INTERACT FORUM
Windows => Television => Topic started by: NickF on November 03, 2013, 05:03:50 pm
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For me, TV is probably the most important aspect of MC. I have it running on three systems and use it every day. Every day, without exception, it gives me problems. Some of the problems have been reported but with no response or change. So why is this? Isn't TV important to J River? It doesn't seem so. I know Yaobing has done some great work to get us to where we are but there seems to have been no visible change in mc19. It's true that, once a TV program is showing, it works fine but selecting channels, navigating the guide, setting up TV from scratch, supporting multi-standard tuners all need more work.
Selecting a program or channel (click on watch) - there is often a significant delay before anything happens. I don't know whether the delay is in graph construction. It is certainly the case that graph construction regularly fails. The most common issue is that the program video shows but there is no audio. Selecting stop then re-selecting the program will usually be successful.
During this delay there is no indication of any response. The user is left wondering whether the selection worked. If you repeat the selection, invariably, MC crashes. I have never seen this sort of behaviour in any other windows app.
Setup - we have raised this several times before but there has been no improvement. The only improvement here has been the ability to use keywords for filtering channels but, this is a tedious workaround. In the UK, as in many countries, we have multiple carriers of TV including terrestrial, satellite, cable and broadband. Tuning satellite is particularly tiresome with hundreds, if not thousands of unwanted or encrypted and, therefore, inaccessible channels.
Other systems are capable of detecting and, therefore, automatically filtering encrypted channels. Why not MC? We have the same channels supported on multiple carriers and, therefore, appearing multiple times in the guide. I know that Yaobing has ideas for resolving this but it remains unresolved, leaving us with a very cumbersome guide.
Guide setup for multiple carriers - the current guide will only load one carrier's channel data. This means that for users like me, the guide must be populated manually.
We get crashes associated with radio channels which I reported recently.
Why does the guide become greyed out when the system is left idle for a while? In this state, the guide text can barely be read. Re selecting guide (using MCC) does not resolve this. It is necessary to use back then navigate back to the guide.
Could we have the guide update in real time with a vertical line indicating the current time?
Could we have commands to shift forward and backward through the guide a day at a time?
And why do the times at the top of the guide sometimes show 20 minutes past the hour?
MC should be the best PC based PVR on the planet but it falls short of that today.
Any chance of giving TV a bit of attention? Or perhaps Yaobing has some radical improvements in coding.
Nick.
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During this delay there is no indication of any response. The user is left wondering whether the selection worked. If you repeat the selection, invariably, MC crashes. I have never seen this sort of behaviour in any other windows app.
We get crashes associated with radio channels which I reported recently.
Please forward crash logs when it happens.
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The most common issue is that the program video shows but there is no audio. Selecting stop then re-selecting the program will usually be successful.
I have this same issue. It seems to be related to when the time shifting is on an external drive and the drive needs to wake up but I'm not certain. It only occurs during live playback and not if recording and then playing from the recording - even if only a few seconds behind live.
Last night I had one channel that had no audio even though the others did. I recorded the channel and it played fine, but live it never did get audio after multiple retries.
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I've not had any crashes of late but then again, I'm not using MC for recording, just the occasional live viewing.
I agree it can be slow tuning into a channel initially.
My biggest gripe is that I still get significant audio stuttering when channel surfing. Pausing a little and then resuming fixes it. Yaobing is aware of it but It's been this way for ages now.
Setup can be difficult. It's always a chore adding a new channel. I wish basic scanning and channel selection could be done from within theater view.
As I said, stability seems ok for me but I'm prob not the best judge of this.
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I agree it can be slow tuning into a channel initially.
My biggest gripe is that I still get significant audio stuttering when channel surfing. Pausing a little and then resuming fixes it. Yaobing is aware of it but It's been this way for ages now.
Same here. I posted about the stuttering in the TV section but have had no response. In my case it doesn't always happen - actually most of the time everything works fine. It's usually when my wife is looking that it breaks. :)
I'm sure its very hard to fix something when it doesn't fail regularly and the problem is not captured in a log. But I agree that the TV feature needs some TLC.
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I must agree. Unfortunately, every time I try to use MC for TV it turns out to be not stable enough for me. The main problem in my opinion is playback on a client PC can bring the MC server down (and any recordings in progress). This should never be able to happen for a PVR.
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What is the TV Tuner on the server?
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If you were asking me I have an HDHomerun (ATSC) but the instability seems to usually come when watching Live TV or in-progress recordings on a client. For me, like I've requested before, TV recording needs to be moved to a separate Windows service to be stable enough and not susceptible to other MC crashes/errors.
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If you were asking me I have an HDHomerun (ATSC) but the instability seems to usually come when watching Live TV or in-progress recordings on a client. For me, like I've requested before, TV recording needs to be moved to a separate Windows service to be stable enough and not susceptible to other MC crashes/errors.
It is more important to fix the crashes. Recording in a separate service does not make much difference since we will need to access the recorder from a client when playing a program that is currently being recorded.
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It is more important to fix the crashes. Recording in a separate service does not make much difference since we will need to access the recorder from a client when playing a program that is currently being recorded.
If MC crashes on playback (which happens too frequently), then recordings also stop. Why would you need to access the recorder from a client? wouldn't you just need to access the .jtv file that is being written by the recorder?
