Kingbuzzo:

Whoa - that sucks...I had no idea...

I hope you are feeling better soon...

Yikes, did you try a system re-whore?  Did you do a new catalyst install or something?

Maybe it was stupid Quicktime! 

This particular Vista install has had trouble with DirectShow filters for some time and I really don't know what caused it.  I'd have to go back to over a year ago if I wanted to get to the point where Media Center never crashed at all so it makes more sense to me to reinstall fresh.  I've even had Microsoft trying to help debug the problem and make MC stable, but they haven't been able to figure out a solution (although they did file a couple of bug reports so the problem won't appear in future versions of MC).

Kingbuzzo:

I haven't heard anything from them either but I noticed that they are lurking on here now.  Maybe there is hope yet.

Why are you giving up so soon?  Especially with your investment in the R5000HD?

We are so close to Live TV support with this driver (with client support) and they already support h.264 or so is my understanding.  We can already stream anything to the extenders already so I don't understand why that is even an issue.

Don't strand me as the only guy using R5000HD with VMC! 

Side note:  are you selling your modified receiver? 

I'm not giving up yet and will be reinstalling VMC again, along with FireSTB.  I'm also going to re-image the fresh install onto the secondary boot partition so I can continue to work with future R5000HD MC drivers (this time with the C:\ used for each boot; not V:\ like the current secondary boot does now).

What is pushing me away from VMC is how I keep feeling more and more that Microsoft seems to be continuing to diverge away from what most of us enthusiasts really want out of Media Center.  h.264/MPEG-4 is something we really need now, yet it isn't even included with the OEM only release of Fiji.  I also find it increasingly incredible that supported sharing of Recorded TV and Live TV between Media Center PCs still isn't supported.  Even more important than that, Microsoft hasn't included any QAM tuner support or other flexible HD tuner support.  Without this, the only way to get a Media Center tuner driver to work for HD (other than the non-existent Cable Card in Canada) is jumping through hoops and hacks to try to get everything to work with MC.  I know HDHomerun got it to work, but it took them a lot of work.  Unfortunately I suspect Nextcom would need to rewrite their driver to behave like an ATSC tuner to make switching between SD and HD sources work properly and then they'd need to hack the guide to make the guide work (and the hack would probably be even harder to make work for us Canadians).

Will Nextcom actually put in the effort to make the R5000HD work with MC, or will they simply decide that without h.264/MPEG-4 support that it isn't worth the effort?  Considering that most R5000HD STBs produce h.264/MPEG-4; why would they bother?  Right now their driver behaves as an s-video input on a TV Tuner card, but this is designed (by MS) to only support SD content.

BTW, there is a fully functional driver available for the R5000HD for Sage TV.  It supports both MPEG-2 as well as h.264/MPEG-4.  If I was to switch to Sage, I wouldn't be getting rid of the R5000HD.  Instead I would only be installing Sage TV on our 6 HTPCs and stopping to use Media Center.  Who knows I might even pick up a Sage TV Extender for the basement rec. room (to replace the old Dell HTPC).  The other thing to consider for me is I have two systems running Vista and 4 systems running MCE2005.  I was expecting to need to pick up 4 more Vista licenses for h.264/MPEG-4, but now I'll need 6 new Windows 7 licences (whenever it finally gets released) in order to get h.264/MPEG-4 in Media Center and when I compare the price of that to Sage TV (that is independent of the OS)...

Time will tell, but unless Nextcom produces a functional MC driver soon and in the near term Microsoft starts to put a significant effort into basic, modern HTPC requirements (flexible HD sources, Sharing Recorded & Live TV with other Media Center PCs, as well as h.264/MPEG-4 support), Media Center simply isn't going to work for us.

3rob3:

HTSlider,
Hope you get well soon.

I have given up and made the switch to SageTV. I couldn't be happier, things are really working great.

Are you using the R5000HD?

Does Live TV work throughout all of your client systems as well as with the server?

Why are you so obsessed with h.264 - it could be years before Starchoice and Bell get that together - the next version of Media Center will be out before then!  What do you mean sharing of recorded tv & live tv?  I can watch recorded and/or live tv on any extender in the house.  Qam isn't an option here anyway.  I think you are still having issues with SD/HD from your Bell setup.  I have never seen these type of issues with my Shaw or Starchoice setups.

