# My journey back to TiVo? - Windows Media Center is dying



## g808 (Sep 14, 2006)

The hard drive in my Windows Media Center PC is dying, so instead of replacing, re-installing, etc. I've decided to give TiVo another go. I activated service on my old Series3 and am excited to get behind the wheel.

What brought be back was the TiVo Premiere Elite and introduction of the upcoming extenders (Preview). Finally a 4 tuner DVR box with 2TB of storage! I could never go back to less than 4 tuners. The extenders are a must, so really hoping the pricing is reasonable and that they actually work as a whole home multi-room streaming solution to match my current WMC + extenders.

Still waiting since my account says, "We're still processing your activation. Try again in 24 hours."

Wish me luck!


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

I personally don't have reason to switch from our 2 S3's but I'm curious why you are not just replacing the hard drive and cloning the failing one (you said failing and no failed)?

Scott


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## larrs (May 2, 2005)

I think the Elite and the annoncement of the Previews and whatever the IP settop box will be called is a step toward Tivo for many htpc DVR users. 4+ tuners and no-subscription extenders is literally the main reason many switched (and I considered it). 

My journey is likely to settle into 2 Elites in our two central TV areas (Family Room and downstairs Media room) with those IP boxes on the remaining three TVs in my home- if those boxes also support Netflix/Hulu, etc., which I assume is a no-brainer.


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## g808 (Sep 14, 2006)

HerronScott said:


> I personally don't have reason to switch from our 2 S3's but I'm curious why you are not just replacing the hard drive and cloning the failing one (you said failing and no failed)?
> 
> Scott


Don't want to go through the hassle since I'd rather do a clean install vs. clone. Plus it's an excuse for a change since WMC is going to be a legacy product for Microsoft from Windows 8.

I could also go with one or two premieres instead of the extender if I really want a dedicated LiveTV tuner in other rooms along with the multi-room streaming, but the service could be killer. But that's getting ahead of myself for now. We'll see if the change sticks first.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

g808 said:


> The hard drive in my Windows Media Center PC is dying, so instead of replacing, re-installing, etc. I've decided to give TiVo another go. I activated service on my old Series3 and am excited to get behind the wheel.
> 
> What brought be back was the TiVo Premiere Elite and introduction of the upcoming extenders (Preview). Finally a 4 tuner DVR box with 2TB of storage! I could never go back to less than 4 tuners. The extenders are a must, so really hoping the pricing is reasonable and that they actually work as a whole home multi-room streaming solution to match my current WMC + extenders.
> 
> ...


If you're fixing to drop big bucks on new TiVos anytime soon, go read the $99 lifetime thread about getting it on your S3 and cutting your monthly bill/boosting its resale value.


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## g808 (Sep 14, 2006)

Thanks. I figure I'll cancel after a couple months and see if they'll offer the $99 lifetime.


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

All you need to do is put a new drive in your computer and re image the drive from your backup drive. only takes 30 mins to do. You should make a backup image every week.



g808 said:


> The hard drive in my Windows Media Center PC is dying, so instead of replacing, re-installing, etc. I've decided to give TiVo another go. I activated service on my old Series3 and am excited to get behind the wheel.
> 
> What brought be back was the TiVo Premiere Elite and introduction of the upcoming extenders (Preview). Finally a 4 tuner DVR box with 2TB of storage! I could never go back to less than 4 tuners. The extenders are a must, so really hoping the pricing is reasonable and that they actually work as a whole home multi-room streaming solution to match my current WMC + extenders.
> 
> ...


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

g808 said:


> Thanks. I figure I'll cancel after a couple months and see if they'll offer the $99 lifetime.


You don't cancel, you call and threaten to cancel/say you're thinking of cancelling.


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## g808 (Sep 14, 2006)

tootal2 said:


> All you need to do is put a new drive in your computer and re image the drive from your backup drive. only takes 30 mins to do. You should make a backup image every week.


Again, I'm just making excuses for myself to try something new.


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## g808 (Sep 14, 2006)

Well, like most things I took the plunge and went all in. Ordered an Elite ($399 box + $399 lifetime) and regular Premiere ($79 new box + $399 lifetime) last weekend. They shipped Monday from Texas, and arrived on Friday in Northern California. It took longer than the TiVo CSR expected since said he thought it would get here by Weds when I ordered it last weekend.

Anyway, I got the last couple m-cards from my local office earlier in the week, so I was eagerly anticipating the UPS man all week. 

Both boxes were setup and connected 10 minutes after UPS delivered them on Friday evening. The Cablecard paring and activation in the Elite went very well as it only took one call to the Comcast activation line to get it done. I wasn't as fortunate with the Cablecard in the regular Premiere unit. That took 2 calls to the activation line with 2-Tier support needing to get involved. Anyway, both cards are now paired/activated and both TiVo units are up and running. Even with that I was impressed with how far Comcast's CableCard support has come since I last had to do this with my S3 TiVo years ago.

Even with the 20.2 update the HD UI is still considerably slower than my Windows Media Center, but having a single box vs. my WMC (PC + 2 external Cablecard tuners + 2 HD Homerun dual tuner units) it's a much smaller footprint and energy saver.

Ordered a movie from Amazon on-demand and it took much longer to start downloading to my Elite than I'm used to on a Roku. I actually called Amazon support since I thought something was wrong and they were fantastic. They credited my account for the movie and actually gave me an additional $5.

The multi-room streaming is also slower to start than I'm used to from my WMC extender, but still works nicely. 

I've also setup the jython fork of pyTivo and I'm able to access all PlayOn content thanks to its PlayOn plugin, which is awesome. I like having one box to access various content, which keeps TiVo on par with my WMC PC and extenders. 

I've setup all my Season Passes, so looking forward to giving this setup a good workout.


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## dsnotgood (Aug 26, 2010)

g808 said:


> Well, like most things I took the plunge and went all in. Ordered an Elite ($399 box + $399 lifetime) and regular Premiere ($79 new box + $399 lifetime) last weekend. They shipped Monday from Texas, and arrived on Friday in Northern California. It took longer than the TiVo CSR expected since said he thought it would get here by Weds when I ordered it last weekend.
> 
> Anyway, I got the last couple m-cards from my local office earlier in the week, so I was eagerly anticipating the UPS man all week.
> 
> ...


You will grow to love your TiVo. I made the same switch as you to two premieres with lifetime and it is awesome. I agree a little laggy but not anything major. Did you notice your picture quality to be better than your wmc boxes?


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

g808 said:


> Again, I'm just making excuses for myself to try something new.


You can buy a new windows 7 desktop computer and put a ceton cable card in it and then get a 2 tuner antenna card so you can record 6 channels at a time to a 3 tb hard drive.

I like my tivo but i sick of having to unplug my tuning adapter every week becouse of the gc file problem that tivo refuses to fix.


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## g808 (Sep 14, 2006)

dsnotgood said:


> You will grow to love your TiVo. I made the same switch as you to two premieres with lifetime and it is awesome. I agree a little laggy but not anything major. Did you notice your picture quality to be better than your wmc boxes?


No real notice in improved picture quality. I thought the picture quality from my WMC box was pretty good.


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## g808 (Sep 14, 2006)

tootal2 said:


> You can buy a new windows 7 desktop computer and put a ceton cable card in it and then get a 2 tuner antenna card so you can record 6 channels at a time to a 3 tb hard drive.
> 
> I like my tivo but i sick of having to unplug my tuning adapter every week becouse of the gc file problem that tivo refuses to fix.


Luckily no tuner adapter required here (yet). Between the 2 Premieres I have 6 tuners now. I had 4 with my WMC box and it was enough for us.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

g808 said:


> No real notice in improved picture quality. I thought the picture quality from my WMC box was pretty good.


You won't see any difference between your Tivo and what you get from WMC. They both do equally well at recording the digital stream directly from your cable provider or antenna.

I went the other direction several years ago and switched to WMC. I just started experimenting with XBMC and it looks quite promising. In fact, I like it so much that I've spent the last couple of weeks converting my collection of ripped Blu-Rays and DVDs to mkv format using MakeMKV. I forget the total number of titles, but it was probably in the neighborhood of about 700-800 movies.

My HTPC has one Ceton InfiniTV 4 cablecard tuner installed (I used to have two installed) along with two Hauppauge 2250 ATSC tuners. I'm also using a SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime three-tuner cablecard networked tuner that's shared between other PCs as well as my primary HTPC.


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## dsnotgood (Aug 26, 2010)

g808 said:


> No real notice in improved picture quality. I thought the picture quality from my WMC box was pretty good.


Well give us a update in a few days about how your liking it and impressions in general


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## g808 (Sep 14, 2006)

So far, so good. I only switched to WMC once to watch something that was previously recorded on it. Other than that we've been exclusively using our TiVos. No hiccups in picture quality or recordings yet (knock on wood). 

I really like the mobile apps, especially the iPad app, which we use to view My Shows, To Do Lists, schedule recordings, start playback, etc without interrupting our viewing experience with TV menus.

Also, loving the PlayOn integration with pyTivo. There was an episode of "Best things I Ever Ate" that showcased The House of Prime Rib in San Francisco. I love that place, and my girlfriend said I just missed it when I got home from work. Hulu said it could not be played back on connected devices, but PlayOn was able to stream it. 

Only minor nit so far is the bit of lag in the HD UI and Multi-Room Streaming delay in playback. With a WMC extender streaming playback starts instantly. Also, wish "My Shows" was mirrored on all Premieres instead of having to navigate to the Premiere box you want to stream from. Hoping the upcoming TiVo extender takes care of some of this.


