# ceton 6 tuner dvr and streamer Q echo



## fatlard

http://m.engadget.com/default/artic...xtender-hands-on/&category=classic&postPage=1

T he company that has almost single handedly spurred the golden age ofCableCARD*has found a new way to deliver its technology to consumers with a 6 tuner multi-room DVR with a 2TB hard drive, codenamed Q, and its companion extender, codenamed Echo. No word on the price of either but both are expected to ship in 2012


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## CoxInPHX

Based on price-point of other Ceton devices I'm guessing around $599 for the 6-Tuner DVR.
Ceton has no subscription
Ceton is very focused on the customer and interacts regularly in various forums.
I myself do not like the WMC experience, But this could be a real contender.

Ceton previews multi-room DVR and Echo extender (hands-on)
http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/10/ceton-announces-multi-room-dvr-and-echo-extender-hands-on/

The naming seems a bit odd though
TiVo is already using the name Q?
Dish is already using the name Echo, so is Rovi Passport Echo?


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## bradleys

It is interesting... And at that price point, very competitive.

This might provide a little pressure to get TiVo to deliver a retail preview!


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## xberk

bradleys said:


> It is interesting... And at that price point, very competitive.
> 
> This might provide a little pressure to get TiVo to deliver a retail preview!


I don't get it. Does the Ceton DVR work with Satellite, Cable or OTA TV? I don't see a coax connection. Did I miss it?


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## innocentfreak

This is just a technical preview for now. It takes coax they just don't have it on the display box.

It is essentially a TiVo elite with 2 more tuners, a Blu-ray drive, but runs Media Center.

I will be keeping my eye on it, but I am really happy with my Elite so I would probably have to sell my TiVo HD and InfiniTV4 before buying one.


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## bradleys

xberk said:


> I don't get it. Does the Ceton DVR work with Satellite, Cable or OTA TV? I don't see a coax connection. Did I miss it?


Uses a cablecard... So it has to be focused a cable.

Interesting, I do not see coax either. Hmmm


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## CoxInPHX

bradleys said:


> Uses a cablecard... So it has to be focused a cable.
> 
> Interesting, I do not see coax either. Hmmm


The Coax Dongle attachment is just below the CableCARD slot, the little copper/brass screw hole just like in the Ceton InfiniTV 4


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## bradleys

Mic in and headphones out seems odd for a unit like this.


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## CoxInPHX

If you read through the comments on Engadet, Eric Kotz is the Quality Assurance Manager for the Ceton Corporation.

Eric Kotz
These are prototypes, and using the same dongle as an InfiniTV (actually, there is an InfiniTV inside them). We plan on panel-mounting an RF-connector for a production unit.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/10/ceton-announces-multi-room-dvr-and-echo-extender-hands-on/

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=21471964#post21471964


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## CoxInPHX

In my excitement, I missed the fact that it also included a Blu-ray player.



> Speaking of the Q, that slot up front is a Blu-ray drive and in addition to being able to play Blu-ray Discs, the plan is to integrate as many streaming sources as possible (no partners to announce yet, though).


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## atmuscarella

Well this vision is allot closer to the "One Box" concept than anything TiVo has done. 

TiVo pay attention!!

Enough tuners so you only need one box, a Blu-ray player so you don't need another box to play blu-ray disks. If they get Internet content on par with Boxee and Ruko you will not need another box for that either. 

If they can deliver this at reasonable price ($599 would be a killer price) and if it functions properly, we may finally have the One Box. 

Of course us OTA users will likely still be left out .


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## hillyard

It will replace my tivos if it works as described


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## slowbiscuit

This could indeed make Tivo sit up and notice as it is a direct competitor to their cable DVR business, especially the Elite and to a lesser extent Premiere. This might force them to release the Preview.

Do note that this will also have MoCA support so no need to run ethernet to the extender. And since it's running WMC embedded, it may be customizable with plugins like DVRMSToolbox to allow for auto commercial skip and other neat stuff. I will be very curious as to how many streams/extenders it will support simultaneously over either MoCA or ethernet. No guide data or other extra cost sub either since it is WMC-based, plus your existing extenders such as Xbox360 will work out of the box.

Can't wait for this one to hit the shelves this year, Tivo really needs the competition now that Moxi is dead.


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## mr.unnatural

The Echo can be used as an extender for WMC or for the Q 6-tuner DVR. This is great news for WMC users that have been looking for a good extender. Details are still sketchy, but it would appear that the Echo has Blu-Ray support. No official word has been released yet as to what other codec support will be offered, but this could prove to be a really interesting product. I may have to rethink the idea of using extenders with my WMC PC. It it can support Blu-Ray streaming from my server, I'm in.


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## uw69

If the price is right, this could be a game changer.


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## aaronwt

When will it be released?


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## NotVeryWitty

aaronwt said:


> When will it be released?


This.

Tivo takes a lot of hits on TCF for taking a long time to deliver on their promises. Ceton doesn't exactly have a great record for meeting their delivery dates, either.


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## fyodor

I'd be shocked if it's under $1000. Their 6 tuner card is $299 by itself. Once you throw in the cost of a fast SFF PC, blu-ray reader, licenses, and the premium you can charge for an integrated device it's going to be pretty expensive.



atmuscarella said:


> Well this vision is allot closer to the "One Box" concept than anything TiVo has done.
> 
> TiVo pay attention!!
> 
> Enough tuners so you only need one box, a Blu-ray player so you don't need another box to play blu-ray disks. If they get Internet content on par with Boxee and Ruko you will not need another box for that either.
> 
> If they can deliver this at reasonable price ($599 would be a killer price) and if it functions properly, we may finally have the One Box.
> 
> Of course us OTA users will likely still be left out .


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## fyodor

NotVeryWitty said:


> This.
> 
> Tivo takes a lot of hits on TCF for taking a long time to deliver on their promises. Ceton doesn't exactly have a great record for meeting their delivery dates, either.


A lot of this has to do with the delays in CableCard certification, which is to some extent outside Ceton's control. My understanding is that this uses their existing cablecard tuner and won't require separate certification.

That being said, releasing a finished AV product to market is new for Ceton so it'll be interesting to see how they pull it off.


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## atmuscarella

fyodor said:


> I'd be shocked if it's under $1000. Their 6 tuner card is $299 by itself. Once you throw in the cost of a fast SFF PC, blu-ray reader, licenses, and the premium you can charge for an integrated device it's going to be pretty expensive.


My $599 price reference was in regards to post #2. I actually agree that $1000 is much more likely and based on the cost of other custom made HTPS could actually be more. In the end Price will determine if it is viable or not but I would think that even at $1000+ that it would be, if it worked correctly.


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## mr.unnatural

NotVeryWitty said:


> This.
> 
> Tivo takes a lot of hits on TCF for taking a long time to deliver on their promises. Ceton doesn't exactly have a great record for meeting their delivery dates, either.


The InfiniTV 4 was delayed due to component supply issues in addition to the CableCARD certification mentioned above. They had problems getting the parts needed to manufacture the tuner card due to a shortage. Once the supply issues were resolved they went into full production. They eventually redesigned the card to speed up the manufacturing process and meet the demand for the card.

Since it was introducd back in the third quarter of 2010, the price of the PCI-E tuner card has dropped by almost 50%. It's gone on sale at Newegg for as little as $220, down from an original retail price tag of $399. Tivo only drops their prices on existing models when they decide to introduce a new platform.

Ceton is light years beyond Tivo when it comes to developing and delivering products, not to mention customer support. I have been extremely impressed with them. Eric Kotz is the Quality Assurance Manager at Ceton and routinely gets involved in discussions over at the AVSForums.

On another note, here's a little teaser for you Tivo and iPad owners:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/10/2...-streaming-dvr-content-to-ipad-with-prototype


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## yoheidiho

fyodor said:


> I'd be shocked if it's under $1000. Their 6 tuner card is $299 by itself.


Their six tuner card is not currently available, nor has pricing been set. The USB 4-tuner model is priced at $299 while the PCIe version is available for less.


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## fyodor

yoheidiho said:


> Their six tuner card is not currently available, nor has pricing been set. The USB 4-tuner model is priced at $299 while the PCIe version is available for less.


You're right-current card is four tuners. My bad.


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## mattack

bradleys said:


> Mic in and headphones out seems odd for a unit like this.


I can't provide their rationale for it, but I definitely want headphones out (that I can easily break out to RCA cables).. I am annoyed that my HDTV doesn't have analog audio out for my wireless headphones, that I use when walking on my treadmill.. So I use the audio out from my XS32 recorder.. but that precludes me from using another input from the TV (e.g. watching something on one Tivo while another tivo is dubbing to the XS32). It was an 'emergency' TV replacement, otherwise I probably would have looked around a bit more and maybe used analog audio out as a partial deciding factor.

This device DOES sound good though. I hope I can download uncopyprotected programs TO A Mac.


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## slowbiscuit

Another interesting thing Eric (Ceton rep) said over at AVS was that if you didn't like the custom WMC setup they provided on the Q, you could reinstall WMC with your own license and do whatever you want with it. So it's essentially a quiet, low-power SFF PC running WMC Embedded, but it could easily be a full-blown small HTPC.

But it looks like they're trying to partner with video streamers like Tivo, Roku, etc. are doing so the customizations they're making could make it a better HTPC than stock Win7 anyway.

And if the Echo can play a wide range of video formats in addition to being a great extender, it's going to be a compelling alternative.


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## mr.unnatural

slowbiscuit said:


> And if the Echo can play a wide range of video formats in addition to being a great extender, it's going to be a compelling alternative.


+1. Current extenders and the limitations for playing back various video formats is a dealbreaker for many that would consider using WMC. I tried them for a while but couldn't sell the family on using them. If I had a box that could access my recordings, miscellaneous videos, photos, and music and stream ripped DVDs and Blu-Ray discs from my server I'd be onboard in a flash. Extenders have always been the weak link in using WMC as a whole house solution.

I believe I read that the Q and Echo are still in development and the boxes shown at CES are only prototypes. No doubt Ceton still has a few wrinkles they'd like to iron out before going into production. There is no word on a projected release date or price point at this time. I'm sure they'll keep us posted at the Ceton website or if you're on their mailing list.


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## Scyber

Obviously there are still alot of questions (price, codec support, etc), but right now the Q + 2 Echo's are probably the leading contenders to replace my 3 aging TiVoHDs in 2012.


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## innocentfreak

I just am curious to see what if anything they have added to improve the Media Center experience.


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## qz3fwd

I want one. (In addition to my tivo's)
Wake up and smell the coffee tivo. 
Real competition looks to be coming to the markets ready to take your meal ticket.
Just dont sue them to prevent this from coming to market please.


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## Dan203

This thing looks pretty awesome. I've thought about putting together a SFF PC just like this myself. But if I can buy one pre-made that would be much better.

Does anyone know... Do the Centon cards support analog channel recording? Or are they digital only? One bad thing about my situation is that my cable provider still has a few channels that are only available via analog, so I need analog recording.

Dan


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## Enrique

Dan203 said:


> This thing looks pretty awesome. I've thought about putting together a SFF PC just like this myself. But if I can buy one pre-made that would be much better.
> 
> Does anyone know... Do the Centon cards support analog channel recording? Or are they digital only? One bad thing about my situation is that my cable provider still has a few channels that are only available via analog, so I need analog recording.
> 
> Dan


Like all cable cards it does digital only.


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## SullyND

Enrique said:


> Like all cable cards it does digital only.


Huh? Wasn't doing analog a requirement to the point that TiVo needed to get a waiver to eliminate it in the Elite? (And aren't all Cablecard TiVos other than the Elite/Q capable of recording Analog?)


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## innocentfreak

SullyND said:


> Huh? Wasn't doing analog a requirement to the point that TiVo needed to get a waiver to eliminate it in the Elite? (And aren't all Cablecard TiVos other than the Elite/Q capable of recording Analog?)


It depends. Ceton's Infinitv 4 doesn't need the waiver since it isn't an all in one device. I don't know with Windows Embedded if they would need a waiver. If it supports analog USB tuners they may not need a waiver iirc.


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## mattack

Enrique said:


> Like all cable cards it does digital only.


A "cable card" is not a tuner. A cable card is like a key that goes into the lock (the tuner).

and yes, the Elite has a FCC waiver for its lack of analog tuners (from everything I've read, mostly here).


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## gastrof

bradleys said:


> Uses a cablecard... So it has to be focused a cable.
> 
> Interesting, I do not see coax either. Hmmm


Cable needs coax just like OTA does.

Doubt it'll be for satellite unless they come up with a version built into a satellite receiver...or it takes A/V outputs from a satellite box.

Someone mentioned blu-ray.

Was that a player only, or could it be....*gasp*....a recording drive?

(I tried to visit the web page, but it wouldn't load for me.  )

__________________
Fly until the moon.


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## steve614

mattack said:


> A "cable card" is not a tuner. A cable card is like a key that goes into the lock (the tuner).
> 
> and yes, the Elite has a FCC waiver for its lack of analog tuners (from everything I've read, mostly here).


IIRC, the waiver is for the lack of an ATSC (digital OTA) tuner.


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## slowbiscuit

innocentfreak said:


> It depends. Ceton's Infinitv 4 doesn't need the waiver since it isn't an all in one device. I don't know with Windows Embedded if they would need a waiver. If it supports analog USB tuners they may not need a waiver iirc.


The Infini tuners only do digital cable, but as you said the Q might support USB tuners (it has the ports) so it could be a moot issue. It's just another version of WMC after all.

I will be curious to see what the diffs are between WMC Embedded and stock WMC on a Win7 box.


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## slowbiscuit

qz3fwd said:


> I want one. (In addition to my tivo's)
> Wake up and smell the coffee tivo.
> Real competition looks to be coming to the markets ready to take your meal ticket.
> Just dont sue them to prevent this from coming to market please.


Ceton is using WMC Embedded under the hood, so they should be safe. Tivo's beef would be with Microsoft (if they even have one, WMC has been out for many years now).


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## mr.unnatural

Here's a link to the CES podcast where they talk with the developers from Ceton about the Q and the Echo:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/12/t...at-11-00pm-et/

One of the big questions that came up was whether or not the boxes will support Blu-Ray streaming. The response was that they're still looking into any legal issues involved, but that it is technically feasible. They did not set a price point for either unit, but they did say that the Echo will be priced below the XBox 360. The Q is basically a pre-configured HTPC using the Windows Media Center embedded architecture. It will be configured as a stable plug and play device and will also allow for third party application support. With no DVR fees involved, this could be a real Tivo killer. The only thing I see that's missing is OTA tuners, but since it has USB ports I suspect they can be added. I can definitely see a Q with a couple of Echos replacing my HTPC if they also supports Blu-Ray streaming.


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## aaronwt

mr.unnatural said:


> Here's a link to the CES podcast where they talk with the developers from Ceton about the Q and the Echo:
> 
> http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/12/t...at-11-00pm-et/
> 
> One of the big questions that came up was whether or not the boxes will support Blu-Ray streaming. The response was that they're still looking into any legal issues involved, but that it is technically feasible. They did not set a price point for either unit, but they did say that the Echo will be priced below the XBox 360. The Q is basically a pre-configured HTPC using the Windows Media Center embedded architecture. It will be configured as a stable plug and play device and will also allow for third party application support. With no DVR fees involved, this could be a real Tivo killer. The only thing I see that's missing is OTA tuners, but since it has USB ports I suspect they can be added. I can definitely see a Q with a couple of Echos replacing my HTPC if they also supports Blu-Ray streaming.


WIth no DVR fees, six tuners, a BD player plus BD license, and possibly BD streaming, that sounds like an expensive box. That sounds like something that would be around $1k. If it came in at $600 it would be a steal.

But there are also plenty of other devices that stream BDs fine. No one box will do everything great so I figure I will always need multiple boxes to get the bets of everything. And so far the TiVo is still the best DVR out there. Only time will tell what the Ceton stand alone will be like.
Although I would have been all over it ten years ago.(or even six)But I have an Elite now and three other Premieres, which are working extremely well especially with the MRS that was just enabled.


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## innocentfreak

aaronwt said:


> WIth no DVR fees, six tuners, a BD player plus BD license, and possibly BD streaming, that sounds like an expensive box. That sounds like something that would be around $1k. If it came in at $600 it would be a steal.
> 
> But there are also plenty of other devices that stream BDs fine. No one box will do everything great so I figure I will always need multiple boxes to get the bets of everything. And so far the TiVo is still the best DVR out there. Only time will tell what the Ceton stand alone will be like.
> Although I would have been all over it ten years ago.(or even six)But I have an Elite now and three other Premieres, which are working extremely well especially with the MRS that was just enabled.


Yeah price is going to be interesting. The regular InfiniTV 4 goes for $299 or less. You can get BD drives for $59 whether it is a separate player or PC drive. 2TB drives are starting to come down again so you can find those around $150 iirc. I definitely don't see it going for $600 and I think it will tough to keep it below the $850 or so we paid for our Elites with lifetime. This is especially true when you consider the extra software they are talking about developing.

I would need to sell my older TiVo HD and at least my InfiniTV before I would consider picking one up. I just don't need any more tuners.

I also wonder if they will offer other models with less tuners since they do have other tuner configurations.


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## mr.unnatural

aaronwt said:


> WIth no DVR fees, six tuners, a BD player plus BD license, and possibly BD streaming, that sounds like an expensive box. That sounds like something that would be around $1k. If it came in at $600 it would be a steal.


Since no prices have been mentioned it's anybody's guess what the list price will eventually be. It's still a work in progress so we still don't know what capabilities this thing will have when it hits the streets. Ceton did say that these _will _be available before the end of the year. I'd speculate a list price somewhere in the region of $600-800.



> But there are also plenty of other devices that stream BDs fine. No one box will do everything great so I figure I will always need multiple boxes to get the bets of everything. And so far the TiVo is still the best DVR out there. Only time will tell what the Ceton stand alone will be like.
> Although I would have been all over it ten years ago.(or even six)But I have an Elite now and three other Premieres, which are working extremely well especially with the MRS that was just enabled.


A DVR is a DVR. As long as you can schedule it to record shows and it does so without fail it does what it needs to do. The extra features that Tivo includes in their software sets it apart from other DVRs, but only if those extra features are important to the end user. WMC does everything I use my Tivos for and much more, all without the need to pay for a DVR service, which makes it the DVR of choice for my use. It's all a matter of personal preference. The Q and Echo is aimed at those who prefer not to deal with HTPCs but want many of the same features without the added fees of a Tivo.

In my case, my HTPC provides an all-in-one solution. Unfortunately, everyone's idea of a perfect one-box solution varies so widely it's near impossible to address all configurations. I'm not all that concerned with distributing TV to the rest of my house because my wife and I are now empty-nesters. The wife watches her shows and has no interest in recording anything or watching movies from my server. A set top box is all she needs. OTOH, I would love to replace my last Tivo with an Echo to access not only recorded shows but also my vast library of movies and video files. I would definitely consider replacing my HTPC with a Q if it will also work with outboard ATSC tuners. In any case, I'll be following the development of both products as they evolve.


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## bdraw

AT&T was not protected from TiVo because they were using Microsoft's software, so I doubt Ceton is either. That being said, TiVo is making its way down the list and companies who have yet to release a DVR are not even on that list yet. 

Ceton got around the analog requirement with the InfiniTV 4 because Media Center supports an analog tuner, I suspect they'll do the same thing to get around the FCC requirement. Besides, I see no reason for them to remove the support.

I'd be utterly shocked if Ceton found a way to stream Blu-ray, it just isn't something Hollywood wants you doing.


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## bradleys

TiVo with a fee is relative - as has been discussed infinitely on this forum. 

A Premier with lifetime is $500. An Elite with lifetime is $900

This unit would need to be competive to the consumer in functionality and cost. Just as with the Moxy products - they did not offer other service options, so apples to apples you have to compare it with lifetime service.

Looks like a lot of options available. Large Hard Drive, 6 tuners and extenders...

I expect to see this box retail between $800 and $1000, with each extender @ ~$150. 

Will TiVo have retail extenders by the end of the year? Will TiVo have the streaming device by the end of the year? Does this product allow archival of recorded video onto a local server? What happens when the Microsoft v TiVo patent dispute concludes? Does the Ceton software infringe on TiVo patents?

Lots if unknown questions, but definitely something to watch.


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## mr.unnatural

bradleys said:


> Does the Ceton software infringe on TiVo patents?


The Ceton Q uses embedded Windows Media Center software so I'd have to say there are no patent infringements. The folks at Ceton are looking at any potential legal issues before committing to the final configuration and capabilities for these devices. You can bet whatever they come out with will be free of any legal concerns.


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## SullyND

mr.unnatural said:


> The Ceton Q uses embedded Windows Media Center software so I'd have to say there are no patent infringements.


How do you figure? Just because TiVo has not gone after WMC does not mean it does not infringe, or, at least, that TiVo doesn't see it as infringing.


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## GatorBlues

aaronwt said:


> WIth no DVR fees, six tuners, a BD player plus BD license, and possibly BD streaming, that sounds like an expensive box. That sounds like something that would be around $1k. If it came in at $600 it would be a steal.
> 
> But there are also plenty of other devices that stream BDs fine. No one box will do everything great so I figure I will always need multiple boxes to get the bets of everything. And so far the TiVo is still the best DVR out there. Only time will tell what the Ceton stand alone will be like.
> Although I would have been all over it ten years ago.(or even six)But I have an Elite now and three other Premieres, which are working extremely well especially with the MRS that was just enabled.


6 tuners for $1000 plus reasonably priced extenders allowing you to leverage the investment into other rooms would be a solid value. An Elite with lifetime is roughly $1000, but you can't stream into other rooms. Instead, you need a premiere in the other rooms for another $500 each. Tivo has not given any indication that it will sell cheap extenders. If they don't offer them at retail, and the Ceton product actually comes to market and works well, I will be far more interested in the Ceton.

I admit it depends on your needs. If you watch in just one room, obviously, Tivo already fully meets your requirements. However, I have a rarely used guest room TV, a workout room TV, and a bedroom TV, and I'd like to be able to record/tune in one place and stream live TV and recordings to any of those other rooms so I won't have to pay Charter for a DVR or HD box in every one of them. I'd even add a TV in my home office if it becomes affordable to add an extender there to access the main box on the rare occasions I'd like to have a game on in the background when I'm working at home on weekends.


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## bradleys

mr.unnatural said:


> The Ceton Q uses embedded Windows Media Center software so I'd have to say there are no patent infringements. The folks at Ceton are looking at any potential legal issues before committing to the final configuration and capabilities for these devices. You can bet whatever they come out with will be free of any legal concerns.


Really? You don't think search across vod providers isn't going to infringe on a TiVo patent? Ceton appears to be layering proprietary functionality over WMC - I watched a single demo video and picked out potential infringment... Is it, isn't it - courts will decide.

I hope the product does come to market... Makes TiVo work a little harder - always a good thing for the consumer!


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## bradleys

GatorBlues said:


> An Elite with lifetime is roughly $1000, but you can't stream into other rooms. Instead, you need a premiere in the other rooms for another $500 each. Tivo has not given any indication that it will sell cheap extenders. If they don't offer them at retail, and the Ceton product actually comes to market and works well, I will be far more interested in the Ceton.


True assuming the TiVo extenders are NEVER offered retail... TiVo not announcing them isn't anything telling - especially for a private company like TiVo. And the fact is TiVo already has them in the wild... You will see them in the retail market sooner or later.

If this gives Ceton a competitive advantage - then I suspect it will be sooner. Apples to apples.

That is why competition is good.

And remember - Ceton isn't selling anything yet.


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## mr.unnatural

SullyND said:


> How do you figure? Just because TiVo has not gone after WMC does not mean it does not infringe, or, at least, that TiVo doesn't see it as infringing.


If WMC was infringing on Tivo's patents the same could probably be said for every other DVR that has ever come to market. I'm not going to pretend to be a patent lawyer so I'll leave any conjecture on this issue to the experts.

WMC has been in existence since it was packaged with the XP 2005 MC version. I'm sure if Tivo thought they had a chance at suing Microsoft over any possible patent infringements they would have done so by now. The fact that WMC is based on a Windows platform and utilizes a different CPU is probably enough to avoid any such litigation.


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## LoadStar

mr.unnatural said:


> WMC has been in existence since it was packaged with the XP 2005 MC version.


And I would imagine uses technology derived from Ultimate TV, released in 2000.


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## Speed Daemon

mr.unnatural said:


> WMC has been in existence since it was packaged with the XP 2005 MC version. I'm sure if Tivo thought they had a chance at suing Microsoft over any possible patent infringements they would have done so by now. The fact that WMC is based on a Windows platform and utilizes a different CPU is probably enough to avoid any such litigation.


Please note that, because suing companies with limitless legal resources can bankrupt your business long before you can win a cent, that the efficacy of suing has far more to do with economic realities than it has with justice or IP protection.

BTW, I've never seen a "WMC CPU", and all of my Windows reference texts say that WMC is just another Windows process that executes on the regular CPU. Neither WMC running on "a Windows platform" or where the disputed code executes has any bearing on who the rightful owner is.


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## SullyND

LoadStar said:


> And I would imagine uses technology derived from Ultimate TV, released in 2000.


One could say the same for the platform AT&T is running Uverse on, no?


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## jsmeeker

Looks cool, but probably overkill for my current needs (single TV. Single DVR). I bet it costs more than a Premiere plus life time. 

Though this IS they type of box that would get me to consider something other than TiVo. So far, I can't recall any recent true, turn key out of the box DVRs that were not made by TiVo or didn't come from the cable co. or satellite TV company.


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## lrhorer

atmuscarella said:


> Well this vision is allot closer to the "One Box" concept than anything TiVo has done.
> 
> TiVo pay attention!!


Not really. It's windows based, so no way around DRM. That pretty much makes it into a brick for any CATV system implementing the CCI byte.



atmuscarella said:


> Enough tuners so you only need one box,


I don't want one box. When one box fails, you are dead in the water. With DRM, you're not only dead in the water, you are sliced diced, and fed to the fish.



atmuscarella said:


> a Blu-ray player so you don't need another box to play blu-ray disks.


I don't want a blu-ray player. Finding and swapping disks is far too much of a hassle. I want all content to come off a hard drive.



atmuscarella said:


> If they get Internet content on par with Boxee and Ruko you will not need another box for that either.


If one of these days the internet content is sufficiently good to be of any interest, then this might be a consideration. As of now, there is almost nothing interesting on the internet I don't already have or won't have shortly.



atmuscarella said:


> If they can deliver this at reasonable price ($599 would be a killer price) and if it functions properly, we may finally have the One Box.


Even at $0, "One Box" is a bad solution all the way around, depending on what one means. The only box I use is the TiVo, but I have three of them. I have lots of other boxes, but they all now lie unused.



atmuscarella said:


> Of course us OTA users will likely still be left out .


Which really doesn't bother me, in terms of my personal useage. The loss of a competitor to the CATV company does bother me.


----------



## lrhorer

jsmeeker said:


> Looks cool


It has been my experience that the term "cool" is almost always a synonym for the word, "stupid".



jsmeeker said:


> Though this IS they type of box that would get me to consider something other than TiVo.


I always consider something other than a TiVo. 'Problem is, nothing else so far comes even close to qualifying as acceptable, let alone as a reasonable replacement for the S3 TiVo (and that definitely includes the S4 TiVo).



jsmeeker said:


> So far, I can't recall any recent true, turn key out of the box DVRs that were not made by TiVo or didn't come from the cable co. or satellite TV company.


Well, Moxi. They are recent, and also recently down the tubes.


----------



## lrhorer

fatlard said:


> T he company that has almost single handedly spurred the golden age ofCableCARD*


Oh, that's rich. TiVo had something like 100,000 S3 class DVRs out the door before Ceton even announced it's CableCard tuner, and the initial hardware trials failed miserably when they applied for CableLabs certification.


----------



## lrhorer

GatorBlues said:


> 6 tuners for $1000 plus reasonably priced extenders allowing you to leverage the investment into other rooms would be a solid value.


Until the unit fails, in which case all the rooms are dead as a doornail. That's maybe $2000 spent for a system that can be taken completely down by a $0.10 capacitor. Not only that, but all the time, effort, and money one has spent on acquiring video content goes completely down the tubes, with no recovery, when the main unit fails or one upgrades to a new system. No thanks.



GatorBlues said:


> An Elite with lifetime is roughly $1000


'Another reason not to buy an Elite.



GatorBlues said:


> I admit it depends on your needs. If you watch in just one room, obviously, Tivo already fully meets your requirements.


I watch in multiple rooms - and anywhere else I choose.



GatorBlues said:


> However, I have a rarely used guest room TV, a workout room TV, and a bedroom TV, and I'd like to be able to record/tune in one place and stream live TV and recordings to any of those other rooms so I won't have to pay Charter for a DVR or HD box in every one of them. I'd even add a TV in my home office if it becomes affordable to add an extender there to access the main box on the rare occasions I'd like to have a game on in the background when I'm working at home on weekends.


Until the main box goes offline, then you have nothing anywhere. It also means you have to deal with commercials. Perhaps you like commercials.


----------



## bdraw

lrhorer said:


> Oh, that's rich. TiVo had something like 100,000 S3 class DVRs out the door before Ceton even announced it's CableCard tuner, and the initial hardware trials failed miserably when they applied for CableLabs certification.


That "golden age of CableCARD" line wasn't made to be taken seriously and was more of a reference to a Zatz post. He wasn't talking about the number of CableCARD deployments as much as he was the number of different products that included CableCARD and how easy it had become to get one paired.

http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2011-08/the-golden-age-of-cablecard-has-arrived/


----------



## mr.unnatural

lrhorer said:


> I don't want a blu-ray player. Finding and swapping disks is far too much of a hassle. I want all content to come off a hard drive.


Ceton hasn't announced whether or not the Q will support Blu-Ray streaming, whether from the internal drive or from a hard driver or server. If it supports streaming from a server it would be an ideal platform for my use.



LoadStar said:


> And I would imagine uses technology derived from Ultimate TV, released in 2000.


Possibly, but I would suspect quite sparingly, if at all. The UI looks nothing like Ultimate TV. You're also dealing with proprietary satellite technology vs. cablecards, which are completely different beast altogether.



lrhorer said:


> Not really. It's windows based, so no way around DRM. That pretty much makes it into a brick for any CATV system implementing the CCI byte.


And how is that any different from using a Tivo? DRM issues affect all platforms.


----------



## innocentfreak

lrhorer said:


> Until the main box goes offline, then you have nothing anywhere. It also means you have to deal with commercials. Perhaps you like commercials.


Nah it is WMC based so it will probably include the optional backup to WHS. Since Media Center moves rather than copies, it would be able to move even copy once recordings to the server.

No need to watch commercials with Show Analyzer.


----------



## qz3fwd

mr.unnatural said:


> If WMC was infringing on Tivo's patents the same could probably be said for every other DVR that has ever come to market. I'm not going to pretend to be a patent lawyer so I'll leave any conjecture on this issue to the experts.
> 
> WMC has been in existence since it was packaged with the XP 2005 MC version. I'm sure if Tivo thought they had a chance at suing Microsoft over any possible patent infringements they would have done so by now. The fact that WMC is based on a Windows platform and utilizes a different CPU is probably enough to avoid any such litigation.


Or Ceton is banking on Microsoft defending them in any potential patent litigation since MS is a much bigger fish and will surely defend WMC until hell freezes over. I would not be suprised if MS has contractually provided to hold harmless third parties which use Windows CE Embedded + WMC for any patent infringement litigation? (Though I am not a lawyer so I'm not sure the law works this way) Maybe not because of the AT&T situation.

Anyhow, I am excited this product is coming to market, hope the silly IP situation gets negotiated under RAND terms so everyone can enjoy the functionality and predict:
1. it will be priced somewhere above elite+lifetime, but less than $1000, sy $995
2. third party software will only be useable once "blessed" by Ceton, ie you and I wont be able to compile and run our own code on it.
3. BD streaming will not be advertised, but users will find it to be technically possible after a couple minor hurdles which though not incredibly difficult will dissuade 99% of the owners from being able to do it and will void your warranty.

I really hope you will be able share the devices partitions on the network and move recordings around from device to device and still play them back on the device which recorded it for copy once and unrestricted for copy freely content. I've never used WinCE so not 100% sure how locked down it is.

BTW-anyone know where to get a cross compiler and SDK for WinCE???? (Just in case its actually somewhat open)


----------



## steve614

mr.unnatural said:


> And how is that any different from using a Tivo? DRM issues affect all platforms.


PSST. Some Tivos can be hacked to ignore the CCI byte.


----------



## mr.unnatural

steve614 said:


> PSST. Some Tivos can be hacked to ignore the CCI byte.


OK, I'll concede that point, although I was mainly referring to unhacked Tivos. OTOH, it mostly applies only to older Tivos, IIRC. I don't believe the Premiere or Elite have been hacked to that level yet.


----------



## GatorBlues

lrhorer said:


> Until the unit fails, in which case all the rooms are dead as a doornail. That's maybe $2000 spent for a system that can be taken completely down by a $0.10 capacitor. Not only that, but all the time, effort, and money one has spent on acquiring video content goes completely down the tubes, with no recovery, when the main unit fails or one upgrades to a new system. No thanks.
> 
> 'Another reason not to buy an Elite.
> 
> I watch in multiple rooms - and anywhere else I choose.
> 
> Until the main box goes offline, then you have nothing anywhere. It also means you have to deal with commercials. Perhaps you like commercials.


Why would I have to deal with commercials? Have specs been released indicating that you will not be able to FFW a recording through an extender on this new Ceton box? That seems highly unlikely to me. If I'm wrong and you can't pause, FFW, or rewind on an extender like you can on the main box, then this will no longer be as attractive as I think it will be.

If Tivo comes out with retail extenders for a reasonable price before, or at least has them on an announced schedule to be released soon after, this new Ceton box plus extenders is available, I'll probably go with Tivo because it's time tested. However, I'm not going to shell out the money for a separate Tivo in every room, plus pay for a cable card every month for each room too, if Ceton offers this box and its extenders at a reasonable price.


