back to article Microsoft: We're SO SORRY for Media Center TV guide titsup

Microsoft has apologised for deleting TV guides on Windows Media Center. The data wipe left customers in the UK and Ireland "distraught" and struggling to record their favourite shows. After The Register raised the issue yesterday, Microsoft has now restored the programme guides in the UK and said it will tackle Ireland next. …

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  1. The Alpha Klutz

    well thats a surprise

    didnt know anyone was seriously using WMC

    1. Fuzz

      Re: well thats a surprise

      WMC is a very good PVR, it's a shame Microsoft seem to be shunning it. I have mine set up with dual freeview HD and DVB-S2 for foreign football. Also works great with all the online catchup services.

      As for the EPG I only noticed on BBC HD as all the other channels could still happily pull the TV guide from the freeview/satellite signal. Freeview HD has an encrypted EPG so media centre isn't able to access it.

      The problem with media centre is that Microsoft never pitched it well. They gave it a go when Windows 7 came out, there was an advert where a women was really pleased she could watch TV on a tiny laptop screen when her partner threw a rugby ball through the flatscreen TV. What they should have been showing was a computer attached to the giant flatscreen. Almost noone is going to watch TV on a laptop via a DVB tuner when it's easier to stream stuff over the net. Microsoft needed to partner with OEMs to offer boxes specifically aimed for STB use.

    2. What of IT?

      Re: well thats a surprise

      I use it, with a Dell media centre remote with built in gyro for mouse control. Works pretty well and I've never had any problems with it. Could do to be a bit more user configurable, I know there are ways to make it your own, so to speak, but haven't got round to researching it yet.

      Any suggestions on alternatives that work with my remote would be gratefully received.

      Cheers

    3. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: well thats a surprise

      I've been using it for several years, it's an excellent piece of software for a PVR/media player PC.

      GJC

    4. Lloyd

      Re: well thats a surprise

      I use it to stream mkv's to my ps3 via ps3mediaserver. I've got a 4tb HP Microserver that I dump all of my media and backups on, my tv' can play mkv and has a network connection but I've have to run a digital audio out to my my amp so I just run everything through the PS3 as it's easier.

    5. Michael Habel
      Linux

      Re: well thats a surprise

      First of all sorry to see all the hate your getting.

      I guess those People have never heard of the far FAR superior MythTV or the even more SUPERIOR Video Disc Recorder (a.k.a. VDR i.e. YaVDR, EasyVDR Gen2VDR etc... etc...)

      I tried I really tried to give WMC a chance, way back when, but M$ insistence to ignore DVB-C (i.e. Digital Cable), has left me little choice but to have had to look elsewhere.

      VDR as a Backend with XBMC Frodo (i.e. v12) is just about the perfect light weight combination for any HTPC (i.e. Living Room PC), You can access anything you want beit DVB-T, DVB-C and DVB-S /S2.

      Ya need Catch-up, there's a XBMC Plugin for that!

      The only downside is that you will have to get to grips with Linux and its command line interface to actually get it working more or less. But with ever new version (of the above), this is getting less and less of a problem.

      And unlike WMC Linux and VDR or even MythTV for that matter ARE FREE!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: well thats a surprise

        @Michael Habel - I'm a MythTV user, I have been for several years. It's a good system, but it's too complicated for average home users. The support for tv tuners is better than it was and the product is generally better out of the box, but you still need to go to the command line way to often for average users. When I used to have a Vista Ultimate machine, I put a USB DVB stick into it (currently used for MythTV) and it just setup media centre for me, this is something that you can only just start to get with MythBuntu and even then adding a second tuner is a bit of a badly documented nightmare.

        I love MythTV, but it's not something that I think my partner could operate, I suspect she would be just about ok with a Windows Media Centre.

