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had WinMCE and TV tuner, but decided to rebuild the OS using WinXP Pro -- now I'd like to have an operating TV tuner again
I have a Gateway machine that had MCE, but I use it primarily for business
and decided to rebuild/reinstall using WinXP Pro. I really had no use for all the media bells and whistles that MCE offered me. However, although not of great practical importance to my needs, I would like to have the tuner operational on the machine [and the FM radio would be nice also]. [If the Mets get further along into the baseball playoffs next year, I will most definitely want a TV tuner........ then again, the Mets have been breaking my heart forever, sighso maybe it won't be that important to me next October/sigh] Back in the days of Win95, I had an ATI AIW card [ironically, with much less memory than my present card and machine, that AIW software could do more of the TV functions I wanted than the MCE software that came on this machine --- like monitoring multiple TV channels, ]. The machine has a Powercolor tuner http://support.gateway.com/s/vidcard...104185nv.shtml Win Win XP Pro, I have everything I want, except that the Tuner no longer works -- no software to run it. I have installed the ATI driver for the card -- http://support.gateway.com/support/d...n¶m=104185 -- but presently, according to the Device Manager, the OS doesn't even know the card is in the machine. I'd like go, at least initially, as cheap as possible [it ain't baseball season]. Is there a way to pull the [just barely] adequate Tuner software off my Gateway WinMCE disk ? If so, how do I identify what executable[s] constitute that functionality? If there isn't a practical use for my MCE OEM disk, then I am guessing I should get an aftermarket program. I was hoping to find, at ATI support pages, or on the Powercolor support pages, freely downloadable tuner software for the Powercolor -- but I was unable to find anything at either site that I could download. It may be there, but I could not find it. So, if there is nothing I can use on the MCE disk, or download from Powercolor's or ATI sites, then what would you recommend for my Powercolor card? These are the aftermarket programs I am considering. If I read their support info correctly, both would work with my card [less expensive] http://www.ctpvr.com/ [more expensive] http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/default.asp Your comment and suggestions as to what I might do/try are much appreciated. TIA albert |
#2
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had WinMCE and TV tuner, but decided to rebuild the OS using WinXP Pro -- now I'd like to have an operating TV tuner again
"albert" wrote in message
... I have a Gateway machine that had MCE, but I use it primarily for business and decided to rebuild/reinstall using WinXP Pro. I really had no use for all the media bells and whistles that MCE offered me. However, although not of great practical importance to my needs, I would like to have the tuner operational on the machine [and the FM radio would be nice also]. [If the Mets get further along into the baseball playoffs next year, I will most definitely want a TV tuner........ then again, the Mets have been breaking my heart forever, sighso maybe it won't be that important to me next October/sigh] Back in the days of Win95, I had an ATI AIW card [ironically, with much less memory than my present card and machine, that AIW software could do more of the TV functions I wanted than the MCE software that came on this machine --- like monitoring multiple TV channels, ]. The machine has a Powercolor tuner http://support.gateway.com/s/vidcard...104185nv.shtml Win Win XP Pro, I have everything I want, except that the Tuner no longer works -- no software to run it. I have installed the ATI driver for the card -- http://support.gateway.com/support/d...n¶m=104185 -- but presently, according to the Device Manager, the OS doesn't even know the card is in the machine. I'd like go, at least initially, as cheap as possible [it ain't baseball season]. Is there a way to pull the [just barely] adequate Tuner software off my Gateway WinMCE disk ? If so, how do I identify what executable[s] constitute that functionality? If there isn't a practical use for my MCE OEM disk, then I am guessing I should get an aftermarket program. I was hoping to find, at ATI support pages, or on the Powercolor support pages, freely downloadable tuner software for the Powercolor -- but I was unable to find anything at either site that I could download. It may be there, but I could not find it. So, if there is nothing I can use on the MCE disk, or download from Powercolor's or ATI sites, then what would you recommend for my Powercolor card? These are the aftermarket programs I am considering. If I read their support info correctly, both would work with my card [less expensive] http://www.ctpvr.com/ [more expensive] http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/default.asp Your comment and suggestions as to what I might do/try are much appreciated. TIA albert http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html XPTV Tuner550PRO Good Luck |
#3
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had WinMCE and TV tuner, but decided to rebuild the OS using WinXP Pro -- now I'd like to have an operating TV tuner again
"albert" wrote in
