I thought I'd share the fantastic news that Nextcom has finally released their Media Center driver for their R5000HD USB STB system.  This means we can bring digital HD content into Media Center from Dish, DirecTV, ExpressVu, StarChoice, C-Band, Cable and Voom.

EDIT:  Note the driver is actually available in beta right now, not in final release.

Prior to this new driver we had to use FireSTB in order to use the R5000HD (I have been getting HD content into Vista Media Center from Bell ExpressVu for close to a year).  While FireSTB was difficult to set up and had functional limitations, the new R5000HD driver should make it as simple as any TV tuner to setup.  It also mean no more IR blaster (actually you still need a blaster plugged in, but it isn't used).

You don't need to buy a CableCard PC to use this either, yet it records the same digital content.

You still need a fully functional STB (ideally owned by you), a monthly subscription to HD content (obviously), as well as the R5000HD added to your STB.

I'm just about to install the driver myself this evening and I'll post back about thow well it works compared to FireSTB.

One potential issue right now for some of you is h.264.  Since this feeds the raw digital stream to Media Center, if your content provider uses h.264, you won't be able to play that content back through Recorded TV at the moment.  Once Fiji is released and support of h.264 is added to MC, the R5000HD will work with all of the networks and all channels.  The Hauppauge HD-PVR has the same issue though.

Further details can be found at:

http://www.nextcomwireless.com/R5000/mce.htm

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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 think saying "good news" if you are a Vista user, may have been a little premature...

I've been trying to get the new R5000HD drivers to work with Vista Media Center all night and I just can't get them to work.

Even a fresh install of Vista and following the directions to a T, including each and every "troubleshooting" step and I just get a blank screen in Media Center.

I've got everything working, except for the virtual tuner driver for Media Center (probably the most important piece of the puzzle as far as Media Center is concerned).

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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

Great news!!

I finally got the MCE beta driver working for the R5000HD.

I was "Live TV" channel surfing in high definition 720p and 1080i with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio with my Vista Media Center system this evening.  In my case I get my content from Bell ExpressVu, but the R5000HD supports many other providers.

There are still quite a few bugs that need to get ironed out before the MCE driver is really ready for primetime, but it does work, allowing everything from Live TV, Recorded TV and sharing of HD content between other Media Center PCs throughout your home.  I also noticed that the R5000HD is on sale right now at 20% off if anyone is interested.  I suspect they are trying to compete directly with the Hauppauge HD-PVR (noting that the HD-PVR is an analog capture, while the R5000HD is a true digital recording, just like a CableCard PC).

Hopefully soon the Hauppauge HD-PVR will have drivers also so we'll have some choices available, but at least if you can't get CableCard, there is the R5000HD option already available.

Note that due to some of the bugs in the beta, I am still sticking with using FireSTB to bring HD in for now, but hopefully in the near term the MCE R5000HD driver will be truly ready.  Note right now I have a dual boot set up.  The primary boot uses FireSTB to access the R5000HD's HD content and the secondary boot uses the MCE R5000HD driver so I can both provide feedback and will know when it is ready.

One thing I don't understand is: Why isn't there tons of posts discussing the R5000HD here?  We've been screaming for HD content in Media Center for years and this truly looks like an ideal solution with minimal DRM (you can share content between Media Center PCs, even use DVRMSToolbox to automatically skip commercials and edit your recordings if you like).

The analog capture Hauppauge HD-PVR has developed tons of interest, yet the R5000HD, which produces top quality digital recordings seems to never be discussed.  Personally, we have enjoyed top quality HD with Vista Media Center (as well as streaming Recorded TV to our 5 other Media Center PCs throughout our home) for close to a year now - since last August.  Once the MCE driver is ready, there really won't be anything out there that can compete quality wise, nor with the ability to share content throughout your home.

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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'd love to try this, but it is a bit cost prohibitive if you ask me. $500-600 for a new reciever or $275-350 or so for the kit is a lot (especially or the kit where you can mess up your stuff). I'm assuming you can do multiple tuners, but at that cost there is no way. I would love to have a 4 tuner system with this, but that could easily be a $2000 proposition!

Maybe if the cost could be dropped a bit I could see it catching on.