        1. phil 27

          Re: well thats a surprise

          Give her the benefit of the doubt. We have a myth backend here with quad dvb-s feeds into it (this story reminds me of past battles with the radio times scrapers until I started picking up epg data from the dvb-s stream), and five front ends running on cheap fanless mini pc's from lidl's dotted around. My mrs and kids have their own frontends, and I regulary find my 4 year old has set some re-occuring record on justins house, or set the cbeebies christmas panto to not expire so they can torture us with it all year. In fact, I'd go so far as to say they know their way round the frontends + shortcuts etc far better than I do. They have to, we have no off the air capability apart from the myth backend.

          The only time it ever needs any attention is when the tbs card locks all its tuners up and won't recover until its power cycled every two months or so. Mind you, I'm still on the last but one major version, don't want to live on the edge with something requiring WAF as much as tv...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: well thats a surprise

            @Phil 27 - Just to be clear - It's not the frontend or the web config which is the problem, it's the backend which will occasionally (rarely these days, admittedly) just freak out, or if something needs to be done, such as re-scanning the channels, these sort of operations are fairly cludgy, particularly configuring multiple sources.

        2. JEDIDIAH
          Linux

          Re: well thats a surprise

          Operating one PVR versus another is not the issue. They are all appliances once you've built them. The problem is buidling them and using monopolyware is no gaurantee that things will be trouble free.

          It's like building any PC. YMMV. Your tuner may be unsupported (even in WMC) or your remote make have all sorts of problems (even in Windows).

          My multi-room setup isn't even supported in WMC.

        3. P. Lee

          Re: well thats a surprise

          > I love MythTV, but it's not something that I think my partner could operate,

          +1 Mythtv is better, but that doesn't mean its a consumer system. Its rather like ipchains vs windows firewall.

          If you can't fix it, you're better off with something else. Perhaps WMC isn't fixable on errors too, I don't know.

          I used to use a PVR 350 with Myth, but there were always issues with ivtv on a kernel update. I've now got a silicon dust box which has great quality, is simple to use and support is built into myth itself. Its easy to configure, but for consumers you still want autoconfiguration.

      2. Lamont Cranston
        Happy

        Re: well thats a surprise

        MythTV etc. may be far superior, but WMC came installed with Vista when I bought my PC, and (generally speaking) works without any faffing about.

        After 30 minutes of faff, trying to get the EPG populated on MediaPortal*, last night (tragically cut short by a power cut), I'm rather glad to hear that I can expect to see WMC working as expected when I get home.

        *all the settings in a completely seperate application, with a different interface? My, how convenient that isn't.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: well thats a surprise

        That's rather a major downside though - that they are Linux based. You just want to plugin and go - Windows is less complicated, far more easy to use and more reliable.

        Yes the missing thing for everyone is support from Sky or Virgin media - but that's the case on Linux too AFAIK.

        1. Monty Burns

          Re: well thats a surprise

          Actually you can do Sky HD in WMC.... google it along tvsource.

          When i lived in the UK it was our main TV with it's 4 tuners

        2. JEDIDIAH
          Linux

          Re: well thats a surprise

          There is nothing reliable about Windows.

          Once you've got things set up so that your box is booting straight into your app, ease and complexity are no longer a factor. You might even be using the exact same app.

          Unix tends to be much better at staying in place and is much more maleable beforehand.

      4. Chris Parsons Silver badge

        Re: well thats a surprise

        "The only downside is that you will have to get to grips with Linux and its command line interface to actually get it working more or less." Well, for an awful lot of people, that's a pretty big downside.

        By the way, 'you're getting', not 'your getting', and the correct second person singular/plural in English is 'you' unless you especially want to sound like a teenager.

    6. NightFox

      Re: well thats a surprise

      Agree with others about how good WMC actually is - we used it is our main TV for 5 years, it was only its non-wife-friendly need for tinkering whenever channel line-ups changed and a couple of DVB-S issues (which later turned out to be down to a faulty LMB) which finally made me decide to switch to a commercial PVR as WMC seemed to suffer it's glitches when I was travelling. I kind of assumed that with WMC having been around without too many interface changes for several years, that the commercial PVRs user experience would be at least as good, if not better. What a shock! Even the high-end models from the likes of Humax, Panasonic and LG are so cludgy, horrible and basic coming from WMC. After several false starts, I've gone the Sky+ route but I still miss the simplicity and diversity of WMC, just a shame that MS seem to have all but given up on it or I could see myself going back to it after I've served my sentence under Sky.

