Windows 7 Media Center and DTT

I just tried the Windows 7 public beta on my laptop and I must say I'm quite impressed with the Media Center app. It supports H.264 video and even MHEG-5 so I'm able to get the "digital" Aertel service on it. It's not perfect, the picture-in-picture doesn't work, but overall it looks quite good!

Here's some screenshots.

watty

You can do all that on Win2K or XP without Media Centre better.

No matter how much MS polish MC it will still be overpriced rubbish way to watrch & record TV compared with an HD PVR.

Since Win95, MS is all about looking good and less and less real substance under the bonnet. WinXP should have had built in H.264 & MHEG-5 in SP3. But MS had too many bugs to fix.

Win7 isn't even Version 7 of NT. It's an incremental version of Version 6, a bug fix of Vista. Same relation to Vista as XP & Server 2003 have to Win2K.

There is no reason to upgrade from XP to Vista or Win7, certinally not to get a bundled MHEG5 and MPEG4.

watty

You know a public beta to non-MSDN is a cynical approach by MS to:
1) Reduce test costs. (Fail: You design in quality, not test it in)
2) Puppy Dog. The idea is W7B users will have to buy a real version of W7.

Usually you have to completely uninstall/wipe a beta NT to properly install the real version so you don't want to spend much time installing and tweaking apps.

Some Beta (some free /open sauce) are small non-critical applications and it doesn't matter if it's a problem and it doesn't waste much time. TBH a Beta OS is a huge hog of time and I for one am no longer interested unless MS is paying me €50,000 to €100,000 p.a. to test it.

I've been useing MS since 1981
DOS since then, best was 3.3 and 6.22. The others rubbish
Win GUI best was Win3.11 WFWG + Win32s. Win95 was same thing, not 32bit and simply explorer and some APIs so they could sell a different version of Office (95, still 16 bit) that would not run on Win 3.x It wouldn't work on true 32bit NT3.5 either, so MS had to release a free upgrade to NT3.51 so office95 would run. One of the most dishonest bits of marketing MS ever did.

NT3.5x could run a server on 386-20MHz with 12M RAM.

NT 4.0 moved GDI into Kernel (the 1st '95 explorer version of NT). This is cause of BSOD due to Graphics or Printer drivers and thence applications. Before that NT was near uncrashable. This was done to get a 10% increase in video performance on a 486 33.

NT 4 can run File, printer sharing, web server, mail server, SQL server, Proxy etc in under 30Mbyte RAM for 100+ clients on a P2 200MHz, or rather better on a Pentium Pro 200MHz.

Win2000 is NT5.0 with the USB support that was supposed to be added to NT4.0 via SP6 or 7. MS didn't add it as it would hurt sales. It added more "candy" features from Win98.

Win 98 is a simple revision of Win95. Still largely 16bit running as a DOS GUI. Win ME a rushed out version when they dropped features from Win2K (NT5.0) that would let it run legacy 16 bit games and apps better. ME the worst OS ever and still a GUI on DOS, but DOS hidden.
Win XP (NT 5.1) was Win2K(NT5.0) with the dropped bits (except WinFS) put back in. It is what was supposed to unify Win98 & NT4.0. Finally a single x86 version. But NT3.51 supported x86, Power PC, MIPS and Alpha and others. NT 4.0 added 64bit Alpha Support. Much less support for different platforms and no 64bit on XP till later (over a year).
The server version (for 1st time of NT) delayed over a year. NT5.2 AKA WIN 2003.

Server 2000 (NT 5.0) needs about 800MHz CPU and 200M RAM to do same as NT4.0 server on 200MHz and 30Mbyte. Server 2003 (NT5.2) needs 2GHz and 512M RAM, 1G reccommended.

The Server version of Vista (NT 6.1 AKA Server 2008) needs a Dual core Duo, 2G RAM etc to do the same as PII @200MHz NT 4.0.

