We’ll be bringing you our thoughts on the Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 (a.k.a Fiji) in the next week or so - whilst Microsoft have taken a drubbing for making the release OEM only, and pulling a few murmured features from the release, there’s actually a lot of great new suff in there for those of us outside the US.
Microsoft yesterday announced full Freeview certification in the UK, which is a big step to improving UK TV support in Windows Media Center. Here’s the details:
Microsoft and Hauppauge First to Bring Freeview-Certified PC Solution to U.K.
Viewers Windows Media Center meets requirements for Freeview certification to deliver enhanced TV content to the PC.
READING, U.K. — Sept. 10, 2008 — Microsoft Corp., working with tuner manufacturer Hauppauge Computer Works Inc., today announced the launch of the first Freeview-certified, PC-based TV solution. With Windows Media Center, found on all PCs running Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate, and Windows Media Center TV Pack, Microsoft will now be able to offer U.K. consumers best-in-class interactive and enhanced TV paired with some of the best personal video recorder (PVR) features available on the market today.
Freeview support is one of the major Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) enhancements of the Windows Media Center TV Pack, an update released to OEMs worldwide on July 16, 2008, with targeted optimizations for TV standards in Europe. Other enhancements of this update include support for Digital Video Broadcasting-Satellite (DVB-S), improved guide and playback experience, great PVR auto-extend support, and the flexibility of support for multiple TV standards.
“The launch of our Freeview-enabled solution is a great addition to Windows Media Center, allowing us to reach more users and add real value to TV consumers and broadcasters,” said John Curran, director, Windows Client Group, Microsoft UK. “We are dedicated to improving Windows Media Center for customers worldwide, and this addition of Freeview as a platform and brand will offer a real benefit to our partners and consumers. We see this as a critical step to building awareness and setting a standard for great TV experiences on the PC.”
Windows Media Center with Windows Media Center TV Pack was certified as Freeview-compliant by the Digital TV Group Ltd., the industry association for digital TV in the U.K. The certification was made in coordination with Hauppauge, which certified its HVR 2200 tuner as part of the same program. Together, the components offer a complete Freeview TV solution for the PC, joining existing manufacturers of Freeview equipment such as Humax Company Ltd., Philips, Panasonic Consumer Electronics Co., Sony Corp. and many more.
The Windows Media Center TV Pack enhancements for the European market, and ultimately Freeview certification, were driven out of Microsoft’s European Development Center, established in 2005 to specifically develop software tailored to the European market. This dedicated European team will continue to focus on interoperability with free-to-air European digital television as part of its commitment to European customers and DVB, the European standards organization.
“The expansion in service of Freeview digital terrestrial TV has created consumer demand for more advanced PC-TV solutions,” said Ken Plotkin, CEO, Hauppauge. “Our Freeview-certified dual tuner, WinTV-HVR-2200, provides Windows Media Center with the ability to record one Freeview digital TV program while it displays another TV program on the PC screen.”
The Freeview logo is also a statement of the quality of Microsoft and Hauppauge solutions. The Freeview certification effectively kicks off a program that will enable PC OEMs and additional tuner manufacturers to launch Freeview-branded PCs with Windows Media Center in the U.K.
Freeview is managed by DTV Services Ltd., a company owned and run by its five shareholders — British Broadcasting Corp., BSkyB Ltd., ITV plc and National Grid Wireless. DTV Services launched in October 2002 and provides up to 48 free-to-air digital TV channels, up to 24 radio stations and interactive services through an aerial. There is no subscription for the service.
“The addition of a Freeview-enabled PC further increases and enriches the number of ways viewers can access Freeview’s subscription-free TV channels,” said Cheryl Sloan, Freeview’s director of strategy and new product development. “Microsoft and Hauppauge have made a great step toward connecting PCs in the home to the Freeview experience, allowing PC users to enjoy the U.K.’s most popular TV platform. We look forward to collaborating with them both to ensure its successful entry to the U.K. market.”