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It is essentially what we do now, accessing a jtv file. But often we need to give command to the recorder so it will created a jtv file in the first place. What I was trying to say is if MC would crash due to client request, MC Service would also crash due to the same request. Fixing the crash is what we need, not creating another piece to increase complexity.
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I agree...assuming the crash is happening because of a request to the recording service...but what about if a crash happens for other reasons? I still think it would be a good idea to have it isolated.
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I agree...assuming the crash is happening because of a request to the recording service...but what about if a crash happens for other reasons? I still think it would be a good idea to have it isolated.
I agree. MC crashes for many reasons, not just TV related. I agree that the crashes need to be fixed but scheduled TV recording is something which happens independently of most other activities on MC and should not be affected by them. I agree that a service is a sensible approach.
Nick.
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Yaobing,
Are you able to share with us any further thoughts and progress on the channel grouping and selection for multiple carriers?
Nick.
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I must agree with NIck F's post.
Unfortunately, every time I try to use MC for TV it turns out to be not stable enough for me crahsing, slow tuner changing, unbelievably slow searching through recorded tv content.
MV19 isnt usable as a PVR for non geeky people................ Its a shame because it feels as if JRiver aren't really interested in TV playback,
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Unfortunately, every time I try to use MC for TV it turns out to be not stable enough for me crahsing, slow tuner changing, unbelievably slow searching through recorded tv content.
Please post a log and some details.
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Yaobing,
Are you able to share with us any further thoughts and progress on the channel grouping and selection for multiple carriers?
Nick.
The GUI part is still in the works. The grouping of channels already works if you use a smart list to display the channels, and Stack channels you want to group together.
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If i play back recorded HD television why when i fast forward does it take 10-15 seconds to resume playback?
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The grouping of channels does work but is cumbersome. Why cant it be like Microsoft media center where it is all done within a GUI using the remote like a PVR should do.
Also things like Setting series link, multiple recordings, repeat shows etc all have to be done using a mouse is standard view.
Every time i wake my pc up from sleep and jriver resumes 99% of the time it has crashed... (probably to do with HDMI) that i think Jim mentioned has always been an issue.
I can post a log but have done in the past and nothing got done about it.
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The GUI part is still in the works. The grouping of channels already works if you use a smart list to display the channels, and Stack channels you want to group together.
OK, I have a Smartlist and I have stacked same channels from different carriers. Now what? How does this affect the Theater View Guide? How does it affect recording of shows? I can see that, in Standard View > Drives & Devices> TV, the list of channels becomes rationalised but I doubt that many users use standard view for their PVR interface. Why doesn't this rationalised listing appear in Theater View? Or is that what you mean by "The GUI part is still in the works"?
Nick.
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I have played some more and I can now see that, in standard view TV, for stacked channels, an available tuner of any type is used for watch or record. So that's a good step.
So will setting up stacks be automated, based on channel name matching?
What does it take to get the rationalised, stack based channel listing to show in Theater View?
I guess many of us now use keywords to filter channels for the guide. Is there some other expression which will filter based on stacks?
What are Stack Tags? The field isn't editable. Can we give the stack a name?
Nick.
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OK, I have a Smartlist and I have stacked same channels from different carriers. Now what? How does this affect the Theater View Guide? How does it affect recording of shows? I can see that, in Standard View > Drives & Devices> TV, the list of channels becomes rationalised but I doubt that many users use standard view for their PVR interface. Why doesn't this rationalised listing appear in Theater View? Or is that what you mean by "The GUI part is still in the works"?
Nick.
You should run the EPG manually once, and make sure only the channels on the stack top are associated with an xmltv ID. Non-top stack members should not be associated with xmltv IDs. That way they will not show up in the Guide grid. When you schedule recording, using either the Theater view Guide or Standard view, the recording is scheduled for the stack top channels only, but MC will try using other tuners associated with channels within the same stack as needed.
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You should run the EPG manually once, and make sure only the channels on the stack top are associated with an xmltv ID. Non-top stack members should not be associated with xmltv IDs. That way they will not show up in the Guide grid. When you schedule recording, using either the Theater view Guide or Standard view, the recording is scheduled for the stack top channels only, but MC will try using other tuners associated with channels within the same stack as needed.
Thanks, Yaobing, I have done this and the guide now looks a lot tidier. A note on the setup process, it is best to clear the guide data to remove any records for non-stack top channels. I realise they will disappear on the subsequent updates but it gives a clean start point.
The setup is quite tedious and some automation would be very welcome. I guess, if the channel names for the different carriers or tuner types match up, this could be reasonably straightforward.
One change I would like to see is for the non-stack top channels to still appear in the "Edit Channels" option, otherwise it is necessary to unstack them, make the change then restack.
Ultimately, I think some configurable rules on tuner and channel choice within stacks may be desirable.
Thanks,
Nick.
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In regard to my post here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=84522.0
this also adds a couple of points why MC needs more work to attract users for TV/PCR usage - As written in both posts, it just isn't state of the art for TV, and that is what MC is, and want's to be in terms of music playback pictures etc... . For TV it needs more work and I agree in MC19 there is no sign of development (for the moment at least)
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...... I have played around with JRiver a couple of times and found the TV section let the whole thing down.