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## g808 (Sep 14, 2006)

Oh, and not having a stop button is tougher to get used to than I thought.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

tootal2 said:


> You can buy a new windows 7 desktop computer and put a ceton cable card in it and then get a 2 tuner antenna card so you can record 6 channels at a time to a 3 tb hard drive.
> 
> I like my tivo but i sick of having to unplug my tuning adapter every week becouse of the gc file problem that tivo refuses to fix.


Does the Ceton not have the same issues with tuning adapters?

Scott


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## bdraw (Aug 1, 2004)

g808 said:


> Oh, and not having a stop button is tougher to get used to than I thought.


I know right? That stop button is damn useful.

I've thought about switching back to TiVo too, but as loud as my 360 as an extender is, it is more than TiVo has right now. I'm not sure what is taking so long to bring a consumer version of the Preview to market, but for now I'll stay with Media Center.

I do have a Premiere Elite on loaner right now, though, and while I do really like the iPad app, the UI of the Premiere itself is still really laggy. Not enough to be a deal breaker like the lack of extender though.

The scary part is that even though Media Center is a legacy product, in some ways it is still the best DVR option out there.


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

I dont see any complaints about the tuning adaptor and ceton on AVS Forum.
I Dont know if i will buy one yet. I just wish tivo would put out a update for the tivo hd to fix the gc file problem with the tuning adaptor.

It looks like the tivo hd has been abandoned by tivo and wont get anymore software updates



HerronScott said:


> Does the Ceton not have the same issues with tuning adapters?
> 
> Scott


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## dsnotgood (Aug 26, 2010)

g808 said:


> So far, so good. I only switched to WMC once to watch something that was previously recorded on it. Other than that we've been exclusively using our TiVos. No hiccups in picture quality or recordings yet (knock on wood).
> 
> I really like the mobile apps, especially the iPad app, which we use to view My Shows, To Do Lists, schedule recordings, start playback, etc without interrupting our viewing experience with TV menus.
> 
> ...


Glad to hear that..the one show thing would be great though !


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

bdraw said:


> The scary part is that even though Media Center is a legacy product, in some ways it is still the best DVR option out there.


+1. Have you tried XBMC yet? If you watch any variety of video files or movies, it will play just about anything you can throw at it. There's a patch available that will also support HD audio from Blu-Rays. Grab yourself a beta copy of MakeMKV and rip Blu-Rays and DVDs without having to buy expensive decryption software or playback software like PowerDVD or Arcsoft's Total Media Theater. It's all free!


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## RockinRay (Aug 25, 2004)

We used to use WMC (Windows 7) as our DVR solution. This was fed by two HDHomeRun units (4 tuners) and it worked well. The PC was in the basement and we used an XBOX 360 as the front end.

The problem that I always had was the XBOX would always show the dreaded "Network Issues" icon on the TV screen and the playback would become jumpy. I almost replaced my entire infrastructure with my attemps to correct this. I got it working "OK", but TWF was just never there.

Then we tried out SageTV. I ran a Ubuntu Server in the basement, used the HDHomeRuns for the tuners and bought two of the Sage HD300 Media Extenders. That was BY FAR the absolute best solution we have ever had. It was bullet proof!

Then SageTV decided to sell out to Google for what ever reason and while their software will still run, there is no real support any more now. Like many others, I sold my extenders on ebay - basically took the money while I could get it. Even today, I kind of wish I had that system back up and running. The server is still sitting in the basement unplugged... But, no more SageTV.

Too bad for sure!


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

mr.unnatural said:


> +1. Have you tried XBMC yet? If you watch any variety of video files or movies, it will play just about anything you can throw at it. There's a patch available that will also support HD audio from Blu-Rays. Grab yourself a beta copy of MakeMKV and rip Blu-Rays and DVDs without having to buy expensive decryption software or playback software like PowerDVD or Arcsoft's Total Media Theater. It's all free!


makeMK is free while still in Beta. Although MakeMKV has been in beta for a while now. I've used it for some of my HD DVDs, but for my BDs I just create full BD ISOs with IMG Burn and Any DVD HD running in the background.


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## g808 (Sep 14, 2006)

mr.unnatural said:


> +1. Have you tried XBMC yet? If you watch any variety of video files or movies, it will play just about anything you can throw at it. There's a patch available that will also support HD audio from Blu-Rays. Grab yourself a beta copy of MakeMKV and rip Blu-Rays and DVDs without having to buy expensive decryption software or playback software like PowerDVD or Arcsoft's Total Media Theater. It's all free!


I used MyMovies with WMC and thought it was pretty good. The iPad app was cool to search through my collection and start playing on any extender in the house.

While this was cool, I found that we hardly would watch a movie in our collection. Our viewing habits are more wanting to watch new releases, so streaming from Amazon or renting from Redbox fits our needs right now.

I'm thinking of just adding a Blu-ray player too. Walking over to insert a disc sounds like blasphemy, but taking into consideration how often that would be makes it no big deal. I guess the simple solution is often the best solution.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

RockinRay said:


> The problem that I always had was the XBOX would always show the dreaded "Network Issues" icon on the TV screen and the playback would become jumpy. I almost replaced my entire infrastructure with my attemps to correct this. I got it working "OK", but TWF was just never there.
> 
> Then we tried out SageTV. I ran a Ubuntu Server in the basement, used the HDHomeRuns for the tuners and bought two of the Sage HD300 Media Extenders. That was BY FAR the absolute best solution we have ever had. It was bullet proof!
> 
> ...


I had the same issues with my X-Box 360, which is one of the reasons I abandoned the extender idea. I was also trying out SageTV and about three weeks into my 30-day free trial they sold out to Google, so I gave up on that as well. I was really disappointed because the Sage extenders were supposed to be the best available with much better codec support than any of the WMC extenders. I'm waiting for the Ceton Echo extenders to hit the market so I can give them a try.

For now I'm using one primary HTPC for my Home Theater in the basement and a Dell Zino HD that supports the TV in the family room on the main floor. I just put a 32" flatscreen in the guest bedroom upstairs and I have another small HTPC that I'll be using for that TV.

I'm fortunate to be on FIOS because I can link WMC on both of the small PCs to the recording directory on the primary HTPC and share all of my recordings. This is only possible because FIOS doesn't flag any channels as copy once so I can share them freely on any other PC.

Alas, my poor Tivo sits on a shelf below the family room TV just clacking away and gathering dust. Did I mention that the Tivo is noisier than any of the PCs? I've used several different hard drives and it doesn't make a bit of difference in the noise level. I hear it as soon as I walk into the family room, whereas the Dell Zino is dead silent. I could never stand having a Tivo in the master bedroom for this very reason.



aaronwt said:


> makeMK is free while still in Beta. Although MakeMKV has been in beta for a while now. I've used it for some of my HD DVDs, but for my BDs I just create full BD ISOs with IMG Burn and Any DVD HD running in the background.


It seems like MakeMKV is perpetually in beta state. What's strange is that I have it installed on two different PCs so I could expedite the process of converting all of my ripped Blu-Rays and DVDs to mkv files. One PC is counting down the days as you would expect it to. The other one shows 30 days left in the trial even after using it for over three weeks.



g808 said:


> I used MyMovies with WMC and thought it was pretty good. The iPad app was cool to search through my collection and start playing on any extender in the house.
> 
> While this was cool, I found that we hardly would watch a movie in our collection. Our viewing habits are more wanting to watch new releases, so streaming from Amazon or renting from Redbox fits our needs right now.
> 
> I'm thinking of just adding a Blu-ray player too. Walking over to insert a disc sounds like blasphemy, but taking into consideration how often that would be makes it no big deal. I guess the simple solution is often the best solution.


If you only watch a movie occasionally then a standalone Blu-Ray player makes perfect sense. However, if you do watch a lot of movies like I do then a standalone player will drive you nuts. I have a standalone player that I've used exactly twice. I tried to get past the trailers and introductory crap and it would restart from the beginning of the disc if I tried to skip past any of it. Stripping out the extras leaves you with just the main movie, soundtracks, and subtitles of your choosing. When you start playing the movie you get just the movie.

I used to rip the movie with AnyDVD HD and then strip out the extras using Clown_BD but now I just rip it with MakeMKV on the fly and select only the items I want to keep. I could have done this with Clown_BD as well but some new releases would not decrypt properly so I'd rip them as iso's and wait for AnyDVD HD to issue an update that would work around the new encryption scheme. I don't have this issue with MakeMKV.


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## Xab (May 21, 2004)

So I actually am in this same boat as well. I used to have a S2 TiVo back in the day, then switched to Media Center. It was a big step up from the old interface as far as speed and such. But now my Media Center is failing, and so I gave the Premiere Elite a try and I'm really impressed. I like having the one box that kinda takes care of everything as opposed to the Media Center which always would reboot itself for updates, the resolution would go wonky at random, accidental presses of the power button on the remote would shut it off, it was noisy. Kinda the list goes on and on. The only two things I miss from MCE are the automatic commercial skipping (via ShowAnalyzer) and the stop button.

Is there any type of alternative to the stop button? Haha it's odd how much you miss that.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

When you say your Media Center is failing, are you referring to the hard drive or some other hardware issue with the PC? Wouldn't it be simpler just to install a new hard drive or upgrade the offending component?

Everything you mentioned as a problem is easily remedied with very minimal effort. You can turn off Windows Updates and just install the ones you want. There are lots of ways to make your PC quieter. Mine is way quieter than my Tivos. The resolution issue is probably a bad graphics driver or something related. I've seen that happen on my HTPC, but not since I switched to using an Intel CPU with integrated graphics. I think it only occurred when I had a flaky motherboard. I don't recall it happening on my discrete nVidia or ATi cards either.

