Windows Media Center EPG ending in January 2020

[Tripredacus]

Well there is always a way. We'll see what the ATSC 3 tuners end up supporting. My guess would be that they would want to couple the DRM into the HDMI spec. Will we get set top tuners that will still have composite on them? Even my modern 1080p tuner still has a coax out on it. If the DRM ends up only on 4k content (and even so) it may not be an issue if you pass it through an AVR first. Only time will tell.

[Mathwiz]

On 1/25/2020 at 7:55 AM, Vistapocalypse said:

Jared Newman pointed out that the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard allows DRM...

Yes it does. Personally, I think if the broadcasters mandate DRM (as appears likely at this point) it will merely ensure the new standard never becomes the dominant one.

DRM would require anyone selling a 3.0 tuner to figuratively sign their business's life away to get a key. Only the biggest TV manufacturers (Samsung, LG, etc.) will be able to afford to do so. TiVo will be the only DVR maker that can do so. SiliconDust, maybe (they managed it for CableCard access), but you can forget about any $40 3.0 tuners, as the 1.0 world now enjoys.

And of course the tuners would have to use HDCP, so say goodbye to component video; and the TiVo recordings would be encrypted, as they are for (some) cable recordings now (depending on what channels your cable provider flags with DRM).

So we'd be paying more for equipment that does less. And for what? Higher resolutions than most folks can even see? "Interactivity" (which failed with ATSC 2.0)? At best, it sounds like ATSC 3.0 might become a niche market for videophiles, like HD Radio became for audiophiles.

OTOH, maybe the broadcasters will force the issue, by (say) lowering ATSC 1.0 picture quality back down to SD and/or dropping some of the subchannels you've come to enjoy. You want to keep what you have now? Then you must "upgrade" (and put up with all the DRM restrictions).

[Tripredacus]

Do you really think they (the broadcasters) are going to be putting DRM on everything? You think it will be at the transmitter itself and the DRM isn't tied to the actual programming, similar to Macrovision for VCRs? Let's say they do decide to do it for PPV or On-Demand (as the article says) and let's say they put it on all the 4K transmissions. If a broadcaster's ATSC 3.0 devices are DRM or nothing, I can't see them bothering to keep those extra channels that just show Bonanza or Green Acres all day, or bothering to put DRM on the shopping networks or the religion commercial channels.

[user57]

actually i never done a update for windows 3.11

never to 95

never to 98 but at some point i moved to windows 98 se

i never made any update to windows 2000

one time i switched from nt4.0 to nt5.0 but i rather call that a new os update

the first updates i ever made where on XP for example the move to IE8

at some point in installed win7 because with windows vista i had no good experiments

in 2015 i downloaded win7 from ms server and see there what it got ? windows 7 with IE8

at this time i long installed google chrome, firefox and opera

but always when chrome, firefox or opera showed something not currectly i started up the IE8 and looked from there

 

and see there the IE8 in 2015 + showed the website rightly , instead of chrome what had 1 title not showed and i got confused by the view

 

now the end being called in 2020 raise questions

[Vistapocalypse]

I was somewhat disappointed that this thread was exclusively American, with replies only concerned with OTA and the advent of ATSC 3.0 - until I saw user57's utterly OT post.

Regarding ATSC 3.0, the developer of NextPVR stated in a recent post:

Quote

ATSC 3.0 is on my plan to tackle this year some time. It is complicated though. It's the first broadcast digital TV system that NextPVR will have to deal with that is not transport stream based. It's a little more like UDP based IPTV.

Like pretty much all software that doesn't come from Microsoft, NextPVR supports Windows 7. I still think Windows Media Center diehards will eventually require something to convert ATSC 3.0 to 1.0.

Meanwhile, my WMC is warning me that "Guide listings will be out of date in fewer than 3 days" and updating is futile, so I will use NextPVR exclusively from now on. Good luck to the rest of you!

[win32]

Canadian broadcasters, which are generally owned by cable/satellite companies, will probably dump OTA before adopting ATSC 3.0. Most of our stations are still analog, especially outside major cities.

Or they may drag their feet and keep broadcasting exclusively ATSC 1.0 much longer than in the U.S. Those who can receive Canadian stations (which broadcast lots of American shows) could have an alternative source of programming if ATSC 3.0 proves inaccessible or DRM-infested.

I'd also be wise to further media consolidation in the U.S. which may further deteriorate the availability and/or quality of OTA over there.

I never used WMC, but I heard that MS never supplied EPG data to Canadian users (or at least around XP/early Vista era). We also never had stuff like cablecards. So it was even more of a non-factor than in the U.S.

