JorgeA

CoffeeFiend, Wow. That really is terrible. And you're right -- spending money on HD equipment is a total waste if there aren't any decent sources for it (and cable HD gets VERY expensive over time). Plus, I get the sense that analog signals actually look *worse* on an HD television than on an analog set. For us at least, the analog images appeared to look grainier or less detailed after we got our first HD set (a 192-pound Sony CRT, three years ago). --JorgeA

cluberti, I appreciate your giving me the scoop on these various issues! I checked out the reviews on the D-Link device over at amazon.com, and they are decidedly mixed. Thanks to your help, we're approaching the point where my wife and I can sit down and start comparing numbers and features. But the "ease of the experience" is something that you're in a much better position to judge. In your experience, can an intelligent but not tech-oriented person use Windows Media Center, much like she would use a VCR or a DVR? Or does it really involve frequent tinkering "under the hood," so to speak? I'm not averse to tinkering, but -- just as if she had a car where I had to recharge the battery or change the oil every few days -- if she had to keep asking me to fix or adjust the system to watch a movie, that would be a crippling handicap to the viability of Media Center in our home. --JorgeA

CoffeeFiend, Well, compared to ours, the situation you face really does s*ck. (Do you live in a major metropolitan area, or out among nature?) Gives us some perspective. Still, for us folks "south of the border," losing Clear QAM with no way to record other than through the cableco's equipment does represent a significant step backwards. It's not a total loss, as the broadcast channels and their subchannels are still offered in the clear through the coax. Last week I used that vestigial functionality to do a couple of backup recordings for my parents, who were on vacation and wanted something to fall back on in case the power went out at their home while away. But it does mean that I can no longer record news or talk on the 24/7 news channels, or documentaries off the History Channel to play in my office while my wife is upstairs using the DVR television set. Thanks for the clarification on the DLNA streamers. Sounds like they are not in fact an alternative to MCE extenders. --JorgeA

cluberti, Very interesting. I do vaguely remember reading something about this sort of thing a few weeks ago. It may have had to do with making movies available on Video On Demand at the same time as the DVD is released, but that didn't mean anything to me at the time because we hadn't yet lost our Clear QAM channels, so I kind of mentally filed it away. I'm looking at a "magbook," The Ultimate Guide to Windows 7, that gives some details on using an Xbox or other companies' hardware to stream recorded TV around the house. There's also a one-page chapter called "Streaming music and video," that discusses devices called "DLNA media streamers" such as the ZyXEL DMA1100P. It seems to be associated with Media Player rather than Media Center. Would this sort of device work for showing cable programs that we recorded onto the PC on other TV sets, or is it really more for playing music and DVDs? From what I read about it (see here), it looks like it might do the trick like an Xbox or other extender. There's also a DMA2500 model that specifically says it will handle encrypted digital contents, but I wonder if the 1100 may be enough, assuming that one has a tuner and CableCARD to decrypt the signal and put it on the PC before streaming. If the ZyXELs really work for what we're talking about, I like the idea of using the house's electric wiring for a local network! --JorgeA

cluberti, Whoa, that really would be a deal-breaker. Not being able to watch recorded programs even on the *same* TiVo??? Looks like a phone call to TiVo (to see if and when they'll be dealing with this issue) and to the cable company (to see if and when they'll be implementing this idea) are in order. One gets the impression that many recent technological developments are intended to make it as hard (and/or as costly) as possible for viewers to record shows and watch them where and when it suits them best, as opposed to the programmers/broadcasters. Time was when you could just plug in the VCR and hit a couple of buttons and be on your merry way. Now you have to learn an alphabet soup of initials (CCI is the latest addition to my vocabulary -- thanks!) and get super-technical to do the same thing. Doing a bit of digging before posting this reply, I found the following interesting discussion of the issue: http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2009-09/tivo-and-the-cci-byte/. Maybe Moxi will be a viable candidate for us after all, and MCE is still in the running. OTOH, I probably shouldn't hold my breath for clarity on this point from TiVo or the cableco. Your knowledge of these details is really impressive. Thanks very much for sharing it! --JorgeA

