Sure it's a choice, that's why OCUR exists and why a native DIRECTV tuner will soon be here too.  Getting the STB's out of the picture is the only viable way for Media Center to succeed in any form.  For those outside the US, this concept sucks though as you guys basically end put at the end of the development picture (actually, out of the picture).

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Chris Lanier
The Green Button Forum Moderator

Chris - Moderator:

For those outside the US, this concept sucks though as you guys basically end put at the end of the development picture (actually, out of the picture).

I resemble that remark!  (And Canadians are much better off than pretty much any other non-US market)

As far as having an eight tuner system - I kind of consider myself a sicko given all of the tech toys that I have but to need an eight tuner system you are either monitoring media for some reason (i.e. research) or you are seriously in need of psychological help!  But you will at least be the poster boy for Seagate and/or Western Digital!

8 is a little excessive :-) I'd say 4 tops, at least 4 more than meets my needs. 3 would do for me, but I have an issue with odd numbers, so 4 it is. :-)

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?

5C is a piece of cake compared to CableCard or DirecTV.  Perhaps 1/50th of the development effort to bring HD to an enormous audience that already has an STB or two?

I fully agree that Media Center needs to support CableCard and DirecTV as well as other solutions without STBs, but most of us customers are convinced it should ALSO support Firewire with 5C.

As far as quad or oct tuner setups, we've been told time and time again that Media Center is primarily for the regular Joe consumer, not enthusiasts.  Regular Joe consumers only have a single tuner hooked up to their TVs right now and most of them with HD have single STBs driving their HDTVs that could easily be hooked up to Media Center through a Firewire/5C connection.

The other thing to consider is a new customer will very often have to switch cable/satellite providers and purchase new hardware in order to take advantage of CableCard or DirecTV.  On the other hand, if a Firewire driver was included, many customers would be able to purchase a Media Center PC and simply plug it in to their HDTV and STB and right away be able to put Media Center to use for HD.  At worse, they would have to call their current cable company and ask for a Firewire capable STB per the FCC mandate.  Firewire would be an excellent marketing opportunity to bring Media Center into the home, without all of the hassle of switching providers, signing contracts, paying to have equipment installed, etc.  Once the customer was hooked on Media Center using Firewire, it would be a logical transition for many to move to a stand alone internal solution combined with the new provider, contracts, equipment setup, etc.

Personally I don't get it at all.  I really think Microsoft is missing an excellent opportunity with Firewire/5C.  From a development cost to a return on investment perspective, it is an excellent opportunity for Microsoft.  We're talking about a couple of man-months worth of development effort compared to how many man-months to get DirecTV support into customers hands?  I'm sure DirecTV is going to cost 100's of man-months.

To top all of this off, Firewire doesn't care about new emerging CableCard standards and different Satellite communication protocols.  It is a standard communication standard mandated by the FCC that is the same for each and every content provider out there.  It even gets away from using an annoying IR blaster to control the STB so most of us could finally get rock solid reliable channel changing (and hopefully sending a simple and standard power on/power off command to them).

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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

Chris - Moderator:

Sure it's a choice, that's why OCUR exists and why a native DIRECTV tuner will soon be here too.  Getting the STB's out of the picture is the only viable way for Media Center to succeed in any form.  For those outside the US, this concept sucks though as you guys basically end put at the end of the development picture (actually, out of the picture).

I don't agree that the only way forward is to immediately get rid of STBs.  That is the standard today and the stepping stones to towards an ultimate, integrated Media Center for Joe consumer needs to include a step where the STB is supported.

Consider someone like my father.  He is very interested in Media Center, but he's not totally sold on it.  At the same time he already has cable at home and already has a cable STB with a Firewire output on it.  He also already has a Media Center PC in his study that he uses for his PC.

What he'd like to do is take that Media Center PC, plug it in to his TV and STB and try it out.  I expect he would like it and would keep using it.  After a little while he'd either purchase another Media Center PC for the family room or one to replace the one in the study -  but he can't do this.  Since he is a typical consumer that doesn't want major change and extra hassles, he'd probably end up continuing to use Firewire for the foreseeable future, even if he did purchase a new PC.

Instead, since he lives in Canada, he calls up his provider and purchases an HD-PVR and is done with it - no Media Center PC, and being a typical consumer, this is it for the next 10+ years.

If, on the other hand he lived in the US, he could consider getting a Media Center PC - But, instead of being able to try it out and see how he likes it, he has to go out and invest in an entirely new CableCard Media Center PC (that doesn't support newer channels), or invest in a totally new Satellite provider setup, combined with new contracts, new physical hardware, waiting for someone to come out and set up his new DirecTV dish, etc. (if DirecTV was available).  The reality, since he isn't already an HTPC enthusiast, is he wouldn't do either of those.  Instead, since he can't use the simple Firewire setup, he would end up purchasing an HD-PVR from his current content provider.  So once again, no Media Center PC and again, because there is no Firewire support.

Any way you look at it, for the regular consumer Firewire/5C makes sense.  You definitely want to include options without STBs for enthusiasts, but for the regular Joe, Firewire would get people trying Media Center and ultimately sell a lot of Media Center PCs.  Without Firewire, Microsoft is going to miss a huge portion of the potential market.

