Comments on: Fiji Isn’t All Bad News, Especially For Those Outside the USA

By: Gretchen @ Caboodle

Gretchen @ Caboodle — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 08:20:16 +0000

Hello there, just stopped by doing some research for my Caboodle site. Lots of information out there. Wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but cool site. Have a good day.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:24:59 +0000

Hi Terry,

A sky dish and a freesat dish are basically the same thing, they both point at the same Astra satelittes. So you can use your existing Sky installed dish to pick up Freesat and vice versa. C4 is also available on Freesat as they started transmitting free to view when Freesat launched.

I too can’t understand why MS pulled the h.264 decoder. I was using the TV pack with the beta H.264 DLL file and it worked perfectly untill the end of September when it timebombed. C4 HD should go free to view shortly so that will be two HD channels that we as VMC users can’t get.

MS to me are very frustrating they so nearly get things right but always seem to spoil things at the last minute. The H.264 decoder is a good example of this.

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:12:48 +0000

I’ve found that the Microsoft EPG data is much better than the sky and Freeview EPG data. It’s more comprehensive in it’s descriptions, and goes out further in to the future. It’s hard to tell if that is the fault of the receiving device, or if the OTA data is just poor, but I’d be quite happy to keep the existing EPG data. One potential advantage of the OTA data is that it can better be kept up to date with scheduling changes, but in my experience it never is. Anyone know of other advantages of this EPG change?

By: Terry Walsh

Terry Walsh — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:47:05 +0000

Hi Paul,

The Media Center EPG works fine with a DVB-S card for all Freesat channels utilising a Sky dish. I’m not sure at this point if it works with Freesat’s own dish, but my hunch is that it will as it’s basically picking up the same signal. One difference in Fiji is that the EPG is received from the satellite signal itself rather than via a third-party EPG provider, so you’d need to check this out with someone who is using a Freesat satellite dish.

Terry

By: Paul Cahill

Paul Cahill — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:09:37 +0000

Hi Terry

Is it possible to get the epg for the new (non-sky) freesat with a DVB-S card?

By: Terry Walsh

Terry Walsh — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:16:31 +0000

You’ll get pretty much all of the Freesat channels without the CAM, except Channel 4 (I think) which Sky encrypt. You can also buy a Sky Freesat card which you’ll be able to get working with Fiji with the right (Floppy DTV) tuner and CAM.

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:52:17 +0000

You raise an interesting point there about DVB-S. I was under the impression that Fiji would support it, but not with a CAM card, so it wouldn’t actually work with Sky. Is that incorrect? Can you have a proper sky media with Fiji? That just might be worth buying a new OEM license – well at least as soon as wtv files are portable to watch on my other media centres round the house.

By: Terry Walsh

Terry Walsh — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:45:08 +0000

Hi Martin

I’ve been beta testing Media Center since pre-release in the UK in 2005 – you can trust me To get Freeview certification, I guess to need to support the whole caboodle.

Agree it’s incremental, but there’s a whole host of people here in the UK (mainly beta testers) who have ripped into Microsoft on a yearly basis with every beta programme regarding the lack of MHEG5 and DVB-S support use of MCE with Sky) – we now have both in place at last, which means that we’ve turned a corner – slowly, but it’s been turned.

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:38:51 +0000

I hope you are right. If you read it with a critical eye, the press release doesn’t actually say that Fiji supports those, just that freeview can.

Even if I could persuade myself to buy a new tuner card (which I probably could – I’m a sucker for new hardware), I still wouldn’t fork out for a new OEM license just to get those features though. It seems wrong to have to pay another £100 or so for a upgrade to an OS I already own.

By: Terry Walsh

Terry Walsh — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:35:36 +0000

Yep, I agree, that is a big missing and no-one really knows why it was pulled.

By: ProTurbo

ProTurbo — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:33:14 +0000

The biggest issue with TV Pack 2008 is the lack of the h.264 HD decoder. Many DVB providers are starting to distribute HD these days, and Microsoft will not support it. Seems like we have to wait for the next version of Windows which is rumored to come around 2010. That means I have to wait maybe 2 years or so to get HD. Guess I have to start looking for alternatives then.

By: Terry Walsh

Terry Walsh — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:30:29 +0000

MHEG5 support, so you can now use interactive TV, subtitles, digital teletext, graphic support on digital radio etc…