Should I come back to WMC?

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pmobin

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Should I come back to WMC?

#1

Post by pmobin » Sun Apr 30, 2017 8:28 pm

Hi Guys,

Early last summer my guide would not download no matter what I did. I live in SF Bay area, using comcast with a cable card. All worked beautifully prior.

1- Does WMC work now especially the guide download?
2- I will be starting from scratch, do you recommend I do it over win 7 or win 10?

Much appreciated
Farzad

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Scallica

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#2

Post by Scallica » Sun Apr 30, 2017 9:51 pm

Use Windows 7 with EPG123.
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stuartm

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#3

Post by stuartm » Sun Apr 30, 2017 10:04 pm

pmobin wrote:Hi Guys,

Early last summer my guide would not download no matter what I did. I live in SF Bay area, using comcast with a cable card. All worked beautifully prior.

1- Does WMC work now especially the guide download?
2- I will be starting from scratch, do you recommend I do it over win 7 or win 10?

Much appreciated
Farzad
WMC works fine. Definitely recommend win 7 over win 10. There a few caveats. Comcast has gone to h.264 (MPEG4) for HD. You will have problems with protected channels if you are using an Intel GPU.
Best workaround for that is an inexpensive discrete video card.
Don't know why you had guide problems but I would highly recommend going to EPG123. You will then need a $25 a year Schedules Direct subscription.
Well worth it IMO for the actual support you can get both from SD for guide issues and the author of EPG123 for problems with that. The data quality from SD is noticeably better than the guide data from Rovi/Tivo. If you want to investigate EPG123 there is lots of info and support in the EPG123 specific subforum.

dkrom

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#4

Post by dkrom » Sun Apr 30, 2017 11:25 pm

^^^ Yup - Windows 7 with epg123. I usually never buy anything that I can get for free, but luckily I had an extra $25 in my paypal so I bought a year of SD for epg123 (you can try it out for 2 weeks for free). Needless to say, I'll be buying it as long as I'm using WMC.

Sammy2

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#5

Post by Sammy2 » Wed May 03, 2017 7:16 pm

You can't get Schedules Direct for free so you have to pay for it because Rovi it is not.

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DavidinCT

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#6

Post by DavidinCT » Sat May 06, 2017 2:48 pm

Windows 7 with ROVI (the free guide), has been working fine for the last few months. No question EPG123 would give you a better guide but, the free one does work as of right now.

So, Windows 7, or Windows 8.1 with the WMC addon would work fine. Stay away from 10 if your looking for a solid experience with Windows Media Center.
-Dave
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Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

joeer77

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#7

Post by joeer77 » Tue May 16, 2017 7:56 pm

WMC guide has been working fine. On other drawback on the Comacst MPEG4 transition, if you have HBO, Showtime, etc. and use a Xbox 360 extender, expect the Xbox 360s to not function well enough to watch premier content. It is like watching a slide show of the movie with audio. This is an ongoing issue that has never been resolved and my never be resolved. You can use HBO Go and other apps as a work around.

DOS4EVER

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#8

Post by DOS4EVER » Thu May 18, 2017 4:02 pm

I've been thinking of coming back too. While I do like the new interface for Xfinity X1 boxes, I really miss the customization of WMC. I just worry about H.264 causing problems with my setup when it eventually makes it way to my region.

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