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[Thermo]

Greetings,

After postponing my upgrade to Win10 for months, due to the missing WMC... I finally had to bite the bullet last week.

Turns out, Visio 2013 & 2016 really suck under Win7. I get all sorts of garbage when I have multiple windows open. And that's true at work as well. So last week, I thought I'd give it a shot under a Win10 Virtual Machine I had. I though... Well, they changed the handling of the graphics since Win8... Quite a bit. So maybe it'll work better on Win10. And sure enough... it's VASTLY better! So I had no choice, as I use Visio often.

I played around with a couple of VM (VirtualBox and VMWare) and couldn't get it to work with my Cable Card. I found a hack to pass the built-in digital test... But every time I tried tuning a channel, WMC would block it cause the graphics card didn't support the secure streaming. So I didn't know what else to do...

Turns out... in my case anyway... the solution was right in front of me all this time!

Now, this will obviously not apply to everyone... And it's obviously not as good as a Built-In WMC. But for my needs, it works great. I simply want to view the TV while I'm on my main desktop computer.

I have a HTPC, which acts as my main home server. I run Win7 on that machine and have no intention of upgrading it any time soon, as I use WMC on that one to watch TV in my HT. But when I want to watch TV on my desktop PC, I simply use Chrome Remote Desktop to go to my HTPC. Microsoft Remote Desktop doesn't work for that, as it will not display the content of WMC. But Chrome Remote Desktop works like a charm... Provided you don't run in maximized mode.

So I scale WMC slightly less than the full screen on the HTPC... then I can scale Chrome 's window to the size I want on my desktop machine.

Like I said... this does not apply to everyone... and is not exactly an elegant solution... But I personally prefer it a hell of a lot more than all these proposed hacks. It works beautifully for my needs.

Only down side is when I mute the sound on the remote WMC... it still plays on my desktop. And I can't use the local Volume Mixer, since it'll turn off all the volumes on everything that's Chrome related. Usually, the reason I want to turn off the volume on WMC is so I can watch something on Chrome. Of course, I could use a different browser for that... but I like Chrome...

Anyway... Hope this is a viable solution for some.

[Thermo]

Oh... I just found out that if you simply minimize Chrome Remote Desktop... The sound goes away. That pretty solves the only down side I had with this.

[DavidinCT]

Depending on what type of tuner card you have...Ceton supports tuner sharing...it might be another option if you want to use WMC on the local machine with out using a remote desktop type app.

I have a Windows 7 HTPC, sharing out tuners from my Ceton InfinTV 6, My Windows 10 machine runs the hacked in WMC, I can watch live TV and all my recorded shows from the local machine AND the HTPC (shared folder).

As it does not help everyone, it works pretty well. I even put WMC on my Windows 10 tablet, I can watch live TV anywhere in the house over wi-fi

[Thermo]

I have the HDHomeRun Prime. Now, I don't really follow their efforts too much, but it seems SiliconDust has been promising their HDHomeRun DVR software for a while now. But it's still not out yet. Also, I'm not keen on adding up yet another monthly fee to get access to it, considering how much I'm already paying for the freakin' cable.

Finally... I will honestly admit I haven't tried the hack. I read a few articles saying updates might mess things up again. Or that it didn't work with Live TV, which is really what I want. I just didn't feel like investing tons of time testing a bunch of stuff, messing up my registry on a fresh Win10 install... and possibly having to redo the whole thing after some Windows update. That Chrome Remote Desktop solution worked pretty well for me. And I can also watch TV from any device that supports the app. Granted, it really isn't a very elegant solution, nor practical if you have multiple people running Win10 and wanting access to the TV channels simultaneously. But it's just my boy and I... And my boy is perfectly contempt playing Minecraft

However... Maybe I was just too impatient in my reading... If some hack is stable and proven to work well with HDHomeRun Prime... With various Win10 "big updates" not messing things up... Maybe I should spend a little more time reading on it...

Thanks for your inputs!

[DavidinCT]

I have the HDHomeRun Prime. Now, I don't really follow their efforts too much, but it seems SiliconDust has been promising their HDHomeRun DVR software for a while now. But it's still not out yet. Also, I'm not keen on adding up yet another monthly fee to get access to it, considering how much I'm already paying for the freakin' cable.

