Hi folks,

I just foolishly switched from TWC cable Internet/TV service to the "equivalent" services from ATT Uverse.  BEFORE I placed the order, I was told by the Uverse sales rep that Uverse would work with my ATI Tuner card and MS Media Center.  Unfortunately, that turned out to be only partially true -- and the missing part is a big one!  MS MC (on Vista) will not download the Uverse program schedule.  Therefore, I cannot use the DVR features of Media Center for automatic, pre-scheduled recording of live TV!

When we ran the MC setup for the Uverse signal, MC kept asking about an IR device and would not proceed beyond that point. I have never had to use an IR device before.   Eventually we had to abandon that approach and just use the Uverse on-screen schedule to play live TV on my PC monitor. But that does not fix the DVR problem with MC -- which are far superior to Uverse!

Oh, and BTW, having one of our Uverse set top boxes that includes a DVR is nice, but it s NOT an adequate replacement for the same function on MS MC, because it does not place a WMV file on my PC hard disk.

Does anyone know of a way to get the Uverse schedule into MC so we CAN schedule DVR recordings, or perhaps another solution to this problem that I have overlooked?

Thanks,

 Mike

m7491:

Hi folks,

I just foolishly switched from TWC cable Internet/TV service to the "equivalent" services from ATT Uverse.  BEFORE I placed the order, I was told by the Uverse sales rep that Uverse would work with my ATI Tuner card and MS Media Center.  Unfortunately, that turned out to be only partially true -- and the missing part is a big one!  MS MC (on Vista) will not download the Uverse program schedule.  Therefore, I cannot use the DVR features of Media Center for automatic, pre-scheduled recording of live TV!

When we ran the MC setup for the Uverse signal, MC kept asking about an IR device and would not proceed beyond that point. I have never had to use an IR device before.   Eventually we had to abandon that approach and just use the Uverse on-screen schedule to play live TV on my PC monitor. But that does not fix the DVR problem with MC -- which are far superior to Uverse!

Oh, and BTW, having one of our Uverse set top boxes that includes a DVR is nice, but it s NOT an adequate replacement for the same function on MS MC, because it does not place a WMV file on my PC hard disk.

Does anyone know of a way to get the Uverse schedule into MC so we CAN schedule DVR recordings, or perhaps another solution to this problem that I have overlooked?

Thanks,

 Mike

 

Not sure I understand how your setup is working at the moment.  When I looked into Uverse and Media Center 2-3 years ago, it was actually not possible at all to get a Uverse TV source to natively work with Vista Media Center.   Are you saying that you are getting UVerse TV feeds from your ATI digital tuner card and playing within MediaCenter, or are you saying you are using Uverse's service to watch TV on your PC?

BOTTOMLINE: unless something has recently changed, that sales rep did not know what they were talking about, as Uverse uses Microsoft's MediaRoom to deliver content, and MediaRoom and Media Center are not compatible.

Check out the Uverse users site at www.uverseusers.com

Someone there may be able to help you out.

Yes, I am getting live feed into MC via my ATI Tuner card.  However, as I said, that is insufficient for me to keep the Uverse service.  It will soon be uninstalled and I'll return to TWC Cable service.

The fact that Uverse will not allow MC to load their schedule (and thus allow pre-scheduled DVR functions) is not, repeat NOT a technology problem.  It's a political problem -- the single most destructive human caused force on Earth!

MC was asking for an IR device because U-Verse is IPTV and not cable. The channels are sent more like internet video instead of on analog cable (VHF, right?) or QAM digital cable. As of right now, the only way to interface with the headend to have the channel sent is through the U-Verse Motorola boxes. You can (in theory) use an IR blaster and the Moto set-top box to control TV and set recordings like an old-school TiVo or ReplayTV - but MC is smart enough to know it can't 'tune' channels without the STB. AFAIK, you can get the U-Verse channel lineup if you really want to do it that way, but why would you?

Microsoft makes the software that U-Verse runs on, and technically the platform is natively compatible with Windows 7 MC. But AT&T isn't the fastest at rolling this stuff out (the xbox 360 has been compatible for about two years, and they're only now announcing that it'll work with U-Verse within the next year or so).