I soon as I hear it is stable and functional I will certainly buy JRiver as everything else seems great
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In regard to my post here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=84522.0
this also adds a couple of points why MC needs more work to attract users for TV/PCR usage - As written in both posts, it just isn't state of the art for TV, and that is what MC is, and want's to be in terms of music playback pictures etc... . For TV it needs more work and I agree in MC19 there is no sign of development (for the moment at least)
Thanks for the link to this topic.
When you select a program in the guide, clicking play will play the program. Clicking record will record the program. It is a pity that the guide switches to the top left position when you click record. I would like the reassurance that the action was successful by seeing the red dot against the program. I would really like to see a three way toggle on record. Each press of record would take the state through record, subscribe then back to no action. And I don't want to be interrogated with a pop-up about whether I want to cancel recording! If the guide stayed in the same place, I could see that the red dot had disappeared. We would need another symbol for subscribe. This would be much better and only require use of one button.
Nick.
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Since this thread has become 'stickied' it looks like it's becoming a Master for TV Requests and Suggestions. I have had one request in for a couple of years and two recent ones that I think should be included in this thread.
1. The long standing one is as follows. If I make TV recordings in SageTV or another external program and then import the recordings into MC they will appear as either a 'TV Show' or a 'Movie'. No matter what is recorded in MC it always becomes a 'TV Show'. We record a lot of movies and find it a big nuisance to have to edit the tags for all Movies to make them appear as Movies. It seems to me that MC should give its own recordings at least as much respect as those recorded by another program. (Grumble, grumble!)
2. The next one is about conflict resolution. MC now gives a warning when you schedule a recording with a time overlap to a previously scheduled recording. This is a HUGE improvement and will avoid lots of messed up recordings. Thanks JRiver! The issue now is that the alert message only says that there is a conflict, not what is the conflicting program.
When watching Live TV MC will give an alert message if you try to watch something when the tuner is busy with a recording. And that message says what the program is and allows you to make a choice of continuing to watch Live, or to switch to the other channel and make the recording. It would hopefully be a simple change to give the same message and choices when scheduling a recording. It would save having to leave you are in the Guide and would be a much nicer work flow.
3. This request relates to knowing what week you are in with the Guide. When scheduling TV recordings we will often scroll many days to the right. Sometimes we forget what week we are looking at. This may affect the scheduling choices we make. It would be a big help for this problem if the date could be shown next to the day of the week in the upper left corner of the screen. Or any suitable means of knowing the date.
Thanks very much for considering these helpful improvements.
Cheers,
Rod
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I have two HTPCs, each with a BlackGold BGT3600 quad tuner card with DVB/T2 and DVB/S2 tuners. I am getting serious picture breakup on each tuner type, particularly on HD channels, yet MC OSD says the signal strength is at 100%. I couldn't see how this could possibly be a MC issue so I contacted BlackGold. They say the interpretation of signal strength is difficult and meaningless and it is far better to use the signal quality interface.
So this is my requirement, to have an OSD option to give us a measure of signal quality.
Incidentally, I have recently boosted my DVB/T signal strength which has significantly improved the breakup and, of course, the OSD still says 100%!
Nick.
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I trialed MC to add TV recording to the existing audio functionality on my media server. I bought MC because MC's audio was much better than my existing setup and I use the TV recording because I can, but I wouldn't have bought MC for the TV recording. In addition to what has been mentioned above, I have raised the following bugs in previous forum posts and it would be good to get some fixes. Given that MC can do lots of really clever stuff it's a shame that some basic gaps and issues remain in the TV support.
1. A subscription record of a series which has back to back episodes produces a single file generated rather than one for each episode.
2. Tuning returns lots of null() channels or duplicates of proper channels with a (n) suffix.
3. Theatre View Guide navigation broken with long running programmes, e.g. "Channel Off Air". Recent updates improved this but there are still issues.
4. TV "Scan for channels" only finds channels currently broadcasting. So where some channels only broadcast during the day and some only at night, the scan must be run twice (at night and by day) to find all channels. Windows Media Center & Arcsoft TotalMedia both find all channels regardless of whether they are currently broadcasting.
5. After scanning for channels the "Favorite channels" and "Hidden channels" lists aren't updated until the Options window is closed and re-opened.
6. Channel number is not populated (Options->Television->Edit channel list) after tuning.
But my biggest irritation, and this is a feature request and not a bug, is that channels are listed alphabetically. At least an option to list them by channel number would be very useful and surely that isn't a difficult change? Channels that don't have a number (given that this isn't auto populated, see 6 above) could be listed alphabetically after those with numbers.
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Thanks for the list.
1. A subscription record of a series which has back to back episodes produces a single file generated rather than one for each episode.
I fixed this on Friday. A new build will come out soon.
2. Tuning returns lots of null() channels or duplicates of proper channels with a (n) suffix.
I will fix this soon, along with item 6 below.
3. Theatre View Guide navigation broken with long running programmes, e.g. "Channel Off Air". Recent updates improved this but there are still issues.
This appears to be a tough one. We will continue looking for a solution.
4. TV "Scan for channels" only finds channels currently broadcasting. So where some channels only broadcast during the day and some only at night, the scan must be run twice (at night and by day) to find all channels. Windows Media Center & Arcsoft TotalMedia both find all channels regardless of whether they are currently broadcasting.
We scan over-the-air channels using actual signals. Microsoft probably has a database of all channels. Not sure what we can do, but it might be a good idea if we can find an online database to tap into.
5. After scanning for channels the "Favorite channels" and "Hidden channels" lists aren't updated until the Options window is closed and re-opened.