You know the Nextcom driver is VERY close to what we want - you saw it with your own eyes - LIVE HD!  How could it even work if it only supported an SD input?  Digital is digital.

If there was enough interest, Nextcom would surely invest more development into getting it to work with VMC.  Compare the user-base from Sage to VMC - even that would make it worthwhile for them.

Why the heck do you have so many htpc's anyway?  Why don't you put them all in the back alley and get a WHS and a few extenders? 

Simplify man!

Kingbuzzo:

Why are you so obsessed with h.264 - it could be years before Starchoice and Bell get that together - the next version of Media Center will be out before then!  What do you mean sharing of recorded tv & live tv?  I can watch recorded and/or live tv on any extender in the house.  Qam isn't an option here anyway.  I think you are still having issues with SD/HD from your Bell setup.  I have never seen these type of issues with my Shaw or Starchoice setups.

I wouldn't say I'm obsessed, but I think we have to be realistic about the importance of having h.264 support in MC.  Consider these points:

1. I was speaking to a manager a Bell last year and was told they would be starting to implement h.264 with the newer HD channels starting in late 2008.  He said they are now expecting to push h.264 out for all HD channels over the next year and will be offering replacement STBs to those of us with units without h.264 support.  He specifically stated that the h.264 implementation plan has been significantly sped up (recently).
2. One of the biggest issues with the lack of h.264 support is the fact that without it there is little motivation for Nextcom to put serious effort into their driver.  As it stands now the majority of R5000HD systems produce h.264 transport streams for HD channels.  Without h.264, do you really expect Nextcom will put the effort required into their MC driver - just for the small, potentially short term Canadian market?
3. The way I see it it will take a good year from now before Media Center even starts to support h.264 for Recorded TV, let alone getting all of the 3rd party applications (DVRMSToolbox, Show Analyzer, etc.) to work properly with h.264.  My father also wants to go with the Hauppauge HD-PVR right now and as you know the HD-PVR only produces h.264 content.

Ultimately my feeling is I keep seeing Microsoft slip the "anticipated/perceived schedule" over and over for everything I'm looking for and I'm starting to loose confidence.  Even if Fiji does actually have h.264 (apparently it doesn't), it is only available to OEMs.  It won't be long before Bell wants to replace my Bell 6000 STB and at that point it would be nice to have the Hauppauge HD-PVR as an option to consider too.

Kingbuzzo:

You know the Nextcom driver is VERY close to what we want - you saw it with your own eyes - LIVE HD!  How could it even work if it only supported an SD input?  Digital is digital.

If there was enough interest, Nextcom would surely invest more development into getting it to work with VMC.  Compare the user-base from Sage to VMC - even that would make it worthwhile for them.

They are close, but they need to put in the effort to finish the job off.  I would love to be able to post that a new driver is available that works, but it hasn't happened yet.  If it happens I will be extremely pleased and will immediately get the virtual tuner installed on all of our systems (Live TV throughout the home on Media Center PCs + totally reliable HD recordings would be a dream come true).

As far as using an s-video virtual tuner:  I'm not 100% certain of the exact details on this, but I spoke to a Microsoft ehome developer several months ago and was told the only way to reliably bring HD into Media Center is to simulate an ATSC tuner.  I was told that simulating an s-video port on an SD tuner has limitations that won't allow certain functionality necessary for HD content (he didn't elaborate on exactly what).  My understanding is this is the reason all of the other HD tuner "hacks", like HDHomerun, Hauppauge QAM driver, Avermedia QAM driver, DVBSBRIDGE and other HD inputs use an ATSC "virtual tuner" is because this is the only way to get HD to work reliably.  Only Nextcom is trying to use a virtual s-video input. 

The advantage to using a virtual s-video input is the guide doesn't need to be hacked to make it work; but if recordings can't flip between SD and HD and/or HD recordings aren't reliable, this is not a solution.  Using an ATSC "virtual tuner" requires a plug in to be written that hacks the guide to make it work (this is what the other HD solutions do; alternatively we could manually hack the guide through the registry, like Canadians do today to get ATSC working).

Can your system record successfully, flipping between SD and HD using the R5000HD's virtual tuner driver?

Kingbuzzo:

Why the heck do you have so many htpc's anyway?  Why don't you put them all in the back alley and get a WHS and a few extenders? 

The entire reason for me to go the HTPC route is so we can share all of our media throughout our home with the various PCs we have.  Each of our children has their own PC in their bedroom that doubles as an extender.  We like to use the PC in the study to watch TV now and then.  We have an old PC in the basement rec room that my wife uses for her exercise videos (this one could be replaced by an extender - except for the fact that her exercise videos are all on-line DVDs and my youngest daughter also likes to watch on-line DVDs downstairs too; when physical DVDs go downstairs they get trashed), and we bring our laptop back and forth to the cottage to both bring content to/from and to operate as the main Media Center PC, complete with TV Tuner (SD) while we are there.  For the most part I have been extremely pleased with what Media Center has provided to us.

It is the flexibility that Media Center PCs provide that makes them ideal for how we use them.  Media Center Extenders really don't provide what we are looking for, especially since we already need the PCs and extenders can't stream DVDs (without transcoding DVDs to a different format first).  The other thing I hate about Media Center Extenders is how they quickly become obsolete.  V1 extenders don't work at all with Vista and I wouldn't be surprised to find V2 extenders stop working with Windows 7.  Having to purchase new extenders every few years isn't something I want to do.  PCs on the other hand can always be updated and there are always "old" PCs that can be picked up for $20-$40 that are perfectly capable of working as an extender (except for Live TV in MC).

Some questions for you:

How long do you think it will take before Nextcom's driver works properly with Media Center?  Do you have confidence it will work in the near future?

How long do you think it will take before Media Center supports h.264, the Hauppauge HD-PVR and h.264 from the R5000HD?

Rumor has it that h.264 won't be supported until Windows 7 is released.  How long will it take for Windows 7 to be released?  Do you think this will be before you really need h.264 support?

Do you think your current V2 extenders will support h.264 (assuming it isn't supported until Windows 7) or will you need to purchase new extenders once again?

How long do you think it will take before we can watch Live TV on other PCs throughout the home (I know that the R5000HD virtual tuner should support this, but it needs to work first)?

I will wait some more as I really do like Media Center very much and it seems "so close", but I can't help feeling Microsoft isn't ever going to put these fundamental features that I want into their development plan.  I wouldn't even have a problem if I had to pay extra for a "TV pack" - just as long as I can actually get it.

Don't forget that WHS isn't supported by Media Center...

I'm pleased to be able to say that Nextcom has just released a new, Rev. 3.0C, version of the Media Center driver for the R5000HD (found at http://www.nextcomwireless.com/R5000/support.htm).

I haven't tried it yet, but it is good to see they are still working on the driver.

It looks like I may have spoken too soon in my last post... (as long as Nextcom keeps working on it, I'm sure they'll get it right eventually).

Edit:  Unfortunately they now include this notice:

Supported STBs All currently supported R5000-HD devices are useable with the Media Center software. However, the 6000 series boxes (From Dish and Bell) have not been tested and are not officially supported. These boxes have been phased out by their providers and it is recommended that owners upgrade to the newer units.

Note that my STB is a Bell 6000... (this is a bit surprising to me since they are still selling the R5000HD for the 6000 STBs and I only purchased mine last fall - hopefully it will still work once the bugs are out of the driver)

Makes sense on the Dish 6000 though as those are going to be obsolete when everything goes MPEG4 only on the HD channels august 1.

I know you are married to Bell but at least consider how long it takes Canadian providers to do ANYTHING.  We could be watching Beachcombers on 6 CBC Channels in HD with mpeg4 for the next 10 years. 

There isn't enough channels (with crappy CanIndian Content) to fill the pipe they have so there is no rush for h.264

I have one extender and its a 360.  They aren't going to stop supporting that anytime soon and if 7 drops early (it probably will), a software update will allow streaming/drm or whatever.

Some questions for you:

How long do you think it will take before Nextcom's driver works properly with Media Center?  Do you have confidence it will work in the near future?