Windows Media Center TV Pack will be demonstrated at IBC2008, Sept. 12–16, at the Microsoft booth in the Topaz Lounge. Visitors to the booth will have the opportunity to experience the latest solution as well as other elements of the product such as broadcast broadband integration.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Seriously - what’s it adding that wasn’t there before? media centre has always supported freeview. So it’s certified now, but so what. It worked great before.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:30 am
MHEG5 support, so you can now use interactive TV, subtitles, digital teletext, graphic support on digital radio etc…
September 11th, 2008 at 10:33 am
The biggest issue with TV Pack 2008 is the lack of the h.264 HD decoder. Many DVB providers are starting to distribute HD these days, and Microsoft will not support it. Seems like we have to wait for the next version of Windows which is rumored to come around 2010. That means I have to wait maybe 2 years or so to get HD. Guess I have to start looking for alternatives then.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Yep, I agree, that is a big missing and no-one really knows why it was pulled.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:38 am
I hope you are right. If you read it with a critical eye, the press release doesn’t actually say that Fiji supports those, just that freeview can.
Even if I could persuade myself to buy a new tuner card (which I probably could - I’m a sucker for new hardware), I still wouldn’t fork out for a new OEM license just to get those features though. It seems wrong to have to pay another £100 or so for a upgrade to an OS I already own.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Hi Martin
I’ve been beta testing Media Center since pre-release in the UK in 2005 - you can trust me
To get Freeview certification, I guess to need to support the whole caboodle.
Agree it’s incremental, but there’s a whole host of people here in the UK (mainly beta testers) who have ripped into Microsoft on a yearly basis with every beta programme regarding the lack of MHEG5 and DVB-S support use of MCE with Sky) - we now have both in place at last, which means that we’ve turned a corner - slowly, but it’s been turned.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:52 am
You raise an interesting point there about DVB-S. I was under the impression that Fiji would support it, but not with a CAM card, so it wouldn’t actually work with Sky. Is that incorrect? Can you have a proper sky media with Fiji? That just might be worth buying a new OEM license - well at least as soon as wtv files are portable to watch on my other media centres round the house.
September 11th, 2008 at 11:16 am
You’ll get pretty much all of the Freesat channels without the CAM, except Channel 4 (I think) which Sky encrypt. You can also buy a Sky Freesat card which you’ll be able to get working with Fiji with the right (Floppy DTV) tuner and CAM.
September 11th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Hi Terry
Is it possible to get the epg for the new (non-sky) freesat with a DVB-S card?
September 11th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Hi Paul,
The Media Center EPG works fine with a DVB-S card for all Freesat channels utilising a Sky dish. I’m not sure at this point if it works with Freesat’s own dish, but my hunch is that it will as it’s basically picking up the same signal. One difference in Fiji is that the EPG is received from the satellite signal itself rather than via a third-party EPG provider, so you’d need to check this out with someone who is using a Freesat satellite dish.
Terry
September 11th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I’ve found that the Microsoft EPG data is much better than the sky and Freeview EPG data. It’s more comprehensive in it’s descriptions, and goes out further in to the future. It’s hard to tell if that is the fault of the receiving device, or if the OTA data is just poor, but I’d be quite happy to keep the existing EPG data. One potential advantage of the OTA data is that it can better be kept up to date with scheduling changes, but in my experience it never is. Anyone know of other advantages of this EPG change?
September 11th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Hi Terry,
A sky dish and a freesat dish are basically the same thing, they both point at the same Astra satelittes. So you can use your existing Sky installed dish to pick up Freesat and vice versa. C4 is also available on Freesat as they started transmitting free to view when Freesat launched.
I too can’t understand why MS pulled the h.264 decoder. I was using the TV pack with the beta H.264 DLL file and it worked perfectly untill the end of September when it timebombed. C4 HD should go free to view shortly so that will be two HD channels that we as VMC users can’t get.
MS to me are very frustrating they so nearly get things right but always seem to spoil things at the last minute. The H.264 decoder is a good example of this.