Added to my list.
6. Channel number is not populated (Options->Television->Edit channel list) after tuning.
See item 2 above.
But my biggest irritation, and this is a feature request and not a bug, is that channels are listed alphabetically. At least an option to list them by channel number would be very useful and surely that isn't a difficult change? Channels that don't have a number (given that this isn't auto populated, see 6 above) could be listed alphabetically after those with numbers.
Added to my list.
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We scan over-the-air channels using actual signals. Microsoft probably has a database of all channels. Not sure what we can do, but it might be a good idea if we can find an online database to tap into.
http://en.kingofsat.net/pos-28.2E.php
This isn't a database as such but it's an extremely useful resource. Could you scrape the data somehow and organise it into a database?
Does anyone know of anything else?
Nick.
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@yaobing
You did add quite some interesting things to your "to-do list".
Here are again a couple of useful suggestions:
1)
MC needs a real channel editor which runs in full screen mode with the ability to search for channels and create /delete own channel list within that window.
Sorting:
Search
Channelnumber
Transponder
Service Provider
Furethermore a multiple selection of channels should be possible (for moving to a different list).
Created channel lists should be easily accessible under „options-> Theater view->TV“ section to be added to theatr view.
2) Why does each channel have multiple entries, for each audio track one separate entry?
Usually one entry of a channel, in a channel list, contains the audio tracks within so that the user can switch audio tracks later when watching Tv.
3) Option to start MC with live TV channel xyz.
4) record from timeshift buffer would be nice :-)
please :-)
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Does anyone know of anything else?
For UK terrestrial broadcasts: http://www.terrestrialtv.co.uk/dtt.cgi
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Thanks for fixing the following issue in 19.103 - I tested over the weekend and consecutive programs now record separately.
1. A subscription record of a series which has back to back episodes produces a single file generated rather than one for each episode.
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Yaobing - Shortly after my last post I saw that 19.104 has been released with a good number of TV changes. I have upgraded to that and it's great to see more of the suggestions & fixes discussed above incorporated in to MC. Thanks for that!
Now that the channel number is being captured can there be an option to sort the channel list in EPG by channel number rather than alphabetically? Alternatively, you could achieve the same thing with an option to include the channel number as a prefix to the channel name and continue to sort alphabetically.
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Yes. I will work on sorting.
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May I also repeat the request of myself and many others to add support for DVB-C encrypted channels?
Without that MC isn't adequate for almost anyone in Europe with cable-tv.
Others have suggested JR teams up with the guys at DVBlogic who focus on the 'back-end' of TV. Creating integration (as other media players have done) would eliminate complexity for JR.
Many many users need an alternative to Windows Media Center now that Microsoft have stopped developing it. This should be a very interesting market for MC!
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May I also repeat the request of myself and many others to add support for DVB-C encrypted channels?
Without that MC isn't adequate for almost anyone in Europe with cable-tv.
Others have suggested JR teams up with the guys at DVBlogic who focus on the 'back-end' of TV. Creating integration (as other media players have done) would eliminate complexity for JR.
Thanks for your input.
Are you suggesting that DVBlogic handles encrypted channels? I couldn't find any mention of it on their site. Or are these two separate suggestions?
What do you mean by integration in this context?
Nick.
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I indeed mean MC could 'connect' to 'TV' provided by DVBlogic:
http://dvblogic.com/en/ (http://dvblogic.com/en/) and http://dvblogic.com/wiki/index.php/FAQ (http://dvblogic.com/wiki/index.php/FAQ)
DVBLink is a software package that turns your Windows system or NAS into a Personal Video Recorder (PVR). DVBLink records all your favorite TV programs directly to the hard disk of a NAS or Windows PC and distributes live and recorded TV content to a variety of clients on your home network.
If MC could become a client then DVBlogic could focus on the TV / recording / transcoding / EPG complexities (including IPTV etc etc) and MC on playback. Possibly JR could co-develop this with them as they have already created clients to multiple platforms and one of them (WMC) will cease to exist.
http://dvblogic.com/wiki/index.php/DVBLink_Server_clients (http://dvblogic.com/wiki/index.php/DVBLink_Server_clients)
and http://dvblogic.com/wiki/index.php/FAQ#Which_TV_providers_are_supported_by_DVBLink_on_NAS_platform.3F (http://dvblogic.com/wiki/index.php/FAQ#Which_TV_providers_are_supported_by_DVBLink_on_NAS_platform.3F) (confirming support for encrypted channels)
edit 20140119: removed diagram
They have published their Client API here http://188.121.56.29/download/dvblink_remote_api.htm (http://188.121.56.29/download/dvblink_remote_api.htm)
DVBLink Remote API provides the following functionality:
TV channel list retrieval
EPG information retrieval
Recording timers management (scheduling, overview and deleting)
Live TV playback
DVBLink Server parental control access
Thank you.
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I am personally unconvinced about DVBlink. I much prefer a single supplier solution, I then know who to blame when it doesn't work!! MC already does much of what is shown in the diagram. With time, I anticipate it will cover the whole space. I can't imagine JRiver wanting to be relegated to the role of a media client! We know that there is still room for improvement in the TV domain but Yaobing is constantly delivering improvements.
It is probably best to remove the diagram from your post. Jim is not enthusiastic about competitor products being promoted on the forum. ;)
Nick.
