that was supposed to be upgradable to windows mobile 2003. someone should really sue hp over what they are doing. Here's my email to the "email to carley the ceo" link on their site, (waste, never get a reply) but just for grins read it.
I'd like to commend hp on their new support policy , the policy of first releasing information that a product you purchase is upgradeable and than commng back a couple months later and based on some totally false assesment by your inept QA department that the os upgrade manufacturer (in both cases microsoft) have made fundemental changes to the hardware which would prevent the software from running properly. Nothing like spending money on a "upgradeable product" and finding out it was a dead end.
The two products I am refering to are:
Zd7000us with windows media center 2004, After assesement you say you have concluded that the upgrade would not run on older (4 months is old now I guess) hardware , but you can get it if you buy a brand new zd8000. Funny we have personally installed the software on a zd7000 and have documented cases of many users doing the same. So either your lieing to mazimize sales of new machines, or the quality of the people you hire to do your testing is flawed or both. If you browse the web including our website you will find that microsoft mce 2005 does run fine on a zd7000 notebooks with the delivered tuner, using both the oem or the msdn version of the software.
The other case was the hp2215 handheld, This is really a crime because prior to releasing microsoft windows mobile se hardware it was stated the hp2200 series would be upgradeable, Of course we have no way of proving this one without access to upgrade roms, but other manufactures have managed to upgrade thier similar devices . Also your assesment that the parts of the upgrade weren't applicable to older handhelds is really flawed because you fail to mention many of the se 2 enhancements.
I know of a least a couple people with more means than me who are thinking of class action lawsuits over the notebooks. And when you decide to screw someone please remember that the audience for these handhelds are not children but work for major corporations, software and engineering, fortune 500 and it will be a cold day in hell before we recommend buying any hp hardware. from desktops to servers.
As with my last email on the notebook, I doubt you will reply.
Posted by RtvManiac at 07:36 PM | Comments (1)
November 28, 2004
New wintv-pvr drivers
Hauppage has finally posted mce 2005 drivers for all of the wintvpvr cards including the usb2. You can find them on their site.
If your using the beta drivers you may want to replace them. Not sure if it will make a difference.
Posted by RtvManiac at 04:22 PM | Comments (0)
November 24, 2004
Yea, right sure I believe that...
Its not even April and HP support is already posting an April fools joke, or do they think we owners are stupid.
Posted by RtvManiac at 02:23 PM | Comments (0)
November 22, 2004
linksys Media center extender
We are starting our evaluation of The Linksys WGMCE54AG media center extender, Entries will be posted daily for about a week.
There are many things we like about this unique little device but also many things we don't.
Pros:
• The extender works with a variety of network configurations, wired, wireless G and Wireless A. The advantage to wireless 802.11a routers that are just starting to fall into an attractive price range, is that they operate at around 5 gigahertz, which does not compete with other devices you may have like cordless phones and microwave ovens. Do we have to mention that 802.11b networks are not supported? Another caveat ,double hop networks are not supported, i.e. Configurations were both devices are connecting wirelessly.
• The extender can stream live TV flawlessly; we have never seen an external device do this so seamlessly, changing channels works well however performance can be at times sluggish.
• Scheduling programs for recording via the extender is very intuitive and also works quite well. The only other extender we have seen that can do this is the pinnacle showcenter.
• Microsoft offers specialized content, Music offerings via MSN, Napster and AOL on demand and video rentals via CinemaNow and Movielink..
• DVD can be burned remotely if the arcsoft quickDVD software is installed.
Cons
• As mentioned performance can be sluggish.
• We had problems playing many types of media, windows media supported files play fairly well but files outside the DVD spec have varying degree of success, users have reported problems playing divx files, SVCD mpeg files sometimes have sync problems and some files recorded via Beyond TV 3 play without any audio.
• A single media center pc can connect to more than one extender, but an extender can only connect to a single media center pc. Adding an extender to a Media center pc requires activating via a somewhat annoying installation wizard. A unique code is displayed on the Display device the extender is connected to which must be typed into the wizard. Moving the extender to another pc requires removing it via the media manager from that MCE and adding it to the other via the manager. Dlink’s non MCE media server will find all pc’s running its server software and display a list that can be selected for, this is a much simpler and more intuitive approach.
Much more to come over the coming week, stay tuned.
Posted by RtvManiac at 10:23 PM | Comments (1)
November 03, 2004
Microsoft Media Center 2005 ... The Quest!
Whats new with Windows Media Center 2005?(external link to Microsoft site)
When Microsoft released windows xp media center on October 12th, the quest began and it has been a wild ride since.
