Why are analog tuners required for MCE, Vista

[alexh]

Hi,

With the upcoming demise of analog TV transmission, I wondered why there were no digital only (i.e. ATSC/QAM) tuners. Well it turns out there are but amazingly they will only work if there is also an analog NTSC tuner in the system (not positive about this requirement under Vista).

It appears this is a windows requirement perhaps mandated by the FCC for some reason?

http://www.aver.com/mpd/a180retail_spec.html

[jhhoffma]

Because M$ are d**ks.

I'm sure it came down to the fact that when MCE was being developed ATSC tuners weren't all that popular and signals were hard to achieve. You needed something to be able to plug into your cable and just get working without the hassle.

Remember MCE is an OEM OS, meant to be preinstalled by system builders not for the general public to be purchasing and building their own systems with.

[sjoukew]

It has 1 good reason: MCE / Vista has a windows service which records tv programs / movies etc. This service must be able to run on the background without using resources (or a very small amount) so the active user can do whatever he/she wants without being disturbed.
While watching live tv, the background service is recording and the MCE frontend is showing the just recorded tv program / movie.
In order to record on the background the tvtuner must have a mpeg2 encoder onboard, (so it doesn't use the cpu for it) and it must also encode the audio signal by itself and not by the system audio device. This also in order to let the service record while the user is listening to music or playing a game.

I still hope somebody makes a card which will meet the requirements for MCE/ Vista.

[Cerb]

First, the demise of analog TV has nothing to do with analog tuner cards. They will still be around, and still work wonderfully when there are not longer analog OTA broadcasts. Most people are not using their analog tuner cards for OTA. I don't even know if they'll work with OTA. For cable, pure digital has no advantage: you lose out on the normal 70+ channels, only getting the few that also come in as HD. With dual tuners, you get both.

Second, it's Windows. Consider yourself lucky you can use more than one tuner at all! I guess MCE has things it wants to see, and one may be a "normal" tuner, which this card lacks. Myth has issues, too, though, so it may not be as simpler as you'd think.

sjoukew: what does that have to do with requiring an analog tuner?

[derekva]

Because M$ are d**ks.

I'm sure it came down to the fact that when MCE was being developed ATSC tuners weren't all that popular and signals were hard to achieve. You needed something to be able to plug into your cable and just get working without the hassle.

When MCE was being developed (they started work on the first version in 2002 or 2003, I think), I don't believe there were any consumer ATSC PCI tuners readily available. As it was, there weren't even very many NTSC cards available when v1 of MCE was released.

And MS aren't d**ks - any more than Apple or Canonical (Ubuntu) are d**ks (which may mean that they are d**ks, depending on your opinion of Apple and Canonical).

-D

[climber109]

The analog tuner is not a requirement in Vista. Also, analog TV tuner cards will stay after 2009 for people using set-top-boxes.

[sjoukew]

I refreshed my memory.
1.1 TV Tuner Requirements and Recommendations
These are the exact requirements and ATSC is supported . I couldn't find the same page for vista but I think it is more or less similar.

@Cerb, it doesn't have to do anything with analog.

[Cerb]

As it was, there weren't even very many NTSC cards available when v1 of MCE was released.

There were plenty. ATi, Hauppage, Pinnacle, and Aver were all in the game by the late 90s. The hardware and NT-based drivers were quite mature by the time MCE was being made. 10-bit tuners finally made it a good deal, though (cable->card->TV could be as good as, or better than, cable->TV).

I can see Aver or MS recommending an analog tuner, but even looking at the MS link, I don't see an analog being a requirement. I see, "if providing analog tuners..." OTOH, this is an OS with, "advanced graphics and audio capabilities" as a system requirement. Vista's are harder to find (they want you to sign up, but Googling works, even though it is mostly PPTs), but they at least have an overview set of requirements that makes sense in terms of choosing hardware (and, as climber109 noted, it is pretty clear that analog+digital is the way MS wants it in Vista). Digital only boxes would definitely confuse and piss off many consumers that want something that just works.

For a new PC (or PC with no tuner at all), why not go up a little bit and get a HVR-1600 or AverTV Combo (or hd-5500, if you're into penguins)? Not everything comes in HD, yet, and that way, you've got it all done in a single card, for less than the cost of separate analog and digital tuners.

Also, analog TV tuner cards will stay after 2009 for people using set-top-boxes.

...and people that don't use analog OTA. The digital conversion doesn't matter much at all for PCs, as almost all will be hooked up to cable. No set-top boxes required.

[alexh]

Thanks guys,

Excellent responses! I actually looked for some other HTPC forums without success, as I was a little reluctant to post this question here being thatsilentpcreview is geared more towards low noise issues but obviously we have a lot of expertise here.