Vista MCE - Unsupported File Format error

[hedgie]

Hi,
I've googled this problem but been unable to find anything relevant....

I've recently started getting a lot of "unsupported File Format" errors when trying to playback a TV recording in Vista Media Centre. I have added a second hard drive recently and I can't recall whether this problem occured before of after the install. In addition, the recording happens and the meta data is all there it just won't play. I have a Hauppuage Nova-T 500 dual tuner PCI card, although I know I'm running a slightly older driver (from around June 2007). I'm going to run some tests as another theory is that it is when there is a dual recording occurring. I'll try updating the Nova-t driver, haven't done this up to now as its all been working well and didn't want to break anything!

Rest of spec of machine is Athlon 64 4200 processor, 1GB memory, 250GB + 500GB Hard drives (both WD Sata 7200rpm drives), in a SN21G5 shuttle.

Any suggestions welcome....

 

[hedgie]

In case anyone else comes across this problem I can confirm that I have now fixed the problem. See below for details:

Nova-t TV tuner PCI card uses 2 USB devices internally. After a lot of research there is an issue mentioned on this, the Hauppuage and the Greenbutton forums where the USB device intermittently does not work after coming out of S3 standby. There is speculation that this will be resolved in Vista SP1. In the mean time there is a MS hotfix KB941996 which has fixed the problem for me. You have to call MS to get the hotfix and I had to exchange a few emails before they would release it.

Although I noticed the problem because recordings failed, the problem is actually that the TV tuner is unavailable. When a recording has failed and is still in progress (yes, it does still try and record a blank screen) then live TV will not display and will give a tuner unavailable message.