I'd just like to voice my agremeent with Rich and Andy. It is a shame that it seemed like Jess was pushing to get a fix for this and it has all seemingly come to nothing. Freecom won't make any changes to the drivers to resolve this issue as they are happy it is running correctly under Vista with the supplied software, here is a quote from their FAQ

 

Be aware that MCE is not a Freecom software, thus we do not have any influence on it.

 

I guess I'll be dropping VMC which is a real shame and sticking with the TotalMedia software which atleast works.

I'll second that sentiment, LazyG. I've gone ahead and rolled back to MCE2005 so I can get TV. The lost functionality of not having Vista isn't even close to the lost TV functionality - my media center is practically useless without it. And I agree with other posters - if all of these tuners (including the Freecom one) work just fine with just about every other TV application out there (TotalMedia, Beyond TV, Media Portal, etc.), how can this be considered an OEM driver issue and not a VMC TV module one?

If MSFT won't fix it, maybe Apple or Google will come out with a solution that works ;)

pediwent:

If MSFT won't fix it, maybe Apple or Google will come out with a solution that works ;)

Don't forget linux!  Microsoft are far from the only fish in the sea when it comes to media centre functionality (although their products are probably the most user friendly), it's situations like this that can make or break your faith with a product.

Sorry I can’t contribute with any help however;

 

Having a similar nightmare with my custom Media Centre! Some months ago it seemed like a damn good idea to build a bespoke Media Centre to suit my requirements. After many glitches I am almost there except for the image/audio stutter and the random crash.

Problem occurs with the Vista Media Cen App (MCE) whenever record is pressed then continues even when recording has finished. Effecting ‘Live TV’ but more so when recording. Works better on Win TV than on Vista-Media Centre (but still stutters on record). All this is on Analogue (not in a digital area). I have tried another card Aver Media analogue and it still has the same problem. Therefore, ruling out the card itself.

I have updated all my drivers, even Rolled Back drivers to see if that made a difference, have removed all other applications, tried it with & without recommended software (bundled with TV card) and set the Vista settings to best performance all to no avail.

I have; Mobo – Foxcon 945P7AA (with onboard Semicorps HD audio), Intel Dual Core (2.8 Mhz), 2.5 Gb RAM, 320Gb HDD, Graphics Gigabyte 7600 GT (HDMI) and of course a Hauppauge 1100 Tv card. All on ‘pukka’ Vista Home Premium.

I have no other applications installed and have tried a complete format and re-install. I would like to think that the spec (above) is more than capable of running a single analogue tuner without looking like it’s a Pentium 2 struggling with 16mb RAM.

 

It has been strongly suggested to contact this website!

 

Help please

Hover:

Problem occurs with the Vista Media Cen App (MCE) whenever record is pressed then continues even when recording has finished. Effecting ‘Live TV’ but more so when recording. Works better on Win TV than on Vista-Media Centre (but still stutters on record). All this is on Analogue (not in a digital area). I have tried another card Aver Media analogue and it still has the same problem. Therefore, ruling out the card itself.

I have updated all my drivers, even Rolled Back drivers to see if that made a difference, have removed all other applications, tried it with & without recommended software (bundled with TV card) and set the Vista settings to best performance all to no avail. 

This thread is actually about a specific problem with digital tuners receiving no signal under VMC. Have you searched for "stutter" as there are other threads within the forum which directly address this issue? From my experience the video drivers seem to be the most likely culprits.

Richard 

My Compro E700 is now displaying all of the scanned channels. I'm not sure why it's now working. A couple of days ago I updated the driver to version 1.0.4.1 (downloaded from a link posted in this thread). After rebooting, the channels still wouldn't display. But now it works... Good for me I guess.

So much for Freecom. I tried emailing them with details and a link to this thread, here is the reply...

 

We don't have drivers with Vista bug workaround. We don't guarantee
existing drivers to work properly with Vista's MCE application.  

The tuner drivers that fail do not support the following: “A tuner deployed in the UK must be able to tune to any frequency within the UHF band presenting the modulation parameters defined in Table 22.2 of D-Book5.0“.

Please provide this information to your IHV.

To be resilient, a TV application checks many frequencies for a lock. But this is not an accurate way to locate the frequency. The more accurate approach is to use inband guide information to drill down on the correct frequency. The issue is that some drivers do not support receiving a request to tune to the correct frequency in the UK and this is what's causing the issue. The change between WinXP MCE and Windows Vista MCE is to use the inband guide data to more accurately determine the frequency to tune to.

This is not a bug in MCE. It is a bug in the tuner driver. I will investigate whether it's possible to test for this in the LOGO tests, and fail a driver if it does not pass the above requirement.

It is sometimes the case that when changes are made to the OS, drivers break. During the development of Windows Vista, I found that in many of the cases, OS changes "revealed" driver bugs that were not evident in the prior OS. Rather than hacking the OS to accommodate driver bugs, we chose the path of having partners fix the bugs. This is also the case with this issue.

