PugLover13 Posted January 27 Share Posted January 27 I've been considering doing something with one of my Windows 7 laptops, and since I have never actually used WMC before, I thought it might be interesting to try and set it up on the laptop, however I've been getting concerned about the usability of this program as it's pretty outdated by now. I don't have a tuner yet, and before I even think of buying one I have to know: how usable is WMC these days? As in: If I get a tuner and set it up would it work with WMC out of the box with no mods/workarounds? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vistapocalypse Posted January 28 Share Posted January 28 Hello PugLover13. You cannot very well use WMC as a DVR to record TV without updated Electronic Program Guide (EPG) data for your TV channels. Microsoft formerly provided free EPG data for WMC users, but unfortunately they ended that service in 2020. We had a discussion about that at the time, but unfortunately the participants (including myself) were all Americans whereas your profile says you live in Poland. Still, it might be worthwhile to read: https://msfn.org/board/topic/180377-windows-media-center-epg-ending-in-january-2020/ Since you don’t even have tuner hardware yet, you might want to just forget about recording TV and join the streaming generation. As for mods/workarounds, there is something called EPG123 that can convert Schedules Direct EPG data (subscription required) into Microsoft’s MXF format for WMC, but I never used it myself. https://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/viewforum.php?f=99 In my opinion, it might be better to use third-party DVR software instead of WMC. I formerly used an old version of NextPVR on Vista. (Other options include MediaPortal and DVBViewer.) In the UK, terrestrial DVB broadcasts include about a week of free EPG data, but I do not know if that is also true in Poland. If not, you still might need a Schedules Direct subscription, but NextPVR has native support for Schedules Direct (no workaround needed), and it looks like they do have data for Poland: https://www.schedulesdirect.org/regions 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PugLover13 Posted January 28 Author Share Posted January 28 Yeah, I figured this might've been the case... It's a little sad to see this legacy feature pretty much gone. I'll just refrain from trying to use WMC. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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