Peter's Blog - Windows 7

ATI DCT Firmware Released - Install not so obvious

Peter — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:39:33 GMT

Thanks to EngadgetHD, I've been made aware that the ATI DCT (Digital Cable Tuner) update has finally been released.
We're now up to 1.19.12

Did this on Windows7x64

1) Installing via Windows Update. Not available directly from AMD/ATI

2. Curious. Says it is installed, but it didn't update my firmeware. Guess I'll aimlessly restart the computer before I start getting too upset

3. Upon reboot, it automatically starts updating both of my DCTs. I can hear it restart each tuner after it flashes each

4. Confirmed on device homepage

5. Confirmed by recording a show. Family Guy was before the update. You can see it is DRM protected. You should be able to record a show after the update with no DRM

CableCard tuners to work on ANY PC! - SDV Support

Peter — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:56:40 GMT

Our man Ben @ EngadgetHD has been live blogging from CEDIA

He has brought us OFFICIAL great news!

Media Center will officially support SDV for CableCard Tuners
CableCard tuners will work on ANY PC! No longer has to be an OEM machine! (I had to use a refurbed Sony VGX-XL3)

Source: EngadgetHD

To the enthusiasts out there that are familiar with this, you're probably freaking out at the possibilities. As for the rest of you who think I'm a nutter, I'll translate. Media Center lately has had an uncertain fate. No one knew what the future for Media Center held since manufactures were ceasing production of extenders and CableCard DRM made life so horrible, that only the enthusiasts knew how to use it.

With DRM being relaxed, any consumer can add a CableCard tuner, and extending the product life of current CableCard tuners with the newly added SDV support -> a spark of life has been put back into Media Center! It means MS really hasn't forgot about us at TGB.

I'm sure there will be more information to come. But as there is a new hope for Media Center, they still have a lot of work to do to expand their audience beyond the enthusiasts.

ATI Digital Cable Tuners will support SDV !!!

Peter — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:31:02 GMT

Happy Tuesday! Chris Lanier is a great source for Media Center information. He posted this last week http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/archive/2009/09/03/1720490.aspx

I've been so busy that I almost missed it!

I've complained in the past about CableCards and the DRM that ensues: http://www.peterf.net/blog/2008/10/10/WhyIsCableCardDRMBad.aspx

Chris's information comes in two flavors:
A: Next firmware will support SDV (switched digital video)
B: Next firmware will support relaxed DRM on specific channels

Now while nothing is final until I see it on my tuners and working, this is a bright ray of sunshine coming for those of us in this deep hole. By "us", I mean the early adopters that knew they could get screwed at any moment since there was no public roadmap on how to handle different cable TV specifications.

What does this mean?

Current ATI DCT owners will not get left behind as their Cable Operator moves to SDV
Many current owners will be able to get the same channels as their Tivo/Cable operator box
All recordings will no longer be laced with DRM (only recordings that are requested to have DRM will be laced)
Opens a window for DCT users to watch TV episodes on other computers since the extender model was the only way to watch DCT DRM laced shows previously. You will be able to watch DRM-less recordings on other computers

I expect all of this to be Windows 7 only. Always good to support Vista, but I won't complain.

AVG now supports Windows 7

Peter — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:53:03 GMT

http://free.avg.com/

AVG now supports Windows 7. I tried looking through their site for a changelog/blog. But they're latest news from July doesn't mention. All of a sudden their site mentions Windows 7 support when a search for it previously returned zero results

So far it is working well. Glad to have it back on my machine!

Windows 7: First 24 Hours with Peter

Peter — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:37:06 GMT

This is by no means a full review of Windows 7. I was beta testing for a while, and now I have my hands on the RTM (release to manufacturing). Naturally, I find a few more bugs in the release. They'll all be submitted soon via MS Connect.

First off, my install went smoothly. The hardware is around 1.5 years old with a new graphics card and hard drive. On first boot, my HomeGroup was found from my laptop running build 7100. Very impressive.

My raid array was found with no issues. I actually felt that I did not need to install any drivers to boost obvious performance. But being the nerd I am, I naturally hit the graphics driver first from Nvidia.

My only issues with tools like Nvidia's control panel are that Microsoft should be stepping up to the plate and integrating these kind of tools. It will be much easier for debugging when people are running raw drivers and no extra tools. I bet support staff would love that also. Bravo Nvidia for giving me an easy way to check my HDCP link!

Here is the kicker. I installed the Nvidia driver and it didn't require a reboot!?!?!?!??!! That shocked me something fierce.

Nothing really new here in the Performance control panel. Just higher numbers are possible.

Since Windows XP, I have always moved my personal documents to a separate HDD. It makes OS reinstalls a piece of cake. Things get a little more interesting by having setup. But I have all my data in a folder structure I've had in place for a while, so no biggie there for me.

MMmmm. Media Center.The main reason for this install. Nice marketing info there MS.... We continue...

I naturally go for the custom setup.

I'm not going to bore you with too many aimless screen shots. Here I am entering TV setup
For those familiar with TVPack and it's issues, you will love this. It is automatically installing PlayReady for you.