      1. ISYS
        Thumb Up

        Re: well thats a surprise

        Totally agree with you. I used WMC for years. I found it to be a nice, fast interface that had the advantage of linking seamlessly with my music collection and picture archive. One day my media pc died and in a moment of madness I thought I would try a Humax Foxsat HDR (as every review I read said how good it was). What a piece of crap! It is so slow I don't know how people put up with it. The menus and EPG are a nightmare to use. This is supposed to be the best commercial unit out there which makes me wonder how bad the rest are. As soon as I have time I will be building a new WMC and going back to a nice, slick viewing experience.

    7. big_D
      Paris Hilton

      Re: well thats a surprise

      It shows how many people in Ireland use it, if it stopped working on 6th December and it has only just come to light... :-S

    8. Levente Szileszky
      WTF?

      Re: well thats a surprise

      "didnt know anyone was seriously using WMC"

      But that's just you...

      FYI our only cable box at home is a near-silent AMD A8-based Windows 7 box, equipped with couple of 2TB drives in RAID, an SSD and Ceton's 4-tuner InfiniTV CableCard device, and we are running Windows Media Center as our TV software.

      Aside of the tuner card's buggy drivers - it is really beyond imagination how on Earth Ceton couldn't fix them in ~2 YEARS now! - it is pretty nice, FAAAR BETTER THAN ANY CABLE BOX, period. Almost unlimited recording space - just keep adding disks -, optin to scale there if you have a crappy scaler in your TV, support any codec + it's a lot cheaper ($3/mo/CableCard vs $15/mo/DVR.)

      It is really a shame that MS didn't pour more money into it, this could've been a big thing in living rooms (well, with MSFT VP Belfiore, ex-head of WMC, it's not that surprising, he managed to sink other products since too eg Windows Phone - a good UI guy won't necessary be a good manager, right?)

  2. 3G or not to 3G

    WMC is the central hub for all my media throughout the house. It is brilliant and the best kept MS seecret out there. If more people knew about it, and if MS actually put enough resources into it, it could take out Apple TV completely. I can remote control it and stream recordings out to my Android (and iOS), but probably not WinPho bizarrely.

    I have twin Freeeview HD tuners and feed my AVR via HDMI with 7.1 sound. Fab!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    "A solution for Ireland is in the works and expected shortly. "

    Translation: The cheque to RedBee in the post and will arrive tommorow.

  4. ArmyCrow
    Meh

    They did a similar thing

    With the HD-DVD Drive attachment on the Xbox. In the last system update they removed the ability to use the drive add-on which has left many people (myself included) unable to view their collection of HD-DVDs. Normally this wouldn't be so much of a problem given the short lifespan of the project but for those like me who built up a sizable collection of films on the cheap it was bloody annoying - especially as there was no reason to do such a thing. Sometimes those who play with these things don't consider who they're going to affect...

    1. JEDIDIAH
      Linux

      Re: They did a similar thing

      HD-DVD? Really?

      You should have seen that one coming a mile away and just ripped everything.

      1. IRBonReg
        Meh

        Re: They did a similar thing

        Not so, I still use my HD-DVD drive to watch movies on the xbox, the new dash hasn't stopped that. Maybe your drive is knackered.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    XBMC...just sayin'....

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "A solution for Ireland is in the works and expected shortly. "

    Flip me, about time too.

    At least Microsoft can do what the Folks on the Hill couldn't.

  7. This Side Up
    Stop

    They had no idea

    that they could buy Radio Times/newspaper/other listings rags/look at schedules on tinterweb...