CoffeeFiend, Thanks very much for the comparison. This is a good rundown, and it's worth a lot more than 2 cents. We're not looking for a lot of extra features, necessarily. (Although I wouldn't object to having them!) As I said to cluberti, we're basically looking to recreate the VCR/DVD-R environment, where we could tape shows and watch them on every TV without having to shell out hundreds of additional $$ every year on cable DVR rentals. Amazingly, with just a couple of tweaks (like modern recorders with QAM tuners) we were still able to do this up until last month, when the cable company got around to encrypting all the non-premium cable channels. (All right, all except for the shopping networks. ) I'd have to go back and check on this, but I think I read on their website that with TiVo you can copy the shows to a DVD for archival purposes (or just to make room for new programs on their machine.) At first I was leaning toward the Windows Media Center solution, but then I found out that I couldn't simply put a digital cable tuner on my existing Vista PC -- I'd need a new PC specially designed to do this, and probably using Windows 7. So that scotched the idea of saving on the upfront expense for equipment, and now I'm leaning toward TiVo, except I wonder how well the company will be doing two years from now. Thanks again! --JorgeA

cluberti, Yup, we'd figured we'd be paying (to round off the numbers) $250 for each TiVo machine (bought on sale) + $400 for the lifetime subscription, for a total of ~$650 for each room we wanted to set up. (Add $1.75/month for each CableCARD we'd need, but that's a lot better than $16/month for every DVR.) The original idea was to re-create the old arrangement where each TV set could record on its own VCR, but I'm not opposed to having one central recorder that would then send out the signal to the other sets. I think you can do that with TiVo; I know that our cable company doesn't. I really appreciate your throwing in the additional info about the MCE extenders! That does swing the balance back towards TiVo, because I'd rather not subject my wife to a lot of "techie stuff," as she calls it.... One thing that's holding me back from just taking the plunge with TiVo is whether the company will still be around in three years, and we'll end up with a bunch of expensive doorstops. Do you have a read on that? I dont' get the feeling that Microsoft is in danger of going belly-up anytime soon. --JorgeA

cluberti, If we do end up going with TiVo, we intend to buy the lifetime subscription, since part of the idea is to cut out the monthly DVR rental fee. At the rates we're paying the cable company, we figure that the TiVo machine + lifetime sub price would pay for itself in about 4 years. (Although I did read that "lifetime" means the life of the TiVo recorder, not our lifetime.) But with the idea of the MCE extenders, you've given me more stuff to chew on. Thanks (really!). This'll make for some interesting reading over the weekend. --JorgeA

cluberti, At our home we'd definitely need the CableCARD capability. We're both news junkies, and half-hour network news just don't fill the bill. Plus she loves the Hallmark Channel and "Mad Men" on AMC, and I tune in regularly to the History Channel. Now that all those networks are encrypted, too, I can't use my DVD recorder to capture them off the Clear QAM tuner. "User-friendliness" is a major factor, for sure. Although I'm the PC guy in the family, my wife actually uses the DVR more than I do, and I don't think she'd be happy having to fiddle with behind-the-scenes computer settings in order to get the setup to do what she needs it to do. Since you have used all of these systems -- how much more user-friendly would you say TiVo is than MCE? I should say that she and I each have our own reason for switching away from the cable company's DVR. She finds it to be unreliable, sometimes failing to record a show that she had set normally, and often jumping to the end of the recording when in fast-forward mode. And I -- well, I detest paying $16 a month to do what I used to be able to do with my DVD-R, so I'm looking for something that will save us money in the long run. Especially if we throw in a second DVR so that we can "tape" in a different room, that's close to $400 a year on equipment that I don't own. Bound to pay for itself within 3-4 years, even if I splurge and even if you factor in the monthly fee for the CableCARDs. Thanks for filling me in on these things! --JorgeA

cluberti, Thanks very much for the information! This does help to clarify things a ton, and you're right -- I probably did overthink that sentence. But because the project would involve a substantial amount of time and effort, I wanted to make sure I wasn't setting off on a road that would turn out to be a dead end. Sounds pretty definite that I couldn't simply take my Vista PC and add whatever hardware is needed to turn it into a DVR that'll record cable channels. It's puzzling (not to say maddening) to have all these thick OS manuals that cheerfully describe how to set up your PC to work as a DVR -- without bringing up the teeny little fact that you will need a very specific type of PC with a particular version of the OS, otherwise you're SOL. Many folks (including the authors of some of these other manuals) sneer at Microsoft, but there you go: it was Microsoft's guide that talked about this crucial fact. Looks like we'll be looking at Windows 7 systems to implement this idea, if we decide to go that route. (Basically we're picking between a Media Center PC and a setup centered around a TiVo or Moxi.) Thanks again for your help. --JorgeA

