Is Windows Media Center supported by any TV service provider in

poshea

I purchased a Windows Media Center PC five months ago and have Magnet Entertainment in my home. After five months of talking to Microsoft and Magnet, I have now been told by Magnet that they do not and will not ever set up their network to allow Windows Media Center PC's to run correctly. This means that my investment in this Media Center PC is null and void.

The Magnet rep today told me that my PC is not and will not be able to record TV programmes on the Magnet setup. I was told by a Level 2 tech there three weeks ago that they were going to tweak the software to allow Media Center PC's to record onto hard drives, but I was told today that was incorrect. I need to find out why Magnet have an issue with Microsoft and their concern that I will be watching TV on my monitor. I have a TV licence, a plasma TV and intend to use that.

I also need to find out from you which companies in Ireland support the use of Media Centre PC's. If I have Sky or NTL, will it work? The system works in the UK. Will it work here?

Does anyone out there have Media Center running properly on their PC, watching TV through it and recording programmes directly onto their hard drive? This seems to be an issue for Magnet. So much for being cutting edge. After getting the run around for almost five months, being told to buy SCART leads, routers and other gadgets only to find out now that it is not set up correctly and they have no intention of doing so.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Just don't get drawn into using any TV/broadband service provider until you know if your Media Center PC will operate correctly on their network.

8T8

I've seen advertisements for Magnet but do not know how their system works so if you can fill the details we might be able to help.

Do Magnet use a set top box (STB) ?

If so does the STB have analogue outputs like scart to plug into the TV ?

If yes it does have analogues outputs then MCE can record that output regardless of what Magnet have told you.

Before we go any further into those details I will wait till you can confirm the above.

As for your other questions Sky, NTL/Chorus are supported through the EPG (Electronic Programming Guide) MCE doesn't have to support any particular service it can record the output from any analogue broadcasting device.

The issue of support merely becomes a factor when dealing with the EPG to record programs if no support is available then you have to manually setup the EPG which can be a bit tedious (but is a one time affair).

Tom Dunne

poshea wrote:

I have now been told by Magnet that they do not and will not ever set up their network to allow Windows Media Center PC's to run correctly.

This is silly talk.

Take a step back and have a think about what you are trying to achieve. You are getting a signal into your home and you want to display it on your TV. Does your TV know who/what provides the signal? No, it doesn't. Likewise, the TV card in your PC doesn't know. Your TV takes some form of analogue input, be it RCA (white, red and yellow) or SCART, or dare I say it, co-ax. Instead of plugging the cable into the back of the TV, you plug it into the PC.

Nothing Magnet, nor Sky, nor NTL or any TV provider can do will stop Media Center from working. The EPG is a different kettle of fish altogether.

So just to back up what 8T8, give us specific details on how the signal comes into your house and gets to your TV.

SouperComputer

What magnet said doesnt make sense to me either. The TV signal goes to your PC instead of the TV. Your PC uses its own IR transmitter to change the channels on the set top box. It doesnt require "support" from magnet as such.

Thats it in essence. Now to get the full benfits of MCE, you need to have a working program guide, if M$ dont have one, you can make a custom one that will work with your magnet broadband.

So if you can get info on the connections and hardware that you have (pics too if you can) it should be easy enough to have you set up.

poshea

Tom, I don't think there is anything silly about the questions being asked as I have made attempts to plug every variation of coax, SCART and other cables into the PC. The STB that Magnet provides has the TV decoder info, but I can plug my RJ45 cable into any socket in the house and I get internet. I could plug in five simultaneously and get five seperate connections, without using a router or anything like it. The only connection from the wall anywhere in the house is RJ45. The real issue is a lack of knowledge on the part of the service provider not knowing anything about Media Center. How do the STB and internet coexist when it's essentially coming from the same source? The bottom line is that I cannot get a signal on my TV or computer screen when I run the cable from the wall socket into the back of my PC or thru the set top box (STB) and then into my PC. I have tried every variation. None work.

I'll respond to each of 8T8's questions and appreciate your help very much:

1. Do Magnet use a set top box (STB)? Yes they do. However the line from the wall is an ethernet cable that both the TV signal and internet run off. These homes were set up with Magnet's fibre optic setup.

2. If so does the STB have analogue outputs like scart to plug into the TV? No, it doesn't. I was looking to get something to convert the signal from one of the sources from the back of the STB. The options available are: RJ45, SP-DIF, Amino AV Lead, Outgoing and Incoming RF cables. That's it.

