No DirecTV HD for Vista Media Center until 2010?
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Jul 5th 2008 5:44PM
posted Jul 5th 2008 5:44PM
There is one other possibility though, at least one well respected member of DBSTalk reported that as recent as June 30th, the tuner is indeed being tested and he's actually seen it in action. This makes us think that when faced with all the leaks, Microsoft may have made the the DirecTV tuner beta smaller. We have been told that there are other private betas and we'd like to think that this is what is going on. We contacted Microsoft to see if they'd share their plans, and as you can expect, we never heard back.
Even if DirecTV support isn't in Fiji, it isn't completely useless. There are many new features added in regards to HD -- like 16x9 thumbnails and HD recording preferences -- there is a new favorite channels listings feature in the guide and there's native QAM support. This is in addition to all the foreign tuner support and teletext for the rest of the world. The ability to control the tuners has also been improved, we hear you'll finally be able to assign an OTA channel to any channel number you want -- so channel 28 can finally be 28, instead of 1281. This is supposed to also help in resolving scheduling conflicts since you can have more than one source for each channel (aka OTA and cable). Another thing we're not sure if it's good or bad is DVR-MS is gone and is replaced with WTV, so hopefully 3rd parties like VideoReDo and DVRMSToolBox can adapt to the new format.
Ultimately we don't know anything for sure, but these Fiji screen shots are real, and with multiple sources all reporting the same thing, it is hard not to believe them. One thing is for sure though, Microsoft has a tester mutiny on their hands as everyone one of our sources has reported some intense discussions in the beta tester's private forums.
Forget DirecTV, I want integrated Blu-Ray playback. But it would figure that Microsoft wouldn't include that, since Vista was the first Microsoft system to even support built-in DVD playback. I just hoped for once that Microsoft would natively support a disc-based codec *before* it was halfway obsolete...
No native Blu-ray support has also been confirmed.
Windows 98 actually had native DVD support, but they got shitcanned by the DVD Forum for it, so they removed it from subsequent versions...
I want to play DVDs or even Blu-Ray discs over the network. That would eliminate the need to have an extender with a disc drive in it.
Yeah, DirecTV would be cool, but it's certainly not one of my most wanted features. I'm just glad to see they'll have built-in QAM support. FINALLY. Can't wait for this update to come out.
Ooh, native QAM support is pretty exciting. Anyone try it with the Avermedia M780? I know Aver has their own hack, but it's only worked sporadically for me.
I hope Microsoft adds support for the SDV (switched digital video) tuning adapter for CableCard.
There will not be support for H.264 in Fiji. A recent trip to Microsoft confirmed this.
I have been waiting on DTV for long enough. If it gets confirmed that I have to wait until 2010 for Windows 7 then I'm ditching Vista Media Center and moving to SageTV.
You could get DTV in XP MCE, Vista just let you have it without have to install an NTSC tuner also.
Jerry, I'm with you. I'm a long time SageTV user (still am). However, I've been curious about the Microsoft Media Center options. XBox360 media extender and some Home Theater PCs now shipping with cablecard almost made me switch to Microsoft's Media Center.
After reading the limitations of Media Center, there's no way I'm switching. SageTV can be a pain to setup for some complex situations, but it supports H246 playback. Right now I have 2 SageTV computers. Each has their own TimeWarner set-top box (STB). The STB is connected to the SageTV computers with a firewire cable. Direct MPEG transport stream recordings/viewing. You can even get the Hauppauge HD PVR and record H264 streams to your SageTV box.
I'll shuddup now before I sound like a SageTV plug.
I can edit channels on my VMC...
Try making an ATSC channel under 1000.
So what has changed then? Will it bother fixing the dozens of bugs that plague VMC? Only thing new I see is the additional remote buttons on screen. Looks a tad underwhelming to me.
Now that MC is no longer restricted to OEMs, I can't see the update being pushed through manufacturers. Microsoft would be alienating too many users if it did that.