Hello, I'm considering setting up a PC with Windows Vista Media Center to replace the cable company's DVR, but before I can proceed there are some important questions that I hope you will be able to help me with. Because we would not be getting rid of cable entirely, we would need to buy (among other things) a Digital Cable Tuner to receive the non-broadcast channels. (Where we live, Clear QAM for channels such as CNBC and Lifetime is now a thing of the past, so we'd also need CableCARDs.) The thing is, Microsoft's guide, "Windows Vista Inside Out," states clearly on page 811 that, in order to be able to use a DCT: "The PC must have a BIOS that has support for a DCT. As of this writing ['early 2008,' they say in another place], the only way to purchase a PC with this support is to buy a new PC from a vendor that has signed an agreement with CableLabs, the technical trade association that represents the cable-TV industry in North America." So the first question is: Other than contacting my PC's manufacturer (Hewlett-Packard), is there any way for me to tell whether my current machine (Pavilion a6512p, Vista Home Premium, purchased 12/08) has a BIOS that supports DCT? Here's the second question. The Microsoft guide also says that: "The operating system must be Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate with Digital Cable Support...." There seems to be a comma or two missing there somewhere, and the distinction is not trivial. Do they mean that the OS "must be Vista Home Premium, or [Vista] Ultimate with Digital Cable Support"? This would mean that Home Premium comes with this feature built-in, but if you have Ultimate you need to make sure that you have or get it. Or do they mean that the OS "must be Vista Home Premium, or Ultimate, with Digital Cable Support"? This one would mean that no matter which of those two versions of Vista you have, you need to get or activate Digital Cable Support separately. The third question is: How current is this information from that MS manual? Can we assume that all new PCs since "X" date do come with the right kind of BIOS, or do we still need to ask the manufacturer? I have a number of Vista guides, and Microsoft's is the only one to warn that the BIOS might be a problem for the DCTs. Thanks very much for any guidance you might offer. The whole issue is kind of fuzzy in my mind, so please ask for more details if I need to clarify anything there. --JorgeA

Prozactive, Thanks very much for the tip on that thread. I will definitely look it up! I'll also make sure to look into PC-cillin for the 98SE notebook, for the time when Avast! pushes us away. BTW, I was browsing at the newsstand today, and IIRC Consumer Reports ranked Avast! 4.8 at the bottom of the free AV applications. I'm not so sure that's such an accurate ranking, but that's how they had it. I'll be waiting for my subscription copy to come in the mail, for the details. --JorgeA

Prozactive, How about that -- Since the manual scan doesn't work on my PC, TeaTimer (and Immunization) is the only thing I'm using on Spybot now. So we have mirror images of our Spybot use. On doing a clean install, I'm happy to say that reinstalling Win98 isn't as terrifying a thought as it was a couple of months ago. Just last month I reinstalled 98SE on an old notebook that came with a 1.5GB (!) hard disk and 48MB (!!) of RAM. Since it was practically useless in that configuration, I decided to make it a platform for practice and learning. Now it has a 15GB HDD and 80MB of memory, the most RAM it can physically take. (I'm saving a question about that HDD for a future thread.) Before taking the plunge I did a lot of research on the Web, and found methods for accomplishing this despite the fact that the little guy doesn't have a Windows CD or even a CD-ROM drive. I can't tell you how COOL it was to discover that there are USB drivers for DOS that you can use to copy the CAB files to a thumb drive... and then actually do it and have Windows 98 come back to life right in front of my eyes!!! On my main Win98 PC, it would be a pain to have to reinstall all the other software, but now that I have the notebook up and running I'm going to try reinstalling its own MS Office programs, prior to doing it on the "important" computer, so that I know what to do. But believe it or not, I'm kinda looking forward to doing all of this, to see if that does solve the Spybot issue. I wouldn't do it JUST to fix Spybot, but also out of curiosity and for the fun of it. It's sort of like tinkering with the engine on an old car, changing the spark plugs, buffing up the paint -- for the satisfaction. --JorgeA

Philco, I'm using TeaTimer 1.6.6.32. It seems to work O.K. TeaTimer is not the problem with my PC -- I have disabled TeaTimer and then tried to run a scan: Spybot crashes with an "illegal operation" message. I have uninstalled Spybot, then reinstalled it without TeaTimer or Immunization, and tried to run a scan: Spybot still crashed with the same error. I get the same error every time I do a manual scan, whether or not I have TeaTimer installed. The problem somehow has something to do with the main Spybot engine AND the specifics of my computer. Version 1.5 did not work on my computer, either, for the same reason. Two weeks ago I also tried installing Spybot 1.4, and that did finish a scan -- but it only loads about 185,000 malware definition files, instead of the 1.3 million that the most modern Spybot contains. So I'm stuck. Considering all the diagnostics that we tried in this long thread, it looks like if I want to keep using Spybot on my PC, then the only choice left is to do a clean install of Windows. I'm thinking of putting a new hard drive on that computer anyway, so I could try installing Spybot on the new disk, and see what happens. --JorgeA