PC hardware and software for Media Center PCs is extremely mature and far less buggy that it used to be. You might want to consider a newer Sandy Bridge CPU and motherboard if you ever change your mind.


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## Xab (May 21, 2004)

mr.unnatural said:


> When you say your Media Center is failing, are you referring to the hard drive or some other hardware issue with the PC? Wouldn't it be simpler just to install a new hard drive or upgrade the offending component?
> 
> Everything you mentioned as a problem is easily remedied with very minimal effort. You can turn off Windows Updates and just install the ones you want. There are lots of ways to make your PC quieter. Mine is way quieter than my Tivos. The resolution issue is probably a bad graphics driver or something related. I've seen that happen on my HTPC, but not since I switched to using an Intel CPU with integrated graphics. I think it only occurred when I had a flaky motherboard. I don't recall it happening on my discrete nVidia or ATi cards either.
> 
> PC hardware and software for Media Center PCs is extremely mature and far less buggy that it used to be. You might want to consider a newer Sandy Bridge CPU and motherboard if you ever change your mind.


The hard drive is failing, and the rest of the hardware is fairly outdated which is causing other problems. For one, I am really not a fan of the Ceton cards. I fail to get several channels (Comedy Central HD, Cartoon Network HD, MTV HD) for no reason at all with the HTPC. It simply says there's no signal. On the TiVo, these channels come in with no issue. To keep the HTPC viable, it will require basically a rebuild, as well as somehow getting the cable company out to troubleshoot why these channels don't work (they just blame the Ceton anyway). I'm not really prepared to invest hundreds more dollars in it when MS is making MCE a legacy product anyway.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Don't think there is any official word on whether MS supports WMC in Windows 8 or not. Lastest thing I read is discovery of WMC in a version of Windows 8 so...

Plus it isn't like Tivo is blazing ahead. 

A cost of an Elite is pretty pricey too. $800. 

But I do understand folks that don't want the hassle or maintenance. I have had a few minor hiccups, but for someone without computer knowledge they could turn into a major pain in the ass.


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## Xab (May 21, 2004)

trip1eX said:


> Don't think there is any official word on whether MS supports WMC in Windows 8 or not. Lastest thing I read is discovery of WMC in a version of Windows 8 so...
> 
> Plus it isn't like Tivo is blazing ahead.
> 
> ...


It's in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview....just completely unchanged from how it is in Windows 7. So they are basically abandoning the product, and just sorta throwing in the version from 3 years ago in with the new Windows. At least TiVo is continuing to update the software on Premiere.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Xab said:


> It's in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview....just completely unchanged from how it is in Windows 7. So they are basically abandoning the product, and just sorta throwing in the version from 3 years ago in with the new Windows. At least TiVo is continuing to update the software on Premiere.


TiVo isnt exactly improving their software. My Premiere sure had a more sluggish interface than my Series 2. That is a big reason why I even considered WMC.

And what does MS really have to do to keep pace with TiVo? Win8 is still a ways off yet from final release. It would not take much for MS to improve WMC at the rate TiVo "improves" its box. 

Besides WMC is still arguably better than the current state of TiVo - future upgrades or not.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Xab said:


> It's in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview....just completely unchanged from how it is in Windows 7. So they are basically abandoning the product, and just sorta throwing in the version from 3 years ago in with the new Windows. At least TiVo is continuing to update the software on Premiere.


Why would you assume WMC is being abandoned? If that were the case you probably wouldn't be seeing it at all in future releases of Windows. I thought I had read where there had been some improvements made to WMC for Win 8, but nothing earth shattering. It sounds more like it's just been pushed to the back burner as far as Windows 8 is involved. Microsoft has apparently changed direction and is moving more towards embedding Media Center into consumer devices rather than their OS.



Xab said:


> The hard drive is failing, and the rest of the hardware is fairly outdated which is causing other problems. For one, I am really not a fan of the Ceton cards. I fail to get several channels (Comedy Central HD, Cartoon Network HD, MTV HD) for no reason at all with the HTPC. It simply says there's no signal. On the TiVo, these channels come in with no issue. To keep the HTPC viable, it will require basically a rebuild, as well as somehow getting the cable company out to troubleshoot why these channels don't work (they just blame the Ceton anyway). I'm not really prepared to invest hundreds more dollars in it when MS is making MCE a legacy product anyway.


The lack of signal is the fault of your provider, not the Ceton card. They just don't want to own up to it. The InfiniTV 4 actually has a pretty wide range of signal levels it will work with. I'd see how many times your main line is split and see if you can get a line with a lower loss directed to your PC. If you have a multi-port splitter connected to the main feed, install a 2-way splitter on the main line and then connect one output to your PC and the other output to the multi-port splitter. If the feeds to the rest of the house are affected then get a new splitter with fewer ports to reduce the attenuation or use an amplified splitter to boost the signal.

I've had my InfiniTV 4 since August of 2010 (I got mine in the first batch) and it's been running beautifully from day one. I have sinced bought two more. If your existing hardware was working fine then why would you think you'd need to rebuild the entire PC? HTPCs work fine with lots of legacy hardware. The cardinal rule of HTPCs is that if it ain't broke, don't upgrade it.

Just because WMC is a legacy product doesn't make it any less functional. I can't see any reason why I would upgrade my HTPC to Win 8 or any later version as long as my existing hardware remains functional. People gripe about the lack of improvement in Tivo software, yet they keep buying the boxes anyway.


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## RockinRay (Aug 25, 2004)

In my mind, if some company would offer a decent extender for WMC, I would give it another try. But, the solution needs to be "good to excellent", and not some slap together stuff.

I think Microsoft is missing the boat with this one. When we were using WMC, both my wife and I really liked it but we could not get past the "Network Errors". So, we had to stop using it.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

trip1eX said:


> TiVo isnt exactly improving their software. My Premiere sure had a more sluggish interface than my Series 2. That is a big reason why I even considered WMC.


By most accounts TiVo's latest release was an improvement. TiVo added a four tuner box this spring and will add another update and extenders later this year. TiVo may not be improving at the rate that most of us would like to see, but it continues to progress and remains the best DVR for most consumers.

As much as the handful of WMC fans here try to keep the "switching to WMC" threads active, most people don't want to deal with a computer to watch TV - they want a trouble-free appliance. It would be nice if the box that Ceton has promised for this year will provide another option for that, but we'll see.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

RockinRay said:


> I think Microsoft is missing the boat with this one. When we were using WMC, both my wife and I really liked it but we could not get past the "Network Errors". So, we had to stop using it.


With a decent wired setup (Ethernet/powerline/MoCA) you'll never see this issue - I run Xbox and Linksys extenders w/Ethernet and don't see it. And that's with a 4-year old HTPC and 100mb cat5.

Wireless can have tons of issues.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

nrc said:


> As much as the handful of WMC fans here try to keep the "switching to WMC" threads active, most people don't want to deal with a computer to watch TV - they want a trouble-free appliance. It would be nice if the box that Ceton has promised for this year will provide another option for that, but we'll see.


I think a lot of folks are hoping that Ceton delivers a good whole-home solution, especially now that Arris has all but abandoned the Moxi. Tivo needs the competition in any case.


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## RockinRay (Aug 25, 2004)

slowbiscuit said:


> With a decent wired setup (Ethernet/powerline/MoCA) you'll never see this issue - I run Xbox and Linksys extenders w/Ethernet and don't see it. And that's with a 4-year old HTPC and 100mb cat5.
> 
> Wireless can have tons of issues.


Never ran wireless, have CAT6, GIG network in the house. Never stable, so cut back to 10/100 after reading a bunch of information on the web. Even messed with the NIC settings.

We got it to run "ok" but never great. Just finally gave up on it.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

RockinRay said:


> In my mind, if some company would offer a decent extender for WMC, I would give it another try. But, the solution needs to be "good to excellent", and not some slap together stuff.
> 
> I think Microsoft is missing the boat with this one. When we were using WMC, both my wife and I really liked it but we could not get past the "Network Errors". So, we had to stop using it.


Ceton is coming out with their Echo extender before the end of the year. It should be better than any current WMC extender.

I've never been able to get a read on Microsoft's marketing strategy. They had a great DVR with the UltimateTV, but just gave up on it (the UI put Tivo to shame, IMHO). They don't even advertize Media Center or the fact that it's included free with every version of Windows 7 except Home Basic. I think they believe in the philosophy of "Build it and they will come" and don't feel the need to advertise it. I'd wager that the vast majority of Win 7 users don't even know what Media Center is or what it can do.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

nrc said:


> By most accounts TiVo's latest release was an improvement. TiVo added a four tuner box this spring and will add another update and extenders later this year. TiVo may not be improving at the rate that most of us would like to see, but it continues to progress and remains the best DVR for most consumers.
> 
> As much as the handful of WMC fans here try to keep the "switching to WMC" threads active, most people don't want to deal with a computer to watch TV - they want a trouble-free appliance. It would be nice if the box that Ceton has promised for this year will provide another option for that, but we'll see.


True WMC isn't for most. Never said it was. I was just calling out the assumption that WMC is a legacy product. Too early to call that.

And just saying that even if it is -- does it mean anything? I used my SEries 2 for 6 years. It isn't like the experience was being "supported" those 6 years by Tivo. I used it for recording TV 99% of the time and can't recall any major improvements after day 1.

Not like WMC will stop being compatible with the cable company any sooner than any Premiere or Elite will. So this notion WMC is a legacy product is.....a bunch of rhetoric.

btw, the numbers say the cable DVRs are the DVR for most people. The customer doesn't have to spend any money to own the thing and doesn't have any responsibility for the hardware.