: I have a Gateway machine that had MCE, but I use it primarily for business and decided to rebuild/reinstall using WinXP Pro. I really had no use for all the media bells and whistles that MCE offered me. However, although not of great practical importance to my needs, I would like to have the tuner operational on the machine [and the FM radio would be nice also]. [If the Mets get further along into the baseball playoffs next year, I will most definitely want a TV tuner........ then again, the Mets have been breaking my heart forever, sighso maybe it won't be that important to me next October/sigh] Back in the days of Win95, I had an ATI AIW card [ironically, with much less memory than my present card and machine, that AIW software could do more of the TV functions I wanted than the MCE software that came on this machine --- like monitoring multiple TV channels, ]. The machine has a Powercolor tuner http://support.gateway.com/s/vidcard...104185nv.shtml Win Win XP Pro, I have everything I want, except that the Tuner no longer works -- no software to run it. I have installed the ATI driver for the card -- http://support.gateway.com/support/d...pn¶m=10418 5 -- but presently, according to the Device Manager, the OS doesn't even know the card is in the machine. I'd like go, at least initially, as cheap as possible [it ain't baseball season]. Is there a way to pull the [just barely] adequate Tuner software off my Gateway WinMCE disk ? If so, how do I identify what executable[s] constitute that functionality? If there isn't a practical use for my MCE OEM disk, then I am guessing I should get an aftermarket program. I was hoping to find, at ATI support pages, or on the Powercolor support pages, freely downloadable tuner software for the Powercolor -- but I was unable to find anything at either site that I could download. It may be there, but I could not find it. So, if there is nothing I can use on the MCE disk, or download from Powercolor's or ATI sites, then what would you recommend for my Powercolor card? These are the aftermarket programs I am considering. If I read their support info correctly, both would work with my card [less expensive] http://www.ctpvr.com/ [more expensive] http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/default.asp Your comment and suggestions as to what I might do/try are much appreciated. TIA albert If you have Winamp, there's a tv plugin available at: www.tv-plugin.com It's free and there are 2 flavors depending on whether you want to record or not. I definitely prefer it to the ATI program. Dave |
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had WinMCE and TV tuner, but decided to rebuild the OS using WinXP Pro -- now I'd like to have an operating TV tuner again
"David Lee" wrote in message ... "albert" wrote in : I have a Gateway machine that had MCE, but I use it primarily for business and decided to rebuild/reinstall using WinXP Pro. I really had no use for all the media bells snip [less expensive] http://www.ctpvr.com/ [more expensive] http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/default.asp Your comment and suggestions as to what I might do/try are much appreciated. TIA albert If you have Winamp, there's a tv plugin available at: www.tv-plugin.com It's free and there are 2 flavors depending on whether you want to record or not. I definitely prefer it to the ATI program. Dave Dave, I do have Winamp. I went to your link, downloaded the plugin, and it does work. Excellent. It is not superglitzy, but it serves my present needs just fine. Now I have a bunch of settings to learn about and play around with. Since I use an indoor rabbit-ears antenna as my source, I need to learn what frequencies the local NYC TV stations broadcast on [the automatic scan does not pick them all up, the "full scan" gathers so many settings as to be very impractical]. Thanks for the link and advice. Now I have the basic tuner I wanted, and need to learn a few new things to better understand it, the broadcast/receive process, etc. So, theoretically, I'll get a little bit smarter. Excellent. a |
#5
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had WinMCE and TV tuner, but decided to rebuild the OS using WinXP Pro -- now I'd like to have an operating TV tuner again
"T Shadow" wrote in message ... "albert" wrote in message ... I have a Gateway machine that had MCE, but I use it primarily for business and decided to rebuild/reinstall using WinXP Pro. I really had no use for all the media bells and whistles that MCE offered me. However, although not of great practical importance to my needs, I would like to have the snip Your comment and suggestions as to what I might do/try are much appreciated. TIA albert http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html XPTV Tuner550PRO Good Luck Thank you T Shadow. This got real close. Downloaded and installed everything -- but there's a glitch -- the tuner program upgrade wants to see its previous version install -- otherwise it refuses to install. So I'll have to find another alternative to make my TV tuner card operational. a |
#6
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had WinMCE and TV tuner, but decided to rebuild the OS usingWinXP Pro -- now I'd like to have an operating TV tuner again
I'm still not entirely clear on why you pulled MCE. MCE ***IS*** XP
Pro, with one missing item (domain networking) and the Media Center. But the standard, garden variety Windows XP desktop is still present, and with a mouse click in a check box, you can make the standard Windows desktop the default user interface, so that "Media Center" never even comes up, at all, unless you start it manually. And in any case you can switch back and forth between Media Center and the Windows desktop with just a mouse click. Some people don't know this, they think that Media Center only has the Media Center interface, and they pull when there really was no reason to do so. If you select the Windows desktop as the default interface and don't start media center, the Media Center stuff does not run in the background and has no negative impact on the performance of the system. albert wrote: "David Lee" wrote in message ... "albert" wrote in : I have a Gateway machine that had MCE, but I use it primarily for business and decided to rebuild/reinstall using WinXP Pro. I really had no use for all the media bells snip [less expensive] http://www.ctpvr.com/ [more expensive] http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/default.asp Your comment and suggestions as to what I might do/try are much appreciated. TIA