What can Two Vista RC2 Media Center's do that one can't?

I have two high end laptops running rc2 without problem. One is connected to a tv tuner and media center is working great, I love it! I have a second laptop that is alos running Vista rc2 but no tv tuner. Can anyone tell me if there is functionality to allow my TV to stream from the latop with the tuner to the laptop without the tuner? I tried added the second latop as an extender but that didn't want to work. Any ideas?

Any other featrues I should try?

I guess, if they're on the same network / workgroup that you can share folders and watch recorded stuff on the second Laptop, along with sharing music.

I don't think you can "share" a TV tuner, though.

Ya, i knew you could do that...I was really hoping for streaming TV...

The scenarios I was thinking about was...

the desktop aka the home server has the tv tuner and is general is a beefy machine ( larger storage and screen for games and so on) but the laptops in my house, of which I have 3 in total, should be able to use some of the functionality of the desktop with the tuner...

I should be able to watch the same TV channel on the laptops that is being displayed on the desktop.

I would like to the following;
Stream live TV to a second vista media center on the home LAN

I should be able to change the channels of the live stream from any media center in the house.
 
I should be able to set or edit the recorded TV list from any media center in the house.

I should get the full media center extender experience on a Vista media center system.

Can anyone tell me if any of this is possible in Vista right now?

Thanks,
 

D
R
M


Talk to Hollywood, cuz you don't really own that box, nor the show you record, the electricity running to it, or the network cable hanging out the back.


D
R
M

Preventing Fair Use so you don't have to think about what's fair!  Yaaaaay DRM!

jeffdiogenes wrote:

D
R
M


Talk to Hollywood, cuz you don't really own that box, nor the show you record, the electricity running to it, or the network cable hanging out the back.


D
R
M

Preventing Fair Use so you don't have to think about what's fair!  Yaaaaay DRM!

Hey, that was the most useless post I saw in the last week! You WIN!

SuleyMan wrote:

Ya, i knew you could do that...I was really hoping for streaming TV...

The scenarios I was thinking about was...

the desktop aka the home server has the tv tuner and is general is a beefy machine ( larger storage and screen for games and so on) but the laptops in my house, of which I have 3 in total, should be able to use some of the functionality of the desktop with the tuner...

I should be able to watch the same TV channel on the laptops that is being displayed on the desktop.

I would like to the following;
Stream live TV to a second vista media center on the home LAN

I should be able to change the channels of the live stream from any media center in the house.
 
I should be able to set or edit the recorded TV list from any media center in the house.

I should get the full media center extender experience on a Vista media center system.

Can anyone tell me if any of this is possible in Vista right now?

Thanks,
 

You are talking about a software MCX (I believe the codename was bobsled or something). As far as I know, there was discussion about building one some time ago, but I have no idea where are they now.

And no, again as far as I know, you can't control a tuner from another Vista machine.

PaoloM wrote:

You are talking about a software MCX (I believe the codename was bobsled or something). As far as I know, there was discussion about building one some time ago, but I have no idea where are they now.

Ok so I have an honest question that hopefully someone (Charlie Owen ?) can answer. How does an Xbox/360 differ from a standard PC (essentialy thats all they really are underneath, IIRC) that allows it to be an MCX where another Media Center PC can't be? It's been something that the MCE community has wanted for just about ever. Are the limitations impossed by the lack of some special hardware or by the lack of the bits from the Xbox platform? If its just missing bits how hard is it to make them available within a MCE PC?

Vista contains the third shipped version of MCE and by now the community is wondering why MSFT won't make the feature available. Some claim its to sell more extenders (which honestly sounds like bull). It can't be to ship more Xbox's as that really isn't/shouldn't be the main purpose for buying a 360.

bobsled was the codename of the project for the extenders built by 3rd parties like linksys, IIRC. If they can do it why can't we get it for our PC's?

Ang3lFir3 wrote:

Ok so I have an honest question that hopefully someone (Charlie Owen ?) can answer. How does an Xbox/360 differ from a standard PC (essentialy thats all they really are underneath, IIRC) that allows it to be an MCX where another Media Center PC can't be? It's been something that the MCE community has wanted for just about ever. Are the limitations impossed by the lack of some special hardware or by the lack of the bits from the Xbox platform? If its just missing bits how hard is it to make them available within a MCE PC?

I know, and I want that too. Charlie is probably the best person to answer this...

Ang3lFir3 wrote:

bobsled was the codename of the project for the extenders built by 3rd parties like linksys, IIRC.

You're right. I checked and the codename was "softsled"

I cannot accept this award, but thanks for the personal flaming.

Can someone set me stright...

My XBOX 360 can pull a LIVE TV stream to it from my Vista Media Center, but a second Vista Media Centerthat is also on my LAN can't?


I'm no IT god, but that seems a little silly.....I cant be the first person who is wanting to do this...I mean, maybe someone could try to answer the question Why? Why can't MS allow a LAN with more then one media center to act as an extender to the others and vis versa?

I mean that just makes sense to my simple brain.

IT SUCKS...

haha I'm no apple lover but maybe Steve Jobs will jump in and put that feature in Frontrow. Then maybe MS would follow. If not Apple someone will hack it in there....I hope MS wakes up on this one....

and if something is coming down the pipes for this sorry for the MS bashing..

SuleyMan wrote:

Can someone set me stright...

My XBOX 360 can pull a LIVE TV stream to it from my Vista Media Center, but a second Vista Media Centerthat is also on my LAN can't?

Correct.

SuleyMan wrote:

I'm no IT god, but that seems a little silly.....I cant be the first person who is wanting to do this...I mean, maybe someone could try to answer the question Why? Why can't MS allow a LAN with more then one media center to act as an extender to the others and vis versa?

Because there's no software MCX in Vista.

SuleyMan wrote:

I mean that just makes sense to my simple brain.

IT SUCKS...

So it does.

SuleyMan wrote:

haha I'm no apple lover but maybe Steve Jobs will jump in and put that feature in Frontrow. Then maybe MS would follow. If not Apple someone will hack it in there....I hope MS wakes up on this one....

I would hope that Apple would FIRST implement some kind of TV tuner/DVR functionality in FrontRow before going around and claiming that they invented media center functionalities...

SuleyMan wrote:

and if something is coming down the pipes for this sorry for the MS bashing..

"is coming down the pipes"? What does that mean?

I remember the codename as softsled, too.

I'm still old-fashioned (not running Vista or MCE yet).  However, I remember reading a long time ago a fairly clever idea to stream television to a PDA (though the technique might also work in your situation).

Download and run the free Windows Media Encoder (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx).  Select your TV tuner card, quality settings, and stream it on an available port.

On the other machine, simply connect to the IP address and port number of the first machine, and you can watch streaming video.  It's surprisingly easy.

I am not sure if this will work in Vista, so my apologies if it does not.  It works fine for me in XP SP2.

This does not handle your issue with changing channels, unfortunately, but at least it can handle the streaming part.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the post,...

when I saying coming down the pipes I mean that MS has that feature in development and it will soon be avalaibile to Vista users.


So its all about MCX software bits....do you know why Vista Media Center doesn't have those bits?

Do you know if it ever will?

Also I have seen a lot of traffic about the MS IPTV system on a chip boxes..here in Ottawa Canada the service is starting to take root..


this kind of IP distribution of a TV service would be fully realized if you could distribute it over IP using Media Center from within the home as well...

oh that would mean I wouldn't need a digital HD PVR for each TV....imagine that!

HBEaker......I'll give it a try....

Thanks for the post, it gives me 30% of what I wanted to do...

1. Stream Live TV
2. Manage recorded video schedule and content
3. Change channels



All within the Media center experience from a laptop on the same LAN.

Thanks HBEaker!

SuleyMan wrote:

Thanks for the post,...

when I saying coming down the pipes I mean that MS has that feature in development and it will soon be avalaibile to Vista users.

Oh I see. Sorry me english is no gud

SuleyMan wrote:

So its all about MCX software bits....do you know why Vista Media Center doesn't have those bits?

Do you know if it ever will?

No, I don't know if they even exist, or if they're planned for the future.

SuleyMan wrote:

Also I have seen a lot of traffic about the MS IPTV system on a chip boxes..here in Ottawa Canada the service is starting to take root..

this kind of IP distribution of a TV service would be fully realized if you could distribute it over IP using Media Center from within the home as well...

oh that would mean I wouldn't need a digital HD PVR for each TV....imagine that!

Yes, yes, it would be really nice

SuleyMan wrote:

Ya, i knew you could do that...I was really hoping for streaming TV...

This is the height of insanity.  Beyond TV and many other PVR's have this functionality.  I'm very dissapointed to discover that the new $1k HTPC that I bought for the living room isn't going to be able to stream Live TV from my server machine.

I guess I will be staying with Beyond TV after all.