And in my mind DVRs in general are a legacy product as on-demand streaming continues to get better and prevents the user from skipping commercials.


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## RockinRay (Aug 25, 2004)

mr.unnatural said:


> Ceton is coming out with their Echo extender before the end of the year. It should be better than any current WMC extender.


Thanks for the heads up on this. It does look promising indeed. I have two HDHomeRun units just waiting to go!

I would have to reload WIN7 as my current server has Linux / SageTV on it but that is no problem. Smooth playback is all I want.

If the Echo can pull this off, I will most certainly give it a try.

Thanks again -


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

I can do everything on wmc. I can record and watch tv. play games and watch 3d blu-rays and dvds. I can also burn blu-rays.

I only record ota tv with wmc and record cable on my tivo hd. but might get a ceton card so i will have one box that will replace my ps3, tivo hd and blu-ray player. windows 7 can do eveything



trip1eX said:


> True WMC isn't for most. Never said it was. I was just calling out the assumption that WMC is a legacy product. Too early to call that.
> 
> And just saying that even if it is -- does it mean anything? I used my SEries 2 for 6 years. It isn't like the experience was being "supported" those 6 years by Tivo. I used it for recording TV 99% of the time and can't recall any major improvements after day 1.
> 
> ...


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## turbobozz (Sep 21, 2006)

RockinRay said:


> Never ran wireless, have CAT6, GIG network in the house. Never stable, so cut back to 10/100 after reading a bunch of information on the web. Even messed with the NIC settings.
> 
> We got it to run "ok" but never great. Just finally gave up on it.


You should try using Wireshark or something like that to figure out where the problem in your network is.
I had to use that to figure out that my some of my switches were degrading performance more and more after a lightning strike.
(They initially appeared to function OK, but they got worse over time.)


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## RockinRay (Aug 25, 2004)

turbobozz said:


> You should try using Wireshark or something like that to figure out where the problem in your network is.
> I had to use that to figure out that my some of my switches were degrading performance more and more after a lightning strike.
> (They initially appeared to function OK, but they got worse over time.)


Did that - all showed to be running very well. I also use HP Pro-Curve GB switches in the house so speed is not an issue.

With SageTV and 3 of their excellent HD-300 extenders, never a problem. Playback was smooth as glass... We could stream HD feeds to three seperate locations at the same time while the server was recording something and it was perfect.

This being said, I would be most interested in revisiting WMC if the Ceton (SP) will make the extender that they are saying it will.

I do like TiVo but I also like having 4 tuners to use at the same time and WMC would give me that. :up:


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## turbobozz (Sep 21, 2006)

RockinRay said:


> Did that - all showed to be running very well. I also use HP Pro-Curve GB switches in the house so speed is not an issue.
> 
> With SageTV and 3 of their excellent HD-300 extenders, never a problem. Playback was smooth as glass... We could stream HD feeds to three seperate locations at the same time while the server was recording something and it was perfect.
> 
> ...


Are you sure it was a network issue then?
I used a "slow" drive for WMC recordings... and I could handle more streams than I could use for a long time.
Then at some point my drive started getting hammered and taking too long.. causing the extenders to have issues streaming when 4+ streams were trying to hit the drive.
Perhaps the drive was getting too fragmented or maybe I forgot to turn off extended logging... but turning on AHCI fixed it.


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## Xab (May 21, 2004)

Alright, since it seems there are a couple people here that are really knowledgeable about WMC, I will lay out what major issues I've had over the past year of using a Media Center with Ceton card. 

1) Certain channels not coming in on my Media Center when they come in just fine on the crap DVR downstairs. Insight cable has been out twice and the techs just hook up a signal meter to the wall and say "look, everything here checks out perfect, and our DVR downstairs gets the channels clear as a bell, your equipment is faulty". 

2) Even on channels that do come in with the Ceton, I often get tons of "Your recording of xxxx could not begin because there was no signal detected on that channel". This popup stacks , so I often have to dismiss 6-10 of them at a time, and to make matters worse, it's a nonsense message because the program will have recorded most of the time. So I am stuck dismissing dozens of garbage messages that didn't mean anything. DAILY.

3) Every week or so I would go to turn on the TV and find that the Ceton had lost all signal. I would be missing several recordings from the previous day, and channels would all come in black. I'd have to either pull the Cablecard, reboot the PC, or both to remedy the issue.

4) This one is perhaps more on the user error side, but it has remained annoying. When I would sometimes pick up the remote (a Gyration remote that uses RF), it would not respond until I reselect PC as the option. It's also annoying to have to push TV, then power, then PC to start using things. Often, I'd mix them up and press power, only to watch the Media Center log off. It also many times wouldn't wake up until I connected a mouse. TiVo doesn't experience this nuisance with its remote.

5) Showanalyzer is perhaps one of the single biggest reasons for me to use a Media Center over a TiVo, to automatically cut out the commercials. I always had it set to auto scan each show as it records and have it ready to go. Many times, at complete random, shows would simply not be scanned. This was without explanation. Others worked fine. Again, just another instance of something that is supposed to work seamlessly being a complete nuisance and frustration.

6) Windows Media Center's guide often has no clue what shows are new versus reruns. It has settings in there, but despite the fact that I have The Simpsons set to record only new airings, it would constantly record daily syndicated reruns. This is just one example of many many. MTV shows in particular, no matter what setting I have, it rerecords the same episode of the same show over and over and over for no reason, at all hours of the day. 

7) Commercials blare like a goddamn airhorn. Major commercials, like for national brands often seem okay, but anytime a more local type of ad comes on, it blares to the point that I'm playing volume babysitter, up down up down up down, dozens of times just to watch one program. Then the show comes on, and it's dead silent. There was a auto adjust volume setting somewhere in the settings; it does absolutely nothing whatsoever. The TiVo does not cause this to happen.
-7a) It's really annoying to have a seperate volume for the TV and the Media Center, have to constantly switch inputs on the remote and play a balancing act.

8) I wanted to upgrade my Media center box to Windows 8; I run it full time on my desktop and I like the increased speed and various other features. When I try to install this on my Media Center box, the install hangs at various percentages. I've tried installing from CDs, USB sticks, from within Windows. Nothing works. This is where I'm led to believe somewhere exists a hardware incompatibility that will require me to start replacing hardware. Blah blah blah, not broke don't fix it, but the point is, I didn't build my Media Center just to be stuck on Windows 7 for the next five years. I should be able to upgrade it to newer software.

These are the various things I came up with off the top of my head that absolutely pissed me off with my Ceton/MCE over the past year. I'll edit this if I think of others. Maybe I'm just crazy and each one has an easy solution? My TiVo Elite I picked up has 100% ZERO of these issues, and so far the only one single downside I have found is that the HD interface is slightly laggy compared to MCE, although even as picky as I am, it's not that bad at all.


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## RockinRay (Aug 25, 2004)

turbobozz said:


> Are you sure it was a network issue then?
> I used a "slow" drive for WMC recordings... and I could handle more streams than I could use for a long time.
> Then at some point my drive started getting hammered and taking too long.. causing the extenders to have issues streaming when 4+ streams were trying to hit the drive.
> Perhaps the drive was getting too fragmented or maybe I forgot to turn off extended logging... but turning on AHCI fixed it.


To be honest, I never figured it out. Recorded TV was on a WD "green" 2 TB drive. It never gave us any problems...

I read about network card adjustments that should be made, and I made all of them. Like I say, I got it to the point where it was "ok" but never perfect.

I decided to try SageTV so loaded up Ubuntu Server on a fast boot drive, and still used the 2 TB drive for recording and never looked back. It just worked and it was perfect.

I am a fan of WMC and if the new extender comes along and does as well as it looks like it will, I will jump right back on the WMC bandwagon. I like to have 4 tuners available to me! 

I run the PC as a server in the basement of the house, and we only have clients at the TV locations.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Xab said:


> Alright, since it seems there are a couple people here that are really knowledgeable about WMC, I will lay out what major issues I've had over the past year of using a Media Center with Ceton card.
> 
> 1) Certain channels not coming in on my Media Center when they come in just fine on the crap DVR downstairs. Insight cable has been out twice and the techs just hook up a signal meter to the wall and say "look, everything here checks out perfect, and our DVR downstairs gets the channels clear as a bell, your equipment is faulty".
> 
> ...


Good articulation.

1). Don't have this problem myself. Channels all come in. I do get some artifact hiccups on a particular channel maybe two channels.

2). I do have this problem. It seems to have gotten worse the past week or two actually. Before it was rare. Lately I get one message daily at least. And sometimes 5 or 6 in a bunch. They are all false though. Maybe upgrading the firmware or finally doing some W7 updates was a mistake. I haven't looked into the problem or possible solutions at all.

3) Never had this problem.

4). No remote problems here. My cheapo remote is extremely responsive.

5). Don't use show analyzer. Is that part of WMC or a 3rd party program? I wouldn't knock WMC if it is a 3rd party program. This type of program is probably never going to work perfectly either unless cable networks wanted it to -- which they don't.

6). I think a few series that I have season passes to have this problem. But most dont. Not sure why. Might be the show or it may be that I changed the series settings and the settings became corrupted.

7). Yeah this is the most annoying thing for me. Some commercials are megaloud. So much so I sometimes think about using fast fast forward instead of 30 second skip. Or I press 30 second skip very rapidly so as to minimize any loud commercial noise seeping through in between 30 second skips. Also better to over skip and go back then to come up short and chance the loud commercial.

7a) Actually love that WMC has its own volume control. I hooked up some Harmon Kardon Soundsticks to my tv for better sound and minimal footprint, but they do not have remote volume control. With WMC I get that back.

8). It is premature to complain about software that hasn't been officially released yet. The whole reason they let folks test it out early is to get feedback and problem reports. The early releases are not for those looking for minimal problems.

I probably wouldn't be on WMC if the Premiere interface was snappy and if TiVo had the Elite out middle of last year and if the Ceton card hadn't dropped to $200 last Black Friday along with deals on many other computer parts. But as circumstances were the time was ripe for me to try WMC. So far so good.

And the fact that my son has the 360 in another room and that it works better than I thought as an extender is a nice bonus. And that is via wireless. Haven't hard wired it yet.


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## turbobozz (Sep 21, 2006)

I think you really should be contacting Ceton for some of your issues... Their support team is good.
(And good software/hardware support is probably one of the missing pieces that MS will need if they ever try to really get into the WMC game again.)

1) Ceton diagnostics/device webpage can generally tell you all the signal quality info you might want... I'd guess you either had something bad in the wiring/connections/splitting or the card was bad... in either case I would have contacted Ceton.
I've only heard good things about both Ceton and SiliconDust support, and I've only had good exchanges with both of them.

2) I believe you can turn off the notifications to extenders? and maybe turn off the notifications all together in the WMC settings? Not sure.... But the only reason this one is a noticable problem for you is that you had bad signal in 1) (due to wiring or hardware).

3) This is sounding it sound more like you had hardware problems with the card. You really should contact Ceton.

6) I think is due to w/e their guide service is and how it handles show info with incomplete info vs. tivo.
I occasionally have this issue, but I solve it by switching the season pass to a specific channel (to avoid the syndication channels with missing info).

7) Is the fault your local channel/cable provider when they insert local commercials poorly. I can't say I've really noticed crazy volume shifts vs. tivo, but I also don't recall if tivo or wmc actually really support volume normalization either.
I would certainly find it annoying if I had to mess with sound volumes all the time too.

8) I personally think updating your WMC box to Win8 is a bad idea until it is proven out.
Why would you even care unless WMC is going to be updated (which is unlikely from the info in the wild)?



Xab said:


> Alright, since it seems there are a couple people here that are really knowledgeable about WMC, I will lay out what major issues I've had over the past year of using a Media Center with Ceton card.
> /clip


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## Xab (May 21, 2004)

turbobozz said:


> I think you really should be contacting Ceton for some of your issues... Their support team is good.
> (And good software/hardware support is probably one of the missing pieces that MS will need if they ever try to really get into the WMC game again.)
> 
> 1) Ceton diagnostics/device webpage can generally tell you all the signal quality info you might want... I'd guess you either had something bad in the wiring/connections/splitting or the card was bad... in either case I would have contacted Ceton.
> ...


Well if 7) is the fault of my local channel or the cable provider, why does my TiVo Elite not have this issue at all?

Also for 8) , I always upgrade to the latest software. I upgraded to Windows 7 on my media center at the time when it was available. I don't want to be stuck on prior software. Just because WMC is becoming a legacy product and not being updated, there are other changes/upgrades to Windows that I feel I would like to take advantage of.


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## turbobozz (Sep 21, 2006)

Xab said:


> Well if 7) is the fault of my local channel or the cable provider, why does my TiVo Elite not have this issue at all?
> 
> Also for 8) , I always upgrade to the latest software. I upgraded to Windows 7 on my media center at the time when it was available. I don't want to be stuck on prior software. Just because WMC is becoming a legacy product and not being updated, there are other changes/upgrades to Windows that I feel I would like to take advantage of.


That was my question about sound level normalization... I don't think TiVo has ever done it, so it's curious that the TiVo wouldn't have the problem. (But I've also never had to really look into normalization of TV recordings with either TiVO or WMC).
There are sound normalization options in Win7, but I don't know what of those settings apply to WMC or streams WMC is handling.
It also could be that the local commercial cut ins aren't done right and WMC is handling it poorly.... Once upon a time, TiVo S3 platform had an issue with poor local commercial cut ins, but they had the effect of killing all audio even after the commercial was over.


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## g808 (Sep 14, 2006)

Interesting discussion going on here now. For the record, I never had major issues with WMC and lived with it for a few years pretty much trouble free. Most importantly it passed the WAF with flying colors or it would never have lasted that long. 

I just wanted to give TiVo another go now that they have a 4 tuner solution in the Elite and an interface that aggregates various forms of media like most other boxes out there. So far, it works for me and I don't miss my Media Center at all. 

I like that the Tivo boxes take up less room than my PC + 2 external ATI cablecard tuners + 2 HD Homerun boxes. I also like that I don't have a PC running 24x7 in my condo's guest bedroom.

I'm actually liking TiVo suggestions more than I thought as it records some shows that I actually do like and either forgot to record or never would have noticed on my own.

We'll see if this is just the honeymoon phase or if TiVo will be around for the long haul.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Xab said:


> Alright, since it seems there are a couple people here that are really knowledgeable about WMC, I will lay out what major issues I've had over the past year of using a Media Center with Ceton card.


1) Run the InfiniTV4 diagnostics and check the signal levels. If they're within the specified limits then contact Ceton and start a support ticket.

2) I used to get that on occasion. I believe I made sure I was using the latest drivers and firmware (detectable and upgradeable via the InfiniTV4 diagnostics software) and then reran Media Center setup to fix this.

3) Try a clean install of Windows 7. I know it's a PITA, but sometimes it's the only solution. Install Windows and the latest drivers. Then, run Windows Update until it's current. At this point make a backup of your C drive by cloning it to a spare drive. This way, if you ever need to reinstall Windows you can simply clone the backup to your main drive and install any later updates and the rest of your software. It makes the restoration process much less painful. If you have a stable, working system, you may also want to consider a complete backup with everything installed.

4) That's a problem with your remote. Pick up a cheap Media Center remote and IR receiver on ebay for $10-15.

5) I've seen this happen as well. It's annoying, but I'm guessing the recorded stream is corrupted, causing ShowAnalyzer to terminate. Still beats the heck out of the 30-second skip with a Tivo.

6) This is an issue with Zap2It. WMC can't determine if a show is new or a rerun unless it's specified in the guide data.

7) Blame this on your TV provider. I believe there is actual legislation being proposed that would inhibit broadcasters from raising the volume of commercials above the level of the program being aired. Don't worry, Congress will figure out a way to screw it up for us. A few palms will get greased and the bill will die.

8) Why upgrade to an OS that's not even finalized yet? Win 7 Media Center is stable and just plain works.


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## Xab (May 21, 2004)

mr.unnatural said:


> 1) Run the InfiniTV4 diagnostics and check the signal levels. If they're within the specified limits then contact Ceton and start a support ticket.
> 
> 2) I used to get that on occasion. I believe I made sure I was using the latest drivers and firmware (detectable and upgradeable via the InfiniTV4 diagnostics software) and then reran Media Center setup to fix this.
> 
> ...


1) It always said the signals were fine. I never tried the support ticket route because I hate trying to do web based support with a company. Might be something to try.

2) My firmware/drivers were always up to date.

3) Already tried the clean install.

4) The problem with the $15 cheap remote is it uses IR. I don't want to have to point it at the thing to use it.

5) Well how does it beat the heck out of the 30 second skip, when if Showanalyzer craps out like that, you are left with nothing but manual skip?

6) Ok. The TiVo manages to figure this out, though.

7) Again, with the TiVo Elite, sound levels are just fine across the board.

8) Valid point, but I don't want to be forever stuck on Windows 7. Part of the point of the PC is being able to upgrade to newer software and features (although it seems the latter wont be happening anymore with WMC).


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Xab said:


> 1) It always said the signals were fine. I never tried the support ticket route because I hate trying to do web based support with a company. Might be something to try.


You should definitely give it a shot. The Ceton support folks are topnotch (Tivo, are you listening?).



> 4) The problem with the $15 cheap remote is it uses IR. I don't want to have to point it at the thing to use it.


Lamest excuse ever. If it's really such a hardship to point the remote at the PC then consider a quality RF remote like the Logitech Harmony 900. It's basically an RF version of the Harmony One. Then again, you can position the IR receiver anywhere you want.



> 5) Well how does it beat the heck out of the 30 second skip, when if Showanalyzer craps out like that, you are left with nothing but manual skip?


Because when it works it works better than having to keep pressing the skip button and hope the commercial break is exactly a multiple of 30 seconds. I've had to backtrack more times than I can count using the 30-second skip feature. Unless you're holding the remote in your hand when the commercial break begins you'll likely skip past the start of the program when it resumes.



> 6) Ok. The TiVo manages to figure this out, though.


The Tivo can't figure out squat if the correct information isn't in the program guide. The only thing a Tivo can do is not re-record the same episode of a show within a 28-day span. If the episode info isn't correct in the guide data it will record it regardless.



> 7) Again, with the TiVo Elite, sound levels are just fine across the board.


I would guess that the Tivo is limiting the audio output. Great for when loud commercials come on, but extremely detrimental to accurate dynamic range reproduction. That's fine if you're listening through the TV speakers (do people still do that?), but sucks if you're using a high-end audio surround system.



> 8) Valid point, but I don't want to be forever stuck on Windows 7. Part of the point of the PC is being able to upgrade to newer software and features (although it seems the latter wont be happening anymore with WMC).


Nobody's saying you have to be stuck on Windows 7, but if the software works there's no rational reason to upgrade to a newer OS unless you're building a new PC from scratch with hardware that is no longer supported. I only upgrade to a new OS as a last resort, especially if my current setup is working. In fact, the only reason I upgraded from XP was because the Ceton InfiniTV 4 is only supported by Windows 7.


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

I wished tivo could play in 1.5x fast forward with sound like wmc can


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Xab said:


> 7) Commercials blare like a goddamn airhorn. Major commercials, like for national brands often seem okay, but anytime a more local type of ad comes on, it blares to the point that I'm playing volume babysitter, up down up down up down, dozens of times just to watch one program. Then the show comes on, and it's dead silent. There was a auto adjust volume setting somewhere in the settings; it does absolutely nothing whatsoever. The TiVo does not cause this to happen.


btw, I think I fixed this problem in my setup. I think this problem comes from how the sound is processed coming out of the WMC box.

Loud commercials when sound is output from tv via RCA to external speakers.

No loud commercials when direct from WMC box to external speakers nor when using the tv's speakers.

Or so it seems so far. Guessing the difference is in the way the configs process the signals.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

mr.unnatural said:


> ......................
> 
> I would guess that the Tivo is limiting the audio output. Great for when loud commercials come on, but extremely detrimental to accurate dynamic range reproduction. That's fine if you're listening through the TV speakers (do people still do that?), but sucks if you're using a high-end audio surround system.
> 
> ........


Most people still listen through TV speakers.

I know it's always funny when people get their first 5.1 system and ask me about it. I got my first multichannel system in 1991. And went 7.1 in 2001. But Most people seem to still use the TV speakers and an old 5.1 system is new to them in 2012.
Obviously not the people on the forums, but your average person.


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Xab said:


> Alright, since it seems there are a couple people here that are really knowledgeable about WMC, I will lay out what major issues I've had over the past year of using a Media Center with Ceton card.
> 
> 1) Certain channels not coming in on my Media Center when they come in just fine on the crap DVR downstairs. Insight cable has been out twice and the techs just hook up a signal meter to the wall and say "look, everything here checks out perfect, and our DVR downstairs gets the channels clear as a bell, your equipment is faulty".


Not sure what you mean when you say "crap DVR," but I'll assume you mean a cable company DVR. Given this, I have two possible theories:
a) Is your cable company using switched digital video? If so, do you have a tuning adapter connected to your media center? If not, that is almost definitely why you aren't getting all your channels. (The "crap DVR" from the cable company doesn't need that, but your media center will, if SDV is in use.)
b) Contact the cable company, ask to speak with their Cable Card support desk. Request a complete re-initialization of the cable card, if they can. If they ask why, tell them you believe that your cable card has a corrupt channel map and as a result you are not receiving the full set of channels you are supposed to.


> 2) Even on channels that do come in with the Ceton, I often get tons of "Your recording of xxxx could not begin because there was no signal detected on that channel". This popup stacks , so I often have to dismiss 6-10 of them at a time, and to make matters worse, it's a nonsense message because the program will have recorded most of the time. So I am stuck dismissing dozens of garbage messages that didn't mean anything. DAILY.


Unfortunately, this sounds similar to an issue I have perpetually with the TiVo and SDV channels. You will tune to a channel, and just get a black screen. You have to tune away, then back to actually get a signal. Scheduled recordings often fail for this reason, because the TiVo never gets a video signal. Annoying as heck, and if your problem the same as this one, switching back to TiVo doesn't solve it. 


> 3) Every week or so I would go to turn on the TV and find that the Ceton had lost all signal. I would be missing several recordings from the previous day, and channels would all come in black. I'd have to either pull the Cablecard, reboot the PC, or both to remedy the issue.


Hmm. Sounds like a second symptom of #1 to me. At this point, my first suggestion might actually be seeing if you can swap cable cards, which should take care of the reinitialization as well as hopefully fixing this.


> 4) This one is perhaps more on the user error side, but it has remained annoying. When I would sometimes pick up the remote (a Gyration remote that uses RF), it would not respond until I reselect PC as the option. It's also annoying to have to push TV, then power, then PC to start using things. Often, I'd mix them up and press power, only to watch the Media Center log off. It also many times wouldn't wake up until I connected a mouse. TiVo doesn't experience this nuisance with its remote.


No good suggestions for this. It only happens with the Gyration remote? Sounds like that's the problem there.


> 5) Showanalyzer is perhaps one of the single biggest reasons for me to use a Media Center over a TiVo, to automatically cut out the commercials. I always had it set to auto scan each show as it records and have it ready to go. Many times, at complete random, shows would simply not be scanned. This was without explanation. Others worked fine. Again, just another instance of something that is supposed to work seamlessly being a complete nuisance and frustration.


No good suggestions here either. For me, a feature like Showanalyzer sounds like one of those "if it works, great; if it doesn't, oh well." I never rely on a pseudo-AI type feature to work 100% reliably.


> 6) Windows Media Center's guide often has no clue what shows are new versus reruns. It has settings in there, but despite the fact that I have The Simpsons set to record only new airings, it would constantly record daily syndicated reruns. This is just one example of many many. MTV shows in particular, no matter what setting I have, it rerecords the same episode of the same show over and over and over for no reason, at all hours of the day.


Guide data issues. Also something not unknown to TiVo users.


> 7) Commercials blare like a goddamn airhorn. Major commercials, like for national brands often seem okay, but anytime a more local type of ad comes on, it blares to the point that I'm playing volume babysitter, up down up down up down, dozens of times just to watch one program. Then the show comes on, and it's dead silent. There was a auto adjust volume setting somewhere in the settings; it does absolutely nothing whatsoever. The TiVo does not cause this to happen.


No good suggestion, other than looking into a different sound card that has a better sound normalization mechanism.



> -7a) It's really annoying to have a seperate volume for the TV and the Media Center, have to constantly switch inputs on the remote and play a balancing act.


Normalize your sound from your PC, then always adjust it from the TV (or whatever other amplifier you might end up using. Never touch the PC volume again. (Consider getting a better universal remote like a Harmony, which will allow you to control your TV or amplifier volume while still set for the PC.)



> 8) I wanted to upgrade my Media center box to Windows 8; I run it full time on my desktop and I like the increased speed and various other features. When I try to install this on my Media Center box, the install hangs at various percentages. I've tried installing from CDs, USB sticks, from within Windows. Nothing works. This is where I'm led to believe somewhere exists a hardware incompatibility that will require me to start replacing hardware. Blah blah blah, not broke don't fix it, but the point is, I didn't build my Media Center just to be stuck on Windows 7 for the next five years. I should be able to upgrade it to newer software.


Windows 8 isn't out yet.... and frankly, if you are that intent on being on the "cutting edge" and running an OS that's not even released yet, get used to issues. Otherwise, have some patience and wait to upgrade. Preferably until after the first service pack, but at _least_ until the actual release to manufacturing.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

aaronwt said:


> Most people still listen through TV speakers.
> 
> I know it's always funny when people get their first 5.1 system and ask me about it. I got my first multichannel system in 1991. And went 7.1 in 2001. But Most people seem to still use the TV speakers and an old 5.1 system is new to them in 2012.
> Obviously not the people on the forums, but your average person.


I'm not really surprised by the number of people that still listen through TV speakers. I am surprised when I hear people that have AV setups and don't use them all the time.

Scott


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

LoadStar said:


> Normalize your sound from your PC, then always adjust it from the TV (or whatever other amplifier you might end up using. Never touch the PC volume again.


If the audio is being transmitted via HDMI (bitstreamed) or S/PDIF then you will not have any control over the volume. That is handled by your preamplifier.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> I would guess that the Tivo is limiting the audio output.


Nope. IIRC, the Elite is THX certified, and modifying the audio stream by a source device is strictly verboten by THX specs.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> Most people still listen through TV speakers.


That's a sad thought. (The majority of my TVs don't even have speakers.)


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> Nope. IIRC, the Elite is THX certified, and modifying the audio stream by a source device is strictly verboten by THX specs.


I wasn't aware of that. It certainly explains the premium price, even though it has four tuners. I'm surprised Tivo developed another THX model after the S3. It really adds nothing to the value of the Tivo for most people. I'd be surprised if the vast majority of Elite owners could tell the difference in quality between an Elite and a standard Premiere. THX is nothing more than a marketing gimmick to add a higher price to consumer audio electronics since it requires a license fee to Lucas Labs..


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## SullyND (Dec 30, 2004)

mr.unnatural said:


> I'm surprised Tivo developed another THX model after the S3.


S3, THD XL, Premiere XL, Elite are all THX.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> I wasn't aware of that. It certainly explains the premium price, even though it has four tuners. I'm surprised Tivo developed another THX model after the S3. It really adds nothing to the value of the Tivo for most people.


That's nonsense. The fact they do not realize the fact does not mean it is not a fact.



mr.unnatural said:


> I'd be surprised if the vast majority of Elite owners could tell the difference in quality between an Elite and a standard Premiere.


It is fairly likely there is no physical difference, but that is not the point. A certification means the unit is guaranteed to meet those specs. An un-certified unit may or may not. This is beside the main point, however. The fact the spec exists sets a bar for all devices. Some attain that bar, and others do not, but without it there is no metric for performance.



mr.unnatural said:


> THX is nothing more than a marketing gimmick to add a higher price to consumer audio electronics since it requires a license fee to Lucas Labs..


Again, that's nonsense. Yes, the licensing fee does cost extra, but then so does the engineering that accompanies the ability to meet those specifications. That engineering and those specs are not trivial. Does it make a notiable difference in a specific instance? Perhaps or perhaps not, but I guarantee you there are un-certified systems that do not meet the spec whose performance is lousy. I guarantee you there are no (properly functioning) certified devices that perform poorly.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

For god's sake, man. I finally agree with you about something and you still couldn't resist picking it apart.