I ordered the Dish Network 211 with mod, I'm in the middle of building my HTPC so it may be a bit before I get it up and running, but I don't mind waiting a little for the bugs to get worked out... I mean I'm a Dish customer, I'm used to waiting for everything.

 

 

Not on option to cable companies that use Scientific Atlanta boxes unfortunelty. And it doesn't work with Directv's new mpeg 4 boxes. To me the only viable option would be Dish Newtork and it was cheaper for me to buy a cable card pc. I thought about this but If I go back to Sattelite I would rather it be Directv so I am still holding out for the tuners on that end if they are not drm'd as bad I will go that route. If they are I will stick with my cable card pc.

Still a good option but rather expensive even with dish as you have to buy the sattelite boxes and not lease them so you can modify them with the r5000.

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Dell xps420 w/ dual ATI cable cards
Hdhomerun for QAM
Panasonic 50" Plasma fed by xbox 360
Panasonic 42" plama fed by xbox 360
5TB in storage and counting

I was lucky since by chance I happened to purchase one of the supported STBs years prior to hearing about the R5000HD.  In my case the $400 price wasn't really all that much more than an HD-PVR (of course the HD-PVR wasn't available at the time) and it was much cheaper than a new CableCard PC (not to mention CableCard isn't supported in Canada).

I only wish I'd gone the R5000HD route sooner, instead of only getting SD content in Media Center for so long.

I wouldn't say you absolutely have to buy the STB, but it is definitely not a bad idea.

What I really like about this system is how it both records unaltered digital content and since it isn't copy protected, you can share Recorded TV with other Media Center PCs (and regular PCs) throughout your home.  Also, you can burn anything from Recorded TV to DVD for use on the road.  We also use a Media Center laptop as our Media Center at the cottage, so we simply bring along a 500 GB portable hard drive and point Recorded TV at it and we can watch anything we want on rainy days (we also have another Satellite STB and a Hauppauge WinTV-USB so the laptop can record SD content too).  On top of that, since the content is unprotected, we use DVRMSToolbox to automatically skip commercials everywhere.

CableCard and all of the future DirecTV, etc. options will likely lock everything to the single PC (CableCard does currently) and highly restrict what you can do with it.  There is no way to watch anything on another PC, no way to automatically skip commercials, no way to burn it to DVD for the car, no way to share it with other Media Center PCs on your network, etc.  CableCard content won't even play unless you have an new HDCP display or HDTV.  Older TVs can't be used (our TV at the cottage isn't HDCP compliant so we couldn't even bring a CableCard PC back and forth without buying a new TV).

With both the best image quality available and the overall flexibility, this is definitely the best way I know of to bring HD content into Media Center.  It is more expensive, but you really do get more out of it compared to other solutions.

The next best option as far as I'm concerned is the HD-PVR.  Unfortunately right now there is no way to use it with Media Center, but in a year or so it will probably work.  The biggest downside to it (besides not working today) is you are recording analog signals from component video and then re-encoding it to h.264.

CableCard and other "official" solutions would truly be ideal if and only if Microsoft put a good effort into making DRM work for the customer.  If they let protected content transfer or play content on other PCs within the local network and let highly downconverted copies be made for viewing in the car, etc. these would be the way to go.  Right now content protection is implemented in such an incredibly restrictive way, I would never pay $1500 for a CableCard/other solution that locks me in this way.  I think we are better off with a hardware HD-PVR from our Cable/Satellite company than a CableCard PC or other DRM restricted device.  Cable/Satellite HD-PVRs even have multiple tuners and multi-room support now so they can do everything a CableCard PC can at a small fraction of the price.

Personally I'd like to see the R5000HD become more popular for Media Center so Nextcom can justify putting in the effort to truly perfect their Media Center driver.  They have been supporting Sage TV for some time, but this is the first time they have produced a true Media Center drive combined with a DirectShow filter that can probably be used with other applications.

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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

LASooner:

I ordered the Dish Network 211 with mod, I'm in the middle of building my HTPC so it may be a bit before I get it up and running, but I don't mind waiting a little for the bugs to get worked out... I mean I'm a Dish customer, I'm used to waiting for everything.