----------



## aaronwt

lrhorer said:


> .......I always consider something other than a TiVo. 'Problem is, nothing else so far comes even close to qualifying as acceptable, let alone as a reasonable replacement for the S3 TiVo (and that definitely includes the S4 TiVo).
> ...........


I disagree with that. I got several S3 units in 2006, plus several TiVoHD boxes in 2007/2008. My Premieres are easily better than any of my S3 boxes were. They are smaller, more energy efficient, quieter, have more storage and faster. Plus more features as well.


----------



## slowbiscuit

qz3fwd said:


> Anyhow, I am excited this product is coming to market, hope the silly IP situation gets negotiated under RAND terms so everyone can enjoy the functionality and predict:
> 1. it will be priced somewhere above elite+lifetime, but less than $1000, sy $995
> 2. third party software will only be useable once "blessed" by Ceton, ie you and I wont be able to compile and run our own code on it.
> 3. BD streaming will not be advertised, but users will find it to be technically possible after a couple minor hurdles which though not incredibly difficult will dissuade 99% of the owners from being able to do it and will void your warranty.
> 
> I really hope you will be able share the devices partitions on the network and move recordings around from device to device and still play them back on the device which recorded it for copy once and unrestricted for copy freely content. I've never used WinCE so not 100% sure how locked down it is.


If it's priced anywhere near a grand it will be a DOA product, way too expensive for the masses. I predict somewhere closer to $750, with the Echo extenders at $150. Remember this is a niche market and not everyone needs 6 tuners and 2TB of disk, tons of folks are happy with the limited DVRs we have today (Elite excluded).

Eric Kotz (Ceton) is looking for suggestions on third party support over in the AVS HTPC forum, drop in and ask.

A user there posted that the Q will have HomeGroup support, so sharing vids is not an issue.


----------



## shwru980r

slowbiscuit said:


> If it's priced anywhere near a grand it will be a DOA product, way too expensive for the masses. I predict somewhere closer to $750, with the Echo extenders at $150.


Even at this price, it's over $1000 for three rooms.


----------



## mr.unnatural

shwru980r said:


> Even at this price, it's over $1000 for three rooms.


What's your point? It's still cheaper than three Tivos with lifetime and will potentially have more capabilities.


----------



## donnoh

If it's a Windows product you'll have to have an anti-virus program running on it.
Yet another expense.


----------



## SullyND

donnoh said:


> If it's a Windows product you'll have to have an anti-virus program running on it.
> Yet another expense.


I don't remember the last time I paid for an AV product. The free AVs are much less bloated.


----------



## classicsat

qz3fwd said:


> Anyhow, I am excited this product is coming to market, hope the silly IP situation gets negotiated under RAND terms so everyone can enjoy the functionality and predict:
> 1. it will be priced somewhere above elite+lifetime, but less than $1000, sy $995


I see $599 tops. When HDDs get cheap again anyways. Including HDD and OEM OS license, an SFF PC can be built for less than $400, retail. 


> 2. third party software will only be useable once "blessed" by Ceton, ie you and I wont be able to compile and run our own code on it.


That is part of the deal to use Cablecard. The gubbins that pass Cable content need to meet certain security requirements, including not running code which could potentially compromise cable sourced recordings, or the cable security itself.


> 3. BD streaming will not be advertised, but users will find it to be technically possible after a couple minor hurdles which though not incredibly difficult will dissuade 99% of the owners from being able to do it and will void your warranty.
> 
> I really hope you will be able share the devices partitions on the network and move recordings around from device to device and still play them back on the device which recorded it for copy once and unrestricted for copy freely content. I've never used WinCE so not 100% sure how locked down it is.
> 
> BTW-anyone know where to get a cross compiler and SDK for WinCE???? (Just in case its actually somewhat open)


The OS is probably an x86 embedded version of Windows 7 or 8, with just WMC enabled. I myself am not sure if its limitations WRT to secure content, but a "move" but keep the original available, is just a copy, and that is what a CCI byte of "copy once" or "copy never" is to prevent, you can only have copy and delete, or stream.

Said elswhere, I think you can wipe that OS and install a full Windows7/8 OS.

WinCE has nothing to do with it, and will not be used on such a high end device anymore.


----------



## mr.unnatural

donnoh said:


> If it's a Windows product you'll have to have an anti-virus program running on it.
> Yet another expense.


If you're paying for AV software then you're not a very savvy shopper. I run Microsoft Security Essentials which is absolutely free and doesn't intrude on WMC. I got tired of having to renew my license every year so I stopped paying for commercial AV programs. OTOH, most commercial AV programs can be had for free after a rebate. Some AV programs, especially Kaspersky, don't play nice with WMC and should be avoided.


----------



## innocentfreak

classicsat said:


> The OS is probably an x86 embedded version of Windows 7 or 8, with just WMC enabled. I myself am not sure if its limitations WRT to secure content, but a "move" but keep the original available, is just a copy, and that is what a CCI byte of "copy once" or "copy never" is to prevent, you can only have copy and delete, or stream.


Media Center supports moving copy once content though because it actually moves the file. It is sill only playable by the original PC that recorded the content though, but since you can have Recorded TV point to network shares this isn't an issue.


----------



## mattack

GatorBlues said:


> If you watch in just one room, obviously, Tivo already fully meets your requirements.


Well, the extra 2 tuners are useful, especially if WMC doesn't allow you to use the same tuner for shows abutting on the same channel WITH padding. Yes, my same recent rant, but it really is what effectively HALVES my actual number of tuners, since I always want the ENTIRE show recorded.. and most of the shows I watch need padding.


----------



## mr.unnatural

mattack said:


> Well, the extra 2 tuners are useful, especially if WMC doesn't allow you to use the same tuner for shows abutting on the same channel WITH padding. Yes, my same recent rant, but it really is what effectively HALVES my actual number of tuners, since I always want the ENTIRE show recorded.. and most of the shows I watch need padding.


Same here. There's a strange quirk in WMC that requires you to pad the shows by at least 10 minutes for shows that are back to back on the same channel or else one of them gets cut short (i.e., first show gets padded and the 2nd show starts recording after the padding stops). I used to use multiple Tivos to allow for overlapping recordings with padding.

Now I have an HTPC with eight digital cable tuners and four ATSC tuners. I don't need all eight digital tuners, but six would be perfect. My local FIOS system is cutting both the Fox and CW channels from their lineup so the only way to get them is via OTA, which is how I was already getting them anyway. I'm hoping Ceton will include ATSC tuner support for this reason.


----------



## aaronwt

donnoh said:


> If it's a Windows product you'll have to have an anti-virus program running on it.
> Yet another expense.


You mean a free expense? MS Security Essentials is free. Even though I had over a year left on on my McAfee licenses I switched to Security Essentials and never looked back.


----------



## GatorBlues

mattack said:


> Well, the extra 2 tuners are useful, especially if WMC doesn't allow you to use the same tuner for shows abutting on the same channel WITH padding. Yes, my same recent rant, but it really is what effectively HALVES my actual number of tuners, since I always want the ENTIRE show recorded.. and most of the shows I watch need padding.


Good point and I should have said Tivo "probably" meets your needs if you watch in just one room.

For me, I think 4 tuners would be enough for multiple rooms (since I would almost never have more than 2 rooms watching at once), so the Elite would be fine. However, if Tivo doesn't release reasonably priced extenders, the Elite will be out of the running. For now, I'm waiting it out with just basic cable in my extra rooms while I wait and see when Ceton gets this product to market and whether Tivo ever announces plans to sell an extender for a reasonable price. One thing is for certain -- I'm not going to buy a Tivo, plus guide service, plus a cable card rental, for every room including the ones I rarely watch TV in.


----------



## bdraw

qz3fwd said:


> Or Ceton is banking on Microsoft defending them in any potential patent litigation since MS is a much bigger fish and will surely defend WMC until hell freezes over. I would not be suprised if MS has contractually provided to hold harmless third parties which use Windows CE Embedded + WMC for any patent infringement litigation? (Though I am not a lawyer so I'm not sure the law works this way) Maybe not because of the AT&T situation.


I'm pretty sure this isn't the case. I think Ceton is banking on not being big enough to get attention from TiVo. If they get big enough to worry about it, they'll cross that bridge when they get there. 


qz3fwd said:


> I really hope you will be able share the devices partitions on the network and move recordings around from device to device and still play them back on the device which recorded it for copy once and unrestricted for copy freely content. I've never used WinCE so not 100% sure how locked down it is.


I'd be very surprised if extracting copy freely content wasn't really easy.


----------



## bdraw

GatorBlues said:


> Why would I have to deal with commercials? Have specs been released indicating that you will not be able to FFW a recording through an extender on this new Ceton box? That seems highly unlikely to me. If I'm wrong and you can't pause, FFW, or rewind on an extender like you can on the main box, then this will no longer be as attractive as I think it will be.


The extenders work almost exactly like the Q with very few exceptions. So you will def' be able to fast forward and rewind.

I think the real question is automatic commercial skipping. I can't see a scenario where they'd offer this, but I bet there are chapter markers or something more advanced than 30 second skip/skip to tick.


GatorBlues said:


> If Tivo comes out with retail extenders for a reasonable price before, or at least has them on an announced schedule to be released soon after, this new Ceton box plus extenders is available, I'll probably go with Tivo because it's time tested. However, I'm not going to shell out the money for a separate Tivo in every room, plus pay for a cable card every month for each room too, if Ceton offers this box and its extenders at a reasonable price.


It really depends on what the Preview can do. The current version doesn't support scheduling recordings or have a buffer and requires a CableCARD at every TV, which means a rental fee.

For me it'll come down to price vs features. And when I consider price, I include the Lifetime service, so I bet the price will be really close.


----------



## bdraw

mr.unnatural said:


> Same here. There's a strange quirk in WMC that requires you to pad the shows by at least 10 minutes for shows that are back to back on the same channel or else one of them gets cut short (i.e., first show gets padded and the 2nd show starts recording after the padding stops). I used to use multiple Tivos to allow for overlapping recordings with padding.
> 
> Now I have an HTPC with eight digital cable tuners and four ATSC tuners. I don't need all eight digital tuners, but six would be perfect. My local FIOS system is cutting both the Fox and CW channels from their lineup so the only way to get them is via OTA, which is how I was already getting them anyway. I'm hoping Ceton will include ATSC tuner support for this reason.


An interesting aside is that the new Dish Hopper's Primetime Anytime feature does what you're suggesting. It uses one tuner to record all four primetime shows at once (they are all on the same transponder) and then uses the EPG data to cut them up during playback using metadata. If you decide to save a show, it retains that portion when it purges the others on day 8. Delays not indicated in the EPG are still sol though, no padding to help you there.


----------



## mattack

mr.unnatural said:


> Same here. There's a strange quirk in WMC that requires you to pad the shows by at least 10 minutes for shows that are back to back on the same channel or else one of them gets cut short (i.e., first show gets padded and the 2nd show starts recording after the padding stops).


Wait, so do you mean that if you DO pad by 10 minutes, then both shows are recorded on the SAME tuner with padding.. or even if they use different tuners, it's confused and cuts one off?

Except for the 10 minute part, the description sounds essentially the same as Tivo with clipping turned on.


----------



## mattack

Wait, so you mean you *can't* use padding with the "Primetime Anytime"? If so, then it's almost worthless to me. I mean, I wasn't going to switch to Dish for it anyway, but it was intriguing. (I asked more in another thread about how it works.. I don't quite get it.)


----------



## mr.unnatural

mattack said:


> Wait, so do you mean that if you DO pad by 10 minutes, then both shows are recorded on the SAME tuner with padding.. or even if they use different tuners, it's confused and cuts one off?
> 
> Except for the 10 minute part, the description sounds essentially the same as Tivo with clipping turned on.


No, it means that each show is recorded using separate tuners. Without the padding the first show will overlap the next show on the same channel by whatever padding you've specififed, stop recording, and then restart with the next show. The first portion of the 2nd show is contained in the padded portion of the first recording with a slight gap in between recordings, resulting in a small portion of the program to be lost (i.e., not recorded). Setting the padding to 10 minutes eliminates this problem.

It's not exactly the same thing as clipping on a Tivo, but the result is pretty much the same. It's exactly why I have more tuners than I actually need. I've had situations where I've had up to 6 or 7 shows recording simultaneously, mostly due to overlap.


----------



## innocentfreak

A couple of videos featuring the Q and Echo.

http://thedigitalmediazone.com/2012/01/19/a-closer-look-at-ceton%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cq%E2%80%9D-entertainment-platform/


----------



## mattack

mr.unnatural said:


> The first portion of the 2nd show is contained in the padded portion of the first recording with a slight gap in between recordings, resulting in a small portion of the program to be lost (i.e., not recorded). Setting the padding to 10 minutes eliminates this problem.
> 
> It's not exactly the same thing as clipping on a Tivo, but the result is pretty much the same.


This does sound to me exactly what happens on a Tivo if I pad one show by 1 minute for example, then it clips the next show on the same channel... there is a slight gap between the recordings. (The gap on S3s is very slightly, but noticeably, longer than the gap on S1s. S1s don't have clipping, but I mean that I basically never lose the sentence was being spoken over the gap.)


----------



## shwru980r

mr.unnatural said:


> What's your point? It's still cheaper than three Tivos with lifetime and will potentially have more capabilities.


3 Premieres would cost $1300 for 3 rooms and you wouldn't have a single point of failure. Plus the Tivo interface is going to be much nicer to use than an extender.


----------



## innocentfreak

shwru980r said:


> 3 Premieres would cost $1300 for 3 rooms and you wouldn't have a single point of failure. Plus the Tivo interface is going to be much nicer to use than an extender.


Watch the videos I linked, the extender experience in Media Center with the Echos look to be identical performance wise to being on the actual box.


----------



## bradleys

The Ceton Cablecard receiver alone is $300 add to that a 2TB hard drive and you are already that $450 - before the actual hardware that is doing all the work, the licesnsing of the Microsoft software and the costs for the guide data...

*AT BEST* - This will be @ $1,000 bundled with a single Q, additional Q's will be $150 a piece (this assumes that the Q's do not come with cable card slots) and I don't personally see how they can make money at that price point.

The cheapest iPad is at $500 and the only way they made any money at that price point is that the manufacture them in Chinese sweat shops and they sold 40 million of them in 2011. You can drive some pretty good margins with those numbers!


----------



## innocentfreak

bradleys said:


> The Ceton Cablecard receiver alone is $300 add to that a 2TB hard drive and you are already that $450 - before the actual hardware that is doing all the work, the licesnsing of the Microsoft software and the costs for the guide data...
> 
> *AT BEST* - This will be @ $1,000 bundled with a single Q, additional Q's will be $150 a piece (this assumes that the Q's do not come with cable card slots) and I don't personally see how they can make money at that price point.
> 
> The cheapest iPad is at $500 and the only way they made any money at that price point is that the manufacture them in Chinese sweat shops and they sold 40 million of them in 2011. You can drive some pretty good margins with those numbers!


Ceton has already said the extenders will be cheaper than the 360 so figure below $199 probably in the $150-$175 range. They don't have a CableCARD slot.

Also you are comparing retail prices, which since Ceton makes the tuners, wouldn't be their cost. I would imagine just like in Media Center and Windows 7 the guide data is included in the cost of the license.

Don't get me wrong, I am not necessarily disagreeing with you, but we don't really know what price they are even aiming for. I think similar to TiVo and the Elite, Ceton isn't planning on the Q to be the big seller. The Echo will be the big seller. People have been asking for a quiet extender for Media Center for years. Sure a 360 is fine if you want a gaming system, but if you don't you really don't have any options.


----------



## shwru980r

innocentfreak said:


> Watch the videos I linked, the extender experience in Media Center with the Echos look to be identical performance wise to being on the actual box.


I watched the videos and I never saw them actually demonstrating watching a show. I still don't know how fast forward, rewind, 30 second skip or instant replay will work. To me, this is the heart of the system and they never demonstrated it. Maybe I missed it.


----------



## innocentfreak

shwru980r said:


> I watched the videos and I never saw them actually demonstrating watching a show. I still don't know how fast forward, rewind, 30 second skip or instant replay will work. To me, this is the heart of the system and they never demonstrated it. Maybe I missed it.


They probably didn't show it since on the 360 it works fine so it wouldn't be much to show.

It is on par with TiVo's streaming.


----------



## mr.unnatural

shwru980r said:


> 3 Premieres would cost $1300 for 3 rooms and you wouldn't have a single point of failure. Plus the Tivo interface is going to be much nicer to use than an extender.


The extender interface is exactly the same as what you see on the Q, just like with current extenders and WMC. Whether anyone deems it to be "nicer" is entirely a matter of personal preference. I really don't care how pretty the UI is as long as it's functional and doesn't require that I burrow through multiple layers of menu selections to get where I need to be. Tivo is as guilty of this in their own UI as any other UI I've ever used.

The WMC UI is actually quite easy to navigate and requires little or no learning curve to find anything you need. You can also customize it to look however you want. With Tivo you're stuck with the UI they give you. Ceton is offering multiple themes that allow you to customize the backdrops to suit your tastes. I expect there will probably be third parties that will develop custom themes just like they've done with WMC.


----------



## shwru980r

mr.unnatural said:


> The extender interface is exactly the same as what you see on the Q, just like with current extenders and WMC. Whether anyone deems it to be "nicer" is entirely a matter of personal preference. I really don't care how pretty the UI is as long as it's functional and doesn't require that I burrow through multiple layers of menu selections to get where I need to be. Tivo is as guilty of this in their own UI as any other UI I've ever used.
> 
> The WMC UI is actually quite easy to navigate and requires little or no learning curve to find anything you need. You can also customize it to look however you want. With Tivo you're stuck with the UI they give you. Ceton is offering multiple themes that allow you to customize the backdrops to suit your tastes. I expect there will probably be third parties that will develop custom themes just like they've done with WMC.


I really meant the interface for actually watching a show, FF/REW/SKIP/REPLAY. I agree with you about navigating the menus and that's seems to be all the demonstration video showed.


----------



## shwru980r

innocentfreak said:


> They probably didn't show it since on the 360 it works fine so it wouldn't be much to show.
> 
> It is on par with TiVo's streaming.


Do you mean Netflix streaming? To me Netflix streaming is OK because there aren't any commercials. I think it would be hard to skip commercials with Netflix streaming. Is it easy to skip commercials on the xbox 360?


----------



## innocentfreak

shwru980r said:


> Do you mean Netflix streaming? To me Netflix streaming is OK because there aren't any commercials. I think it would be hard to skip commercials with Netflix streaming. Is it easy to skip commercials on the xbox 360?


No I was talking about streaming recorded TV to the 360. Also TiVo's streaming works fine for skipping commercials.

Commercial skipping is pretty easy in Media Center with Showanalyzer.


----------



## mr.unnatural

shwru980r said:


> I really meant the interface for actually watching a show, FF/REW/SKIP/REPLAY. I agree with you about navigating the menus and that's seems to be all the demonstration video showed.


I can't say how the transport controls will function on the Echo since I've only seen the protoype being demoed. Regular WMC extenders tend to have a slight lag between pressing the button and the action taking place. I'd like to think the smart guys at Ceton have figured a way to reduce the lag time. We won't know this until the production units are finally delivered.


----------



## Videodrome

The Ceton is on my buy list, i am done with Tivo and their lack of innovation.


----------



## bdraw

shwru980r said:


> I really meant the interface for actually watching a show, FF/REW/SKIP/REPLAY. I agree with you about navigating the menus and that's seems to be all the demonstration video showed.


The performance is really good, but then again some are more sensitive to lag than others. When I did my TiVo vs Media Center feature I recorded videos of both that might help you gauge the performance difference.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/05/tivo-premiere-vs-windows-7-media-center/

I'd expect the Q and echo to be at least on par with what is in these videos.


----------



## killzone

shwru980r said:


> Do you mean Netflix streaming? To me Netflix streaming is OK because there aren't any commercials. I think it would be hard to skip commercials with Netflix streaming. Is it easy to skip commercials on the xbox 360?


What are commercials?

Yes it's very easy to skip commercials. Even on the Xbox 360 the response time is instantaneous with pre recorded HD or live HD. Not difference between the extender and doing it on the HTPC.


----------



## killzone

innocentfreak said:


> Ceton has already said the extenders will be cheaper than the 360 so figure below $199 probably in the $150-$175 range. They don't have a CableCARD slot.


You can find 4GB 360 slims for $150 (I did). I'd expect the echo to be around $125.


----------



## bradleys

killzone said:


> You can find 4GB 360 slims for $150 (I did). I'd expect the echo to be around $125.


Dreaming....


----------



## mr.unnatural

bradleys said:


> Dreaming....


I don't think so. I'd expect the Echo to come it at around $100-150 so $125 isn't an unreasonable estimate. Until Ceton comes out with prices it's anybody's guess what they'll go for.


----------



## Phantom Gremlin

The XBOX 360 slim draws 70 W of power at idle.

Where I live, 1 W of power costs about $1 per year. That's about $0.12 per kWh. That's probably "typical" for across the USA. But instead of quibbling over details, I prefer to simply remember 1 W = $1 per year. That's close enough for an good rule of thumb.

In high marginal electricity cost areas like parts of California, the marginal cost of 1 W of additional power consumption per year works out to about $4.

So, hopefully, if an Echo idles at 20 W (and it probably will be a lot lower than that?), it could save a consumer about $50/yr in power over an XBOX. And save several hundreds of dollars per year in the People's Republic of California (Jerry Moonbeam, Esq., governor).

Of course, that's assuming you keep the Xbox on all the time. Usually mine is turned off when not in use. And I'm sure that most people paying high prices in Ca turn off everything they can. But my TiVos are on 24/7 and they cost me about $40 each in electricity per year!


----------



## mattack

Phantom Gremlin said:


> (Jerry Moonbeam, Esq., governor).


I don't like Brown, but you should really look up the reason for that nickname.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Brown#Governor_Moonbeam_nickname

He wanted to use a satellite for emergency communication.. That was very forward thinking back then, and was mocked.

(Again, I disagree with him on many other things, and didn't vote for him.)


----------



## Phantom Gremlin

mattack said:


> I don't like Brown, but you should really look up the reason for that nickname.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Brown#Governor_Moonbeam_nickname
> 
> He wanted to use a satellite for emergency communication.. That was very forward thinking back then, and was mocked.
> 
> (Again, I disagree with him on many other things, and didn't vote for him.)


I apologize for making an off topic snide remark about Jerry Brown. I don't hold him in high regard, but he's not even tangentially the reason for the high electricity prices in California.

I'm tired of my high electric bills, and I live in a state with moderate prices. It's all the damn 24/7 devices and "vampires" we've allowed into our houses.

TiVo is one of the worst offenders. If I had the option of having my TiVo HDs truly sleep when not recording or playing back, I'd gladly take it. And if sleeping means that, when I turn one on, I can't see the previous 30 minutes of programming on whatever random channels it was tuned to, then I'm OK with that trade off. But TiVo hasn't given me that choice. To my knowledge the cable company DVRs aren't better, but they're "free" whereas I paid quite a bit for my boxes.

Hopefully the Ceton products will be much lower power.


----------



## bradleys

Cable DVR's are free?


----------



## mr.unnatural

bradleys said:


> Cable DVR's are free?


They're leased, not purchased. You have to buy a Tivo up front and then pay for the privilege of using it.


----------



## aaronwt

Phantom Gremlin said:


> I apologize for making an off topic snide remark about Jerry Brown. I don't hold him in high regard, but he's not even tangentially the reason for the high electricity prices in California.
> 
> I'm tired of my high electric bills, and I live in a state with moderate prices. It's all the damn 24/7 devices and "vampires" we've allowed into our houses.
> 
> TiVo is one of the worst offenders. If I had the option of having my TiVo HDs truly sleep when not recording or playing back, I'd gladly take it. And if sleeping means that, when I turn one on, I can't see the previous 30 minutes of programming on whatever random channels it was tuned to, then I'm OK with that trade off. But TiVo hasn't given me that choice. To my knowledge the cable company DVRs aren't better, but they're "free" whereas I paid quite a bit for my boxes.
> 
> Hopefully the Ceton products will be much lower power.


The TiVoHD also use alot more power than the Premieres. The Premire Elite uses around 22 watts and the other Premieres use around 25 compared with mid 30's for the TiVoHD.


----------



## bradleys

mr.unnatural said:


> They're leased, not purchased. You have to buy a Tivo up front and then pay for the privilege of using it.


Been round and round on this... If you choose to go with a "plan" then you are going to pay every month. If you go with lifetime - then you are done. If you keep and use your TiVo for more then two years - you will save money.

The only caviat is that some cable companies will offer short term (6 month) promotions or wrap that fee into a very expensive package like the Sunday Ticket.

But for me... I am *WAY AHEAD *in costs over the years. I have Fios and my family currently enjoys three TiVo's with no fees. I calculate that the cost of the Premier will be offset in about 6 more months.

Maybe I will sell my S3 for - 'round $300... You can sell yours for - what $30?

penny wise dollar foolish


----------



## mattack

Phantom Gremlin said:


> TiVo is one of the worst offenders. If I had the option of having my TiVo HDs truly sleep when not recording or playing back, I'd gladly take it. And if sleeping means that, when I turn one on, I can't see the previous 30 minutes of programming on whatever random channels it was tuned to, then I'm OK with that trade off.


I totally agree with you, even though everyone always brings up the "it's worse to turn it off and on than just to keep it running" argument, which IMHO might have been true long ago, but e.g. laptops are DESIGNED to turn on/off drives all the time.

(Yes, I know Tivos don't typically use laptop drives, I just mean the technology itself has gotten better.. and I say that as someone who has had drives go bad!)


----------



## Phantom Gremlin

bradleys said:


> But for me... I am *WAY AHEAD *in costs over the years. I have Fios and my family currently enjoys three TiVo's with no fees.


I agree with you. I have four TiVo HDs, all with lifetime.

But *the average Joe Sixpack* either doesn't have the cash to go out and buy TiVos and get lifetime on them, or is fundamentally innumerate and is incapable of reasoning the way you are.

That's what I meant when I kicked off this subthread when I said that cable company DVRs are "free". As far as Joe Sixpack is concerned, they are free.

As a totally off topic example of innumeracy, I once worked at a company that had a plan where you could purchase stock at 15% discount based on the lower of the stock price at either the beginning or end of a six month period. Therefore, it was almost impossible to lose money by purchasing this stock (the only way you could lose money is if the company stock dropped by more than 15% on the exact day the stock was purchased). An accountant colleague relayed a story of how several employees wanted their money back (being withheld every pay period) ahead of Christmas. The stock had really risen in value, and the math worked out to getting $100 back for Christmas or getting $400 in February. And yet some people wanted the $100. And this wasn't because the company was in any danger of failing. It was solely for immediate gratification and because they simply couldn't think 2 months in advance.



mattack said:


> I totally agree with you, even though everyone always brings up the "it's worse to turn it off and on than just to keep it running" argument, which IMHO might have been true long ago, but e.g. laptops are DESIGNED to turn on/off drives all the time.


My iMac desktop is 4.5+ years old and I "sleep" it all the time. Its held up quite well. Just as with laptop drives, the on/off issue is pretty well solved.


----------



## Dan203

Phantom Gremlin said:


> TiVo is one of the worst offenders. If I had the option of having my TiVo HDs truly sleep when not recording or playing back, I'd gladly take it.


Have you tried the TiVo sleep function? It's not fantastic, but it does reduce power usage a little and could save you a few bucks a year. If you have a universal remote there is even a command you can teach it which puts it to sleep instantly, no need to navigate to the option via the menus.

Dan


----------



## mattack

Dan203 said:


> Have you tried the TiVo sleep function? It's not fantastic, but it does reduce power usage a little and could save you a few bucks a year. If you have a universal remote there is even a command you can teach it which puts it to sleep instantly, no need to navigate to the option via the menus.
> 
> Dan


What the heck are you talking about? Tivos have no sleep function.

They have a STANDBY function, but the only things that does are:
1) turn off the video outputs (may save a TINY bit of power, but comparatively not much)
2) supposedly lets suggestions record sooner (i.e. no timeout needed for remote disuse). This is why I use standby, since I use suggestions as a free space meter (I don't actually watch them... except maybe 2 times in 10 years of Tivo use).


----------



## Phantom Gremlin

Dan203 said:


> Have you tried the TiVo sleep function? It's not fantastic, but it does reduce power usage a little and could save you a few bucks a year. If you have a universal remote there is even a command you can teach it which puts it to sleep instantly, no need to navigate to the option via the menus.


Yes I do have it sleep, but I understand that all it does is turn off the video output. Better than nothing, but I'm so spoiled by computers that sleep at very low power.

The DirecTV TiVos I used to have were better in that they stopped recording when you put them to sleep. I assume that saved a bit more power than just killing the video. But probably not much more savings, since I don't recall them actually spinning down their drives.

I don't really want 4 TiVos. I don't really need 4 TiVos. But TiVo doesn't have a good streaming solution, yet, at least not one that I can buy.


----------



## Phantom Gremlin

mattack said:


> What the heck are you talking about? Tivos have no sleep function.
> 
> They have a STANDBY function, but the only things that does are:
> 1) turn off the video outputs (may save a TINY bit of power, but comparatively not much)


You are technically correct about the word "standby".

However: sleep, standby, I knew what he meant. E.g. Windows has a "standby" function, while OS X has a "sleep" function. And yet they do the same thing. Which, unfortunately for TiVo owners, is not at all what a TiVo HD does for the "standby" menu item.

He specifically said "save you a few bucks a year", which it would. As I posted earlier, in my location a 1 W reduction 24/7 means $1 savings per year.

Now, am I being anal-retentive by using "standby" on my TiVos when I'm not watching? Yeah, probably. I agree with you that it's a "tiny" power savings.


----------



## aaronwt

Phantom Gremlin said:


> Yes I do have it sleep, but I understand that all it does is turn off the video output. Better than nothing, but I'm so spoiled by computers that sleep at very low power.
> 
> The DirecTV TiVos I used to have were better in that they stopped recording when you put them to sleep. I assume that saved a bit more power than just killing the video. But probably not much more savings, since I don't recall them actually spinning down their drives.
> 
> I don't really want 4 TiVos. I don't really need 4 TiVos. But TiVo doesn't have a good streaming solution, yet, at least not one that I can buy.


My Elite only costs me around $21 a year at 11 cents a KWH. Turning off the video output saves what, half a watt?


----------



## Phantom Gremlin

aaronwt said:


> My Elite only costs me around $21 a year at 11 cents a KWH. Turning off the video output saves what, half a watt?


Yes, you're right. I suppose that the Elite does the streaming I want, at half the power consumption of the HD. So that's an argument in its favor. However, saving me $20 of electricity per year wouldn't justify replacing a working TiVo HD unit.

My bigger problem is, in my mind the Premiere family *doesn't exist*. Yes it's probably working OK for many (most?) people, but here are thread topic titles from just the last few days that discuss some sort of "problem":

Live program is jerky

How to get Tivo to stop switching channels for tivo suggestions

Is anyone having a positive experience with the elite

Are Premier Elites ready for Prime Time Yet?

Tivo Premier 11mos old, making noise, warranty?

Who is having spontaneous reboot with Elite?

Has anyone fixed / stabilized a premiere that randomly reboots?

Elite missing 99% of channels

Streaming live recording from Premiere to XL - reboot

Thinking of going Premiere. Has it improved?​
So, because of countless threads like the above (has it been 1 year or 2 years since it came out?), the Premiere family has simply dropped out of my brain for consideration as a "real" product. Once a *cancerous meme* like *"the TiVo Premiere is horrible"* gets established, it's very hard for people to reevaluate when the facts change.

This thread shouldn't even exist. Why is Ceton (at least on paper) kicking butt and taking names? TiVo has been around for 14 years, they should be the "leader" in this space.


----------



## nrc

Are you serious? This forum is littered with threads about the next big TiVo killer. These threads exist because of the particular interests of those who create them. 

You could cull any support forum and produce topics similar to the ones you cite. If you actually read the threads you'll see that most people are pretty happy with their Premieres particularly since this latest update.

Ceton isn't kicking or taking much of anything. They're a niche product within a niche of a niche market. They've shown a product which they may or may not ever deliver which may or may not be better and or cheaper than TiVo if it should ever arrive.


----------



## mr.unnatural

nrc said:


> Ceton isn't kicking or taking much of anything. They're a niche product within a niche of a niche market. They've shown a product which they may or may not ever deliver which may or may not be better and or cheaper than TiVo if it should ever arrive.


Ceton has done an exemplory job of living up to whatever promises they've made so far, with but one or two exceptions. They originally announced both dual-tuner and six-tuner cablecard models along with the four-tuner version, but neither one ever made it to market. The six tuner model probably morphed into the Q DVR, but that's not to say they won't still deliver on the PC version at some later date. The dual-tuner model probably got shelved after the success of the InfiniTV 4 and the introduction of both two and three tuner cablecard tuners from Hauppauge and SiliconDust

Ceton has gone the extra mile with customer support and are quick to respond to any issues raised by their customers. Too bad Tivo can't make the same claim. Aside from supply chain issues with the original IniniTV 4, which was completely beyond their control, Ceton not only delivered on an outstanding product but also managed to squelch the huge backlog of orders in record time.

Regardless of the price point for either the Q DVR or the Echo extender, Ceton has shown themselves to be a high calibre company that builds quality products and responds to the needs of their customers. That alone makes them stand head and shoulders above Tivo. I dumped Tivo for the InfiniTV 4 about a year and a half ago and I've never regretted the decision for one second. I look forward to the release of the Q DVR and the Echo extender by the end of the year.


----------



## jrtroo

Phantom Gremlin said:


> Yes it's probably working OK for many (most?) people, but here are thread topic titles from just the last few days that discuss some sort of "problem":
> 
> {EDITED to reduce length}
> 
> So, because of countless threads like the above (has it been 1 year or 2 years since it came out?), the Premiere family has simply dropped out of my brain for consideration as a "real" product. Once a *cancerous meme* like *"the TiVo Premiere is horrible"* gets established, it's very hard for people to reevaluate when the facts change.


