I miss Media Center

[grantndub]

At the beginning of the summer my wife and I moved in with my mother-in-law. We moved from Sacramento to her home town of Oroville, it's just outside of Chico. In an attempt to save money while she attended CSU,Chico. We all agreed on a place, while we were working out the details then it was brought to my attention that we were both locked into contract with out TV provider. Me with Comcast and her with Dish. I was okay with that she could have her Dish and we will have our setup.

My wife and I had not seen the place in person until moving day. We loaded up our truck and made the 2 hour drive to Oroville. As soon as we got to the place my wife was unhappy, so many things wrong with the place. To make a long story short, part way of moving in we decided to move out. Luckily, we had not given the signed lease to the owner yet. So we began to look for a different place. We found a place in more of a rural area were Comcast isn't available, I wasn't really happy about that and my mother-in-law kept asking me if that was a deal breaker. We were technically homeless for 2 weeks and not having the TV setup I wanted is a small issue in comparison. Comcast let me out of the contract because they don't offer service here, kinda cool of them. I had to give a bit of back story on why I not using media center right now.

It's been almost 2 months using Dish as our primary source of TV. It's horrible!! I'll start off with the guide there is only 5 rows at the bottom half of the screen while the top half is split between whats playing and a description of the show highlight in the guide. It's plain, slow and only has 1 week of show information. The dual mode recorder doesn't make much sense to me. When it just left on live TV it after a few hours it will turn off and display a splash screen that jumps around and gives you tips. If it turned off the TV too that would be cool but just the box? It takes almost a full minute to delete a show and your stuck there looking a screen that's telling you to please wait, well I kinda have to wait. If a show is recording on the 2nd TV and your watching the 1st you can't stop the show or delete it. You have to physically go where the 2nd TV is stop the show then delete it. The dish itself is ugly ours isn't mounted on the roof but bolted to some cinder blocks behind the house. My dog likes to pee on it and I kinda wanna pee on it too. There really isn't a way to adjust the time ours off by a couple of minutes. I could go on and on about it but I didn't write this to bash Dish. I want to praise Media Center.

I am a longtime user of MC dating back to XP and it was has always been my main source of TV. Except for few months when my computer crashed and I didn't have a copy of the XP media center disk and couldn't find one online. I used a couple of other programs but still wanted Media Center then one day I bucked up and bought Windows 7. I miss the customizablitiy of it. My HTPC is loaded with ram and has a SSD for the OS so the speed isn't an issue, although the processor is kinda lacking. I love how MC knows if a show is a repeat of one I have prerecorded even if I have it set to record repeats and not record the same exact show 5 times in one day. It's so awesome I love how I can edit the files wither it be removing commercials or just renaming it. Or just copy it, provided it's DRM free, and put it on my phone or an external and watch it at a friends house. Some of the content I watch is online using MC and a plugin it has made it so easy for me to watch TED, Revision3, or Youtube. I love how if I run out of space I can just move stuff to somewhere else or add another/bigger HDD. The all in one simplicity of it is what keeps me happy. Having my music, photos, TV shows, movies, and home videos all easily accessible. Currently my HTPC is hooked up next to my desktop but is powered down and rarely gets turned on mostly for me to do the updates. After my wife's finals in December we are planning on moving one of my requirements will be Comcast. I miss Media Center and will be back one day soon.

[boogmeister1]

Wow, you got EXTREMELY lucky with Comcast! I got married almost 3 years ago and I had Comcast service at my apartment. My contract expired a month before I moved into the house with my new wife, so I called Comcast and asked if it was transferable to our new house. Their answer was "Absolutely!". I gave them the new address and did a second call to verify. Both calls concluded the same... "We provide service to your new house, Sir.".

fast forward to move-in day and I call comcast to schedule the move. Now mind you, this is after I signed the new contract. They now stated that they don't service our new house. Great! Now I had to deal with someone that obviously didn't know where the boundaries for their service lie. Oops, it was actually the first two people either didn't know, or didn't care! They would NOT provide service for me. Ok, not a problem, I just called Surewest and got service with them.

Fast forward two months and I get a bill from Comcast for $325.00! I called them and asked why. they said it was because I broke the contract. I tried to explain to them that they were in the wrong. I even wrote letters to them. There response was always the same... "You owe us money because you broke the contract." they then sent me to collections because I refused to pay for their (what I consider intentional) screw-up.

I ended up paying it because my credit means the world to me. Needless to say, I will NEVER be a Comcast customer again. I was in Fry's the other day and one of the Comcast sales people came up to me and asked if I would like to use their service. Let's just say, I had a few choice words for him.