I've been watching the HDR DVR software and the interface is a joke. Let's just say, they are NOT in the software design department. WMC with it's 8-10 year or interface is 200% better than the current HDR software.

Maybe HDR will actually hire a software design group or allow their back end to be plugged in to a 3rd party software package, that might make it interesting.

The Windows 10 WMC 'hack" works great(v12) but, Extenders are still a minor issue, they can be gotten to work but, it takes a little know how to do it..but, it IS possable (360 only). Download it (newest verson is v12), read the directions and trouble shooting a few times, and install, With a default config with no issues in 10, it's very easy to install.

[Space]

...

I've been watching the HDR DVR software and the interface is a joke. Let's just say, they are NOT in the software design department. WMC with it's 8-10 year or interface is 200% better than the current HDR software.

Maybe HDR will actually hire a software design group or allow their back end to be plugged in to a 3rd party software package, that might make it interesting.
...

I wouldn't doubt that the reason the user interface is less than desired is because they have to make sure they don't violate any patents (owned mostly by Rovi and TiVo).

The number of patents that were granted regarding user interfaces relating to DVRs are ridiculous and stupid. I mean a TV schedule grid is a basic thing that should not be able to be patented just because you put it on a TV screen. In order to patent something it has to be non-obvious, and I can't believe that anyone would say that taking a TV grid (that has been used in paper TV guides and newspapers for ages) and putting it on a TV screen is not obvious.

[Scallica]

...

I've been watching the HDR DVR software and the interface is a joke. Let's just say, they are NOT in the software design department. WMC with it's 8-10 year or interface is 200% better than the current HDR software.

Maybe HDR will actually hire a software design group or allow their back end to be plugged in to a 3rd party software package, that might make it interesting.
...

I wouldn't doubt that the reason the user interface is less than desired is because they have to make sure they don't violate any patents (owned mostly by Rovi and TiVo).

The number of patents that were granted regarding user interfaces relating to DVRs are ridiculous and stupid. I mean a TV schedule grid is a basic thing that should not be able to be patented just because you put it on a TV screen. In order to patent something it has to be non-obvious, and I can't believe that anyone would say that taking a TV grid (that has been used in paper TV guides and newspapers for ages) and putting it on a TV screen is not obvious.

^100% this.

[Crash2009]

I have the HDHomeRun Prime. Maybe I should spend a little more time reading on it...

I would suggest you start with Software Version 11 (v11) of the WMC Port for Win10. Here is a link to the first day v11 was available and is a great place to start reading.

If you decide to try it, step 1 is read the Readme.txt and the Workaround.txt that are included in the v11 install folder.

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/thread ... ost1189634

By the way HDHR-3cc works fine with v11, and v12 too

[Thermo]

Thanks Crash,

Before I start reading tons of material and jerk around with my machine... Has there been, in recent versions of the hack, any Windows 10 updates that would have screwed things up; and more hacks were needed? You see, that's really what I *don't* want to get into. I've got a new clean install of win 10 with all my programs updated. It typically takes 2-3 evenings to install all your programs and the billion updates. This is my main working desktop... I don't feel like messing it up through hacks after hacks, any time I get a major Win 10 update. If ver11 is very stable and works pretty much 100% of the time, without getting wiped out by windows 10 updates... it might be worth going through all the reading. If it requires constant maintenance... I think I'll stick with my Remote Desktop approach cause... frankly... it's painless and works pretty damn well for my needs.

I don't want to sound lazy... I've done these hacks throughout the years... But those were usually worth it, with no viable alternatives. Not so much this time around.

But thanks all for your inputs! I do appreciate them.

[Crash2009]

You are likely talking about the Win10 "Fall Update". A few guys got nailed with that, some (for whatever reason) got the update 2, 3, and 4 months late. The fix was to re-install Ported WMC, restore the channel edits with Guide Tool, and the series recordings with Sean's WMC Backup. It really was no big deal. Mine was un-effected because I had the fall update prior to installing WMC. If you just installed Win10 recently you likely have the "Fall Update" all ready. There is another, likely similar, type of update coming this summer, that will likely, do the same thing. Notice I said likely several times. It is difficult to tell the future, and impossible to guarantee it.

This is cause for celebration, my 3000th post.

[DrSmith]

This is cause for celebration, my 3000th post.

3000 - woo hoo! I've only read a few hundred of them, but I almost always learn something. Thank you.