millerbrad:

I can see the person who leaked it being at fault by violating their NDA.  But what about those who downloaded it?

No lynch mobs are coming for you from Redmond, just don't expect support... or sympathy if things don't work.

A lot of people even installed it on non-virgin installs (even after warnings)...

rgreenpc:

I read his post as they have moved focus to Win7. That doesn't mean they will stop patching/hotfixing things. They still do those for 2k5 on occasion.

thats exactly my point, hotfixes and patches are one thing, but they stopped adding features to 2k5 so youd move on to vista

they stopped adding features to vista to...?

SESnut:

rgreenpc:

I read his post as they have moved focus to Win7. That doesn't mean they will stop patching/hotfixing things. They still do those for 2k5 on occasion.

thats exactly my point, hotfixes and patches are one thing, but they stopped adding features to 2k5 so youd move on to vista

they stopped adding features to vista to...?

Thats what companies do, they build value into products. (still using the car anaology... I need a new one but this just works well....) They add bluetooth to their 08 model, to get you to go out and buy it.

They still service the model you have (safety fixes, recalls, etc.), but don't install bluetooth into you car just because you have the 07 model.

SESnut:

they stopped adding features to vista to...?

... get ready for Win7?

rgreenpc:

millerbrad:

I can see the person who leaked it being at fault by violating their NDA.  But what about those who downloaded it?

No lynch mobs are coming for you from Redmond, just don't expect support... or sympathy if things don't work. A lot of people even installed it on non-virgin installs (even after warnings)...

I think this is really what I was looking for, and is totally acceptable.

In fact, I was one of those people who installed it on a non-virgin install.  So far so good.  What's the worst that could happen? 

...maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to do another eventual reformat of my HD... 

i dont think you see the big picture here

they stopped adding features to a current product they sell to work on a product that wont be out for at least another year if not more, so why should anyone buy the current product? dont get me wrong, i like vista, but if this is how microsoft is going to do it, then those naysayers that say theyre gonna hang on to xp and wait for windows 7 had the right idea all along

CycleWriter:

JeffTucker – MSFT:

...the TV Pack that are clearly pirated...

Jeff, please stop saying this. It is insulting to be accused of criminality for doing nothing more than availing ourselves of something that should have been provided to us in the first place. And this is a free product that was not stolen, but provided to the community. How that happened may be up for debate, but continuing to call us pirates while trying to convince us how you care about the MC community is disingenuous, at best. I know that's not the feeling you want to convey.

I wake up to this and I'm concerned that MS is referring to piracy in this group. Yes, there is a certain element of those who get it from the black/gray market but most of us are waiting for the feature to come out. It's late in coming, there was an anticipation, there is a need. Granted that International were hosed when Vista was released without much needed features. Granted that it did not support Clear-QAM.

Let's get over this piracy issue and get back to the main issue. Does MS intend to release a TV pack of some sorts to the rest of us RTM/Beta testers? When I say RTM I really mean Vista SP1.

I think it's safe to say we can stop arguing the legality of the TV pack being on this site. It's here, it's not going anywhere, let's move on.

Similarly, it seems obvious that the OEM status is not going to be changed. Jeff has made that pretty clear. We're frustrated, he knows it. I'm confident he will relay that to the upper management folks that make these decisions.

My hope now is that this forum can be used as it's intended, to allow the MS team to weigh in on questions from the community, give tips, suggestions, etc.

Jeff, I'm curious to know what you would do if you were in the market for a HTPC right now under these circumstances:

• You live in an area where OTA HD is spotty.
• You currently rely on QAM for your HD content.
• Cablecard is not an option, you're just looking for some basic HD content.

I know you can't tell us what to do, just looking for some insight. Would you wait? Would you buy and plan for the OEM update?

SESnut:

i dont think you see the big picture here

they stopped adding features to a current product they sell to work on a product that wont be out for at least another year if not more, so why should anyone buy the current product? dont get me wrong, i like vista, but if this is how microsoft is going to do it, then those naysayers that say theyre gonna hang on to xp and wait for windows 7 had the right idea all along

Let's do a quick trend comparison.

Vista was released in 2006 with much fanfare (2007 for consumers). Which version to get? Well, let's get Ultimate since there are many more features available AND there are many extras to come. Fast forward (if you can depending on your codec setup)...2008, where are the features that there was so much hype around? Well, let's just say, very disappointing.

Fiji was announced in 2007 and gathering requirements for the next "update." Fast forward to last week... What was provided... For us existing customers, nothing... Do we expect anything?