Anyhow, it sounds like you just got lucky!
Eric

[richard1980]

@boogmeister1 You signed a contract that stated you would pay an early termination fee if you terminated the service before the end of the contract term. Then you terminated the service before the contract term expired. Legally, you owed Comcast whatever was specified as the early termination fee. That said, I understand that you would not have signed a contract if you had been told that service was not going to be available at the new address. However, it's generally a good idea to look into things for yourself rather than take the word of people that are trying to get you to sign the contract. Those sales people don't care about you. At the end of the day, all they really care about is how much commission they are getting and if they met their quota.

For the OP, you can use WMC with Dish Network, it just requires connecting the Dish receiver to a tuner. If you want HD, you'll need the Hauppauge HD-PVR or Colossus, but if you just want SD, you can use any tuner with S-Video input.

[makryger]

Legally, you owed Comcast whatever was specified as the early termination fee.

i'm not sure if I completely agree with that... a contract is a two-way street. You pay them, they provide the service. If they cannot provide the service, then it's really comcast that is breaking the contract. I'd bring it to better business bureau, or someone higher up at comcast if it were me.


OP, perhaps you should try that new Dish Hopper... it looks like a decent system...
Although, Dish doesn't get AMC- some sort of dispute. That may be enough reason to leave them in itself. But I like the idea to use the happauge collosus

[boogmeister1]

I disagree, Richard. I re-signed with Comcast based on their faulty/misleading/lying sales people. Had they been honest with me I would have never re-signed with them. If I go to one of my customers and tell them one thing, then change it, I am the one that is liable, not my customer.

Eric

[grantndub]

When I asked about the early termination fee, the guy said we can penalize you because you moved and we don't service your area. That was it, I just had to turn in my equipment and pay my final bill.

[richard1980]

Legally, you owed Comcast whatever was specified as the early termination fee.

i'm not sure if I completely agree with that... a contract is a two-way street. You pay them, they provide the service. If they cannot provide the service, then it's really comcast that is breaking the contract. I'd bring it to better business bureau, or someone higher up at comcast if it were me.

Comcast didn't make the decision to terminate the service. Boogmeister chose to terminate the service after he moved out of Comcast's service area. He didn't have to terminate the service. He could have continued paying for service at his old address, or he could have transferred his service to any of the millions of addresses serviced by Comcast. So I fail to see how Comcast could have broken the contract. This isn't a matter of breach of contract, it's a matter of possible tort.

I disagree, Richard. I re-signed with Comcast based on their faulty/misleading/lying sales people. Had they been honest with me I would have never re-signed with them. If I go to one of my customers and tell them one thing, then change it, I am the one that is liable, not my customer.

Comcast may have been liable for misrepresentation, but that has nothing to do with your obligation to pay the ETF. Had misrepresentation been discovered before the contract went into effect, the contract could have been rescinded (if you were able to prove the misrepresentation in arbitration). However, because you had already consumed one month of service before you discovered the alleged misrepresentation, neither you nor Comcast could return to your pre-contract positions. Therefore, rescission of the contract was impossible, so the terms of the contract would have to stand. In other words, you would still have to honor the terms of the contract, which means paying the ETF if you terminate service. You still could have made a misrepresentation claim against Comcast, and if you were able to win, you would probably have been awarded a refund of the ETF, and possibly even more. It's possible you could have been awarded a full refund of all the money you had paid Comcast during that contract term, though I don't know how likely that is since you were able to consume the service while you lived at the old address.

[brantmacga]

@boogmeister1 You signed a contract that stated you would pay an early termination fee if you terminated the service before the end of the contract term. Then you terminated the service before the contract term expired. Legally, you owed Comcast whatever was specified as the early termination fee. That said, I understand that you would not have signed a contract if you had been told that service was not going to be available at the new address. However, it's generally a good idea to look into things for yourself rather than take the word of people that are trying to get you to sign the contract.

and exactly how else was he to "look into it"? this is an absurd answer. he called the company that provides the service; the salespeople should have the correct information. legally, comcast screwed him.

[richard1980]

There are a number of ways to check the cable provider at a specific address without having to ask a sales rep. Comcast's own website allows you to check to see if service is available at a specific address. Additionally, it's not hard to contact the local franchising authority to find out who provides service at that address. You could even search the internet for it. Or even ask somebody that lives in the area. Any of those options would have been better than asking some Comcast sales rep. Maybe it's just me, but I don't trust sales people. I'd rather do my own research and find out the truth.

[boogmeister1]

There are a number of ways to check the cable provider at a specific address without having to ask a sales rep. Comcast's own website allows you to check to see if service is available at a specific address. Additionally, it's not hard to contact the local franchising authority to find out who provides service at that address. You could even search the internet for it. Or even ask somebody that lives in the area. Any of those options would have been better than asking some Comcast sales rep. Maybe it's just me, but I don't trust sales people. I'd rather do my own research and find out the truth.

