Windows Media Center 2005 - EPG for Irish TV

PowerHouseDan

Do Cos i have to redo my smartguide and not in the humour.

40coats wrote:

I'm on the team that's been doing the Irish release (I've had very little to with it personally unfortunately). I'll say no more, don't want to get myself in trouble. I'll try and find out if I can post a release date yet.

dalk

Hi...

It would be cool if you guys could let everyone know when the EPG is released, and how well it is implemented. Gonna pick up a copy of MCE when it is and throw a box together...

dalk

FrankGrimes

Alright lads,

I'm about to install MCE and am wondering what EPG to go for. Still no word on a relase date for the official Irish EPG so itll have to be a work around.

I'm not familiar enough with it to know the difference between Graham's and 40Coat's solutions. 40Coats mentions something about his solution not excluding search and filtering - Graham, does your solution include these features?

If anyone else has experience with either of these solutions I'd appreciate hearing on how you got on with it.

Thanks lads,
Grimey

dalk

Rollup 2 for MCE2005 is now available for download... from the MS OEM developers site and some *ahem* other sites. (Its a free update btw). It will be available from MS automatic updates within the month apparently...

Havent installed it yet so dont know if the Irish EPG is available yet... Hopefully it is. Will let you know.

Now all i have to do, is wait to see if the WMP11 beta in November fixes all the bollixy issues with WMP10, and I will be happy with MCE05..

FrankGrimes

Hey Dalk-

I have the update but haven't been able to install yet thanks to my Windows Installer taking ill.

I've read on http://www.thegreenbutton.com that the update does not include the official Irish EPG :eek: This is a joke and one can only hope that the version made public on windows update within the month includes it - otherwise I'll be majorly majorly disappointed.

The update includes digital radio support and not much else by the sounds of it. Talk on the green button was of majorly disappointed people who thought an oppurtunity had been missed - they say HD support, cable card support and QAM are all absent or poorly implemented. Being a novice in the area I don't have a clue what any of this means (though I suspect the lack of HD support will impact us here more when HD arrives next year) but I know pissed off people when I see em . One guy who obviously knows his stuff said 'this spells the death of MCE for the high end market (custom HD installations)'.

40Coats said he has the official Irish EPG up and running so one would assume that it will be included in the forthcoming release but my feedback would be that MS need to communicate something publicly soon to relieve the disappointment spreading on the web.

dalk

oh well... looks like it'll be a month then before the Irish EPG 'resolves'...

40coats

Hi lads,
I've had a few pm's sent to me the last few days asking how I have an epg at the moment. The epg isn't live yet, i'm getting it from a test server at the moment which for obvious reasons (I hope) I can't give you an address to. I'll keep trying to get you an official date but so far I'm not having much luck. So apologies all, but it really shouldn't be much longer.

Inquitus

I have a new HTPC, Windows MCE 2005 and a PVR150. My Cable provider is chorus, and I am currently on an analogue Signal. Which EPG Method would work best for me, and is there anywhere I can find a decent guide to the configuration.

Many thanks,

Inqui

DiamondJQuimby

Hi..

I was wondering if this has been released yet as it has been two weeks now and no word??

Quick question on MCE 2005.

I have a Toshiba Qosmio F10 laptop and I have tried numerous times to get the channels tuned in successfully.
If I slect Ireland as the region in MCE all of the channels are in black and white.
If I go for the UK I get about 25 Channles of which 7 are probably duplicates and they all appear as unknown.

Haven't a clue what I am supposed to be selcteing in the Settings for TV.
Should I just wait for the Release or is there a quick fix for this.

I am not too pushed about the epg for the moment I would just like to be able to tune all of the channels in correctly.

I am using NTL analog. I have NTL Digital also but I have not tried that as the set top box is in a different room.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Thanks

D

Krusty_Clown

Pretty much the same question as DiamondJQuimby's, am having problems editing my MCETuningOverrides.xml. When I edit it, and perform a scan, I get 0 services. However, If I leave it as default (un-edited) I pick up about 5 channels in a poor state of tune (I'd imagine from where the existing Frequency in the XML overrides overlaps somewhat with an NTL frequency).

So what I was hoping was that some generous NTL Analog user might post a copy of their MCETuningOverrides.xml file, or at least a snippet, so I can figure out where I'm going wrong... I know I could wait for the update, but where's the fun in that?!

