LiveTV in Media Center over Remote Desktop via RemoteFX

LiveTV in Media Center over Remote Desktop via RemoteFX

Just a quick screenshot to show “proof” of Live TV using a Ceton InfiniTV over Remote Desktop via RemoteFX.

What is interesting about the screenshot, at least to me, is that I took it of a RemoteFX Remote Desktop Protocol (rdp) session from another RDP session that was connected via VPN over the WAN.

I’ll be following up with a full overview of RemoteFX.  If you listened to today’s podcast you we talked about it a little bit.  I do not believe it is a valid architecture for HTPC usage, at least not yet, but it is extremely cool technology.  It is just too expensive, both in hardware and software, to be used.  It most cases it makes more sense to get a low power Intel Core i3-2100T or AMD Zacate (if it proves a valid HTPC choice), you’ll save money and energy consumption.

If you have any questions feel free to ask, I’ll try to answer each in my RemoteFX follow up.  I’ll go over what hardware I am using and what I am using it for.

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  • acrophile
    February 23, 2011 11:46 pm

    what’s the goal here?

    what’s the goal here? softsled alternative?

  • mikinho
    February 24, 2011 12:08 am

    I’ll go over it more in my

    I’ll go over it more in my full post but my particular interest in RemoteFX is three fold:

    1- Academic.  I’m a software developer and wantneed to understand any emerging technologies and potential areas of development.

    2- Media Center Development.  I can test any of my add-ins on virtuals w/o being limited to being seen as a Media Center Extender.  It makes development much less irritating.  I can test 32-bit finally (not that I really want to)

    3- Development.  I’ve moved my primary workstation to a VM w/ RemoteFX so regardless of what computer I’m on I can connect to my development machine and have full client-side DXVA and console abilities.  I don’t have to worry about crashes, my kids accidently shutting down, etc.  I only did this on Monday though as I had some hardware failures over the weekend.

    My server also has 32GB RAM and dual AMD Opteron 6134 Magny-Cours so it is a bit snappier too.

  • mikinho
    February 24, 2011 12:09 am

    And the reason I’m posting

    And the reason I’m posting here is that I’ve gotten quite a few e-mails and PMs asking whether 1- It was possible; 2- My experience with it.

    My primary HTPC for recording is a virtual as well but I only connect to it from my Kitchen HTPC (I’ll go over that more soon).

  • hoyty
    February 24, 2011 3:00 am

    I am interested in this for a

    I am interested in this for a bunch of reasons.  I think I know the answer to this but if you could elaborate in next post I would appreciate it.  Layers –

    1. Physical Virtual Host with GPU and Ceton installed running 2008 R2 SP1

    2. Virtual Machine running Win7 SP1 with passthrough of GPU and Ceton (how are you doing this?  Via PCI or network access of Ceton?)

    3. Some other machine VM or physical RDP to Win7 VM?

    I am wondering if you could have and Atom / ION with HDMI that could passthrough protected (Blu-Ray) from a host machine?  Just curious how far you can go.  Not the softsled that people want but an interesting method to investigate.

  • scottbakertemp
    February 24, 2011 3:07 am

    Is this protected content?

    Is this protected content?

  • Manifest
    February 24, 2011 4:54 pm

    Now if I could only use

    Now if I could only use multiple RDP (RemoteFX) sessions to the same WMC system.

    • osburnfamily
      February 24, 2011 9:05 pm

      Manifest wrote:
      Now if I

      [quote=Manifest]Now if I could only use multiple RDP (RemoteFX) sessions to the same WMC system.[/quote]

      I was thinking along the same lines.  I have PCs in all the rooms nows; but, don’t have extenders in all the rooms (just mine– sorry kids. lol)

      But if I can create a master MediaCenter VM with concurrent sessions patch, then all the kids can hit it and I’ll finally have a real “shared” mediacenter w/o extenders.

      That’s my playtime for the weekend too!  🙂

  • mikinho
    February 24, 2011 9:24 pm

    The concurrent patch works

    The concurrent patch works perfectly BUT RemoteFX is considered a console session.  You are limited to a single console session.  So you can have a console RemoteFX session and have multiple legacy RDP sessions.

  • osburnfamily
    February 25, 2011 12:04 am

    Wow Mike, you totally know

    Wow Mike, you totally know how to blow the wind out of a guys sail!  lol

  • ringo
    August 17, 2011 10:02 am

    I setup RemoteFX on a

    I setup RemoteFX on a virtualized Windows 7 Enterprise VM sitting on Hyper-V using an ATI FirePro v7800 card installed on the server. On the VM, I have it connected to a Ceton Tuner via the Ceton Network Sharing tool. The Ceton Tuner connected successfully to the VM, however, when I run LiveTV in WMC, I am getting the followin error:
    “Driver Display Error – The video playback device does not support playback of protected content.”
    For basic channels 1-25, if I maximize the WMC window, the Driver Display error goes away and LiveTV appears no problem in the RemoteFX window.
    For higher channels, say past channel 25, the Driver Display error remains and there is absolutely no LiveTV appearing.
    Is there a fix for this issue? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
  • acrophile
    August 17, 2011 2:17 pm

    I get the same thing on my

    I get the same thing on my laptop when trying the Ceton network sharing feature. I believe it has something to do with HDCP etc… my laptop display is over DisplayPort which doesn’t support HDCP apparently. 🙁