My XP has never been re-installed in near 7 years and usually is running less than 300M RAM on a P4 1.2GHz Laptop. Outperforms Vista on a new laptop. 34 sec boot time to GUI logged in and < 10sec shutdown. 1600x1200 screen. Never had a virus or trojan.

MS has passed the Event horizon.

They had a great non-GUI OS for Linux type embedded applications, Embedded NT4.0 Seriously outperforms Win CE/WinMo which is rubbish and has limited multitasking and nowadays always has a separate GUI to hide the Win Explorer style Desktop. But MS has virtually killed it. Runs on many CPU types.

WinCE/WinMo isn't even windows compatible AT all. The only windows aspect is the original look and style, almost no API compatibility and no binary compatibility.

MS can only go one way and it is thier own fault. For 20 years people told me UNIX would be successful on the Desktop. Now with Apple OS-X (BSD UNIX derived) and Intel created MID/Netbook market (GNU/Linux, GNU = GNU is Not Unix ) it has broken in.

Ironically Intel has created a market for the Non-x86 too as Linux can run on PowerPC, MIPS, ARM, Longsoon etc today. Several $200 to $300 "Netbooks" and virtually all high end smart phones and high end PMP/Satnavs, Internet gadgets are ARM based.

Intel sold most of its ARM (obtained from DEC) to Marvell. (PXA) They still have some Network chips.

Unlike x86 which is minimum 3 to 4 chips, an ARM can be a single chip including MEPG4 HW decode and graphics/audio/USB etc. Typically 1/10th to 1/20th power of similar performance Atom.
The Samsung ARM used in iPhone is available in a 3 layer single package smaller than an Atom standalone CPU, bottom is System on Chip ARM cpu and top two layers are Flash and RAM. An Atom CPU would fry and cook the Flash in such a package. No heatsink.

MS can only support ARM with their brain damaged WinCE/Mobile. ARM was never supported by Embedded NT4.0, though possible if MS still had all the source (they don't).

Vista / Win7 can never run on economic Netbooks/Gadgets. It's a bloated Monster.

PogMoThoin

Windows 7 is a repackaged Vista

If the dog doesn't eat his food, You put it back in the tin and serve it again tomorrow.

Oh I do agree with a lot of what you're saying. Windows 7 is really NT 6.1 in disguise, my guess is that they're trying to shield it from Vista as much as possible due to the PR disaster associated with it. But you're right, I would have liked to see MPEG-4/MHEG-5 added to MCE 2005 under XP but Microsoft don't do that sort of thing.

I still use XP myself and can see myself using it for the forseeable future. Simply put, I don't like the Vista interface. I think it's a step backwards from the concepts introduced in Windows 95 - it was change for the sake of change.

Slutmonkey57b

watty wrote: »

You know a public beta to non-MSDN is a cynical approach by MS to:
1) Reduce test costs. (Fail: You design in quality, not test it in)
2) Puppy Dog. The idea is W7B users will have to buy a real version of W7.

It always amuses me (and I'm not saying this is what you're saying watty) that one of the cornerstones of the Open Source flag-waving movement is "massive numbers of testers! Massive numbers of devs! Constant unending feedback and updates!" as a systemic structural advantage in terms of software production that supposedly proprietary software vendors can't match, but when MS opens a beta to the public, it's decried as a time wasting cynical cost saving exercise.

As an example, I would regard the vast majority of non-enterprise Linux versions as nothing other than a never-ending Beta phase. Ubuntu makes Google look like the deadline king. Linux is touted on the one hand as being the reliable alternative, but any given distro changes on an essentially daily basis and is never, ever in what I would call "shippable" or "final" condition. Everything ends up with the mantra "fixed in the next release", which slips to "ok, the release after that", which slips to "we fixed it but it's broken a different way now, wait for the next release". And so on and so forth.

Win 7 does seem to be a "fixed vista" and nothing more, but on the other hand this is the first time, ever, that MS or any other OS vendor to my knowledge has released a new mainstream OS that actually reduces system requirements compared to the previous version. (Save your comments about different distros of linux created as side branches for specific purposes, note the word "mainstream" please). If nothing else, that shows a change in internal philosophy that's welcome. To me, it would be like seeing Ubuntu designers saying "Yeah we could release a 'new' version in six months but actually I think we'll just concentrate on fixing the 100,000,000 things that don't work properly in this release."

