Windows 10 Media Center

Discussion of getting WMC to work on Windows 10 (unsupported)
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capnfatpants

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Windows 10 Media Center

#1

Post by capnfatpants » Wed Jan 21, 2015 8:20 pm

Hey all.
There is no windows 10 group... yet, so I thought I'd post here. I held off upgrading my MC because my windows 7 machine was running fine... although it's a little long in the tooth. At first I was excited to hear that 7 users get a free upgrade and windows 10 does look intriguing, but then reality struck that MS has abandoned WMC. I'm holding out a little hope of glimmer that maybe they'll keep some functionality (like cable card support). Has anyone heard anything about this yet?

My wife is getting frustrated with the crashes of our WMC and it looks like we might be going back to the terrible box. I'm scared and hoping there will be hope soon.

Also acceptable, is there any word on Android TV and cablecard yet? I'd love it if someone slapped a big ol' hard drive and cable card slot on an android tv.

Tester

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#2

Post by Tester » Wed Jan 21, 2015 8:26 pm

Are your WMC crashes on Windows 7 ? I find Windows 7 WMC super stable and have 0 crashes. It is so reliable that I use it as a cable box, turn it on/off several times a day, no crashes ever.

kansanian

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#3

Post by kansanian » Wed Jan 21, 2015 8:51 pm

Mine has small glitches once in awhile, but no crashes. Example is one of my threads where live TV seems to stop at some point overnight - this AM, my wife reported that she had to hit the power button (which makes it go to standby/sleep) and it worked fine, and isn't annoyed - it's otherwise been stable over the last 4 yrs. I almost wonder if the HDD might be going flaky or something, but if nothing else, it's pretty easy to reinstall everything...

As for 10, I am also worried, but at least 8/8.1 officially supports it, and support for that OS is until 2023 - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle
The guide is another factor, which, another poster here responded once that there might be a way someday to pipe other guide data to it.
Cable Card support, however, also concerns me. I also posted at the "technical preview" forum about this.

I would suggest that anyone / everyone else concerned also make your voices heard.
It's the *ONLY* solution for such a setup, and I also REALLY hope they don't abandon it (non-Tivo, anyway).
Go register for the "tech preview" if you haven't already, and post there about it. So far, there's been no "official" word, other than "if you add it, you lose updates to the preview OS, as it kind of reverts the OS partially.." (something along those lines). It *DOES WORK* in 10, but only in a partial way, as it seems to break any chances of further updates to the "technical preview" operating system itself.
This can mean that it will work when it's final, or, that they don't let it work - nobody really knows. All we do know, is that they seem to have just kind of gone "meh" with it, and that's a true shame.

We JUST started using it as our primary DVR with a cablecard tuner. I can only hope that support is continued for it for several years.

LuckyDay

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#4

Post by LuckyDay » Wed Jan 21, 2015 9:00 pm

Same here for Win7/8 being extremely stable for me. I can't even remember the last time my system crashed.

Might be worth looking into solving those problems. I don't think long term you have to worry about Win7/8 losing support for cablecard for a while.

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DrSmith

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#5

Post by DrSmith » Wed Jan 21, 2015 9:02 pm

Imagine getting a free Windows 10 upgrade from Win7 automatically because you have enabled Windows Updates. This generous Microsoft plan could flatline an entire WMC community overnight. Disable automatic updates or roll the dice :)

Meanwhile, I have 2 WMC/Win7 machines on 24/7 and they NEVER crash (and never sleep, and never update). Both have been running non-stop since late 2013.

IownFIVEechos

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#6

Post by IownFIVEechos » Wed Jan 21, 2015 9:10 pm

I would like to see Media Center through the 'HoloLens' technology!

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tony_park

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#7

Post by tony_park » Wed Jan 21, 2015 9:51 pm

Hi,

has anyone heard if windows 10 will include media center? Since its a free upgrade in the first year, seriously considering upgrading some of our pcs when its released, but wondering whether the pcs that actually use media centre will still be usable.


Thanks
Tony

capnfatpants

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#8

Post by capnfatpants » Wed Jan 21, 2015 10:17 pm

Maybe the term crash isn't the right one. I get frequent errors. A lot of video driver errors requiring me to restart. Some unavailable tuner errors... You know, the standard ceton list of problems. I do run an older rig, so some slowness is expected, but the errors are getting old. Especially when recordings crap out mid show.

