Question Time finally called on Windows Media Center ?

AMc

Distinguished Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2000
Messages
9,726
Reaction score
5,879
Points
2,579
Location
Near Norwich
Rebooted and as MCE started up I was greeted by this message.

B1C6F8A2-6A6F-4F05-9866-63A3AFF49A73.jpeg


Unsurprisingly the “Learn more” link leads to nothing of any use like all windows error message links :(

I currently run a vanilla MCE with Xbox 360 extenders.
I guess I’ll have to research alternative listings providers properly or perhaps a whole new solution.

I can’t argue I haven’t had my money’s worth over the life of the system but it’s still going to be painful to move to something else.

Anyone else seen this?
What are you going to do?
 
I’ve not used MCE since i went to Windows 10. It was starting to show its age anyway.

I’ve since moved to JRiver.
 
Not heard of jriver - something to look at cheers.

Discovered EPG collector which looks like it will be able to pull listings from the OTA Freeview stream sounds like a low resistance path but I’ll need to dig deeper.
 
JRiver just works. Loads of tweaking possible, but has a good metadata scraper, supports all formats, etc
 
As a PVR? That’s mostly what we use along with a little music.

The thing about MCE is the familiarity of the interface and the Xbox extenders.
I fairly resigned to losing the extenders if I move systems but if I didn’t need to that would be a bonus.
 
Ah, i don’t use as a PVR, but you get a 30 day free trial.
 
I used Schedules Direct with EPG-123 since the big outage on the MCE listings a couple of years ago or so, worked really well and pretty easy once set up.

That said, I turned off my main MCE machine this weekend after moving to Kodi/HDHomerun.

@AMc - let me know if you want me to explain my new setup.
 
MeidaPortal, Jriver, Kodi, Plex, Emby are all options.

MediaPortal is an all in one solution, haven't used Jriver in a long time so not familiar.

Kodi, Plex, Emby use a server client system, were you have a TV server software running somewhere and they plug into that for everything TV related.

Try NextPVR on your PC, then in one of the above you download it's addon and connect the the TV server and you get live TV, EPG and PVR in that.

The nice benefit of the TV server is you can connect it up to any other software running on a device, a Raspberry Pi running Kodi or Emby client built into smart TV etc.
 
The tricky thing with moving to any new solution, apart from all the research is the downtime. Unless I build a new system and find another aerial to plug it into there’s going to be some gaps.
It’s enough trouble if the regular recordings mess up :)

Still pondering what to look at but I think I’ll start with researching EPG collector properly while the MCE listings are still current. If the guide works that might be enough. If not I can flip back and rethink and try 123.

I idly thought we could move to just using catchup & Netflix for most things, but being forced to sit through the ads on Bake off last night (along with the actual programme) was too annoying :)

Thanks for all the pointers so far :thumbsup:
 
That seems to be what epg collector is for.
I’m not convinced that Media Center can do it by itself but I guess I could test it by pulling its net connection and clearing the guide data.
I can see a lot of mucking about in the near future.
 
media portal is quite a doddle to set up these days, i did a test build not so long ago, took about 30 mins incl a tvcard tune.
the hardest part if you are ocd like me is the sort order of the channels :D
 
That seems to be what epg collector is for.
I’m not convinced that Media Center can do it by itself but I guess I could test it by pulling its net connection and clearing the guide data.
I can see a lot of mucking about in the near future.
Certain Freeview channels have their EPG encrypted, which MCE can't decrypt - this is why the MS EPG outages over the years was so annoying.

If you're going to stay with MCE, you will have to find an alternative EPG supply or put up with some channels not being populated - those on the HD muxes, I think.
 
That's what I've read - the HD channels use huffman (?) encryption which isn't decoded by MCE.
EPC collector can (apparently) map the SD to the HD channels.
I haven't bothered with the Freeview HD channels - on my 42" 1080 screen at the viewing distance I have it's barely detectable and the disk space penalty isn't worth it for most of what we record.
I've been so stacked with work and family stuff I've not had enough time to play with EPG collector - that's the next step - run a test on the actual machine rather than reading about it on my phone :)
 
@AMc

As you seem to be the Forum's last man standing for MCE - I've a MS Media Centre keyboard that I no longer need. If you want it just PM me with your address and I'll pop it in the post.

One of these:

 
You can put Kodi on XBox One then I would get a Enigma 2 machine, you will end up with a very similar setup, but it will be more reliable
 
You can put Kodi on XBox One then I would get a Enigma 2 machine, you will end up with a very similar setup, but it will be more reliable

Googling "Enigma 2" comes up with Linux based satelite boxes. I'm currently using Freeview though I do have a sat feed available.
Is that what you're suggesting?

The XBox360 extenders get used about once a week so I'm not really intending to replace them unless its strictly necessary.

I know it's not a popular viewpoint but my MCE system has been running 24/7 for years it's been very stable - I did have to replace the motherboard and processor once when the video chipset died but it's been running with very minimal intervention for about 8 years!
 
Enigma 2 can now come with Freeview tuners the one below is just one option


Enigma 2 has an extender built into Kodi, Kodi is now available on XBox 360 and One its in the store.


therefore yTherefore you can keep using your xbox
 
Last edited:
So after many dire warnings the Guide data actually runs out at midnight on Thursday 13th Feb.:(
Attempting to manually get listings gives a slightly rude message from Microsoft that tells you they don't supply it any more ;)

So out of curiosity I tuned in BBC1 for a couple of minutes and the EPG populated for Friday 14th.
I then tuned to ITV1 and got listings for everything else.
So I assume it's picking up the over the air guide and populating the channels that way.
Don't know if it got everything from the BBC1 tune and it just took it a while to sort and show - it's an old PC - or if the ITV1 tune was necessary?

I don't know - but now I can test - if it will do that when it's recording and so allow me to take the path of least resistance and leave it to it's own devices :).
If I end up with listing for the 15th tomorrow then it's taking care of itself - if not then I'll have to intervene.
I still haven't had the time/energy to look into EPG Collector but if it breaks tomorrow then I'll have to!
 
I dare say you'll end up with a rolling guide for 7 days for most of the channels.
 
Closer examination showed the Official listings had an end date of Feb 11th so I think you may be right.
Not that I'm lazy but I'm happy to let this run for a few days and see what happens rather than faff about with it :)
 
In MediaPortal I have always just used the OTA guide for freeview, unfortunately the freesat setup is not so friendly and only gives me "now and next" on each mux i am using one of the channels on.
 
Just to update - the Guide continues to extend and the system is scheduling new programmes to record based on existing Series links - so it looks like there was nothing to do to keep Freeview SD alive and working.
Of course I'm still running an ancient operating system which would be better retired but that's another day :)
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom