Well said Chris, but I will also say that I am more optomistic than you, but perhaps that will change if I end up covering the Media Center scene as long as you have.

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Ben
How good can it be, if it isn't HD?
Engadget HD

Hopefully things will start to change, but yeah after six year of using and covering Media Center I've built up a lot of knowledge about how things generally work and most of all the key rule, optimism generally turns into disappointment.

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Chris Lanier
The Green Button Forum Moderator

So no H264 support means no HD TV in Media Center in the UK and Europe ?

 

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Stu

aka C-Dub



The Windows Media Center Blog

Tips Tricks & News!

That 's right.
What Mediacenter really needs for Europe is 2 things :

Support for DVB-S2
Support for H264

Without support for H264, you can simply forget about HD in Europe, as almost all channels use it (BBC HD, Arte HD, LuxeTV HD, you name it....)

Without support for DVB-S2, you could still have HD in Europe for BBC HD and ITV HD, but that will only be until those broadcasting companies decide to switch to DVB-S2.
All the rest of them has already been using DVB-S2 for quite a while (ARTE HD, LuxeTV HD, you name it).

But the situation is even worse than that.
As H264 is such a great codec, there are even a lot of SD stations now broadcasting in H264.
Télésat, the Walloonish (the 40% French speaking minority in Belgium) stations will be broadcast in H264, and there are other examples as well.

Now, if MS leaves H264 in and drops the rest, I am sure that DVBSBridge could easily emulate a DVB-T tuner again and have HDTV.
So, H264 is a lot moreimportant than DVB-S2.

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PAL territory, using analogue cable Hauppauge PVR-350 and Hauppauge PVR-250, living in Belgium, Europe
http://www.extrabuttons.net

well MS doesnt seem to know that there is people outside the US. To them not supporting Directv means no h264 support for anybody. There an absolute disaster. What were they doing between mce 2005 and vista media center in regards dvb-s support? They'll probably support dvb-s now and add dvb-s2 support in about 5 years. I cant wait till the other media center programs upgrade their interfaces as thats the only thing keeping me from leaving vista mce atm.

Doesn't sound too good then does it if there will be no H264. Im in Thailand currently and not in the UK. Not sure what the deal is here with TV? They use a PAL variant. OTA is all Thai junk anyways, doubt any is HD yet. I will probably get satellite put in ,UBC I think it is over here. Not sure but would that be DVB-S for satellite? I would presumably get a STB and link Media Center in to that.

Any ideas which type of tuner I would need? Would have to be USB not PCI as currently only using a laptop. TV specs and standards always get me confused lol.

Cheers

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Stu

aka C-Dub



The Windows Media Center Blog

Tips Tricks & News!

moontan:

well MS doesnt seem to know that there is people outside the US. To them not supporting Directv means no h264 support for anybody.

And then they wonder why people get anti-US feelings, eh ;)

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PAL territory, using analogue cable Hauppauge PVR-350 and Hauppauge PVR-250, living in Belgium, Europe
http://www.extrabuttons.net

I can see why it is easy to say things like “MS doesn’t seem to know there are people outside the US…”, however, I’d like to assure you that we all do! J  I may live and work in the US, but I am actually British.  I lived and worked in Europe before moving to the US six years ago.  I am very much aware there are more people in the world outside the US than there are living in the US.  Also, remember that we do have development teams in numerous locations throughout the world, not just in Redmond, WA, USA.

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Ben Reed
Product Marketing | Windows Media Center
------------------------------------------------
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Ben Reed:

I can see why it is easy to say things like “MS doesn’t seem to know there are people outside the US…”, however, I’d like to assure you that we all do! J  I may live and work in the US, but I am actually British.  I lived and worked in Europe before moving to the US six years ago.  I am very much aware there are more people in the world outside the US than there are living in the US.  Also, remember that we do have development teams in numerous locations throughout the world, not just in Redmond, WA, USA.

It 's just that Mediacenter has been under development for so long, ancd has not evolved that much, especially when you compare it to the numerous shareware that exists, which supports a multitude of standards, US and otherwise.
Why can someone like Lars (the author of DVBViewer) create a product that supports virtually everything, and a multi billion dollar company like MS can't ?
The only plus that MS still has with Mediacenter is the interface, which is the best I have seen.

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PAL territory, using analogue cable Hauppauge PVR-350 and Hauppauge PVR-250, living in Belgium, Europe
http://www.extrabuttons.net

Ben Reed:

I can see why it is easy to say things like “MS doesn’t seem to know there are people outside the US…”, however, I’d like to assure you that we all do! J  I may live and work in the US, but I am actually British.  I lived and worked in Europe before moving to the US six years ago.  I am very much aware there are more people in the world outside the US than there are living in the US.  Also, remember that we do have development teams in numerous locations throughout the world, not just in Redmond, WA, USA.

