Kicking and screaming (not really), I've been adding Media Center-esque devices to our household over time - mostly from
Woot auctions because I don't want to put a lot of money into stuff like this, for now. I can say though, is that I'm very impressed with how the newer firmware on the
Hava interfaces with Windows Media Center and how the well the
Pinnacle PCTV 800e works, on a Thinkpad T60.
When I'm at home, I "drive it like I stole it" on my
Dell 2707WFP monitor, and the ATI X1400 really shouldn't be able to keep up with the amount of HD scaling it has to do, but it does it surprisingly well. I'm curious to see how well it will behave on the newer models like the Thinkpad T500.
Long story short, there is a new cumulative update for Media Center that came out in October 2008:
Fixes an issue in which you cannot seek through recorded TV shows on Windows Media Center systems that have digital cable tuners. Additionally, the recorded TV shows display the incorrect length.
Fixes an issue in which Windows Media Center Extenders cannot reconnect to a host computer after the host computer resumes from the suspend mode or the sleep mode.
Fixes an issue which is introduced by in Microsoft Knowledge Base article
950126. In this issue, a video that is paused may resume if you minimize or maximize the Windows Media Center window or if a screen saver starts.
Implements support for Digital Rights Management (DRM)-free copy for digital cable tuners that have the latest digital cable tuner BIOS versions that support DRM-free copy.
Expands the solution that was introduced in Microsoft Knowledge Base article
950126 to improve the experience of recording analog TV broadcasts to include set-top box scenarios.
Previously, some analog TV broadcasts were blocked with the "protected content" message.
Note: This solution does not apply to configurations that use analog TV over digital cable tuners because the BIOS of the digital cable tuners provide content protection.
KB
955519 - you can read about it
here and download the binaries here (
x86/
x64).