THX certification has absolutely nothing to do with physical appearance so I'm not sure where you came up with that. My point is that THX certification didn't do anything special for the S3 other than jack the price up, which is probably why Tivo didn't add it to subsequent models. There's absolutely no reason why Tivo Engineers can't make a device that meets THX certification specs without paying extra just to have the THX stamp of approval. Having the THX logo on the device is just a marketing gimmick, plain and simple. People think that having it means something extra special when all it's saying is that the product meets the minimum requirements set forth by Lucas Labs.

THX certification was originally intended for movie theaters so they would adhere to some sort of standard. Many theaters used antiquated playback equipment and THX certification was meant to spark the industry into bringing their hardware up to date. It spilled over to consumer electronic devices as a means for Lucas Labs to get more revenue. It was a good idea at the outset but quickly lost it's meaning when it spilled over into the consumer electronics area. 

Most mid to high level Home Theater components should already exceed those requirements. Having it on a Tivo is utterly useless, especially if you're using your TV speakers for playback or bitstreaming the audio via HDMI to your A/V receiver or preamp/processor. The Tivo does absolutely nothing to process the sound when using the HDMI output, making THX certification totally moot.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

But doesn't the THX certification apply to audio and video? So even if someone is just using the TV speakers, it could still apply to the video. And there are THX certified TVs as well.

There are tons of products with THX certification. I don't see why TiVo has to be any different than the other manufacturers. It does give them a way to differentiate a product and maybe try to justify a higher price to the consumer. Whether that higher price is justified though is up to the consumer. But see how TiVo had THX certification for the original S3 and then the TiVo HD XL and then the Premiere XL and now the Premiere ELITE.

They obviously feel that the THX certification helps them. In the end they are the ones that know for sure whether it helps their sales and seeing how the Elite is the fourth TiVo since 2006 to have THX certification, it must help them. Otherwise after 5+ years offering these THX certified TiVos you would think they would stop offering TiVos with the certification.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

aaronwt said:


> But doesn't the THX certification apply to audio and video? So even if someone is just using the TV speakers, it could still apply to the video. And there are THX certified TVs as well.
> 
> There are tons of products with THX certification. I don't see why TiVo has to be any different than the other manufacturers. It does give them a way to differentiate a product and maybe try to justify a higher price to the consumer. Whether that higher price is justified though is up to the consumer. But see how TiVo had THX certification for the original S3 and then the TiVo HD XL and then the Premiere XL and now the Premiere ELITE.
> 
> They obviously feel that the THX certification helps them. In the end they are the ones that know for sure whether it helps their sales and seeing how the Elite is the fourth TiVo since 2006 to have THX certification, it must help them. Otherwise after 5+ years offering these THX certified TiVos you would think they would stop offering TiVos with the certification.


THX certification applies to the entire playback system as a whole as well as individual components. Unless every component in the system is THX-certified and calibrated for proper playback, having just one or two components that meet the criteria won't give you a 100% THX-certified system. OTOH, setting a given component to a THX setting won't necessarily give you the best performance either. It will just give you sound and video that meets the THX criteria, which may not necessarily be the best performance you can get out of that particular hardware. The idea is to be able to have any system meet a set of performance criteria that will provide consistency from system to system.

For example, I've got an Onkyo Pro preamp/processor that has a THX setting for surround playback. I don't use it because the Pure Audio setting provides better sound quality. THX is simply another option in a whole laundry list of settings I can choose from.

Tivo adds THX certification to justify selling at a higher price. They probably pay something like $5 to add the THX logo to every Tivo they sell but charge you an extra $50 for that little badge on the box. My point is, if Tivo Engineered their DVRs to provide quality performance they shouldn't need to have the THX certification just to confirm that they designed it correctly. The lack of a THX logo on a device doesn't mean it isn't as good or better than a similar device that's been certified. It's nothing morer than a marketing ploy to get people to pay more for their premium DVRs. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the audio and video circuitry in the Elite is the same as what's in the basic Premiere.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

But they do keep coming out with new TiVos with the THX certification. So their research must show it makes a difference in sales. Otherwise why keep paying the extra for certification if it doesn't help your bottom line?


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> THX certification has absolutely nothing to do with physical appearance so I'm not sure where you came up with that.


Do you mean the outward appearance of the equipment cabinets? Of course not. I never said anything even remotely like that. If you mean the video reproduction, then it most certainly does relate to the accuracy of the video reproduction.



mr.unnatural said:


> My point is that THX certification didn't do anything special for the S3 other than jack the price up


That's a chicken /egg argument. Once the S3 was designed meeting THX requirements, the certification was no more than a guarantee of it meeting those requirements, but you can't reasonably pull the process apart like that. If the TiVo had not been engineered from the outset to meet those requirements, then it is likely it would not have done. Having done so, however, the certification is just that: a certification.



mr.unnatural said:


> which is probably why Tivo didn't add it to subsequent models.


But they did add it to subsequent models.



mr.unnatural said:


> There's absolutely no reason why Tivo Engineers can't make a device that meets THX certification specs without paying extra just to have the THX stamp of approval.


True, but having done so, there is also a good argument to go ahead and obtain the certification.



mr.unnatural said:


> Having the THX logo on the device is just a marketing gimmick, plain and simple. People think that having it means something extra special when all it's saying is that the product meets the minimum requirements set forth by Lucas Labs.


Which is saying a great deal. Those specs are not easy to meet. A lot of professional gear does not qualify.



mr.unnatural said:


> THX certification was originally intended for movie theaters so they would adhere to some sort of standard.


Correct.



mr.unnatural said:


> Many theaters used antiquated playback equipment and THX certification was meant to spark the industry into bringing their hardware up to date.


There is a significant amount of older gear that can meet the specs, and a lot of modern gear that does not.



mr.unnatural said:


> It spilled over to consumer electronic devices as a means for Lucas Labs to get more revenue. It was a good idea at the outset but quickly lost it's meaning when it spilled over into the consumer electronics area.


Whether consumer or professional gear, if the gear meets the spec, then it can reproduce the original content with specific limits on artifacts and aberrations. That has not changed with the offer to certify CE gear.



mr.unnatural said:


> Most mid to high level Home Theater components should already exceed those requirements.


Not so much. In my days as a CATV engineer, I worked with a lot of very expensive gear that did not even come close. Even today, meeting the reproduction quality required by THX specs is not trivial.



mr.unnatural said:


> Having it on a Tivo is utterly useless, especially if you're using your TV speakers for playback or bitstreaming the audio via HDMI to your A/V receiver or preamp/processor. The Tivo does absolutely nothing to process the sound when using the HDMI output, making THX certification totally moot.


If it *DID* process the audio, per your earlier suggestion (limiting the audio level) then it would not meet the THX spec, so WRT this discussion, the point is anything but moot.

OTOH, it is true meeting the THX spec for a source device is not difficult if both the source material and the output are digital and the device does no processing. That's one of the beauties of digital.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> THX certification applies to the entire playback system as a whole as well as individual components.


It applies to the entire environment.



mr.unnatural said:


> Unless every component in the system is THX-certified and calibrated for proper playback, having just one or two components that meet the criteria won't give you a 100% THX-certified system.


True, but every component that meets THX specs (certified or not) will contribute to the performance in a very specific and predictable way, with well established limits on how much unwanted information is added to the signal and how much of the desirable information is lost.



mr.unnatural said:


> The idea is to be able to have any system meet a set of performance criteria that will provide consistency from system to system.


That's part of the idea, yes. The idea is not only uniformity, but also accuracy.



mr.unnatural said:


> For example, I've got an Onkyo Pro preamp/processor that has a THX setting for surround playback. I don't use it because the Pure Audio setting provides better sound quality. THX is simply another option in a whole laundry list of settings I can choose from.


If every aspect of your system (which includes the speakers, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, etc.) met THX certification, then that "THX" setting would produce a very accurate reproduction of the original content. Whether you would find that most pleasing or not is a subjective matter.



mr.unnatural said:


> I wouldn't be at all surprised if the audio and video circuitry in the Elite is the same as what's in the basic Premiere.


It probably is. No one said a device cannot meet the THX spec just because it is not certified.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Funny arguing the merits of THX certification when talking about cable tv(-delivered) content.


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## dsnotgood (Aug 26, 2010)

some people have wayyyy too much time on their hands to argue about thx certification...

Also gotta love the windows media apologists in here who blame the user instead of the crappy wmc setup. I am guessing these were the same people in the days of DOS that said windows was dumb because it had a graphical gui.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

My main argument is that if a device meets the THX certification requirements, getting the actual certification is a marketing gimmick that tacks on added cost just to have the THX logo. Whether the customer gets any benefit from it is a complete unknown. The marketing strategy is that when a consumer sees the THX logo he automatically assumes that box A with the logo is going to better than box B that does not have it. The result is that the price will be considerably higher for a box with THX than one that does not have it. 

The only ones that will ever see a benefit from THX hardware will be the diehard home theater enthusiasts that strive to build a home theater that meets THX requirements from top to bottom. I have no doubt that there are a handfull of HT geeks out there that would go the extra mile to have their own THX home theater, but they're going to be few and far between. The vast majority of Tivo owners aren't going to have systems configured to meet THX specs so buying a Tivo that's THX-certified is simply overkill and a completely unnecessary expense. I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of Tivo owners have never even adjusted their TV sets using a calibration DVD or Blu-Ray disc. I'd also bet that the number one reason people buy the XL Tivos is because of the larger hard drives. Most people buy the Elites for the four tuners.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

and the 2TB hard drive.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

aaronwt said:


> and the 2TB hard drive.


Undoubtedly. Then again, the size of the drive required depends entirely on how you use your Tivo. I'm amazed that so many people hoard TV shows and use their Tivos for long-term storage. My HTPC has access to 11 tuners and I only have a 1.5TB drive for recordings. I record everything I watch, and I watch more than the average person, but I also watch everything I record as soon as I can and delete it after viewing. I figure I only need storage for up to three weeks' worth of recordings in the event I have to travel on business.