You are making an opinion of a product based upon this list from a forum? LOL.

Here, everyone loves the ipad, but I quickly pulled this from the apple forum with posts from the last 30 minutes. Nobody should buy that either, using your logic.

IPad will not charge
IPad 2 rapidly loosing battery life
Can't open my calendar
ipad is totally unresponsive

I can find similar things on the S-3 boards right here has well.

I'm not saying some users don't have issues. I have had a reboot from time to time. With 20.2, no problems for me at all.


----------



## mr.unnatural

jrtroo said:


> Here, everyone loves the ipad ...


Sayz you. I don't buy anything that begins with the letter "i". Sorry, but I didn't drink the Steve Jobs Kool-Aid. I won't buy any overpriced CE product that deals with proprietary technology and handcuffs the buyer from upgrading the item as he sees fit.


----------



## mattack

"overpriced".. Yeah right. Find a tablet with equivalent hardware and software specs that is cheaper.


----------



## atmuscarella

mr.unnatural said:


> Sayz you. I don't buy anything that begins with the letter "i". Sorry, but I didn't drink the Steve Jobs Kool-Aid. I won't buy any overpriced CE product that deals with proprietary technology and handcuffs the buyer from upgrading the item as he sees fit.





mattack said:


> "overpriced".. Yeah right. Find a tablet with equivalent hardware and software specs that is cheaper.


If something is "overpriced" is in the eyes of the beholder. However I would say that on a global bases the buying public has voted that "i" whatever products are not overpriced.


----------



## mr.unnatural

mattack said:


> "overpriced".. Yeah right. Find a tablet with equivalent hardware and software specs that is cheaper.


Sorry about not being more clear. The jab was aimed primarily at Macs, which are hugely proprietary and minimally upgradeable (_and _overpriced), although other Apple products still qualify. I think iTunes is a huge ripoff as it limits how you can play the music.

The iPad is a cool product if you need portability and don't want to lug a laptop around, but I can't see myself ever owning one (I'm also not a big fan of laptops either). I've never done a comparison of an iPad to a tablet so I can't comment on what features either platform has. I dare say that whatever edge the iPad currently holds will undoubtedly be matched or exceeded by tablet manufacturers in short order. Just look at iPhones vs. other smart phones. Innovations don't always make you the market leader for the long term. It generally helps the competition find ways to do the same thing at a lower cost.


----------



## BrettStah

What's interesting is that today's Macs (of which I own none) tend to not be overpriced - go look at comparable models from other vendors, and the price difference tends to not be as much as most people think. The difference is that Apple doesn't make a $400 bargain-priced model - they only make the higher end models. So if you find a comparable higher end system, usually the prices are similar.

They make very good hardware - well designed and engineered, in my opinion. I'd slap Windows 7 on one if I wind up buying one, but the hardware is slick.


----------



## slowbiscuit

C'mon, seriously? A $500 PC has all the performance of a $1200 iMac, it just doesn't have the design.


----------



## nrc

mr.unnatural said:


> Ceton has done an exemplory job of living up to whatever promises they've made so far, with but one or two exceptions. They originally announced both dual-tuner and six-tuner cablecard models along with the four-tuner version, but neither one ever made it to market. The six tuner model probably morphed into the Q DVR, but that's not to say they won't still deliver on the PC version at some later date. The dual-tuner model probably got shelved after the success of the InfiniTV 4 and the introduction of both two and three tuner cablecard tuners from Hauppauge and SiliconDust


So most of the products they've announced have been late or vapor but that's exemplory.



> Ceton has gone the extra mile with customer support and are quick to respond to any issues raised by their customers. Too bad Tivo can't make the same claim.


TiVo could afford to be more hands-on when their customers numbered in the thousands instead of millions. I believe that's the case with Ceton now. But looking at people's experience with Ceton to date, I don't think that many people would be calling it "exemplory" if it weren't an isolated to small group of enthusiasts. It's kind of laughable really.


----------



## BrettStah

slowbiscuit said:


> C'mon, seriously? A $500 PC has all the performance of a $1200 iMac, it just doesn't have the design.


I'm saying that if you find a PC that has the approximate specs of a Mac, the prices of the two won't be that far apart. Go ahead and try it... find a Dell, HP, Asus, etc. with the same CPU, RAM, graphics card performance, monitor, etc. that matches a Mac, and then compare the prices. I did this last year and the difference wasn't much.


----------



## mr.unnatural

nrc said:


> So most of the products they've announced have been late or vapor but that's exemplory.


The delay in getting the InfiniTV 4 to market was something that was beyond Ceton's control. They never announced a date for either the dual-tuner or six-tuner models, so how is that vaporware? The six-tuner version is making it's debut in the Q DVR.



> TiVo could afford to be more hands-on when their customers numbered in the thousands instead of millions. I believe that's the case with Ceton now. But looking at people's experience with Ceton to date, I don't think that many people would be calling it "exemplory" if it weren't an isolated to small group of enthusiasts. It's kind of laughable really.


And what exactly are you basing your opinion on? Eric Kotz from Ceton is a regular contributor over at the AVS Forum. I haven't heard of anyone that's filed a trouble ticket with Ceton having to wait more than a few days to get a response.

The small group of enthusiasts you're referring to has been growing by leaps and bounds. If there's such a small interest in Media Center PCs then perhaps you can explain why Microsoft has chosen to keep it included with Windows 8? Microsoft doesn't do anything unless they feel it's going to benefit them. I agree that HTPCs are still a niche market, but it's getting more widespread acceptance by the mainstream.

I don't have the sales figures for the InfiniTV 4 (both PCI-E and USB versions), but it definitely numbers in the tens of thousands, if not more. The first two production runs were sold out before they ever left the factory.


----------



## trip1eX

Music on iTunes is DRM free.


----------



## trip1eX

Macs are consistently the highest rated computers. Apple has consistently had the highest rated tech support as well.


----------



## BrettStah

slowbiscuit said:


> C'mon, seriously? A $500 PC has all the performance of a $1200 iMac, it just doesn't have the design.


By the way, I'd love to know by what performance metrics you're comparing a $500 PC with an iMac.


----------



## trip1eX

Ceton card and WMC rock too. I am much happier wih my WMC Pc then I was after I purchased the Premiere. Snappier, 4 tuners, 1.5 TB hd space and easy to add more.


It has come a long ways! Wife loves it.


Now could my wife go out and build a WMC pc on her own? Probably not. 

And if she lived alone then TiVo would be a larger possibility.

More likely though she would just get whatever the cable company offered because they would hook it up with no up front expense.


----------



## larrs

mr.unnatural said:


> Here's a link to the CES podcast where they talk with the developers from Ceton about the Q and the Echo:
> 
> http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/12/t...at-11-00pm-et/
> 
> One of the big questions that came up was whether or not the boxes will support Blu-Ray streaming. The response was that they're still looking into any legal issues involved, but that it is technically feasible. They did not set a price point for either unit, but they did say that the Echo will be priced below the XBox 360. The Q is basically a pre-configured HTPC using the Windows Media Center embedded architecture. It will be configured as a stable plug and play device and will also allow for third party application support. With no DVR fees involved, this could be a real Tivo killer. The only thing I see that's missing is OTA tuners, but since it has USB ports I suspect they can be added. I can definitely see a Q with a couple of Echos replacing my HTPC if they also supports Blu-Ray streaming.


When I looked into the possibility of WMC/streamers last year to replace my Tivos, the lack of a streamer beyond Xbox 360s was a killer.

This looks very promising. However, I would not hold my breath on the blu ray streaming- sure, if you rip it to another format, maybe- but I would surely doubt a blu ray.

I am also more intrigued by Tivo's Preview because I would prefer the flexibility of having a separate tuner in the client box itself (we have 4 Tvs active at any given time) in case most/all tuners in the DVR were in use.


----------



## nrc

Does the world really need another Mac vs PC thread?

Mr.U, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on your assessment of Ceton's performance. Ceton is a small company with a small customer base and you're being quite forgiving of their issues. If you look at their forum traffic with the same jaundiced eye that PG applied to the traffic here there no substantive difference in the number of issues. If anything it makes TiVo look good.


----------



## mr.unnatural

nrc said:


> Does the world really need another Mac vs PC thread?
> 
> Mr.U, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on your assessment of Ceton's performance. Ceton is a small company with a small customer base and you're being quite forgiving of their issues. If you look at their forum traffic with the same jaundiced eye that PG applied to the traffic here there no substantive difference in the number of issues. If anything it makes TiVo look good.


I think if you look a little closer you'll find that whatever issues have emerged from using the Ceton InfiniTV 4 in a PC are going to be mostly related to hardware/driver conflicts. I have never had any such issues with either of my Ceton cards. I've also never had any real issues with any of the few dozen Tivos I've owned.

Ceton has been very responsive to customer concerns and are quick to respond to any service request. I've heard of numerous situations where they sent out a new InfiniTV 4 to replace one that was found to be defective. Try getting Tivo customer service to be that understanding or forgiving. If you're lucky you'll get a refurbished Tivo to replace the one that died, and if you're really lucky you won't end up paying the $150 exchange fee for the privilege.



trip1eX said:


> Macs are consistently the highest rated computers. Apple has consistently had the highest rated tech support as well.


And why do you suppose that is? Apple provides a limited number of configurations and works the bugs out of them so you won't have problems. That's great for the average non-technical consumer that doesn't have the expertise to deal with PC problems. I just don't like the fact that if I want to upgrade my motherboard or CPU I'd have to buy a complete new Mac to do it. With a PC you can upgrade what you want without breaking the bank. The downside is that you run the risk of conflicts between hardware and drivers. It's the price you pay for freedom of choice.

PC hardware is discounted all the time. Try finding a new Mac or any of their hardware or software discounted to the same level as competing PC products. Mac stuff is always constently higher.



trip1eX said:


> Music on iTunes is DRM free.


That may be, but can you play it on a PC or an MP3 player or anything other than an Apple device? Can you transfer it to other devices? Can you remove it from your iPod and reinstate it later without having to buy it all over again?


----------



## innocentfreak

mr.unnatural said:


> And what exactly are you basing your opinion on? Eric Kotz from Ceton is a regular contributor over at the AVS Forum. I haven't heard of anyone that's filed a trouble ticket with Ceton having to wait more than a few days to get a response.


While this may be true, there are still those of us with issues that have yet to be resolved as seen in the avs forums. Don't get me wrong I support Ceton and overall I am happy, but it isn't as reliable as my TiVo. I still send them my logs every couple of days when the issues repeat, but still no solution and they don't have any idea why some of us are plagued by these problems.


----------



## NYHeel

mr.unnatural said:


> That may be, but can you play it on a PC or an MP3 player or anything other than an Apple device? Can you transfer it to other devices? Can you remove it from your iPod and reinstate it later without having to buy it all over again?


I believe the answer is yes to all of those. Certainly now with the cloud features. The only issue I have with Apple mobile devices is that when you transfer music to an i-device from a friends computer and you don't want to use manual mode to sync.

With that said, while I find Apple mobile devices to be excellent bang for your buck, their macs seem to be extremely overpriced. Last year I remember finding an HP (it might have been a different brand) $600 laptop that had virtually the same specs (albeit without the design) of a $1,200 Mac laptop. Last May I bought a Dell XPS 8300 desktop with an i7, 6 GB Ram, 1 TB hard drive, low end video card, and a 24 inch monitor for about $670 (it was really $850 but I got $180 refunded to me when I cancelled the 2nd year of the waranty a few weeks after I got the computer). A mac would have cost almost double that (if not more) for the same specs. I'm not saying the macs aren't good computers, just that they're really expensive.


----------



## Dan203

mr.unnatural said:


> The six tuner model probably morphed into the Q DVR, but that's not to say they won't still deliver on the PC version at some later date.


I remember reading about this when they first announced it. It turned out there was some limitation in Windows 7 that prevented it from recording more then 4 things from a single card, even if the card had 6 tuners. I think they talked about some weird workaround where they could use 4 tuners for recording and the other 2 for live streaming to extenders, but they probably decided that was confusing for customers. This is likely why they are using Win7 Embedded in the Q, it probably doesn't have that limitation so they can use all 6 tuners as they originally intended.

Dan


----------



## innocentfreak

Dan203 said:


> I remember reading about this when they first announced it. It turned out there was some limitation in Windows 7 that prevented it from recording more then 4 things from a single card, even if the card had 6 tuners. I think they talked about some weird workaround where they could use 4 tuners for recording and the other 2 for live streaming to extenders, but they probably decided that was confusing for customers. This is likely why they are using Win7 Embedded in the Q, it probably doesn't have that limitation so they can use all 6 tuners as they originally intended.
> 
> Dan


There was a simple hack, tuner salad, that adds support for more than 4 tuners of a single type in a PC.

The 6 tuner card was developed more for the HTPC companies that build custom machines like CannonPC since they have access to the AEP from Microsoft which officially unlocks the 4 tuner limit.

They probably got the AEP included in Embedded since they control the hardware.


----------



## mr.unnatural

NYHeel said:


> I'm not saying the macs aren't good computers, just that they're really expensive.


That's exactly where I was coming from. I have nothing against Macs in general because they are well made and extremely stable. I just don't like paying a premium to be tied to a fixed configuration.



innocentfreak said:


> There was a simple hack, tuner salad, that adds support for more than 4 tuners of a single type in a PC.
> 
> The 6 tuner card was developed more for the HTPC companies that build custom machines like CannonPC since they have access to the AEP from Microsoft which officially unlocks the 4 tuner limit.


Tuner Salad Footlong increases your tuner limit to twelve tuners of each type (ATSC, QAM & digital cable/cablecard). I think the author only charges about $2-3 for it. I'm currently using it along with two InfiniTV 4's in my HTPC with zero problems. Windows 7 is by far the most stable OS release ever to come out of Redmond, WA.

In retrospect I had totally forgotten that the six tuner InfiniTV was supposed to be for OEM manufacturers only and was not originally going to be released to the general public. The only model they have yet to release is the dual tuner version. I would hazard a guess that they have reconsidered the release of this model after the resounding success of the InfiniTV 4. Now that Hauppauge has their own dual tuner model and SiliconDust has a three tuner version they may have figured another dual tuner model wouldn't generate as much revenue as they would like so they possibly shelved it for financial reasons. Perhaps I'll pose that question to Eric Kotz via the AVS Forums and see what's up.



innocentfreak said:


> While this may be true, there are still those of us with issues that have yet to be resolved as seen in the avs forums. Don't get me wrong I support Ceton and overall I am happy, but it isn't as reliable as my TiVo. I still send them my logs every couple of days when the issues repeat, but still no solution and they don't have any idea why some of us are plagued by these problems.


Unfortunately, there will always be some mystery configuration that results in absolutely no joy for the PC builder. The Windows OS is far from perfect and issues do abound. The good news is that there are countless HTPC configurations posted in numerous forums that have been tried and tested and work perfectly fine. The key is to keep the setup neat and simple without a lot of flaky no-name hardware brands and screwy drivers.


----------



## mattack

mr.unnatural said:


> Sorry about not being more clear. The jab was aimed primarily at Macs, which are hugely proprietary and minimally upgradeable (_and _overpriced), although other Apple products still qualify. I think iTunes is a huge ripoff as it limits how you can play the music.


How does it limit "how you can play the music"?

Also, Macs CAN RUN WINDOWS. So pretty much by definition they're *NOT* highly proprietary (anymore). That would lead you to the next argument that they're overpriced, but compare an EQUIVALENT HARDWARE-WISE machine, and it won't be tons cheaper.. (e.g. Dell & Sony sell lots of just-as-expensive machines)


----------



## mattack

mr.unnatural said:


> I've also never had any real issues with any of the few dozen Tivos I've owned.


You haven't? Then how did you get on the blown-capacitor bandwagon? (just like I repeat myself on a few topics very very often, you repeat this one very very often..)


----------



## mr.unnatural

mattack said:


> You haven't? Then how did you get on the blown-capacitor bandwagon? (just like I repeat myself on a few topics very very often, you repeat this one very very often..)


You're going to have to be more specific. I've never posted any problems about blown capacitors in any Tivo I've ever owned. I think you've got me confused with someone else.



mattack said:


> How does it limit "how you can play the music"?
> 
> Also, Macs CAN RUN WINDOWS. So pretty much by definition they're *NOT* highly proprietary (anymore). That would lead you to the next argument that they're overpriced, but compare an EQUIVALENT HARDWARE-WISE machine, and it won't be tons cheaper.. (e.g. Dell & Sony sell lots of just-as-expensive machines)


I'm well aware that Macs can run Windows, which is a bit ironic, don't you think? If I wanted to run Windows I would think I'd rather buy a Windows PC instead of a Mac. Dells are highly discounted all the time. Sonys not so much, but then you're paying mostly for a name and not necessarily for performance. FWIW, Sony is a really bad example because they're usually priced much higher than other brands, which is why they're doing so badly with TV sales. S&P just downgraded them recently, primarily due to poor TV sales numbers. I rarely see Macs discounted more than a pittance at best.

You've totally missed my point about upgrades, primarily when it comes to CPUs and motherboards. You may actually be able to upgrade a CPU in a Mac because they are now x86 compatible computers, but I doubt very much that you can upgrade the motherboard without buying an entirely new Mac. The whole premise about PCs is that you can still use the rest of the peripherals with a motherboard/CPU upgrade for a minimal outlay of funds. With a Mac you've gotta buy the whole shebang.

New CPUs and chipsets are being introduced all the time. If I want to upgrade my PC to the latest technology then I can spend a couple hundred bucks to buy a new CPU, motherboard, and some memory. For a high end upgrade that could be as much as $500-600. Can you honestly say the same thing about a Mac. You'd have to spend about $1500 or so to get an equivalent performance boost because you have to buy the whole stinking thing. I'm not even sure you if can upgrade the GPU in a Mac without a whole new machine. I also like the option of being able to upgrade to a lower-end computer because, frankly, I don't need that much computing power for the tasks I perform. A Mac would be serious overkill for my needs.

OK, I've said my piece so why not let's put this thing to bed. I never intended to get into a pissing contest about Macs vs. PCs. Someone injected a comment that everyone loves iPads and I just countered with my 2 cents.


----------



## lrhorer

mr.unnatural said:


> Ceton hasn't announced whether or not the Q will support Blu-Ray streaming, whether from the internal drive or from a hard driver or server. If it supports streaming from a server it would be an ideal platform for my use.


I don't have any Blu-ray disks, but if I did, I would not play them on a player.



mr.unnatural said:


> And how is that any different from using a Tivo? DRM issues affect all platforms.


Buzz! Sorry, wrong, but thanks for playing. As long as it is not illegal to circumvent DRM, I will do so. This is not possible with Microsoft, which is just one more of dozens of reasons not to support Microsoft.


----------



## lrhorer

innocentfreak said:


> Nah it is WMC based so it will probably include the optional backup to WHS.


Which is useless once the device with the hardware key (in this case presumably the Ceton tuner) is dead. One is guaranteed to lose all ones recordings in a few years.



innocentfreak said:


> Since Media Center moves rather than copies, it would be able to move even copy once recordings to the server.


It doesn't matter where the copies are. Unless they have done a really brain dead job of implementing DRM and CableLabs failed to notice, the content should only be playable on the device which recorded the content, no matter where the content is stored. Otherwise, there would be nothing preventing the user from copying the content to a Blu-Ray disk and distributing it to anyone with WMC.



innocentfreak said:


> No need to watch commercials with Show Analyzer.


That would be an option if it worked. No commercial analyzer is anywhere nearly perfect. The best avialable software gets fairly close in its cuts about 80% of the time. That is not even close to acceptable. It also does not get rid of the wasted space, and it can't really handle getting rid of padding.


----------



## lrhorer

mattack said:


> How does it limit "how you can play the music"?
> 
> Also, Macs CAN RUN WINDOWS. So pretty much by definition they're *NOT* highly proprietary (anymore).


'Not even close. You need to look up the definition of "proprietary". If Mac OS X could run under Windows, then it would rather weakly suggest that Macs, or at least their software, are not proprietary.

If the details of a hardware or software platform are not publicly published, then the platform is proprietary. Linux is non-proprietary and fully standardized. It is also open-sourced (the OS itself is - not all Linux software is open source). Both Microsoft and Apple are proprietary.



mattack said:


> That would lead you to the next argument that they're overpriced, but compare an EQUIVALENT HARDWARE-WISE machine, and it won't be tons cheaper.. (e.g. Dell & Sony sell lots of just-as-expensive machines)


Don't make me laugh. A machine precisely equivalent to a Mac Pro costs a fraction of what the Mac Pro costs, especially when loaded with Linux. Dell and especially Sony are also overpriced, so your point is moot. Buy a *reasonably priced* x86 machine, and it will cost a great deal less.


----------



## lrhorer

trip1eX said:


> Ceton card and WMC rock too. I am much happier wih my WMC Pc then I was after I purchased the Premiere.


That's not saying much. All things considered, the Premier is a real dog turd - certainly for my puposes. Neither a Premier nor a WMC based HTPC would be even functional, let alone useful, in my house.



trip1eX said:


> Snappier, 4 tuners, 1.5 TB hd space and easy to add more.


Fast enough, over 30 TB of HD space, and all content can be played on any device I like, can be edited any way I like (including splicing together two part episodes and making custom edits to programs with alternate endings or "directors cuts"), and can be recoded from MPGII to h.264 for 30% space savings and 4X faster transfers... shall I go on?


----------



## lrhorer

Videodrome said:


> The Ceton is on my buy list, i am done with Tivo and their lack of innovation.


What would you have them innovate? Virtually every time I see a similar expression to this, the speaker isn't looking for innovation. They are almost invairably looking for a bunch of useless window dressing. Exactly what features would you have TiVo add?


----------



## aaronwt

Isn't that a bit much just to save a few GB or TB? Hard drive prices are coming back down. I have over 100TB of space available on my Network and can always add more.


----------



## lrhorer

trip1eX said:


> Macs are consistently the highest rated computers.


By whom and compared to what?



trip1eX said:


> Apple has consistently had the highest rated tech support as well.


That, I can't answer as I have never availed myself of Apple tech support, although I suspect it is based upon the responses of people who offer a blank stare when asked, "What is a Non-Maskable Interrupt?" or, "What is the typical supply current for a 4011 NAND Gate?" In any case, I seriously doubt I would be able to contact the primary developer for any of Apple's applications if I have a problem. By contrast, I can usually contact the principle developer of any Linux application within 24 hours. Linus is pretty busy, but even he is available if there is a serious kernel bug that hasn't been addressed. Try calling up Tim Cook or Bill Gates for tech support some time...


----------



## lrhorer

aaronwt said:


> Isn't that a bit much just to save a few GB or TB? Hard drive prices are coming back down. I have over 100TB of space available on my Network and can always add more.


Saving up to 50% on drive space is not, "Just a few GB or TB". I only have about 5T free, but if it weren't for the savings of which I speak, I would not have any free space at all, and an additional 20T of space would cost at least $4000. I don't know about you, but for me that is quite a large amount of money.

More to the point, your question ignores the fact the space savings is not the principle feature, here. It's just a very nice side benefit, so no, it isn't a bit much. It's a highly desirable bonus to activities that have their own merit.


----------



## lrhorer

mr.unnatural said:


> Sayz you. I don't buy anything that begins with the letter "i". Sorry, but I didn't drink the Steve Jobs Kool-Aid. I won't buy any overpriced CE product that deals with proprietary technology and handcuffs the buyer from upgrading the item as he sees fit.


Yeah, me either. I don't own an i-anything, and it is unlikely I ever will. When it comes to computers, I don't do frivolous toys.

Now helicopters are another matter....


----------



## lrhorer

mattack said:


> "overpriced".. Yeah right. Find a tablet with equivalent hardware and software specs that is cheaper.


Why would I want to find any kind of tablet?

Find me a tablet with at least 6 cores and 30T of expandable storage, and maybe I'll be interested. It had better come with at least 10,000 pieces of software for the price, though.


----------



## lrhorer

atmuscarella said:


> If something is "overpriced" is in the eyes of the beholder. However I would say that on a global bases the buying public has voted that "i" whatever products are not overpriced.


On a global basis, the buying public voted pet rocks and hula-hoops were not overpriced. The iPad is overpriced at $0.01. It is something I do not need that can only do things in which I have no interest*. Send me one free of charge, and it will probably go in the dumpster.

*Note: I do have a book reader, but I would not want to use the i-Pad as a book reader. I certainly would not pay the cost of an i-Pad for a book reader, even if it were as useable as a book reader as the one I have.


----------



## turbobozz

Oh dear god.
lrhorer has found another thread to spam and whine about from far, far, far left field.
Nobody else on these forums is nearly as deluded as him.
Just put him on ignore and all your thread reading will be better.


----------



## mr.unnatural

He must have been having a slow day and needed something to do. I keep hoping that someday he may actually have something constructive to add to a discussion.


----------



## aaronwt

lrhorer said:


> Saving up to 50% on drive space is not, "Just a few GB or TB". I only have about 5T free, but if it weren't for the savings of which I speak, I would not have any free space at all, and an additional 20T of space would cost at least $4000. I don't know about you, but for me that is quite a large amount of money.
> 
> More to the point, your question ignores the fact the space savings is not the principle feature, here. It's just a very nice side benefit, so no, it isn't a bit much. It's a highly desirable bonus to activities that have their own merit.


20TB of space is nowhere near $4k. Even with the current inflated prices I can get 20TB for $1100.(Ten 2TB drives at $110 each from Amazon.) That is still relatively cheap when compared to ten years ago when I was paying $300 for 300GB drives.


----------



## nrc

turbobozz said:


> Oh dear god.
> lrhorer has found another thread to spam and whine about from far, far, far left field.
> Nobody else on these forums is nearly as deluded as him.
> Just put him on ignore and all your thread reading will be better.


You're spoiling my fun.

Let's go guys. Irhorer vs. mr.unnatural in a steel cage match to the death to prove their personal preferences in DVRs are the ideal.


----------



## wmcbrine

mattack said:


> How does it limit "how you can play the music"?


It doesn't. He's behind with his information.

iTunes is DRM-free, for some years now (although still not for video), and it was Apple who fought to make it that way, against the record companies. Give them some credit for that.


----------



## ShoutingMan

mr.unnatural said:


> That may be, but can you play it on a PC or an MP3 player or anything other than an Apple device? Can you transfer it to other devices? Can you remove it from your iPod and reinstate it later without having to buy it all over again?


Yes. 

iTunes runs on PC and Macs, and can play music on both. From my reading. 7MC plays DRM-free AAC music from the iTunes store. With Connect360, you can iTunes music from a Mac to Xbox. With an Apple TV you can stream music from Mac to entertainment center. With AirShare capable devices, like AppleTV and some newer AVRs, you can stream music and videos from an iPad, iPod, and iPhone to your entertainment center. (Tivo no longer supports streaming from a Mac, but that's a Tivo problem. They've not updated their software since Mac ran on G5 computers.)

You can play iTunes music on all manner of iPods.

You can use Home sharing to automatically share purchased music on up to five computers in hour home. And you have have it on unlimited (I think) iOS devices that you or your family members own.

You can delete music (and apps) from iOS devices and put it back later.

With the $25 iTunes Connect service, there's additional "cloud" features with your music, particularly downloading music to an iOS device away from your computer.

Does a Zune or PlaysForSure DAP or Android phone play AAC files? I don't know.

And if you're still worried about lock-in and future proofing, you can buy CDs to rip or buy DRM-free MP3s from Amazon.

HTH


----------



## mr.unnatural

Thanks for the clarification. I don't do iTunes but I had heard that whatever you downloaded was playable only on iPods or similar Apple devices. I see now that they are transferrable to other devices, although it may not be as simple as that.


----------



## aaronwt

I know I just installed iTunes last week, and the music I downloaded was in the mpeg4 audio format. It played fine on my Zune players.


----------



## DocNo

mr.unnatural said:


> They're leased, not purchased. You have to buy a Tivo up front and then pay for the privilege of using it.


Or I can pay for the Tivo+Lifetime and not have to pay another thing, making them still the best overall long-term option of any offering out there from other providers.

And either way, you are paying "for the privilege of using it" for any of the devices too


----------



## DocNo

Phantom Gremlin said:


> But *the average Joe Sixpack* either doesn't have the cash to go out and buy TiVos and get lifetime on them, or is fundamentally innumerate and is incapable of reasoning the way you are..


The average "Joe Sixpack" doesn't have the funds for the "free" cable DVRs either if you look at their spending habits in the context of responsible financial planning, but then again who's problem is that really?

If you don't set yourself up for success, unsurprisingly you probably are not going to be successful! So, they will have to pay more in the long time - that's not Tivo's fault. Unlike their competitors, at least Tivo offers the choice for those who are smart enough to use it.


----------



## DocNo

mr.unnatural said:


> Ceton has gone the extra mile with customer support and are quick to respond to any issues raised by their customers.


Good for them. When they create the whole enchilada like Tivo does, instead of one piece of a much larger puzzle, I'll be willing to accept your comparisons of them to Tivo. Otherwise your comparisons and complaints are completely nonsensical


----------



## DocNo

Sigh... I can't believe I'm going to do this, but what the heck...



mr.unnatural said:


> Sorry about not being more clear. The jab was aimed primarily at Macs, which are


Goody - here it comes:



> hugely proprietary


Yup. So proprietary that they can't run mainstream software like Windows or Linux. Those suckers!



> minimally upgradeable


Really? What does that mean anyway? Because in over 20 years of owning and building various PC's (including having my own store and selling PC's for two years in the heyday of the '90s) I have yet to see more than 10% of any computers (Mac, Windows, Sun, Amiga, Apple II - you name it) ever get upgraded beyond the configuration they were purchased in with the rare upgrading of a hard drive or maybe some additional RAM.

Yup, there are those who change video cards and other components out but they are freaks within the general population of computerdom. A minority of a minority.

Heck, even a "welded shut" box like my original Mac Plus was upgraded with memory, hard drives, networking, printers, etc.

Yup, almost all PC's have slots - by 99% of the time they sit there completely unused.

And having said that, it's all completely irrelevant. The iMac is no more un-upgradeable than a laptop - which are outselling desktops handily these days anyway.

Thank god desktops are dying - it will finally really draw out the "Mac's arn't upgradeable" brigade for the kooks they are.



> (_and _overpriced)


Aha - here we just have a matter of disagreement. Apple doesn't produce crappy, user experienced compromised cheap hardware like netbooks. When you compare, spec for spec, Apple hardware is actually competitive or better priced.

Don't believe me? Take a look at the Mac Book Air vs. Ultrabooks. PC manufacturers can't even come close in matching features like size, weight and battery life combined with price. They can get a couple - but not all at the same time. Hmm....

Now, maybe you are willing to put up with the crappy user experience and thought netbooks were the bees knees. Good for you - Apple isn't your company. But that doesn't mean they are "overpriced".

And as for tablets - the only reason 7" tablets are being pushed is, wait for it: Price! Other manufacturers can't get anywhere near Apple's quantity of scale or supply chain management and the screen is the single most expensive component. So, you turn a liability into a "much desired" feature and also manage to be able to deflect direct comparisons between your product and your competitors.

Yup, how's that "overpriced" argument working out again?



> I think iTunes is a huge ripoff as it limits how you can play the music.


Really? What limits would those be? I'm listening to my entire iTunes library on my Tivo right now as a matter of fact.

I don't care if you don't personally like Apple. But please don't comment on something you are obviously completely unqualified to discuss intelligently and expect to not get called out for it.


----------



## DocNo

slowbiscuit said:


> C'mon, seriously? A $500 PC has all the performance of a $1200 iMac


So they are the same?



> it just doesn't have the design.


Aha - they aren't the same after all and there might just be a legitimate reason for the price difference.

Ya know, to some design (and overall user experience) equates to "performance". It's not always just about benchmarks.

Oh, and by "some" I really mean "those who look at computers as tools rather than an ends unto themselves" which would also equate "just about everyone who isn't a techie geek". Hint - that group is much larger than the group of us that post in forums like this - or on the Internet in general.

Finally - not that I expect you to, but please - please find me an all-in-one PC that has the same or better specs as the iMac for $500.

Heck, find me a mini-tower paired _with the same quality IPS LCD_ for that matter...


----------



## DocNo

mr.unnatural said:


> You've totally missed my point about upgrades, primarily when it comes to CPUs and motherboards.


The majority of computers sold these days are laptops. Mac or PC, you upgrade by buying new.

And for a LONG time now, if you change more than one - CPU, Memory, Graphics - you might as well get a new machine. It hasn't been cost effective to upgrade PC's piecemeal for over 10 years. That doesn't mean lots of people don't do it, but with the commoditization of parts and prices in general combined with - as you point out - chipset changes that change sockets and memory types they are generally bad deals.

Kind of like buying a Tivo S3 or HD today and then putting lifetime on it


----------



## DocNo

lrhorer said:


> ' A machine precisely equivalent to a Mac Pro costs a fraction of what the Mac Pro costs, especially when loaded with Linux.


I accept your challenge. Link to a dual processor Xeon system that supports ECC memory of at least 64 GB and that also has two full 16 lane PCI express slots (each slot supports 16 lane - not 8 between or one 16 and one 8) that costs less than a Mac Pro.

I triple dog dare you.

Yup, there's a lot of cheaper kit out there - but it's cheaper for a reason. And sure, you may not need a Mac Pro - I do agree Apple has a huge gap between the iMac and the Mac Pro - but that's not we are talking about here. You said "precisely equivalent to a Mac Pro" - so prove it.


----------



## DocNo

lrhorer said:


> That, I can't answer as I have never availed myself of Apple tech support, although I suspect it is based upon the responses of people who offer a blank stare when asked, "What is a Non-Maskable Interrupt?" or, "What is the typical supply current for a 4011 NAND Gate?"


