# Mce



## d33mb33 (May 13, 2004)

Today I realised that I haven't switched on my TiVo since moving house last November... 

Instead I have been living with MCE on a Sony VGX-XL100 box in my living room. It's quite an exciting bit of kit with HD out of the box, MKV and WMV-HD playback, dual tuner (an upgrade) and music, extenders and HDMI all thrown in.

But.. crucially.. it doesn't have the WAF. And it's the small things that matter. Like we had a power cut when we were on holiday and it didn't turn back on (lots of missed recordings). FF/RW is rubbish, you either get snails pace or warp speed and it doesn't have the little jump back like TiVo. It's also subject to the vagaries of Windows/Vista with dodgy codec problems and a weird muting problem on HDMI output.

I've even done it properly.. I had the house rewired and now have ethernet in every room. I have an Xbox 360 and LCD in the bedroom and plan to get an extender in the kitchen.

I am a self confessed technophiliac (is that a word??) but I miss the simplicity and the ItJustWorks of TiVo.

I read the thread about the Nero/TiVo collaboration and got really excited.. but then remembered my investment in the Xbox 

Who, seriously, has been happy with anything after their TiVo?


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## Pugwash (May 23, 2003)

I have quite a lot of network attached storage to which I stick all my media, and dead cheap xbox (1) machines with XBMC running on them. There's three in the house. I have been deliriously happy with streamed radio, music and video for a couple of years now.
By comparison, my TiVo is in the living room and there it stays. It does a different job.


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## pauljs (Feb 11, 2001)

Recovery from Power failures can often be set up in the BIOS of PC's, if it allows that option.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

I agree, TiVo works out of the box and MCE requires a techie on site; I certainly wouldn't set it up in my mother's house, for example.

Re: FF, 4x FF is stupidly fast, but 3x is OK - myself I use 30-second skip mostly; a hangover for TiVo days!

As Paul says, you can configure the BIOS settings to turn the PC on automatically if the mains cycles.

I'm told that lack of auidio out on HDMI is quite common, especially if the soundtrack is AC3. Sometimes it insists on sending PCM stereo, and if that soundtrack doesn't exist sends nothing. Persobally, I've always used the separate digital audio out rather than the HDMI.


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## aitcheff (Mar 23, 2003)

d33mb33 said:


> Who, seriously, has been happy with anything after their TiVo?


I built myself a 4-tuner MCE box about a year ago and would not now go back to the 2 TIVO setup I used to run. (Not unless a new multi-tuner TIVO were to arrive in the UK).

Everything you say about the superior TIVO UI is true, but the benefits of a 4-tuner system versus managing several TIVOs vastly outweighs those benefits in my opinion. With my Xbox extender, I now have a system with virtually no scheduling clashes which can be used simultaneously on 2 TVs and I don't have to manually transfer recordings between TIVOs. Moreover I don't have to pay a £20 / month subscription (I know, I know - I should have bought a lifetime sub). Also, the picture quality is better than TIVO.

We've all learnt fairly quickly to use the jump forward 30 secs or back 7 secs buttons to get rapidly past the adverts, so the superior TIVO FF is not greatly missed.

It did take me a heck of a long time to get everything working, and I started on Vista but fell back to XP because of driver issues with Vista and the family much prefers the XP's list interface.

My only real niggle is that with 4 tuners - even with an amp, there are 2 channels (on the lower power Muxes) we watch which in certain climatic conditions become unreliable. However those channels always repeat programs several times so I can record them again usually within a couple of days. On my old TIVOs, I probably would not have had a free slot to record them in any case, so this is something I can live with. If it really was a show stopper, I'd bring a 2nd aerial input to the Media Centre.


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## AMc (Mar 22, 2002)

I'd like to see how MCE works. Is there a good walkthrough site with video ?


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

I really do find Vista MCE to be significantly superior to the TiVo Series 1 in many ways.

The ability to support multiple tuners.
The excellent handling of conflicts, when compared to operating multiple TiVos.
The ability to also handle music, photos and video.
To be able to transmit interference-free digital video to Xbox extenders.
The ability to allow viewing of independent programs or other media on different extenders.
The use of normal file storage allows extra drives to be easily added.
The ability to burn a recording to DVD within the interface, either as a video DVD, or as a data file.
The ability to develop and add plug-ins. I wrote one to display live train times at my local station, while also displaying TV, a recording, or the current music track in a window.
The ability to use the full real estate of my 1920x1080 Full-HD screen when displaying lists of recordings, etc.
The upscaling by the PC of SD broadcasts to 1920x1080, when connected to a Full-HD TV by HDMI.
Even from the interface aspect, I consider it much better than the TiVo.