Here's the top of mine at the moment:

<AnalogTVTuningSpace Id="44" UniqueName="Irish Cable" MinChannel="1" MaxChannel="491" DefaultFormat="PAL_B" InputType="Cable">
		<DefaultAnalogLocators>
			<Index Channel="1">
				<AnalogLocator Id="The Discovery Channel" CarrierFrequency="48000000" />
			</Index>
			<Index Channel="2">
				<AnalogLocator Id="Channel 4" CarrierFrequency="56000000" />

40coats

Irish EPG is going Live this month, don't have an exact date but i suspect it will be near the end. Krusty, I've attached my old override table, hope it sorts it out for you.

Krusty_Clown

Thanks a lot 40coats.. That seems to have done the trick (just scanning now, and has picked up 10 Channels so far).

The problem was that I was trying to include a suitable channel name in the 'AnalogLocator Id'. There's one born every day!

Looking forward to the offical Irish EPG release! Thanks again..

prechaun

Hey fella's,
Did any of ye manage to get more than 10 channels? I cant seam to get more than that. I'm missing Discovery, MTV, Paramount, CNBC, Setanta and TG4. I'm using 40Coats's override file. Those 6 seem to be the last 6 in the xml file, but i'm sure thats just a weird coincidence. Anyone got any ideas? They're definitely the right frequencies because I checked the them on my tv and they're the same. Thanks for the help, cos it would be great to get this working.

Krusty_Clown

Hi Prechaun, no, Just getting the 10. Missing the same channels as you...
I figure that this might have been because of the crappy TV tuner I was using (integrated TV tuner on a Radeon 9800 SE) but I guess seeing as we're getting simillar results, it must be something else..

BTW: For all you MCE afficianados out there, I'm getting very poor performance from my integrated TV tuner card. Is the Hauppage PVR 500 MCE the best option? (selling on Komplett for 135 euro). Anyone know if it generates a lot of heat? I'm using a small factor ePox ex5-300, which doesn't have a lot of space, and can't handle anything with high power requirements...

dalk

Hi,

PVR-500's power requirements are normal and it dosent produce a lot of heat.

It is however in my experience extremely finicky... It simply would not work in about 2 out of 4 boxes i tested it in. Sometimes this could be fixed by moving it to another slot... With you SFF PC that might not be an option. It is a hardware conflict rather than a drivers issue.

So i would see if anyone on the net is using the PVR500 with your configuration. After that i would just cross my fingers...

prechaun

Krusty_Clown wrote:

Hi Prechaun, no, Just getting the 10. Missing the same channels as you...
I figure that this might have been because of the crappy TV tuner I was using (integrated TV tuner on a Radeon 9800 SE) but I guess seeing as we're getting simillar results, it must be something else..

Thanks for the reply Krusty. I have a seperate TV and video card. Although my video card is a:

ATI RADEON 9200 (RV280SE) video card 128 MB DDR +TV-out

My TV card is a :

Leadtek Analog TV tuner CNXT LR6632

I didn't build this PC though. It came like this. So i don't know what the problem is. Any one any ideas?
Thanks

FrankGrimes

Hi,

Does anyone have a config file that is setup for NTL Digital? I PMed Graham but he doesn’t seem to be about. Also, does anyone know how I can get MCE to control my set-top box as I am getting an ‘IR Hardware Not Detected’ error during setup?

I have it setup without the digital box, just on plain old analogue and I get a similar problem with repeated channels, channels missing etc.

I have a PVR500MCE working with my setup which is a self build: AMD Athlon 64 1800, 1GB RAM, ATI X700 Pro, Abit Asus Motherboard (I thnk!).

Roll on the official EPG I say!.....check this out - it might be here this week, I agree that it would not be smar to release the xbox 360 for review without the update allowing it to be used as an MCE Extender.

http://www.thegreenbutton.com/community/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=41&MessageID=135074

Krusty_Clown

Thanks for the feedback dalk. I may just go ahead with the purchase anyway, and change the case if it turns out to be a problem.. The ePox is cool looking, but not very practical, in terms of either power or heat. The box was put together almost entirely from borrowed parts (total cost 114 euro ) so an extra 135 wont break the bank...

prechaun

Does anybody know the best place to buy an xbox media center extender around these parts?

SouperComputer

Does anybody know the best place to buy an xbox media center extender around these parts?

looks like ebay TBH

prechaun

Yeah, thats what i went for all right. There shouldnt be any compatability with ones from the states should there?

Adey2002

Frank...

Does anyone have a config file that is setup for NTL Digital?
I have it setup for NTL Digital withh all channels working. I'll post it up tonight.
I PMed Graham but he doesn’t seem to be about.
I setup mine by following Graham's instructions at the start of this post, it was relatively easy.
Also, does anyone know how I can get MCE to control my set-top box as I am getting an ‘IR Hardware Not Detected’ error during setup?
Do you have the IR receiver and remote control? you will need them both to set it up.