Other than stroking your ego, how does having that level of inherit knowledge correlate to the quality of technical support offered in the least?



> In any case, I seriously doubt I would be able to contact the primary developer for any of Apple's applications if I have a problem.


Why would you ever want to be able to do that? Shouldn't a reasonable expectation be that technology "just work" and therefore speaking with the developer be unnecessary?

And even being able to speak to developers doesn't mean your issues will get resolved. I've spoken with plenty of developers over the years - proprietary and Open Source and it's certainly not panacea. No matter the inherit model at the end of the days they are still human working within the confines of technology.

Big whoop.

And BTW - when push comes to shove, it's far more effective to talk to VP's of sales or CEOs than developers. Just saying 



> By contrast, I can usually contact the principle developer of any Linux application within 24 hours. Linus is pretty busy, but even he is available if there is a serious kernel bug that hasn't been addressed.


The mere fact that you think that's an important necessity says more about your view of the world than the inherit strengths or weaknesses of companies like Apple, Microsoft or even Tivo.



> Try calling up Tim Cook or Bill Gates for tech support some time...


Why the heck would I ever want or need to? If I was ever in a position where I felt I did I would more likely rightly assume I was using the wrong product and seek a more reasonable alternative.


----------



## DocNo

wmcbrine said:


> iTunes is DRM-free, for some years now (although still not for video), and it was Apple who fought to make it that way, against the record companies. Give them some credit for that.


Giving Apple credit for anything positive is simply against some people's religion


----------



## mr.unnatural

DocNo said:


> The majority of computers sold these days are laptops. Mac or PC, you upgrade by buying new.
> 
> And for a LONG time now, if you change more than one - CPU, Memory, Graphics - you might as well get a new machine. It hasn't been cost effective to upgrade PC's piecemeal for over 10 years. That doesn't mean lots of people don't do it, but with the commoditization of parts and prices in general combined with - as you point out - chipset changes that change sockets and memory types they are generally bad deals.
> 
> Kind of like buying a Tivo S3 or HD today and then putting lifetime on it


I'd agree that the majority of turnkey computers being sold are just what you say they are, especially with Macs and laptops. The thing is, if that's all that was being sold, how do you explain the success of Newegg and countless other hardware retailers? There's a vast market out there for people that like to upgrade a little at a time instead of splurging on an entirely new computer. I daresay it's a larger market share than what Tivo owns by comparison (or even Apple for that matter), but that's pure speculation on my part. With a minimal outlay of $200-300 you can give your old PC a huge facelift with a new motherboard, CPU, and RAM. Unless you're a diehard gamer that needs the latest and greatest powerhouse graphics card, most people can get by with an older GPU for many years. I'm still using the same graphics card in my main PC that has seen 2 or 3 motherboard and CPU upgrades since I first bought the card.

There is absolutely no need to replace an entire PC if you already have a quality case, PSU, hard drive, optical drive, keyboard, mouse, etc. When you buy a new PC you generally expect a performance increase. The components that provide said increase are the motherboard, CPU, memory, and possibly GPU and optical drive. Your new case, PSU, mouse and keyboard probably aren't going to add much performance-wise. If anything, they'll generally be mediocre compared to aftermarket components. For less than what I'd pay for an entirely new PC I can probably buy a better motherboard, CPU, and RAM that will future-proof my PC for a bit longer than your nice new shiny box.

Turnkey PCs are cheap for a reason. Manufacturers cut costs by including cheap peripherals, cases, and power supplies. Many of them use proprietary hardware so you have to go to them for any upgrades after the sale. Aside from Macs, I won't buy name brand PCs for that very reason. You can get a new PC cheap, but what you're typically getting is a cheap PC, which is what you paid for.

The only reason I would ever consider changing certain items is if they are no longer compatible with other current hardware and operating systems. I used to upgrade components constantly just to keep up with current technology until I realized it was a complete waste of time and money. Now I only upgrade if the new hardware will show me a marked improvement in performance.

Prime examples of hardware obsolescence are the introduction of PCI slots that replaced ISA, PCI-E that replaced PCI (although most motherboards still have at least one PCI slot), USB 2.0 replaced USB 1.0, USB 3.0 will eventually replace USB 2.0, HDMI will eventually replace both VGA and DVI (but probably not anytime soon), SATA has already replaced PATA, SATA II replaced SATA I, SATA III is replacing SATA II, and floppy interfaces are pretty much dead and gone.


----------



## CoxInPHX

Has anyone here built a Hackintosh?

@ ~28 min: http://revision3.com/tekzilla/rogers-hackintosh


----------



## mattack

mr.unnatural said:


> You're going to have to be more specific. I've never posted any problems about blown capacitors in any Tivo I've ever owned. I think you've got me confused with someone else.


Sorry, must have confused you with someone else.



mr.unnatural said:


> I'm well aware that Macs can run Windows, which is a bit ironic, don't you think? If I wanted to run Windows I would think I'd rather buy a Windows PC instead of a Mac.


No, not really. I'm not saying it's a HUGE number, but I've definitely heard of more than an infinitesimal number of people buying MacBooks to run Windows, because of better hardware (in THEIR opinion, since they're the ones that bought it). Then again, some of them may have used Boot Camp, and eventually convinced themselves to use Mac OS X instead.


----------



## mr.unnatural

CoxInPHX said:


> Has anyone here built a Hackintosh?
> 
> @ ~28 min: http://revision3.com/tekzilla/rogers-hackintosh


Yessir. It mostly sits on a shelf and collects dust. I haven't booted it up in months.



mattack said:


> No, not really. I'm not saying it's a HUGE number, but I've definitely heard of more than an infinitesimal number of people buying MacBooks to run Windows, because of better hardware (in THEIR opinion, since they're the ones that bought it). Then again, some of them may have used Boot Camp, and eventually convinced themselves to use Mac OS X instead.


I find that interesting, especially when you consider that the same hardware currently used in a Mac is basically the same hardware that goes into a Windows PC. Mac switched over to the x86 architecture for their CPUs quite some time ago.

It's not the hardware that's stable but the drivers (aka kexts or kernel extensions in Mac-speak). Apple reduces the possibility of driver conflicts by matching the hardware and drivers to the OS for any specific configuration. PC hardware is a completely different ball game because there are so many variables involved with the multitude of aftermarket vendors. There is no way to make every device out there 100% stable in Windows when mixed and matched into a given system.

As for running Windows on a Mac, I can see it from the perspective that there are far more apps available for Windows than there are for OS X. You can run Parallels and use both OS X and Windows on a Mac. The funny thing is, all you need to do is find a set of hardware that plays nce together in Windows and you'll have a PC that's every bit as stable as a Mac. I think the real thing that people like about Macs is the user interface designed into the OS. It's more user friendly than Windows, which has always been one of Apple's strong points. In the end it all boils down to personal preference.


----------



## mattack

wmcbrine said:


> It doesn't. He's behind with his information.
> 
> iTunes is DRM-free, for some years now (although still not for video), and it was Apple who fought to make it that way, against the record companies. Give them some credit for that.


Plus, I have effectively only my ripped CDs, so it's even more false... (I've gotten tons of the free songs of the week, and I think the only thing I bought myself was Thriller, several years ago (before MJ's death), when it was $5.. as cheap/cheaper than CDs.)


----------



## mattack

aaronwt said:


> Ten 2TB drives at $110 each from Amazon.


You posted this on 2/12. Do you still see this price? The cheapest 2 TB drive I see right now (internal hard drives, 3.5" and 2 TB) is Barracuda 2 TB 5900 RPM.. $119.99.

IIRC, I was seeing 4 TB drives in Fry's ads for $299. (Yes, I know those won't work in a Tivo.. but I was almost vaguely seriously considering getting another one of those to use in my external dock, which I'm using to offload a bunch of Tivo programs since I'm currently suffering with the ridiculously small orig hard drive since my upgraded drive went reboot-loop months ago..)


----------



## aaronwt

mattack said:


> You posted this on 2/12. Do you still see this price? The cheapest 2 TB drive I see right now (internal hard drives, 3.5" and 2 TB) is Barracuda 2 TB 5900 RPM.. $119.99.
> 
> IIRC, I was seeing 4 TB drives in Fry's ads for $299. (Yes, I know those won't work in a Tivo.. but I was almost vaguely seriously considering getting another one of those to use in my external dock, which I'm using to offload a bunch of Tivo programs since I'm currently suffering with the ridiculously small orig hard drive since my upgraded drive went reboot-loop months ago..)


They raised the price by $10. It was $110 but is now $120. It was probably $110 while another merchant had them on sale. At least the prices have been coming down, but are still nowhere near the $65 dollars each that I paid for over a dozen of the 2TB Seagate drives last year.


----------



## mattack

Wow, you mean it was Amazon that had them for $65? just curious.


----------



## innocentfreak

mattack said:


> Wow, you mean it was Amazon that had them for $65? just curious.


Amazon and Newegg both regularly had 2TB drives for $59 after $10 MIR. At one point the 3TB were $110.


----------



## mr.unnatural

Aaaahhh, the good old days.

In further response to an earlier post by nrc, Ceton is hard at work developing the InfiniTV 6 as well as other products. Here's a thread that may be of interest to the Ceton naysayers:

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1009


----------



## slowbiscuit

But still no word on when it will ship...

The Silicondust HDHR Prime is a great deal now for $170 shipped.


----------



## mr.unnatural

slowbiscuit said:


> But still no word on when it will ship...


I'm sure it won't be too much longer. The guys at Ceton are going full steam ahead on new products. They're probably waiting until they can make sure they don't run into the same production delays that they had with the InfiniTV 4 before announcing a release date.



> The Silicondust HDHR Prime is a great deal now for $170 shipped.


Just picked one up from J&R Music World the other day for the same price and set it up last night. I swapped it out for one of my InfiniTV4's for a little more flexibility. I was able to reactivate the cablecard from the Ceton and plug it into the HDHR Prime. I have a 2nd HTPC that I was going to assign one or two tuners to from the Ceton, but I like the idea of the tuners being available to all PCs without them being permanently assigned to a single box. If my main HTPC goes down for any reason, the other HTPCs can still use the HDHR tuners. I also wanted a couple of extra tuners for use with the HTPC because sometimes four tuners just aren't enough when I pad every recording.


----------



## mattack

slowbiscuit said:


> But still no word on when it will ship...
> 
> The Silicondust HDHR Prime is a great deal now for $170 shipped.


Uhh, I don't want to watch from a computer..I want to watch from a TV. (and 3 tuners vs 6, or 4 on the Elite, which I also don't have)


----------



## atmuscarella

mattack said:


> Uhh, I don't want to watch from a computer..I want to watch from a TV. (and 3 tuners vs 6, or 4 on the Elite, which I also don't have)


???

Not sure what you are saying but my guess is that pretty close to no one on these forums watch TV from a (tuned by a) TV. We are all watching TV from (tuned by) some box connect to a display device (a TV or Monitor). With the Silicondust HDHR Prime the box is a HTPC instead of a cable box or a TiVo box and it can be connected to the same display devices as any of the other boxes.

Now if your saying you don't like HTPCs that is certainly a valid opinion but I am sure mr.unnatural will want to comment.


----------



## slowbiscuit

mattack said:


> Uhh, I don't want to watch from a computer..I want to watch from a TV. (and 3 tuners vs 6, or 4 on the Elite, which I also don't have)


LOL.

The HDHR Prime requires a PC (WMC, Myth, etc.) to control and tune it, and the PC then drives the TV. Or you can use extenders on the TVs.


----------



## mr.unnatural

mattack said:


> Uhh, I don't want to watch from a computer..I want to watch from a TV. (and 3 tuners vs 6, or 4 on the Elite, which I also don't have)


You're watching TV on a TV. The source of the signal is captured by a tuner and then passed along to the TV inputs. The tuner is in a cable box, Tivo, HTPC or other device capable of receiving a broadcast or digital cable signal. The TV (and the viewer) have no way of discerning what kind of tuner is being used to receive the signal other that the UI menus. The picture you'll see on the TV looks the same from every source mentioned.

The type of box you use for tuning the TV signal is completely a matter of personal preference. Cable boxes are for those that just want to watch TV and don't care about recording anything for later viewing. Cableco DVRs are for those that don't want to buy their own equipment or only record shows on occasion. Tivos are for people that want a better DVR experience and don't mind paying a bit extra for the privilege. HTPCs used to be for the more adventurous hobbyists, but they're becoming more mainstream with the latest hardware and software. You only need to pick the type of box that suits your needs or particular lifestyle.

My goal is only to educate people on HTPCs, not shove them down their throats. I was a Tivo fan for well over a decade and I still think they're great DVRs. I decided to try something a little different and it stuck with me. If my wife weren't so completely resistant to change or anything technical, I'd have done away with all cable boxes and Tivos quite some time ago. She actually warmed up to using the Tivo so I may be leaning towards the Ceton Q and Echo extenders when they're released as they will be more of a Tivo-like appliance rather than a PC.


----------



## aaronwt

mr.unnatural said:


> You're watching TV on a TV. The source of the signal is captured by a tuner and then passed along to the TV inputs. The tuner is in a cable box, Tivo, HTPC or other device capable of receiving a broadcast or digital cable signal. The TV (and the viewer) have no way of discerning what kind of tuner is being used to receive the signal other that the UI menus. The picture you'll see on the TV looks the same from every source mentioned.
> 
> The type of box you use for tuning the TV signal is completely a matter of personal preference. Cable boxes are for those that just want to watch TV and don't care about recording anything for later viewing. Cableco DVRs are for those that don't want to buy their own equipment or only record shows on occasion. Tivos are for people that want a better DVR experience and don't mind paying a bit extra for the privilege. HTPCs used to be for the more adventurous hobbyists, but they're becoming more mainstream with the latest hardware and software. You only need to pick the type of box that suits your needs or particular lifestyle.
> 
> My goal is only to educate people on HTPCs, not shove them down their throats. I was a Tivo fan for well over a decade and I still think they're great DVRs. I decided to try something a little different and it stuck with me. If my wife weren't so completely resistant to change or anything technical, I'd have done away with all cable boxes and Tivos quite some time ago. She actually warmed up to using the Tivo so I may be leaning towards the Ceton Q and Echo extenders when they're released as they will be more of a Tivo-like appliance rather than a PC.


I did just the opposite. I started watching and recording HD with a couple of HTPCs back in 2001. Back then I also used TiVos for SD content and SD backups of my HD recordings. Then in 2004 the HDTiVo came out and I mostly stopped using my HTPCs except for scaling DVDs from my SDI DVD players. By the end of 2005 I had stopped watching DVDs and rarely used my HTPCs and stopped using them completely by 2007.

Now I couldn't see going back to using an HTPC ecpecially since the TiVos can stream between boxes now. Plus I can still transfer any recording I make on FiOS to a PC for permanent storage on my network.


----------



## atmuscarella

aaronwt said:


> I did just the opposite. I started watching and recording HD with a couple of HTPCs back in 2001. Back then I also used TiVos for SD content and SD backups of my HD recordings. Then in 2004 the HDTiVo came out and I mostly stopped using my HTPCs except for scaling DVDs from my SDI DVD players. By the end of 2005 I had stopped watching DVDs and rarely used my HTPCs and stopped using them completely by 2007.
> 
> Now I couldn't see going back to using an HTPC ecpecially since the TiVos can stream between boxes now. Plus I can still transfer any recording I make on FiOS to a PC for permanent storage on my network.


Me thinks your memory is related to mine.

The Series 3 TiVo came out the fall/late summer of 2006 and the TiVo HD the spring of 2007.


----------



## mr.unnatural

I was using both an HTPC for OTA recordings along with my HDTivos with DirecTV about five years back. DirecTV didn't carry all of my locals and I couldn't see paying for additional HDTivos to get free TV so I decided to try an HTPC to see what it was all about. I saw a great deal on the BeyondTV software (I essentially got it free after rebate), which is what prompted me to give it a shot. I installed it on an XP machine with several V-Box USB ATSC tuners. I had some growing pains, but overall it worked fairly well for what I wanted.

I had several HR10-250 HDTivos that were eventually replaced by two S3 Tivos when I switched over to FIOS. All of my Tivos and the HTPC were connected to my main HDTV so streaming and MRV were never a big selling point. The one thing that was annoying was having to balance recordings between Tivos to avoid conflicts. I worked out a system for doing this so it wasn't that big of a deal. 

When the Ceton InfiniTV 4 was announced I put my name on the mailing list for any notifications of a release date. I literally ordered mine within seconds of receiving the e-mail announcement that they were taking pre-orders. I didn't receive it until five months later, but it was well worth the wait. The ability to set up all of my recordings from a single guide listing and have everything on one box was the selling point that eventually made me give up my Tivos and use the HTPC exclusively.

I'm not going to sugar coat anything and say that the experience has been perfect because it hasn't. I went through a lot of trials and tribulations that had me tearing my hair out on more than one occasion (mostly with the XP machine and the USB tuners), but then I'm the type of person that likes a challenge and being able to overcome any obstacle is beyond rewarding to me. I can only imagine what someone's experience must have been with an HTPC back in 2001 as the options were extremely limited back then. I love building and tinkering with PCs so it's been a perfect fit for me.

Windows 7 Media Center has been a complete revelation in the evolution of the HTPC. The OS is by far the most stable that Microsoft has developed to date. More and more hardware manufacturers are creating motherboards, CPUs, graphics cards, and other peripherals that are geared towards HTPCs. Some, such as ASRock and Zotac, are even building turnkey systems designed for HTPC use.

Building an HTPC isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea and I don't expect there are a lot of people that are going to share my enthusiasm for them. The good news is that you don't have to be a computer geek or a tweaker to enjoy the benefits of an HTPC. If you've got a version of Windows 7 that's more advanced than the Starter version you already have Media Center on your PC. It's simply a matter of installing a tuner and connecting it to an antenna and running WMC setup. Cablecard tuners are a little more involved, but not at all complicated. Eventually you might want to progress to DVD or even Blu-Ray playback as well as various types of video files like avi's, mpg's, mkv's and so on. You can also use it as a music server and digital photos, much the same way you can with Tivos. You've also got access to any type of online content or streaming services.

There are lots of options with an HTPC and you get to decide which ones you want. With Tivos you get to use whatever Tivo decides they want to install. If new features become available, it usually means having to buy one or more new Tivos to enjoy them. With an HTPC, it's usually a matter of a simple hardware or software upgrade. It all boils down to what you want your device to do for you.


----------



## aaronwt

atmuscarella said:


> Me thinks your memory is related to mine.
> 
> The Series 3 TiVo came out the fall/late summer of 2006 and the TiVo HD the spring of 2007.


Yes, I got my S3 boxes in December 2006. But I got my HDTiVos in May 2004 with DirecTV.(I made a nice profit with them. I bought eight at $1k a pop and sold six of them for around $1500 each. Which covered the cost of my two boxes, plus upgrading them to use two, 250GB drives.)
Once I got my S3 boxes that put the nail in the coffin for my HTPCs. But it was downhill for my HTPCs starting in 2004 with my HDTiVos.


----------



## atmuscarella

aaronwt said:


> Yes, I got my S3 boxes in December 2006. But I got my HDTiVos in May 2004 with DirecTV.(I made a nice profit with them. I bought eight at $1k a pop and sold six of them for around $1500 each. Which covered the cost of my two boxes, plus upgrading them to use two, 250GB drives.)
> Once I got my S3 boxes that put the nail in the coffin for my HTPCs. But it was downhill for my HTPCs starting in 2004 with my HDTiVos.


Egg on my face completely forgot about Direct TV HD TiVos.


----------



## mr.unnatural

aaronwt said:


> Yes, I got my S3 boxes in December 2006. But I got my HDTiVos in May 2004 with DirecTV.(I made a nice profit with them. I bought eight at $1k a pop and sold six of them for around $1500 each. Which covered the cost of my two boxes, plus upgrading them to use two, 250GB drives.)
> Once I got my S3 boxes that put the nail in the coffin for my HTPCs. But it was downhill for my HTPCs starting in 2004 with my HDTiVos.


I think I paid $900 for my first one and about $700 for the 2nd. I got stiffed by a guy on ebay that had them listed for $650 who took my money, and apparently a lot of other people's, and promptly disappeared. Unfortunately, that was the days before ebay had more secure payment methods, although I believe I did use PayPal and was covered for about $175 of the $650.

I got another one from DirecTV when they were selling them for $99, but I had to have one of their installers put it in. The installer completely manhandled the Tivo when he installed it by first plugging in the power cable and then flipping the Tivo over and back several times to connect the other cables, all while the hard drive was spinning up. I almost tackled him on the spot and read him the riot act. The Tivo died exactly 92 days later. Had it died within 90 days or less I would have gotten a brand new HDTivo as a replacement. I ended up getting a refurbished unit instead.

I picked up over a dozen HR10-250's on ebay for about $20-40 apiece (I forget the exact amount). They had all been returned for bad HDMI ports and no hard drives, cables, or remotes and were being sold by some clearing house for Best Buy. I spent $100 apiece to get new HDMI cards and another $40-60 each for new hard drives. I was able to pick up some cheap UK Tivo silver remotes on ebay for about $6 each and power cords from allelectronics.com for about $1.50. I threw in a homebrew serial cable and a backup Tivo image with MFSTools on a couple of CDs. I think I sold them all for about $250 each.


----------



## mattack

mattack said:


> Uhh, I don't want to watch from a computer..I want to watch from a TV. (and 3 tuners vs 6, or 4 on the Elite, which I also don't have)


What I meant was that the SiliconDust product someone mentioned goes into a PC, and the subject of this thread is a "consumer box to hook to a TV". (Yes, internally it is "a PC that runs Windows media center embedded or whatever it's officially called".. But it's no more "a PC" than a Tivo is.)


----------



## larrs

I ran accross this today

http://thedigitallifestyle.com/w/in...ft-killing-off-windows-media-center-embedded/

Is Microsoft killing off MC embedded?


----------



## vurbano

atmuscarella said:


> ???
> 
> Not sure what you are saying but my guess is that pretty close to no one on these forums watch TV from a (tuned by a) TV. We are all watching TV from (tuned by) some box connect to a display device (a TV or Monitor). With the Silicondust HDHR Prime the box is a HTPC instead of a cable box or a TiVo box and it can be connected to the same display devices as any of the other boxes.
> 
> Now if your saying you don't like HTPCs that is certainly a valid opinion but I am sure mr.unnatural will want to comment.


An HTPC for each Tv seems like an expensive proposition


----------



## mr.unnatural

vurbano said:


> An HTPC for each Tv seems like an expensive proposition


You can build an barebones PC for about $300 and use networked tuners like the SiliconDust HDHomeRun models. You can also share tuners with the Ceton InfiniTV4. Compare that to a new Premier with lifetime and it's considerably cheaper. You can also have just a primary PC and use extenders for the remote TVs for even less.


----------



## slowbiscuit

Or just buy one, I see them all the time on sale at office supply stores, Fry's, Microcenter etc. for $300. Most if not all will work fine as an HTPC, all you need extra is a $20 receiver and remote and possibly a cheap video card with HDMI out if the PC doesn't have HDMI.

So you're looking at $450 or so total with the HD Homerun Prime tuner, and then get cheap Xbox Slims with busted DVD drives off of craigslist or fleabay for the other TVs (if you really want to go cheap).


----------



## MeInDallas

I saw on the Ceton website they put up a new video and it says the InfinitiTV 6 is coming soon. I just wonder how soon they mean. I'd love to have one and try it.


----------



## innocentfreak

MeInDallas said:


> I saw on the Ceton website they put up a new video and it says the InfinitiTV 6 is coming soon. I just wonder how soon they mean. I'd love to have one and try it.


It is probably coming with the Ceton Q.


----------



## innocentfreak

http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=d8df9c2734d4388754bd41fd3&id=c543e133b0&e=4722b36f09

Ceton Echo still by holiday 2012, but Q pushed back to 2013 if at all.

The problem with the Q appears to be Windows Embedded since MS dumped Media Center from Windows 8 embedded.



> Ultimately, we want to make sure that we deliver great products that customers will love for years to come. Given the flux at Microsoft around some of the key components we were relying on, we simply dont feel we can do that with the Q at this point.


----------



## MeInDallas

I sure do wish they would go ahead and release that InfiniTV 6 though, would be great to have one.


----------



## tootal2

The windows 8 upgrade for 39.99 comes with windows media center.



innocentfreak said:


> http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=d8df9c2734d4388754bd41fd3&id=c543e133b0&e=4722b36f09
> 
> Ceton Echo still by holiday 2012, but Q pushed back to 2013 if at all.
> 
> The problem with the Q appears to be Windows Embedded since MS dumped Media Center from Windows 8 embedded.


----------



## innocentfreak

tootal2 said:


> The windows 8 upgrade for 39.99 comes with windows media center.


Which has nothing to do with Windows Embedded.

The Q is built off Windows Embedded.


----------



## buscuitboy

MeInDallas said:


> I sure do wish they would go ahead and release that InfiniTV 6 though, would be great to have one.


Yea, I just saw this and would definitely consider the 6-tuner PCIe card as well, but I'm now also wondering about one thing concerning ANY of these Ceton 6-tuner devices. I thought I read somewhere (can't remember where) that Comcast limits their M-Cards to only 4 tuners.

Is this correct & something cable companies can control? Or is it strictly a hardware based factor and/or limitation and a 20-tuner cable card could theoretically exist without any interference/control from Comcrap?


----------



## innocentfreak

CableCARDs support up to 6 streams. I believe some of the tuning adapters only support up to 4 streams though. I don't have TAs though so I never kept up with them fully.


----------



## buscuitboy

innocentfreak said:


> CableCARDs support up to 6 streams.


Odd, cause I have thought about about the HDHomeRun 6-tuner set-top box, but after looking into it more, it appears to simply be a box that accepts TWO cable cards in order to get its 6 tuners (presumably 3 tuners for each M-card). That would of gone along the lines of my theory & comments for cable cards only accepting up to 4-tuners.

Not sure why they did that instead of just one M-card slot though since you state cable cards can handle up to 6 tuners.


----------



## MeInDallas

The HDHomeRun 6 tuner is just two 3 tuner boxes crammed into one box. I researched this because I was thinking about getting one myself, then found out thats all it was. Look at the back of the box, you can see there is just 2 of everything there.


----------



## mr.unnatural

buscuitboy said:


> Odd, cause I have thought about about the HDHomeRun 6-tuner set-top box, but after looking into it more, it appears to simply be a box that accepts TWO cable cards in order to get its 6 tuners (presumably 3 tuners for each M-card). That would of gone along the lines of my theory & comments for cable cards only accepting up to 4-tuners.
> 
> Not sure why they did that instead of just one M-card slot though since you state cable cards can handle up to 6 tuners.


The 6-tuner HDHomeRun Prime is two of the 3-tuner models on a single chassis, hence the need for two cablecards. They'd have to redesign the whole box in order to use a single cablecard. Ceton already had their 4-tuner version on the market so SiliconDust decided to offer a 3-tuner version for people that don't need four tuners.

Cablecards are made by either Motorola or Scientific Atlanta, IIRC. The cable companies have no way to limit the number of streams the cards support.


----------



## atmuscarella

mr.unnatural said:


> The cable companies have no way to limit the number of streams the cards support.


If I remember correctly wasn't it tuning adapters that had the 6 stream limit?


----------



## innocentfreak

atmuscarella said:


> If I remember correctly wasn't it tuning adapters that had the 6 stream limit?


TAs originally had 2 tuner limits until the CableCARD changes went into effect. They raised it to 4 or the number of tuners a cable company offers on their boxes based off the TiVo request.They have to support whichever option is greater.

http://www.cablelabs.com/opencable/primer/cablecard_primer.html



> The development of the replacement interface specification was originally called the Multistream CableCARD Interface Specification. It updated the security system to support triple-DES (3DES) or FIPS PUB 46-3, *added support for up to 6 simultaneous transport streams*, and made use of the serialized interface, similar to USB-2.0, to achieve lower host receiver costs and higher data transfer rates. While doing this, the card maintained the original PCMCIA physical interface for backward compatibility.


----------



## CoxInPHX

innocentfreak said:


> TAs originally had 2 tuner limits until the CableCARD changes went into effect. They raised it to 4 or the number of tuners a cable company offers on their boxes based off the TiVo request.They have to support whichever option is greater.
> 
> http://www.cablelabs.com/opencable/primer/cablecard_primer.html


The Cisco TA Originally had a 2 Tuner limit (firmware limited)
The Motorola TA always supported 4 Tuners.

The Cisco TA (w/FW F.1402 or above) now supports 6 Tuners and I assume the Moto TA does also.


----------



## buscuitboy

While I have been thinking about getting one of these Ceton or HDHomeRun products, I recently found out one thing that is sort of disappointing with them both. I would probably use an Xbox360 with either as "media extender" on other HDTVs, but from my understanding, simple channel surfing (ch up/down) can't be performed to change channels. Instead, I have to either call up the guide and select a channel, or physically input the channel number on the remote. Is this the correct operation with an Xbox360 extender? 

Also, I watched a youtube video reviewing one of these products and they stated that within the Windows Media center console, you can start a live recording during a current show, but it won't record the buffer before it like TiVo does (if available). Therefore, if you have been watching a live 30min show from 6-610pm and then want to record it, it will essentially only record from 6:10-6:30. You won't get the first 10mins recorded (from the buffer). 

The review is a few months old and they said hopefully this is fixed and addressed in the near future. Is this still the way it operates or has it maybe been fixed to work more like TiVo does (records the WHOLE 30min show if available)?

If both limitations are true, kind of disappointing.


----------



## trip1eX

Whoops. Guess the news about Q DVR essentially being canned was already posted. Bit of a shocker although if Tivo isn't making money then never really understood how Ceton was going to make money on one.


----------



## trip1eX

buscuitboy said:


> While I have been thinking about getting one of these Ceton or HDHomeRun products, I recently found out one thing that is sort of disappointing with them both. I would probably use an Xbox360 with either as "media extender" on other HDTVs, but from my understanding, simple channel surfing (ch up/down) can't be performed to change channels. Instead, I have to either call up the guide and select a channel, or physically input the channel number on the remote. Is this the correct operation with an Xbox360 extender?
> 
> Also, I watched a youtube video reviewing one of these products and they stated that within the Windows Media center console, you can start a live recording during a current show, but it won't record the buffer before it like TiVo does (if available). Therefore, if you have been watching a live 30min show from 6-610pm and then want to record it, it will essentially only record from 6:10-6:30. You won't get the first 10mins recorded (from the buffer).
> 
> The review is a few months old and they said hopefully this is fixed and addressed in the near future. Is this still the way it operates or has it maybe been fixed to work more like TiVo does (records the WHOLE 30min show if available)?
> 
> If both limitations are true, kind of disappointing.


The first isn't true.

And the second is.

MS is abandoning WMC so what you see today is what you will still have 5 years from now.


----------



## mr.unnatural

I'm pretty sure WMC records what's in the buffer just like a Tivo as long as the channel you're recording was previously tuned to. I don't do this very often but I seem to recall the last time I did it recorded my show from the beginning even though I initiated the recording after it already started. Of course, if you changed the channel and then began to record you also wiped the buffer in the process.

Channel surfing is ancient history with digital TV as it tends to take longer to lock in the channel and display a picture. PC tuners tend to take slightly longer to tune than most TV tuners.

Microsoft hasn't totally abandoned WMC yet, but they aren't packaging it with Windows 8 either. You have to download it as an add-on and it may eventually cost you extra. MS announced that Windows 8 will be available for only $39.99 with a free download of WMC, at least into early next year once Win 8 becomes available.


----------



## tootal2

If wmc had a live buffer my computer could not hibernate when its not recording. windows will not hibernate if its recoding video or buffering video.



mr.unnatural said:


> I'm pretty sure WMC records what's in the buffer just like a Tivo as long as the channel you're recording was previously tuned to. I don't do this very often but I seem to recall the last time I did it recorded my show from the beginning even though I initiated the recording after it already started. Of course, if you changed the channel and then began to record you also wiped the buffer in the process.
> 
> Channel surfing is ancient history with digital TV as it tends to take longer to lock in the channel and display a picture. PC tuners tend to take slightly longer to tune than most TV tuners.
> 
> Microsoft hasn't totally abandoned WMC yet, but they aren't packaging it with Windows 8 either. You have to download it as an add-on and it may eventually cost you extra. MS announced that Windows 8 will be available for only $39.99 with a free download of WMC, at least into early next year once Win 8 becomes available.


----------



## MeInDallas

One good thing about WMC is that you can put it in hibernation yourself when youre done watching your shows. Theres a setting in the WMC that you can adjust and it will automatically "wake up" how ever many minutes you set it before scheduled recordings.

I got my first 4 tuner Ceton card this week and built an HTPC and I have to say I am seriously impressed with this thing. I cant figure out why everyone knocks them so much. Dont get me wrong I still love my Tivo's, but after all the hell I went thru with the Elite/XL4 (yes 3 of them that wouldnt work) and now this has 4 tuners and works like a dream! It just shows it was Tivo's software or hardware that was the issue. The Ceton 4 tuner card works amazingly well with my cable. The big thing was I already had a spare computer to put the card in, and I didnt have to do anything else. So I got 4 tuners for $199

Now if they would just release that 6 tuner card I'd be happy


----------



## tootal2

You can just buy another ceton card and have 8 tuners. I have 6 tuners. 4 cable and 2 antenna. also get the ceton compaion app so you can control wmc with your phone.



MeInDallas said:


> One good thing about WMC is that you can put it in hibernation yourself when youre done watching your shows. Theres a setting in the WMC that you can adjust and it will automatically "wake up" how ever many minutes you set it before scheduled recordings.
> 
> I got my first 4 tuner Ceton card this week and built an HTPC and I have to say I am seriously impressed with this thing. I cant figure out why everyone knocks them so much. Dont get me wrong I still love my Tivo's, but after all the hell I went thru with the Elite/XL4 (yes 3 of them that wouldnt work) and now this has 4 tuners and works like a dream! It just shows it was Tivo's software or hardware that was the issue. The Ceton 4 tuner card works amazingly well with my cable. The big thing was I already had a spare computer to put the card in, and I didnt have to do anything else. So I got 4 tuners for $199
> 
> Now if they would just release that 6 tuner card I'd be happy


----------



## MeInDallas

tootal2 said:


> You can just buy another ceton card and have 8 tuners. I have 6 tuners. 4 cable and 2 antenna. also get the ceton compaion app so you can control wmc with your phone.