Wow… Hp actually has an upgrade for this, Googleling prior to the October 12th release I came across the hp upgrade site for media center 2005. The message on the site stated “please check back after October 12th for details on the Upgrade program”. I bookmarked the page for future reference.
October 12th is here ….Ok, lets go sign up for that upgrade. Read the upgrade details, first turn off.. Please fill in all the information and submit the form, Upgrades will be shipped in 4 to 6 weeks. Kind of stupid if Microsoft and HP were hoping that there installed user base would be the early adopters of media extenders, they would be shipping in time for Christmas. Oh well at least they offered an upgrade. Or did they?
Knee deep in politics …
Ok filled in all the info, even having to type the p/n number in the format requested. Found my Product code, typed in a credit card number and clicked submit. Form rejected with Invalid Serial number, Invalid P/n.
Clicked on frequently asked questions.. Only a limited number of media center machines shipped by hp in the last year were on the eligibility list, and none of the laptop models like our zd7000.
Eligible HP Media Center Computers
854 886c m1160n m376n
864 894c m1170n m377n
884 896c m1171n m380
816n m1000y CTO m1180n m380n
854n m1050e CTO m1195c m385c
856x m1050y CTO m200y CTO m390n
863n m1070n m260n m400y CTO
864n m1072n m270 m470n
873n m1080n m270n m476n
876x m1082n m280n m480n
883n m1090n m300y CTO m490n
884n m1095c m370n m495c
Calling HP customer Support … Whats the weather like in Bombay?
Several calls to hp customer service over the period of a week’s time proved useless.
On more than one occasion after asking for a supervisor I and numerous other people
Were told that the upgrade pertained only to pc’s and that the laptops, event though they were currently being sold and ours was 3 or 4 months old were not eligible.
One “Support” Manager actually told me that just because I was an hp customer did not give me right to the upgrade. He further stated that he was unaware of any planned mce 2005 upgrade to that particular model.
I supposed this was better than the CS person who told me no upgrades were planned for 10 years. … What????
I also sent an email to the HP ceo using the Send an email to Carla link on the hp corporate site. Here’s the only response I received.
Thank you for taking the time to send Hp your comments. We apologize for
The difficulties you are experiencing. Your comments have been forwarded
To the appropriate people within Hewlett-Packard for their information
And/or action. Should more clarification or information be needed, you
May be contacted directly. Your input is important to us and very much
Appreciated.
Sincerely,
HP Executive Communications
Over the next couple days I received replies to the numerous unanswered emails I had sent all of them had the response “The laptops are not eligible for the upgrade”
When in doubt ask Microsoft…Here’s a thread of my post to the Microsoft media center newsgroup
> Hi
> Your OEM does not, cannot or will not provide a upgrade then you have the
> Option of sourcing MCE 2005 from another OEM distributor (just as many
> Self
> Builders do worldwide today).
> So you still have an option of a paid for "upgrade" (New Generic OEM CDs
> Are
> Designed for installation on a clean system).
>
> Can you elaborate on this a bit, How can I get an upgrade from another
> oem,
> they usually want serial number and p/n.
>
> I have seen were people have gone and got a full oem cd, I don't know if
> that's "Politically correct", I know I won't resort to something low like
> piracy, as one very "crude" responder to this thread suggested he was
> going
> to do Two wrongs do not make a right.
>
> I've been wondering though, from what I've been reading, if I had an oem
> Install would it upgrade the existing windows xp sp2 / mce2004
> installation
> on my system.
> Driver issues aside. I'm sure I can handle those.
> If you'd rather take this off line you can send an email to
> webmaster@distributed-home.com. Personally I don't know why hp is giving
> its
> customers such a hard time, I know its a losing battle because I gave up
> on
> getting the windows mobile update for may 1 year old pocket pc.
>
There are large number of suppliers out there that will sell you an OEM copy
of one of our operating system with a piece of hardware required for the
operation of a PC (often a $2 power lead). These are generic OEM CDs with a
product key.
The use of these generic OEMs CDs is not piracy as long as it is genuine CD
and key. The only issue is that the seller is then your OEM and responsible
for support of the operating system.
Usually a generic OEM CD is only usable for a clean install, and yes usually
drivers are available for al your Media Center PCs constituent parts form
various locations.
I would give HP a few more days and then try again - they have been just
getting ready for this and have been making some changes etc to there web
site etc so there are bound to be teething problems. Try them again in a few
days.
--
Regards,
Ok, Ebay it is …………….
Found several copies of the OEM version of MCE 2005 for auction or BUY IT NOW, each came with a required piece of hardware to keep the transaction legal . Cool…
Why buy one when you can get two. For just under two hundred dollars we got 2 “OEM” copies and one set of the new remote control and ir blaster to upgrade our older mce desktop pc.
