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Also what tuner card types, ATSC, NTSC, ect…

Local storage, or network storage?

-Josh

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[quote=Sean Melchionda]

Maybe I should get this one?  Who knows though if it can learn the TV and Volume commands?

 http://bit.ly/ruv2hg

[/quote]

That isn’t the programable microsoft remote. The programable one will have two power buttons. One for the tv, one for the pc.

-Josh

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Wish I would have seen this before, but I had a similar issue and my hdd too was a Seagate. I absolutely have had nothing but issues with mine. I had studdering issues constantly and all around general issues. Went to a different manufacture, faster drive, more cache, ect.. and haven’t looked back.

-Josh

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[quote=Oingofan]

Josh, after thinking about it for a little bit, I’m starting to not want any extenders for the way I use my media.  The primary benefit of an extender is that I won’t have any copy protection issues from the WMC HTPC.  However, if my current cable company (Charter) has all standard TV as copy freely and only the premium channels as copy once, a secondary small WMC HTPC (that pulls the content from the primary) in the bedroom would be more powerful as it won’t have all the issues that extenders have.

A drawback to having multiple WMC HTPC’s would be that the Ceton doesn’t support tuner pooling (that I know of), so maybe another tuner setup would be better.  This just opens up a new questions that should be in their own thread.

Wayne

[/quote]

 

The issue you’ve already identified with dedicated HTPC’s is tuners, you can stream live tv from one PC to another PC like you can with an Extender, also you can’t get a unified guide for series recordings.

You can however share tuners between pc’s, a Ceton is till a network tuner card, and you can do network sharing of tuners to other pc’s from a ceaton tuner.

-Josh

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[quote=Oingofan] I did convert some of my .MKV’s to .WTV and it works good, but I’m worried that if I decide to move away from WMC someday (for whatever reason), the platform I move to probably won’t play .WTV files.[/quote]

Take a look at MKV2VOB, sweet little app for PS3 users that will convert .MKV’s to M2TS. What is great about that app is it will determine your audio is DTS, and if so will convert it to AC3, then remux everything to M2TS. M2TS is more widely supported (SageTV, MCE, Extenders, media streamers, ect..) So for me going that route is the safer bet.

-Josh

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I’ve had so many weird networking issues in the past I ended up getting intel nic’s and installing them in my WHS box, my HTPC and my office pc. I even ended up getting a higher end switch to support it all.

-Josh

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Great series, well worth the watch.

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[quote=Oingofan]

You guys all make good points.  Prior to using WMC, I used XBMC.  XBMC allowed me to play .MKV, Video_TS, and .ISO files (which I have all) out of the chute.  [/quote]

You have to realize that XBMC is open source, they have zero restrictions on codec support, licensing, ect… Because Media Center is a pay for product, you have licensing and other things to deal with, so virtually nothing will work out of the box unless it isn’t licensed. One thing you will note is that in the early days of Media Center (2004, XP, and Vista) .AVI files didn’t even play unless you had codecs installed. 2004 and XP Media Center didn’t even have AC3/DD/DTS decoders or even an Mpeg2 decoder.

So if you wanted to record and play back TV shows in XP Media Center days you needed to install a third party mpeg2 codec.

[quote]

Now that I’m moving to display TV (Ceton), I need to use WMC, but found it is really nitpicky on the types of .MKV’s that it’ll display and won’t play my Video_TS or .ISO files. [/quote]

Because Media Center is part of windows, there is no easy way to play back an .ISO image without mounting it first. So if you want .ISO playback you’d need to

have an APP like virtual clone drive, or Deamon Tools to be able to mount the .ISO image.

Then Media Center doesn’t have a way to tell Virtual Clone Drive or Deamon Tools to mount the image so then you need a Media Center plugin like My Movies or Media Browser to tell those apps to mount the .ISO image, make sense?

[quote]

If Shark007 solves all of the .MKV issues…I still have problems displaying them all through my extender (which gives me a “this video format is not supported…” error).  [/quote]

Extenders DO NOT support .MKV’s period. There was “some” and I mean that in the loosest of terms, support for .MKV playback with extenders, that came in the terms of Media Foundation, built into Windows 7. Divx Corp developed a Media Foundation splitter, the issue… The .MKV file could ONLY be h.264 and AC3. If the .MKV was DTS, or another video format inside of the .MKV container you were out of luck.

More on Divx Tech Preview: http://labs.divx.com/mkv-on-Windows-7-tech-preview

So the ONLY way to get reliable .MKV playback in Media Center is ONLY when playing back the content locally on the PC itself.

[quote]

I thought if a file type wasn’t supported, it would convert it to a streaming format that would be supported (without an error).[/quote]

Unfortunately no it wont. Simple as that. There are Media Center Plugins, that would do transcoding to have pseudo support. Read up on Transcode 360 for more info, great concept, but slow and buggy at most.

[quote]

I have my temporary WMC setup in a separate room without being connected to speakers or a TV.  Funny enough, when I go to play the Video_TS or .ISO files on my XBox 360 extender, it won’t allow it because the WMC errors out that it doesn’t have speakers connected.  I’m sure that is all configuration based.  This shouldn’t matter too much soon as I’m moving to a dedicated HPTC running WMC that will be connected to my TV and receiver.[/quote]

Once you have a dedicated HTPC connected directly to your display and surround sound setup, most of these issues will go away.

 

As far as extenders go, for support, what i’ve done is converted all my .MKV’s to .M2TS, Extenders natively support .M2TS but again they still have to be h.264 and AC3 audio, can’t be DTS audio.

Also Extenders only support lower bit rate video. Don’t even think about trying to play back a full 20mbps 1080p blu ray rip on a Media Center Extender, just won’t happen.