There will always be people like me and many of you who will push the envelop and adopt technology as it comes out and there are those who take on a wait-and-see approach. MS has a delicate balancing act. If I had to take back 2 years, I would not have purchased Ultimate since it was a waste of money since the features are similar to Premium. The promised "Extras" was not worth the extra $$$. When people look at vista today, they will ask, do I want to shell out $$$ today or wait a year and get a more polished product at the same price?

Jeff,

I am confused as to why H.264 support was removed from the release, when it was obviously working in the beta.  Was there a problem with the implementation, or are you planning on leaving it to 3rd party codec suppliers?  Is there any plan for implementation pre-Windows 7, or is there any concievable way (via 3rd parties) that H.264 can be added (without hacking around with DLLs)?

 

I also find it strange that CAM support for DVB wasn't implemented while you were redoing the DVB engine.  Programatically, I can see no reason for not implementing it, so I assume the decision is politics/policy.  For those who don't know, CAMs are devices you plug into your DVB receiver which allow you to put your viewing card in and you can then access the encrypted channels on your subscription.  Not having this feature makes DVB support effectively useless in large parts of Europe, and severely crippled elsewhere.

 

I hope you listen to our concerns on these two (pretty major, in Europe) issues and give us a reason to keep using Media Center between now and Windows 7...

SESnut:

JeffTucker – MSFT:

• The TV Pack release has gone through several evolutions over time, and in the end... we could not deliver everything our enthusiast community was expecting.  We could, however, deliver a really great OEM experience, and do it in parallel with our efforts for the next major windows release (which like it or not... IS our primary release vehicle at the moment).

the problem with the last part of that statement is, its sounds like youve dropped support for an existing and active product

i dont see how microsoft can contradict themselves by saying they want to you stop using xp and use vista and then have have an existing team ignore vista and work on windows 7

whats to stop this from happening again come windows 7 and the ehome team is working on stuff for windows 8?

I did not say that we "dropped support for an existing and active product", and just because our team is currently focused on our existing coding milestone for the next major release, should not imply that we are abandoning our existing users.  Tim Schreck and the SE team continue to service our existing products, and we continue to investigate ways to improve the experience for our existing users.  I can speak from personal experience that my team is still investigating ways to improve EPG listings and lineups data for Vista users.

JeffTucker – MSFT:

I can speak from personal experience that my team is still investigating ways to improve EPG listings and lineups data for Vista users.

Straight from the... err, ummm "Horses Mouth"... giddy up.

JeffTucker – MSFT:

I did not say that we "dropped support for an existing and active product", and just because our team is currently focused on our existing coding milestone for the next major release, should not imply that we are abandoning our existing users.  Tim Schreck and the SE team continue to service our existing products, and we continue to investigate ways to improve the experience for our existing users.  I can speak from personal experience that my team is still investigating ways to improve EPG listings and lineups data for Vista users.

For Vista users or OEM Vista users?  Has there been a post yet explaining why it is OEM only?

lozenp:

Jeff, I'm curious to know what you would do if you were in the market for a HTPC right now under these circumstances:

• You live in an area where OTA HD is spotty.
• You currently rely on QAM for your HD content.
• Cablecard is not an option, you're just looking for some basic HD content.

I know you can't tell us what to do, just looking for some insight. Would you wait? Would you buy and plan for the OEM update?

Hypothetically, I'd feel fairly confident with a hardware purchase right now that included the TV Pack, because not only would I get all the functionality I'm looking for... I'd also have a hardware setup that has an excellent chance of supporting the next Windows release when it came out.  I'm sure there are exceptions, because most of us are on the bleeding edge... but you get my point that we aren't planning another OEM-only release, at the moment.  HOWEVER, if I were in the same situation as many of the power users on here with brand new HTPC setups, and I needed to get this working now... I'd probably use Vista SP1 and use manual steps to get QAM working.  I'm pretty sure that you could leverage the experience of the TGB community to have a fully functional QAM setup in Vista.

This is all hypothetical, as I'm not currently in the market for a new PC, but I hope this helps.

mikinho:

JeffTucker – MSFT:

I did not say that we "dropped support for an existing and active product", and just because our team is currently focused on our existing coding milestone for the next major release, should not imply that we are abandoning our existing users.  Tim Schreck and the SE team continue to service our existing products, and we continue to investigate ways to improve the experience for our existing users.  I can speak from personal experience that my team is still investigating ways to improve EPG listings and lineups data for Vista users.

For Vista users or OEM Vista users?  Has there been a post yet explaining why it is OEM only?

Yes, there have been several posts adding insight into the decision behind the OEM-only release.  If you are asking about my last statement regarding our investigation into ways to improve EPG for Vista users... it would be ALL Vista users.  OEM users with the TV Pack will already receive the improved EPG (remember that is the new infrastructure I was talking about in some other posts a while back).