Is that a priority mail package in the mail… The fun begins.
Upgrading the ZD7000 notebook
I supposed we could just do a clean install on the notebook, But mce 2005 leaves some features of windows xp pro out in order to save cost. The ability of a user to sign into a corporate domain.
Here’s the upgrade steps followed:
• Boot the notebook to the current mce 2004 install
• Insert the oem install cd
• Choice upgrade path
• When prompted enter your windows mce 2004 product code
At this point the installation will start installing the upgrade to windows xp with service path 2.
When the install completes it will prompt you to insert the second cd , this is the mce 2005 application. The second cd does not have an installer just the mce cab files, the installation cd triggers the install process from the second cd.
Windows MCE 2005 is now installed on the notebook.
Going into windows mce we find that neither MyTv or the DVDPlayer will function. Reinstalling Windvd6 , which is the decoder we use correctly the DVD problem but MyTV does not recognize the HP external tuner. This is expected since it is not on the supported list.
The HP usb device is an oem version of the Emuzld Bali PVR, the Emuzld website says that the device is compatible with mce 2005, so presumably they will release drivers.
We than tried the wintv pvr usb2 external tuner which is on the Microsoft supported hardware list using drivers for the unofficial hauppage forum www.shspvr.com site. The tuner is recognized but whatever we try we get a blank MyTV window with audio from the TV. The screen also behaves very eractic, constantly refreshing and forceing us to cancel it via the task manager.
Ah Mr Holmes … The hunt begins.
To date we have not been able to find a set of drivers that work, Hauppauge has put out a press release that they will be release a new version of the usb2 tuner, The pictures show a white version of the current black device and the name wintv-pvr-usb2-mce. No indication of when it will be available or how if it differs from the original tuner other than in color and drivers.
Upgrading the Desktop
The Desktop machine is our main development machine, its has Microsoft visual studio on it and many video manipulation applications. It also has two other pvr applications, snapstrem beyondtv and sagetv. It has a harware pvr card the hauppage pvr250. Given how sensitive mce is to hardware this machine is not a good candidate for an upgrade.
We decided to create a separate dual boot partition for the mce 2005 install. This is possible because we will have installed two separate and legal versions of windows with Separate product id’s. ie. The original one currently residing on the machine and the new swrinkwrapped mce 2005.
As always when setting up the dual boot partition we stated by using partition magic 8.0 to repartition the drive without affecting the data stored on it.
After the partitioning we started the mce 2005 install. Being a clean install it installed without any problems a version of windows xp pro and than prompted for the mce 2005 application cd.
Again it was necessary to reinstall windvd, for drivers we first installed the drivers from the hauppage site and than the mce drivers from the shspvr site. It is very important to install the pvr250 drivers in this order and do not install the wintv2000 application or the hauppage dvddecoder.
The tuner worked correctly on launch and the remote control and ir blaster responded as expected.
Posted by RtvManiac at 05:19 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 23, 2004
New Update TV tuner now working
Well it took some work but we finally got external tv tuners to work on our in-house zd7000 notebook.
With the right drivers (not yet released) the hpusb tuner works as well as it did in mce 2004. And using drivers from www.shspvr.com the wintv-pvr-usb2 works also.
Here are the steps we took to get the tuner to work.
1) Reformat the drive and install MCE 2005 from the oem cd, you can use either your original product code or the new oem code. As long as you keep in mind that you can activate (1) copy of windows xp on a single computer only. You might try the upgrade path first but this did not work for us.
2) Puchase the Nvideo DVD decoderhttp://www.nvidia.com/page/home This seems to be the only decoder that will work reliably.
3) install the tuner Drivers, for Hauppage people have reported success using driver version mce_usb2_2.52.1.21329 available from the shspvr site.
4) Make sure the nvida decoder is set as the primary decoder, you download the microsoft windows xp video decoder test utility which will let you set your primary decoder.
5) Before starting mce setup be sure to connect to windows update and install the media center rollup update 1.
Be sure to launch windows media player and run through the setup wizard
Your tuner should work now.
Addition Information for the ZD7000 series notebooks
When installing mce2005
1) reformat your hard-drive and use the 2 mce2005 cd's not the original hp cd's.
2) after mce2005 installs, the system will reboot, the oem cd's do not include the video and 802.11g drivers for the notebook. So you may not be able to connect wirelessly. Insert the Driver Restore disk and install all the the hp specific drivers. When the notebook reboots you can reconfigure networking and display and activate your copy of windows.
3) run the windows update
4) Continue following the steps above.
Posted by RtvManiac at 11:57 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack