Re: MS Vista with service pack 1

On Sun, 14 Sep 2008 04:52:38 -0500, "Glenn" <minorgo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

"El Castor" <No_One@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:dgfpc4tm00nj9pq5gi3so2i3qh0l5coe5f@xxxxxxxxxx
On Sat, 13 Sep 2008 18:33:01 -0500, "Glenn" <minorgo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

"jim" <jim10293@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:atfoc4phg8a27969f6dupl0d7uv86kilcq@xxxxxxxxxx
[Default] On Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:04:43 -0500, Marks Avana
<marksavana@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



Glenn wrote:
Having completed the migration back to Windows from Mac, I should
mention that it wasn't very difficult. (TRS 80, IBM DOS, OS/2,
Windows
95, Mac OSX, and now Vista. One would have to be pretty green to
start
before sp1.) I've, for now, replaced HOMM 3 with the Doom collector's
edition. TV is fine, but cable isn't cooperating (e.g., cable's
digital
channel 94.6 is really broadcast signal 106) so I have to live with
analog channels, about 80 for now. With all this memory, I'm
recording
everything that I used to sleep through as recording to memory is much
simpler than using a VCR. When they get the bugs out of blu-ray video
formatting, I won't have any complaints. Performance is good, Norton
isn't, Media center is good, global find (use start search as a
command
line) isn't, etc, but nobody asked me.

You are recording TV programing on your Vista computer?

Daughter records lots of TCM movies and such using Media Center in Win
98. Works like a champ for her.

The TV card has three coax inputs, analog tv, digital tv and fm radio. My
cable company only supports analog without paying more. I hooked up the
two
tv inputs to two inputs from a two way splitter of the cable signal and
discovered the digital signals were available, but not supported. Since
blu-ray video recording currently requires software at about one hundred
dollars, I can wait for cable and a cheap program. I suspect by sometime
next winter I'll have what I want. For now I'll record to memory and copy
in blu-ray format to standard dvds, these play on my blu-ray player
attached
to my 40 inch lcd sony. These discs are 120 minutes at the best
resolution,
but that's enough for now.

Glenn, I also use Media Center to record an occasional Comcast TV
program, but like you I'm stuck with analog. My problem, and very
likely yours, is that:

1. I'm using a Hauppauge HVR1600 TV card. To receive unencrypted
digital cable signals you need a QAM tuner, which Hauppauge claims the
card has. Unfortunately, it only receives a tiny fraction of the
unencrypted digital on the cable. I know because I have a Toshiba HDTV
on the same cable run that gets far more digital stations. Hauppauge
tech support is of no help.

My card, which is probably the same as yours, doesn't have controls for
tuning to dot channels (e.g., 103.3) which is how my cable sends mandated
digital channels. Whatever the outcome, it should be clearer after the
change to all digital. Are you aware of any luck with satilite? Cable will
rent me a box that converts to non dot channel numbers, but I can't afford
the energy bill (old, old sets).

If you've got a card like my Hauppauge HVR1600 with a QAM tuner, as
well as a cable with unencrypted digital (as opposed to analog), what
you have to do (using the Hauppauge WinTV software -- not Media
Center) is to connect the cable to the digital input on your card and
tell the card to scan for digital channels -- which can take a long
time. Whatever it finds will be added to the list of available
channels in WinTV, thereby getting around the necessity of being able
to manually tune to 103.1, 103.2, etc. Then you have to reconnect the
cable to the analog input, and let the NTSC tuner scan for analog
channels. If you have both analog and QAM channels, you will have to
use the WinTV (for a Hauppauge card) software because Media Center
can't deal with the digital stuff -- and you will also need to use a
splitter so that your cable is feeding both the analog and the digital
inputs on your card. If your cable provider is someone other than
Comcast, your chances of success are increased since I understand that
Comcast uses non-standard frequencies for it's clear QAM transmission.
Funny that my Toshiba tuner doesn't have a problem with Comcast, but
my Hauppauge apparently does. Grrrrr.


2. Secondly, Media Center doesn't support digital -- only analog. I
think the reason is that the studios don't want computers recording
HiDef.

Media center uses Cyberlink for blu-ray operations and Cyberlink wants to
sell an upgrade that may support streaming to blu-ray. As soon as the
independent software producers have the bugs out, we will have the ability
to stream three hour movies such as Alexander or an edited nine hour series
to disc. With today's support we can save only as data.

I'm out of my depth with Blu-Ray. Can't really comment on that, other
than to say that I find it hard to believe that Microsoft is ever
going to facilitate using Media Center to record HiDef content. That's
something that really has the studios bugged. At this point I don't
own a Blu-Ray player, but later this year or next, when they come down
in price, I'll probably get one. My favorite DVD player manufacturer
is Oppo, and I believe they're working on a player.


If you have other software you can receive over the air various
resolution digital signals, including HiDdef, but even if you had a
BluRay recorder, why would you want to write to a BluRay disk? The
blank media costs $10 - $15 a disk. Dual layer DVD's are about a
dollar and single layer DVDs are 25 cents.

Some recordings exceed the best quality capacity of the regular disks. Two,
the reason for blu-ray is to replace the dvd + - rw, whatever. I don't
expect to archive that many discs, but the ones I do should be the most
reliable and the longest lasting.
.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: MS Vista with service pack 1
    ... With all this memory, I'm recording ... Daughter records lots of TCM movies and such using Media Center in Win ... The TV card has three coax inputs, analog tv, digital tv and fm radio. ... discovered the digital signals were available, ...
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