Vista TV Pack 2008?
- Thread starter Lanz
- Start date
Works fine.
It's basically only TV it affects. It changes the recording format to WTV, changes the guide... slightly. The big update is the support of MHEG-5 - that means 'Red Button' stuff now works. And my god is it fast - suppose my sky box would be too if it had a Core2Duo processor!
It's basically only TV it affects. It changes the recording format to WTV, changes the guide... slightly. The big update is the support of MHEG-5 - that means 'Red Button' stuff now works. And my god is it fast - suppose my sky box would be too if it had a Core2Duo processor!
Im experiencing 2 new problems since installing the TV Pack.
1) Windows reverts back to 16bit colour randomly.
2) Lots of disk trashing, the searcher/indexer is going metal all the time, when i disable windows search, then the guide doesnt work properly (this must be a new feature)
1) Windows reverts back to 16bit colour randomly.
2) Lots of disk trashing, the searcher/indexer is going metal all the time, when i disable windows search, then the guide doesnt work properly (this must be a new feature)
I get lots of "Decoder Error" probelms that need a reboot to sort out
I occassionally get them, I just restart the reciever service instead of rebooting though. My toddler pulls out the arial from the wall, and the tv doesnt always come back when you put it in.
You can see why the TV pack wasnt a general release, kinda feels beta to me. Lets hope we see some hotfixes for it over the coming weeks.
Its only available to OEMs, but you can downloading from your `usual` dodgy sources.
Hi
I have installed the TV pack onto of my existing Vista MCE box without to many problems.
Other features I have noticed:
* They have fixed the zoon x4 mode brightness dip issue
* New guide with favorite catagoriy options
* You now need the Windows search enabled or guide search does not work
* Ability to change guide download shedules (Withouht hacks!)
* TV picture quality seems to be better
* The new recording format WTV is quite a bit larger than the old DVRMS format
I love the new features however it has also introduced more bugs and situations where the system becomes sluggish and unresponsive.
Here are a few of the issues and some solutions I have found that others may find useful.
* No thumbnails on recorded TV (Both .ms-dvr and .wtv format)
Delete ehThumbs.db & ehthumbs_vista.db
cmd
cd\
atrib -r -a -s -h ehthum*.db /s
del ehthum*.db /s
* Cannot view picture library and only the first picture has thubnail
Delete ehThumbs.db & ehthumbs_vista.db as above
* Div-x playback broken -
Re-install DivX
I have installed the TV pack onto of my existing Vista MCE box without to many problems.
Other features I have noticed:
* They have fixed the zoon x4 mode brightness dip issue
* New guide with favorite catagoriy options
* You now need the Windows search enabled or guide search does not work
* Ability to change guide download shedules (Withouht hacks!)
* TV picture quality seems to be better
* The new recording format WTV is quite a bit larger than the old DVRMS format
I love the new features however it has also introduced more bugs and situations where the system becomes sluggish and unresponsive.
Here are a few of the issues and some solutions I have found that others may find useful.
* No thumbnails on recorded TV (Both .ms-dvr and .wtv format)
Delete ehThumbs.db & ehthumbs_vista.db
cmd
cd\
atrib -r -a -s -h ehthum*.db /s
del ehthum*.db /s
* Cannot view picture library and only the first picture has thubnail
Delete ehThumbs.db & ehthumbs_vista.db as above
* Div-x playback broken -
Re-install DivX
Last edited:
I am at work at the moment so I do not have my PC at hand.
In essence you use the xp version of the change guide time tool and you then have to disable one of Vistas MCE scheduled taksks that downloads US content to the online content pages. As this task resets the registry values that the XP change guide time tool changes.
The change guide tool is here http://www.avsoft.nl/Tools/guidedltime/
I will post the details on the task thatyou need to disable for you later when I am back home.
In essence you use the xp version of the change guide time tool and you then have to disable one of Vistas MCE scheduled taksks that downloads US content to the online content pages. As this task resets the registry values that the XP change guide time tool changes.
The change guide tool is here http://www.avsoft.nl/Tools/guidedltime/
I will post the details on the task thatyou need to disable for you later when I am back home.
Took a while to dig out as the TV pack changed the scedules due to the new capability of controling this in the UI.
Here we go:
1) Right Click MYComputer / Manage
2) Look for Task Scheduler
3) Expand Task Schedule/Task Scheduler Library/Microsoft/Windows/Media Centre
4) Right click "MCUPDATE" then select "Export" save the XML file to your desktop
5) Right click "MCUPDATE" then select "Disable"
6) Make sure that the top heading "Task Schedule library" is selected. (Highlighted)
7) Right click "Task Schedule library" and select "Import Task"
8) Select the .xml file you exported in step 4 and click open
9) Change the task name to something like "My MCUPDATE"
10) Click on the triggers tab and edit the "Daily" trigger to a time to suit.