I didn't think they would ever write one and they did so at least I have hope.  With Vista selling 20 million copies a month that is more than enough incentive for them.

How long do you think it will take before Media Center supports h.264, the Hauppauge HD-PVR and h.264 from the R5000HD?

I'm sure they are considering the possibility of adding it.  Even if they don't, I can wait for Windoze 7 - I've waited this long and I'm already recording mpeg4 HD.  I don't get the hype around the new hauppage - they are going to close the "analog hole" so fast your head will spin.  Never underestimate the MPIAA.

Rumor has it that h.264 won't be supported until Windows 7 is released.  How long will it take for Windows 7 to be released?  Do you think this will be before you really need h.264 support?

I don't know about you but I'm a Windoze enthusiast.  I will be running 7 before it hits RC so yesh, definitely before I'm forced to upgrade my evil STB.

Do you think your current V2 extenders will support h.264 (assuming it isn't supported until Windows 7) or will you need to purchase new extenders once again?

Yesh, the 360 would need a s/w upgrade at the most.  Chances are good that I would be upgrading to the 370 or whatever the heck they are going to call it anyway.

How long do you think it will take before we can watch Live TV on other PCs throughout the home (I know that the R5000HD virtual tuner should support this, but it needs to work first)?

I don't understand the question.  I'm already doing this in SD and I will be doing this in HD if the new driver works (on my 360).

I will wait some more as I really do like Media Center very much and it seems "so close", but I can't help feeling Microsoft isn't ever going to put these fundamental features that I want into their development plan.  I wouldn't even have a problem if I had to pay extra for a "TV pack" - just as long as I can actually get it.

You already made the investment, what is a few more months?  You are starting to sound like all the other bellyachers around here.  There isn't many must-have features that are missing as far as I am concerned.  I wish they would put LIVE Messenger back in however.

Don't forget that WHS isn't supported by Media Center...

It will be.  Anyone that knows anything about file sharing can already utilize its main purpose.  I have seen tons of add-ons already as well.  Besides, they were busy fixing the file corruption issue and getting it out the door in the first place.  It's coming - no worries...

thezigpc:

One bypass to the HD/SD problem is the new tuner support in the newest vista update.  You can remove all SD channels from the cablebox (both disable them in the box itself and through VistaMCE) then use a normal analog tuner for the basic channels again inside vista MCE so that way you can avoid the SD/HD swich problem.

I did previously consider a solution like this, but I concluded it wouldn't work (I could be wrong though).

My thinking was if I could use the PVR-250 for SD channels and the R5000HD for HD channels, I'd be set (except for the HD audio glitches with the previous beta R5000HD drivers).  The problem is with Media Center when you set up the PVR-250 as a source and then the R5000HD as another source, it thinks there are two tuners and STBs available.  Even with Fiji there isn't a way (that I know of) to tell Media Center there is only one STB and that SD channels need to use the PVR-250, while HD channels use the R5000HD tuner.  The end result will most likely be Media Center trying to record simultaneously from the "two" tuners with the STB changing channels mid recording.

The reality is this is exactly how I have FireSTB configured to work though.  Right now I use the PVR-250 for all SD channels and FireSTB will then record (in parallel) the HD channels using the R5000HD.  Once the HD recording is complete, FireSTB replaces the SD recording with the HD.  This does work and I've been watching HD in Vista Media Center using a combination of FireSTB and the R5000HD for over a year.

The downside to my current solution is Live TV is always SD and once in a while an HD recording gets truncated somehow (and I need to manually reprocess the transport stream using TSConverter2.5 in order to get the whole show in HD).

So believe it or not, even though I've had my R5000HD enabled Dish 211 since July, I haven't had any time to get into it. Well I'm finally finished crunching on Call of Duty:World at War, and I've been messing with my mediacenter this week. I've got the r5000 hooked up and it can record HD .ts streams with the r5000 application. I installed firestb and it can change my channels just fine.

Is that it? If I set it to record in VMC it will save a .ts file to the directory I have set up in the r5000 options? Firestb initates recording?