-Chris

ChrisMatichuk:

The tuner drivers that fail do not support the following: “A tuner deployed in the UK must be able to tune to any frequency within the UHF band presenting the modulation parameters defined in Table 22.2 of D-Book5.0“.

Please provide this information to your IHV.

To be resilient, a TV application checks many frequencies for a lock. But this is not an accurate way to locate the frequency. The more accurate approach is to use inband guide information to drill down on the correct frequency. The issue is that some drivers do not support receiving a request to tune to the correct frequency in the UK and this is what's causing the issue. The change between WinXP MCE and Windows Vista MCE is to use the inband guide data to more accurately determine the frequency to tune to.

This is not a bug in MCE. It is a bug in the tuner driver. I will investigate whether it's possible to test for this in the LOGO tests, and fail a driver if it does not pass the above requirement.

It is sometimes the case that when changes are made to the OS, drivers break. During the development of Windows Vista, I found that in many of the cases, OS changes "revealed" driver bugs that were not evident in the prior OS. Rather than hacking the OS to accommodate driver bugs, we chose the path of having partners fix the bugs. This is also the case with this issue.

-Chris

 

Chris I'm struggling to understand your explanation. The tuner drivers clearly are capable of tuning to any frequency within the UHF band because they work in pretty much every application except Media Center both for tuning and viewing the channels in question.

You state that a TV application checks many frequencies for a lock and that is not an accurate way to locate the frequency - I find this interesting because Media Center does in fact locate these frequencies during a channel scan but decides to not lock on during Live TV viewing. No matter if Media Center is using a frequency scan for a lock or if it using the guide data the end result is the same - it is unable to lock onto the correct frequency to view live TV where other applications using the same 'signed' drivers can.

I'm sorry but I still don't accept that it's a bug in the drivers particularly given this explanation. If Media Center is using the frequency rather than the guide to detect the channels during a scan then it has a bug locking on to those channels during Live TV, if however it is using the guide data to scan then it has a bug somewhere else because it is detecting the channels correctly during the scan but still refusing to lock on during Live TV. Which ever way you look at it you are going to be hard pressed to convince me that this is not a bug with the application itself because the drivers are clearly capable of both tuning and viewing these channels.

ChrisMatichuk:

 The change between WinXP MCE and Windows Vista MCE is to use the inband guide data to more accurately determine the frequency to tune to.

Surely the change between XP MCE and Vista MCE is that Vista MCE appears to be using the inband guide data to tune to an incorrect frequency?

Richard

ChrisMatichuk:

To be resilient, a TV application checks many frequencies for a lock. But this is not an accurate way to locate the frequency. The more accurate approach is to use inband guide information to drill down on the correct frequency. The issue is that some drivers do not support receiving a request to tune to the correct frequency in the UK and this is what's causing the issue. The change between WinXP MCE and Windows Vista MCE is to use the inband guide data to more accurately determine the frequency to tune to.

So that I can understand what you are saying better, please can you explain why I am able to receive a channel with a positive offset in Vista MCE but not one with a negative offset?

Relevant data:-

1. Located in London, using Crystal Palace transmitter, all multiplexes use negative offsets except for one, which uses positive offsets. I can receive all channels on the positive offset multiplex but none of the others.

2. Using Freecom USB stick with Vista drivers.

3. Channel "Sky News" works, it is on C34, 578MHz, with offset that is presumably 578.167MHz

4. Channel "BBC 1" doesn't work, it is on C25, 506MHz, with negative offset that is presumably 505.833 Mhz.

If it helps I can reinstall the free software that came with the Freecom stick on a Windows 2000 machine in the same room and get the exact frequencies the scan in that software finds. (All channels work under Windows 2000 with that software.)

I would suggest that when drivers works absolutely fine with 9/10 programs, the problem is with that 1 program, not with the drivers...

ChrisMatichuk:

The change between WinXP MCE and Windows Vista MCE is to use the inband guide data to more accurately determine the frequency to tune to.

When choosing a transmitter for freeview in the VMC setup, it lists your nearest transmitters & also 'unlisted' freeview (or something similar - not sat in front of it now).  Does this mean if I chose the unlisted option, it would in face scan for channels instead of using the guide, since without choosing a particular transmitter it wouldn't know which channels were on which frequency?

Several of the tuner drivers mentioned in this thread appear to have been fixed to address this issue. The Freecom tuner appears to be the only one remaining that hasn't been fixed. If Freecom refuses to fix the issue, and you are interested in using Windows Vista MCE, then use a different tuner.

If you wish to motivate Freecom to fix the issue, please provide them the following requirement: “A tuner deployed in the UK must be able to tune to any frequency within the UHF band presenting the modulation parameters defined in Table 22.2 of D-Book5.0“.

Please keep your comments related to the above requirement.

-Chris

Thanks for the reply Chris. I'm a layman so a lotof this is beyond me, is it you understanding that if our Freecom tuners were able "to tune to any frequency within the UHF band presenting the modulation parameters defined in Table 22.2 of D-Book5.0“ that it would resolve the issue?