I was able to get the leaked version a month ago that too in english and have already blogged it here- http://techtoday.110mb.com/2008/06/12/windows-fiji-windows-vista-media-center-feature-pack-2008-leaked-screenshots/
wonders wall, very good :)
Try Media Portal,
its opensource and supports h264 and all hardwarebased TV tuners windows sees
MediaPortal is an Open Source application ideal for turning your PC / TV into a very advanced Media Center. MediaPortal allows you to listen to your favorite music & radio, watch and store your videos and DVDs, view, schedule and record live TV as a digital video recorder and much much more. You get MediaPortal as Open Source software. This means you can help in developing MediaPortal or tweak it for your own needs with lots of innovating plugins from our great community.
http://www.team-mediaportal.com/
Soon, XBMC for Windows will rule them all with its open source, biweekly updates, and committed developers. It already shines in its GUI and feature support.
No Divx, no H264, no VC1, no Blu-Ray, no disc streaming etc etc. Isn't this supposed to be a total 'Media' product? (Even the 360 Dashboard can do most of these things - in 2007).
What was a great product a few years ago has quickly become irrelevent. These features needed to be added yesterday, not 2010! MS, whoever is in charge of your product strategy needs to be fired. And if you want mass adoption, don't make seperate fragmented Windows product releases without Media Center! duh . . .
I cannot even use my two digital ATI 650 PCI tuners in Vista Home Premium now - they break my PC boot...like dead! I am waiting on PS-3's PlayTV...and perhaps moving to Linux and MythTV...Microsoft is suffering badly from cranial-analitis.
No H.264 so now Blu-Ray and no AVCHD (camcorders) --> no HD support at all as we know it. What kind of "media center" is this? Totally useless.
What about digital teletext/interactive support not just normal Analogue teletext which will be redundant in a few years here in the UK anyway...
Also being able to pull the tv guide from the tuner like any digital TV can would be good instead of needing internet connection.
They're the only two updates i think i want from media center everything else it does fine for me.
Any bets on whether the Tivo will support DirecTV before Microsoft does? I'd love to plug the HDPC-20 into my TivoHD. I'm sure as heck not using the USB ports for anything else. DirecTV is missing a golden opportunity to win back a bunch of cable customers once the analog shutoff kicks in. I personally use my TivoHD for OTA and analog cable. As soon as Comcast flips the switch I'll have to decide whether I want to use cable card or switch to satellite. If DirecTV allowed me to use the HDPC-20 with my TivoHD I'd switch today.
There isn't a snow ball's chance that the HDPC-20 will ever work with a TiVo HD. You are dreaming.
When DirecTV wants a DirecTiVo then they'll be one, have no illusions who severed that relationship.
In fact I wouldn't be one bit surprised that there was a working MPEG4 DirecTV TiVo working in the lab at TiVo ready to go if they ever get let back in.
I'll try posting this again, since my last post disappeared.
I am dreaming. Obviously we won't see Tivo support DirectTV until they kiss and make up, and I doubt it will be in the form of the HDPC-20. My comment was more of a shot at Microsoft's schedule slippage than anything else. We've been waiting for the HDPC-20 for what seems like forever. Now we hear that Microsoft might not support it until 2010, what a load a crap. If DirecTV would hand it over to Tivo then they would have it integrated with the TivoHD in 3 months. It's ridiculous that we have to wait 2 years for Microsoft to put the necessary hooks into Vista. I can't imagine DirecTV is too excited about this thing being shelved for 2 more years.
I love the driver update for my ATI tv tuner that I get through Windows Update. The two times I tried to install it led to BSOD and in order to get the tuner to work again I had to do a system restore.
All I care about is whether or not they get around to adding MPEG4 and DivX/XviD support to the 360's MCE functions. I can stream them via the basic media server functionality, but not only do I prefer the MCE interface, but since making all the effort to add all the Zune metadata to my TV shows so they show up right on my Zune, now the 360 lists them all in alphabetical order by episode name instead of file name or season/episode number, making it so I HAVE to access them via MCE to see the file names. But a large amount of my library is still in formats that MCE can't stream to a 360. Fix this, MS!
It baffles me still why anyone would want to use teletext on a media centre PC : / but I am eagerly awaiting this new release. native DVB-S2 is a must!
No Divx, no H264, no VC1, no Blu-Ray, no disc streaming until 2010 = catastrophic failure
Absolutely pathetic...