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...... I have played around with JRiver a couple of times and found the TV section let the whole thing down.
I soon as I hear it is stable and functional I will certainly buy JRiver as everything else seems great
i have the same feelings and hesitation to buy. However, since there is no other media center solution that satifies my other needs and wants, I will buy this at the end of the trial.
However, I would like to ask/add to the list a feature in guide to play the currently tuned channel in the small frame while browsing the guide. It does this in non theater view, and it would great if it did this in theater view. WMC does this in a spectacular way by overlaying the guide on the full screen view of the tuned channel, with a transparency so both are visible.
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This is true. However it is difficult for a company based in the US to develop and test dvb problems with many different encryptions. If the solution is already out there, then why not? I suppose it would be problematic if dvb logic went under.
Alternatively - could jriver make use of the MDAPI directshow filter like other dvb players? With yaobing and hendrick's combined directshow knowhow I'm sure it wouldn't take long.
SBR
Mediaportal have a clear policy of not supporting use of MDAPI for decryption because, in most cases, it's illegal. See here:
http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/mdapi-softcam-support-again.12620/ (http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/mdapi-softcam-support-again.12620/)
I think this is dangerous territory for JRiver to get into.
I would prefer that a separate topic was started on this rather than diverting this one.
Nick.
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Very good feedback in this thread!! I'm definitely not alone wanting to see some improvement on the TV side of JRiver.
If I could get the following things I would definitely give JRiver a shot for watching tv (and stop using Sage):
1. Guide in theater view playing the currently tuned channel in a small window.
2. Show program description in the OSD in theater view (besides what's playing next)
3. Ability to choose different channels for different tuner cards. Some are more sensitive than others which means MC May try to record a show on an available tuner card which is unable to pickup that specific channel. If it would just take what it found after a scan and keep this info separate for each tuner card that would be great.
4. Fix delay issue when changing channels
5. Improve Stability
6. Impossible to configure WMC remote IR blaster without WMC installed. (For my Colossus card and STB)
Nice to have (IMHO this would make JRiver better than the competition for TV watching/recording!!:
2. Run as a service for recordings
3. Support Comskip (At least ability to enable or disable skipping when an edl file is present if using the handsfree method)
4. Automatic video conversion of recorded show (customisable based on file name or recorded date)
Thx
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3. Ability to choose different channels for different tuner cards. Some are more sensitive than others which means MC May try to record a show on an available tuner card which is unable to pickup that specific channel. If it would just take what it found after a scan and keep this info separate for each tuner card that would be great.
Presumably you have grouped (stacked) your channels. MC will only use a channel which is marked with the correct Tuner Type with a particular tuner. If you don't want MC to use the relevant channel with the weaker tuner, then unstack and hide that channel with the weaker tuner type. If necessary, make sure you are showing the Tuner Type in your Smartlist.
Nick.
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Hi Nick,
Thx for your feedback. I haven't stacked as I also have a colossus for a satellite stb +hundreds of channels so stacking would take forever.
I do have another htpc setup With 3 ATSC cards also not created equal. i'll Try on this set-up and report back.
I have a thread with yaobbing on this I'll report back there as well.
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Grouping is intended for handling different channel types. So you can stack a ATSC channel with a STB channel. It will not help differentiate three ATSC tuners that do not perform equally.
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I won't even bother then...
On another note is it just me or the latest versions of JRiver been very VERY unstable? (even the stable builds but I admit always dowloading the latest hoping it will be better than the previous one for stability..)
-Will crash playing music when PC is busy doing video conversion (handbrake) (Not an issue with VLC, Mediaplayer sage etc..) so not my setup
-Crash when doubleclicking on files to play in windows explorer if something is already playing (not on first time but after a couple of times it will)
-Other crashes here and there hard to replicate (server on makes it worst)
As I'm tryping this it uses up all my virtual memory not doing anything and will die...
I know you guys want logs and more info but I wish I had more time. If I get more time I will give more info for sure.
What about a clean install of MC? Will that help? I can always import my library which is all that really matters...
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Please start a new thread on the problem you have, but we have seen a lot of antivirus issues lately:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=86096.0
Aside from that, we're not seeing a lot of stability problems.
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Thx Jim. I will. I'm using MSE.
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Yaobing,
Thanks for the .108 build, there's some more good stuff in there and it all seems to work well. Having run tuning again I now have all my channels with a channel number prefix and therefore in the correct order. Following a previous build all the (null) entries have now also gone although I still get the occasional duplicate channel with a (1) suffix. Not a big issue because these can be easily deleted after tuning but would be good to prevent these from appearing.
Thanks again.
Jon
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Yaobing,
Thanks for the .108 build, there's some more good stuff in there and it all seems to work well. Having run tuning again I now have all my channels with a channel number prefix and therefore in the correct order. Following a previous build all the (null) entries have now also gone although I still get the occasional duplicate channel with a (1) suffix. Not a big issue because these can be easily deleted after tuning but would be good to prevent these from appearing.
Thanks again.
Jon
Jon,
It's best not to delete channels. It can cause problems with tuning and recording others unless that's been fixed. It is best to hide them.
Nick.
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Thanks Nick, that's good to know and I'll make sure to hide rather than delete in future.
Jon
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2. Show program description in the OSD in theater view (besides what's playing next)
This has now been delivered in 19.111. I'm not sure I like the solution. It only remains on screen for 4 seconds and requires two different key presses. Often, the info text is longer than can be read in 4 seconds.
