Windows Vista Media Center

[Guest]

It would be a understatement to say that I am disappointed with the services
provided for Media Center. I have a dual core box dedicated to Media Center
with a Hauppauge TV card wish is adequate but provides no HD tv in fact, it
is unclear to me at least where to find a reliable HD tuner! What I find
really amazing is that lack of action on the part of the industry on this
segment. When I search the web for information I find that most of the
information is two years old!!

So what did I missed? Why so little interest? I also have an XBOX which I
am using as an extender but even this seems to be somewhat unreliable.
Originally I had Vista Ultimate 64 bit edition and to my surprise there were
not internet provider for major movies. I down graded to Ultimate 32 bit and
media center now had Movie link and Vongo. BTW Vongo suck with Vista it runs
much better on a xp box.

Can someone shed some light!?

1 – looking for a HD solution for my Vista box. Is there anything worthwhile
out there?
2 – The Xbox as an extender is a rather expensive solution but as far as I
can see is the only solution out there do you guys know of anything thing
else? ( remember I am talking Vista)
3 - Is Media Center a waste of time? Is there some better solutions out
there?

Regards,
Angel

 

[Birk Binnard]

The lack of HD support in Media Center and PC's in general is not a new
issue. HD signals come to you from 3 sources:

1. Over the air (OTA) broadcast
2. Satellite providers
3. Cable providers

To do anything with #2 or 3 you have to have a device that supports a
decoder card because the signals are encrypted. To work with HD
obviously the device into which you put the decoder card has to have HD
capability. I am not aware of any such devices currently on the market,
but there might be an HD DVR out there that has such a decoder card slot
in it. A device like that would at least let you get the HD programs
onto the DVR's hard drive.

My area cannot receive OTA signals so I know little about those. In
theory you could connect an antenna to an HD capable DVR and get the
programs you want on the DVR's hard drive.

Once you got the programs on the DVR there could be, depending on the
DVR's connectivity options, a way to get the DVR files directly onto
your PC.

I have a Motorola HD DVR that drives my HD TV from my Cox Communications
cable. The DVR has an Ethernet port in it, but the cable box software
does not support it (or maybe it does but Cox disables it.) My sense is
the broadcast, satellite, and cable companies don't like the idea of
people putting their content on PC's.

Apple has had a couple of ads on TV for their Apple TV box which looks
like it can get a TV signal directly onto a PC (or MAC), but it wasn't
clear to me if it supported HD. It also wasn't clear when this box would
be available.