I'm thinking about doing that now. I just wanted to get one of the Ceton cards and see if it would work with my cable system, since I had so many issues with the Elite/XL4, and of course I see how great it does now. I was at Fry's yesterday and saw the ones for antenna use. I gotta do a little research on them yet. I cant believe I waited so long to do this. I finally got to see an in person demo of the WMC and I didnt realize how great it looks on an HDTV. Funny when I was watching my HTPC I kept reaching for that TiVo remote, I couldnt even tell the difference. I read today about changing the live buffer to 2 hours, so I'm gonna tackle that and see how it works


----------



## MeInDallas

Oh yeah one more thing, I couldnt figure out how people controlled a computer like you do a TiVo with a remote control. That was the big thing that had my feet stuck in the mud about this forever now, and why I hesitated on the whole thing. Well to my surprise I was on the Newegg website and I was browsing and saw remotes and all kinds of accessories for WMC and had my "aha" moment about it all. The next day I ordered the Ceton card. I never really researched the whole thing, I just heard people here on this site saying how bad they were compared to TiVo.


----------



## mr.unnatural

MeInDallas said:


> I never really researched the whole thing, I just heard people here on this site saying how bad they were compared to TiVo.


That's because the vast majority of the people here are pro-Tivo and won't admit that there could possibly be anything that's as good or better than a Tivo. OTOH, lots of folks have tried WMC and still prefer Tivo for the simplicity it offers. The idea of watching TV on a PC is just foreign to them and many of them are afraid they might have to constantly tinker with it just to make it work. Some also believe that it's more expensive than a Tivo.

There are lots of pros and cons on both sides of the fence so it mostly boils down to personal preference. If you've got the skillset to build a HTPC then I say go for it. They're nowhere near as complex as some people make them out to be.


----------



## nrc

mr.unnatural said:


> The idea of watching TV on a PC is just foreign to them and many of them are afraid they might have to constantly tinker with it just to make it work.


It's a well founded fear. More than a few people have given it a try and reported back that it's more trouble than it's worth. There's a big difference between setting it up and tinkering with it and relying on it as your DVR day in and day out.

Obviously Ceton sees this or they wouldn't have bothered with their apparently dead DVR product. Kind of funny that we heard all that bluster about Ceton really kicking ass when they can't deliver a DVR product if Microsoft won't package all the software for them.


----------



## ggieseke

mr.unnatural said:


> There are lots of pros and cons on both sides of the fence so it mostly boils down to personal preference. If you've got the skillset to build a HTPC then I say go for it. They're nowhere near as complex as some people make them out to be.


I think that's a pretty good summation. If you look at the problems many people have had with WMC it was back in the XP or Vista (shudder) days. I took a 3-4 year old refurb Lenovo D20 that a friend gave me, slapped on W7 Pro, bought two HDHomeRun ATSC network dual tuners, and I was up and running. The UI annoys me occasionally because I use the mouse & keyboard on my laptop with Synergy instead of an IR remote, but so far it kicks ass.

I still love my Series 2 TiVos & DirecTV to death, but it's getting harder to watch SD every day. The next step will probably be a Ceton InfiniTV4 card and a switch back to Comcast. That will give me 4 cable tuners and 4 OTA tuners.

In the last 9 months since I set it up I haven't missed a single recording, even when I was blitzed and stupidly tried to put the PC to sleep while it was busy recording my shows. Having Netflix, email, a web browser, etc on the same PC is just gravy.

Everyone is different, but for me it's rapidly becoming my "all in one" media solution.


----------



## MeInDallas

I agree, its definately not for everyone. I cant imagine some of the people I know trying to set one of these things up and work with it everyday. So far so good, I havent missed any recordings. I put mine in a Dell GX620 with a Pentium 4 with hyper threading, and it barely gets to 30% CPU use with 4 tuners recording and another recording playing. I didnt know if it could handle it because it was manufactured in 2006, so thats a 6 year old PC. I already had added the extra RAM to it, and had a nice video card with HDMI to pop in. We will see what happens. So far I've been really impressed how well it plays with the cable card and tuning adapter. The only thing I really dont like about it is, if your not recording anything, you only have the one live buffer for the channel youre tuned to, and you cant flip back and forth between tuners. Thats my only complaint so far. Other than that I cant think of anything.


----------



## trip1eX

My WMC pc missed the premiere of Modern Family. 
Kind of mad about that one. 

Anyone know of a cheap low profile PCI-E fan or slot fan?


----------



## MeInDallas

I use this one in mine, works really well even though it looks cheap.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835119097


----------



## tootal2

Why do you need a slot fan? I use three 200mm fans in my gaming case. also small fans make more noise then big fans.
Why did it miss modern family? you can look in history to find out what happen.

http://www.avsforum.com/ has a lot more info about wmc.



trip1eX said:


> My WMC pc missed the premiere of Modern Family.
> Kind of mad about that one.
> 
> Anyone know of a cheap low profile PCI-E fan or slot fan?


----------



## MeInDallas

tootal2 said:


> Why do you need a slot fan?


A lot of people like to put a slot fan next to the Ceton card because they run a bit hot in cases that dont have great air flow in them.


----------



## aaronwt

With 200mm+ sized fans, air flow is not an issue. I remember using those slot fans back in the early 2000's with my HTPCs to help cool the gigantic ATSC tuner cards I used for recording HD. Those put out some heat since most of the processing was done on the card since the CPUs back then weren't powerful enough.


----------



## mr.unnatural

nrc said:


> It's a well founded fear. More than a few people have given it a try and reported back that it's more trouble than it's worth. There's a big difference between setting it up and tinkering with it and relying on it as your DVR day in and day out.


Only if you don't have the patience or expertise to deal with it. I use mine daily and probably record 30-40 programs each week without a hitch. The initial setup wasn't difficult and I don't have to tinker with it after the fact unless I decide to install an extra feature.



> Obviously Ceton sees this or they wouldn't have bothered with their apparently dead DVR product. Kind of funny that we heard all that bluster about Ceton really kicking ass when they can't deliver a DVR product if Microsoft won't package all the software for them.


You really can't put the blame on Ceton for the delay. Microsoft is doing their usual thing and screwing with established products because they don't want to support them anymore. Ceton is just trying to get a handle on what MS is doing before releasing a product that can't be supported. AFAIK the Q DVR is still on track to be delivered, but it probably won't happen until early next year.



tootal2 said:


> Why did it miss modern family? you can look in history to find out what happen.


I'd be curious to know why as well. WMC doesn't miss recordings without a good reason. The tuner may have locked up or been reported falsely as being unavailable. A reboot would have probably fixed this.


----------



## slowbiscuit

The Q has been indefinitely delayed by Ceton, so I wouldn't hold your breath that it shows up early next year. My guess is that they're investigating doing a Linux appliance instead (sound familiar?), assuming that they fund the DRM code and cert with CableLabs. And then hope that Tivo doesn't sue them for patent violations.

I have seen occasional 'no tuners avail' messages in WMC from time to time, and it's either a WMC or Silicondust driver bug. Restarting the PC gets it working again.


----------



## HerronScott

mr.unnatural said:


> I'd be curious to know why as well. WMC doesn't miss recordings without a good reason. The tuner may have locked up or been reported falsely as being unavailable. A reboot would have probably fixed this.


Does WMC log why it doesn't record a show?

Scott


----------



## tootal2

yes it does. go to recorded tv and click view scheduled then click history.



HerronScott said:


> Does WMC log why it doesn't record a show?
> 
> Scott


----------



## trip1eX

tootal2 said:


> Why do you need a slot fan? I use three 200mm fans in my gaming case. also small fans make more noise then big fans.
> Why did it miss modern family? you can look in history to find out what happen.
> 
> http://www.avsforum.com/ has a lot more info about wmc.


Yeah I have a htpc case not a tower case. 

Just need a low profile fan to either exhaust some air from Ceton card or blow directly on it to give the temps a bit more leeway. It doesn't have to do much. Temps are under 65. But could use some more headroom. Previously I had my card in a different slot -a full sized horizontal slot. IT sat partially above cpu fan and next to intake fans. And kept cooler. But I didn't like the horizontal setup exactly. I thought the card would bend a tad over time a bit, it didn't look the best and was messier. I had to buy a couple flat ribbon 1xPCI-E extender cables. And then my aux mb power cable wasn't routed as neatly either. It also blocked the grill where a 4th 80mm fan could go. A guy on Ebay makes low profile fans that I need. It seems no one else does. But he charges $23-$29 shipped. Maybe I will just zip tie a 40-60mm fan in there or something. Or go back to back to old setup.

Thanks will look for history. And see what happened.

Another downer recently is I rerouted my sound through hdmi, but now my receiver has a second delay before sound comes on every time I skip forward or backward or hit play. NOt a show stopper, but annoying especially when skipping between plays in football games. Handshaking issue over HDMI between WMC and my receiver. WMC command sounds are PCM which causes my receiver to switch to that mode and takes a second to switch back to DD. I found a program to automatically insert a sound in WMC so receivers (mine at least) won't fall to PCM when you hit a command or when there is no sound or something. It didn't work.

My optical out of the old sound card I had didn't pass DD that is why I switched my sound setup. May switch out my motherboard/cpu for motherboard/cpu of my 2nd computer since they are similar except other has optical out on board sound and from my first check it may pass DD to receiver. And maybe I eliminate problem if it is related to HDMI that is.

Also may have to just wipe OS clean and start over. I did switch cpus and motherboards since I installed this a year ago without reinstalling.


----------



## tootal2

when you switch cpus and motherboards and didnt reinstall windows then you broke playready. playready will brake on any hardware changes. I added more memory to my computer and playready broke

also you can just turn the windows media sounds off.



trip1eX said:


> Yeah I have a htpc case not a tower case.
> 
> Just need a low profile fan to either exhaust some air from Ceton card or blow directly on it to give the temps a bit more leeway. It doesn't have to do much. Temps are under 65. But could use some more headroom. Previously I had my card in a different slot -a full sized horizontal slot. IT sat partially above cpu fan and next to intake fans. And kept cooler. But I didn't like the horizontal setup exactly. I thought the card would bend a tad over time a bit, it didn't look the best and was messier. I had to buy a couple flat ribbon 1xPCI-E extender cables. And then my aux mb power cable wasn't routed as neatly either. It also blocked the grill where a 4th 80mm fan could go. A guy on Ebay makes low profile fans that I need. It seems no one else does. But he charges $23-$29 shipped. Maybe I will just zip tie a 40-60mm fan in there or something. Or go back to back to old setup.
> 
> Thanks will look for history. And see what happened.
> 
> Another downer recently is I rerouted my sound through hdmi, but now my receiver has a second delay before sound comes on every time I skip forward or backward or hit play. NOt a show stopper, but annoying especially when skipping between plays in football games. Handshaking issue over HDMI between WMC and my receiver. WMC command sounds are PCM which causes my receiver to switch to that mode and takes a second to switch back to DD. I found a program to automatically insert a sound in WMC so receivers (mine at least) won't fall to PCM when you hit a command or when there is no sound or something. It didn't work.
> 
> My optical out of the old sound card I had didn't pass DD that is why I switched my sound setup. May switch out my motherboard/cpu for motherboard/cpu of my 2nd computer since they are similar except other has optical out on board sound and from my first check it may pass DD to receiver. And maybe I eliminate problem if it is related to HDMI that is.
> 
> Also may have to just wipe OS clean and start over. I did switch cpus and motherboards since I installed this a year ago without reinstalling.


----------



## trip1eX

mr.unnatural said:


> I'd be curious to know why as well. WMC doesn't miss recordings without a good reason. The tuner may have locked up or been reported falsely as being unavailable. A reboot would have probably fixed this.


Yep tuner not available was why it wasn't recorded.

Hard to reboot if you aren't home and don't know it isn't working.  IT should have tried another tuner if it was smart or wait a minute. But maybe all would have been reported not working. I think I have seen this before as it happened and did reboot or something to get rid of it. I am not sure I had to reboot though after it missed Modern Family. I suppose I can look that up in Windows.

Maybe I should set my machine to reboot every so often in case this is a memory leak or something. I did read people do that with WMC or that is what the optimize option does. 

It missed an episode of Breaking Bad in July when I was gone for a few weeks. I came back and WMC wasn't even on. It appeared that the machine rebooted. I just checked the history and no record of any attempt at recording BB. It is mostly reliable. But does weird things every month. And has missed 2 key recordings that I can think of in the past 6 months.

Here is another weird glitch. I hit record twice in the TV Guide to set up WMC to do a series recording of NFL game. Well it records the NFL game each week. But won't record ones on other channels. But now I can't hit the button twice to set up a series recording on the other channels that carry NFL games. IT is either record or don't record. Or sometimes series for whatever reason will start recording every episode even though you had set them to new. Not sure what triggers this. Possibly I used the guide to record an old episode I hadn't seen? Who knows.

I like WMC. But it is slowly annoying me over time as the errors and glitches slowly pile up. I don't think I could back to Tivo still though until they make it snappy like WMC is.

Netflix froze on me yesterday too. I had to reboot for that one. I kept overhitting the arrows as it is sometimes hard to make out where you are in the Netflix interface. Up top or in the middle line of movie categories or in the individual movie selection cover art part of the GUI. So I would hit a button and didn't seem like it did anything and then I hit again and then it registered my last button press and overshot and I did this 10 times in a 20 seconds and ....freeze/crash/burn.  Yeah Netflix isn't always snappy.


----------



## trip1eX

tootal2 said:


> when you switch cpus and motherboards and didnt reinstall windows then you broke playready. playready will brake on any hardware changes. I added more memory to my computer and playready broke
> 
> also you can just turn the windows media sounds off.


Yeah I think I had to do something to fix that 6 month or so ago. It worked. Still overall I think the problems I have are well documented though not very frequently occuring WMC glitches.


----------



## MeInDallas

I dont know if this will help you or not, but I noticed the same thing sometimes, especially when sitting right there watching TV, and I get a message saying "weak signal detected blah blah blah etc etc" and there was a fix for the registry MS put out you might try. You might try it and see if it helps. It worked for me.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2708283


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## MeInDallas

The Ceton Q seems to have disappeared off the Ceton website now


----------



## tbielowicz

Yes, it has been removed as well as all press releases and such. Did they kill it before it was released?

See link:

http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2012-10/goodbye-ceton-q-hello-boxee-dvr/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ZatzNotFunny+%28Zatz+Not+Funny%21%29


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## MeInDallas

Well maybe they will go ahead and release that 6 tuner PCIe card now.


----------



## mattack

That's sad.. Even though I just bought a Premiere 4, I was gladly looking for more competition.


----------



## duanew

trip1eX said:


> My optical out of the old sound card I had didn't pass DD that is why I switched my sound setup. May switch out my motherboard/cpu for motherboard/cpu of my 2nd computer since they are similar except other has optical out on board sound and from my first check it may pass DD to receiver. And maybe I eliminate problem if it is related to HDMI that is.


A couple of years ago when I first built my HTPC with optical out I looked into this problem very closely. I seems that the Dolby Digital 5.1 signal is a compressed signal and requires an encoder. I don't know if any sound card drivers offer the encoding, but mine did not and would require a software encoder to output more than 2 channels. I believe that HDMI is supposed to be able to handle 7.2 output natively (if I remember correctly). This makes it the obvious choice except for the handshaking lag that you encounter.


----------



## Dan203

MeInDallas said:


> Well maybe they will go ahead and release that 6 tuner PCIe card now.


I think there is some hard coded limitation in MCE that prevents a 6 tuner card from working. That's why they were using MCE Embedded to work around that limitation. Although perhaps that limitation will be removed in Win8 and they'll be able to release such a card to retail.

Dan


----------



## innocentfreak

Dan203 said:


> I think there is some hard coded limitation in MCE that prevents a 6 tuner card from working. That's why they were using MCE Embedded to work around that limitation. Although perhaps that limitation will be removed in Win8 and they'll be able to release such a card to retail.
> 
> Dan


There is a 4 tuner limit, but there are various tools out there that remove that limit. I think even Ceton's software. Tuner Salad does it also.


----------



## MeInDallas

Thats what I was gonna say, Tuner Salad. That seems to be the most popular among the "Green Button" crowd. The 6 tuner card is already in beta testing with a lot of people, I've seen a lot of pics of it in peoples HTPC's, I just wish they would come on and release it now that the Q is on hold. I've had my 4 tuner card a couple of weeks now and I am so impressed with it. This thing doesnt even flinch and works so well with the tuning adapter


----------



## Dan203

If it's in beta, and they have a work around for the 4 tuner limit, then the must be planning on releasing it standalone. I hope they do because it'll put more pressure on TiVo to release a 6 tuner unit.

Dan


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## mr.unnatural

The Ceton InfiniTV drivers and utility software override the four tuner limit imposed by WMC.


----------



## MeInDallas

Really strange. Newegg had a sale on the Ceton InfiniTV 4 cards for $150 and sold out within a day, and now their site is showing that they are discontinued. I wonder are they getting ready to release the 6 tuner cards now since the Echo is in preorder and will be released 11/29.


----------



## mr.unnatural

The InfiniTV4 has not been discontinued AFAIK. It's still listed on the Ceton website as a current product. Newegg probably just sold out of them and incorrectly listed them as discontinued. It's not the first time Newegg has screwed up a product listing. They showed the Echo as being available for purchase a while back when it should have been listed for pre-order only.

I hang in forums that get feedback from the folks at Ceton and nobody has said anything about the InfiniTV4 being discontinued or when the 6-tuner version will be released. The Q is on hold indefinitely until Ceton gets some things worked out. The Echo is due to be released in a couple of days. I'm involved in the beta test and we're supposed to get a new firmware update today.


----------



## MeInDallas

The new Ceton InfiniTV6 ETH tuner is out today. The PCIe model was not released yet.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815706004


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## mr.unnatural

Interesting. I didn't realize Ceton was working on a networked tuner similar to the SiliconDust models. I've already got a 3-tuner SD HDHR Prime so I don't really need that many networked tuners. However, the PCI-e version of the InfiniTV6 would be a perfect replacement for my two InfiniTV4 PCI-e tuners. 

I don't really need all eight tuners provided by my current InfiniTV4's, but four tuners is insufficient. Six tuners would be the sweet spot for my setup with one or two extra tuners in reserve from the HDHR Prime if I need them in a pinch. Based on previous sale prices for Ceton tuners I'll probably wait until the PCI-e version goes on sale for about $225 before I invest in one.


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## MeInDallas

Thats what I'm waiting on is the PCIe model. I was a bit disappointed they didnt release it today. I think 6 will be enough for me as well. I'll happily throw down $299 for it


----------



## atmuscarella

MeInDallas said:


> The new Ceton InfiniTV6 ETH tuner is out today. The PCIe model was not released yet.
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815706004


I am beginning to think this is the way TiVo should go also. 

Move the tuners out of the DVR & let us buy what ever combination of Network Tuners we want. 
Build DVR units and Mini units
Work with the FCC to force AT&T & Satellite to open up to third party hardware providers like cable has too so TiVo can provide Tuner modules that would work with their DVR & Mini units.
Of course they would still need an entry level all in one cable DVR but for a whole house solution with the flexibility to switch between any pay tv provider, breaking it into components seems like it might be useful.


----------



## Dan203

That was the concept behind AllVid. Basically they would break the tuners and security stuff out to a box that you rent from your service provider and then any device (i.e. TiVo, TV, etc..) could access them through a standard IP protocol. With the tuners and security broken out like that a TiVo could essentially be used for any service provider regardless of the technology they used for broadcast. (i.e. fiber, DSS, IP, cable, etc...)

Of course the service providers want nothing to do with a standard like that because they like to lock you into their service via hardware. Providing infinite portability would create too much competition for them.

Although it seems that the FCC is now creating an alternative to AllVid by forcing the cable companies to support an IP based protocol for their cable boxes, replacing the antiquated FireWire port. Depending on how it's implemented it could potentially allow for a tunerless TiVo that could record from a service provider box via IP. Although if each box only supports 1 tuner then it could be a less then optimal solution for use with a DVR. (AllVid was suppose to support a minimum of 6 tuners per module)


----------



## Bigg

MeInDallas said:


> The new Ceton InfiniTV6 ETH tuner is out today. The PCIe model was not released yet.
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815706004


D*mn. Now someone needs to make decent software to go with it. Microsoft sure isn't going to do it.


----------



## moyekj

Once TiVo releases their 6 tuner unit (supposedly later this year) the need for distributed/networked tuners goes out the window for me.


----------



## mr.unnatural

Bigg said:


> D*mn. Now someone needs to make decent software to go with it. Microsoft sure isn't going to do it.


Windows Media Center works extremely well with the Ceton tuners. The search function may not be quite as refined as Tivo's, but for setting up series recordings (aka season passes) and manual recordings it works great. I made the transition from Tivo to WMC and I can honestly say it does everything I ever asked of my Tivo and more.

FYI - the PCI-e version of the InfiniTV6 is scheduled for release in June. I received an e-mail notification about it from Ceton last night.


----------



## moedaman

atmuscarella said:


> I am beginning to think this is the way TiVo should go also.
> 
> Move the tuners out of the DVR & let us buy what ever combination of Network Tuners we want.
> Build DVR units and Mini units
> Work with the FCC to force AT&T & Satellite to open up to third party hardware providers like cable has too so TiVo can provide Tuner modules that would work with their DVR & Mini units.
> Of course they would still need an entry level all in one cable DVR but for a whole house solution with the flexibility to switch between any pay tv provider, breaking it into components seems like it might be useful.


I use the SiliconDust HDHR3 dual tuner box and I love the fact that I watch tv on various pc/laptop/Xbox 360s in my home. Network tuners with extenders are, IMO, the way to go.

And I totally agree with you about ATT & the satecos. These major exceptions really killed the cc rule. If equipment could be used with any provider, not only would there be more competition in this segment, but the boxes would be better because the investment would be a greater due to it being a better risk.


----------



## en sabur nur

This product is interesting...and tempting. Even though Microsoft is no longer developing WMC, it works very well and the interface looks good! I want to see if they somehow integrate Xbox Live with cable ala GoogleTV, next week.


----------



## mr.unnatural

moedaman said:


> I use the SiliconDust HDHR3 dual tuner box and I love the fact that I watch tv on various pc/laptop/Xbox 360s in my home. Network tuners with extenders are, IMO, the way to go.


Extenders still need to access the tuners via a primary PC so it's irrelevant whether the tuners are networked or installed in the PC. Networked tuners work best with multiple PCs. If you're on FIOS or other provider that doesn't flag the majority of your channels as copy once then standalone PCs are a much better choice, although require a slightly higher investment. Then again, you can get away with a barebones PC in terms of hardware so the cost can still be kept low. The real benefit, other than the ability to use networked tuners independent of another PC, is the ability to play any type of video you desire.

Extenders are a mixed bag for some. I've tried pretty much all of them and don't care much for them at all. There are pros and cons for using them, but I won't go into them here as they are discussed in depth in other appropriate forums. My main beef with them is lack of codec support for popular video formats. It was hoped that the Ceton Echo would address this issue and provide the missing support but it ended up falling well short of expectations.

One interesting option for the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime is the ability to use it with DLNA capable devices. With the latest firmware, I can use it with my WDTV Live media player to watch live TV. There is no program guide and channel switching is slow, but it's a nice alternative to using extenders with the added bonus of being able to play a multitude of video formats. You can't use it as a DVR or access the scheduled recording list on another PC like you can with an extender so that may exclude it as an option for some people. OTOH, it's perfect for any location where you don't want anyone mucking with your scheduled recordings, such as a guest room.


----------



## Bigg

mr.unnatural said:


> Windows Media Center works extremely well with the Ceton tuners. The search function may not be quite as refined as Tivo's, but for setting up series recordings (aka season passes) and manual recordings it works great. I made the transition from Tivo to WMC and I can honestly say it does everything I ever asked of my Tivo and more.
> 
> FYI - the PCI-e version of the InfiniTV6 is scheduled for release in June. I received an e-mail notification about it from Ceton last night.


The whole UI/UX sucks. The DVR functionality is buried amongst a bunch of useless crap, you can set up the recorded programs list to display like a normal list with normal folders. A lot of the UI elements are too small for a 10-foot interface, and some of the UI elements are so oversimplified that it's hard to figure out what they actually do. TiVo's interface is fantastic in comparison. TiVo needs to get all their menus in HD, and fix the speed issue, however. Also, TiVo does not have the ability to make an SP that covers multiple channels and can intelligently handle SD vs. HD- that's the one and only thing that MCE does better than TiVo on the software side.


----------



## Dan203

I agree. I had a HTPC for a while but couldn't stand the MCE UI. I wish MS would open up the APIs to 3rd party developers so that they could access encrypted content from a CableCARD tuner. There were some much nicer 3rd party DVR software packages back in the days of analog.


----------



## moedaman

Dan203 said:


> I agree. I had a HTPC for a while but couldn't stand the MCE UI. I wish MS would open up the APIs to 3rd party developers so that they could access encrypted content from a CableCARD tuner. There were some much nicer 3rd party DVR software packages back in the days of analog.


Wouldn't that be dependent upon approval from Cable Labs and not MS?


----------



## Dan203

Probably, but MS has some clout so they could press CableLabs and make it happen. There was a time when CableLabs required HTPCs to be certified as complete systems. MS pushed them into certifying all copies of Windows with MCE regardless of the hardware it was running on. 

Plus it's not like they would even need to open up the "protected path" to the 3rd parties. They could force them to use MS APIs to capture and play the WTV files. The 3rd party would just be in charge of the UI and the scheduling logic.


----------



## slowbiscuit

Bigg said:


> Also, TiVo does not have the ability to make an SP that covers multiple channels and can intelligently handle SD vs. HD- that's the one and only thing that MCE does better than TiVo on the software side.


That's what ARWLs are for, and you don't have to worry about SD vs. HD once you remove all the old SD duplicates of the HD channels from the lineup.


----------



## slowbiscuit

Dan203 said:


> I agree. I had a HTPC for a while but couldn't stand the MCE UI. I wish MS would open up the APIs to 3rd party developers so that they could access encrypted content from a CableCARD tuner. There were some much nicer 3rd party DVR software packages back in the days of analog.


Anyone can license MS' PlayReady to use protected content, but you have to pay their fee and jump through their hoops to use DRM. You know this, and you know that the digital world changed the game in favor of the content providers (for video at least).

http://www.microsoft.com/PlayReady/Licensing/


----------



## mr.unnatural

Bigg said:


> The whole UI/UX sucks. The DVR functionality is buried amongst a bunch of useless crap, you can set up the recorded programs list to display like a normal list with normal folders. A lot of the UI elements are too small for a 10-foot interface, and some of the UI elements are so oversimplified that it's hard to figure out what they actually do. TiVo's interface is fantastic in comparison. TiVo needs to get all their menus in HD, and fix the speed issue, however. Also, TiVo does not have the ability to make an SP that covers multiple channels and can intelligently handle SD vs. HD- that's the one and only thing that MCE does better than TiVo on the software side.


Your whole argument seems to be centered around window dressing and not functionality. That's a pretty shallow approach, IMHO. Everyone has their own ideas of what the perfect UI should be and I have yet to see one that makes everyone happy. If you're evaluating a product based on the UI then you're missing what's really important and that's how well it works. The UI is nothing more than a means to control the program. I've worked with lots of software programs over the years that have really poor UI's, but I've learned to look past it and concentrate on the meat and potatoes. The bottom line is that WMC works and it works quite well, at least in my experience. It's easy to use and is extremely stable. I've set up more HTPCs with WMC than I can count and they have been very reliable. Both Tivos and HTPCs have their pros and cons so I won't delve into a subject that's been beaten to death already. This thread is about the Ceton tuners and the Echo extender (and WMC by inferrence), not Tivos (I think the Echo sucks, BTW, and I was a beta tester for it).

I'd be curious to know what elements you can't see on a 10-foot interface. I have no problem seeing everything in WMC quite clearly on a 17" monitor. I can only assume you're talking about the Windows desktop and not the WMC UI. You can adjust the size of the desktop icons and text to make them easier to read on a big screen.

BTW, several third party developers of media center front ends have enabled the Ceton tuners to work with their DVR software, but only for content that is flagged as copy freely. In order to record and watch copy-protected content they require CableLabs certification, which is prohibitively expensive for most of them. Microsoft has the financial muscle to make it happen, which is why WMC is the only game in town if you want to record protected content.


----------



## wmcbrine

slowbiscuit said:


> you know that the digital world changed the game in favor of the content providers (for video at least).


I disagree. Sure, they get to use encryption. But on the other side, the pirates get to make perfect copies, without generational loss; and they get the powerful digital effect that all data is essentially the same, so that a video broadcast over QAM can be transformed into UUencoded text, then transmitted over a phone line.*

* I realize that neither UUencoding nor dial-up modems represent current best practices in piracy, but anyway.


----------



## slowbiscuit

Agreed, but I was talking about ease of use & access by legit means.


----------



## Dan203

I have not looked into the MS licensing scheme but I don't think it covers the ability to record from or playback protected content from a CableCARD enabled tuner. If there were a way to do that then the guys at SnapStream would be doing it. They were a quasi partner with VideoReDo at one point, but when CableCARDs started taking over BeyondTV fell into obscurity because it can only record from unencrypted sources.


----------



## Bigg

mr.unnatural said:


> Your whole argument seems to be centered around window dressing and not functionality. That's a pretty shallow approach, IMHO. Everyone has their own ideas of what the perfect UI should be and I have yet to see one that makes everyone happy. If you're evaluating a product based on the UI then you're missing what's really important and that's how well it works. The UI is nothing more than a means to control the program. I've worked with lots of software programs over the years that have really poor UI's, but I've learned to look past it and concentrate on the meat and potatoes. The bottom line is that WMC works and it works quite well, at least in my experience. It's easy to use and is extremely stable. I've set up more HTPCs with WMC than I can count and they have been very reliable. Both Tivos and HTPCs have their pros and cons so I won't delve into a subject that's been beaten to death already. This thread is about the Ceton tuners and the Echo extender (and WMC by inferrence), not Tivos (I think the Echo sucks, BTW, and I was a beta tester for it).
> 
> I'd be curious to know what elements you can't see on a 10-foot interface. I have no problem seeing everything in WMC quite clearly on a 17" monitor. I can only assume you're talking about the Windows desktop and not the WMC UI. You can adjust the size of the desktop icons and text to make them easier to read on a big screen.
> 
> BTW, several third party developers of media center front ends have enabled the Ceton tuners to work with their DVR software, but only for content that is flagged as copy freely. In order to record and watch copy-protected content they require CableLabs certification, which is prohibitively expensive for most of them. Microsoft has the financial muscle to make it happen, which is why WMC is the only game in town if you want to record protected content.


By that logic, Comcast's god awful DVR software is just fine, because it does the same thing as TiVo, it's just poorly designed and really hard to use. Comcast's remote is actually a lot better than any remote I could find for MCE, and better than every other remote I've ever seen short of the almighty Peanut.

It's not that you can't see the elements at 10 feet, I could see them just fine, they are just totally out of balance. On a TiVo, everything is in balance.

There you go, no HBO on the other software. That kind of sucks, unless you don't subscribe to HBO I guess.


----------



## mr.unnatural

Bigg said:


> By that logic, Comcast's god awful DVR software is just fine, because it does the same thing as TiVo, it's just poorly designed and really hard to use. Comcast's remote is actually a lot better than any remote I could find for MCE, and better than every other remote I've ever seen short of the almighty Peanut.
> 
> It's not that you can't see the elements at 10 feet, I could see them just fine, they are just totally out of balance. On a TiVo, everything is in balance.
> 
> There you go, no HBO on the other software. That kind of sucks, unless you don't subscribe to HBO I guess.


I've never used the Comcast DVR or the Verizon version either, although I believe they're basically the same. Everything I've heard about them seems to back up what you're saying. OTOH, anyone not familiar with a better DVR probably thinks they're perfectly fine. How else can you explain why so many Comcast and FIOS customers use them instead of a Tivo or HTPC? I discounted them right off the bat when I signed up with Verizon because they had such small capacity and no way to hack them. For the fees Verizon charged for their HD DVR I more than paid for an InfiniTV4 cablecard tuner. I think I made the right choice.

Remotes are like UI's. I've never seen anything I would consider a perfect remote, but my Harmony One is about as close to one as I've gotten over the past few decades.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean about the elements being out of balance. You scroll up or down from the left column until you find the category you're looking for and then scroll to the right if need be. I can just use hot keys on my remote to access any category I want with no scrolling involved, but I usually do it manually anyway. It's no big deal either way.

I don't subscribe to any premium channels, but I still use WMC as my DVR program of choice. It suits my needs perfectly and also allows me to access other playback apps, such as XBMC, directly from the WMC menus. I used to record OTA channels using BeyondTV, but Snapstream stopped supporting it when cablecard tuners became mainstream.

The beauty of WMC is that there's so much more you can do with it using all sorts of plug-ins and mods. With Tivo, you have whatever Tivo decides to give you and that's it, unless you are extremely good at hacking the Tivo interface. You can change themes in WMC as easily as changing the wallpaper on your Windows PC. I have an app that automatically scans my recordings and maps all of the commercials. I can skip them automatically for seamless viewing or do it manually with the press of a single button. Using the Shark007 codec pack, I can play any type of audio and video file I want. Transferring shows to my PC is simply a matter of dragging and dropping the file in Windows Explorer.

With WMC, I have countless options available to me. With Tivo, not so much.


