A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

Ian Dixon — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 14:53:28 GMT

Great post, good to see that DBV support is going to be improved

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

Stuart Anderton — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 15:44:13 GMT

Interesting.

A real shame that Diamond (that's Vista, yes?) won't support heterogenous lineups.

I'm in the UK, and a very common scenario here is to use MCE with a Sky TV STB. As they charge extra for a second box, many folks would like to combine an analogue card connected to their Sky box with either a DVB-T card or a second analogue card connected to normal OTA TV to allow dual recording. Many of the most common channels are in common between the two.

I can have two different sources connected to my TiVo with no problems (I can only record one at a time) but the EPG is fully integrated, and it's annoying that I can't do that with MCE.

There seem to have been a few unfortunate design decisions taken with the EPG from a completely US perspective without realising how it world work in the rest of the planet. We still don't have a fully working EPG here in the UK, partly because of the problems stretching a structure designed for US cable tv to our system. Sky TV are about to do a complete channel renumbering, and on past experience it will render MCE boxes useless for weeks - we have our fingers crossed though!

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

Josh — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 20:06:08 GMT

I am in a definite minority. I have Cable, DirecTV and ATSC.

I originally had DirecTV and a cable modem for internet service without any cable TV. But they my cable modem provider decided to tack on a $10 charge per month if you didn't have any TV service. Basic cable was $11 per month. HD with a cablecard was just $6 more. So, I could either pay $50 per month for just the cable modem or pay $57 per month and get cable TV service with HD and the cable modem. No brainer.

But I couldn't record HD. My TV has a cablecard slot, but no way to record it.

Enter ATSC (ATI HDTV Wonder) and Media Center. I only use Media Center to record HDTV, nothing else. I have 2 Tivos to record DirecTV SD (HD isn't worth it with DirecTV just yet). I happen to live near Boston, and the ATSC channels are fantastic. If only I could get the guide data for 2-2 (PBS-HD) and 44-2, 44-3, and 44-4 (WGBX stations).

I was getting PBS-HD guide data via a cable operator in my state that happened to carry it. That is, up until the release of Rollup 2! After that, the ability to map a sub-channel to a channel that is different from the main channel completely disappeared! Oh, it looks like you can. But the data never shows up in the guide. So, despite mapping 2-2 (1022) to PBS-HD on Comcast Cable, it still manages to give 2-2 the same guide data as 2-1 (WGBH).

Guide support for sub-channels isn't just bad, it actually got worse with the last release. Please fix this bug quickly! :-)

I would love to unify my recording using Media Center to record ATSC, DirecTV and Cable via a Cablecard. Bring on Fiji, and don't forget about those of us with multiple services!

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

ShapeGSX — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 20:19:52 GMT

A bit more info. For some reason, Zap2It is horribly slow at adding channels to lineups. In addition, they frequently get the incorrect guide data for new channels. But there seems to be no way to get it fixed. I've emailled them over and over, but it still isn't fixed.

For example, go to www.zap2it.com and enter zip code 01602. Select Charter Digital. Now go to channel 782, which should contain guide data for WGBH channel 2-2, which is PBS-HD. Instead it contains the same guide data as analog channel 2, which is completely wrong.

And, if I am not mistaken, this is where Media Center gets its guide data, correct?

If I bought a box such as the new LG LRM-519 PVR Media Center recorder and had no recourse to get guide data fixed, I'd be more than a bit angry.

Don't get me wrong! I love Media Center! But the unfortunate fact is that hacks around the guide data really limit its effectiveness.

Incidentally, I see that a fix is coming for sub-channel mapping. Thank you! But why is it taking 6+ months for us to get it? :-(

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

BrettRobi — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 20:58:15 GMT

Excellent post Peter. I love this kind of background. It allows us bitchy end users a little more insight into the decisions made by MS that we all live with. A little understanding goes a long way.

Great stuff. Keep it up...

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

Griffon — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 22:06:41 GMT

I still don't see why a legacy, physical, analog card is needed though, the system really should just be able to lie to it's self to enable a digital card directly. Or like in the case of Fusion HDTV USB device that do both just leverage that, usb tuner add-ons are really fast growing aftermarket segment.
Come on, your guys data is pretty sketchy as far as what people are actually using to capture with... MCE can't be bought directly but most OEM's are selling with tuner or some other piece of hardware, so you have no true clue what most home brew folks are buying to make it all work... Many of the largest channel partners, HP etc sell the boxes with NO tuners, creating a huge market for simple, no box opening, add-ons... yet to use them somebody has to crack the box to stick in a crappy analog tuner? Come on, this is just bad legacy design and needs to be cleaned up. It's just a little shameful that vista (diamond) is shipping in this same sad state.
Also not to put to fine a point on it but Nealson still says most of America get's their cable OTA, not through cable, or satellite. As ATSC tuners in plug and play format, that can also do analog, become much more common, even standard, so will the demand. Why not be ahead of the curve?
It’s likely to be a good while yet before folks can go get those cable cards, and longer still before DirectTV rolls out anything. These providers do things measured in decades, they HATE change that doesn’t make them a buck per transaction, your rush will never be theirs, so in the short term you guys should throw the rest of us a bone and dump required analog support. Sadly of course none of this is your direct call , just saying…

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

Jason Pearce — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 00:12:55 GMT

I live in the UK. In my region, terrestial tv signal (both analog and digital) is extremely poor and unlikely to improve.

