Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[NickF]

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.

[dorsetjon]

Thanks Nick, that's good to know and I'll make sure to hide rather than delete in future.

Jon

[NickF]

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.

[IndianaGeorge]

Has serverWMC ever been considered?

[Yaobing]

Has serverWMC ever been considered?

I do not understand this.  Can you elaborate a bit?

[IndianaGeorge]

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.  

[Yaobing]

Thanks for the explanation.

[JimH]

We have no plans to use WMC as the TV solution.

If you have a problem with TV in MC, please report the details.

[astromo]

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

[erwinb]

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

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.

[Hometownwesty]

+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.

[Hendrik]

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.

[imugli]

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.

[erwinb]

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

[cncb]

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.

[obchristo]

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
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.

[audioriver]

Any updates on OTA EPG (Europe) and satellite/LNB switching?

[imugli]

Please please please... the ability to record or play multiple sub-streams of a channel using one tuner. 

[kstuart]

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.

[astromo]

Adding to the list (requested in various places at various times), refer here:
TV Recording - Setting Default Tags

[astromo]

Adding to the list (requested in various places at various times), refer here:
TV Recording - Setting Default Tags

Thanks for responding to this request.

Refer Media Center 19.0.149 -- Available here

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..  

[Yaobing]

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.

[astromo]

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.

[robert59]

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.

[JimH]

NickF, who started this thread, died suddenly on August 8.

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=91101.msg626160#msg626160

[robert59]

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.

[gtgray]

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.

[Yaobing]

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.

[gtgray]

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?

[gtgray]

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.

[JimH]

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.

[Yaobing]

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?

[gtgray]

Press 8.1 pretty intuitive. How else should it work that made more sense?

[Yaobing]

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.

[gtgray]

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.

[gtgray]

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.

[gtgray]

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.

[Yaobing]

I will implement in MC20 "8*1" as one of the ways of specifying an ATSC channel with a remote or keyboard.

[gtgray]

That would be great because it doesn't work from the keyboard either.

[gtgray]

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.

[JimH]

In MC, you could remove the channels that cause problems.  I know it's not a perfect solution.

[erwinb]

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?!

[JimH]

We can't provide encrypted channels.

[imugli]

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.