The display of a still image from each recording within the menus.
The ability to group recordings within a separate folder for each series.
The display of programs that it won't record in the 'To Do' list, so that one can easily sort out the conflicts.
The fact that recordings and series are better linked, so that it is easy to switch back and forth into series settings.
MCE also maintains a 'breadcrumb trail' so that it is easy to jump to other parts of the menu and step back into the original screen.
While I'm sure that newer TiVos have a lot of these features, I doubt that they have the same flexibility.

The only issues that I really have with MCE is the accuracy of their guide data, which tends to record every showing of an episode for some series. But then, TiVo also has its own problems with the accuracy of the guide data.


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## Pugwash (May 23, 2003)

It was the series problem that put me off the old XP MCE. I'd tell it to pick up new episodes of Dr Who on BBC1 and keep on getting the same one again and again.


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## TonyW (Mar 26, 2001)

One of TiVo's big advantages over MCE was taking feeds from multiple sources - e.g. I have Sky and analogue feeding my TiVo. As I understand it, MCE could have multiple inputs but only from the same type of service - i.e. 2 analogue tuners, 2 freeview, 2 sky boxes etc.

Has this changed at all or is TiVo still ahead of the competition?


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

The series problem is erratic, but I had the exact same problem loads of times with TiVo. Extra recordings are less of an issue because with multiple tuners they won't block new recording, adding HD space is just a mater of plugging in a USB hard disk, and they don't even clutter up the interface because it's in folders. 

VMC in the US now supports multiple different tuner types, but not in the UK. In practice, I wouldn't really recommend using VMC with Sky, and I can't think of a reason for combining the other tuner types.


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## tivo525235 (Aug 21, 2004)

TCM2007 said:


> The series problem is erratic, but I had the exact same problem loads of times with TiVo. Extra recordings are less of an issue because with multiple tuners they won't block new recording, adding HD space is just a mater of plugging in a USB hard disk, and they don't even clutter up the interface because it's in folders.
> 
> VMC in the US now supports multiple different tuner types, but not in the UK. In practice, I wouldn't really recommend using VMC with Sky, and I can't think of a reason for combining the other tuner types.


There is at least one reason. Combining a DVB-S card with a DVB-T card. The end result is BBC HD combined with the FTA channels that Freeview has but Freesat lacks such as Dave.


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

TCM2007 said:


> The series problem is erratic, but I had the exact same problem loads of times with TiVo. Extra recordings are less of an issue because with multiple tuners they won't block new recording, adding HD space is just a mater of plugging in a USB hard disk, and they don't even clutter up the interface because it's in folders.


I agree. It's annoying, but no problem to live with. It's so easy and cheap to add another terabyte, and the folders make duplicates very easy to spot.

Yes, it would be nice to record from multiple sources, but I think the benefit (and, hopefully, the solution) will probably come with the next version of Vista MCE, that will be able to handle HD channels.

I assume the main issues with mixing sources will be if one tries to use multiple sources for the same channel, and that channel has different regional variations from alternate sources. The channels would probably have to be shown separately in the EPG.

One benefit that I forgot to add was that I was able to add a cheap LG combo HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drive to my PC so that, while I can't currently play HD discs from within the MCE interface, I can still use the same PC to watch HD.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

tivo525235 said:


> There is at least one reason. Combining a DVB-S card with a DVB-T card. The end result is BBC HD combined with the FTA channels that Freeview has but Freesat lacks such as Dave.


VMC doesn't support BBC HD.


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## TIVO_YORK99 (Feb 14, 2001)

BBCHD does work with a bit of fiddling (changing a .DLL). Doesn't work on the extenders unfortunately


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## Sneals2000 (Aug 25, 2002)

Yep - a lot of the Vista limitations have gone since Vista TV Pack was launched. Annoyingly it is OEM only...

However :

It supports mixed tuners - so you can have dual DVB-T and a DVB-S if you like, or DVB-T and analogue. Vista Home Premium is limited to 2 tuners of each type, Vista Ultimate to 4? (Analogue, DVB-T AND now DVB-S native - rather than spoofed - support is included for FTA services. DVB-C is still only possible with spoofed drivers pretending to be DVB-T. AIUI The FireDTV DVB-S tuner will also work with a CAM and allow for encrypted channels)

It supports Red Button on Freeview - and this is VERY quick, as well as supporting Teletext on analogue and the DVB-S (and in other countries DVB-T) stations that carry it.