albert If you have Winamp, there's a tv plugin available at: www.tv-plugin.com It's free and there are 2 flavors depending on whether you want to record or not. I definitely prefer it to the ATI program. Dave Dave, I do have Winamp. I went to your link, downloaded the plugin, and it does work. Excellent. It is not superglitzy, but it serves my present needs just fine. Now I have a bunch of settings to learn about and play around with. Since I use an indoor rabbit-ears antenna as my source, I need to learn what frequencies the local NYC TV stations broadcast on [the automatic scan does not pick them all up, the "full scan" gathers so many settings as to be very impractical]. Thanks for the link and advice. Now I have the basic tuner I wanted, and need to learn a few new things to better understand it, the broadcast/receive process, etc. So, theoretically, I'll get a little bit smarter. Excellent. a |
#7
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had WinMCE and TV tuner, but decided to rebuild the OS using WinXP Pro -- now I'd like to have an operating TV tuner again
Good question -- Well, I am not much of a TV watcher, and I have a stereo and tv in the same room. I have no need for a PVR system. I'd originally intended to build an XP Pro system, and used the MCE only as an experiment. I was curious about MCE, I like trying out new toys, and I got a great deal on a machine that came preloaded with MCE. I did learn alot about MCE. I now understand how it would make a decent, not great, front end for some aspects of a home theatre setup. I think it was designed with maximum idiot-proof-ability in mind [of course, life has taught me that there is no such thing as idiot-proofing]. I am more of a "get under the hood and tweak it" person. Yes, I did have all the MCE features turned off - so that I had a conventional desktop, etc. I did experiment, using msconfig, with turning off everything under the startup tab. Because the MCE was a preload deal, with a Gateway MCE disk -- I discovered, to my disappointment, that some repair options [e.g., CD-ROM disk access to the repair console, ability to do a repair installation] were crippled. It might be possible for me to learn how to get around those limitations [the console is on the disk] -- but it seemed a waste of time to do the searching and learning, when I could go back to my unused Pro version where I knew how and what to do if and when problems arise. My expectations for the tuner software were skewed by earlier experience I have with a Win95 ATI AIW card -- which was far more TV tweakable to my taste -- and which I liked much more than what I learned the MCE offered. [I'd assumed, erroneously I learned, that TV tuner software on an ATI chipped card would be, a priori, even better than what I'd experienced 8+ years ago with my Win95 AIW] .. I found that I did not like the MCE tuner/pvr software itself - e.g., its clunky tweaking interface, its limited tweak-ability [even with the MS tweak mce tool], its lousy-to-my-taste help files. I found the delay that the tuner/pvr software introduces in watching broadcast tv to be annoying. As I understand it, the delay is introduced by the PVR feature - the broadcast is received, goes to the hard drive, then is output to the display and audio, so that the pvr feature can work. But I have my office set up so that I can actually use a regular TV and stereo -- so if I switched back and forth between the MCE and the TV, the delay was glaring to me. So, that's about it. The Winamp plug in will do the trick, for now. If at a later time I come across tuner software that operates more like my old AIW stuff, maybe I'll spring for it. a "Barry Watzman" wrote in message ... I'm still not entirely clear on why you pulled MCE. MCE ***IS*** XP Pro, with one missing item (domain networking) and the Media Center. But the standard, garden variety Windows XP desktop is still present, and with a mouse click in a check box, you can make the standard Windows desktop the default user interface, so that "Media Center" never even comes up, at all, unless you start it manually. And in any case you can switch back and forth between Media Center and the Windows desktop with just a mouse click. Some people don't know this, they think that Media Center only has the Media Center interface, and they pull when there really was no reason to do so. If you select the Windows desktop as the default interface and don't start media center, the Media Center stuff does not run in the background and has no negative impact on the performance of the system. albert wrote: "David Lee" wrote in message ... "albert" wrote in : I have a Gateway machine that had MCE, but I use it primarily for business and decided to rebuild/reinstall using WinXP Pro. I really had no use for all the media bells snip [less expensive] http://www.ctpvr.com/ [more expensive] http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/default.asp Your comment and suggestions as to what I might do/try are much appreciated. TIA albert If you have Winamp, there's a tv plugin available at: www.tv-plugin.com It's free and there are 2 flavors depending on whether you want to record or not. I definitely prefer it to the ATI program. Dave Dave, I do have Winamp. I went to your link, downloaded the plugin, and it does work. Excellent. It is not superglitzy, but it serves my present needs just fine. Now I have a bunch of settings to learn about and play around with. Since I use an indoor rabbit-ears antenna as my source, I need to learn what frequencies the local NYC TV stations broadcast on [the automatic scan does not pick them all up, the "full scan" gathers so many settings as to be very impractical]. Thanks for the link and advice. Now I have the basic tuner I wanted, and need to learn a few new things to better understand it, the broadcast/receive process, etc. So, theoretically, I'll get a little bit smarter. Excellent. a |
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