    1. Lamont Cranston

      Re: They had no idea

      I cut out TV entirely, and now force my children to perform plays of my choosing, in the living room. It's sooooo much more convenient.

      1. Mage Silver badge

        Re: They had no idea

        "now force my children to perform plays"

        You should see Hamlet performed with alien creatures made of Plasticine, models made by the kids, models moved and voiced in real time by the kids.

  8. Michael Habel
    Linux

    With MythTV or VDR you have a dedicated HTPC OS that when cold booted goes straight to TV in ~10 seconds Flat. Try that with Windoz and then manually double click on the WMC.exe to start it up. All the while enjoying your stay on the Desktop.

    Given how expensive Electricity is, the "idea" of a 24/7/365-1/4 Server seems to me to be way outta the question. And WMC can never be what VDR is.

    And even VDR will eventually give itself over to XBMC and that will be a good day indeed

    1. Lamont Cranston
      Happy

      For a dedicated box the lounge, I probably would move to an HTPC OS.

      As a bedroom TV, WMC on my PC is ideal. On the rare occasion that it deigns to start in response to the remote that came with my TV card, it's damn near perfect.

      Horses for courses, I suppose.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ireland

    The TV Guide is now working in Ireland :)

  10. Sheppy

    It works well...

    I use it to drive my main TV. It records FTA HDTV, works out where the adverts are and works well. Took a lot of time to perfect but well worth the effort. I'm in NZ and live TV is pretty much unwatchable due to the adverts.

  11. RonWheeler
    Thumb Up

    £20 PVR for Win7 that few ever heard of

    A £20 USB freeview stick off ebay and WMC on my Windows 7 HTPC gives me a wayyyy better product for recording telly than mates who have dedicated devices. Glad MS did the right thing.

  12. SpitefulGOD

    If you use windows media center

    Buy the amulet voice remote for flawless speech control over tv, film and music. My blind parents have been using it for over 2 years and its the best speech implementation I've seen... Ever, check out my demo on YouTube search for "DIY speech enabled TV" you'll never go back to mashing buttons again or searching through lists for your films and tv series

  13. Annihilator
    Facepalm

    EPG

    The other article mentions how the old WMC can't read the broadcast EPG and so has to get it via the Internet/MS. What isn't mentioned is why on earth it can't be patched to just read the EPG data from the broadcast stream like every other device under the sun? It's baffled me for years when I previously used it.

  14. Richard Lloyd
    FAIL

    Tried WMC, really didn't like the startup time or UI

    I did try WMC a while back (yes, on WIndows 7) and thought it took a long time to start up and seemed to have a UI that favoured looking pretty whilst taking an actual age to navigate around.

    As I said in the previous WMC article about their EPG cockup, WMC is by no means the best media centre platform, even on WIndows itself.

    The best combo for ease of setup and flexibility is Linux+tvheadend+XBMC. I'm using TBS PCIe cards for my sat and terrestrial digital viewing and their Linux support is very good. tvheadend is such a good and easy to use Web-based backend that I don't know people put up with anything else :-) And as for XBMC, well it just is super-configurable too (a dozen or more skins if you don't like the very pretty default Confluence skin) and has virtually every feature you'll need under the sun.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: With MythTV or VDR you

    Why cold boot the box, hibernate works fine, wakes its self to do a recording and then hibernates again (not suspend), with WMC box connected to a eon power down the TV and AMP also get fully power downed when the box hibernates. On a cold boot, WMC has a nice feature to lunch on login, double click wmc haha.

    As for Myth TV after using WMC the interface just plain sucks and made my eyes burn, not to mention the hours trying to get working drivers for the tuners and trying to get the WMC remote to work properly, maybe things have changed since i last tried it (was a couple of years back).

    WMC was in some ways better on vista as you could patch it past 4 tuners, although that said the EPG ate its self after a while, so no brownie points there.

    Sadly microsoft made something called softsled and then shelved it which would have made WMC a fantastic hub, but then realised using an xbox as an extender would likely make more money and canned the project.

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