As to the comment "You design in quality, not test it in", the Win 7 engineering blog paints a pretty clear, well reasoned, and encoraging picture of Win7 development, particularly PerfTrack development, designing with accessibility in mind, and most interestingly of all, From a Vista engineer's POV. Given what I've seen on that blog, I trust the Win7 team far, far more than I trust the vast majority of "planners" of OSS projects I've used. In my experience, OSS projects are planned on the "chronic jockying for position in the family of a soon-to-be-deceased first-time dictator" model, at best.

watty

I've little truck with Linux really as the current requirements of Ubuntu are far in excess of NT4.0 and 1999 Linux.


Indeed Win7 is a bug fix of Vista and thus adds nothing of value and needs a much higher spec than XP. It's a worthless upgrade.

MS don't know how to develop Windows/NT anymore, the teams are too big, too much code has no source or not understood.

Heck on Win2K server, Win2K and XP never mind Vista the excellent token based security system is nearly inaccessible to GUI (only programmatically) which was always the envy of other OS developers (derived from VMS). Instead the emphasis is on stupid brain dead Inflexible Security Policy editors.

MS appear to be using people trained in developing Win98 and ME and enamoured with Candy rather than any understanding of real OS design.

How much use has there been of NTFS forks/Streams, Files treated as array of RAM etc?

Win7 is polishing rubbish, sorry. They have shot their own legs off about 1996 and slowly turning to stone.

Win Mobile is dead.
http://www.fsdaily.com/HighEnd/Microsoft_is_Dead_olsrd_ported_to_the_google_phone_android_G1

I've worked with Ivan in Slovakia & Ireland on other things too.

Linux dev tools are rubbish and documentation rubbish compared with Visual Studio and MSDN.
Though used Modula-2, VB6, C++ on Windows, I'd never use VB.net, It's VB designed by a C programmer. My .Net lanuage of choice is C# which is closer to what C++ should have /was meat to be. (I used C++ since 1987).

IF MS had split into 3 separate companies in mid 90s of OS, Tools and Applications, then today no-one would be buying Linux or OS X at all.

They've been dumbing down Windows since Win2000, just now it's been elevated to scary levels. But if I wanted an asthetically pleasing OS I'd buy a Mac. I'm not keen on the whole Linux area, anyone I know who uses one seems to spend more time fixing and configuring it then actually making use of it. In its current form it's not usable as a mainstream OS outside the enterprise.

MS really don't know how to develop Windows anymore, XP was near perfect in my opinion (on modern hardware that is) but Vista spent too much time copying UI principles from Mac OS X but they've been doing similar things for ages.

Though all this is totally off topic at this stage!

watty

NT 3.51 with DX9/10, USB & Firewire would be better than XP

It's the Windows Forum Innit?

I moved this post from ICDG Terrestrial TV.

subway

thanks for that info OP.

for some people that really hate windows, they sure love to talk about it ...

i use vmc, mce before that, and i really like it,
the tv is secondary, but its nice to have it all in one - i dont watch much tv anyway

watty

watty wrote: »

NT 3.51 with DX9/10, USB & Firewire would be better than XP

It's the Windows Forum Innit?

I moved this post from ICDG Terrestrial TV.

I guess I don't go back as far as you do! I started with 3.0 and WFW 3.11 but my favourite is 95. Never used the NT 3.x series.

What other Windows software does MHEG-5? The media centre in Win7 is the first one I've seen.

watty

A German company at Anga in the Autumn 2008 was offering MHEG5 and complete Freesat support for various platforms, mostly embedded. Their demo of Freesat EPG and full interactive was on XP with sat card.

