The Windows TV and/or Remote Control my PC thread

[badass]

Since it is a complete minefield trying to either remote control your PC using a handheld and/or watch TV on a windows PC, I thought I'd start a thread to summarize the various options out there and how good they are.
I plan to list hardware, driver versions and windows versions along with comments on everything everyone has used so far.
e.g. for My hauppauge WinTV Nova TD stick I would say:

OS: Windows 7 RTM 64 bit
RAM: 8GB
GFX card: ATI Radeon 4870 Cat 9.9
Hardware: hauppauge WinTV Nova TD stick
Driver version: TBC - latest at sept 09
Software: Windows Media Center with no add ons
Notes:
With a signal booster, TV quality is fine
Remote simply does not work after resume from standby. PC needs reboot to sort. *changed at 15/10/09*
Remote control goes mental in media center after using for a few minutes with just the driver. To resolve, install the full WinTV7 CD 1.2a. Still does not resume from standby.

OS: Windows Vista 64 bit:
Similar problems to above with just the drivers. Not tried the wintv7 cd 1.2a to resolve the possessed remote problem.


Remote control:
Windows mobile Phone running windows sideshow.
Windows 7 RTM with windows sideshow running.
This on paper showed much promise - more or less turn my Windows mobile into a remote control. All I need is bluetooth.
In practice, however the Windows side of the software simply crashed. It is not currently (Sept 09) supported on Windows 7

The Main areas of interest are relaibility, signal quality and whether the remote works, particularily after standby. As far as I can tell, there is simply no TV tuner card out tehre that the remote works on properly after standby. I hope to be proven wrong.
I expect this will be particularily usefull for people planning on building an HTPC.

Hardware: Windows Media remote from MS.
OS: All Windows since XP.
Remote "just works" No problems reported including working fine from standby.

Hardware: NovaT 500
OS: Windows Vista, XP, 7
All features work fine prior to 7. Resume from standby does not work on Windows 7.

[badass]

....

[kungpo]

Windows MCE remote control from MS? Not expensive and really does work.

[s_kinton]

Windows MCE remote is great, cant go wrong with one of those. Both my HTPCs use them

[badass]

What OS's do you two use?
Are they fine after resuming from standby?

[kungpo]

Actually, don't use standby on my HTPC but I suspect it doesn't wake it up.

I have used trhe same control on XP MCE, Vista Home Premium and now 7 Professional.

[Funkstar]

The MCE remote will wake a PC from standby. It is probably the most compatible remote out there, it even works with MythTV on linux.

An issue you may have with standby is your tuner not being re-initialised very quickly. this is a problem with USB attached tuners, and the PCI cards (like the Nova-T500) which have a couple of USB tuners and a USB controller on a single PCI card. I believe the Nova-T can take 20 seconds to resume. Mediaportal has the ability to wake up early and wait for the cards to become available when powering up on a schedule.

[badass]

Windows MCE remote control from MS? Not expensive and really does work.

Windows MCE remote is great, cant go wrong with one of those. Both my HTPCs use them

The MCE remote will wake a PC from standby. It is probably the most compatible remote out there, it even works with MythTV on linux.

An issue you may have with standby is your tuner not being re-initialised very quickly. this is a problem with USB attached tuners, and the PCI cards (like the Nova-T500) which have a couple of USB tuners and a USB controller on a single PCI card. I believe the Nova-T can take 20 seconds to resume. Mediaportal has the ability to wake up early and wait for the cards to become available when powering up on a schedule.

What other hardware and OS combinations do all of you use? What are your experiences.

[Funkstar]

Too many combinations to list really.

XP with a couple of Nova-T 500s and MediaPortal
Vista 64bit with a couple of Nova-T 500s and MediaPortal TV Server with Vista 32bit clients

Currently my TV server is dead as something has become messed up. Thinking about moving to Win7, but also thinking about Sever 2008 and hacking TV card support into it. Works well I'm told.

I also have two Pinacle dual DVB-T cards, but my motherboard will only take one because of PCIe lane limitations and my two RAID cards. Pain in the neck that.

For MediaPortal, Vista is highly recommended, support for XP will be dropped with MP2 which is looming on the horizon. I don't blame the developers, means a lot of work arounds can be dropped, it is very old OS now.

[kungpo]

Er, nothing that sophisticated; Currently ASUS P5Q Deluxe, E5200 (was E4300), 4GB ram, Windows 7, Hauppauge PVR 4000 connected to dish at Astra 2, ATI 2600 Pro with DVI>HDMI adapter to Sony AV amp to Sharp 42" LCD, with MS MCE remote and IR receiver.

