MS AU MCE Tech feedback on MCE

[ExtremePC]

I've had some feedback from an MS MCE technical guru in oz. heres a few tidbits from the mail.


The current version of Media Center doesn’t have official support inAustralia for digital tuner cards, as that wasn’t a test scenario for thefirst release in Australia. One of the big reasons for this is based aroundthe Australian implementation of AC3 5.1 sound on the 9 and 10 highdefinition channels, which is something that no other major markets do. Asyou have found, the standard definition channels usually work fine,sometimes with updated drivers, sometimes with edited files to put in thecorrect tuning tables. The channels that are used to send the additionalaudio on these stations is similar to how some of the European stations senddifferent language audio streams, also via DVB-T, so there is work takingplace to ensure this happens in the future. What you will usually see iftrying to tune in to the 9 HD channel for example is a brief image, then noimage, as MCE syncs to the incoming audio, and with the AC3 5.1 sound itdoesn’t know where to look for the audio.Due to the inclusion of the current European DVB-T capabilitie, our SDchannels usually work. At this stage we aren’t really prepared to come outwith a message like “Includes Digital Tuner Support*”, with the * notesaying excludes 10HD and 9HD, for example, so we felt it was safer to say itincluded analog only support in this release.....At the moment the only official way we can take a cable or satellite feedin is via the svideo or composite feed, this will then allow MCE to send IRcommands through to the STB.....