The real point is that the Media Centre concept has been a failure. Since XP MCE the take up has been poor. A set box makes more sense, 1/10th power consumption and 1/5th to 1/20th the price and better quality, especially for Satellite or PAL areas. It's been a Yuppie / Student toy. The PVR features are poor and support for various tuners is abymismal, esp outside N.A. even compared to cheap or free Windows 3rd party SW.

Many Manufacturers that started with decent models with true SCART/Component or HDMI have dropped them.

25i video is rubbish on non 50Hz refresh and withouot very good de-interlace. A screen that does native interlace is superior.

ALL European Broadcast is 25i

I accept your point re 50Hz video on 60Hz systems but I don't look at TV on my laptop that often and really just follow all this as an enthusiast. There's not many MPEG-4 capable DVB-T STBs available right now so a USB DTT card is what I'll use to sample the available test channels until the official service launches.

Slutmonkey57b

watty wrote: »

Heck on Win2K server, Win2K and XP never mind Vista the excellent token based security system is nearly inaccessible to GUI (only programmatically) which was always the envy of other OS developers (derived from VMS). Instead the emphasis is on stupid brain dead Inflexible Security Policy editors.

How useful is that in an environment with no sandboxing, and in an era where GPU programming means that cracking token, certificate, and encryption authentications is a desktop-grade problem? I'll take improvements to prevent apps from accessing the kernal over "good tokens" any day of the week.

How much use has there been of NTFS forks/Streams, Files treated as array of RAM etc?

To date, the most common use of NTFS alternate data streams seems to be to hide spyware - hardly a good recommendation! And if you're putting forward what I think you are, the massive performance hit in treating a mechanical drive as RAM isn't solving any justifiable problem in an era where RAM is filthy cheap.

You should email Mr. Sinofsky about all of the above you know... you might even get a logical response out of him.

Overheal

watty wrote: »

You know a public beta to non-MSDN is a cynical approach by MS to:
1) Reduce test costs. (Fail: You design in quality, not test it in)
2) Puppy Dog. The idea is W7B users will have to buy a real version of W7.

Usually you have to completely uninstall/wipe a beta NT to properly install the real version so you don't want to spend much time installing and tweaking apps.

Some Beta (some free /open sauce) are small non-critical applications and it doesn't matter if it's a problem and it doesn't waste much time. TBH a Beta OS is a huge hog of time and I for one am no longer interested unless MS is paying me €50,000 to €100,000 p.a. to test it.

I've been useing MS since 1981
DOS since then, best was 3.3 and 6.22. The others rubbish
Win GUI best was Win3.11 WFWG + Win32s. Win95 was same thing, not 32bit and simply explorer and some APIs so they could sell a different version of Office (95, still 16 bit) that would not run on Win 3.x It wouldn't work on true 32bit NT3.5 either, so MS had to release a free upgrade to NT3.51 so office95 would run. One of the most dishonest bits of marketing MS ever did.

NT3.5x could run a server on 386-20MHz with 12M RAM.

NT 4.0 moved GDI into Kernel (the 1st '95 explorer version of NT). This is cause of BSOD due to Graphics or Printer drivers and thence applications. Before that NT was near uncrashable. This was done to get a 10% increase in video performance on a 486 33.

NT 4 can run File, printer sharing, web server, mail server, SQL server, Proxy etc in under 30Mbyte RAM for 100+ clients on a P2 200MHz, or rather better on a Pentium Pro 200MHz.

Win2000 is NT5.0 with the USB support that was supposed to be added to NT4.0 via SP6 or 7. MS didn't add it as it would hurt sales. It added more "candy" features from Win98.

Win 98 is a simple revision of Win95. Still largely 16bit running as a DOS GUI. Win ME a rushed out version when they dropped features from Win2K (NT5.0) that would let it run legacy 16 bit games and apps better. ME the worst OS ever and still a GUI on DOS, but DOS hidden.
Win XP (NT 5.1) was Win2K(NT5.0) with the dropped bits (except WinFS) put back in. It is what was supposed to unify Win98 & NT4.0. Finally a single x86 version. But NT3.51 supported x86, Power PC, MIPS and Alpha and others. NT 4.0 added 64bit Alpha Support. Much less support for different platforms and no 64bit on XP till later (over a year).
The server version (for 1st time of NT) delayed over a year. NT5.2 AKA WIN 2003.

