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[Haydnsimon]

Is there a way to get Media Center to start live TV immediately on switch on ?

I currently have a Vista 64 machine setup to behave like a TV using Windows Media Center when it is switched on so the other members of my family can think of it as a regular TV. However, Windows Media TV buffering feature is a major annoyance slowing down the satellite boxes remote. I notice that JRiver doesn't suffer from this "feature" so I think they would prefer to use this as my regular TV program.

BTW - I am using an AverMedia TV card with an MCE driver. I was delighted to find that this works in Media Center even though your support page doesn't list it.

[raym]

Create a script in your startup folder with the following MC commands:

Code: [Select]

MC12.exe /Start
MC12.exe /MCC 30002
The /Start switch will start MC if it's not running and then the /MCC 30002 will start TV playback.

That should do the trick!


EDIT: You may not need the first /Start command. Not sure if the TV start command starts MC for you automatically if it's not running but I don't think it does.

[Haydnsimon]

This almost works !!

If I put the commands in a batch file with a delay (using a clever timeout trick I found on the internet) and I call the batch file directly (i.e. double click it) then it works. However if I try calling this with a shortcut then it fails. I guess the problem is with the timeout trick (odd).

In any case the basic problem is that there has to be a delay for Media Center to start before calling the start TV command.

How can I do this?

As a last resort I could do some programming to solve the problem. However I do enough programming at work as it is !!

[raym]

So, are you saying the way you're doing the delay is causing an issue or are you asking why you need a delay to begin with? As far as the need for a delay goes, my guess is that the tuner and it's driver needs time to initialise properly on startup and then MC will probably need a couple of seconds to establish "comms" with the driver after that.

Not sure how you're doing the delay but a popular way of accomplishing this in a batch script is with a ping command with a loopback address. For example, for a delay of ~10 seconds:
PING -n 10 127.0.0.1>nul

Put this between the two MC12 commands above and change the ping count/delay as required.

[Haydnsimon]

Thanks - that did the trick.

The problem with my original solution was that the delay command relied on user input timing out. This behaves differently when called in a batch file and when called by a shortcut.

BTW - I bought Windows Vista Premium partly to enjoy the Aero theme and partly to try out Windows Media Center. Aero is cute but not essential. I am most disappointed with the Media Center but happy that I bought JRiver a year or so go. It is an amazingly good product.

[raym]

I bought JRiver a year or so go. It is an amazingly good product.

Indeed it is!

Glad your problem's now sorted.

Cheers.