11) Close this.
You sould now have a new task called "My MCUPDATE" in Scheduled tasks in the main "Task Schedule library" and a disable "MCUPDATE" task in /Task Scheduler Library/Microsoft/Windows/Media Centre. You have to do this or else the hack will not work and the registry will reset to default after one sceduled guide update!
Then change the download time using
http://www.avsoft.nl/Tools/guidedltime/
Background Info:
mcupdate is only in Vista. It downloads packages on a scheduled basis. It downloads the following packages:
* Directory Service: The Directory Service package lists the packages that are available in a region. The Directory Service package also provides information about how to obtain packages, about how frequently to download packages, and about when to download packages.
* Client Update: The Client Update package contains updated regional information. This data (e.g. format of postal code in that region), is used in the TV Setup wizard (that we call first run or fun), and in some other areas of the product.
* Sports: US & Canada Only. The Sports package contains information about sporting events. This information is integrated with other Electronic Program Guide (EPG) information.
* Net TV: US only. The Net TV package contains information about videos that are available on demand for MCE's Internet TV option.
* MCESpotlight: Contains the information used to populate the online spotlight section of MCE.
Its fine to disable the mcupdate scheduled task. Outside of the US you dont really loose anything (except online spotlight updates)
Here we go:
1) Right Click MYComputer / Manage
2) Look for Task Scheduler
3) Expand Task Schedule/Task Scheduler Library/Microsoft/Windows/Media Centre
4) Right click "MCUPDATE" then select "Export" save the XML file to your desktop
5) Right click "MCUPDATE" then select "Disable"
6) Make sure that the top heading "Task Schedule library" is selected. (Highlighted)
7) Right click "Task Schedule library" and select "Import Task"
8) Select the .xml file you exported in step 4 and click open
9) Change the task name to something like "My MCUPDATE"
10) Click on the triggers tab and edit the "Daily" trigger to a time to suit.
11) Close this.
You sould now have a new task called "My MCUPDATE" in Scheduled tasks in the main "Task Schedule library" and a disable "MCUPDATE" task in /Task Scheduler Library/Microsoft/Windows/Media Centre. You have to do this or else the hack will not work and the registry will reset to default after one sceduled guide update!
Then change the download time using
http://www.avsoft.nl/Tools/guidedltime/
Background Info:
mcupdate is only in Vista. It downloads packages on a scheduled basis. It downloads the following packages:
* Directory Service: The Directory Service package lists the packages that are available in a region. The Directory Service package also provides information about how to obtain packages, about how frequently to download packages, and about when to download packages.
* Client Update: The Client Update package contains updated regional information. This data (e.g. format of postal code in that region), is used in the TV Setup wizard (that we call first run or fun), and in some other areas of the product.
* Sports: US & Canada Only. The Sports package contains information about sporting events. This information is integrated with other Electronic Program Guide (EPG) information.
* Net TV: US only. The Net TV package contains information about videos that are available on demand for MCE's Internet TV option.
* MCESpotlight: Contains the information used to populate the online spotlight section of MCE.
Its fine to disable the mcupdate scheduled task. Outside of the US you dont really loose anything (except online spotlight updates)
Last edited:
just installed the tvpack
wow, what a difference it makes..
no all my channels work straight away (i used to have problems with Virgin, i'd have to press stop, then click Live Tv again to get it to work)
when a video finishes, you can just press the 'skip track' button and it'll go to the next episode.
zoom mode 4 no longer dims
tv setup is painless, no need to choose a region and manually edit listings etc
wow, what a difference it makes..
no all my channels work straight away (i used to have problems with Virgin, i'd have to press stop, then click Live Tv again to get it to work)
when a video finishes, you can just press the 'skip track' button and it'll go to the next episode.
zoom mode 4 no longer dims
tv setup is painless, no need to choose a region and manually edit listings etc
Yeah its good, but it is kinda beta imo. I've had issues since installing, minimizing back to desktop, frozen displays occasionally, and lost decoder errors. I can see why it wasnt released to everyone, as no doubt there are other problems on different hardware.
It also uses a lot of disk IO, as the guide now needs indexing and windows seach installed, and it indexes a lot.
I'm just waiting for the Intel SSDs to come out, and i'll maybe get one of those for the OS, as its a major clicky click fest now when watching stuff, most off putting.
It also uses a lot of disk IO, as the guide now needs indexing and windows seach installed, and it indexes a lot.
I'm just waiting for the Intel SSDs to come out, and i'll maybe get one of those for the OS, as its a major clicky click fest now when watching stuff, most off putting.