A few questions/minor issues

[terrorist96]

I finally got around to setting up my capture card and I use Windows Media Center to watch TV cuz the Pinnacle program that comes with it is terrible and fails all the time. I got everything running pretty smoothly except a few things. One, how can I change the directory of where it saves recorded TV? The only options I saw were to change the drive itself or to add folders for it to search for media files. I can't physically make it store the records in, say MY VIDEOS... I'd rather have them in there than in the "Public" shared folder.. But it's no big deal; I'll live.

Another thing is putting it to sleep. I did a few experiments, setting a recorded scheduling and put the computer to sleep. If the schedule is like 10 or more minutes away (I think), it'll go to sleep and it'll turn on automatically like 5 minutes before the schedule, record, but won't go back to sleep! I waited like 20 or so minutes AFTER the scheduled recording was supposed to be done. ...And I just checked right now... and it didn't record anything, even though it woke up from sleep automatically 5 minutes before the scheduled recording.

If the scheduled recording is less than 10 minutes away, and I put it to sleep, it won't sleep. The monitor will show a black screen and the computer will just remain on. And if I move the mouse or press a key on the keyboard, it'll wake it up completely (which it shouldn't in the first place, since I have it set so that the mouse or keyboard can't wake up the computer in case I accidentally bump into it).

Can anyone help me out here, please? (The exact model of my capture card is listed in my system specs, just in case).

 

[terrorist96]

Still waiting patiently....

 

[terrorist96]

Well.. my computer just turned on from sleep this morning at 7:30am for no reason. This is weird....

 

[pwhooftman]

Look for MCE Standby tool

Look for MCE Standby Tool, that fixes al lot of issues. You have to experiment a little with the settings.

Your pc coming out of sleep unexpectedly could be due to program guide updates or other updates. Check the TV Guide settings in MCE.

 

[terrorist96]

I looked it up and I saw that the Windows 7 version is still in beta testing.

I tried to check the settings for the guide update and I didn't see anything letting me choose when to update. Hell, I don't even need the guide update. How can I turn it off overall?

And one last thing, when watching live TV, sometimes the video goes away. It says there's no signal, but the sound is still intact. It'll come back after like 10 or so seconds but this is kind of annoying.. And this is only present when watching live TV, not when watching a recording.

 

[terrorist96]

Sigh.. maybe I should find another program to use with my capture card.. I didn't think Media Center would have this many problems. I don't want to download the MCE Standby tool yet cuz I read through the whole forum: MCE Standby Tool 0.9.094 on Windows 7 and saw that many people still had problems with the latest version - especially with S3 sleep, which is the only thing my computer supports. (I checked in the cmd menu - "powercfg -A" ). Whatever.. you can never fully rely on computer. Never.

 

[Barman58]

If you have issues with unexpected wake-up from sleep, which it certainly appears you have, you can use powercfg with the /LASTWAKE switch to show the ID of the process that caused the last incident.

After that it is often a case of repeated checking for BIOS and Motherboard driver updates from the manufacturer, Not ideal but often the only solution, and due to the take-up rates of win7 these updates are being issued on a regular basis

 

[terrorist96]

It's media center, as I suspected. How do I turn off the updating? At least that'll be one problem solved.

EDIT: Well, just went into the settings and turned off the two automatic download options. Let's see if that does the trick.

 

[pwarnk]

Tasks > Settings > General > Automatic Download Options

 

[pwarnk]

Your other question
Tasks > Settings > Recorder Storage
AND OR
Tasks > Settings> Media Library > Recorded TV

 

[terrorist96]

I don't have a "Recorder Storage" option in the settings menu, so I went to Media Library and clicked Recorded TV. I've already tried this before. It only lets me add or remove (but in my case, it only lets me add since I can't remove the default location - which is Recorded TV in the Public shared folder) folders for it to search for recorded TV, not actually change where it records. It even says at the top "..but WMC records TV only to the location specified in Tasks > Settings > TV > Recorder > Recorder Storage" ... and if I go there, it only lets me pick which drive to store it on... C or D (I have an external HDD).. not where in the drive to store it. It even says so here: Set recording options in Windows Media Center ... how the hell do they not let you have the option of choosing where you want your records to be stored..?

 

[pwarnk]

Recorder Storage

Tasks Settings TV Recorder Recorder Storage

Record on drive -+
Maximum TV Limit -+

You have to leave at least 25 GB available on System Drive for buffering

 

[terrorist96]

I have >900GB..

 

[terrorist96]

Alright well, if no one can give me any solutions, I guess I'm just gonna have to leave my computer on all the time then. Windows 7 is great and all... but seriously, they really f*cked up here.