Hi Ben

From what I've seen and heard recently it does sound like Microsoft is starting to take other countries more seriously with regards to Media Center. Being mainly based in the UK, we feel some times neglected compaired to our friends over in the US. Teletext and Subtitles are wecolmed additions. Hopefully Media Center in general will be easier to use and setup in other countries and work with their TV broadcasting services more easily and natively.

Cheers.

 

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Stu

aka C-Dub



The Windows Media Center Blog

Tips Tricks & News!

boulder2:

Ben Reed:

I can see why it is easy to say things like “MS doesn’t seem to know there are people outside the US…”, however, I’d like to assure you that we all do! J  I may live and work in the US, but I am actually British.  I lived and worked in Europe before moving to the US six years ago.  I am very much aware there are more people in the world outside the US than there are living in the US.  Also, remember that we do have development teams in numerous locations throughout the world, not just in Redmond, WA, USA.

It 's just that Mediacenter has been under development for so long, ancd has not evolved that much, especially when you compare it to the numerous shareware that exists, which supports a multitude of standards, US and otherwise.
Why can someone like Lars (the author of DVBViewer) create a product that supports virtually everything, and a multi billion dollar company like MS can't ?
The only plus that MS still has with Mediacenter is the interface, which is the best I have seen.

 

I have to agree here. Microsoft has the potential with Vista Media centre. Yet other open source projects, or small companies are catching up or winning! the number of people that work on the ehome project... compared to equivalent projects.

other companies should be trying to replicate Media centre, not out perform it!

OK. So things like DVD streaming are problematic. fine.

 

But this long for sat support? I was able to with power cinema 4! and that was awful!

MHEG -5? supported by the cheapest of STBs.

online content? for the UK? I mean we have sports too!

 

I love Media centre! I'm not changing. but why these things can't be implemented? 5 years of media center, and l can't read teletext let alone MHEG -5. thats just funny!

Actually I wish Microsoft "would not" provide most of the requested enhancements. I'd much rather they redesigned the system to make it easy for others to add those abilities via 3rd party utilities and still look like it was integrated. I think someone mentioned something about an  framework overhaul, and I'm hoping that it what they were talking about. It wouldn't take too long for others to write the nessary apps if the hooks are already there and easy to program for.

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Eagles may fly, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines (see bio for exception)

frankinla:

brittonv:

No DirecTV/h264, This is the final straw.

I am freaking done with Microsoft.  I mean I went out and bought 3 Xboxes for front ends, Vista Premium Upgrade, all in anticipation of this.

Now, as it par for the course, Microsoft has completely failed me again.

I am going back to MythTV, Selling 2 of my Xboxes, and switching my Desktop to Linux or Mac.

I am so dissapointed, I don't even have the words.  Microsoft hasn't done 1 thing right since the release of windows 95.

M$ you are dead to me.

I hear ya!

Haha!  Well said.

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myspace.com/patsowellproject

Velocity Micro Z70:
Vista Ultimate 32-bit
Core 2 Quad Q9450
4GB DDR2-800
512MB ATI Radeon 3450
2 x ATI OCUR DCT's
HDHomeRun dual QAM
300GB 10k RPM for OS
2TB RAID5
2 x Xbox 360's
52" LCD 1080p
40" LCD 1080p

charlas:

It's easier than that Ben, I can't see why anyone would want it anyhow? how many people watch the features more than once anyway? and if it's just the movie you want to stream then convert it to a WMV there are plenty of tools out there, and you even get the benefit of saving disk space without loosing quality as well. Never worked out why people think DVD Streaming is such a big thing.

Only real use for it is if you own a jukebox and want to stream from dvd, and even then I cannot see the point in the expense of a robotic disk system for DVD's. At the end of the day HDD space is cheap, robotic disk units are not.

I'd like to see blu-ray streaming to extenders b/c interal blu-ray ROM players for a PC are WAY cheaper than buying stand alone blu-ray players OR a PS3... .  that and I already have xbox 360's (extenders) on all my TVs....  Right now the slippery slope of piracy (bittorrented .mkv's) is the only way to achieve what I would otherwise do legally without overpaying for a stupid blu-ray player on EVERY tv.

Hell, if M$ would release an external blu-ray player for the 360, that would make me happy.... especially if it worked with Vista like the HD-DVD player did... but they're not doing that either...  such poor losers they are....  can't let blu-ray gain any traction b/c you got your butts whipped in the format wars...  pathetic.

---

myspace.com/patsowellproject

Velocity Micro Z70:
Vista Ultimate 32-bit
Core 2 Quad Q9450
4GB DDR2-800
512MB ATI Radeon 3450
2 x ATI OCUR DCT's
HDHomeRun dual QAM
300GB 10k RPM for OS
2TB RAID5
2 x Xbox 360's
52" LCD 1080p
40" LCD 1080p