If I am watching a TV, if I press the Info button, I get the program info which stays up for 30 seconds or more. On my Sony TVs, one press gives a set of info including channel name and number, the current program name plus the description. A second press gives next program name and description. A third press turns info off. I feel this type of solution is much preferable to the MC solution. Sorry, Yaobing, but this is how most TVs work and is what users would expect. Tying it in with the existing OSD is not intuitive.
Nick.
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Has serverWMC ever been considered?
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Has serverWMC ever been considered?
I do not understand this. Can you elaborate a bit?
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I do not understand this. Can you elaborate a bit?
There is a relatively new solution, serverWMC, that would allow using the WMC TV capability, which is probably the best out there, from within your program. Other media center type products out there are already using this and people seem to like it. I would think most people running MC are using Win7 or Win8, so they either have WMC already or it would cost them $10 (Win8) to get it. I have no idea if it is feasible due to licensing, etc, just thought I would ask if it had been considered for use. It seems it would be transparent once it is setup, but should add stability and compatibility with tuner hardware, easing your program maintenance.
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Thanks for the explanation.
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We have no plans to use WMC as the TV solution.
If you have a problem with TV in MC, please report the details.
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We have no plans to use WMC as the TV solution.
.. Glad to hear that .. ;)
If you have a problem with TV in MC, please report the details.
Along that line, take special note of this link:
How to send MC logs related to TV to developers (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=52448.0)
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Hello,
Although I appreciate JRiver's aim for quality and thus also independence (i.e. not relying on WMC or DVBlogic) there still is no-one responding to the request of many for support of encrypted channels.
Microsoft has made it clear Windows Media Center isn't going to be developed further, so there are many people looking for an alternative, including me.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/microsoft-media-center-not-part-of-the-future-of-entertainment/4944 (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/microsoft-media-center-not-part-of-the-future-of-entertainment/4944)
Microsoft disbanded the Windows Media Center development team years ago, with many of its members going to work on the Xbox and Zune projects.
Since I like MC a lot as audio player, I'd love MC to be very capable at playing TV as well, which for many many people includes the requirement for supporting encrypted channels.
Please consider this, and respond. Thank you.
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+1
Totally agree. I haven't built my htpc and bought jriver yet, due to the exact same thoughts.
I'd love to use jriver, but I need a "one stop solution", because I'm not the only one around the house who will use the htpc.
I have a feeling the jriver community isn't exactly cheap, probably spending more on their kit and their software than those using free media center software, so it is very likely that the percentage of users who also have a subscription for paid content (read: encrypted channels) is much higher than among the regular WMC users (to name only one of the free alternatives, and not to disrespect any of the other communities).
So encrypted content should be given a second thought, even more so since users are trying to support and naming possible ways of integrating this.
Just my two cents.
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Relying on an external component is a technical nightmare, not to mention the support nightmare when something isn't working - especially when its widely known that said component is no longer being developed.
For a company, it may also pose a bit of legal troubles which a OpenSource project like XBMC may not suffer from, especially since it appears to be a user-contributed addon.
Supporting encrypted content ourselves is something we obviously would like to do, but at least in the U.S. its not something you just have to develop and be done with it.
The content providers in the U.S. require farily strict and expensive licensing contracts and have strict requirements on DRM, which makes using this for MC fairly hard, nearly impossible.
We are also looking into encrypted content in Europe, where the concept is quite different to the U.S. and may be more open for usage in MC, but its far too early to say.
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I'd just like to add my +1 for the idea to keep the Playing Now channel showing in the corner of the guide. In fact, I'd almost go as far as to suggest LESS rows for the guide, then more space for the highlighted program info (at the moment it seems to get cut off fairly frequently) and the Playing Now screen.
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Just to clarify why DVB-C encryption is important for many people in Europe:
- quite a significant percentage of homes have incoming cable TV (eg Netherlands: 93%)
- most of the provides don't switch of signal at the end of a term but simply disable a smartcard
- usually only one channel is 'free-to-air' on DVB-C (to help with diagnosis)
- all other channels are encrypted
That means that for everyone in this situation (including me) MC is nowhere close to adequate for TV without support for encryption
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It is more important to fix the crashes. Recording in a separate service does not make much difference since we will need to access the recorder from a client when playing a program that is currently being recorded.
I take it this is not going to be considered anytime soon? I periodically see reports of new MC crashes and even encountered one while browsing via DLNA a little while back. Matt was able to fix this (although he didn't have a ton of confidence in the fix) and you seem to fix the other ones that are found fairly quickly, but that doesn't bring back any recordings that may have been missed due to the crash. This is also worsened in a client/server environment where you might not look at or try to connect to the server for several days and won't even realize that there is anything wrong until after several recordings have been missed. I realize this adds complexity but I think it is required for a reliable DVR.
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Hello,
Although I appreciate JRiver's aim for quality and thus also independence (i.e. not relying on WMC or DVBlogic) there still is no-one responding to the request of many for support of encrypted channels.
Microsoft has made it clear Windows Media Center isn't going to be developed further, so there are many people looking for an alternative, including me.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/microsoft-media-center-not-part-of-the-future-of-entertainment/4944 (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/microsoft-media-center-not-part-of-the-future-of-entertainment/4944)
Since I like MC a lot as audio player, I'd love MC to be very capable at playing TV as well, which for many many people includes the requirement for supporting encrypted channels.
