Setting up and Caring For a Windows Media Center Computer

I. Howto

II. Quirks

III. Plans

1. You need Vista Home Premium or Ultimate. I had XP Media Center before and although I enoyed it a lot, Vista is much better.
2. Other things I installed:
   • DVRMS Toolbox. This is now a very simple installer. The main setting changes will be the toggle for turning autoskip on or off. The default uses the Up and Down arrow buttons. These are now used by the Vista Mini-Guide feature, so there is a conflict. When you press the arrow buttons, the mini-guide comes up and so does the Auto-Skip dialog. Solved by assigning the function to the Esc. keycode, that is the Clear button on the remote, using the DVRMS-Toolbox Options program.
   • DVD Region Free tool. 64-bit Vista won't allow unsigned drivers, so our mainstay, DVD43, is out. Currently using AnyDVD from SlySoft. Their free VirtualCloneDrive tool, while wierdly named, works really well and $55 seems to be the going rate for this function now - probably they need a legal defense fund nest egg.
   • Zinc - from zeevee.com. Vista has an Internet TV feature but Zinc really blows it away in terms of content.
3. Program Guide:

This is a big bug in VMC. If you are doing ATSC-only (over-the air, just an antenna) then when Vista scans for channels, it doesn't find the subchannels. Sheesh, my little $40 digital-to-analog adapter box can do that much! Here is how to get this working anyhow (from an article on thegreenbutton):

1.    Set up VMC as usual. Choose antenna as your signal provider when you are doing the “set up TV signal” part of the wizard.

2.    Go to Zap2it.com’s tv listings, enter your zip code, and choose antenna as your source.

3.    Print out or otherwise save the listings of your available channels. You will need the station names later.

4.    Now switch your source in Zap2it from antenna to your local digital cable provider.

5.    Note the URL that Zap2it gives you for the cable channel listing. It will end with something like lineupId=OH34629:X. The id at the end is important.

6.    In VMC, go to Tasks, Settings, TV, Guide, then Add Channels. Add the digital side channels using the names from ZAP2It’s listing.

7.    Close VMC if running, and fire up regedit. Edit the following entries:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\EPG]
"headend"="<provider id>"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\ProgramGuide]
"strProviderId"="<provider id>"

where <provider id> is the code at the end of the Zap2It url, minus the colon. Thus for me, “headend” and “strProviderId” are both set to OH34629X.

8.    Close regedit and reboot the computer.

9.    Fire up VMC and go to Tasks, Settings, TV, Guide, then “Download Latest Listings”. Wait for that to be done; there will be an icon in the tray to tell you what the progress of the download is.

10.  Go to the Guid and voila!  Program Guide goodness!