Catalyst Media Center Question

[Tikiman1974]

Where to find Catalyst Media Center Software?

[Agustus]

Well to be sure it was NOT me because that wouldn’t be quite legal

But to clarify “Catalyst Media Center” shows ever indication of being Cyberlink PowerCinema 4 plus a few add-ons like MakeDVD 2.0 and AVIVO specific features like transcode and more. There is also no artificial restriction limiting Catalyst Media Center to ATI hardware as is the case with the commercial Cyberlink PowerCinema.

There will also, supposedly, be an update to “Catalyst Media Center” soon for FREE to current owners or for a nominal fee non- Catalyst Media Center users will be able to buy it.

However, if you want “Catalyst Media Center” now you can always download the current Cyberlink PowerCinema 5 trail which is a quasi “Catalyst Media Center 2.0”. There is no guide for the USA in Cyberlink PowerCinema but then many users of “Catalyst Media Center 1.0” have reported that the EPG wasn’t functional anyway,…

[Tikiman1974]

If I'm remembering right, there was an ATI tech on one of the boards that said we would be getting an update from MMC. And the way it was worded was that it would be for all owners of ATI tv products. I wouldn't have bought an AIW X1900 if ATI wasn't going to ditch MMC. To leave the rest of us behind, who believed that they valued their customers and were going to support their products is pretty crappy.

And on PowerCinema 5, the guide appears to work fairly well. It just doesn't show the channel #'s, but it does show all the channels.

I just want what we were told we would be getting.

[ATImeShifter]

CMC is crap. It does some things better than MMC, some things worse, and some things differently, but overall it's still crap. It dropped scheduled recordings all the time, never tuned my AIW x1900 properly, had a hard time locking onto HDTV stations on my 650, has a crappy EPG, and, as some have pointed out here, appears to be a poor ripoff of MCE.

And I agree that MMC is crap as well. It never worked well with my x1900, with poor coordination with Gemstar, made out of sync recordings, couldn't tune the HDTV channels on my 650, and had a clunky interface.

I finally realized that if you want a good TV/DVR front end, then you have to pay for it, and ended up upgrading to MCE05, which has worked wonderfully for me (after some initial installation snags). While it lacks certain features that I had come to like in MMC and/or CMC (e.g. PIP, previous channel, quickly switching between tuners, "sticky" scheduled recordings that can be turned on and off at will, etc.), it has nearly all of the core features you would expect in such a front end and it does all of them very, very well.

At $110 it's a bit expensive IMO if all you need is a better front end, but you also get XP Pro and a nominal charge upgrade to Vista Premium when it comes out. But if all you need is a better FE and don't plan to upgrade to VP or prefer a non-OEM version, there's always BeyondTV and some other apps that appear to be good too. But trying to get MMC or CMC to do the job is, I believe, a futile endeavor. Maybe the purported update to CMC will be better, but I wouldn't bet on it given ATI's track record with MMC updates.

[Agustus]

If I'm remembering right, there was an ATI tech on one of the boards that said we would be getting an update from MMC. And the way it was worded was that it would be for all owners of ATI tv products. I wouldn't have bought an AIW X1900 if ATI wasn't going to ditch MMC. To leave the rest of us behind, who believed that they valued their customers and were going to support their products is pretty crappy.

While, I’m not questioning your assertion, as previously stated I have heard otherwise about CMC availability with respect to current CMC users and current MMC users. Furthermore, I can also provide source info linkage:

http://forums.hexus.net/showpost.php...&postcount=517
http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=77340&page=35

and a quote:

Hey,

Sorry for taking so long with this, but it is still too soon to tell exactly how things will work in Vista since everything is not ready yet. Here is an update on what the current plans are that I can share with you.

The ability to use Vista MCE with both Digital and Analog without having to run setup again is an issue being looked at.

As a partial solution we plan to release a version of CMC(Catalyst Media Center) for Vista that works as it does in XP, with both Analog and Digital tuning readily available. This will be a free upgrade to those who have already purchased a product that shipped with CMC.

We plan to make CMC available for purchase to others who have not already purchased a product that shipped with CMC. We plan to make this available shortly after the retail version of Vista is released.


About the dual 650 cards coming out of standby. Is the even an MCE issue? You say that when you return from standby, only 1 card works. Does this only happen in MCE, or does is also happen in CMC or any other applications?

And to give a timeframe:

Octavean,
There's not too much I can say about Vista MCE. We need to get microsoft to fix this issue for all hybrid tuners. It will likely be available in a vista update soon after the release. And if you are really desperate to switch to vista, and want to be able to switch between analog and digital easily, you can use CMC when we have it available. Either way, nothing will be ready until late January at the earliest.

I trust the source well enough to believe these statements are reasonably accurate.

And on PowerCinema 5, the guide appears to work fairly well. It just doesn't show the channel #'s, but it does show all the channels.

I said there was no EPG for the USA in Cyberlink PowerCinema but there is an EPG for some other select regions. This info come from Cyberlink themselves.

I just want what we were told we would be getting.

Fair enough.

BTW, I see you altered your original post,….