May 24, 2005
This rocks — the folks over to TheGreenButton have figured out how to get multiple HD tuners running in Windows Media Center Edition 2005.
Now all we need is a source for lots and lots of cheap disk space 
(via Chris Lanier)
3 Responses to “Multiple HD Tuners for Windows MCE”
Got something to say? [privacy policy]
Windows MCE Plug-In ListsChris Lanier is reporting that he's updated the extensive list of Windows Media Center Edition plugins at TheGreenButton. You can find the updated list here. Similarly, "Ben's House" has put up an updated list of add-ons for MCE. This one may be a little more convenient, as it links directly to each plugin. It's nothing short of amazing all of the add-ons there are out for MCE now....
MCE 2005 - Most Helpful Threads on TGBChris Lanier has compiled a terrific list of the most helpful threads on TheGreenButton's Windows Media Center Edition forum. This is a great starting place if you're looking for any answers related to MCE 2005. TGB Most Helpful Threads ...
Windows MCE 2005 Power Compress PluginPower Compress is yet another plugin for MCE 2005 that will let you transcode a program from the native DVR-MS format down to a much more storage-friendly file. Although there are several free alternatives out there (this one will cost you $20), Power Compress one looks pretty slick, with a nice MCE-centric interface and the ability to automatically schedule compression to run in the background. Power Compressâ„¢ is the Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) plug-in everyone has been waiting for! Power Compressâ„¢ makes it easy for you to convert your recorded TV shows from DVR-MS to Windows Media format. All your recorded video files can now be converted into a format that is up to 10 times smaller than...
Windows MCE 2005 Update ComingNeowin is reporting that Microsoft is preparing an update for MCE 2005. The update is expected to go to manufacturing in August, and will include XBox 360 support, plus: Native digital cable Content Protection Improve burning (DRM, network, Hi-def, DVD-RAM) MCX on WinCE clients (Babylon, TV2 as stretch goal) Playback reliability Running 3rd party apps out of proc Address top usability issues Platform Security Additional languages and locales Some good and bad news there -- I'm all for more features and reliability, but I could do without more content protection bumpf... (via Chris Lanier)...
Windows MCE 2005 - 4 Tuner HackGot 500 channels and too much on? It's your lucky day! Someone over to TheGreenButton has figured out how to Use up to 4 Tuners in Windows Media Center Edition 2005. This removes one of the remaining features that SageTV has over MCE 2005; you can still do even more tuners in Sage (if you're brave, lucky, and have good cooling), but four should accomodate all but the most determined PVR builder. This does involve a registry hack, so make good backups and be careful!...
Last I heard, disk space was pretty cheap already! Though I guess that depends on what you mean by “cheap”… Maybe you’d prefer retail packaging to white boxes (who wouldn’t?).
Come to think of it, I need to pick up a new HDD!
It’s definately getting cheaper all the time — it’s just that we’ll need six or seven times the space to store the same number of hours of video
It’s been ages since I bought drives in retail packaging — most of mine just come in a bit of bubble wrap…
I’m kind of waiting for the 400 gig SATAs to drop a bit; I’m thinking when I add HD to my MCE box, I’ll probably go with a pair of 400s mirrored.
Which, sadly, in reality is closer to 370GB…
It’s true that as drive size scales, so does our use of it. However, in terms of media files, I do feel that the former outpaces the latter, thanks to the rapid development of MPEG-4-based compression codecs.
This, however, ties greatly into the fact that most people do not own televisions of high enough grade to make the apparent quality differences between, say, an XviD-compressed 1920×1080 resolution rip, and a full-quality (likely MPEG-2) original worth whining about. It also helps that most “HD” televisions don’t even support the full HD 1080i resolution (even only the highest cost televisions support the lower-spec’ed 720p) - and DVR users can cheat a bit by resizing to 1280×720 (or lower, with no visible sacrifice on screen).
And likewise, the development of MPEG-4 AVC codecs has amplified performance of low-bitrate video through the use of post-processing filters (something that likewise has been popularized by FFDSHOW for all flavors of Windows video) - also helping to cheat the file-size system (although, at noticeable CPU utilization cost).