Foxtel Digital - My Experiences and Thoughts

[TiggerK]

Hi everyone,

well, I've had a fun few days moving house and setting up my new MCE system. I had everything working great at the old house EXCEPT Live TV (I was waiting for the Foxtel Digital at the new house). I've installed My Movies (thanks Sambooka, loving it totally), and in conjunction with DVD Profiler, that's all great. About to start the boring process of archiving all my DVD's, VCR's, LP's, A couple of select cassette tapes (remember those!) and the CD Collection... Should take about 6 months!!!! Waiting for 400/500GB hard drive prices to drop as well!!!

Anyway, I'm very impressed with MCE2005, BUT...

Foxtel Digital (analogue via set top box) has a few things to note when using it with MCE.

I'll give some info first for those wondering about connectivity... I've seen a few posts (me included!) asking for this info... I now have it...

The current Foxtel Digital set top box is a silver thing with the following connection options.

2 x SCART connections, one labelled TV, and one for VCR with fixed volume out (quite LOUD), RF In and Out, Composite Video Out (RCA), Stereo Audio Out (RCA's - variable volume via remote), and a SPDIF Digital Audio Out (RCA). It also has a USB and RS232 port (unused), and the RJ11 telephone socket in for Pay per View etc.
The Scarts can be configured via the Foxtel Setup screen to output either PAL (composite), RGB, YUV or S-Video Output, but this setting will affect both SCART sockets together. You'll also need the appropriate SCART cables/adaptors to take advantage of the various types of course.

I have a SCART to SCART set to RGB mode for a very good quality image straight to the TV (my CRT TV has an RGB Scart socket - but no Component In - duh!!), and I'm using the Foxtel Composite Video Out and variable Analogue Audio outs going into the AV inputs on my Hauppauge PVR500MCE card for MCE use. Once I sort out the Aerial socket in this new place, I'll try and get the second tuner working with free to air analogue, but I hardly ever watch or tape FTA anyway, so not too worried about that.

I have a 19" LCD and a Philips 32" Widescreen CRT attached to the MCE box. Using the nvidia driver, I'm experimenting with the best way to use it. Currently I have the TV as display 1, which only ever shows a fullscreen image of either a DVD, TV or AVI/MPG playback. the LCD is display 2 and has a small window showing the TV image, and also shows the Windows XP desktop. So I can surf the internet or browse through MCE screens on the LCD while watching fullscreen TV/DVD on the bigger TV. The only limitation (sort of) is that you don't see any MCE menus, playlists, Add On's etc on the TV, only in the LCD window (which can of course be maximised). Not too bad, just means moving the head back and forth between screens!!! :-)

so onto my....

FOXTEL EXPERIENCES.

1) After much fiddling and extreme patience, you MIGHT get some vague attempt at foxtel remote control functionality through the MCE remote, but it seems pointless as the Foxtel 'TV Guide' page is the best way of doing it anyway, and that can't be accessed from the Microsoft remote. Ok, so you accept that you can swap between MCE and Foxtel remote controls, no big drama. I would like to hear from anyone who has had more luck with changing channels on foxtel via the MCE remote....

2) The picture can sometimes be a little bit pixellated, but is actually quite decent. Audio is also good, sometimes a tiny bit of sync issues, but nothing to worry about.

3) The main problem is that because of the buffering being done by the MCE box ALL THE TIME when you're watching Live TV, there is a delay of a second or two between hitting a button on the foxtel remote, and seeing the effect of that button push. This does become a BIG problem if you have paused the Live TV picture at some stage because if you have paused for 3 minutes, then come back, hit play, and then decide to change the channel, it will take three minutes before you see the channel change!!! You can imagine that this will drive you insane. The solution is to skip forward to catch up with the current live TV stream, then the delay will be back to a second or so.

4) Question - I've still got some work to do fine tuning the CRT image positioning. Can anyone suggest a good tool to help me stretch the picture through the TV out?? the nvidia decoder has some stretch options, but it's just zoom in and out and move up and down. I need to stretch the image vertically and horizontally seperately. My TV doesn't let me do this (anyone know how to access the service mode on the Philips CRT without opening it up?? :-) - there would go my warranty opening it up to jumper the pins!! - and watch out for those high voltage series resonant circuits!!)