My CableCards are found (2x). Nothing new

Guide setup. Nothing new.

Display setup offers nothing new: just the same old confusion. If I select TV, I will fall victim to the interface "underzooming" to prepare for the overscan that doesn't exist on my TV. I can go on for a while on this topic.

Here is the new guide. Nothing too new. Nice options for "right clicking" and being able to change channel info. This was first introduced in Vista's TV Pack

This is the new "Start" screen. It is organized a little better. Movies is something I plan on playing with more. I think there is a lot of wasted space on the today screen. I wouldn't mind seeing some things moved around. If I scroll all the way up to the top, I can only see one item. Huge space waste. Take a hint from the new home screen on Windows Mobile 6.5.

I tried searching for showings, but whoops! No guide to search from? But I just looked at the guide. Was it not downloaded all the way? I went down to the Media Center tray icon to see what info is available. Under TV Pack (and possibly non-TV Pack), I could see what percentage of the guide was downloaded.

At this point, since I couldn't do anything useful, I shut down. The next day I turned it on, came back a while later, and the search worked. I'd love to see some more robust error messages here with some user options to intervene.

Here I am setting up my series to record. Unfortunately, the search offers nothing new except in the program data.
But in the screenshot listed above, there is a neat little window that explains what tv show I searched for. Ohh... look at that. Why are there HD and non-HD versions listed? This is due to my cable company having duplicate channels. I will later have to go through and delete these duplicate analog stations.

I would really appreciate a built in tool, possibly automatic when the guide is getting setup, to automatically swap and delete channels. Example: I want my channel 2 to be HD

Also, this screen's 'tabs' at the top are confusing. The screenshot above shows the default view. If I didn't see those arrows hiding in the corner, I would have never known that there was additional information available.

I had to fish around in the menus to find the options for series recording. A step back there. But the same options when I found them.

Bug: Here comes a bug. I wanted to search for "Law & Order". Searching for "Law" gets me where I need, but I decided to type "&" to refine my search results.

Boom, no results. I would qualify this as a bug. Without understanding how they're searching, I'll throw out a guess that & is jacking with their search parameters.

I decided to play with Internet TV again. After this step, I had multiple Internet TVs listed on the Start page. One listed as beta, one not.

Sweet Arrested Development! Wait.... I'm searching for series, but why am I getting individual seasons? I'd like to see all Arrested Development seasons listed under a single show name.

As I was getting ready to lay down and watch an episode of Arrested Development, I was met with "Acts". Not quite sure what I'm expected to do with them. They're all out of order anyway! I left, and have not returned yet to TV Series

What I really did enjoy was the Viral videos! This is such a great way to waste time. I did this until I fell asleep.

Bug: Every time I put in a USB flash drive or SD card, Windows pop up always shows up behind other windows. Rather annoying. Don't pop anything up if I can't use it. I'd rather go hunt through "computer" if I have to click extra times.

IE8- Someone needs to put their foot down and redo the version system. Here is my recommendation
IE6= IE6
IE6.1= IE7
IE6.2= IE8

So, IE6.2 is a good upgrade from 6.1. It adds a few new features, but overall gives me nothing too new. Read more on what my thoughts are on IE8 .

Bug: Every time I restore or maximize Media Center, my cursor gets centered on the screen. This is rather annoying when my cursor goes flying across the screen and I have to hunt it down again.

Conclusion:
Very exciting. I love the new desktop experience. I skipped over many things like this because they've been covered in great detail by others

When I began writing this blog post, I wasn't expecting to finish with 3 bugs and a few annoying rants about issues. But unfortunately, that's how I roll.

This was written to specifically lay out my first RTM impressions, more to come soon!

Peter

Windows 7 RTM

Peter — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:10:15 GMT

Well, we've reached that time where we no longer have to hear about leaked betas, release candidates, or early fake RTMs of Windows 7.

It is done, completed, and been shipped to manufacturers (and people who have better connections than me). At this point, they're making images and testing the final version on their machines. And yes, we can all look forward to lots of crapware being installed on it: "Windows has a wireless manager, try the Dell wireless manager!" "You didn't want to use Windows power management, here is our custom tool" "You wanted to be reminded every boot about hp's printer driver update, right?"

We've all been hearing plenty about Windows 7.

"It's Vista with less suck"
"It's the Vista we should've had"

Okay, I said most of those things. I wasn't a Vista hater, but it would've been nice to get some of those features earlier on. I'm personally looking forward to it for all my uses.

1) Laptop:Will run smoother, new window management make touch pad usage easier
2) Media Center: The features I gained in Vista's Media Center TV Pack will be integrated into Windows 7. (Not looking forward to having to reset my DRM on my CableCard recordings)
3) Vehicle: I've been running XP due to its low resources and not wanting to bet on drivers for Vista. It's been misbehaving lately and could use a more modern OS. I'm ready to make the jump there

Yes, I'm saying XP is not modern. It's OLD: 2002 if my my memory serves me right. Honestly, it was beefed up Windows 2000 to support graphics and a better GUI.

We're 3 months away from when it will hit the shelves. It's a little too long for me! I miss my MSDN account......