Edited January 28, 2020 by win32

[Vistapocalypse]

14 hours ago, win32 said:

Canadian broadcasters, which are generally owned by cable/satellite companies, will probably dump OTA before adopting ATSC 3.0. Most of our stations are still analog, especially outside major cities.

Thanks for posting. NextPVR has Canadian users, notably "Posting Freak" mvallevand of Ontario. I'm surprised to hear that analog is still being used up there. NextPVR does not have native support for analog, but is able to utilize components of WinTV for analog.

Of course readers in DVB countries (i.e. most of the world) can disregard all this discussion of ATSC 3.0.

 

[Tripredacus]

Being close to the border, we always had the ability to pick up some Canadian channels in the analog days. On average it would be (presumably Toronto stations) 9 and 11. I have heard that analog Canadian stations still exist, yet when the digital switchover happened in the US, I stopped being able to receive any Canadian channels on any analog tuners. Because of this, I had just figured that Canada had made the change as well.

[i430VX]

Also living near the Canadian border, (until my antenna blew away in a windstorm last month), I also got some Canadian stations. Ironically, due to my geography, I don't get any US stations, despite living in the US. But I'm only receiving digital stations, so i'd presume the analog stuff is more of a Rural Canada thing.

[Vistapocalypse]

On 12/31/2019 at 10:50 PM, Vistapocalypse said:

Microsoft/Rovi guide data is history.

If I may return to my original topic, "No data available" - and I don't think it will be coming back this time.  Mathwiz, you might be the only MSFN member using WMC as DVR now.

Edit: Regarding annoying pop-ups in Media Center advising users to "switch to an alternate TV program guide provider" (which neither Mathwiz nor I were affected by), it seems that a

"Do not remind me again" checkbox has recently appeared (see screenshot at GreenButton), so there's no need to uninstall months of security updates just to stop the nagging.

 

 

Edited February 1, 2020 by Vistapocalypse

[Vistapocalypse]

Probably most of us have seen horror movies in which you think the monster is dead, but it suddenly rises and attacks again.

I now have Microsoft/Rovi EPG data extending to February 16 at 6 PM, and I have no idea how this movie will end. (Annoyingly, it added a few channels to my guide that I cannot receive.)

[mcho]

This is a very interesting discussion. I don't understand 99% of the acronyms and have no idea what you guys are talking about BUT I wanted to tell you that I have WMC guide listings up to Feb 16th which I downloaded a few days ago in February.   I have received no notice that the guide is going away other than in third party online blogs.   I'm not saying that it isn't going to happen, but Microsoft sure hasn't told me anything.   Ssssshhhhh! don't tell Microsoft that they forgot to turn my guide off!! 

[Vistapocalypse]

Welcome to MSFN mcho! This forum has long been a meeting place for Windows XP diehards, Vista diehards, and hopefully now Windows 7 diehards as well. I'm mainly a Vista diehard, but I hate to see Microsoft taking aim at Vista's younger brother (albeit rather ineffectively, at least for now). Are you using WMC for over-the-air TV channels, or are you a cable subscriber?

Edit: I just checked for latest guide listings manually and acquired another 24 hours of Rovi data, i.e. listings until February 17 at 6 PM.

Edited February 5, 2020 by Vistapocalypse

[InterLinked]

Hey, this isn't 100% on-topic, but maybe some WMC folks here would know,

I remember that at some point, WMC came with 3 samples movie clips, 1 from Vertigo, 1 from Apollo 11 or Apollo 13, and one from some deep blue sea movie,

I had the original video files way back on some early W7 Home Premium machine, but that was ages ago. Now, I can't find the files anywhere. They're not online anywhere, and in my new W7 Ultimate x64 install, they're not there, either.

The sample videos "Wildlife" and the other sea one I can find, but not the movie clips.

Did those 3 videos only come with certain versions of WMC? Or am I just not looking in the right place?

Any helps appreciated, thanks!

[Vistapocalypse]

Yes, my Vista Home Premium system shipped with a Sample Media folder in Recorded TV. I deleted all but one: Jewels of the Caribbean: World of National Geographic Special, which is slightly under 2 minutes. I can't remember what the others were, but I'm sure they were larger files. It's in the old dvr-ms format that was used by XP Media Center Edition and most Vista systems with WMC. Windows 7 sample media was probably in wtv format (which was actually introduced with TV Pack 2008 for Vista.) The factory image of a Windows 7 Home Premium or Ultimate system might be a likely place to find them.