5) About to try EPGRunner to setup the TV Guide. Wish me luck!!!

BTW, the Audigy 2 ZS is a great sounding sound card. Warm and rich without the harsh and 'digital sounding' high/mid that plagued the previous Creative cards.

Cheers everyone.
Tim

[Sambooka]

Hey there Tim, you have been having some fun .

Just a couple of quick things for you. Look here to get the Foxtel guide into MCE and here to get the MCE remote to change channels on the Fox Box.

If you are interested in getting the Fox guide in MCE (and why wouldn't you be as you will be able to schedule recordings) EPGRunner is probably not the guide method for you. You should be OK with Quickguide or Smartguide though.

Cheers

Sambooka

[TiggerK]

OK, got the remote working well after some extra fiddling. Picture's looking good, about the try the EPG mission....

[Sambooka]

Hi Tim,

So now you've linked to this thread and reminded me it was here how did it all turn out?

Scheduled recordings from MCE automatically change channels on the Fox STB? how stable has it been?

Cheers

Sambooka

[TiggerK]

Ah Sambooka, getting me even more impatient now!!! I'm trying to find a spare day to sort it out, but just moved house and it's chaotic. Still I can change channels on Foxtel with the MCE remote no problems, so it should work OK. The delay is a bit annoying due to the MCE buffering but still very useable.

Having to do manual recording when necessary at the moment until I get the EPG working.

I'm thinking the 2006 savings plan is now to have a Data PC sitting in the roof/basement/laundry attached to a Gigabit network cable. It'll have tons of HDD's in it and a fairly basic spec, and the MCE PC can go down to one smallish quiet HDD (or I may try and adopt the solid state storage boot option!!). Too many HDD's = NOISE, even with quiet Barracuda.8 ones!

Kudos Sambooka.

[Sambooka]

Thanks Tim

Please keep us up to date if you could mate. I have Foxtel but no analogue card as I have dual digitals. So that means I can't play with this stuff and I'll have to get my kicks from hearing about your experiences with it.

Cheers

Sambooka

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Sambooka

I have Foxtel but no analogue card as I have dual digitals. So that means I can't play with this stuff and I'll have to get my kicks from hearing about your experiences with it.

Way more important than Sammy getting his kicks is the fact that in about 4 months time I'll be getting Foxtel Digital - I'm keeping a PCI slot free for my 250MCE and I will need a DEFINITIVE guide to get Foxtel up.

So keep up the good work Tigger and don't worry about anybody else

[Matt]

I've been watching this one keenly as well. We got the Foxtel digital hooked up 2 weeks ago and I've been sitting on the fence deciding on what to do. I need it hook up to the MCE box for the convienence of controlling it all from one box, well that's my utopia anyway. It seems to be a bit of a trial at the moment, but here's hoping it will get better in the future.

Cheers

Matt

[NRo]

Originally Posted by TiggerK

BTW, the Audigy 2 ZS is a great sounding sound card. Warm and rich without the harsh and 'digital sounding' high/mid that plagued the previous Creative cards.

Hey mate, how have you got the Audigy 2 ZS hooked up to your amp? You able to get Digital Out to it?

From what I could figure only option is to use 3 RCA to 3.5 mm stereo cables and hook it up via my amps discrete 6 channel in.

Nick.

[TiggerK]

Hey Nick,

not too sure if you mean in or out Digital, but I'm not using either anyway. It only has a Digital Out which is OK for an external decoder box/amp but I'm just using the 7.1 analogue outs with some custom cables to get the side outs as well as the rears. (it uses a stereo L/R/Gnd 3 pole jack, and two 4 pole mini-jacks for RL/RR/SL/Gnd and for CTR/SUB/SR/Gnd... bit weird, wish they'd used 3 poles for all. A bitch to solder!!)

Bit messy, but hey, sounds good. I'm using the nvidia decoder as well BTW.

Cheers
Tim