Philco, It's good that you have SOME way to get Spybot to do a scan on your Win98 system. I tried all sorts of things, and Spybot just will not finish a scan on my computer without crashing. Ironically, TeaTimer does work. (Spybot still crashed when I disabled TeaTimer, rebooted, and did a manual scan.) So now I'm using Spybot for the resident protection only (Immunization and TeaTimer). --JorgeA

Prozactive, You're welcome! I'm glad that I can start to pay people back for all the help you've given me on this forum. SAS seems to be pretty easy and straightforward to use. So far I haven't run into any really obscure or confusing stuff. The only drawback I've found (and maybe there's a setting I can change somewhere to fix that) is that when it quarantines an item, it asks to reboot the computer. Spybot and Norton simply remove the item and you can go on your merry way without interruption. That IS a weird-sounding problem with Avast!. I installed it on the Win98 PC back in December, and it's good to know that this could happen as the expiration date comes near. --JorgeA

Prozactive, We may have an additional AV option. Just yesterday, I ran the ESET Online Scanner (http://www.eset.eu/eset-online-scanner) on a 98SE notebook, and it finished successfully. However, the same scanner crashes at 31% on my 98FE tower that has a more capable CPU and a lot more memory. So it looks like FE/SE may be the dividing line for this program. Happy Hunting, --JorgeA

rilef, The definitions loaded very quickly (a couple of minutes). For the first scan I used SAS's default settings, and it took about 1:45 to finish. For the second scan (after I realized that I could do a scan of all files), it took 3:14 to scan my ~7 GB of stuff on the hard disk. Not great, but I can live with it. Incidentally, later on I looked up the one Trojan that SAS claimed to have found (Gen-Krpytik, spelled just like that), and it appears to be a false positive. In the first scan, not knowing any better (and -- very bad practice here -- while getting some work done on another PC at the same time), I accepted its suggestion to delete a file WDELTREE.EXE. Haven't find any info on that file; wonder if I actually caused harm to my system. --JorgeA

Prozactive, You wanted to know how things went with SuperAntiSpyware on my Windows 98 tower. First and foremost, find out which version of SAS you downloaded. I DL'd the current version, 4.37.1000, off their website and tried to install it, but it burped in the middle of the process. The install wizard does have a pretty neat function where you can tell it to cancel, and all the progress bars quickly shrink back to the left (instead of the usual expanding to the right) to undo what was already done in the installation. There is a page on the SAS site where they recommend version 4.24 for older PCs. So I went to Filehippo (http://www.filehippo.com/download_superantispyware/5052) and downloaded 4.24.1004. (rilef: If you're reading this -- thanks for the tip!) That one got installed without a hitch. Then I ran a scan -- and not only did it actually finish the scan, it found three tracking cookies AND a Trojan that apparently everybody else (Spybot, Avast, Norton) had never found. (Unfortunately, removing it didn't help Spybot to finish its own scan later.) So: so far, so good. Thanks for the suggestion. Hope this helps. --JorgeA

Prozactive, Installing SuperAntiSpyware is going to be my next step with that PC. I'll let you know how SAS works on it, thanks! What kind of problems are you seeing with Avast? I've been running that one on the little 98SE notebook (80MB RAM) for a couple of weeks and haven't noticed anything bad. Not yet, anyway. I even had it installed when the computer had 48 megs and a 1.5GB HD, and (other than sloooow updating) Avast! seemed to work great. --JorgeA

Thanks, dencorso -- it looks like I have my work (more like fun, really) cut out for me! I'll go slowly, adding one thing at a time. From the MS Update site, shall I skip the Euro Conversion Tool, IE Navigation Sound Update, and the Mapped Drives Shutdown Update? They wouldn't seem to apply in my case, but the prudent thing is to ask. --JorgeA

rilef, Ahh, thanks very much for pointing out all these things -- especially about the IE6 updates that we wouldn't get through the normal Windows Update channels. I'll download the MDIE6CU. In case a reinstall is ever needed, I should print out this thread for reference! --JorgeA

rilef, It's good to know that the unofficial SP2 includes all the updates available on the MS site. If I ever have to reinstall Win98 (not such a far-out idea anymore, now that I did it once), this will save a bundle of time. Thanks for the scoop on DirectX, too. That did help to make it clearer in my head. --JorgeA

dencorso, I read your post about that bug and I see what you mean. It really loooks like .NET is more trouble than it's worth unless one has specialized needs. What applications (that might be used by people who are not IT professionals) would be based on the .NET Framework? --JorgeA

Prozactive, I just ran the Prime95 Torture Test that you recommended a couple of weeks ago. Ran the system for 24 hours, and it passed all the tests. That's reassuring. Thanks for the tip! Now, maybe I'll sign up for their prime-number project and see if my PC happens to be the one to win that grand prize... --JorgeA