thanks scuffs.
I tried rebooting a couple of times and it seemed to start working. It now gets to about 1/2 through downloading the data and then I get a CLR runtime error and the whole of media centre crashes.
why god why??? things are never simple are they?
Has anyone got this to work with Rollup 2?
I just purchased two Media Center PC's for my daughters (One is an e-machines T6520, the other an older rebuilt PC) and neither of them came with tuner cards.
My plan was to set them up to "watch" the Recorded TV folder on the main HTPC and be able to watch TV on them.
I've added the "watched folders", made the gpedit.msc mods to the server to share it's recorded TV folder, and performed the TV tuner registry tweak on the new machines.
It seems to work most of the time (you can watch recorded TV on them), but both of them are unstable and MCE regularly crashes simply by scrolling through certain recorded TV shows (you don't even have to play them). Also if I click "Live TV" twice it crashes with the same application error.
All I can guess is MCE is somehow trying to comunicate with the non-existant tuner and this causes it to crash.
Is there a functional work around or am I going to have to purchase two never to be used tuner cards if I want this to work?
I searched and searched the forums and the internet and couldn't find any reference to how to get around this MCE crash. The crash was completely repeatable on both computers, even tried a second fresh install on one of them (before I had anything setup - just the OS). I also tried to get this working when I first got the system with the eMachines install - Same problem.
For anyone trying to get this working here is how I did it (our systems are all fully updated MCE 2005 systems, including Rollup 2, latest drivers and all Windows updates - as of Nov 15, 2005):
On the Primary Media Center PC (with the tuner):
- Share the Recorded TV folder as "Recorded TV" (or other preference) with wide open permissions, including Everybody having full control. Note you have to change both the folder permissions and the shared permissions (you may have to turn off simple file sharing in "folder options", "view" within any file explorer window).
- Edit the group policies by running gpedit.msc and make the following changes:
- find "Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options\Network access: Let Everyone permissions apply to anonymous users". Turn it on (enabled).
- find "Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options\Network access: Shares that can be accessed anonymously". Add "Recorded TV" (or whatever you shared the recorded TV as to the list of shares.
- Shut down the primary Media Center PC and pull the TV tuner out of it as well as the MCE remote and IR blaster (if you're using one)
On the client Media Center PCs
- Install the TV tuner card, remote and IR blaster in one of the client machines
- Install the tuner driver (ideally manually through the manage hardware or the automatic "found new hardware" popup so you don't end up with any unused tuner applications)
- Boot the PC up, start MCE and start and complete the TV setup wizard as you did on the primary Media Center PC (once upon a time...). Fake your way through the control STB settings (if you're using a set top box on your your primary HTPC - otherwise just configure the tuner normally) by using "manual configuration" and selecting s-video, and "pretending" that it is controlling the STB.
- Go into the TV settings and set everything exactly the way you want (parental controls, guide listing - including editing channels, etc.). You will not be able to return to these settings without re-installing a TV tuner (or tweaking through registry settings, etc.).
- Exit MCE and add the primary HTPC's recorded TV link to the watched folders by running "regedit", clicking on "My Computer" at the top, searching (F3) for "WatchedFolders". Double click on the registry setting and add the path for the shared folder below the existing local folder (for example \\HTPC\Recorded TV).
- Shut the PC down, and go back to the "Install the tuner" step for the other Media Center PC's in your house.
- Return the TV Tuner, remote and IR blaster to the primary Media Center PC and turn on all of the PC's (you don't need to uninstall the TV tuner drivers from the client PCs, XP will deal with them automatically)
Now you should have everything working smoothly and reliably on all of the PCs.
On the client PCs without a TV tuner, if you now click on "Live TV" a nice blue screen warning pops up stating the TV tuner is missing (instead of crashing). Also scrolling through the watched folder works perfectly. As an additional bonus you will have a fully functional guide on every machine. Scheduling recordings will do nothing (no TV tuner) so you still have to use the primary Media Center PC for all recordings (you can remote log on from any PC).
I spent many hours trying to get this to work without moving the tuner card over and none of the other suggestions I found on the web (and I found many) were able to make the client PCs stable (I did get them working, but clicking on "Live TV" a couple times crashed MCE as well as the PCs simply crashed every now and then while scrolling through "Recorded TV". I also had many problems with guide download errors, etc. until I did this.).
I hope this helps the next person searching for how to get this working...
I think you'll find the only way to have a stable MCE 2005 SP2 install and functioning Recorded TV (watching another PC's folder) is to temporarily install a TV Tuner card. I was not able to get things working properly with any sort of hack. I even tried copying all sorts of registry entries, copying guide directories, etc. All of the tricks I could find and nothing worked (on any of the PC's I was setting up). As soon as I temporarily installed a TV Tuner, everything worked perfectly.