----------



## slowbiscuit

Dan203 said:


> I have not looked into the MS licensing scheme but I don't think it covers the ability to record from or playback protected content from a CableCARD enabled tuner. If there were a way to do that then the guys at SnapStream would be doing it. They were a quasi partner with VideoReDo at one point, but when CableCARDs started taking over BeyondTV fell into obscurity because it can only record from unencrypted sources.


It does, but it's not cheap or easy to be a licensee.


----------



## Bigg

mr.unnatural said:


> I've never used the Comcast DVR or the Verizon version either, although I believe they're basically the same. Everything I've heard about them seems to back up what you're saying. OTOH, anyone not familiar with a better DVR probably thinks they're perfectly fine. How else can you explain why so many Comcast and FIOS customers use them instead of a Tivo or HTPC? I discounted them right off the bat when I signed up with Verizon because they had such small capacity and no way to hack them. For the fees Verizon charged for their HD DVR I more than paid for an InfiniTV4 cablecard tuner. I think I made the right choice.
> 
> Remotes are like UI's. I've never seen anything I would consider a perfect remote, but my Harmony One is about as close to one as I've gotten over the past few decades.
> 
> I'm not exactly sure what you mean about the elements being out of balance. You scroll up or down from the left column until you find the category you're looking for and then scroll to the right if need be. I can just use hot keys on my remote to access any category I want with no scrolling involved, but I usually do it manually anyway. It's no big deal either way.
> 
> I don't subscribe to any premium channels, but I still use WMC as my DVR program of choice. It suits my needs perfectly and also allows me to access other playback apps, such as XBMC, directly from the WMC menus. I used to record OTA channels using BeyondTV, but Snapstream stopped supporting it when cablecard tuners became mainstream.
> 
> The beauty of WMC is that there's so much more you can do with it using all sorts of plug-ins and mods. With Tivo, you have whatever Tivo decides to give you and that's it, unless you are extremely good at hacking the Tivo interface. You can change themes in WMC as easily as changing the wallpaper on your Windows PC. I have an app that automatically scans my recordings and maps all of the commercials. I can skip them automatically for seamless viewing or do it manually with the press of a single button. Using the Shark007 codec pack, I can play any type of audio and video file I want. Transferring shows to my PC is simply a matter of dragging and dropping the file in Windows Explorer.
> 
> With WMC, I have countless options available to me. With Tivo, not so much.


People use Comcast FIOS DVRs because they are:

A) Lazy
B) Don't use it much
C) Stupid
D) On Demand

Some UI elements are tiny, some are giant. TiVos are uniform. MCE has that weird grid, and no way to get a normal chronologically sorted list.

WMC is more stripped down than TiVo. The UI is over-simplistic in many ways. And add-ons are a mess. How are they supposed to be stable if the base software isn't in the first place?


----------



## mr.unnatural

Bigg said:


> People use Comcast FIOS DVRs because they are:
> 
> A) Lazy
> B) Don't use it much
> C) Stupid
> D) On Demand


I suppose you've polled all Comcast users to compile the above list.

A) Not specifically lazy, they just don't care one way or the other and the Comcast DVR is convenient
B) Bingo
C) Not stupid, just uneducated or don't consider it all that important to their lifestyle (i.e., what's a Tivo and why does it cost so much?)
D) A dealbreaker for lots of subscribers. My neice has two young boys that thrive on using On-Demand. Their world would crumble without it.

My brother-in-law is fairly tech savvy, but he opted to go with a Verizon DVR for all of the reasons I outlined. Not eveyone thinks their life has to revolve around a high end DVR. The idea that if it breaks and Verizon will give them a new one for free is a huge factor. Not everyone wants to own their own equipment.



> Some UI elements are tiny, some are giant. TiVos are uniform. MCE has that weird grid, and no way to get a normal chronologically sorted list.


You'd have to be more specific. I don't recall any elements being different-sized. The main menu is the only one with icons as the menus and submenus are all text. The font is uniform across the board, IIRC.



> WMC is more stripped down than TiVo. The UI is over-simplistic in many ways. And add-ons are a mess. How are they supposed to be stable if the base software isn't in the first place?


Again, you're being extremely vague and general. WMC is extremely stable in my experience. Windows 7 is the most stable Windows release to date, although the jury's still out on Windows 8, but so far it seems to be working quite well based on feedback I've read. I'd have to surmise that the UI was designed for ease of use, yet you're complaining that it's too simple? Keep in mind that it was designed so that anyone in the family could use it. Simple is key in this regard.

Virtually all add-ons are third party apps. The ones I've used all seem to work pretty well. Perhaps you can enlighten us as to which ones we should avoid? No doubt you've had extensive experience that you could share with the rest of the class.

I'm still waiting to hear just how bad WMC performs in comparison to Tivo. Perhaps you can't say anything in this regard because the DVR function works as advertised and recordings rarely, if ever, get missed unless the guide data isn't correct (not WMC's fault since they get it from Zap2It).

The truth is, WMC works and it works quite well. All the arguments I see against it tend to be because it doesn't look pretty enough or some other silly quirk. Complaints about instability are generally a direct result of hardware incompatabilities (i.e., usually driver related) or other software that's causing problems. For the most part, every WMC PC I've built over the past few years has performed beautifully and been very stable.

I went through some growing pains with WMC early on, but I stuck it out and kept going. It turned out to be the best decision I've ever made with regards to home theater hardware and playback. All of my HTPCs act like appliances and not computers, which is what a lot of people complain about with respect to HTPCs vs. Tivos. They want an appliance, not a PC, because PCs are too problematic. With an informed selection of hardware and software, HTPCs are a snap to setup and use. Don't sell yourslf short just because you don't like the UI. Trust me, it does grow on you.


----------



## Bigg

mr.unnatural said:


> I suppose you've polled all Comcast users to compile the above list.
> 
> A) Not specifically lazy, they just don't care one way or the other and the Comcast DVR is convenient
> B) Bingo
> C) Not stupid, just uneducated or don't consider it all that important to their lifestyle (i.e., what's a Tivo and why does it cost so much?)
> D) A dealbreaker for lots of subscribers. My neice has two young boys that thrive on using On-Demand. Their world would crumble without it.
> 
> My brother-in-law is fairly tech savvy, but he opted to go with a Verizon DVR for all of the reasons I outlined. Not eveyone thinks their life has to revolve around a high end DVR. The idea that if it breaks and Verizon will give them a new one for free is a huge factor. Not everyone wants to own their own equipment.
> 
> You'd have to be more specific. I don't recall any elements being different-sized. The main menu is the only one with icons as the menus and submenus are all text. The font is uniform across the board, IIRC.
> 
> Again, you're being extremely vague and general. WMC is extremely stable in my experience. Windows 7 is the most stable Windows release to date, although the jury's still out on Windows 8, but so far it seems to be working quite well based on feedback I've read. I'd have to surmise that the UI was designed for ease of use, yet you're complaining that it's too simple? Keep in mind that it was designed so that anyone in the family could use it. Simple is key in this regard.
> 
> Virtually all add-ons are third party apps. The ones I've used all seem to work pretty well. Perhaps you can enlighten us as to which ones we should avoid? No doubt you've had extensive experience that you could share with the rest of the class.
> 
> I'm still waiting to hear just how bad WMC performs in comparison to Tivo. Perhaps you can't say anything in this regard because the DVR function works as advertised and recordings rarely, if ever, get missed unless the guide data isn't correct (not WMC's fault since they get it from Zap2It).
> 
> The truth is, WMC works and it works quite well. All the arguments I see against it tend to be because it doesn't look pretty enough or some other silly quirk. Complaints about instability are generally a direct result of hardware incompatabilities (i.e., usually driver related) or other software that's causing problems. For the most part, every WMC PC I've built over the past few years has performed beautifully and been very stable.
> 
> I went through some growing pains with WMC early on, but I stuck it out and kept going. It turned out to be the best decision I've ever made with regards to home theater hardware and playback. All of my HTPCs act like appliances and not computers, which is what a lot of people complain about with respect to HTPCs vs. Tivos. They want an appliance, not a PC, because PCs are too problematic. With an informed selection of hardware and software, HTPCs are a snap to setup and use. Don't sell yourslf short just because you don't like the UI. Trust me, it does grow on you.


C) A lot of people seem to watch a lot of TV, yet they don't care about how well their DVR works, or how good their TV looks, or how good their surround sound works. It's amazing.

D) That's a cost issue that makes TiVo less competitive, as you can always just have another box for On Demand, and the TiVo for DVR capability. I still don't really get OnDemand, it seems pretty pointless, but obviously someone is using it. I have used it a little bit, but I don't miss it at all. There was something that Comcast didn't put on the online On Demand that was on the QAM On Demand, but I was able to torrent it.

In the recorded TV menu, for example, there are a bunch of options that are tiny compared to the shows. On TiVo, everything is equal.

Windows 7 itself is pretty stable, it's MCE with random errors that's not. And it doesn't crash MCE or the machine, it just stops working randomly.

The UI complaints are not because of whether it's pretty or not, they are subtle but idiotic parts of the UI that detract significantly from the usability of MCE 7 to the point there it's not better than a Comcast DVR from a usability perspective, and worse in some ways.

MCE is dead to me. It's a crappy UI, a poor UX, and it's unreliable. The TiVo is everything that MCE isn't. I still use the HTPC, but not with MCE, just for movies and web video content and such.


----------



## mr.unnatural

Bigg said:


> C) A lot of people seem to watch a lot of TV, yet they don't care about how well their DVR works, or how good their TV looks, or how good their surround sound works. It's amazing.


True. I've said it before, the vast majority of the population is more interested in convenience vs. quality. I never understood the interest in watch a HD movie on an iPhone.



> D) That's a cost issue that makes TiVo less competitive, as you can always just have another box for On Demand, and the TiVo for DVR capability. I still don't really get OnDemand, it seems pretty pointless, but obviously someone is using it. I have used it a little bit, but I don't miss it at all. There was something that Comcast didn't put on the online On Demand that was on the QAM On Demand, but I was able to torrent it.


Same here. I think I used On Demand once, saw that the quality sucked (it's streamed content) and never looked back.



> In the recorded TV menu, for example, there are a bunch of options that are tiny compared to the shows. On TiVo, everything is equal.


Are you aware that you can change the way the RecordedTV list is displayed? You can show the recordings as a list or you can show them as large icons with the title. With the icons, the titles are much smaller and could be harder to read, which is why I prefer to display them as a list. Hit the Info button on your remote with a recorded program highlighted and you'll see the option to change it.



> Windows 7 itself is pretty stable, it's MCE with random errors that's not. And it doesn't crash MCE or the machine, it just stops working randomly.


I have never had this occur on any Windows 7 WMC PC I've built since it was first introduced.



> The UI complaints are not because of whether it's pretty or not, they are subtle but idiotic parts of the UI that detract significantly from the usability of MCE 7 to the point there it's not better than a Comcast DVR from a usability perspective, and worse in some ways.
> 
> MCE is dead to me. It's a crappy UI, a poor UX, and it's unreliable. The TiVo is everything that MCE isn't. I still use the HTPC, but not with MCE, just for movies and web video content and such.


That seems more of a mental block that you can't get past than an actual issue with the software. I'm always amazed at how people discount things because of something completely trivial, but that's your cross to bear. WMC has been as reliable as any Tivo I've ever owned. BTW, there are lots of front end apps that can be used in place of WMC for just about everything but recording protected content. XBMC now supports HD audio playback and has a basic DVR function built in (although I haven't tried that part of it yet). The UI is much better than WMC so you might want to take a look at it. It's also much more complex, so that should be right up your alley.


----------



## slowbiscuit

Bigg said:


> Windows 7 itself is pretty stable, it's MCE with random errors that's not. And it doesn't crash MCE or the machine, it just stops working randomly.


As has been said here and elsewhere that you've posted this (AVS and TGB), your experience is uncommon. 7MC is very reliable for the majority of the users, otherwise we wouldn't be using it. The only issues I've had are inaccurate guide data (not 7MC's fault) and a rare 'tuner not available' issue which seems to be mostly resolved with the latest SiliconDust Prime firmwares. And even when it happens, a quick reboot or restart of 7MC clears it up.

There's no extended downtime or WAF issues with 7MC in my house, and she uses it the most. And I use the HTPC for gaming too (not recommended for most people).


----------



## Bigg

mr.unnatural said:


> True. I've said it before, the vast majority of the population is more interested in convenience vs. quality. I never understood the interest in watch a HD movie on an iPhone.
> 
> Same here. I think I used On Demand once, saw that the quality sucked (it's streamed content) and never looked back.
> 
> Are you aware that you can change the way the RecordedTV list is displayed? You can show the recordings as a list or you can show them as large icons with the title. With the icons, the titles are much smaller and could be harder to read, which is why I prefer to display them as a list. Hit the Info button on your remote with a recorded program highlighted and you'll see the option to change it.
> 
> I have never had this occur on any Windows 7 WMC PC I've built since it was first introduced.
> 
> That seems more of a mental block that you can't get past than an actual issue with the software. I'm always amazed at how people discount things because of something completely trivial, but that's your cross to bear. WMC has been as reliable as any Tivo I've ever owned. BTW, there are lots of front end apps that can be used in place of WMC for just about everything but recording protected content. XBMC now supports HD audio playback and has a basic DVR function built in (although I haven't tried that part of it yet). The UI is much better than WMC so you might want to take a look at it. It's also much more complex, so that should be right up your alley.


OnDemand is delivered over QAM, but they would be fixed channels with worse compression to fit the shows into those channels.

I know there are ways to change the view in the recorded TV, but there is no way to make it look correct (like TiVo) only a couple of weird alternate views.

It's not a mental block to want something that works the way it should.



slowbiscuit said:


> As has been said here and elsewhere that you've posted this (AVS and TGB), your experience is uncommon. 7MC is very reliable for the majority of the users, otherwise we wouldn't be using it. The only issues I've had are inaccurate guide data (not 7MC's fault) and a rare 'tuner not available' issue which seems to be mostly resolved with the latest SiliconDust Prime firmwares. And even when it happens, a quick reboot or restart of 7MC clears it up.
> 
> There's no extended downtime or WAF issues with 7MC in my house, and she uses it the most. And I use the HTPC for gaming too (not recommended for most people).


Yes, I've posted about it on those places as well. If it's not 100% working on a brand new, custom built PC with a fresh install of Windows 7, it's hopeless to work well on a more complex system.


----------



## mr.unnatural

Bigg said:


> I know there are ways to change the view in the recorded TV, but there is no way to make it look correct (like TiVo) only a couple of weird alternate views.


It looks correct if it displays what was intended, which it does. You just don't like it because it doesn't look the way you want it to.



> It's not a mental block to want something that works the way it should.


It works exactly as it should. Again, just not the way you want.

The problem with going from a Tivo to the WMC interface is that you're used to seeing it one way and you feel comfortable with it. Now you're seeing a completely different UI and it has taken you out of your comfort zone. It's not that it's wrong, just different. If it looked the same as Tivo's UI then Tivo would whine about it and sue Microsoft. It has to be different for that reason. Perhaps Microsoft should have consulted you first before they designed it.

As I've said before, a UI is nothing more than a means to an end. The WMC UI allows you to access and perform every task you need and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to use it. I've actually gotten to where I prefer it over the Tivo's UI, mainly because I've grown so accustomed to using it. Every feature I use on a regular basis is only a few remote clicks from the main menu.

Each UI allows you to access each of the features available using a menu structure. Since the features available in each software version differs it only stands to reason that the UIs would differ as well.

The real proof is comparing the various features of each device. Does it do what you want? How well does it work? Can you incorporate other features? Can you add more tuners? Can you expand the capacity? Can you transfer your recordings to a PC and back? Can you play other video formats? Can you skip commercials? Can you create season passes? Can you pad recordings? Can you automatically record other showings if one gets missed or preempted? Can you create a wishlist? Can you search for shows? How easily is each task performed? Can you change the appearance of the UI? Can you use video streaming services? And so on...

I think if you compare each device side by side with a more complete list of available features you'll have more check marks next to the WMC PC than you will with Tivo.

FWIW, I'm not really trying to sell you on HTPCs in place of your Tivo, especially since it's quite clear you've made up your mind on the subject. I'm just describing how trivial your reasons are for discounting WMC. To put things in proper perspective, what appears trivial to me appears to be of utmost importance to you. Different strokes, that's all.



Bigg said:


> Yes, I've posted about it on those places as well. If it's not 100% working on a brand new, custom built PC with a fresh install of Windows 7, it's hopeless to work well on a more complex system.


Actually, HTPCs are pretty basic systems. If anything, they're usually stripped down desktops with one or more tuners and a few apps thrown in. Most everything you need to have a working HTPC is embedded in Windows. If your systems aren't 100% working on a brand new PC then you've probably got driver issues or something went south during the installation process. I can only presume your hardware wasn't up to snuff or not recommended for HTPC use.

With the current crop of CPUs from Intel and AMD, all you need is a motherboard, CPU, and memory to have a HTPC capable of playing HD video and audio. You don't even need a separate graphics or sound card for the full HD experience. Many current CPUs even support 3D playback without the need for extra hardware. Add a tuner and you've got yourself a Hi-Def DVR.


----------



## mschnebly

I've been using an HTPC and WMC for about a year now. Actually switched from a TiVo Premiere. Mine has been rock solid and with different themes available you can make it look anyway you want. The only time that I have missed a recording was when the guide data was messed up and it was only one show. The Netflix plugin works great for me. I use a Logitech Harmony One and my wife has no problems controlling it what so ever. I use an Xbox extender in the bedroom with another Harmony One and all the buttons do exactly the same as in the living room. If a reboot is necessary (patches) it reboots to live TV in less than a minute vs. a TiVo reboot. They are very simple to back up and restore if need be also. I really don't understand why the hate for HTPCs. I've sure not missed my TiVo (it's sitting dusty in the closet).


----------



## GoEagles

With this new offering from Ceton, I really want to build an HTPC that can record 6 channels. This is really tempting and I suspect TiVo's new offering will only offer 5-6 tuners and will probably cost $900 easily with lifetime subscription.


----------



## Richard Cranium

mr.unnatural said:


> It looks correct if it displays what was intended, which it does. You just don't like it because it doesn't look the way you want it to.
> It works exactly as it should. Again, just not the way you want.


But it doesn't make the BA-BOOP - BA-BOOP noise!!

And don't gt me started on the (lack of) a peanut remote


----------



## slowbiscuit

Bigg said:


> Yes, I've posted about it on those places as well. If it's not 100% working on a brand new, custom built PC with a fresh install of Windows 7, it's hopeless to work well on a more complex system.


Just because it was unreliable for you, it doesn't mean it's unreliable for everyone. That's the point you keep missing, your experience is not everyone's.

But this is a recurring theme for you no matter what the topic is.


----------



## mr.unnatural

E. Norma Stitz said:


> But it doesn't make the BA-BOOP - BA-BOOP noise!!
> 
> And don't gt me started on the (lack of) a peanut remote


But it does make a similar noise, just not the same as what you get with Tivo (you can turn it off if you don't like it). The Harmony lineup of remotes are very similar to the peanut, except with far more flexibility. I used a Harmony 880 for years and it was basically a larger version of the peanut, albeit a bit more streamlined. I eventually switched over to a Harmony One.

In case anyone's interested in early feedback on the InfiniTV6 ETH networked tuner, here's the thread over at the AVS Forums that's tracking it:

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1472563/latest-ceton-infinitv-6-info-thread


----------



## Bigg

mr.unnatural said:


> It looks correct if it displays what was intended, which it does. You just don't like it because it doesn't look the way you want it to.
> 
> It works exactly as it should. Again, just not the way you want.
> 
> The problem with going from a Tivo to the WMC interface is that you're used to seeing it one way and you feel comfortable with it. Now you're seeing a completely different UI and it has taken you out of your comfort zone. It's not that it's wrong, just different. If it looked the same as Tivo's UI then Tivo would whine about it and sue Microsoft. It has to be different for that reason. Perhaps Microsoft should have consulted you first before they designed it.
> 
> As I've said before, a UI is nothing more than a means to an end. The WMC UI allows you to access and perform every task you need and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to use it. I've actually gotten to where I prefer it over the Tivo's UI, mainly because I've grown so accustomed to using it. Every feature I use on a regular basis is only a few remote clicks from the main menu.
> 
> Each UI allows you to access each of the features available using a menu structure. Since the features available in each software version differs it only stands to reason that the UIs would differ as well.
> 
> The real proof is comparing the various features of each device. Does it do what you want? How well does it work? Can you incorporate other features? Can you add more tuners? Can you expand the capacity? Can you transfer your recordings to a PC and back? Can you play other video formats? Can you skip commercials? Can you create season passes? Can you pad recordings? Can you automatically record other showings if one gets missed or preempted? Can you create a wishlist? Can you search for shows? How easily is each task performed? Can you change the appearance of the UI? Can you use video streaming services? And so on...
> 
> I think if you compare each device side by side with a more complete list of available features you'll have more check marks next to the WMC PC than you will with Tivo.
> 
> FWIW, I'm not really trying to sell you on HTPCs in place of your Tivo, especially since it's quite clear you've made up your mind on the subject. I'm just describing how trivial your reasons are for discounting WMC. To put things in proper perspective, what appears trivial to me appears to be of utmost importance to you. Different strokes, that's all.
> 
> Actually, HTPCs are pretty basic systems. If anything, they're usually stripped down desktops with one or more tuners and a few apps thrown in. Most everything you need to have a working HTPC is embedded in Windows. If your systems aren't 100% working on a brand new PC then you've probably got driver issues or something went south during the installation process. I can only presume your hardware wasn't up to snuff or not recommended for HTPC use.
> 
> With the current crop of CPUs from Intel and AMD, all you need is a motherboard, CPU, and memory to have a HTPC capable of playing HD video and audio. You don't even need a separate graphics or sound card for the full HD experience. Many current CPUs even support 3D playback without the need for extra hardware. Add a tuner and you've got yourself a Hi-Def DVR.


Microsoft decided to make a series of illogical views available for recorded TV that are different than basically EVERY OTHER DVR on the market. Other views are fine, but you have to do the basics, and do them right first. MCE has so many glitches, quirks and stuff that's just not done right. The TiVo just works. 100% of the time it does exactly what you expect.


----------



## mr.unnatural

Bigg said:


> Microsoft decided to make a series of illogical views available for recorded TV that are different than basically EVERY OTHER DVR on the market. Other views are fine, but you have to do the basics, and do them right first. MCE has so many glitches, quirks and stuff that's just not done right. The TiVo just works. 100% of the time it does exactly what you expect.


So far you've done nothing but gripe about "glitches" and "quirks" that apparently only you seem to suffer from. Other than the UI, which you seem to take great exception to, all of your complaints have been purposely vague. As far as WMC not being "done right", that's entirely subjective and mostly limited to your personal opinion, which you are absolutely entitled to. Just don't keep trying to foist it upon us as gospel because it couldn't be further from the truth.

You seem to be deeply concerned about trying to convince me otherwise, which just ain't gonna happen. I was a Tivo user from the very beginning and I still think they're great DVRs. I just think a HTPC with cablecard tuners provides me greater flexibility while providing at least as good a user experience as my Tivos did. Obviously, your experience has been less rewarding than mine. Your loss.

FWIW, all of my HTPCs "just work" 100% of the time and they all do exactly what I want them to do as well as what I expect.


----------



## slowbiscuit

WMC just works too (and does so a lot cheaper than Tivo for whole house), but since it didn't for Bigg it's an utter failure for everyone.


----------



## innocentfreak

I wish I could agree with WMC just working but after having the same issues on two different PCs I gave up on it. This is why my tuners now sit in a box at the bottom of my closet and I sold all my extenders.


----------



## mr.unnatural

innocentfreak said:


> I wish I could agree with WMC just working but after having the same issues on two different PCs I gave up on it. This is why my tuners now sit in a box at the bottom of my closet and I sold all my extenders.


I did have some issues with the initial release of Windows 7 and WMC prior to the release of service pack 1, but perseverance paid off and now it works like a charm. It's been so long ago I can't even recall what the exact symptoms were (probably blue screens and system lockups), but I do remember that I could sympathize with anyone else not wanting to stick with it at the time. The issues ended up being hardware related and not software (I had back-to-back motherboard failures, both from Intel). Since then, my setups have been virtually trouble-free and rock solid.

When I first upgraded from XP to Windows 7 I was using an AMD MSI motherboard. For some reason the motherboard simply would not cooperate with Windows 7. I think I switched to an Asus AMD board and everything was fine after that. I wanted to use the integrated HD audio and graphics in the Intel Clarkdale CPU so I switched out the Asus for an Intel board and CPU. This is when the wheels came off the cart.

I went through two different Intel motherboards before switching to an ASRock. That setup worked beautifully for quite some time. I switched to a new MSI board about six months ago with the Z77 chipset and it's been a staunch performer. I made the switch because I needed a board with more PCI-e slots than the ASRock board could provide and my local MicroCenter had a great package deal with the board and an Intel i3 3225 CPU with integrated HD4000 graphics. This is the setup I still use today, although I opted to install a standalone Radeon HD7770 graphics card for a purpose I have yet to implement.

The point of this history lesson is that a lot of older hardware wasn't as user friendly with WMC. Defective hardware can really throw a monkey wrench into the works, but that's actually a pretty rare occurrence for most people. Current hardware should work fine with both Windows 7 with integrated WMC and Windows 8 with the WMC add-on. My HTPC has been a work horse and I tend to record about 50 hours of TV per week on average. I routinely check the RecordedTV list and see six or more shows being recorded simultaneously, mostly due to overlap padding.

My recommendation to anyone considering a HTPC has always been to start with a PC that's already using Windows 7 (and now Windows 8) and install a tuner card. Since WMC is already included with every version of Windows 7 except Home Basic (it's a $10 add-on with Windows 8), the only expense is the tuner card. Ebay is a great source for used tuners at a reasonable cost and you can always resell it if you decide WMC doesn't float your boat. Try it for a while and see if you like it. You might be pleasantly surprised.


----------



## slowbiscuit

innocentfreak said:


> I wish I could agree with WMC just working but after having the same issues on two different PCs I gave up on it. This is why my tuners now sit in a box at the bottom of my closet and I sold all my extenders.


There are recommended hardware guides for 7MC, assassin over at AVS has a well-done one and he is very active there for any questions or issues that come up. My Asrock Z77 Pro install from six months ago has been rock-solid with the Prime tuners, using Xboxes and a Linksys DMA2100 as extenders.

I would not hesitate to recommend 7MC to anyone that is at least reasonably competent with PCs, especially now that network tuners make things pretty much plug and play without needing to crack a case (many OEM PCs work just fine).


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## innocentfreak

I ran Win 7 consumer preview without issues with dual Avermedia Duets. Then release came and every 10 days it would lose my channel mappings and record the wrong stations. I talked with Verizon and they weren't remapping channels that often. I also verified with friends who were connected to HDTVs that it wasn't happening on their end. 

Finally the InfiniTV 4 was released and available so I put that in a different PC, i7-860 with 8GBs and a dedicated black drive for recordings. It worked fine for 6 weeks excluding the long standing WMC bugs like conflict management on overlapping recordings until it would go missing with WMC reporting tuner can't be found. The only way to fix it was to reboot. It would only happen when it went to record. Worked with support and they could find nothing wrong in my logs. 

I then built a new dedicated HTPC with a i5 with 8gb of ram based off the Assassin guide. This had the same issues as my older PC. On top of it though it started killing CableCARDs every 10 days. I would come home and find the CableCARDs not responding and the tuner locked. I went through 6 CableCARDs before calling it quits. I even pulled the ones from my TiVo that had been fine for 3 years with the same results. 

I finally just gave up. This was all on top of the issues I had with Media Center and duplicate recordings. It never seemed to want to record new only. I would constantly delete duplicate recordings.


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## slowbiscuit

Well, all we can say is that it's much more stable now. The Cablecard tuner firmwares in particular are much better. I agree that recording-wise (new/repeats and guide data), Tivo is much better but WMC does ok if you don't mind deleting dupe stuff.


----------



## mr.unnatural

Ceton was issuing a lot of firmware and driver updates in the early days of the InfiniTV4. Virtually all of the bugs you mentioned could likely have been fixed with a clean install of Windows since Ceton couldn't verify any problems in the logs. There are also a lot of reported issues with the AverMedia Duets, which could be why they are now discontinued.

I used to have problems with my OTA tuners dropping offline using USB ATSC tuners, but once I switched to a pair of PCI-e Hauppauge 2250's and a HDHR Dual I have had zero problems with ATSC tuners. The only problem I ever had with my InfiniTV4's was fixed with the addition of a lowpass filter to correct the MoCA issue on FIOS. These tuners have been incredible from day one and the best investment I ever made in PC hardware, even at the initial price of $399.

Duplicate recordings are strictly a problem with guide data not being accurate and has nothing to do with WMC itself. I see a lot of shows appear in my upcoming recording list that are obviously duplicates, but it's mostly because there's little, if no information about the specific program other than the date and time. If I leave it alone and let the data fully populate over the next few days it usually clears from the list when the repeat tag is attached to the program. WMC only does what it's told, just like Tivo.


----------



## innocentfreak

mr.unnatural said:


> Duplicate recordings are strictly a problem with guide data not being accurate and has nothing to do with WMC itself. I see a lot of shows appear in my upcoming recording list that are obviously duplicates, but it's mostly because there's little, if no information about the specific program other than the date and time. If I leave it alone and let the data fully populate over the next few days it usually clears from the list when the repeat tag is attached to the program. WMC only does what it's told, just like Tivo.


These were shows that recorded fine and correctly on the TiVo and had the guide data. WMC would record the same USA show at the 9:00 PM airing, then again at 1:00 AM and then again at the airing the next afternoon for example. I would routinely find 3 copies of the same episodes recorded over multiple timeslots. All of them would have complete guide data.


----------



## mr.unnatural

innocentfreak said:


> These were shows that recorded fine and correctly on the TiVo and had the guide data. WMC would record the same USA show at the 9:00 PM airing, then again at 1:00 AM and then again at the airing the next afternoon for example. I would routinely find 3 copies of the same episodes recorded over multiple timeslots. All of them would have complete guide data.


But if it wasn't flagged as a repeat then both the Tivo and WMC would see it as a new program. The Tivo does have an advantage over WMC in that it keeps track of all shows recorded within the past 28 days so as to avoid recording repeats. If the Tivo finds matching info in the metadata then it won't record the repeat airing of the show. The disadvantage is that if the Tivo recording gets truncated for some reason, it won't pick up the next airing and record it. WMC will do this if a show gets cut off prematurely.

I've had this happen on numerous occasions without a clue as to why the initial recording was terminated early. I can only assume there was a severe signal loss that exceeded a preset time limit, causing the recording function to terminate because WMC detected the lack of a signal on the tuned channel. On a positive note, WMC has never failed to pick up the program the next time it aired. This has only occurred on cable channels so it's never been a problem with OTA.


----------



## Bigg

mr.unnatural said:


> So far you've done nothing but gripe about "glitches" and "quirks" that apparently only you seem to suffer from. Other than the UI, which you seem to take great exception to, all of your complaints have been purposely vague. As far as WMC not being "done right", that's entirely subjective and mostly limited to your personal opinion, which you are absolutely entitled to. Just don't keep trying to foist it upon us as gospel because it couldn't be further from the truth.
> 
> You seem to be deeply concerned about trying to convince me otherwise, which just ain't gonna happen. I was a Tivo user from the very beginning and I still think they're great DVRs. I just think a HTPC with cablecard tuners provides me greater flexibility while providing at least as good a user experience as my Tivos did. Obviously, your experience has been less rewarding than mine. Your loss.
> 
> FWIW, all of my HTPCs "just work" 100% of the time and they all do exactly what I want them to do as well as what I expect.


I don't feel like listing them out bit by bit, but you can see what I wrote here:

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4466

The bottom line is that I don't want to use a second-rate DVR that was designed by a bunch of PC software developers who don't have a clue about DVRs.

If you want to use a cheaper system that is poorly designed and unreliable, then fine. Just don't claim it somehow is equivalent to TiVo. It's not other than in the very broad sense of providing some DVR functionality, like a Comcast DVR.



slowbiscuit said:


> WMC just works too (and does so a lot cheaper than Tivo for whole house), but since it didn't for Bigg it's an utter failure for everyone.


Now with TiVo Mini, there isn't much of a price difference, but before some people were willing to put up with a poorly designed, unreliable DVR for the attractive price tag.


----------



## mattack

mr.unnatural said:


> But if it wasn't flagged as a repeat then both the Tivo and WMC would see it as a new program.


You've been here long enough that you almost certainly know this, but...

At least according to everything that's been said (i.e. I have no actual proof by looking at the code of course), Tivos only ever pay attention to Original Air Date, NOT any "repeat" designation, such as you can see in human readable descriptions.


----------



## slowbiscuit

Bigg said:


> Now with TiVo Mini, there isn't much of a price difference, but before some people were willing to put up with a poorly designed, unreliable DVR for the attractive price tag.


As I posted in one of the Mini threads, you could easily build a 4-tuner HTPC with a couple of used extenders (Xbox Slims or Linksys DMA2100s) for $900 or less. The equivalent Tivo setup with two Minis would be $1300 w/lifetime. And it's even cheaper for the HTPC as you add more extenders since they are readily available used for $100 or less, Minis are $240-250 a pop.

I would call that a significant price difference, personally.


----------



## mr.unnatural

Bigg said:


> I don't feel like listing them out bit by bit, but you can see what I wrote here:
> 
> http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4466
> 
> The bottom line is that I don't want to use a second-rate DVR that was designed by a bunch of PC software developers who don't have a clue about DVRs.
> 
> If you want to use a cheaper system that is poorly designed and unreliable, then fine. Just don't claim it somehow is equivalent to TiVo. It's not other than in the very broad sense of providing some DVR functionality, like a Comcast DVR.


