fyodor:

Chris can correct me if I am mistaken, but I don't believe that Media Center works with H.264 compression  for recorded TV. Unless the device also supports mpeg2 encoding it will have issues.

It doesn't today, but it will in relatively near future.  Many TV content sources are starting to go mpeg-4/h.264, including DirecTV so Media Center will have to support it soon.

I wouldn't be surprised if the device does also support mpeg-2.

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STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote

I talked to them about it (I'm the same mikesm as in the other forums), and no, it doesn't support MPEG2.  It's h.264 only, so you have to have the required infrastructure for that.  The good news is they chose a pretty well supported H.264 profile, and that's why Sage and others should have a pretty easy time supporting it.  You could absolutely write a transcoder to MPEG2, but I don't think that would work in realtime. 

But, yeah, I don't think this is going to work in MC without some help from MSFT, and I doubt they'd do that.  But it might be good for them to get a spine and make it happen.  I talked to a lot of OEM's at CES about why I couldn't X or Y  in MC, and they all seemed kind of resigned that the product just is pretty lame, and frustrated they couldn't get something better from MSFT.  The whole market is moving slowly because of neutered functionality in MC.  But then I guess they are focused on trying to make Vista in general less lame so that people will want to upgrade. 

Then I would see myself installing SageTV on my HTPC which is running XP MCE.  I would always have the option to go back to MCE or install Vista MC (which I am playing around with on my office PC) but how many times can you change UIs without ticking off the rest of the family, especially the wife?

I already use a Harmony Remote to control MCE so I should be able to program this remote to work in Sage which will lessen the learning curve.

Another big plus to me is sagetv supports WHS completely why media center does not have an integration with WHS is beyond my comprehention.

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wayner9:

Then I would see myself installing SageTV on my HTPC which is running XP MCE.  I would always have the option to go back to MCE or install Vista MC (which I am playing around with on my office PC) but how many times can you change UIs without ticking off the rest of the family, especially the wife?

I already use a Harmony Remote to control MCE so I should be able to program this remote to work in Sage which will lessen the learning curve.

This is a little offtopic, but I made the switch from MCE 2005 to Sage awhile back, and using the SageMC skin/plugin, my family didn't complain too much.  It's pretty similar.

Actually, with the near seamless usability of the SageMC skin and the fact that SageTV natively supports MCE remotes and IR receivers, Wayne, you would have little if any learning curve for your family.  And best of all, you would not have to change the config on your Harmony remote at all. (I have a 659 so I can confirm this)

Maybe before Wayne jumps, one of the Microsoft folks can confirm that they will or will not support this encoder...  :-)

mikesm:

Maybe before Wayne jumps, one of the Microsoft folks can confirm that they will or will not support this encoder...  :-)

I don't know how they could not have seen this thread - that means that they either can't or won't comment.

wayner9:

mikesm:

Maybe before Wayne jumps, one of the Microsoft folks can confirm that they will or will not support this encoder...  :-)

I don't know how they could not have seen this thread - that means that they either can't or won't comment.

I expect support is at least partially up to Hauppage.  They write the driver after all and Microsoft will have to support mpeg-4 at some point in the future (for DirecTV, etc.).

We should probably e-mail Hauppage and ask them.  The more interest they see for Media Center, the more likely they will both write a driver and work with Microsoft to make sure their specific mpeg-4 encoding is supported.

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STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote

they make MCE specific hardware, so I would expect they haven't forgotten a lot of the homebrew folks are using MCE

I've e-mailed Hauppage's sales department.  I'll let everyone know if they respond.

It is still probably a good idea for others to e-mail them also.  The more interest there is, the more likely they'll put more effort into Media Center.

Their US sales e-mail address is:  sales@hauppauge.com

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STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote

wayner9:

Yes, why isn't firewire supported in MCE? 

5C is the main cuplprit.

And in a quad or oct tuner setup do you really want a stack of eight STBs?

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Ian Kennedy - eHome TV Playback Test Lead
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Yup, 5C is a major issue, politically at least.

As for having a pile of STBs?  Whatever!!!  Firewire delivers the pure TS so it is theoretically the best thing to process.  Also, if MS had have built MCE or the recent WHS properly, they would have allowed for a client/server infrastructure and then you could have simply piled all of the STBs onto one system hidden in a corner of the house!!!

You can do this in Sage so there is no excuse on Microsoft's part.

Is there a reason MS couldn't support channel changing through firewire?  Even if we can't get many channels because of 5C, it would still be nice to ditch the IR emitter.

iank:

wayner9:

Yes, why isn't firewire supported in MCE? 

5C is the main cuplprit.

And in a quad or oct tuner setup do you really want a stack of eight STBs?

that's kind of a dumb question

you make it sound like not having STB's is a choice (it's not)