FrankGrimes

Hey, thanks Adey2002 – that’d be sweet if you could post that later….I’m working 16 hour days so any few minutes I can save is a help.

I have an MCE remote which came with a receiver and two emitters. This picture shows what I have (though I have a second emitter also). Connection in port 1 on the receiver is not as tight or solid as the connection in port 2 but even if I put the emitter into port 2 it still does not pick it up.

When I connect the NTL signal directly to MCE via coax I can get the basic NTL channels by using the remote to set it up, but naturally I want to connect it to my NTL STB and that’s where I’m getting the problem. I’ve posted on the green button forum about this but didn’t get much help and googling the error message doesn’t get much hits which makes me think its not a common error and maybe it is a faulty unit. Whaddya reckon?

Prechaun – there should not be any compatibility issues with Xbox extender, though there are a lot of bad reviews on them. Xbox 360 sounds like it’ll be a lot better, in the meantime I bought two HP extenders when in the states (half price cos of minute scratches) and will be setting these up soon and will post my experience with them. I might have one to sell as I really don’t need 4 MCE locations in my house, and I’ll be getting an Xbox 360 early through a contact. I’ll post here if I have it to sell.

prechaun

Thanks for the reply Grimey (he loves to be called that). I've already ordered the xbox extender from the states though, partly because i want it now , and partly because I'm in 2 minds about getting a PS3 instead of a 360, because the ps3 seems like a much better gaming machine. But i might still be interested at some stage if you have a spare extender.
Thanks

Adey2002

FrankGrimes wrote:

Hey, thanks Adey2002 – that’d be sweet if you could post that later….I’m working 16 hour days so any few minutes I can save is a help.

I have an MCE remote which came with a receiver and two emitters. This picture shows what I have (though I have a second emitter also). Connection in port 1 on the receiver is not as tight or solid as the connection in port 2 but even if I put the emitter into port 2 it still does not pick it up.

IT sounds like you could have a dodgy receiver. A few things to try (though you probably have already)..
-When you plug the IR into the USB port does MCE detect it? (it should popup new hardware found or something similar I think).
-Have you tried a different USB port?
-Have you checked in the system properties to make sure your usb ports are detected and working?
-Do you have another PC you could plug the receiver into to see if that detects it?
-Do you know anyone else with MCE, could you try their receiver? Could they try yours?

Hope one of these helps . . .

FrankGrimes

Hey Adey,

Sorry for the confusion - the IR receiver connects to the PC no problem (I can use the remote in MCE no problem). The problem is that when I plug the emitters into the back of the IR receiver device they are not detected.

Gonna try get a replacement cos the connection seems dodgy.

Adey2002

FrankGrimes wrote:

Hey Adey,

Sorry for the confusion - the IR receiver connects to the PC no problem (I can use the remote in MCE no problem). The problem is that when I plug the emitters into the back of the IR receiver device they are not detected.

Gonna try get a replacement cos the connection seems dodgy.

Before you get a replacement, do you have dvd decoder software installed? I'm pretty sure that lack of the dvd decoder software would cause this problem.

The following decoders are supported in MCE 2005 (i have the nvidia).
• CyberLink PowerDVD 5.0.2027C
• CyberLink PowerDVD 6.0
• CyberLink PowerDVD 6.0.1102
• Intervideo WinDVD 5.0
• Intervideo WinDVD 5.0 Build 11.670
• NVIDIA DVD Decoder
30 free trial here --> http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_decoder.html

Theres a little software utility that you can also install that detects which decoder you're using and if it is fully functional and MCE compatible.

Utility Here --> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=de1491ac-0ab6-4990-943d-627e6ade9fcb&displaylang=en

Adey2002

Frank,

ChannelInfo.xml for NTL digital. I had to change the file extension to .txt to be able to upload it so you will need to change it back to .xml after download.

I hope you manage to get the IR problem sorted. I'm pretty sure it's the dvd decoder as mentioned above.

Regards
Adey

FrankGrimes

Hey Adey - thanks for that file, looks like you've saved me a fair bit of hassle

I'm flat out at the moment so haven't had a chance to look into this but I think I have PowerDVD installed and I can play back manually recorded TV no problem.

I know little on the background on this but how could a software decoder affect the IR hardware not being detected?

Adey2002

I'm not sure why, I've seen a few posts on it on other forums where they have had the same problem which were resolved by installing/changing the decoder software. I'm guessing it may be when you go from analogue to digital (which also means you have to use the ir receiver) and it's only then it'll use the decoder.

I had problems with the powerdvd decoder when I first installed also. I gave up and used the NVIDIA one then.