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makryger

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#9

Post by makryger » Wed Jan 21, 2015 11:03 pm

I would NOT upgrade to windows 10 if you expect to continue using Windows Media Center.

That is all.
My Channel Logos XL: Get your Guide looking good! ~~~~ TunerSalad: Increase the 4-tuner limit in 7MC

LuckyDay

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#10

Post by LuckyDay » Wed Jan 21, 2015 11:25 pm

makryger wrote:I would NOT upgrade to windows 10 if you expect to continue using Windows Media Center.

That is all.
Well that's not a good sign.

At least we've got another ten years or so of Win7/8 as long as the cablecards keep working.

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tony_park

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#11

Post by tony_park » Thu Jan 22, 2015 12:39 am

Maybe time to try Kodi on windows 10, at least the OS will then be supported past 2020.

adam1991

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#12

Post by adam1991 » Thu Jan 22, 2015 1:56 am

I have to admit, my system does restart randomly. Not horribly often, but a few times a month.

I leave it on 24/7, and I'm doing commercial skip. I suspect that's the issue.

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#13

Post by natlight » Thu Jan 22, 2015 5:01 am

makryger wrote:I would NOT upgrade to windows 10 if you expect to continue using Windows Media Center.

That is all.
What are the chances of MS open sourcing media center once they kill it? They have been getting a lot of good press recently for open sourcing .net and some other tools. They could really win over a lot of tech geeks by throwing it on github.

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makryger

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#14

Post by makryger » Thu Jan 22, 2015 1:17 pm

natlight wrote:
makryger wrote:I would NOT upgrade to windows 10 if you expect to continue using Windows Media Center.

That is all.
What are the chances of MS open sourcing media center once they kill it? They have been getting a lot of good press recently for open sourcing .net and some other tools. They could really win over a lot of tech geeks by throwing it on github.
I imagine that they probably aren't allowed to without stripping cablecard support out, given how tightly controlled those regulations are.
My Channel Logos XL: Get your Guide looking good! ~~~~ TunerSalad: Increase the 4-tuner limit in 7MC

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#15

Post by LuckyDay » Thu Jan 22, 2015 5:07 pm

makryger wrote:
natlight wrote:
makryger wrote:I would NOT upgrade to windows 10 if you expect to continue using Windows Media Center.

That is all.
What are the chances of MS open sourcing media center once they kill it? They have been getting a lot of good press recently for open sourcing .net and some other tools. They could really win over a lot of tech geeks by throwing it on github.
I imagine that they probably aren't allowed to without stripping cablecard support out, given how tightly controlled those regulations are.
That wouldn't be difficult though.

Tester

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#16

Post by Tester » Thu Jan 22, 2015 5:43 pm

@capnfatpants, I also run an older system using a ceton card and no longer have such issues.
Granted, it took much experimentation and trial and error, but my system runs very smoothly.

If you need any particular/specific help, please feel free to contact me, I may be able to help.

In my opinion, strictly as an HTPC WMC system, there is no need to upgrade from 7.

blueiedgod

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#17

Post by blueiedgod » Thu Jan 22, 2015 8:34 pm

capnfatpants wrote:Maybe the term crash isn't the right one. I get frequent errors. A lot of video driver errors requiring me to restart. Some unavailable tuner errors... You know, the standard ceton list of problems. I do run an older rig, so some slowness is expected, but the errors are getting old. Especially when recordings crap out mid show.
Hardware failures won't miraculously be fixed with an OS "upgrade", in most cases.

Track down your hardware issues, and fix.

deihmos

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#18

Post by deihmos » Fri Jan 23, 2015 10:13 pm

WMC crashes every now and again for me also. It does not happen very often but it id does occur.

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#19

Post by richard1980 » Sat Jan 24, 2015 3:25 pm

makryger wrote:I imagine that they probably aren't allowed to without stripping cablecard support out, given how tightly controlled those regulations are.
WMC does not communicate directly with CableCARDs. WMC communicates with the tuners (which may in turn communicate with a CableCARD) and PlayReady. So there's nothing to strip from WMC.

deihmos

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#20

Post by deihmos » Sat Jan 24, 2015 5:51 pm

Someone on the Mediabrowser forum said you can now get Media Center with the latest preview. Anyone know anything about it because I just installed the preview and did not see anything.

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