If you've got small kids, then keeping a lot of shows available for them makes sense, although having a NetFlix streaming account with access to countless kid's shows is a huge plus. Other than that, keeping archived shows on a Tivo is just a disaster waiting to happen. If they mean that much to you then you should be offloading them to another medium for long-term storage. A Tivo drive is a ticking time bomb waiting to implode. It could happen today or it could happen five years from now, but it's going to happen. When it does you can kiss all those shows goodbye.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I have 6TB of storage on my TiVo Desktop server. I can always offload content from my TiVos to that. And if I fill that up, I have around 100TB of total storage available on my Network between my WHS, two unRAID boxes, and my NAS devices.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

mr.unnatural said:


> Undoubtedly. Then again, the size of the drive required depends entirely on how you use your Tivo. I'm amazed that so many people hoard TV shows and use their Tivos for long-term storage. My HTPC has access to 11 tuners and I only have a 1.5TB drive for recordings. I record everything I watch, and I watch more than the average person, but I also watch everything I record as soon as I can and delete it after viewing. I figure I only need storage for up to three weeks' worth of recordings in the event I have to travel on business.


I have had Tivo drives go (but hope to resurrect at least one of them -- one of them is software related, one 'died' soon before the Tivo it was in did)..

But I do think having more than 3 weeks is good -- because you can then "bank up" shows for the summer. I actually like some reality shows (gasp!), so there IS new stuff airing during the summer, but not as much as during the main season. So you can record lots of stuff and keep it for a while..

but again, there is the risk of the dying hard drive.

Back when drive prices come down to sane prices again, I do think I'll probably try to back up a lot more stuff. Nowadays I'm offloading just because I have the orig "tiny" Tivo HD drive in there, and I'm not even recording HD stuff (except once last week when a ARWL caught a 2 HR HD program and wiped out a bunch of my stuff).


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

mattack said:


> ...
> 
> Back when drive prices come down to sane prices again...


I have a nasty nagging suspicion that when they start to come down again it'll only be on new 4K sector drives that will only work well with new computer motherboards and OS'es, and older computers and TiVos will be royally screwed.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

The Seagate Greens are 4k drives with 'SmartAlign' which is supposed to map old OS sector access to 4ks in the firmware. The one I just installed in a Premiere works fine, not sure if it works in the HD.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

mr.unnatural said:


> Undoubtedly. Then again, the size of the drive required depends entirely on how you use your Tivo. I'm amazed that so many people hoard TV shows and use their Tivos for long-term storage. My HTPC has access to 11 tuners and I only have a 1.5TB drive for recordings. I record everything I watch, and I watch more than the average person, but I also watch everything I record as soon as I can and delete it after viewing. I figure I only need storage for up to three weeks' worth of recordings in the event I have to travel on business.


+1, I've never understood the hoarding either. I have way too much stuff to watch as it is with current shows, and now that some cable channels are running new stuff in the summer (Burn Notice, Falling Skies, etc.) there's no lack of something to watch with just a few older series saved on my Tivos.


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

my ceton InfiniTV 4 PCIe is on the way


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

tootal2 said:


> my ceton InfiniTV 4 PCIe is on the way


:up::up::up::up::up::up:


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

mr.unnatural said:


> :up::up::up::up::up::up:


I got the ceton card installed with a cable card. i can record 6 channels at 1 time. 4 cable and 2 ota. dont know what i am going to do with my tivo hd.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

tootal2 said:


> ... dont know what i am going to do with my tivo hd.


Well, you could give it to me.


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

unitron said:


> Well, you could give it to me.


I think im just going to move it to my bedroom. also thinking of replacing the 2 s cards in it with a m card to save 2.00 a month. 2.00 a month for a dvr in my bedroom seems good to me. its a lifetime tivo.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

tootal2 said:


> I got the ceton card installed with a cable card. i can record 6 channels at 1 time. 4 cable and 2 ota. dont know what i am going to do with my tivo hd.


I had my HTPC set up at one point with two Ceton InfiniTV 4's and two Hauppauge 2250's. I ran a test to see if it would record twelve HD channels at once (8 digital FIOS and four OTA). It not only worked great but I was able to play back a 13th HD show at the same time that I had previously recorded.

The beauty of an HTPC is that once you get past the initial investment in the PC, you can add more tuners for a fraction of what a Tivo with service costs you.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

tootal2 said:


> I think im just going to move it to my bedroom. also thinking of replacing the 2 s cards in it with a m card to save 2.00 a month. 2.00 a month for a dvr in my bedroom seems good to me. its a lifetime tivo.


Unfortunately for me that sounds like a very reasonable plan.


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

Your hard drive must of been worn out. also a computer can lockup or get a update that reboots your computer. and i have a strange fliker problem on some shows.



mr.unnatural said:


> I had my HTPC set up at one point with two Ceton InfiniTV 4's and two Hauppauge 2250's. I ran a test to see if it would record twelve HD channels at once (8 digital FIOS and four OTA). It not only worked great but I was able to play back a 13th HD show at the same time that I had previously recorded.
> 
> The beauty of an HTPC is that once you get past the initial investment in the PC, you can add more tuners for a fraction of what a Tivo with service costs you.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

tootal2 said:


> Your hard drive must of been worn out. also a computer can lockup or get a update that reboots your computer. and i have a strange fliker problem on some shows.


I've been using the same hard drive in my HTPC for recording going on several years now and it hasn't missed a beat. Why on earth would you allow your PC to take updates automatically? Rebooting issues due to an update are your own fault. I've never had an upgrade cause my PC to reboot because I have it configured to download updates but only install them when I tell it to (it's one of the options available to everyone when you configure Windows Updates). If you've got flickering on some shows then you've got an issue that could be related to anything from bad drivers to a weak signal and lots of options in between. I get a great picture on my HTPC via the Ceton InfiniTV 4, my SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime, and my Hauppauge 2250 ATSC tuners.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

mr.unnatural said:


> I've been using the same hard drive in my HTPC for recording going on several years now and it hasn't missed a beat. Why on earth would you allow your PC to take updates automatically? Rebooting issues due to an update are your own fault.


That's funny. Microsoft recommends that users enable automatic updates but it's the user's fault if they do and it trashes their system.


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

charter changed its channel lineup and wmc is still using the old channel lineup so i cant record any cable shows on my wmc. tivo updated the channel lineup a head of time.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

tootal2 said:


> charter changed its channel lineup and wmc is still using the old channel lineup so i cant record any cable shows on my wmc. tivo updated the channel lineup a head of time.


WMC & TiVo both use zap2it for the lineup data. If your TiVo has the new lineup, forcing an update on WMC should fix it.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

nrc said:


> That's funny. Microsoft recommends that users enable automatic updates but it's the user's fault if they do and it trashes their system.


And you believe everything Microsoft tells you? I know people with HTPCs that never take any updates and they're still working just fine. Unless you use your PC for browsing the internet you can probably get away with never taking an update. Most of them are security fixes for bugs in the software. OTOH, some updates are critical and should be installed or else some of your ancillary software may not work properly.

I never said I don't allow my HTPC to take updates. I just don't allow them to occur automatically. You have the option to download updates and alert you to them so you can decide which ones you want installed. Windows Update likes to download drivers from unknown sources and I'd rather get them directly from the manufacturer's website. Letting updates install automatically can result in random rebooting to occur just like the previous poster indicated.


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

ggieseke said:


> WMC & TiVo both use zap2it for the lineup data. If your TiVo has the new lineup, forcing an update on WMC should fix it.


I know it uses zaptoit. but i think it goes from zaptoit to microsoft and then to me. So my windows media center is useless for recording cable. i can still record antenna tv.

my tivo hd is still working fine but i had to unplug the tuning adaptor for 5 hours so the gc file would update.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

mr.unnatural said:


> And you believe everything Microsoft tells you?


I believe very little that Microsoft tells me. One more reason to avoid their products wherever practical.

That doesn't mean it's their customer's fault when they trust their recommendations and it causes problems. Unless you want to say that it's their fault for trusting Microsoft in the first place.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

nrc said:


> That's funny. Microsoft recommends that users enable automatic updates but it's the user's fault if they do and it trashes their system.


I used go have them download and then install them at my leisure, but now I just have them install automatically. I was installing the same updates anyway. And either way I haven't had any issues.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

nrc said:


> I believe very little that Microsoft tells me. One more reason to avoid their products wherever practical.


And then some.



nrc said:


> That doesn't mean it's their customer's fault when they trust their recommendations and it causes problems. Unless you want to say that it's their fault for trusting Microsoft in the first place.


I'm afraid I must admit when I see someone whining about problems they are having and it's a Microsoft platform, my knee jerk response is, "Serves them right."


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

I like microsoft also anyone who plays games uses windows 7. macs are slow at playing games and they dont play directx games

my windows 7 computer does everything. plays blu-rays 3d blu-rays dvds, records 6 tv shows at one time and plays games.

i also use it to as a computer



nrc said:


> I believe very little that Microsoft tells me. One more reason to avoid their products wherever practical.
> 
> That doesn't mean it's their customer's fault when they trust their recommendations and it causes problems. Unless you want to say that it's their fault for trusting Microsoft in the first place.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

tootal2 said:


> I like microsoft also anyone who plays games uses windows 7.


I don;t p[lay games. (And I think I rest my case.)



tootal2 said:


> macs are slow at playing games and they dont play directx games


I don't have a Mac.



tootal2 said:


> i also use it to as a computer


What scintillating repartee.


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