FAO Anyone interested in getting freesat through Media Centre on their PC

PLAYtv is just dvb-t I'm afraid. MCE has been doing dvb-t for ages.

Fiji is an update to bring dvb-s2 so will take mce beyond what PLAYtv is only just about to do. Dvb-s2 has also been available on PC for some time with all sort of apps but there is a little farting about required. I think that there is also support for 4 tuners with fiji, though I think that's limited to vista ultimate for now.

Once fiji is out of beta there'll be very little farting about, just channel finding as you would need to do with any tv tuner system including PLAYtv.

PLAYtv looks like a great add on for a PS3 though and the functionality with the PSP is also a nice addition. If you wanted live streaming to a portable device, a sling box is possibly more universal as it is not confined to one device.

I shall definitely be keeping an interested eye on PLAYtv.
 
PiKe said:
If you don't already have a ps3 that's £370...
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So a Blu Ray Player, Wifi Media, Games Console and excellent multimedia playback box for £370 aint bad value is it?

The Play TV interface looks pretty decent too, and with the ability to record even while playing a game now confirmed im sure its going to become popular.
 
nikebee said:
Fantastic find mate, I'm glad that Fiji is finally looking like it's going somewhere other than just rumours :D
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Ah so this is an official function rather than a community program?

I've been reading a lot about 'Fiji' and the latest I heard was that it has been RTM'ed but only to OEMs, no word on if existing users will get it as an update.
 
Mr Latte said:
MMMMMMMMMMMMM
So an approx £60 TV card would allow this to work, of course in beta form so not ideal but a lot cheaper than a Freesat HD reciever/recorder...


However.....
Beta and PC means headaches and a bit or work, why work when you soon could PLAY
Particulary take notice of the video @ 2:00, this goona be kickass...

Personally think id rather spend approx £70 on PLAY than on a PC TV card guys, but heck if you love farting about with PCs and find MCE worthwhile then be my guest...

Ok not everyone has a PS3 but for some this is another reason to possibly get one.
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I'm thinking of getting PlayTV anyway.
My PVR is quite old now, and also I'd like my PS3 to upscale TV to 1080p, plus just the fun factor of streaming to my PSP as well.

However, I don't believe PlayTV supports DVB-S, so is no good for this.

I want to get the free HD channels, such as BBC-HD and ITV-HD.
PlayTV can't receive these as it's only dvb-t as far as I know.
If it did support dvb-s as well, that would be perfect, but for now, the cheapest way to get free HDTV would seem to be via the method in the OP.

Vin.
 
Id think it would be very daft to produce a system that wont be compatible with the upcomming BBC or ITV services, thats just doesnt make much sense.

I dont though have any information to confirm one way or the other.
 
Mr Latte said:
Id think it would be very daft to produce a system that wont be compatible with the upcomming BBC or ITV services, thats just doesnt make much sense.

I dont though have any information to confirm one way or the other.
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Thing is, the systems are already in place.

PlayTV is dvb-t, and Freesat is dvb-s.

PlayTV is fine for Freeview, but freeview (at the moment) doesn't carry any HD content, so if you want to see the free stuff, like BBC-HD, the above mentioned satellite PCI card is the cheapest method.

If PlayTV was also capable of receiving Satellite, that would... be too good to be true ;)

Vin.
 
Just be aware that the S2 HD card is processor hungry, anything under dual core is not recommended for HD. I have been using MCE 2005 for years now way before Sky launched Sky+ feeding my Sky box directly into a 250 PVR.

Was gutted that the S2 really is not suited to my specs P4 3.4 1GB Ram and 6800 AGP 512MB. Processor was 100% watching BBC1 HD.

Took the card back to the retailer and got a refund. Will be looking to upgrade PC come October when this realease is official. The Beta will stop working at the end of august for those interested, and the links taken down as quick as they are uploaded :)
 
It's 100% on your cpu because your graphics card can't do hardware encoding of h.264.

The difference between video quality on a 6 series card and the newer 8 series onwards is quite large too.

When I upgraded from a 6800 ultra to an 8800 G80 I was made up with the improvement in video quality.
 
thepharcyde said:
Just be aware that the S2 HD card is processor hungry, anything under dual core is not recommended for HD. I have been using MCE 2005 for years now way before Sky launched Sky+ feeding my Sky box directly into a 250 PVR.

Was gutted that the S2 really is not suited to my specs P4 3.4 1GB Ram and 6800 AGP 512MB. Processor was 100% watching BBC1 HD.

Took the card back to the retailer and got a refund. Will be looking to upgrade PC come October when this realease is official. The Beta will stop working at the end of august for those interested, and the links taken down as quick as they are uploaded :)
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Someone else has already said it but to expand the point, the HD satellite cards aren't processor hungry, and there is no native decoding of the video streams on the card (why would there be, what would they decode into, and how would you PVR raw video streams.)
But you certainly don't need a dual core box to watch HD, I have a 3700+ single core processor and an nvidia 7300GS card in my HTPC atm, I haven't actually checked the CPU usage, but it's more than happy to watch BBC HD without any skips, dropped frames or slow downs when doing other tasks.
I have to assume that the problem is with the codec you're using, atm I'm using the CyberLink H264 decoder that came with the satellite card.

On topic a sec I saw a review of what is supposed to be the RTM update on Engadget a week or so ago, it said that the H264 support has been dropped and they'll be pushing all the good stuff that would make MCE worth having outside the US into Windows 7.
 
Sky HD box £75 £10 sub = Unbeatable HD content, they way I would do it rather than messing about with USB cards etc.
 
Fothsn said:
Sky HD box £75 £10 sub = Unbeatable HD content, they way I would do it rather than messing about with USB cards etc.
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Hardly the same thing though.

Freesat is the one off payment of about £60. And with sky you would nearly be paying that per month.

So no doubt sky is better it would have to be.
 
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PiKe said:
To get the £10 sub you have to subscribe to at least 2 mixes I believe.
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Ah I thought you could just be on the standard one? I know its totally different to the OP but its IMO the best way to get HD content, freesat has potential though and can only get better.
 
bam0 said:
On topic a sec I saw a review of what is supposed to be the RTM update on Engadget a week or so ago, it said that the H264 support has been dropped and they'll be pushing all the good stuff that would make MCE worth having outside the US into Windows 7.
Click to expand...

Do you have a link to that?
 
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