12mbps 720p is about max you’ll see for smooth playback on an extender.

[quote]

OK, enough of my bickering issues.  I know WMC can do all of these things that I have used in XBMC…and that is just the issue.  It would be great if there was an overall guide that would show what to load and how to configure it for the basics:

• .MKV file playing[/quote] I Will have a guide eventually, maybe in the next week or so. [quote]
• .ISO file playing[/quote] Again that more so depends on Media Center plugins that you want to run. Find the one you want, and they will have instructions for that. [quote]
• Video_TS file playing[/quote] Media Center will play back Video_TS folders natively via the Movies section, this is trivial, but again this is something that is PC based only, doesn’t support Extenders. [quote]
• Recommended/minimum codecs required (and where to get them)[/quote] Sharks Codecs, see above about .MKV, will be coming soon. [quote]
• Correct folder layout for the basic WMC – forget Media Browser for now[/quote] This I am confused about, there is no “special” folder layout you need. Add a folder or directory to the Media Library and you are done. [quote]
• TV setup – although this is already well explained with the Ceton guide[/quote] Follow the Ceton guide, any tv setup is pretty straight forward, nothing else to explain, the setup by step wizard that Media Center has is all you need. [quote]
• Any other small tweaks[/quote] Look at the tips and tricks guides we have. Most of that is already there.

-Josh

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yea i am a harmony whore, I’ve got the 650, 750, 880, and the One. Maybe its time for a complete guide on how to configure a harmony remote???

-Josh

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[quote=Sean Melchionda]

but it doesnt:

Turn my TV on or off

Change the volume on my Logitech Z-5500 Speaker System

[/quote]

You will need a programmable remote to control a TV or your logitech speaker system.

[quote]

Control my PowerDVD 10 interface.[/quote]

This is a big more tricky, as this is a piece of software, and isn’t dependent on hardware what so ever.

You need to find a USB IR receiver and control software that resides on the pc in the background to take play, pause, ect commands and translates them to the power dvd software.

I use Total Media Theatre and that has full MCE remote integration, so all of the MCE commands from the remote work with the software, haven’t used power dvd so can’t comment on that.

[quote]

Anyone know of any Windows7 HTPC remotes that fit the bill?  I’d rather not go with a Harmony remote.  I have one of those and its such a hassel to configure.

[/quote]

You could try the cheapest of the cheap logitech harmony remotes. Logitech Harmony 300i for example, is like $30 retail, could be just what you need. It only controls 4 devices but really that is all you need.

-Josh

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[quote=Oingofan]

many archived files didn’t work, folders didn’t work correctly within Media Browser, ripped movies don’t display correctly, etc.).[/quote]

I am working on a guide on how to get up and running from a freshly installed PC to get .MKV playback working from out of the box. Stay tuned for that.

As far as your files didn’t work, what format are your files in? Assuming .mkv’s? but what else? Video_TS dvd rips? .ISO? Would help immensely if we knew what your setup was in terms of content storage methods.

I personally don’t use media browser, I am old school and like the native DVD Library, and the My Movies plugin, I don’t like plugins that detract from what Media Center is at it’s core.

 

[quote]After searching on Missing Remote for some basic WMC installation and configuration guide, I can’t see one.[/quote]

What are you looking for? Just media playback support such as getting proper .MKV playback? or are you looking for more than that?

 

[quote]It seems like many have different settings and opinions on how the Shark007 codecs should be configured.  If there is no guide, what about thoughts on getting a few of you experts to make one so newbies (such as myself) can adopt WMC much more?[/quote]

The problem with Codec Packs, is they are like religions, some folks you will find here will say NEVER NEVER use a codec pack, only install splitters and codecs you need for specific playback, but I for one have been using Sharks for a while, he really does stream line what he does, and makes it simple for newbs to use. I am working on a new guide to get Sharks up and running on a fresh clean installed system so again stay tuned for that.

-Josh

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1. Cable Provider: Comcast
   
2. Location (What your guide is configured for in WMC): Minneapolis, MN
   
3. Copy Protection: AMC but only on random moves will I see a copy once flag or broadcast flag. Also all premium channels (HBO, Stars, ect…) are copy once. Everything else is copy freely.
   
4. SDV Status: Tuning Adapter required (Yes or No): No, 100% digital, no SDV.
   
5. Self-Install: Allowed (Yes or No): Yes!!!!
   

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[quote=phoneguyinpgh]I am not sure about all Verizon areas, but, I just installed a 2nd Ceton tuner card.  I do not have the cable card from Verizon for it yet (placed the order today, scheduled for friday afternoon).  I set everything up and tried to tune a local channel but, No Joy.  So it would appear that even the local channels are blocked on the Ceton card. 

Several years ago I tried a tuner that I have for my laptop that does ATSC (off the air) and clear QAM and it was able to tuner the local channels and the music choice channels surpizingly.  Might be that the Ceton needs a cable card to work period.

[/quote]

The ceton can do clean (un-encrypted qam) but you have to set it up in media center to do so.

-Josh

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[quote=swoon]

I was assuming that the VHS videos were home videos, if not, I agree that purchasing the DVD or BD of that content is a better solution.

If these are home videos, another option besides purchasing something like the Colossus is to find a service that will capture and digitize them to DVD. Depending on the amount of video though, this may be more expensive than purchasing a Colossus which you could also use for liberating your FIOS DVR content.

[/quote]

Great point. Didn’t think about family movies. So if they are family movies that is a different ball game there.

-Josh

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+1 at talking to best buy or other local big box store they always have cardboard boxes laying around.

 

if you need more boxes, fruit boxes/apple boxes from local grocery store are really helpful for other misc items.

-Josh

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