I wait in eager anticipation for proper dvb-s support - I have a firewire dvb-s tuner, I just can't use it with MCE :) - its the one key missing piece for me

Free to air support would be a nice starter ....

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

Mark G — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 22:56:30 GMT

Nice article. However I live in anada and receive a large of atsc channels over the air. Microsoft made the unfortunate decision to disable HD OTA in Media center for 2005. Certainly at the time this made sense. No canadian broadcasters were utilizing atsc. Things have certainly changed in 2006. HDTV sales have exploded. Most canadians are able to receive numerous atsc channels of both canadian and american origin. Please MS enable OTA DTV for Canada.

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

Joe — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 01:33:05 GMT

Could you possibly provide a little more insight into the DirecTV deal? Is a "tuner card" a possibility? Can Vista's secure path be used to secure the signal off the PCIe bus? Would that then pave the way for a PCIe sat. tuner that would take a DirecTV smartcard? If not, are we looking at something akin to a USB or 1394 connection to the box to exchange data?

One would think it would be wise for DirecTV to support Vista MCE with a tuner card. They currently subsidize so much of the STB expense that transfering that to consumers via OEM or even BYO HTPC builders seems to make great business sense. Those users also probably correlate very highly with valuable subscribers and are likely to lock in to long subscriptions to validate their HTPC investment.

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

GBK — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 03:11:15 GMT

Although I understand the reasons it's too bad that Vista after being delayed so many times is still going to be a patch up job for the Media Center.. I might just have to forget about getting it now that I know it won't offer anything new at all. by not having the guide data correct you can never record PBS because of their 3hr delays... I agree with Griffon there is no need to have analog junk in the system you're using the crap guide data anyway so what's the difference what card is in there as long as at least one tuner is?

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

Peter Rosser — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 14:51:15 GMT

Joe - I cannot comment on the deal, since a) I'm not actually privy to the details, and b) if I *were*, I couldn't share them. What was announced at CES is all that is public at this time. The business guys are working all the stuff out... I'm just a lowly developer.

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

Peter Rosser — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 15:02:53 GMT

GBK - Vista is going to offer a ton of new stuff, including Digital Cable + CableCard support. Have you seen the screenshots and demos? You can get in on the CTP and run it for yourself free to get a taste, too. Vista is going to be sweet.

Even if you weren't going to get Vista specifically for the Media Center changes (although for me that would probably be enough), it's got so much more going for it that for anyone who uses their computer more than a little bit it's a no-brainer. LUA as default (more secure), Aero Glass (3D acceleration everywhere), user-mode sound with per-application mixing (finally! the sound stack can't crash Windows!), Avalon GUI engine (cooler-looking apps), smart folders, Windows Explorer rearchitecture (wait til you try the new navigation UI... it rules), Windows Search (about time it was included in the OS), SideShow and better Away Mode... there's tons more.

Just in the tiny little corner of Windows called Media Center we have smart thumbnails (not just the first frame of video... we ANALYZE the content to find a "good" frame to use), support for more tuners (lots more... can you say dual 4-tuner cards?), totally reinvented UI that's easier and faster to use, mini-guide, PIP, auto-favorites, the list goes on and on!

Sure, we wanted to support more standards, but that stuff can get added in when the business deals are ready. People say "why don't you support X?", and most of the time it's because someone else owns the patent or copyright on it already, so we need to partner with them to get permission. There's a lot of scrutiny on everything we do, so all the I's have to be dotted, and the T's crossed, or the big bad ** Commission (name ommitted because I'm paranoid) will try to slap another huge fine on us. Or we will lose the partner. Or both. So we're working on it, okay?

Everyone on the team wants it just as badly as you do. We live and breathe this stuff, and it kills us to not directly support everything right now. The reality, though, is that short of breaking the law there is no way for us to do so.

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

Griffon — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:12:30 GMT

In what way exactly would you be breaking any law to support OTA HD directly :)?

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

GBK — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 02:51:46 GMT

Peter, are you saying that I could run CTP now and have HDTV tuner support? does Vista have AverMedia A180 driver built in? if not point to someplace that does and I'll gladly try it until then it's all vaporware and we have to believe what you say which of course is subject to change.. :-) just like WinFS etc that was supposed to be part of this 6 yr in the making OS.

