Although we've known all about
the TV Pack (code named Fiji)
for some time, Microsoft's Ben Reed posted the official details about it today over at The Green Button. As expected, most of the
new stuff is for other international markets, but the few new features for the US have been long awaited. Unfortunately the one detail about the TV Pack that we most wanted to be wrong about is true, the it'll only be available on new PCs from OEMs --
lucky for us you can find it elsewhere. Ben says the OEM requirement was necessary because of the complexity of supporting the new features, but as an enthusiast, we still can't help but feel a little slighted by our friends at Redmond. The most interesting quote in the announcement is the words that were chosen to explain that the TV Pack is indeed missing native DirecTV tuner support which describes it as "
subscription-based satellite tuners." This of course make us all the more confident that both DirecTV and Dish support are on their radar -- but who knows, maybe that's just wishful thinking.
posted Aug 8th 2008 4:13PM
There may or may not be a torrent of it out there..... But honestly, what really matters to me is what hardware it is compatible with. That could explain their OEM support only. No sense in making it public, if people are going to need to get new hardware. So I can understand their point of view (only a little bit)
Well i have the hardware a cablelab certified Dell XPS420 with a Ati TV wonder w/cablecard .. And they still want to shut me out ??
Good thing i am already running the Update thanks to Ben and the others who leaked it
Anyone know if the x64 version is out there (preferably a linked elsewhere would work)
Google, it was posted on AVS forum under an hour ago!
Link us baby !
Still no x64 .....
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1056998
I still hate the idea of oem only even if it is available to us..... because we got lucky this time. what happens next time if they choose not to leak the update out? i also dont buy ms's excuse either. if they can release complete service packs for vista they could release this to the masses as well.
I still would much rather see media center broken out of the os completely and let it be a stand alone application so i could install it on whatever computer i want. Its still baffling to me that it doesnt run on windows home server when sagetv can.
I'm wondering why they can't just release it and not have it forced out to regular users on Windows Update. That way, us power users will be able to get it freely without having to dig around for the leaked copy.
You know, its scary.. I'm sure anyone in the UK with a freeview box will laugh at this but,
Holy crap. Having red button is awesome! (Great timing, with the olympics, too!) Plus! It's all in 5.1 now! I'm not sure if media center is upmixing to 5.1, but the jackal on bbc1 right now sounds pretty damn awesome. :)
I'm running a NOVA-T 500 and it all just works perfectly here.. so much for complexities of supporting the features!
I installed the x64 TV Pack on an existing Vista installation and it successfully completed install. The Vistaview DA1n1 QAM capable TV card was found and configured correctly. Media Center was able to find the clear QAM channels on Cox. Very straightfoward install given GreenButton's instructions. So far so good.
Ben, do cable card recordings play in Windows Media Player, or just in Media Center? Just trying to see if the DRM has changed any with the PlayReady system.
No, so far the DRM with CableCARDs hasn't changed at all. But worse, WMP doesn't support WTV at all.