Please consider this, and respond. Thank you.
Add me to this request. If at the time of purchase (18) I had known how little attention was going to be paid to this issue, I would not have purchased, and I am now certainly regretting paying for the upgrade to 19.
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Any updates on OTA EPG (Europe) and satellite/LNB switching?
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Please please please... the ability to record or play multiple sub-streams of a channel using one tuner. :)
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Some feature requests - of features seen on other TV software packages:
* In the "Configure Device" dialog, add the ability to specify which channels will be tuned by this device (a "channel list"). This allows the use of multiple devices that happen to have overlapping channels, but where some channels are received poorly by some devices. (And, in fact, that is sometimes the reason for adding the other device, in order to get certain channels in better quality.) Currently, MC19 only uses devices other than the primary device, when the primary device is in use. Logic would need to be added to check other devices IF the channel is not in a device's channel list.
* An information/notification system. Currently, the only way to know if MC19 is recording a show, is to check the JRiver/Video folder. Most people who use the MC19 client-server system, have their TV tuners on only one PC on their LAN. Having to connect one's client version of MC19 to the DVR PC's Library, just to check if something is recording, is very inconvenient (and as mentioned, the red icon does not guarantee that anything is being written to disk, which is a different - but related - issue.) Ideally a red dot in the Player Display of Standard View of all MC19 clients that optionally setup this feature, would be ideal for me, but clearly others would want equivalent notification in Display View, Theater View, and on the various handheld apps. And the red dot should only display if the recording is succeeding. Thus one can look for the red dot - and if it is not there, it alerts one to an issue ("Shouldn't Game Of Thrones be recording right now?"). Some programs also have "next scheduled recording" information when the dot is moused over, that would be ideal.
Thanks for your consideration of these requests.
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Adding to the list (requested in various places at various times), refer here:
TV Recording - Setting Default Tags (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=88459.0)
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Adding to the list (requested in various places at various times), refer here:
TV Recording - Setting Default Tags (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=88459.0)
Thanks for responding to this request.
Refer Media Center 19.0.149 -- Available here (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=90148.0)
19.0.149 (7/2/2014)
2. NEW: Added a "Save settings as defaults" button on television recording wizard, to save certain settings, including auto tagging, to be applied in subsequent recordings when they are scheduled.
Tested it on my home setup and appears to work as expected. Nice one.. ;)
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You are welcome ;) Let us know if you see any problems.
In build 149, some of the settings are not automatically applied when you schedule a recording in Theater View. This is now fixed for the next build.
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In build 149, some of the settings are not automatically applies when you schedule a recording in Theater View. This is not fixed for the next build.
I'm a standard view kind of guy but thanks for mentioning that point of detail.
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Just to clarify why DVB-C encryption is important for many people in Europe:
- quite a significant percentage of homes have incoming cable TV (eg Netherlands: 93%)
- most of the provides don't switch of signal at the end of a term but simply disable a smartcard
- usually only one channel is 'free-to-air' on DVB-C (to help with diagnosis)
- all other channels are encrypted
That means that for everyone in this situation (including me) MC is nowhere close to adequate for TV without support for encryption
I meet the same problem : I live in EUROPE where we use more and more CABLE PAY TV. I think that MC management has to consider our situation, changes his list of development priorities and promotes a DVB-C pay TV access.
Thank in advance for your attention.
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NickF, who started this thread, died suddenly on August 8.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=91101.msg626160#msg626160
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NickF, who started this thread, died suddenly on August 8.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=91101.msg626160#msg626160
This news is sad and violent.
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I posted over on Avsforum some usability areas where MC live TV falls down against WMC in the usability and WAF areas. Jim suggested I post it here. I would like to make JRiver my main primary TV interface but up till now it just isn't there yet. A few simple changes (perhaps hard to implement) but not hard to understand why they would aid usuability.
In WMC you can type the channel number in the guide and that will bring the cursor to that channel in the guide meaning you don't have to scroll through hundreds of items if you don't want. It is a sort of "jump to shortcut". The JRiver guide does not do that. Also in MC you don't have the arrows above and below the guide for scrolling the guide with the mouse as in WMC. The JRiver guide does not scroll in a pretty way which is cosmetic thing but it is important when you have hundreds of channels to scroll through.
If you have both cable and OTA channels, when a channel is playing you can type a channel in but you can't type in a channel with subchannel number. So 8.1 or 26.2 is out. In WMC you can do this and go directly to your subchannel. In JR MC you must go to an adjacent channel 8 first then up channel to go 8.1, 8.2. I think this comes from an OTA design originally where there wasn't a cable channel at 8, then OTA at 8.1, 8.2, 8.3 etc. Also when use the down button on a WMC remote you can expect it to go down much more reliability, in JR MC if will often jump several time slots to the right instead of going down. These are all small things but when you channel up or down from your remote and JRiver hangs that adds to the unpolished feel of the guide/TV interface.
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Scroll bars, yes, there are scroll bars. The vertical scroll bar works just fine. The horizontal one is a bit weird currently. There are up and down and horizontal arrows for scrolling too. They are a bit hard to see, but they are there.