It seems to me, this would be the way to go right now, until a new version of media center comes out with H.264 support. The problem I see with the Nextcom drivers for MCE is

A) it costs extra and I still can't watch Mpeg 4 LiveTV anyway (the bulk of dish's HD channels are now Mpeg4)

B) it's basically doing the same thing firestb is doing.

C)The AC3 audio bug

As I have it setup right now, I have the composite outputs of the dish 211 going into my Happauge TV card, so I can watch Live TV in SD, and if I record something I can watch that in HD, which I do more than watch Live TV anway.

Am I missing anything?

LASooner:

So believe it or not, even though I've had my R5000HD enabled Dish 211 since July, I haven't had any time to get into it. Well I'm finally finished crunching on Call of Duty:World at War, and I've been messing with my mediacenter this week. I've got the r5000 hooked up and it can record HD .ts streams with the r5000 application. I installed firestb and it can change my channels just fine.

Is that it? If I set it to record in VMC it will save a .ts file to the directory I have set up in the r5000 options? Firestb initates recording?

It seems to me, this would be the way to go right now, until a new version of media center comes out with H.264 support. The problem I see with the Nextcom drivers for MCE is

A) it costs extra and I still can't watch Mpeg 4 LiveTV anyway (the bulk of dish's HD channels are now Mpeg4)

B) it's basically doing the same thing firestb is doing.

C)The AC3 audio bug

As I have it setup right now, I have the composite outputs of the dish 211 going into my Happauge TV card, so I can watch Live TV in SD, and if I record something I can watch that in HD, which I do more than watch Live TV anway.

Am I missing anything?

From your description, I think you've basically got things working.

What FireSTB also does is try to convert the .ts file into a dvr-ms file, but this will only work for mpeg-2 transport streams.  You can configure FireSTB to do different things with the resulting dvr-ms file (replace the SD version, keep both, etc.).

With your Dish 211, do you receive both mpeg-2 and mpeg-4?

It sounds like you have the same glitchy AC-3 on mpeg-2 audio issues with your Dish 211 as I do with my Bell 6000 (I've heard others saying the R5000HD drivers don't work with newer STBs, so you are not alone).

A few things for getting FireSTB to work (just in case...).  You need to have HDTVPump installed in order to convert .ts files into .dvr-ms files.  My preference is to install TSConverter2.5, instead of a stand alone HDTVPump.  TSConverter2.5 includes the latest version of HDTVPump (1.2.0.0) and as long as you run it in administrator mode (or turn off UAC), it will allow you to manually convert .ts files into .dvr-ms files (and they play flawlessly in Media Center).  My advice is if you are having any issues, carefully read through the FireSTB readme (all of it).  Note you do need UAC turned off for FireSTB to work properly also.

For the R5000HD software, I am now running the very latest regular, non-MCE version (3.0c).  I'm not sure exactly what has changed, but by using this version, the RC1 release version of FireSTB for Vista, and HDTVPump 1.2.0.0, absolutely all of my R5000HD HD recordings have recorded flawlessly for use by Media Center.  Basically I use Media Center as I normally would and all recordings from HD channels end up being in HD and playing flawlessly.  I also share all of my recordings with our 5 other Media Center PCs and they can all play them fine too.

The only thing using FireSTB to drive the R5000HD is missing is Live HDTV.  My Live TV drops down to SD quality.

I still really wish Nextcom would get their MCE driver to work properly.  While I don't watch much Live HDTV, it is still something my system is missing.

So USB channel changing lasted about 2 hours, it's really flakey, so I just went back to using IR blaster to do it. It's reliable and my HTPC is in a cabinet anyway.

Mpeg 4 records, but wow is it ever dodgy. Dish is doing some serious error correction, when I run the captured file through Arcsoft Total Media it looks perfect, when I use Media Center or Mediaplayer it has a lot of glitches, although this varies from channel to channel, ESPN2 recorded fine, but Cinemax had a lot of EC making it look good.

I looked through the registry settings for FireSTB, this may sound weird, but is there a way to just have it initiate .ts recording, but NOT try to convert it to DVR-MS? I'd rather convert what I want, if I want, and not have it be an automated process.

I've also had a few problems with mytray just disappearing, I downloaded firestb from here http://home.comcast.net/~timmmoore/firewire/readme.htm is this the latest?