I forgot how much I hate computers at times...

"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
06/18/2019 at 23:57 • Filed to: None

I finally completed the mini ITX system, and transferred the tuner card from my old Media Center computer, a nd that’s when things got stupid.

I don’t remember having this many problems before. Right now WMC thinks it doesn’t have a connection to the internet, even though the internet test FROM WITHIN WMC says it has a valid connection. Without that connection I can’t download guide data and therefore can’t schedule any recordings. I looked at various webpages and YouTube videos on how to fix this problem and have now gone from it taking a few minutes to tell me it can’t get the data to taking hours to make no progress on downloading the data.

The last time I set up WMC I don’t recall having this many issues. This is a fresh install of Win 7 Pro, with all of the updates applied. No other apps, other than AV and a few utilities I’ve used for years, have been installed. I’ve tried disabling the firewall and AV to see if WMC gets out to get its data, but nothing changed.

I guess I know what I’m going to spend the next day doing. It’s the last 10% that seems to take 90% of the time. Yes, I know I should go for Plex or something similar, but I don’t like the idea of paying for guide data so that I can record OTA TV; at that point I might as well reactivate my old TiVo.

DISCUSSION (8)

jminer > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
06/19/2019 at 00:28

It looks like MSFT killed off data sources for Windows Media Center

https://pureinfotech.com/windows-media-player-metadata-service-discontinued/

You’ll have to use someone else. The only ones I’ve used before are MythTV and TVHeadend, but they’re both Linux. I did just order a USB tuner and plan on connecting it to a Raspberry Pi and using that to stream OTA tv to my Plex server.

I also regularly hate computers - even though they’re my career.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > jminer
06/19/2019 at 00:48

That’s kind of odd since my old system had no problem getting program data as recently as this week. The article states that it is m etadata for music and video that they are no longer providing, but it won’t be long until they shut off EPG data as well. Fuck Microsoft with a rusty hammer. I guess I’m going to have to find that disc with WinTV and go through whatever license and registration hell Hauppauge puts me through for d aring to move a piece of software from one computer to another.

jminer > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
06/19/2019 at 01:12

To be fair Microsoft supports it’s products way past their useful lifespan and is way better than basically anyone else on the consumer side. Like 12 people other than you are still using Windows 7 Media center for OTA recording so it understandable they’ve killed it off.

If this had been an Apple or Google product it would have been unceremoniously killed in 2010 when it failed to gather many users.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > jminer
06/19/2019 at 01:22

I see your point. I was late to the world of WMC and was happy that I found a product that worked acceptably and didn’t cost me anything for a change. I just get tired of MS dumping things just when they’re finally getting good and either replacing it with a half-assed alternative or giving up entirely. This is part of the reason I left the wonderful world of IT, especially when surrounded by idiots with a lot of certifications but no idea how to think, improvise and design, and no understanding of how the technology actually works.

And I keep forgetting that the world we live in now is p ay, pay, pay...

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
06/19/2019 at 05:40

Kodi is free....maybe it has a free OTA recording function? I’ve used it in the past with user plugins to access ‘free’ programming (i.e. copyrighted material people posted online that others made plugins to search for), but haven’t really used it as an actual Media Center, though that’s what it’s designed for. Kodi started out as Xbox Media Center way back when.

https://kodi.wiki/view/PVR_recording_software

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
06/19/2019 at 07:10

I tried K odi some time back but in my admittedly brief time with it I found it to be cumbersome to set up and not terribly intuitive. I’m sure that, like Linux, if you take the time to learn it it will do everything you could want. But I don’t have the time to figure it out, and I think Plex is going to do more than I could have imagined. I already paid for a year of DVR service and really like the interface, especially on iOS devices, and if I’m not mistaken I should be able to use AppleTV as the front end.

I may transfer my server into a slightly larger case for better airflow as I heard the fans spinning up quite frequently and would feel better if the airflow was improved. It was also set up to be my Blu-ray player, but I don't know if that will really be necessary. I'll have to look into various options for that feature, but this computer may just turn into something I can leave running and just ignore, for the most part.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
06/19/2019 at 07:45

I have pretty much left my various desktops running 24/7 since 2004 with no ill effects! In fact, if your machine(s) use mechanical hard drives, it’s easier on mechanical drives to NOT turn them off a lot as the spooling the platters up and down lessons the lifespan of the drive motor.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
06/19/2019 at 08:05

I tend to do the same, unless it’s a really power-hungry machine; years ago I couldn’t run a space heater and my gaming PC at the same time because the breaker would trip. My main machine is pretty much all SSD, with an occasional HD plugged in a needed. The media center machine was left on 24/7, but that’s how been replaced by this mini ITX machine. I’m worried about the amount of stuff crammed into such a small box (BD drive, SSD, 4TB HD) with minimal fans.

I’m thinking about looking at another motherboard that I have laying around in an incomplete build (and where I stole the CPU and RAM from) and just make a slightly larger mATX machine that can actually do 4K, and without the cooling worries. The CPU, RAM and drives will be an easy swap over to the new board, and I’ll have more options for expansion. The only annoying part, as always, will be the time to install Windows and all of its updates. With this I can still have a decent mini ITX system for, well, whatever, and a good, expandable machine as a 4K player , media server/DVR and BD player. All in all it should just be $25 for a case unless I decide to repurpose one that I already have (and being the cheapskate that I am I might just do that...)