You can assign a "channel number" to each channel. For cable channels the "channel number" is the same as the channel number (although you can assign any number you like). ATSC channels can be done in your own way as well, as long as you can tell them apart from the cable channels. The default way is to insert a few '0's between the major channel and the minor channel. For example I assign "8001" to channel 8.1, "50001" to 50.1. Using remote control to enter these channels is easy. When you scan for channels, there is an option to automatically create "Channel number" for each channel.
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Scroll bars, yes, there are scroll bars. The vertical scroll bar works just fine. The horizontal one is a bit weird currently. There are up and down and horizontal arrows for scrolling too. They are a bit hard to see, but they are there.
You can assign a "channel number" to each channel. For cable channels the "channel number" is the same as the channel number (although you can assign any number you like). ATSC channels can be done in your own way as well, as long as you can tell them apart from the cable channels. The default way is to insert a few '0's between the major channel and the minor channel. For example I assign "8001" to channel 8.1, "50001" to 50.1. Using remote control to enter these channels is easy. When you scan for channels, there is an option to automatically create "Channel number" for each channel.
I am sorry that channel number approach is a kluge.. I don't want to have do that stuff. I want to type 8.1 whether in the display mode or in the guide. I want it to make sense to the wife or other users. I can hear the wife now. Why do you always keep trying force that crazy JR MC at me, just give me back Windows, or my Tivo. I have no good answer for that, do you?
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I haven't messed with Theater view scaling much. I have a 92" DLP Rear Projector which overscans a good bit. WMC can be set by display TV to adjust scaling. Because dot per dot on this display means overscanning on this TV I choose to let it overscan to advoid moire patterns in content. So scroll bars are out to side are far from usable for me.
In WMC there are no scroll bars as it assumed none are necessary as it has the arrows above and below the guide listings and remote performance is very good. Because you can use a channel number to jump to anywhere in the guide, navigation is fast. WMC does guide page and down from the remote channel buttons in a controllable and preditcable way. This means the guide is fast and smooth with little in the way of distorted text.
I am not asking that WMC be cloned. It is just that it is a solid design that cable boxes are just now starting to achieve, Tivos excluded. Tivo's designs were way ahead of the game for years.
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The buttons on the remote are currently used to jump to letters. The 5 button, for example, does J, or pressed twice K, or pressed three times L.
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I am sorry that channel number approach is a kluge.. I don't want to have do that stuff. I want to type 8.1 whether in the display mode or in the guide. I want it to make sense to the wife or other users. I can hear the wife now. Why do you always keep trying force that crazy JR MC at me, just give me back Windows, or my Tivo. I have no good answer for that, do you?
How do you reach channel 8.1 in WMC with remote control?
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Press 8.1 pretty intuitive. How else should it work that made more sense?
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Press 8.1 pretty intuitive. How else should it work that made more sense?
You can press 8.1 on a keyboard, but not on most remote controls. Oh, actually it is 8*1. Makes sense.
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I think anyone designing a TV interface on the PC should be intimately familiar with how WMC works. It has hundreds of thousands if not millions of daily users. It is not perfect by any means because development stopped but as TV interface it is pretty darned well thought out.
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I am sure a lot of the JR conventions were adhoc as they went along where WMC was built around Live TV and EPG use as the core of the environment.
However it is done, it should be the same functionality in the guide. One of the reasons I found this so annoying is the MC 19 tends to get stuck using the up and down channel button periodically during Live TV.
In MC you are stuck with a lot of legacy design decisions that were designed and made sense for being at a keyboard. WMC was designed from get go as a 10' interface..
But "*" is definitely a help. I have seen "-" used in some interfaces.
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The "*" key is the "." is what I was referring to on the remote. It does not work with 2 different HP Media Remotes, it does not work with a Dell Media Center Remote. I have an MS Brand remote around here somewhere but I can't find right now. I am pretty sure it doesn't work either. This is with Dell, Microsoft and HP IR receivers.. I will test keyboard input. I have WMC and JR MC19 on many boxes around here.
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I will implement in MC20 "8*1" as one of the ways of specifying an ATSC channel with a remote or keyboard.
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That would be great because it doesn't work from the keyboard either.
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I have Comcast and am seeing another weird thing in MC that occurs. If I press 81 on the remote (back to our 8.1) there is no 81. Some logic in MC tunes channel 810 which is a music channel. Comcast provides a bunch of music channels in the 800 range. MC doesn't handle those channels well, the audio warbles and it has trouble drawing the image. MC is kind of unstable with these so you may get a hang or a crash before you can tune away from it. This is very disconcerting to my wife and elderly mother.
I use Red October HQ which may cause more trouble with those channels. I haven't tested them with Red October standard.
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In MC, you could remove the channels that cause problems. I know it's not a perfect solution.
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A little over a year ago NickF (who sadly passed away since) wrote the following:
For me, TV is probably the most important aspect of MC. I have it running on three systems and use it every day. Every day, without exception, it gives me problems. Some of the problems have been reported but with no response or change. So why is this? Isn't TV important to J River? It doesn't seem so.
Since then many others have reported issues/troubles/requests, and to be fair some have indeed been changed.
However the problem of JRiver not supporting DVB-C encrypted TV channels remains.
Sorry to be hammering about but as stated before without this, for most TV viewers with cable TV in Europe MC is useless.
please reconsider and respond?!
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We can't provide encrypted channels.
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Any chance of a reminder function? So if I'm watching something, and I've marked something else as 'remind' it displays a dialog with 3 options - Watch, Record, Cancel.