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[benn600]

Here are three consecutive images to show that MC doesn't really recognize any of my 4 important or a 5th device that I don't really know what it is.





As you can see, viewing television status upon first starting MC shows nothing.  If I view the settings area, it then will list them.  The configure button will not function on any of the 5 listed items and "Reset TV settings" does nothing when I click it.  Trying to scan for channels will just sit there without any positive or negative feedback.  I'm using the HDHomeRun system and it works GREAT on several other HTPC boxes.  I should also point out it worked great on this same computer when I first got them setup.  I have no idea what changed since then!

Manually adding a channel and trying to play it gives the can't play error.

[Yaobing]

The first image does not mean anything.  We do not load TV devices until user tries to configure or use them.  That is why your first screen shot gives nothing.  As for why Configure button does not work, I do not know, there must be something special about this kind of devices.

[benn600]

It used to work, though.  On another system it never worked.  Very strange...  Once the configure button stopped working on my desktop, then MC would no longer play TV through it.  Everything with this hardware device works great on other machines still.

[Yaobing]

It used to work, though.

That's what I thought.

Have you tried rebooting?

[benn600]

I have tried rebooting, reinstalling the tuner driver, reinstalling Media Center, etc.  Very strange.

[benn600]

After installing .140, television works!  I am able to configure the devices and fully watch television.

Is there a way to change the Audio Decoder and Video Decoder (and video Renderer) on several devices at once?  I have 4 tuners right now and if I add a third box, I will have 6 tuners -- available on every machine.  Changing 3 settings on 4 tuners is not as simple as one setting change.  Plus, if I add tuners later, then I wouldn't have to update the new tuners--they would get the overall setting automatically.

Thanks!

[Yaobing]

After installing .140, television works!  I am able to configure the devices and fully watch television.

Is there a way to change the Audio Decoder and Video Decoder (and video Renderer) on several devices at once?  I have 4 tuners right now and if I add a third box, I will have 6 tuners -- available on every machine.  Changing 3 settings on 4 tuners is not as simple as one setting change.  Plus, if I add tuners later, then I wouldn't have to update the new tuners--they would get the overall setting automatically.

Thanks!

Settings are device specific.  To avoid repeated work, you can try registry backup and restore.  Settings are saved in a registry key like this:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JRiver\Media Center 13\TV Settings\__?_ngene#ven_18c3&dev_0720&subsys_062e1461&rev_00&capture#5&2ea408e2&0&4#{65e8773d-8f56-11d0-a3b9-00a0c9223196}_{2745a78f-e8ca-11d8-a988-004030005452}

The last portion, the long one (long string to the right of the last backslash '\'), is device specific.

In most situations you can run TV devices without running configuration.  After running configure for a device, you can use Windows RegEdit program to export the data in the above key.  Then you can edit the resulting .reg file and use Find & Replace in a text editor to change the last portion of the folder name above, and then execute the .reg file.

[benn600]

I am not sure how impressive television TiVo-like functionality is for other users but many operations are slow and hesitant--at least with my setup.  Starting TV takes 3-6 seconds.  Pausing takes 5-8 seconds and leads to black screen, and when the video returns, it plays for 1/2 second and is a different shape on screen.  I'll wait to see if future builds are improved.  I'm not horribly worried about implementing and using this house wide but would like to at some point.  I am also dealing with limited server space.  Once I add more, then I can have the HTPCs record to the server and auto import.  That would be amazing.

[JimH]

I am not sure how impressive television TiVo-like functionality is for other users but many operations are slow and hesitant--at least with my setup.  Starting TV takes 3-6 seconds.  Pausing takes 5-8 seconds and leads to black screen, and when the video returns, it plays for 1/2 second and is a different shape on screen.  I'll wait to see if future builds are improved.  I'm not horribly worried about implementing and using this house wide but would like to at some point.  I am also dealing with limited server space.  Once I add more, then I can have the HTPCs record to the server and auto import.  That would be amazing.

As I understand it, you don't have a real device in each PC.  Is that correct?

[benn600]

Technically speaking, the physical box is not in the machine, yes.  However, the tuner creates a virtual hardware device.  My first goal is to determine if other tuners do not give these slowdowns.  I do have a PCI ATSC tuner card that I should try as a test.  If it is a lot better with the standard supported devices, then it would be worth discussing a bit.  With all the TV revamping in the last few months it seems very likely that it is indeed my particular hardware.  But I know support for specific devices usually stems from user prompting (to some extent) so I would be willing to help improve support however I can.

[JimH]

... the physical box is not in the machine, yes.  However, the tuner creates a virtual hardware device. 

That's the problem you have.  It doesn't work as expected.  I think it's lucky that it works at all.