Geeze, how silly of me to expect the Comcast sales person to know the answer to whether or not they provide service at my new address! If I were to follow your reasoning, then I shouldn't trust google, or Comcast's own website... after all, they are run by humans that are, potentially, not honest. Why would I trust anyone that lives in my area, how do I know they're trustworthy?

You see, your reasoning takes all of the responsibility off the party that should actually have the responsibility. Again, I come back to my previous analogy. How am I not responsible for misleading (or lying) comments that I tell one of my customers? I would expect to lose that customer in a hurry.

I don't mean to sound crass or rude, but I don't really understand your line of thinking.

Eric

[barnabas1969]

Holy crap! This thread has gone one wayyyy too long. You can hook up your satellite receiver to Media Center. Move on... nothing to see here. The only comment I have is... I don't have any contracts with my cable provider. I never heard of that before. Not sure I would sign one.

[grantndub]

Holy crap! This thread has gone one wayyyy too long. You can hook up your satellite receiver to Media Center. Move on... nothing to see here. The only comment I have is... I don't have any contracts with my cable provider. I never heard of that before. Not sure I would sign one.

Okay?... I guess I can hook up the sat to MC but I would not be able to use the guide right? Or I would have some funky ir blaster setup. I've done that before and didn't like the way it to worked. That just seems counterintuitive to me. If you have a better idea on how to do it please enlighten me. I tried using one of my tuners but MC didn't pick up a signal. I agreed to a contract because of the savings I was offered, I also had no intention of breaking that. Just because you haven't heard of if doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

[barnabas1969]

Okay?... I guess I can hook up the sat to MC but I would not be able to use the guide right? Or I would have some funky ir blaster setup. I've done that before and didn't like the way it to worked. That just seems counterintuitive to me. If you have a better idea on how to do it please enlighten me. I tried using one of my tuners but MC didn't pick up a signal. I agreed to a contract because of the savings I was offered, I also had no intention of breaking that. Just because you haven't heard of if doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Sorry about my terse post earlier, but you were simply making a comment about missing Media Center, and people went off on a tangent about contracts and such. The more productive direction to go was to talk about using Media Center with a satellite receiver.

I believe that contracts exist with cable companies... but I've lived almost my entire adult life here in Brevard County, Florida... and our cable provider (Brighthouse Networks) doesn't have contracts.

Yes, you would get the guide in Media Center... just like you did when you were on cable. You would not need the guide from the satellite receiver... it will download from Microsoft. All you need to do is to hook up a satellite receiver (doesn't need to be a DVR) to your PC. As stated earlier, if you want HD, then you need a Hauppauge HD-PVR or Hauppauge Colossus (one for each HD sat receiver that you want to connect).

You can use an IR blaster to change the channels on the satellite receiver... or you can use USB, RS-232, FireWire, or IP to change channels on the satellite box (depending upon the capabilities of the satellite receiver). People have trouble with IR blasting, so it's recommended by most to use one of the other methods for changing the channels on the sat receiver.

I've never personally done it, but others have and it works. The expert around here on this subject is a guy who goes by the username Venom51. If memory serves, he has three satellite STB's connected to three HD-PVR's, giving him the ability to record three shows at a time. He has a thread around here somewhere in which he posted pictures and a description of his setup. It's quite impressive. He's a smart guy and I'm sure if you PM him, he'll be happy to point you in the right direction.

I think the most important pieces are A) to get satellite receivers that are capable of being tuned via USB/FireWire/RS-232/IP, and B) to setup some third-party software that sends the channel change commands when Media Center wants to change the channel. I know that one such software is DVBLink, but I believe that Venom51 once posted a free solution that works just as well. If I had no alternative but to use satellite... I would definitely go that route.

EDIT: Here's a link to the thread where Venom51 showed off his setup:
http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... ?f=15&t=58

[brantmacga]

you could get a dish vip211 receiver, have it jtagged, get the keys, load up dvbdream, get a card reader or a dreambox, insert your access card, get some genpix skywalker tuners, and have a native dish network system in media center.

[grantndub]

Sorry about my terse post earlier, but you were simply making a comment about missing Media Center, and people went off on a tangent about contracts and such. The more productive direction to go was to talk about using Media Center with a satellite receiver.

It's alright and you are correct. As I said at the end of my post we intend to move after my wife's finals so this is a temporary thing. I have used a firewire setup a few years ago when Comcast went to digital in my area. It worked but it took quite a bit on tinkering to get it right. Now the Hauppauge HD-PVR and Hauppauge Colossus are available it makes it so much easier. I'm really not looking to buy anymore equipment as of right now. I'm gonna just have to tough it out till we move. I just long for the day when I don't have Dish and I can use my setup. MY HDHomerun and HDHomerun Prime are in their boxes waiting to be used.

[barnabas1969]

By the way... I grew up in Redding, CA. It's not too far north of Chico.