I read through your long tirade on TGB and many of your arguments are absolutely ridiculous. Apparently, the responses from other members that I've read so far support my conclusion. I don't know of any DVR that displays both the season and episode number in the show description (or anywhere else unless it's embedded in the metadata). I don't recall ever seeing it on any of my Tivos, but it's been quite a while since I've used one. However, WMC does display the season number for any reruns from previous seasons and it displays the original air date for all episodes.

WMC handles the recording of repeats just fine, as long as the guide data has been fully updated. I'm not sure why, but shows that are at the end of the guide schedule tend to list just the show title with generic info about the series and nothing specific about the episode. As the actual air date nears, the info gets updated with the episode description and whether it's first-run or a rerun (it indicates a repeat and also shows the original air date). If this info is missing it's not WMC's fault but the result of poor guide data from Zap2It. Like Tivo, WMC just records what it's told to. I've gotten into the habit of looking at the upcoming record list and deleting extraneous shows that are obvious reruns before the guide data gets updated. I used to do the exact same thing with my Tivos.

The one caveat about this is that when you're trying to record only new episodes of syndicated shows (like many of the supposed "original series" on SyFy that actually aired on Canadian TV previously), the original air date is listed and WMC will see it as a rerun for this reason. You have to specify both new and reruns in the series record settings in order to record any of the episodes.

Tivo's search feature vs. WMC is clearly better and has been discussed in length elsewhere. OTOH, I've been able to find every show of interest I have searched for using WMC so the better search features on Tivo are wasted on me.

FWIW, a universal remote does wonders for controlling a home theater system.  Your issues with Windows are a problem you'll have to resolve on your own. I've detailed problems I had setting up HTPCs in a previous post so perhaps you might want to read how I got mine resolved. I use HDMI for audio and it works great feeding my Onkyo Pro preamp/processor. I've used the HDMI audio output from an Asus HDAV1.3 sound card, various standalone graphics cards, and HD audio from the CPU via onboard HDMI and never had any issues with sound quality.

The RecordedTV list can be listed by air date, alphabetically, and at least one or two other methods. No, it's not the same as Tivo, but that's not necessarily a bad thing either. Frankly, I was getting fed up with Tivo moving things around in the menu structure on a whim with every new software release or Tivo version. You'd expect consistency between Tivos, which was sorely lacking.

After reading your entire post at TGB it's quite apparent that you have issues with WMC, but they're your issues and not the fault of WMC itself. Windows problems are something you have to deal with, but they shouldn't be a showstopper. It's also a shame that you reportedly spent $1600 on a HTPC and don't have the patience to work through the issues and get it functioning the way it should. HTPCs are a hobby for enthusiasts, not an appliance for consumers. OTOH, my HTPCs work in just that exact fashion. Virtually no maintenance or tweaking other than allowing the monthly Windows updates to install (I manually pick the ones to install and then allow them to be installed on my schedule).

When I built my first HTPC I was still using Tivo with DirecTV. My HTPC was using Windows XP with BeyondTV at the time and it was a nice DVR app. When the Ceton cablecard tuner hit the market I was one of the first adopters to get one. I had to upgrade to Windows 7 to use it, but that wasn't a problem. Aside from the usual growing pains getting used to a new version of Windows, I found WMC to be easy to navigate and quite intuitive to use. I don't recall ever having to resort to a guide to set up and use WMC other the the one for the Ceton tuner. I have resorted to guides to install additional features, but that's a different situation altogether.

I used both my Tivo (I had switched to FIOS and was using two series 3 models now) and the HTPC side-by-side for several months before switching over to WMC entirely. The longer I used WMC, the less enamoured I became with Tivo. It wasn't that I like Tivo any less, but the all-in-one box solution of the HTPC was just too sweet to ignore. I had no issues with the UI or in the way WMC handled my recordings. Virtually all of your complaints about WMC are minimal and completely trivial at best, IMHO.

BTW, if you were having problems with the Ceton Companion app you should have contacted Ceton for help setting it up. I use it and it works great on my Droid smartphone.

The only issue with WMC that I find truly bothersome (and it's not really with WMC but rather HDCP) is that when I fast forward through a commercial segment and return to normal playback, the screen blanks out for about 6-7 seconds before displaying a picture. This is an issue between my HTPC and my preamp and is strictly a problem of re-establishing a HDCP handshake between devices, nothing more. I think it's probably due to the screen changing resolution from Hi-def to standard def during some commercial breaks and back again. It's annoying, but something I've learned to live with.

In case you aren't aware, Microsoft developed the UltimateTV DVR (circa 2000) for use with DirecTV long before WMC was released (special edition of Windows XP 2005). They have a long track record with DVRs so WMC wasn't unfamiliar territory for them. I owned a couple UltimateTV DVRs back when I had DirecTV and found them to be better DVRs than my DirecTivos at the time. The only caveat is that Microsoft charged twice the DVR fee than Tivo to use them with DirecTV so I didn't use them for long.


----------



## Bigg

mr.unnatural said:


> I read through your long tirade on TGB and many of your arguments are absolutely ridiculous. Apparently, the responses from other members that I've read so far support my conclusion. I don't know of any DVR that displays both the season and episode number in the show description (or anywhere else unless it's embedded in the metadata). I don't recall ever seeing it on any of my Tivos, but it's been quite a while since I've used one. However, WMC does display the season number for any reruns from previous seasons and it displays the original air date for all episodes.
> 
> WMC handles the recording of repeats just fine, as long as the guide data has been fully updated. I'm not sure why, but shows that are at the end of the guide schedule tend to list just the show title with generic info about the series and nothing specific about the episode. As the actual air date nears, the info gets updated with the episode description and whether it's first-run or a rerun (it indicates a repeat and also shows the original air date). If this info is missing it's not WMC's fault but the result of poor guide data from Zap2It. Like Tivo, WMC just records what it's told to. I've gotten into the habit of looking at the upcoming record list and deleting extraneous shows that are obvious reruns before the guide data gets updated. I used to do the exact same thing with my Tivos.
> 
> The one caveat about this is that when you're trying to record only new episodes of syndicated shows (like many of the supposed "original series" on SyFy that actually aired on Canadian TV previously), the original air date is listed and WMC will see it as a rerun for this reason. You have to specify both new and reruns in the series record settings in order to record any of the episodes.
> 
> Tivo's search feature vs. WMC is clearly better and has been discussed in length elsewhere. OTOH, I've been able to find every show of interest I have searched for using WMC so the better search features on Tivo are wasted on me.
> 
> FWIW, a universal remote does wonders for controlling a home theater system.  Your issues with Windows are a problem you'll have to resolve on your own. I've detailed problems I had setting up HTPCs in a previous post so perhaps you might want to read how I got mine resolved. I use HDMI for audio and it works great feeding my Onkyo Pro preamp/processor. I've used the HDMI audio output from an Asus HDAV1.3 sound card, various standalone graphics cards, and HD audio from the CPU via onboard HDMI and never had any issues with sound quality.
> 
> The RecordedTV list can be listed by air date, alphabetically, and at least one or two other methods. No, it's not the same as Tivo, but that's not necessarily a bad thing either. Frankly, I was getting fed up with Tivo moving things around in the menu structure on a whim with every new software release or Tivo version. You'd expect consistency between Tivos, which was sorely lacking.
> 
> After reading your entire post at TGB it's quite apparent that you have issues with WMC, but they're your issues and not the fault of WMC itself. Windows problems are something you have to deal with, but they shouldn't be a showstopper. It's also a shame that you reportedly spent $1600 on a HTPC and don't have the patience to work through the issues and get it functioning the way it should. HTPCs are a hobby for enthusiasts, not an appliance for consumers. OTOH, my HTPCs work in just that exact fashion. Virtually no maintenance or tweaking other than allowing the monthly Windows updates to install (I manually pick the ones to install and then allow them to be installed on my schedule).
> 
> When I built my first HTPC I was still using Tivo with DirecTV. My HTPC was using Windows XP with BeyondTV at the time and it was a nice DVR app. When the Ceton cablecard tuner hit the market I was one of the first adopters to get one. I had to upgrade to Windows 7 to use it, but that wasn't a problem. Aside from the usual growing pains getting used to a new version of Windows, I found WMC to be easy to navigate and quite intuitive to use. I don't recall ever having to resort to a guide to set up and use WMC other the the one for the Ceton tuner. I have resorted to guides to install additional features, but that's a different situation altogether.
> 
> I used both my Tivo (I had switched to FIOS and was using two series 3 models now) and the HTPC side-by-side for several months before switching over to WMC entirely. The longer I used WMC, the less enamoured I became with Tivo. It wasn't that I like Tivo any less, but the all-in-one box solution of the HTPC was just too sweet to ignore. I had no issues with the UI or in the way WMC handled my recordings. Virtually all of your complaints about WMC are minimal and completely trivial at best, IMHO.
> 
> BTW, if you were having problems with the Ceton Companion app you should have contacted Ceton for help setting it up. I use it and it works great on my Droid smartphone.
> 
> The only issue with WMC that I find truly bothersome (and it's not really with WMC but rather HDCP) is that when I fast forward through a commercial segment and return to normal playback, the screen blanks out for about 6-7 seconds before displaying a picture. This is an issue between my HTPC and my preamp and is strictly a problem of re-establishing a HDCP handshake between devices, nothing more. I think it's probably due to the screen changing resolution from Hi-def to standard def during some commercial breaks and back again. It's annoying, but something I've learned to live with.
> 
> In case you aren't aware, Microsoft developed the UltimateTV DVR (circa 2000) for use with DirecTV long before WMC was released (special edition of Windows XP 2005). They have a long track record with DVRs so WMC wasn't unfamiliar territory for them. I owned a couple UltimateTV DVRs back when I had DirecTV and found them to be better DVRs than my DirecTivos at the time. The only caveat is that Microsoft charged twice the DVR fee than Tivo to use them with DirecTV so I didn't use them for long.


SxxEyy is available in the TiVo menus somewhere. It's not available anywhere on MCE.

The guide data on MCE is worse than TiVo's, although TiVo's has gone downhill. At first, I assumed it was still as good as it was in 2011, when the S2 bit the dust.

I was thinking of a universal remote. Until I picked up the peanut, and realized how awesome it is! Now I have zero desire for a universal remote. I can do Apple TV through the iPhone (it's hardware remote is just about useless), everything else has it's own remote.

As I late found out, the volume issue is really a fundamental problem with HDMI, but TiVo did a clever route around by making the remote intelligent enough to be able to control the AVR, with a nice setup for it to boot. The audio setup issues were just inexcusable. TiVo just plugged in and worked. The HTPC now works with HDMI audio through VLC and Chrome.

I spent about $900 on the HTPC, the Ceton tuner is now out of service. I'm deciding whether it will get hooked back up with another CC when I move, or if I'll just dump it cheap and recover some of that money. The $700 HTPC is still in service as an HTPC, supplemental to the TiVo. It's expensive for a dedicated HTPC, but I really don't want to give it up. I expected something that works, MCE bugging out every now and then for no apparent reason doesn't just work.

The more I used MCE, the more badly I wanted the TiVo. You may be OK with a buggy, high maintenance setup that has a craptastic interface, but I'm not. I have some toys, but my DVR is not one of them. My DVR needs to work 100% of the time.

Microsoft should apply that knowledge and actually make a good DVR. I have no doubt that with all it's problems, someone could easily out-TiVo TiVo, but as of yet, I haven't seen anything close. I don't have any any experience with the DirecTV Genie, and I don't plan to, as my soon-to-be-roommates and I agreed that the extra $40+/mo for DirecTV isn't worth it.


----------



## Bigg

slowbiscuit said:


> As I posted in one of the Mini threads, you could easily build a 4-tuner HTPC with a couple of used extenders (Xbox Slims or Linksys DMA2100s) for $900 or less.


That's an Apples to Oranges comparison. The Ceton Echo at $180/TV has a bit of a price edge over the TiVo Mini at $250. The XL4 @ $900 is nearly identical to a basic PC with a quad-tuner (now 6-tuner) Ceton adapter (and that doesn't even include Win7, as I had one left over from college).


----------



## trip1eX

I like WMC, but I can't say it just works. There are lots of annoyances. And some computer-ee problems that, for me, rear there head occasionally, but too often. What I like about it is UI speed, cost and 4 tuners. Tivo didn't have 4 tuners when I switched to WMC. And the Premiere UI wasn't very responsive. Cost for 2 tvs especially at the time was much cheaper. I probably built my box for $500 and it is overkill for a DVR. 4 quad i5 Ivy bridge cpu (before was it was quad i5 sandy bridge) and 8gigs ram. I also put a gold-rated PS in there and used a very slim desktop case. 360 extender basically free since my son wanted a 360 anyway. I think i may have bought it just before building this even. 

The external 6 tuner thing intrigues. I'm thinking of switching to it. Not sure about having all that traffic on my network though. (right now I have internal ceton tuner.) Maybe I need 2 networks? Not sure I want my router processing 4-6 tuners worth of HD traffic all the time. Ok not all the time only those few days a week when that many shows are being recorded. How will that effect occasional online action gaming? Not as worried about wi-fi iphone, ipad or desktop surfing traffic. 

But an external tuner means worrying less about internal heat. In hindsight I didn't have to buy those relatively expensive quiet fans that I bought. And might even use the ability to record shows to different pcs. 

Also intrigued by new 6-tuner tuner because maybe it works better??? I'd like to think so. But maybe I just need to erase that thought.

Tangent: I wish the Mac Mini (OSX) supported this 6-tuner Ceton cablecard tuner. And you could use ATVs as extenders.

btw, sad that MS is going to let WMC die. It is amazing that a company with all that money etc can't put a few guys on this project and gradually improve it and make money off it. Or leave it open for 3rd parties to develop further and improve. I guess there is more to it than that. The whole CableLabs testing requirement (probably everytime you sneeeze) can't help matters.


----------



## trip1eX

mr.unnatural said:


> The only issue with WMC that I find truly bothersome (and it's not really with WMC but rather HDCP) is that when I fast forward through a commercial segment and return to normal playback, the screen blanks out for about 6-7 seconds before displaying a picture. This is an issue between my HTPC and my preamp and is strictly a problem of re-establishing a HDCP handshake between devices, nothing more. I think it's probably due to the screen changing resolution from Hi-def to standard def during some commercial breaks and back again. It's annoying, but something I've learned to live with.


My handshaking issue doesn't seem so bad now. All I get is the sound cutting out for 2 seconds after skipping ahead. I've gotten used to it. It never happened before I got my HK 3600 AVR. Once in awhile I skip back 8 seconds because I want to hear something said in its entirety.


----------



## mr.unnatural

Bigg said:


> The more I used MCE, the more badly I wanted the TiVo. You may be OK with a buggy, high maintenance setup that has a craptastic interface, but I'm not. I have some toys, but my DVR is not one of them. My DVR needs to work 100% of the time.


I'm not OK with a buggy, high maintenance setup, which is exactly why I'm using WMC.  My DVR works 100% of the time with zero maintenance required other than monthly Windows updates. I could let them install automatically in the same manner that Tivo does their updates, but I prefer a more hands-on approach so I can pick and choose which ones to install.

My Tivos used to reboot randomly for absolutely no reason. You can imagine how annoying that can be when it occurs while watching a program, which it did on numerous occasions. This wasn't limited to a single Tivo, either. My HTPCs have never been that erratic. When I swapped out my HTPC's motherboard and CPU about six months ago I reinstalled everything from scratch and I haven't had a single issue in all that time.

Your problems stem from not being able to deal with a UI you aren't comfortable with as well as not having the technical fortitude to fix whatever PC issues you were having to make it work the way it should. Like I said before many times, HTPCs are for enthusiasts and not your average consumer. These things are for people that like to tinker and push the envelope. In your case, I highly recommend you stick with Tivo because HTPCs are clearly beyond your skill set.

While I do consider myself a PC enthusiast, I also prefer to spend my time watching TV rather than fixing computers (I do enough of that for other family members). I've gotten to where I can set up a new PC as a Media Center PC with whatever bells and whistles are required and just make it work and work consistently well.

My wife is a complete technophobe and won't tolerate anything that doesn't work the way she expects. She uses a HTPC on a daily basis and has no problems with it. If she did, believe me, I'd hear about it and she'd make my life miserable in the process. If I can get a HTPC to work and keep her satisfied, then what more could you ask for? She actually had more issues using the Tivo.


----------



## slowbiscuit

Bigg said:


> That's an Apples to Oranges comparison. The Ceton Echo at $180/TV has a bit of a price edge over the TiVo Mini at $250. The XL4 @ $900 is nearly identical to a basic PC with a quad-tuner (now 6-tuner) Ceton adapter (and that doesn't even include Win7, as I had one left over from college).


Uh, no it's not. I compared a 4-tuner HTPC with 2 extenders to a 4-tuner Tivo with 2 Minis. It doesn't really matter if the PC extenders are new or used, they all work the same. I would have no hesitation with getting used Xbox Slims or DMA2100s for less than $100 and they will both work as well as a Mini.

That's as apples-to-apples as you're going to get.


----------



## Bigg

mr.unnatural said:


> I'm not OK with a buggy, high maintenance setup, which is exactly why I'm using WMC.  My DVR works 100% of the time with zero maintenance required other than monthly Windows updates. I could let them install automatically in the same manner that Tivo does their updates, but I prefer a more hands-on approach so I can pick and choose which ones to install.
> 
> My Tivos used to reboot randomly for absolutely no reason. You can imagine how annoying that can be when it occurs while watching a program, which it did on numerous occasions. This wasn't limited to a single Tivo, either. My HTPCs have never been that erratic. When I swapped out my HTPC's motherboard and CPU about six months ago I reinstalled everything from scratch and I haven't had a single issue in all that time.
> 
> Your problems stem from not being able to deal with a UI you aren't comfortable with as well as not having the technical fortitude to fix whatever PC issues you were having to make it work the way it should. Like I said before many times, HTPCs are for enthusiasts and not your average consumer. These things are for people that like to tinker and push the envelope. In your case, I highly recommend you stick with Tivo because HTPCs are clearly beyond your skill set.
> 
> While I do consider myself a PC enthusiast, I also prefer to spend my time watching TV rather than fixing computers (I do enough of that for other family members). I've gotten to where I can set up a new PC as a Media Center PC with whatever bells and whistles are required and just make it work and work consistently well.
> 
> My wife is a complete technophobe and won't tolerate anything that doesn't work the way she expects. She uses a HTPC on a daily basis and has no problems with it. If she did, believe me, I'd hear about it and she'd make my life miserable in the process. If I can get a HTPC to work and keep her satisfied, then what more could you ask for? She actually had more issues using the Tivo.


My skill set is plenty to handle an HTPC. However, I don't WANT to deal with that kind of crap, and have crashes, missed recordings, reboots, etc. I want 100% reliability. TiVo delivers that.

I don't like a subpar interface when TiVo has shown the world how it is done and made an incredible interface. Microsoft just wanted to be different, and screwed up the UI in the process.



slowbiscuit said:


> Uh, no it's not. I compared a 4-tuner HTPC with 2 extenders to a 4-tuner Tivo with 2 Minis. It doesn't really matter if the PC extenders are new or used, they all work the same. I would have no hesitation with getting used Xbox Slims or DMA2100s for less than $100 and they will both work as well as a Mini.
> 
> That's as apples-to-apples as you're going to get.


Comparing used equipment to new equipment isn't Apples to Apples, and comparing ancient Linksys extenders isn't a fair comparison to anything. It's like comparing a brand new Audi Q7 to a 10 year old Ford Explorer and being "they're the same thing. They both drive, and they're about the same size".


----------



## mattack

Bigg said:


> My DVR needs to work 100% of the time.


Wait, then you need something besides a Tivo!

Tivos work, and do seem more reliable than the other choices.. but 100% of the time? ESP when dealing with GIGO, you can end up with missed recordings if the schedule changes and your Tivo *thinks* it recorded a show..

(and I say this as a huge fan of Tivo)


----------



## mr.unnatural

mattack said:


> Wait, then you need something besides a Tivo!
> 
> Tivos work, and do seem more reliable than the other choices.. but 100% of the time? ESP when dealing with GIGO, you can end up with missed recordings if the schedule changes and your Tivo *thinks* it recorded a show..
> 
> (and I say this as a huge fan of Tivo)


:up: I'm also a huge fan of Tivo. I've just migrated to something that suits me better. Tivos aren't 100% reliable by any stretch of the imagination. I won't claim that a HTPC is 100% reliable either, but mine seems to fit that description closer than my Tivos ever did. It all depends on you you set them up. Mine just works all the time.



Bigg said:


> My skill set is plenty to handle an HTPC. However, I don't WANT to deal with that kind of crap, and have crashes, missed recordings, reboots, etc. I want 100% reliability. TiVo delivers that.


Then why did you ever decide to build a HTPC in the first place? You had to know what you were getting into from the start. Everyone knows that PCs can be finicky beasts and may not always work the way you want right off the bat without a little TLC and patience. If you weren't prepared to deal with that then you just wasted a lot of time and money. I've been doing this long enough to know that Murphy's Law will almost always intervene. I've also been doing it long enough to know what pitfalls to avoid. If I had invested that much money in a HTPC I'd be extremely motivated to figure out what the problems were and do my best to get them resolved.



> I don't like a subpar interface when TiVo has shown the world how it is done and made an incredible interface. Microsoft just wanted to be different, and screwed up the UI in the process.


Your opinion and definitely not a fact. Blaming the UI for not being able to sort out your PC issues is pretty lame.  Tivo has only shown one way to do it and not _the_ way, regardless of what you think. It's definitely not the de facto standard by any stretch of the imagination.

Microsoft just came up with their own variation on a similar theme. Frankly, I don't think the Tivo UI is all that great. In fact, the UltimateTV and ReplayTV DVR UI's were laid out much better and were easier to use than Tivo, but then that's just my opinion (as is everything I post here unless I point you to a specific source). I haven't used the latest versions of the Tivo UI, but it took Tivo over a decade before they updated it, which was about ten years too late, IMHO.


----------



## Bigg

mr.unnatural said:


> :up: I'm also a huge fan of Tivo. I've just migrated to something that suits me better. Tivos aren't 100% reliable by any stretch of the imagination. I won't claim that a HTPC is 100% reliable either, but mine seems to fit that description closer than my Tivos ever did. It all depends on you you set them up. Mine just works all the time.
> 
> Then why did you ever decide to build a HTPC in the first place? You had to know what you were getting into from the start. Everyone knows that PCs can be finicky beasts and may not always work the way you want right off the bat without a little TLC and patience. If you weren't prepared to deal with that then you just wasted a lot of time and money. I've been doing this long enough to know that Murphy's Law will almost always intervene. I've also been doing it long enough to know what pitfalls to avoid. If I had invested that much money in a HTPC I'd be extremely motivated to figure out what the problems were and do my best to get them resolved.
> 
> Your opinion and definitely not a fact. Blaming the UI for not being able to sort out your PC issues is pretty lame.  Tivo has only shown one way to do it and not _the_ way, regardless of what you think. It's definitely not the de facto standard by any stretch of the imagination.
> 
> Microsoft just came up with their own variation on a similar theme. Frankly, I don't think the Tivo UI is all that great. In fact, the UltimateTV and ReplayTV DVR UI's were laid out much better and were easier to use than Tivo, but then that's just my opinion (as is everything I post here unless I point you to a specific source). I haven't used the latest versions of the Tivo UI, but it took Tivo over a decade before they updated it, which was about ten years too late, IMHO.


I wanted a powerful HTPC. I understood there would be some tinkering, but after the initial tinkering, it should have worked. It didn't. It kept having random errors and odd behaviors.

TiVo does the NPL the RIGHT way. TiVo has gone downhill since version 4 of the software, but it's still the best. All the core functionality is still there, it's just gotten a bit visually cluttered. There are some parts that desperately need updating, but at least it WORKS.


----------



## Bigg

mattack said:


> Wait, then you need something besides a Tivo!
> 
> Tivos work, and do seem more reliable than the other choices.. but 100% of the time? ESP when dealing with GIGO, you can end up with missed recordings if the schedule changes and your Tivo *thinks* it recorded a show..
> 
> (and I say this as a huge fan of Tivo)


My TiVo is as reliable as the power source going into it. If I need something more reliable, I'll get a UPS. It probably won't be 100% forever, uptime doesn't work like that on consumer hardware, but it is 100% so far, and the Series 2 was darn close to that.


----------



## mr.unnatural

Bigg said:


> I wanted a powerful HTPC. I understood there would be some tinkering, but after the initial tinkering, it should have worked. It didn't. It kept having random errors and odd behaviors.


Then you gave up way too soon. FWIW, my HTPCs didn't require much in the way of tinkering, just software installations and setups using pre-configured checklists found in several HTPC forums. Easy-peasy. Since your tinkering skills seem to have left you a bit short, I'd highly recommend subscribing to Assassin's HTPC blog:

http://assassinhtpcblog.com/

It contains everything you ever need to know about setting up and configuring a HTPC. It costs $25 for unlimited access, but it's well worth the price of admission and a drop in the bucket compared to what you spent on all that hardware.



> TiVo does the NPL the RIGHT way. TiVo has gone downhill since version 4 of the software, but it's still the best. All the core functionality is still there, it's just gotten a bit visually cluttered. There are some parts that desperately need updating, but at least it WORKS.


I must have missed the spec that tells me what the "RIGHT" way is. There's no right or wrong way about it. Tivo does it one way and WMC does it another. Just because you say it's the "RIGHT" way doesn't make it so. It's just your opinion, no more and no less.


----------



## aaronwt

mr.unnatural said:


> :up: I'm also a huge fan of Tivo. I've just migrated to something that suits me better. Tivos aren't 100% reliable by any stretch of the imagination. I won't claim that a HTPC is 100% reliable either, but mine seems to fit that description closer than my Tivos ever did. It all depends on you you set them up. Mine just works all the time.
> 
> ......


Nothing has 100% reliability. There is always going to be some down time for one reason or another. The only way to really try and avoid any down time is to have multiple redundancy. And hope that all devices won't go down at the same time.


----------



## mr.unnatural

aaronwt said:


> Nothing has 100% reliability. There is always going to be some down time for one reason or another. The only way to really try and avoid any down time is to have multiple redundancy. And hope that all devices won't go down at the same time.


Which is exactly why I don't like a central video distribution system with extenders. With WMC PCs it's media extenders whereas Tivo has their own version (Tivo mini?). In theory, it's a great idea. In reality I've found it not to be so. The primary source now becomes the weak link in the chain. If the primary PC or Tivo goes down it takes the rest of the household with it.

I tried using media extenders around the same time I was having motherboard issues on my HTPC. Talk about bad timing! The PC would lock up constantly and my wife would be *****in' up a blue streak because none of the extenders would work without rebooting the HTPC. I've never cared for the laggy UI inherent with every media center extender ever made, and I've tried then all except for the D-Link model. I was hoping the latest Ceton Echo would be the exception to the rule, but it turned out to be just another extender.

I currently use individual small form factor HTPCs at each TV. They all share tuners from a SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime cablecard tuner. I also use a WDTV Live media player with the latest firmware for a small TV we have mounted in front of our treadmill. The HDHR Prime has also been updated with the latest firmware which allows it to stream live TV to DLNA enabled devices like the WDTV Live and the Playstation 3, among others. There's no guide data, but it does allow you to use the WDTV Live for watching live TV. I can also stream any videos and movies stored on my server.


----------



## Bigg

mr.unnatural said:


> Then you gave up way too soon. FWIW, my HTPCs didn't require much in the way of tinkering, just software installations and setups using pre-configured checklists found in several HTPC forums. Easy-peasy. Since your tinkering skills seem to have left you a bit short, I'd highly recommend subscribing to Assassin's HTPC blog:
> 
> http://assassinhtpcblog.com/
> 
> It contains everything you ever need to know about setting up and configuring a HTPC. It costs $25 for unlimited access, but it's well worth the price of admission and a drop in the bucket compared to what you spent on all that hardware.
> 
> I must have missed the spec that tells me what the "RIGHT" way is. There's no right or wrong way about it. Tivo does it one way and WMC does it another. Just because you say it's the "RIGHT" way doesn't make it so. It's just your opinion, no more and no less.


I'm not missing any tinkering skills. What I am missing is saint-like patience for a POS program that doesn't work properly, and kicks up cryptic errors that have no logical path towards resolution because they could mean any one of 50 different things.

The right way to do it is chronogically from the top, with folders for a given program. I.e. what TiVo does. Yes, because clearly no one has EVER made a DVR the right way before.  Other than EVERY OTHER DVR I have EVER SEEN, including TiVo, Motorola, and Scientific Atlanta.


----------



## mr.unnatural

Bigg said:


> I'm not missing any tinkering skills. What I am missing is saint-like patience for a POS program that doesn't work properly, and kicks up cryptic errors that have no logical path towards resolution because they could mean any one of 50 different things.
> 
> The right way to do it is chronogically from the top, with folders for a given program. I.e. what TiVo does. Yes, because clearly no one has EVER made a DVR the right way before.  Other than EVERY OTHER DVR I have EVER SEEN, including TiVo, Motorola, and Scientific Atlanta.


Please stop making excuses for your inability to fix your HTPC. You keep blaming perfectly good software when the blame clearly rests elsewhere. I'm certainly no saint, but at least I've had the patience to resolve any issues I've ever had with my HTPCs. The thing is, most of them turned out to be hardware problems and had nothing to do with Windows or Media Center. I'd wager you're in the same boat, but rather than approach it from that angle you'd rather blame the software and give up. BTW, your gripe about the RecordedTV list has to be the lamest excuse ever for not wanting to use WMC. You are clearly a minority of one in this regard.

I've tried to guide you to helpful resources that will get you on the right track but, rather than use them to fix your HTPC, you continue to point fingers at WMC for your problems. The fact that you don't have the patience to stick it out and get your HTPC working just tells me that you're in over your head and don't want to admit it. Your tinkering skills are useless if you don't put them to good use. It's easy to blame something else for your own failings.


----------



## slowbiscuit

But you don't understand, if Bigg can't get it to work it's a POS for everyone, because his experience is what everyone's should be...


----------



## WO312

I use this to get my programs in folders on my HTPC. I really like it. Not free though, but it does have a free trial.

http://www.recordedtvhd.com/


----------



## mr.unnatural

I used that for a while but never reinstalled it when I upgraded my motherboard about six months ago. I think it was only about $5 when I first tried it, but the price has shot up to $20 for a single license and $30 for a household with multiple HTPCs. With so many free apps for Media Center out there it's hard to justify that kind of expense, especially if you like a lot of WMC add-ons. I rarely have more than one episode of a show in my RecordedTV list at any given time as I like to keep current with my recordings. The only time I get behind is if I have to go out of town on business. However, it is a nice app for Media Center and provides a graphical interface as well as the ability to group multiple episodes of your favorite shows. I just prefer the standard list configuration over the cover art view because I can see more listings at one time.


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## WO312

It comes in handy for me because not only does it group them by folder, but also by season. I use my HTPC for recording multiple season shows on History Channel and such. My everyday stuff is done with my Tivos.


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## trip1eX

Google should make some DVR software. They know search. And web services. They have Android so they have some semblance of a Linux OS. Get involved with CableLabs and make it happen.


----------



## SullyND

trip1eX said:


> Google should make some DVR software.


If they were interested, you'd think they'd have held onto the STB business from Motorola rather than selling it off to Arris.


----------



## mattack

mr.unnatural said:


> :up: I'm also a huge fan of Tivo. I've just migrated to something that suits me better. Tivos aren't 100% reliable by any stretch of the imagination. I won't claim that a HTPC is 100% reliable either, but mine seems to fit that description closer than my Tivos ever did. It all depends on you you set them up. Mine just works all the time.


But how is it more reliable than a Tivo? That's what I am curious about.

How does it deal with "The Daily Show" problem (which admittedly, Tivo doesn't "deal with", but people have worked around with smart autorecording wishlists). Or if a show is preempted soon before recording, how does it know any better than Tivo does(n't) when it's reaired?

Basically, it seems to me that they're at best "equally bad".... but not as good of a UI on HTPC.


----------



## Xab

mr.unnatural said:


> I'm not OK with a buggy, high maintenance setup, which is exactly why I'm using WMC.  My DVR works 100% of the time with zero maintenance required other than monthly Windows updates. I could let them install automatically in the same manner that Tivo does their updates, but I prefer a more hands-on approach so I can pick and choose which ones to install.
> 
> My Tivos used to reboot randomly for absolutely no reason. You can imagine how annoying that can be when it occurs while watching a program, which it did on numerous occasions. This wasn't limited to a single Tivo, either. My HTPCs have never been that erratic. When I swapped out my HTPC's motherboard and CPU about six months ago I reinstalled everything from scratch and I haven't had a single issue in all that time.
> 
> Your problems stem from not being able to deal with a UI you aren't comfortable with as well as not having the technical fortitude to fix whatever PC issues you were having to make it work the way it should. Like I said before many times, HTPCs are for enthusiasts and not your average consumer. These things are for people that like to tinker and push the envelope. In your case, I highly recommend you stick with Tivo because HTPCs are clearly beyond your skill set.
> 
> While I do consider myself a PC enthusiast, I also prefer to spend my time watching TV rather than fixing computers (I do enough of that for other family members). I've gotten to where I can set up a new PC as a Media Center PC with whatever bells and whistles are required and just make it work and work consistently well.
> 
> My wife is a complete technophobe and won't tolerate anything that doesn't work the way she expects. She uses a HTPC on a daily basis and has no problems with it. If she did, believe me, I'd hear about it and she'd make my life miserable in the process. If I can get a HTPC to work and keep her satisfied, then what more could you ask for? She actually had more issues using the Tivo.


You're quite the paragon of luck, then. For the year or so I struggled with a WMC PC & Ceton card, I would scream at my media center in frustration many times a week. Almost every third show would not record because "no tuner was available to satisfy that request" even though all tuners were fully available, and I would have to clear 5-10 errors EVERY TIME I came to use the machine all telling me that tuners were unavailable.