Server 2000 (NT 5.0) needs about 800MHz CPU and 200M RAM to do same as NT4.0 server on 200MHz and 30Mbyte. Server 2003 (NT5.2) needs 2GHz and 512M RAM, 1G reccommended.

The Server version of Vista (NT 6.1 AKA Server 2008) needs a Dual core Duo, 2G RAM etc to do the same as PII @200MHz NT 4.0.

My XP has never been re-installed in near 7 years and usually is running less than 300M RAM on a P4 1.2GHz Laptop. Outperforms Vista on a new laptop. 34 sec boot time to GUI logged in and < 10sec shutdown. 1600x1200 screen. Never had a virus or trojan.

MS has passed the Event horizon.

They had a great non-GUI OS for Linux type embedded applications, Embedded NT4.0 Seriously outperforms Win CE/WinMo which is rubbish and has limited multitasking and nowadays always has a separate GUI to hide the Win Explorer style Desktop. But MS has virtually killed it. Runs on many CPU types.

WinCE/WinMo isn't even windows compatible AT all. The only windows aspect is the original look and style, almost no API compatibility and no binary compatibility.

MS can only go one way and it is thier own fault. For 20 years people told me UNIX would be successful on the Desktop. Now with Apple OS-X (BSD UNIX derived) and Intel created MID/Netbook market (GNU/Linux, GNU = GNU is Not Unix ) it has broken in.

Ironically Intel has created a market for the Non-x86 too as Linux can run on PowerPC, MIPS, ARM, Longsoon etc today. Several $200 to $300 "Netbooks" and virtually all high end smart phones and high end PMP/Satnavs, Internet gadgets are ARM based.

Intel sold most of its ARM (obtained from DEC) to Marvell. (PXA) They still have some Network chips.

Unlike x86 which is minimum 3 to 4 chips, an ARM can be a single chip including MEPG4 HW decode and graphics/audio/USB etc. Typically 1/10th to 1/20th power of similar performance Atom.
The Samsung ARM used in iPhone is available in a 3 layer single package smaller than an Atom standalone CPU, bottom is System on Chip ARM cpu and top two layers are Flash and RAM. An Atom CPU would fry and cook the Flash in such a package. No heatsink.

MS can only support ARM with their brain damaged WinCE/Mobile. ARM was never supported by Embedded NT4.0, though possible if MS still had all the source (they don't).

Vista / Win7 can never run on economic Netbooks/Gadgets. It's a bloated Monster.

I dont know what any of that has to do with H.264 support but a good post nonetheless

Would you not agree that while XP is the one OS to rule all of 32-bit that eventually something else is going to have to step in to handle 64 and 128-bit processing and handle scalable multicore support?

watty

NT4.0 did 64bit OK (64bit Alpha version)
XP has a 64bit version
There are 64bit Linuxes.

I'm not that much of an XP fan. For me for main use it's a pragmatic solution as most of the SW I want runs either only on Windows or best on XP.

OS X seems an expensive limited solution. (I've used OS 9 and earlier and OS X).

Linux is fine for Netbook, Granny or Server. But the range of application are too limited for me (I have a SEPARATE Linux laptop, and did have several Distros on VMware). I have 3 Linux servers (special applications) and Win2K advanced server (general Server with RAID5). We found on the main server installing MySQL and Apache (Perl, CGI etc) alongside IIS and MS-SQL (you just use different ports) was much more efficient than an virtual Linux server via VMware. Any scripts/web apps for Linux now work on the Windows box.

NT since forever even has the ability to run an X-Server integrated to Desktop and POSIX etc (Microsoft Services For UNIX and /or Cygwin can be installed).

Once you could only do decent DTP on Mac, then later only decent Video edit on Mac. Not true anymore, though I admit my Adobe Video Editing SW is for Win3.x and only 16bits. Does work on XP.