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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

Getting back on topic, the Hauppage HD-PVR; although nowhere near as clean as Firewire/5C (nor as clear) would also enable a significant chunk of the market to make use of Media Center for their next PVR and all in one entertainment solution.

Ian,  can you comment on if Microsoft is going to have the hooks in place to support a Hauppage developed Media Center driver for their new card?

By hooks, I mean h.264/mpeg-4, DD5.1 recording using an IR blaster and an STB enabled setup for it?

Again, this would be extremely easy for Microsoft to do once mpeg-4 support is added.

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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

2 Quick Questions:

1) Will there really be a perceptible difference between a pure digital capture and this analog HD PVR capture at its highest quality setting?  I'm guessing a 1080i capture is going to look pretty damn good and maybe close to the digital capture. 

2) What is the minimum processor needed to run these h.264 files smoothly?  I have an Nvidia 8500gt.  Normally that should help, but video under hardware acceleration looks like crap compared to software decoding.  I wonder if a powerful 3.4ghz Pentium 4 could do it?

word...HT Slider...word.  VMC needs firewire!!!!

HT Slider:

Any way you look at it, for the regular consumer Firewire/5C makes sense.  You definitely want to include options without STBs for enthusiasts, but for the regular Joe, Firewire would get people trying Media Center and ultimately sell a lot of Media Center PCs.  Without Firewire, Microsoft is going to miss a huge portion of the potential market.

Yeah, 5C is great but I think I have covered why I don't think it will ever be a part of the product in the past.

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Chris Lanier
The Green Button Forum Moderator

Chris - Moderator:

Sure it's a choice, that's why OCUR exists and why a native DIRECTV tuner will soon be here too.  Getting the STB's out of the picture is the only viable way for Media Center to succeed in any form.  For those outside the US, this concept sucks though as you guys basically end put at the end of the development picture (actually, out of the picture).

more and more of us don't use satellite or cable companies for tv

OCUR is a joke

I find it exceedingly frustrating that I shouldn't even need a cable box, all I need is a way to tell MCE that this channel is a specific multicast address, and I'd be done

no capture card, nothing!

That is the next step for outside the US and hopefully Microsoft is looking at that (I can tell you a few MVPs outside the US hassle Microsoft about this daily).

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Chris Lanier
The Green Button Forum Moderator

Chris - Moderator:

Yeah, 5C is great but I think I have covered why I don't think it will ever be a part of the product in the past.

You've said your opinion is that the only way forward is to get rid of STBs, but I haven't seen any concrete evidence that in anyway confirms that adding Firewire/5C would be a poor investment for Microsoft (especially considering investing in DirecTV/CableCard support has obviously been approved).  I also haven't seen anything that confirms or even suggests that including support for STBs would be a bad decision for Microsoft.

Are there any published reports on how many cable companies are not able to provide STBs with Firewire?  How many satellite companies are not able to provide STBs with Firewire (I've heard several do offer STBs with Firewire/5C, but don't know the extent of it)?

Are there complexities in figuring out technical support (that are worse than CableCard or DirecTV) for a Firewire connection?

Is the fact that most Canadian cable companies do offer STBs with Firewire somehow a political problem or something?

What are the real reasons that Firewire might not be a good investment from MS's position?  Personally I can't think of any.

On the other hand, I can see if MS supported Hauppage's new HD-PVR card, without any form of DRM that this might be a political problem for them.  Since Firewire includes 5C content protection and they are then required to DRM the content (to comply with 5C), this should be an easy sell politically too.

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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

US MSO's MUST provide Firewire interfaces on ALL HD STB's as of 2004 per an FCC order.  That order does not apply to DBS operators or IPTV operators, but FIOS also fully supports Firewire.  Whether or not 5C is active on a given channel or program is based on flags sent by the programmer and the configuration by the MSO. 

Since there are plugins that support this in Sage, I know that some systems have everything 5C'd, so that without a 5C key you cannot decrypt anything (even those channels sent in the clear via QAM!), but also there are systems where nothing is 5C'd, even premium channels that are encrypted on the QAM carrier.

If MSFT could support recording of 5C's material because it's protected, that would be a great solution, and better than what Mediaportal and Sage do today.  Firewire transmits SD video too, so it's not limited to HD. 

HT Slider:

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

Good news.  I got this response:

from sales@hauppage.com:

We will have Vista Media Center drivers for the new HD board.  Microsoft will probably have HD support at the same time.

Regards,

Dorothy

This sounds very promising and could be the solution to HD us Canadians (and Media Center customers around the world) have been asking for for years!!

 

Reading between the lines, it might initially downconvert the HD recordings to SD (480i) to get around the lack of HD hooks in Media Center, but hopefully in the near future it will be able to provide full HD capability.

 

Even if it did take HD and downconvert it for the time being, the image quality would likely be far superior compared to anything supported by Media Center today (outside the US).

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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

guess I'll be going to Sage afterall

I'm not paying to downgrade my MCE machines to vista