Setting up TV Signal without Internet access?

[IT Troll]

I am about to move house to a completely different region in the UK. However I am not going to have Internet access for a few days. In preparation I intend to perform full reset of the TV config by running MediaCenterRecoveryTask.

Is there a way that I can setup the TV signal without having Internet access? Could I start the setup now, enter the new postcode, download the guide data, but then not complete the channel scan? Then once I have moved, run the TV setup again so that it uses this preloaded guide data when performing the scan? Or will Media Center refuse to continue the setup if it can't download guide data at the time?

[holidayboy]

You can definitely set up dvb-t signals in the UK without internet access.

Agree to the guide terms etc as usual, you'll get a message saying that the download failed and existing info will be used to set up the signals.

I would cancel the examining TV signal scan, then manually set up the signal types and let the channel scans complete etc.

The in-band guide data will be used instead of downloaded data, you can either let MC do a guide scan automatically when it decides to, or when you watch a channel it will update the listings, or you can run the command below in order to force it:

C:\Windows\ehome\mcupdate.exe -pscn0

It can take a while for all channels to get data, it's best to stop live TV before running the command so that MC can use the tuner to grab the guide data.

I'm not 100% sure but I think MC will automatically download guide data once internet access is available, you might need to run the internet connection wizards in tasks>settings though.

[IT Troll]

Brill, thanks for that.

[holidayboy]

I meant to ask: Have you considered just running the tv signal setup wizard, rather than clearing everything first? That will remove the old scanned channels and set MC up for your new location.

[IT Troll]

I want to start with a clean slate. I've had to do so many rescans over the years as channels have moved and tuners have changed that my channel list is rather messy. I have quite a few "ghost" channels lingering around that could do with be cleaned up.

[holidayboy]

Not a bad idea

You could also run the TV setup with your new postcode before you move - unplug the aerial cable from the tuner first.

That way you will have completed the download step and will have an empty channel lineup.

Then just scan for more channels when you get to your new location.

This is more like your original idea!

Best of luck with the move, let us know how it goes

[blueiedgod]

You can definitely set up dvb-t signals in the UK without internet access.

Agree to the guide terms etc as usual, you'll get a message saying that the download failed and existing info will be used to set up the signals.

I would cancel the examining TV signal scan, then manually set up the signal types and let the channel scans complete etc.

The in-band guide data will be used instead of downloaded data, you can either let MC do a guide scan automatically when it decides to, or when you watch a channel it will update the listings, or you can run the command below in order to force it:

C:\Windows\ehome\mcupdate.exe -pscn0

It can take a while for all channels to get data, it's best to stop live TV before running the command so that MC can use the tuner to grab the guide data.

I'm not 100% sure but I think MC will automatically download guide data once internet access is available, you might need to run the internet connection wizards in tasks>settings though.

Hopefully it does not apply to UK, but I could not get WMC to retrieve "in-band" guide data. The tuner was capable of receiving it, and software that came with the tuner showed the "in-band" guide just fine, but WMC could not get it. This is for ATSC tuner.

[holidayboy]

DVB-T in-band guide data works very well in the UK (and I imagine in the rest of Europe as well).

This is one thing that MS has got very right outside of the US!

[IT Troll]

Not a bad idea

You could also run the TV setup with your new postcode before you move - unplug the aerial cable from the tuner first.

That way you will have completed the download step and will have an empty channel lineup.

Then just scan for more channels when you get to your new location.

This is more like your original idea!

Best of luck with the move, let us know how it goes

That sounded like a good plan. Unfortunately your post came after I had packed it up. So I went with setting up with just the in-band data. This worked fine as a stop gap with the exception of the HD channels which I had to remap to the SD equivalent in-band listing.

However today my Internet connection went live and I found that Media Center would not download the guide data. The Event Log didn't really give any clues except that there had been an error and it would try again. In the end I had no choice but to re-run the TV setup, which as I run a mix of SD and HD tuners, meant I had to go through every channel once again and re-configure my source priorities. What a ball-ache.

Anyway all working again now. The only thing I am missing is downloaded guide data for the Movie Mix channel. I guess this just isn't available from Microsoft.