If you don't want the guide, simply don't enable it during setup.
Check out this post from Matt Goyer on his blog...
http://mediacenter.mattgoyer.com/archives/2006/05/11/1115
Check ebay - there is someone selling NVTV tuner cards with remote for $29. I asked to buy one without the remote and the price was $15 + $5 for shipping. Bottom line, for $20 my MCE box thinks it has a tuner (because it does) and gives me all the functionality. I could even add an input signal and watch TV.
Actually, my purpose was to get by the requirement for an NTSC tuner in order to add an HDTV one.
JrFoxMN: Check out this post from Matt Goyer on his blog... http://mediacenter.mattgoyer.com/archives/2006/05/11/1115
We just picked up a new laptop so I tried this tweak on it. Unfortunately it's the same as all of the other tweaks I tried before - it crashes and locks up when scanning through the recorded TV list of shows as well as if I click on Live TV.
I need a solution to this one since the laptop doesn't have a PCI slot to use my tweak above.
Hi im new to the whole MCE scene if you guys are still looking to hack the registry to enable MY TV and EPG, all you need to is edit these entries:
This will enable the MY TV to appear on start menu
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\TVConfig]"iVideoSource"=dword:00000002"iBroadcastStandard"=dword:00000001"fHasSTB"=dword:00000000"fHasDVB"=dword:00000000"Version"="65537"
To make the Guide work you need to edit these entries
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\ProgramGuide]"fAgreeEPGPrivacy"=dword:00000001"fAgreeTOS"=dword:00000001"fEpgDataAvailable"=dword:00000001"fGetEpgData"=dword:00000001"fUsageTracking"=dword:00000000"Version"="65537
After this you will be able to see the guide feature in MY TV.
The first time you go on guide it will give you various errors such as channals not setup, no TV Tuner device, you keep clicking OK.
then you will be given an option to setup your guide with setup click that and go throught the setup process it should hopefully give you the guide it worked for me i just did this using trial and error.
Just for the heck of it I tried the registry hack (without a tuner installed) again (as well as on the laptop a few months ago) on a new MCE 2005 install, fully updated and once again MCE became unstable. None of these hacks have worked.
I shouldn't say that they don't work at all. The hacks initially appear to work and My TV does show up (with a bunch of error messages related to the EPG). If the Recorded TV folder being watched has only a couple of shows in it, My TV is now able to watch these shows (so it appears to work at first). Unfortunately if I add our main HTPC with lots of Recorded TV shows available, the "hacked" MCE box quickly becomes unstable and crashes MCE on a regular basis. If you're willing to keep restarting MCE and keep trying to watch TV, you typically can watch TV. Once it's playing it works. The problem is MCE keeps crashing over and over while you scroll through the list of Recorded TV. I left the laptop for close to a month in this state to see if (as suggested by others) it would start to work over time - it didn't.
I ended up buying a USB MCE WinTV tuner for the laptop and have used this to configure additional MCE computers. Once again this works (temporarily installing a tuner) and once the tuner is removed, the MCE computer remains stable and able to watch Recorded TV through "watched folders".
Unless someone can figure out what really needs to be configured in the registry, etc. I highly recommend temporarily installing a tuner (following my post above) if you want to use an MCE computer to watch Recorded TV folders on other computers.
Note my experience is with the North American distribution of MCE 2005 (I have no idea if MCE is different in other areas of the world).
TDave00:I know this thread is old, but why wouldn't you just share the recorded tv folder from your computer that has a tuner/does all the recording, and then set the other mce machine with no tuner to share/watch that folder from "My Videos". That's what I do here and it works fine. I then just go into recorded tv folder from my videos and all the recorded tv is available.
That works, but it doesn't provide as slick an interface with as much of the metadata (show description, etc.). Also, in our case we have roughly 200 recordings on hand, many of them multiple shows from specific series. With the full "My TV" interface, MCE groups the shows by series which reduces the clutter. One final advantage (big one IMO when considering my wife and children) is the interface is identical no matter where we watch TV in the house (we have 6 MCE computers, including old Pentium II's and Celerons hooked up to the extra TVs in the basement, etc.).
I agree about the interface and metadata. I was just trying to offer anyone reading a quick fix.
I am gonna be using this trick/hack next week when my HD Home Run arrives.
Another piece of good information to people using this hack is to check out Recording Broker. It resolves recording conflicts by sending them to another MCE computer of your choice. I was reading the comments and the developer is supposedly going to try and make it work where you can send all the recordings to another computer. Is anyone that is using this hack also using Recording Broker? I am wondering what happens when you try to record a program and the tuner has been pulled? Would recording broker send it to another MCE machine?
Were are you supposed to put them codes I doesnt say