I have tried several combo's of hardware with XP MCE, Vista MCE, and now 7 MCE, although I did find the 7 RC slightly more stable than the RTM code. XP and Vista ran no bother, although originally had a basic Hauppauge DVB-T PCI card before the PVR 4000.

[badass]

Too many combinations to list really.

XP with a couple of Nova-T 500s and MediaPortal
Vista 64bit with a couple of Nova-T 500s and MediaPortal TV Server with Vista 32bit clients

Currently my TV server is dead as something has become messed up. Thinking about moving to Win7, but also thinking about Sever 2008 and hacking TV card support into it. Works well I'm told.

I also have two Pinacle dual DVB-T cards, but my motherboard will only take one because of PCIe lane limitations and my two RAID cards. Pain in the neck that.

For MediaPortal, Vista is highly recommended, support for XP will be dropped with MP2 which is looming on the horizon. I don't blame the developers, means a lot of work arounds can be dropped, it is very old OS now.

Do you only use mediaportal? I'll add that to the list if it creates a nice fuzzy warm "it just works" feeling.

Er, nothing that sophisticated; Currently ASUS P5Q Deluxe, E5200 (was E4300), 4GB ram, Windows 7, Hauppauge PVR 4000 connected to dish at Astra 2, ATI 2600 Pro with DVI>HDMI adapter to Sony AV amp to Sharp 42" LCD, with MS MCE remote and IR receiver.

I have tried several combo's of hardware with XP MCE, Vista MCE, and now 7 MCE, although I did find the 7 RC slightly more stable than the RTM code. XP and Vista ran no bother, although originally had a basic Hauppauge DVB-T PCI card before the PVR 4000.

All working fine and reliably in all cases? Would it be possible to test resume from standby?
I'll add your details to the top post

[Funkstar]

Do you only use mediaportal? I'll add that to the list if it creates a nice fuzzy warm "it just works" feeling.

In that case I wouldn't get my hopes up. Generally, MCE is easier to set up from what I've heard, I've just never really used it. MP can take some setting up, but is generally much more powerful and flexible than MCE. Oh and MCE is not client/server based, so that kind of rules it out for me. Once I get things working as I want them (more a function of time than anything else i think) I'll have living room, kitchen and bedroom clients, with one server in the study. Will also be able to stream to my desktop in the study too.

All working fine and reliably in all cases? Would it be possible to test resume from standby?
I'll add your details to the top post

No, not reliably in all cases. I have an issue right now where MP can see my tuners but won't tune to anything on them. I can't decide if it's a driver or MP issue. This is with both the Pinnacle and the Hauppauge. This is why I'm thinking of wiping the OS and starting fresh. MP 1.1.0 RC1 is out soon, so I might just wait for that.

I don't miss not having TV, all this is more for fun than anything else

[badass]

first post updated
Remote still does not work from standby, however problem with it doing it's own thing sorted.

[dangel]

On standby problems - here's my current solution whilst my NOVA-T-500 drivers suck:

-> Set the bios to wake up via RTC every day at 5.30pm
-> Use the task scheduler to shut the machine down at 2.30am "shutdown.exe /s /f /t 30"

ATM I have a problem (Win 7 RTM) with the machine waking up - simply because the NOVA T 500 tuners (2) go missing after wake (this is a well known issue). Everything else works so far.

I use the MS remote too - nothing comes close IMHO. Mine does wakeup from standby - you must check your bios settings keep USB alive during standby.

[s_kinton]

What other hardware and OS combinations do all of you use? What are your experiences.

I've got two HTPCs, both using MS remotes to put them into S3 standby and wake them from it with zero problems. They're set to sleep after 20mins of no activity, both wake themselves up, record and then sleep when required. Both are dual booting with Vista 32bit and Win 7 32bit RC using Media Centre for all my needs.

The setups are:

HTPC 1 (Micro-ATX) - AMDx2 4000+, Asus M3N78-EM, 2Gb Kingston DDR2, 2x 1TB Samsung F2 HDDs & 80GB Samsung HDD, Pinnacle Dual DVB-T PCI tuner, Antec Minuet case, HDMI to HDTV

HTPC 2 (Mini-ITX) - AMDx2 4850e, Zotac 8200-ITX WIFI, 2Gb Corsair DDR2, 60Gb Hitach 2.5" HDD, Compro u80 DVB-T USB tuner, Akasa Enigma case, HDMI to HDTV

As Dangel says, the trick to getting this all to work is in the BIOS. Be sure that your USB devices are allowed to wake the PC from standy (also go into device manage, right click the device and make sure the allow to wake PC is ticked).

S3 suspend is also something that will need turning on in the BIOS before windows can use it. By default some BIOS' have it turned off....

[bigben1021]

Could anyone tell me where the best place to get a MS remote is? Can't really find them on sale any more.