Even without the bugs being fixed, you can use it today with FireSTB (or the semi-functional beta MCE driver).  Using FireSTB (or the MCE driver for that matter), it actually also supports h.264 recordings right now, but you need to watch the h.264 recordings through (My) Videos, instead of Recorded TV until Media Center is updated.

I suspect that Hauppauge will use a similar, temporary, solution for their HD-PVR.  The way it works (with the R5000HD) is you enable a second copy of the recording and then you point your Video folder inside MCE at the copy and simply watch it there.  If you use the MCE driver, you end up with a blank recording of the show in Recorded TV and an HD h.264 copy in Videos.  If you use FireSTB, you end up with an SD copy of the show in Recorded TV and an HD h.264 copy in Videos.

In my case I lucked out again as far as h.264 is concerned.  My Satellite provider doesn't plan to implement any h.264 until at least 2011 and by that time Media Center should fully support it.  Unfortunately I'll also need to upgrade my STB at the same time so I'll need to get the R5000HD upgraded and swapped over 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

I must be rather naive.  I assumed that by plugging in an HD receiver in to a HD TV Tuner Card I could record HD content.  Is this not the case?  I'm planning to buying Dish Network for TV service, what do I have to build in order to watch/record SD and HD content?

Also if your cable company uses 5c encryption r5000 mod will respect that and not let you record. Which my cable company uses it.

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Dell xps420 w/ dual ATI cable cards
Hdhomerun for QAM
Panasonic 50" Plasma fed by xbox 360
Panasonic 42" plama fed by xbox 360
5TB in storage and counting

PLUCKYHD:

Also if your cable company uses 5c encryption r5000 mod will respect that and not let you record. Which my cable company uses it.

The R5000HD has nothing to do with 5C encryption at all.  5C is a Firewire encryption that your STB encrypts the video stream in prior to sending it out through Firewire.

The R5000HD instead uses its own USB port to directly send the non-encrypted digital stream to the computer.  Media Center itself will receive the unaltered digital stream and record it.

My understanding (interpretation) is the only issue with STBs that have Firewire ports on them, is that due to DMCA laws, it is "grey" as to the legality of adding an unprotected USB port to these STBs.  Due to this, Nextcom simply won't install the R5000HD on any STB that already has a 5C protected Firewire port on it.

For certain, if you have one of the STBs Nextcom lists as being supported for the R5000HD (no Firewire), when you have the R5000HD installed (or do it yourself), your Media Center PC will be able to record pretty much everything without any trouble.

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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

jandk4014:

I must be rather naive.  I assumed that by plugging in an HD receiver in to a HD TV Tuner Card I could record HD content.  Is this not the case?  I'm planning to buying Dish Network for TV service, what do I have to build in order to watch/record SD and HD content?

You are correct, except there is no such thing as an HD TV Tuner Card, except ones that require certified Cable Card PCs, only work with cable, and lock down the recordings to that particular PC.  Worse than that, you need to purchase a brand new PC that is certified for use with a Cable Card tuner.  You cannot use your existing PC.

There is a new HD analog component capture device that has literally just come to market.  That is the Hauppauge HD-PVR.  To use this, you still need to get an HD STB and you then connect the analog component outputs from it to the HD-PVR box.  The HD-PVR then connects to your Media Center PC using USB.  Right now this doesn't work with Media Center though and rumor has it, it won't work until the next version of Media Center is released for Vista.  It is expected to never work with MCE2005 or earlier.

The R5000HD does work well with Dish Network so that is definitely an option for HD (your only option if you want to run Media Center actually).  For SD you can simply use any regular PC Tuner card, connected using an s-video cable.

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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

Is the next version of Vista Media Center going to be a free upgrade?

theniteow1:

Is the next version of Vista Media Center going to be a free upgrade?

It is expected to be, but I haven't read anything official from Microsoft stating it will be for certain.

I do think it is safe to assume it will be though.

Note this is specifically for Vista.  There are no new versions for the older versions (MCE2005, etc.).

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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

Let's talk about my situation in particular if you don't mind.  I haven't purchased Dish Network but I used them in the past and had a good experience so I planned on going back. 

If I wanted to record basketball on ESPNHD and I want to use my PC (Which has a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-125) will I be able to?  Will I be able to even watch HD content on my tv if I come from a Dish Network Receiver?