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

GBK — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 03:22:05 GMT

Oh I forgot to say how is using NTSC in Vista a good thing? NTSC is dead end of life in 2009 (would have been in 2007 if it weren't for idiots in Congress) your OS should be future looking instead we'll have to depend on a service pack that will most likely break everything since it won't be done from the ground up but rather another patch. Or are we going to have to buy a whole new OS by 2009 only 2 years after Vista? btw I may not be eloquent with my words but I do know how much works goes into developing something like this which is why the choices of NTSC do not make sense to me at all.

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

Peter Rosser — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 21:03:20 GMT

Griffon - We wouldn't, of course (except for the RRT stuff, which is silly IMHO, but that's another topic). I was referring to support for satellite.

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

Peter Rosser — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 21:07:07 GMT

GBK - It does have HDTV support, but unless you use an OCUR tuner you still need the NTSC tuner to bootstrap the ATSC. I think that the OCUR is still very much under tight control by the cable co.s, so getting one might be tough.

I'm not sure whether the AverMedia A180 is in-box or not, I'll ask the driver guy in the next-door office. Even if the driver isn't in-box, I know they're on the matrix and should work. The driver model for tuners in Vista is pretty much the same as XP (unlike graphics cards).

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

Peter Rosser — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 21:10:57 GMT

Responding now to GBK's 2nd posting there ;-)

NTSC is *not* "dead" in 2009 by a long shot. It's only dead for OTA broadcast.

We have not announced what we plan to do about sans-analog ATSC support in Media Center. Just speaking technically, it can be done with a moderate amount of work. Whether it makes economic sense to do so, that's what mgmt needs to decide.

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

GBK — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 01:56:59 GMT

Thanks Peter.
If A180's are in-box I will give it a try. I think the only reason I can't test the parts I want is because of lack of drivers support which is obvious for a beta OS but I go off what Peter Thurrott saw and posted on his site. Sorry I'm picking on you but the whole NTSC tuner thing is silly in my opinion as a requirement for ATSC tuners. How is this going to work with OTA? NTSC for OTA goes away what is going to fill in the guide data if I choose not to do cable (no way I'm paying them for 15 home shopping networks)? and having NTSC tuner in there when there is no need (in my case) just takes up a slot which I wish I could put a 3rd HD tuner into :-) Also the OCUR tuner will require CableLabs Certification correct? which a home built system will never be able to get.. So it ticks me off as a consumer I don't want to buy a Dell etc with their junk support and hardware... basically I'm stuck OTA and IPTV unless I choose to pay 3 times for a machine that has inferior hardware then what I can put together.

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

Peter Rosser — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 08:46:21 GMT

Here's an update on the in-box drivers situation:

We have not announced any of the tuner drivers that will be brought "in-box" for Vista, so I cannot tell you what will or will not be shipped alongside the OS. What I *can* tell you is that tuners that do not have in-box drivers will still likely have Vista-compatible drivers. "In-box" just means that the drivers ship on the same CD as Windows, and get updated via Windows Update.

For comparison, *no* tuner drivers are in-box today.

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

GBK — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 23:10:22 GMT

Thanks Peter; for the in box driver support I meant it more for testing. I know that vista won't support *all* tuners (any) out of the box. I don't believe we can get our hands on any tuner drivers out there now so testing Vista's MCE is essentially impossible at this point. Also heard rumors that 5270 build expired MCE portion on Jan. 1 Then the next CTP on Feb 17 or so... if it had some rudimantary tuner support it would be possible to test otherwise the general public can't test it very well.

re: A Brief History of ATSC in Media Center

toadmazter — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 00:15:44 GMT

I'm a little late in participating on this topic, but wanted to throw my comments/question in.

I am *ALMOST* a 100 percent satisfied MediaCenter customer. I have a dedicated MCE 2005 "server" with a dual analog tuner and two FusionHDTV5 Gold cards. I use two (soon three, once I find one more) XBOX360's (one per TV viewing location) as extenders to watch and manage content. My remaining frustration is the lack of true ATSC support in MediaCenter. As an example, I can not get MCE to tune my local CBS HD affiliate. But the software that comes with the Fusion cards displays it great! After countless hours of research, driver tweaks, and conversations with CBS engineering, we have determined it is a PSIP issue at the station... but nobody can tell us what the issue is and it remains broken. Every other OTA ATSC settop box known to man works... just not MediaCenter. Can you point me to some helpful info that I can provide the CBS engineers? This is the last issue (I even have DVD's streaming to my 360's to my wife's satisfaction) I need to resolve before I can return my Comcast HD DVR's.

Thanks for reading!
Adam

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