It was really thoughtfully designed - you got to just press OK dozens of times on the same error message that would pop up over itself. And luckily, WMC knew that I must REALLY enjoy the Daily Show & Colbert Report, because despite the fact that I explicitly directed it to record new episodes only, it knew better and managed to record several showings of the same damn episode for me each day. Just in case I didn't really mean to delete that same episode I already watched, and wanted to see it in my list again.

Dumping that pile of crap and moving to TiVo was like giving a glass of ice water to someone in Hell.


----------



## mr.unnatural

mattack said:


> But how is it more reliable than a Tivo? That's what I am curious about.


Obviously, everyone's experience will differ since hardware is never 100% reliable, regardless of what platform you're using. I don't think I've ever claimed that my HTPC is more reliable than a Tivo but rather just as reliable. It records every show I ask it to without skipping a beat. If a show gets missed, which is rare, there is usually a logical explanation for it.



> How does it deal with "The Daily Show" problem (which admittedly, Tivo doesn't "deal with", but people have worked around with smart autorecording wishlists). Or if a show is preempted soon before recording, how does it know any better than Tivo does(n't) when it's reaired?


I'm not sure what you mean by "The Daily Show" problem except that I do see multiple episodes appear in my upcoming recording list that are clearly reruns. They usually just have generic descriptions of the show so WMC sees them as new shows with no original air date shown and schedules them to record. That's a guide data issue and not WMC's fault. I routinely go through the list on a daily basis and weed out any extraneous recordings such as this.



Xab said:


> You're quite the paragon of luck, then. For the year or so I struggled with a WMC PC & Ceton card, I would scream at my media center in frustration many times a week. Almost every third show would not record because "no tuner was available to satisfy that request" even though all tuners were fully available, and I would have to clear 5-10 errors EVERY TIME I came to use the machine all telling me that tuners were unavailable.
> 
> It was really thoughtfully designed - you got to just press OK dozens of times on the same error message that would pop up over itself. And luckily, WMC knew that I must REALLY enjoy the Daily Show & Colbert Report, because despite the fact that I explicitly directed it to record new episodes only, it knew better and managed to record several showings of the same damn episode for me each day. Just in case I didn't really mean to delete that same episode I already watched, and wanted to see it in my list again.
> 
> Dumping that pile of crap and moving to TiVo was like giving a glass of ice water to someone in Hell.


I've had the same issue in the past and found the best way to fix it was to rerun the TV signal setup. I'd always check for new driver and firmware updates before doing it because you'd have to rerun the setup after updating them anyway. Make sure you go into the Ceton Diagnostic program and release the tuners and then have the app rediscover them prior to rerunning the TV signal setup. I still get the error on occasion if my HDHomeRun Prime tuners are configured as the first tuners to use in the channel setup options. If I configure each channel I record to use the Ceton tuners first then I don't get the error. Both of my InfiniTV4's have been completely trouble-free from day one.

The best advice I can give anyone that has issues with WMC is to reinstall Windows from scratch. Most of the time, trying to fix issues after they've surfaced is like trying to use a band-aid on a gaping wound. A fresh install does wonders for fixing problems. Make sure you've got the latest drivers installed for any hardware before setting up WMC. Keep the installation as simple as possible and avoid using a lot of extra apps that you don't need. The best way I've found to install Windows is from a USB drive instead of the original DVD. The Microsoft website has a utility for creating a bootable USB drive from a Windows installation disc. You'll need a 8GB thumb drive or larger for the disc image.

Once you've got your system set up and stable with the latest updates, make a backup image. I like to use a program like EaseUS Disk Copy to clone my OS drive. It makes reinstalling everything go much faster. Install Windows and any drivers for the motherboard, and then update Windows until you've got it up to date. At this point, make a backup with just Windows and no third party apps. Once you've backed it up, start installing the extra hardware and drivers. Try doing just one thing at a time and run it for a while in that configuration. If it's stable, then add the next thing and so on until you've got it fully configured. Take your time and be patient and you should have no problems.

One huge caveat is that you should install an anti-virus program since it will connect to the internet, but be careful about which one you install. Some AV programs, like Kaspersky, will wreak havoc with WMC and have you tearing your hair out. Microsoft Security Essentials is free and totally non-intrusive with WMC. Also, set up Windows Update so that they'll download automatically but allow you to pick and choose which ones to install. There are at least one or two that have been known to cause issues and should be avoided. I'm not entirely sure, but last time I checked they no longer appear in the list of updates when setting up a fresh install of Windows 7.

I've no experience using WMC with Windows 8 so you're on your own there.


----------



## slowbiscuit

mr.unnatural said:


> I'm not sure what you mean by "The Daily Show" problem except that I do see multiple episodes appear in my upcoming recording list that are clearly reruns. They usually just have generic descriptions of the show so WMC sees them as new shows with no original air date shown and schedules them to record. That's a guide data issue and not WMC's fault. I routinely go through the list on a daily basis and weed out any extraneous recordings such as this.


This is the problem and it's one that is easily worked around on Tivo (with WLs) but not WMC. Of course it's a guide data issue but this isn't the only one where Tivo's way of handling it is better. The 28-day rule helps to avoid a lot of falsely marked repeats too.


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## Xab

mr.unnatural said:


> Obviously, everyone's experience will differ since hardware is never 100% reliable, regardless of what platform you're using. I don't think I've ever claimed that my HTPC is more reliable than a Tivo but rather just as reliable. It records every show I ask it to without skipping a beat. If a show gets missed, which is rare, there is usually a logical explanation for it.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean by "The Daily Show" problem except that I do see multiple episodes appear in my upcoming recording list that are clearly reruns. They usually just have generic descriptions of the show so WMC sees them as new shows with no original air date shown and schedules them to record. That's a guide data issue and not WMC's fault. I routinely go through the list on a daily basis and weed out any extraneous recordings such as this.
> 
> I've had the same issue in the past and found the best way to fix it was to rerun the TV signal setup. I'd always check for new driver and firmware updates before doing it because you'd have to rerun the setup after updating them anyway. Make sure you go into the Ceton Diagnostic program and release the tuners and then have the app rediscover them prior to rerunning the TV signal setup. I still get the error on occasion if my HDHomeRun Prime tuners are configured as the first tuners to use in the channel setup options. If I configure each channel I record to use the Ceton tuners first then I don't get the error. Both of my InfiniTV4's have been completely trouble-free from day one.
> 
> The best advice I can give anyone that has issues with WMC is to reinstall Windows from scratch. Most of the time, trying to fix issues after they've surfaced is like trying to use a band-aid on a gaping wound. A fresh install does wonders for fixing problems. Make sure you've got the latest drivers installed for any hardware before setting up WMC. Keep the installation as simple as possible and avoid using a lot of extra apps that you don't need. The best way I've found to install Windows is from a USB drive instead of the original DVD. The Microsoft website has a utility for creating a bootable USB drive from a Windows installation disc. You'll need a 8GB thumb drive or larger for the disc image.


Oh if only the fix were that simple. I reinstalled at least 6 times. I even tried Win8 thinking maybe they "secretly" ironed out some bugs unannounced. These problems persisted. Ceton was also rather befuddled; they always claimed diagnostics were good and my card had no issues.

Oddly, TiVo has never told me tuners were unavailable to satisfy my requests, even using the same Cablecard that others insisted must have been defective


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## Bigg

mr.unnatural said:


> Please stop making excuses for your inability to fix your HTPC. You keep blaming perfectly good software when the blame clearly rests elsewhere. I'm certainly no saint, but at least I've had the patience to resolve any issues I've ever had with my HTPCs. The thing is, most of them turned out to be hardware problems and had nothing to do with Windows or Media Center. I'd wager you're in the same boat, but rather than approach it from that angle you'd rather blame the software and give up. BTW, your gripe about the RecordedTV list has to be the lamest excuse ever for not wanting to use WMC. You are clearly a minority of one in this regard.
> 
> I've tried to guide you to helpful resources that will get you on the right track but, rather than use them to fix your HTPC, you continue to point fingers at WMC for your problems. The fact that you don't have the patience to stick it out and get your HTPC working just tells me that you're in over your head and don't want to admit it. Your tinkering skills are useless if you don't put them to good use. It's easy to blame something else for your own failings.


Popping up error messages that aren't descriptive at all isn't a good way to start out. On a brand new install. It went downhill from there. There is just too much wrong with MCE...


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## mr.unnatural

Xab said:


> Oh if only the fix were that simple. I reinstalled at least 6 times. I even tried Win8 thinking maybe they "secretly" ironed out some bugs unannounced. These problems persisted. Ceton was also rather befuddled; they always claimed diagnostics were good and my card had no issues.
> 
> Oddly, TiVo has never told me tuners were unavailable to satisfy my requests, even using the same Cablecard that others insisted must have been defective


Had you ever considered you were using defective hardware? Reinstalling Windows that many times and getting these kinds of errors would definitely lead me to that conclusion. There's absolutely no reason why Windows would not work correctly after one install unless you had some hardware issues. Like I said before, any issues I've had with Windows or MCE always pointed to the hardware.



Bigg said:


> Popping up error messages that aren't descriptive at all isn't a good way to start out. On a brand new install. It went downhill from there. There is just too much wrong with MCE...


See the response above.

The kinds of errors you're both talking about would have me suspect that there are issues with the hardware you're using. Did either of you run MemTest or any other diagnostic? How much hardware troubleshooting did you do? If you only blamed Windows or MCE then you're barking up the wrong tree. A good diagnostician explores all possibilities before giving up and blaming a single source that is likely not the problem.


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## Bigg

mr.unnatural said:


> See the response above.
> 
> The kinds of errors you're both talking about would have me suspect that there are issues with the hardware you're using. Did either of you run MemTest or any other diagnostic? How much hardware troubleshooting did you do? If you only blamed Windows or MCE then you're barking up the wrong tree. A good diagnostician explores all possibilities before giving up and blaming a single source that is likely not the problem.


And that's why MCE has issues with the tuners? I don't think so. MCE is a bug-ridden experiment. It's a cool toy, but it's definitely not ready for prime time. Nothing else on the machine has any issues, so I wonder what could be at fault? MCE? MCE? or MCE?


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## slowbiscuit

Well, for my wife it works great so I can say that for her it's ready for prime time. And she's using it on Xbox and Linksys extenders.


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## moedaman

Bigg said:


> so I wonder what could be at fault? MCE? MCE? or MCE?


Probably the guy setting WMC up. 

I've been using WMC since 2007 (WMCE 2005) and have never had the issues you claim to have. As a matter of fact, I'm still using the Haupagge usb tuner I bought in Jan 2007 in my current W7 rig (with a HDHR3), and it works great. I can and do totally depend upon it to do the job right.


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## Bigg

moedaman said:


> Probably the guy setting WMC up.
> 
> I've been using WMC since 2007 (WMCE 2005) and have never had the issues you claim to have. As a matter of fact, I'm still using the Haupagge usb tuner I bought in Jan 2007 in my current W7 rig (with a HDHR3), and it works great. I can and do totally depend upon it to do the job right.


Are you using CableCard?


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## mr.unnatural

Bigg said:


> And that's why MCE has issues with the tuners? I don't think so. MCE is a bug-ridden experiment. It's a cool toy, but it's definitely not ready for prime time. Nothing else on the machine has any issues, so I wonder what could be at fault? MCE? MCE? or MCE?


You seem to be completely overlooking the obvious. MCE is extremely stable if the hardware is too. You keep pointing the finger at the wrong source. Your problem isn't with MCE but the platform it's running on. How can you possibly expect MCE to perform the way it's designed if the hardware isn't functioning properly?

What hardware are you using (i.e., motherboard, CPU, memory, etc.)? What additional software are you installing? Are you using the latest drivers? Have you updated the firmware on and device that requires it? I expect answers to these questions instead of more finger pointing so we can get to the bottom of this. I really would like to help you getting a working HTPC, but you seem to be hellbent on trashing MCE rather than fixing the problem.



moedaman said:


> Probably the guy setting WMC up.


This, definitely. FYI, I have two InfiniTV4 cablecard tuners (one original and one 2nd generation, both with the latest firmware and drivers), a HDHomeRun Prime cablecard tuner (with latest firmware), a HDHomeRun Dual ATSC tuner and two Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 dual ATSC tuners configured with my HTPC and it performs flawlessly. I didn't have to install Windows 7 multiple times or tweak it to the extreme to get it working. I installed Win7 x64, all motherboard drivers, most Windows updates, and then started adding the tuners and associated drivers as well as any add-on software. Worked perfectly from the start and has been working great for over six months.

My add-ons include the Shark007 codecs, XBMC (Eden release w/HD audio), and ShowAnalyzer with the DVRMSToolBox and DTB add-in for commercial skipping. I may have one or two other apps thrown in, but that's the basic setup.

You never elaborated whether you were using the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows 7. If you're using the 32-bit version then I would strongly suggest switching to 64-bit. Make sure you have all of the latest 64-bit drivers for any hardware, including the motherboard and chipset, ethernet, graphics, etc. Also, make sure you have the latest firmware and drivers for your InfiniTV4. Using outdated firmware and drivers for this tuner could be part of your problem. Early versions were buggy for some people, but they're extremely stable and mature now.


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## Bigg

mr.unnatural said:


> You seem to be completely overlooking the obvious. MCE is extremely stable if the hardware is too. You keep pointing the finger at the wrong source. Your problem isn't with MCE but the platform it's running on. How can you possibly expect MCE to perform the way it's designed if the hardware isn't functioning properly?
> 
> What hardware are you using (i.e., motherboard, CPU, memory, etc.)? What additional software are you installing? Are you using the latest drivers? Have you updated the firmware on and device that requires it? I expect answers to these questions instead of more finger pointing so we can get to the bottom of this. I really would like to help you getting a working HTPC, but you seem to be hellbent on trashing MCE rather than fixing the problem.


Yes, my hardware is bad. That's why NOTHING else on the machine has issues.  My HTPC works just fine. I use it to stream stuff online, play back MKV files, run bittorrent, run [email protected], etc, etc. MCE is the only thing that's borked.


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## mr.unnatural

Bigg said:


> Yes, my hardware is bad. That's why NOTHING else on the machine has issues.  My HTPC works just fine. I use it to stream stuff online, play back MKV files, run bittorrent, run [email protected], etc, etc. MCE is the only thing that's borked.


As usual, you're finger pointing and completely avoiding the questions. You still haven't indicated what hardware and version of Windows you're using, which has a direct bearing on your situation. Instead of giving us useful information so we can provide proper assistance, you'd rather keep whining. If WMC is borked as you say then you definitely have issues elsewhere, but apparently you're just too thickheaded to understand that.

There's nothing wrong with WMC, regardless of your feelings about it. Thousands of others use it with no problems whatsoever, so the question is, what's your problem? WMC doesn't cause your system to reboot without a reason. Same goes for all the other symptoms you described. A properly configured and working system will function without a hitch when using WMC. I've proven that to be true dozens of times. You gave up after one failed attempt and declared WMC to be a POS because you couldn't get it to work. Dude, that is beyond lame.

BTW, it's actually referred to as Windows Media Center, or WMC, and not MCE. MCE, or Media Center Edition, was a version of Windows XP 2005 that first included Media Center and was only available with specially configured turnkey PCs. If you're going to ***** about it, at least get the terminology correct.


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## humm

I have also had excellent results with MCE and Ceton tuners. I have two computers, both running win7 x64, one with the internal infinitv and the other with the usb infinitv. In many ways these two boxes are just as good as my tivo. I use XBMC too in order to access stored media on a local server. 

Having MCE/Ceton boxes with Tivo gives me the best of both worlds. I built both computers from scratch and installed fresh copies of windows and XBMC with little else on them. I strongly recommend a SSD for your win7 install - its much faster and user-friendly than when you use a spinner.


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## mr.unnatural

Ran across something interesting at TGB earlier today. Apparently there are third party epg providers that provide much better guide data than the free stuff we HTPC users get from Microsoft. I don't know that much about it yet, but I'm looking into it. Anyway, here are a couple of links to check out if you don't like your current guide data and want something more complete for use with WMC:

http://bigscreenglobal.com/bgproduct.aspx?PID=BSEV1

http://www.schedulesdirect.org/aboutus


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## Richard Cranium

Xab said:


> Dumping that pile of crap and moving to TiVo was like giving a glass of ice water to someone in Hell.


Leaving TiVo and getting a pair of Genies was like GETTING a beer in hell!!


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## Richard Cranium

Bigg said:


> MCE is a bug-ridden experiment.


LOL!!! What is the Premire?


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## slowbiscuit

Stop trolling everywhere man. We get it, you don't like Tivo. Move on to another forum.


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## Bigg

mr.unnatural said:


> As usual, you're finger pointing and completely avoiding the questions. You still haven't indicated what hardware and version of Windows you're using, which has a direct bearing on your situation. Instead of giving us useful information so we can provide proper assistance, you'd rather keep whining. If WMC is borked as you say then you definitely have issues elsewhere, but apparently you're just too thickheaded to understand that.
> 
> There's nothing wrong with WMC, regardless of your feelings about it. Thousands of others use it with no problems whatsoever, so the question is, what's your problem? WMC doesn't cause your system to reboot without a reason. Same goes for all the other symptoms you described. A properly configured and working system will function without a hitch when using WMC. I've proven that to be true dozens of times. You gave up after one failed attempt and declared WMC to be a POS because you couldn't get it to work. Dude, that is beyond lame.
> 
> BTW, it's actually referred to as Windows Media Center, or WMC, and not MCE. MCE, or Media Center Edition, was a version of Windows XP 2005 that first included Media Center and was only available with specially configured turnkey PCs. If you're going to ***** about it, at least get the terminology correct.


It just has random reliability issues. Not something I'm going to put up with. It's an unfinished/unstable product that's never going to be finished. Lesson learned on that one.


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## mr.unnatural

Bigg said:


> It just has random reliability issues. Not something I'm going to put up with. It's an unfinished/unstable product that's never going to be finished. Lesson learned on that one.


You haven't learned anything other than it's easier to give up than fix the real issues. Apparently you're one of those people that have an extremely low frustration level and zero patience. If you had anywhere near the skills you claim then there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to have a perfectly functioning HTPC. If that should ever happen, then you'd be singing a different tune about WMC (I won't be holding my breath in anticipation).

The reliability issues aren't with WMC, as evidenced by the vast number of people that use it on a daily basis. If it were as bad as you say, then how come there are numerous vendors selling turnkey WMC setups that they also have to support after the sale? By your reckoning they'd have to spend every spare moment troubleshooting the HTPCs they sell because WMC simply sucks so bad. Trust me, they wouldn't be in business long if WMC was anywhere near as unstable as you claim.

You have yet to disclose any information about your HTPC other than you tried to install a Ceton InfiniTV4. You seem to be purposely avoiding every question that's been put to you, which leads me to believe you're just simply full of it and would rather complain than actually deal with the problem.

I'm amazed that you decided to go with a Tivo vs. a cableco DVR because when the Tivo screws up, it's something you'll have to deal with on your own. At least with the cableco DVR you can have someone fix it for you since that's clearly what you would prefer. God forbid you should ever have to deal with it yourself. 

I've got decent computer skills, but I'm no master geek by any means. Yet, apparently I must be smarter than you because I have built numerous HTPCs that function with absolutely no issues. 

You can continue to blame WMC for your problems if that's what you need to get you through the day. We know better.


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## Bigg

mr.unnatural said:


> You haven't learned anything other than it's easier to give up than fix the real issues. Apparently you're one of those people that have an extremely low frustration level and zero patience. If you had anywhere near the skills you claim then there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to have a perfectly functioning HTPC. If that should ever happen, then you'd be singing a different tune about WMC (I won't be holding my breath in anticipation).
> 
> The reliability issues aren't with WMC, as evidenced by the vast number of people that use it on a daily basis. If it were as bad as you say, then how come there are numerous vendors selling turnkey WMC setups that they also have to support after the sale? By your reckoning they'd have to spend every spare moment troubleshooting the HTPCs they sell because WMC simply sucks so bad. Trust me, they wouldn't be in business long if WMC was anywhere near as unstable as you claim.
> 
> You have yet to disclose any information about your HTPC other than you tried to install a Ceton InfiniTV4. You seem to be purposely avoiding every question that's been put to you, which leads me to believe you're just simply full of it and would rather complain than actually deal with the problem.
> 
> I'm amazed that you decided to go with a Tivo vs. a cableco DVR because when the Tivo screws up, it's something you'll have to deal with on your own. At least with the cableco DVR you can have someone fix it for you since that's clearly what you would prefer. God forbid you should ever have to deal with it yourself.
> 
> I've got decent computer skills, but I'm no master geek by any means. Yet, apparently I must be smarter than you because I have built numerous HTPCs that function with absolutely no issues.
> 
> You can continue to blame WMC for your problems if that's what you need to get you through the day. We know better.


I actually have a lot of patience, so you can stop making up ridiculous and sarcastic attacks against me now.

I don't feel like detailing every little bit of everything, I've been through that already, and at this point, I probably wouldn't remember it that well anyways. I don't mind reasonable troubleshooting but intermittent issues that crop up again and again over a period of time on top of an already flaws product don't interest me for something that needs to WORK.


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## slowbiscuit

Bigg said:


> It just has random reliability issues. Not something I'm going to put up with. It's an unfinished/unstable product that's never going to be finished. Lesson learned on that one.


For you, but not for a lot of other people. Please stop posting as if your experience is the truth for all, because it's not.


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## trip1eX

MY wife likes WMC. But I can't say it is extremely stable. There are lots of quirks associated with it in my experience. I think some people forget how much time they put into their machines and forget their level of geekiness. 

My wife wouldn't like WMC so much if I wasn't around. 

I think both sides are exaggerating their points. The truth is somewhere in the middle.


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## trip1eX

SullyND said:


> If they were interested, you'd think they'd have held onto the STB business from Motorola rather than selling it off to Arris.


I said the DVR software business not hardware.


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## slowbiscuit

All I can say is that it's just as stable as the Tivo for my wife even on extenders (one of them a wireless Xbox!) and that's saying something. A lot of the issues with WMC have been with tuners IMO, and as I said before the last few firmware releases for the HD Homerun Prime have been rock-solid.


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## mr.unnatural

trip1eX said:


> MY wife likes WMC. But I can't say it is extremely stable. There are lots of quirks associated with it in my experience. I think some people forget how much time they put into their machines and forget their level of geekiness.
> 
> My wife wouldn't like WMC so much if I wasn't around.
> 
> I think both sides are exaggerating their points. The truth is somewhere in the middle.


Actually, the truth is in the level of stability you're able to get out of your HTPC. That's mostly going to depend on the combination of hardware and software you choose for your configuration. With the wide range of options available, it's near impossible to account for every variation and interaction between components. I've had some HTPCs that were absolute nightmares, but the problem was always hardware related. Once I replaced the offending component the problems vanished altogether.

PCs by their very nature can be quirky beasts. Windows 7 has been the most stable release from Microsoft by far, although I haven't played much with Windows 8 yet so I have no opinion about it either way at this point in time. Just about every HTPC I've built has been based on recommended hardware posted in various forums specific to HTPCs. That's not as crucial these days with the current crop of motherboards, CPUs, and graphics cards as they are much more HTPC-friendly than they used to be. In fact, many components are designed with WMC in mind and are less likely to cause conflicts or other issues when used for this purpose.

I honestly can't recall any specific quirks associated with WMC in any HTPC I've built because it just seems to work. Then again, I suppose it all depends on your level of expectation and what you want it to do. I just want a DVR that records what I want, when I want, with no missed recordings. WMC does that extremely well. If anything, it does this better than Tivo in some regards.

Just last week I recorded the season premiere of The Killing on AMC and I found that it got recorded three times. When I checked the first two recordings I discovered that there was a loss of signal part way through the broadcast and the recording terminated early as a result. WMC automatically detected the error and rescheduled the recording for the next airing of the show. The same thing happened with the 2nd broadcast so WMC recorded the subsequent show when it aired. The bottom line is that I never miss a recording if the signal drops out unless it only airs once during the week. With Tivo, you're SOL unless you manually reschedule the recording and override the 28-day rule.

I also want a front end that allows me to interface with other aspects of home theater, such as Blu-Ray and DVD playback. I mostly use XBMC for this, but it integrates nicely with WMC so I can access it from the WMC menus without having to exit WMC and run it from my desktop.

In the early days, I put a lot of time into my HTPCs because things weren't anywhere near as stable as they are today. You also had to install a lot of third party apps and utilities to get the same level of performance and utility. You also had to do a lot of tweaking to get things right. These days, it's no more difficult to set up WMC than it is to install Windows. Any novice with basic PC skills should be able to do it quite easily. It really doesn't require a lot of time or constant maintenance. I literally set it and forget it. My HTPCs are as stable as any Tivo I've ever owned. They just plain work. Obviously, YMMV.

FWIW, my wife hates anything that's technical or something she's not used to using. I tried to get her to use WMC extenders for watching TV, but my main MTPC was having issues at the time. Needless to say, the experience was not a pleasant one and she revolted at the thought of using extenders. I learned my lesson there and now only provide her with an interface that's stable and user-friendly. She used my 2nd S3 Tivo for quite a while and had no problems with it. I eventually swapped out the Tivo for a standalone HTPC with WMC. She basically just used either device for watching live TV so she just needed to know how to access the program guide and change channels. If the power goes out then there's a problem since my router is actually a standalone PC that uses pfSense for the router app. When the router dies, so does TV access since I use a HDHomeRun Prime networked tuner to feed the HTPC. Other than that, she's had no issues using the HTPC in place of the Tivo. I wouldn't dream of giving her something to use that wasn't stable as she tends to make my life a living hell when things don't go her way. I can't think of a better testament to stability in WMC than that.


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## tootal2

ceton is not going to make a 6 tuner dvr. but they did just release a 6 tuner cable card adaptor


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## tootal2

I use ceton on my gaming pc. I play black ops 2 at 1080p at 170 frames per second while recording 6 shows and watching a show on my ceton echo all at the same time.



trip1eX said:


> MY wife likes WMC. But I can't say it is extremely stable. There are lots of quirks associated with it in my experience. I think some people forget how much time they put into their machines and forget their level of geekiness.
> 
> My wife wouldn't like WMC so much if I wasn't around.
> 
> I think both sides are exaggerating their points. The truth is somewhere in the middle.


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## innocentfreak

Wow this is still going?


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## trip1eX

mr.unnatural said:


> Actually, the truth is in the level of stability you're able to get out of your HTPC. That's mostly going to depend on the combination of hardware and software you choose for your configuration. With the wide range of options available, it's near impossible to account for every variation and interaction between components. I've had some HTPCs that were absolute nightmares, but the problem was always hardware related. Once I replaced the offending component the problems vanished altogether.


You're preaching to the choir except for the maybe the part about problems always being hardware related, but even then it doesn't add up to "extremely stable" in my world which is where you eventually worked yourself up to somewhere earlier in this thread.



mr.unnatural said:


> PCs by their very nature can be quirky beasts. Windows 7 has been the most stable release from Microsoft by far, although I haven't played much with Windows 8 yet so I have no opinion about it either way at this point in time. Just about every HTPC I've built has been based on recommended hardware posted in various forums specific to HTPCs. That's not as crucial these days with the current crop of motherboards, CPUs, and graphics cards as they are much more HTPC-friendly than they used to be. In fact, many components are designed with WMC in mind and are less likely to cause conflicts or other issues when used for this purpose.


I don't think anything is designed with WMC in mind.  WMC is not even a drop in the bucket of Windows market share. Not that whether or not this is true to any degree means anything. I do think when you admit to having to search forums etc for troubleshooting purposes, it's just another indicator of the work one needs to put into WMC.



mr.unnatural said:


> I honestly can't recall any specific quirks associated with WMC in any HTPC I've built because it just seems to work. Then again, I suppose it all depends on your level of expectation and what you want it to do. I just want a DVR that records what I want, when I want, with no missed recordings. WMC does that extremely well. If anything, it does this better than Tivo in some regards.


No quirks? Did you say that with a straight face? I mean a quirk could even be an annoying way of handling things at least in my world. I mean how about the way it handles the stopping of recordings of shows and the deleting of shows?

When you stop a recording, it asks you to confirm and the default answer is no.
When you delete a recording, it asks you to confirm and the default answer is yes.

It seems backwards to me. I can easily restart a recording if I make a mistake. But deleting a show? I can't recover from that. That to me is a bit of a quirk.

which leads to the fact that WMC doesn't put your deleted shows in a recycle bin or anything.



mr.unnatural said:


> Just last week I recorded the season premiere of The Killing on AMC and I found that it got recorded three times. When I checked the first two recordings I discovered that there was a loss of signal part way through the broadcast and the recording terminated early as a result. WMC automatically detected the error and rescheduled the recording for the next airing of the show. The same thing happened with the 2nd broadcast so WMC recorded the subsequent show when it aired. The bottom line is that I never miss a recording if the signal drops out unless it only airs once during the week. With Tivo, you're SOL unless you manually reschedule the recording and override the 28-day rule.


Yes WMC does that nicely although sometimes annoyingly. It will record a movie again if I delete the movie because I decided I was never going to watch it unless I play the movie for at least one second.

Also I think in commending WMC you also outlined one of its "quirks." It has a consistent (although not worse than occasional) habit of missing recordings. It just missed a French Open recording 5 days ago for me.



mr.unnatural said:


> In the early days, I put a lot of time into my HTPCs because things weren't anywhere near as stable as they are today. You also had to install a lot of third party apps and utilities to get the same level of performance and utility. You also had to do a lot of tweaking to get things right. These days, it's no more difficult to set up WMC than it is to install Windows. Any novice with basic PC skills should be able to do it quite easily. It really doesn't require a lot of time or constant maintenance. I literally set it and forget it. My HTPCs are as stable as any Tivo I've ever owned. They just plain work. Obviously, YMMV.


You outline all the hours you've put into WMC over the years and then say oh but it is easy today. No maintenance. Well my experience says the hours of troubleshooting over the years is what makes using WMC as easy it is for you today.  Not that I don't agree things are better than they were.



mr.unnatural said:


> FWIW, my wife hates anything that's technical or something she's not used to using. I tried to get her to use WMC extenders for watching TV, but my main MTPC was having issues at the time. Needless to say, the experience was not a pleasant one and she revolted at the thought of using extenders. I learned my lesson there and now only provide her with an interface that's stable and user-friendly. She used my 2nd S3 Tivo for quite a while and had no problems with it. I eventually swapped out the Tivo for a standalone HTPC with WMC. She basically just used either device for watching live TV so she just needed to know how to access the program guide and change channels. If the power goes out then there's a problem since my router is actually a standalone PC that uses pfSense for the router app. When the router dies, so does TV access since I use a HDHomeRun Prime networked tuner to feed the HTPC. Other than that, she's had no issues using the HTPC in place of the Tivo. I wouldn't dream of giving her something to use that wasn't stable as she tends to make my life a living hell when things don't go her way. I can't think of a better testament to stability in WMC than that.


Yes my wife loves WMC too. But she wouldn't love it that much if I wasn't around. And I didn't and don't mean leaving the house for a few days or anything. I mean if I literally wasn't around like for a long period of time because WMC is bound to do something that would be a show stopper for my wife.

The truth is in the middle. I don't think WMC is horrible and doesn't work at all and needs constant tending to to as in everyday or anything. But it certainly isn't a turnkey solution and I think that's what many associate with stability and ease of use etc. Most that like WMC have put quite a bit of time into it over the years. As you said you were there in the earlier years and put lots of time into it. I think its easy to forget that. Its easy to forget that is part of what makes it easier for some to use today.


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## trip1eX

tootal2 said:


> I use ceton on my gaming pc. I play black ops 2 at 1080p at 170 frames per second while recording 6 shows and watching a show on my ceton echo all at the same time.


As I said, both sides exaggerate their points. Or in your case maybe it is more about missing the point or lack of relevance or preaching to the choir.


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## mr.unnatural

I don't know what else to say except that I stand by what I've already stated. WMC has been extremely stable for me. Whatever "quirks" you perceive in WMC are just that, your perception of what something should be. The software designer obviously looked at it from another perspective. There will never be 100% concensus on something like that.

The amount of time I put into building HTPCs was mostly due to issues with earlier hardware and software combinations that could either work right out of the box or have you tearing your hair out. Current hardware is far less problematic with WMC. I can put together a complete HTPC in less than a day without any extraneous tweaking. Most of that time is spent just downloading and installing the multitude of Windows updates until the OS is current.

I stated that most issues with Windows or WMC are mostly hardware related. I should expand on that a bit to include software drivers for said hardware. If the drivers are crap it's going to cause WMC or Windows to behave erratically when that hardware comes into play. I would have thought that to be considered common sense.

Considering that the current cablecard tuners from Ceton and SiliconDust will only work with WMC with regards to the recording of flagged content, I can say with a high level of confidence that there are indeed products designed specifically for WMC. 

Yes, when you delete a show in WMC it's gone forever. The same used to be true for Tivos unless you knew how to hack it to recover deleted shows. The bottom line is not to delete it unless you're sure you want it gone. I only had to do this one time to learn not to delete a show until I really wanted it deleted.

WMC rarely misses recordings for me so I really don't know what you're talking about here. I can't recall the last time I recorded a movie so I can't say I've ever experienced the duplicated recording of the same movie in the manner you described. Missed recordings can usually be attributed to either incorrect guide data or issues with the signal from your provider.

I'd have to agree that my wife wouldn't like WMC if I weren't around. The first time there was a glitch she'd panic and get pissed at me. Surprisingly, the guide data recently ran out in WMC and she never even mentioned it. This is a known issue with Verizon as they recently changed the names of many of their local providers in the guide data listings so when WMC went to download guide data the original provider name was no longer listed, hence no guide data. This was easily remedied by rerunning the TV signal setup and picking the new provider name from the list.

I've always promoted that HTPCs are generally for hobbyists and enthusiasts and not necessarily for the average user. Like any PC, they may require a bit of TLC from time to time to keep them humming along smoothly. Windows 7 and WMC have gotten to where any sustaining maintenance is kept to a bare minimum.


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