I'm not convinced of the need actually for 64bit CPU. Big address space yes, but bits for address space need not be related to CPU bus size (which can be efficiently 1bit) nor register size (Other than those registers like PC, Process Frame Counter, Stack Frame counter etc that need to be address sized). Even some 16bit systems had 80bit HW FP.

32bit is a bit better than 16bit, but you would be surprised how little overall performance difference there is for MOST workstation and virtually all Web/email/file/printer Server for same clock speed, same amount RAM and only 16bit general architecture other than bits needed for the 1GByte to 4Gbyte address space. In fact an optimised RISC 16 bit CPU will do a lot of operations faster than Intel x86 32bit. Some $30 ARM SoC at 400MHz do HD better than an Atom 1.6GHz as they have built in HW to do it. However Segmented Architectures (original 808x) are evil. 8051 is evil. PIC 16Xnnn while cheap is evil architecture.

There are many ways to skin a cat. Bolting stuff that should be part of Applications/Application space into an OS release is the worst way.



H.264 or MHEG5 are NOT O.S. features.

subway

watty wrote: »

H.264 or MHEG5 are NOT O.S. features.

indeed, but they are media centre features, I know you've made your feelings clear on it (I’m neither a yuppie nor a student BTW)
the only update to media centre these days are in band OS releases, so for those of us that use it as our HTPC device, the lack of h264 support in its TV service has been a sticking point.
It was meant to be included in the TV pack 08, but was excluded, and TV pack is OEM only, so many VMC users are waiting for this update to allow us to incorporate satellite and dtt services into one box.

Sure, the quality may not be to the highest standard, but home equipment rarely is, and many people rate the all in one nature of VMC over the need for multiple boxes.

The original post is about the inclusion of dtt support in windows 7 media centre, so perhaps the thread should be moved to the HTPC forum…
Plenty of yuppies and students there

Dartz

ARM architecture -v- Atom. It's the corporate machine.... Microsoft and Intel have such big market share and leverage, they can sit on the other manufacturers, making their product the de-facto standard.

That, and ARM charges a pretty penny for it's patent licensing.

Software bloat, I think the whole cause of that is to make it seem easier and more ubiquitous to use, making the computer as easy to operate as a kettle, or a toaster. You put the bread/cd-rom in, push the switch and it goes. It's so everyone can use it, not just people who know computers. More graphics, more 'style' leads to a perception of user friendliness and welcome. The granny looks at Vista/7 and goes 'That looks nice' clicks the symbol that makes the internet go, and is away.

I use Linux... truthfully just because I like the Xfce environment. Best reason to use it too, IMHO. It's been no more finnicky or intransigent than Vists has been on my laptop, once I got it going. Only time it's ever broken has been when I've broken it, or when the Nvidia driver keels over every few weeks. But I've had my fair share of issues with Vista (Especially with DvD's) and some program compatibility. Some stuff works in Wine better than Vista...

Sir Oxman

Karsini wrote: »

I just tried the Windows 7 public beta on my laptop and I must say I'm quite impressed with the Media Center app. It supports H.264 video and even MHEG-5 so I'm able to get the "digital" Aertel service on it. It's not perfect, the picture-in-picture doesn't work, but overall it looks quite good!

Here's some screenshots.

Hi Karsini,

What USB TV stick do you use and does it play well with Vista 32-bit VMC?

Also, I have a DVB-S Hauppauge card (Nova-S Plus) in my non-TV Pack VMC box which works great - will this VMC pick up both tuners do you know?
All I'm missing is the Irish channels.

Thanks

gambiaman

gambiaman wrote: »

What USB TV stick do you use and does it play well with Vista 32-bit VMC?

I have a TerraTec Cinergy Hybrid T USB XS. It works fine on any Media Center system, even XP, but only for audio. In Windows 7 I only tried it on 64-bit, if it works on 64 it'll surely work on 32.

gambiaman wrote: »

Also, I have a DVB-S Hauppauge card (Nova-S Plus) in my non-TV Pack VMC box which works great - will this VMC pick up both tuners do you know?
All I'm missing is the Irish channels.

