2008 Beijing Olympics in Windows Vista Media Center… or not.
Brandon LeBlanc made some interesting noises today regarding the availability of some fancy TVTonic-based plugin for Windows Vista Media Center users. Today was actually the first time I started Media Center on my Windows Vista Ultimate (x64) machine. Woo hoo! After clumsily moving about in the menu, I found the NBC Olympics tile and launched it.
Looks neat. After a few more clicks, I got the installer fired up.
It was then that I was greeted with The Error Message from 64-bit Hell that always manages to squeeze a “this is fuckin’ bullshit” out of the purest of souls, like myself. Cough.
Reading the forums, it appears 64-bit support was planned for TVTonic version 3.3 in Q4 of 2007then Q2 of 2008 then an undisclosed period, known only as the time of the "next release” (since 3.3 already came out). According to a TVTonic Team member, they have ”been attempting to tackle this for a couple versions” but “somehow keep running out of time and have to drop it”.
Sigh. The Olympics are in seven days guys. Come on.
Sidebar: Yes, it really isn’t compatible. They use a custom 32-bit component that can’t be loaded by the 64-bit Media Center process. There’s no workaround to this. Really.
lol @ the purest of souls… *double cough*
LOL, this happens all too often. Oh well, it’s the olympics, AND it’s China, WHO. FUCKING. CARES? :P
Don’t gotta worry about china seeing this either, your site is probably blocked by the great commiewall :P
Can’t u just use 32 bit media center?
@fowl: No, there are no 32-bit Media Center binaries for Windows Vista x64.
Ok since there is no 32bit medica bins for vista 64 …why did they bother putting WMC on any Vista 64 machines?
It seems stupid… to include software in a Vista64 box that is known to not work.
For me that makes WMC partially worthless.l.
Forunately wMC is not the reason I bought my M9350f (viSTA 64), so I am not too upset.
But its sufficent to make me consider the possibilities (if there) of removing WMC entirely and going TV only.
Fortunately the card in my pc has alternatives for TV only usage though I might still have to buy new s/w.
Been considering getting Vista Ultimate per the anyway upgrade… I wonder if that will allow me to remove wMC or choose to not install it.
Im on a Vista Home Premium 64bit.. and I love my new pc … though I am less than impressed by Wmc and do consider it unstable (whether its 64bit related or not I dont know).
Everyonce in a while WMC crashes and gives ‘debug’ options. And it isnt always per ‘3rd party’ stuff that WMC has already in it.
Note: alll my comments about WMC are ‘right out of the box’ because Ive not yet major serious changes to my setup other than adding sidebar gadgets, MS OFFICE, QUICKEN & BOINC.
rephrase my previous note.
why bother putting wmc on vista 64 machine since it makes much of appeal worthless…
As it is other than the LIVE tV most of the product is wasteful & useless.
As far as music is concrerned… i have several hundred audio cd’s .. Im not going to pull up WMC just to play them..
In fact so far Only once…. and only because it was a ‘part music part video’ dvd…
Picture wise, I have several thousand pics/videos of my own…
For me a WMC that is not 64bit or ie; most of its offerings not work… makes the product a joke.
Um..the workaround is called programming (coding).
As a 20year vet in programming and a 8yr vet in visual studio there are a lot of ways to make code work..
Including making a 32bit code work on 64bit…..
Seems microsofts programmers need more programmers or at least those that can do it.
Having done it myself though admitedly in minor ways I relize it may be a bit unfair to say this but they should not have put out WMC if it wasnt 64bit capable.. (I relize I am talking most about 3rd party stuff).
You guys realize that this TVTonic plugin is NOT made by microsoft, right? Media Center works great on 64-bit.
My only beef is that the media center team hasn’t patched in/used the ability to filter items based on 32/64-bit because clearly that will be an ongoing issue if they continue to feature 3rd party addons. Sure the regional filtering works great though….. But yea, I don’t like how the 3rd party stuff is being passed off as part of the MS experience. It DOES NOT help the media center team’s reputation. You’d think they’d be more worried about that these days after the horrible experience a lot of people had upgrading from XP due to crappy or unavailable TV decoder/encoder card drivers and the inability to buy HD cards.
@James: Sometimes I wonder about my readers ;)
the team did work all week on a work around and there is a 64 bit version on tvtonic.com for install it has been available since 4 hours before opening of the games. Try the service again it is a great way to watch.