3. If yes it does have analogues outputs then MCE can record that output regardless of what Magnet have told you. So all I needd to do is take the line from the wall outlet, plug into the STB, connect that in some way to the PC (which has a tuner card on board, but to-date has failed to pick up any TV signal).

Before we go any further into those details I will wait till you can confirm the above.


The issue of support merely becomes a factor when dealing with the EPG to record programs if no support is available then you have to manually setup the EPG which can be a bit tedious (but is a one time affair).
I read your other piece on this so will try to set that up.

Thanks very much, Paul

8T8

Okay so Magnet have a fibre line to the house which carries TV, Internet etc.

The STB box is obviously fairly unique I imagine due to the use of fibre optical cable and ethernet cables (RJ45 connection) which is why plugging the PC into the ethernet connection will get you nothing as the STB must decode the data.

So Magnet actually push the TV signal out though crappy RF wow that seems really lame for picture quality. But in theory if the magnet STB has an RF output intended for a TV which you would tune in the channels to, then the RF input on your MCE tuner* should work so all you have to do is hook them up. But you'll be scanning for channels like an over the air broadcasting service don't select the STB option in MCE to setup the TV signal.


* That's assuming your tuner has one but practically all of them do.

SouperComputer

Magnet is basically cable internet with a router that splits it into voice\data\TV. IIRC it;s IPTV technology.

Ive heard some horror stories about the amount of compression used for the TV, but thats another story.

I doubt that there is no way of getting a Composite signal from the box. If this is true however, you could kick up a fuss by saying that it wont connect to your "LCD TV" and that they need to ship you a STB with the appropiate connections. Im pretty sure the amino connection is a DIN plug that contains the signals you want


/edit

Looking at this: http://ioannis.mpsounds.net/blog/?dl=AmiNET110_UserGuide_Book2.pdf

You just need a cable for the "amino" AV connection. Call magnet and stick with the "I need the cable for my LCD TV" line (as your LCD has no RF tuner ) and you should be fine. Failing that you could probably hack together your own cable if you get the pinout.

I'm working blind so you will have to bear with me, I recon this is what you are aiming for:

http://www.cit.cornell.edu/services/cutv/install-tv.html#stepone

Oddly enough it looks like the 10pin Mini Din that was on the Sega Dreamcast.


Next step is to create a custom EPG for you, that should be fun.

Tom Dunne

poshea wrote:

Tom, I don't think there is anything silly about the questions being asked as I have made attempts to plug every variation of coax, SCART and other cables into the PC.

My comment was about what Magnet told you, not what you were asking them.

I still suggest you get a signal on the TV first. Bringing Media Center into the equation is clouding things - if you can't get a signal on your TV, then it will be difficult to troubleshoot problems with Media Center. I think it's confusing Magnet and it's frustrating you.

As the guys said, can you conform the make/model of the STB or post up pictures of the ports on the back of it.

poshea

I really appreciate you all putting a lot of effort in to answering my questions. There was definitely some frustration on my part, having a system and not being able to get it running appropriately.
The amazing thing is the reception quality is actually very good. I would have assumed that all this talk about "fibre optic" meant it must be decent, but was a bit concerned about the fact that it was all coming oput of one socket and attempts to split the signal at the wall have met with disaster to-date.

Thanks for the input. Will try the remedies and report back.

Cheers, Paul

adrian.s

Not gonna be too useful to the OP, but here goes.

The aminio box distibuted by magnet is not quite iptv, it's basically a really simple box designed to lock onto udp streams and send out an analogue stream to your tv via the scart interface.

With some playing around, I managed to get the amino box to log in via my PC and route the media content through ehtereal for a sniff. It's easy to work out what the exact ip address of each stream is and the nature of the request being sent out (AFAIK it's sending out your account number with the request to verify you have a subscription but I have yet to drill into this in more detail).

Now, if you track mythtv development, 0.20 recently introduced a "Network TV Tuner Card" was added to decode mp2 / mp4 streams. I'm hoping if I get time over the next few weeks to iron out what it will take to configure this and get my myth box direct access to the streams coming over the network. I'm currently not feeding the magnet stream into the myth box right now as I still have NTL.

As I said, not quite useful if you're using MCE but thought I'd give a little more background on Magnet's delivery mechanism.

A.

SouperComputer

thats good info there adrian.s

If you uncover anymore post it up!

Grayarea

Hi Adrian.s

I am using MythTV 0.20 and also have magnet. Let us know how you get on

Later,

Gray.