I don't know if Windows 7's MC works on DVB-S I'm afraid. I don't have any way of testing it.

8kvscdpglqnyr4

I haven't used windows 7 yet and don't intend to. Vista is painful enough!

Vista seem to have changed things for the sake of it ... there isn't even a start button anymore (not that a "start" button ever made sense!). Think about trying to tell you mum how to launch an application:
Me: Click on the "start" button ...
Mum: I can't see the start button ...
Me: Oh yeah, it's the green circle in the bottom left of the screen

... change for the sake of change!

I do like the media support in Vista though - I have built a HTPC with Vista on it and I'm quite happy with it. I have the PC multi-booting at one stage. Mythbuntu, XP and Vista. Vista was definiely the best OS to use on a HTPC (IMHO).

Overheal

Hanna Tasteless Hook wrote: »

... change for the sake of change!

THEN GO BACK TO CAVE, CAVE BOY

I'll say one thing about WMP12 though - so far, it feels like what WMP11 should have been: An Upgrade (even though the interface is needlessly jarbled, some of the new features are handy - like the preview song option. And Support on the machine altogether for USB headsets finally supports on the fly plug-in/plug-out). Every time I use 11 I keep wishing I could get 10 back.

Dardania

watty wrote: »

Vista / Win7 can never run on economic Netbooks/Gadgets. It's a bloated Monster.

I disagree



Credit where credit is due - win 7 is extremely polished, and feels good to use. As an engineer, I can appreciate that products do get released pre-maturity when trying to incorporate too wide a feautre set - but win 7 more than makes up for vista, and serves as a credible alternative to xp / mac os x / ubuntu.

Sir Oxman

Karsini wrote: »

I have a TerraTec Cinergy Hybrid T USB XS. It works fine on any Media Center system, even XP, but only for audio. In Windows 7 I only tried it on 64-bit, if it works on 64 it'll surely work on 32.


I don't know if Windows 7's MC works on DVB-S I'm afraid. I don't have any way of testing it.

Thanks Karsini.

I'll do a little more googling to see if that stick will play okay with my Hauppauge card and if VMC will see the both of them.

AFAIK, W7 has DVB-S out of the box - TV Pack gets DVB-S oob on Vista but breaks too many add-ins like myTV which is brilliant.

Well my stick is off the market now but an upgraded version is available, the Cinergy Hybrid T USB XS FM - http://www.terratec.net/en/products/Cinergy_Hybrid_T_USB_XS_FM_2012.html

Has NICAM stereo on analogue and FM radio whereas mine has neither.

Sir Oxman

Dardania wrote: »

I disagree



Credit where credit is due - win 7 is extremely polished, and feels good to use. As an engineer, I can appreciate that products do get released pre-maturity when trying to incorporate too wide a feautre set - but win 7 more than makes up for vista, and serves as a credible alternative to xp / mac os x / ubuntu.

I have heard many accounts of W7 working great on netbooks and lower end desktops and laptops.
I have it on my laptop (which is not too bad - 2gb ram, good processor) and it's a dream.
One thing I noticed, MS is leaving out all accessories like Messenger/Windows Mail/DVD Maker etc and letting everyone choose to get them or not through Live Essentials.

I'm only in the third day of using it as primary OS on my laptop but it is running great - my Kaspersky IS 09 even works on it.

I have Vista on two desktops and since SP1 I haven't had one problem.

Sir Oxman

Karsini wrote: »

Well my stick is off the market now but an upgraded version is available, the Cinergy Hybrid T USB XS FM - http://www.terratec.net/en/products/Cinergy_Hybrid_T_USB_XS_FM_2012.html

Has NICAM stereo on analogue and FM radio whereas mine has neither.

Yeah, was looking at that on the Terratec site.
I'll have a look at Hauppauge as well - might have better luck with two of the same manufacturer in my VMC box.