It marries the OTA DVB-T EPG and the downloaded EPG - so you get broadcaster triggered recordings, but the richer metadata from the MS EPG.

It supports subtitles and multiple audios.

The DVD player is improved.

Out of the box it doesn't support Freesat Press Red (as Freesat now offer MHEG 5) nor does it support H264 HD or SD (as is used in Europe for HD and in some countries SD TV)

HOWEVER there is a registry hack to enable DVB-S Press Red, and a hacked version of a Fiji Beta DLL (the Fiji Beta DID support H264 but was timebombed) to allow H264 recording and replay (though the extenders don't yet cope) 

It is thus possible to watch BBC HD, ITV HD and Luxe HD as well as all the Freeview and DVB-S FTA channels in one set-up.

Downside is that it isn't as stable as the standard version... The DVB-S Press Red and H264 hacks seem to interact with each other, and I've had problems with ITV HD recordings.

However VMC is finally catching up as a usable product. I've got a home made HTPC (AMD 4850e with Gigabyte motherboard with integrated Radeon HD 3200 gfx) that quietly sits there playing HD-DVD, Blu-Ray and DVD (including integrated MyMovies jukebox replay of ISOs) as well as allowing me to record and timeshift Freeview and DVB-S SD and HD content, with HDMI video and audio output (including PCM2.0, AC3 5.1 and DTS 5.1 - though no HD audio codec support yet) or SPDIF audio (again PCM or AC3 or DTS). 

It will run at 50Hz, 60Hz and 24Hz refresh rates in 1080p.

I loved my Tivo - and VMC is still not quite as reliable. However the picture quality of a Tivo, even in Mode 0, just wasn't acceptable to me, and neither was the single tuner limitation.


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## Jo.Cassady (Jul 21, 2002)

I have tried alternatives and they drove me nuts. I then bought a special IR blaster for my Mac and tried that. Hated it

I even tried EyeTV for Mac which was okay, but nowhere near as good as the TiVo. 

Seriously, TiVo is stunning. I would love to see them release a new product in the UK. One supporting HD Freesat would be a killer!


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## martink0646 (Feb 8, 2005)

Sneals2000 said:


> (including integrated MyMovies jukebox replay of ISOs)


Hi Sneals,

Currrently I run xLobby on my HTPC which I am happy with for the quality of its GUI but also for the fact of its ability to play iso files. This is important to me because I have about 1,000 iso files ripped from my own DVD collection. I wish to explore using VMC (and have the Home Premium version) but have been put off by it's lack of iso support and lack the time or motivation to convert my files. I have heard noises in the past about MyMovies playing iso's but have never found a decent guide or tutorial to use. Could you point me in the right direction or maybe tell me how you did it?

The reason I want to use VMC is to use extenders as this looks like a great technology and will save having a PC in the lounge.

Thanks

Martin

(If this is too far off topic, maybe you could PM me)


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## poissony (Feb 20, 2002)

iankb said:


> [*]The ability to develop and add plug-ins. I wrote one to display live train times at my local station, while also displaying TV, a recording, or the current music track in a window.


Is this available to the masses?


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## fearby (Nov 26, 2003)

I am going mythbuntu soon as it seems more fun and can deliver more than the series 1 Tivo. If Tivo gave us the series 3 then that would be different...


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

poissony said:


> Is this available to the masses?


I never finished the maintenance screen, so it had to be configured by adding entries to the registry. Then NationalRail changed their Vista widget (written by Conchango) to use a WebService, and changed their HTML pages to be incompatible with my current code. Since I have been using an iPhone alternative, I haven't bothered to update it.

If I alter my current version that uses HTML-based data to work again, and you are happy to configure it via the registry, I can let you know. But I am unlikely to convert it to use the more-reliable WebService, or to complete the maintenance screen. Also, the plug-in uses MCML, and so would only work under Vista MCE (VMC), and on its extenders.

I've been waiting to see the next version of VMC before I commit much more time to plug-in development. _*For any developers out there*_, developing for VMC and its extenders is quite difficult at times, since MCML is purely a declaritive language, and you cannot write any procedural code to run on them. It's a bit like writing complex HTML without the benefit of Javascript or, a better equivalent, writing for .Net in XAML without any access to the UI from the code-behind. e.g Don't expect to find any input control for the capturing of textual input via triple-tap. Also, documentation and development support for MCML is/was fairly embryonic.


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