Media Center Error

[hsquared]

I have an HP Pav. 9740us. It had Vista, but I installed Windows 7 Professional today. When I try to watch live TV in Media Center, I get -

Video Error
Files needed to display video are not installed or are not working correctly. Restart Windows Media Center or restart the computer.

It detects the channel signals when I use the antenna or cable, but I cannot watch. I have an older video card - HP ExpressCard Digital/Analog TV Tuner. Is the card compatible? I cannot find information on this card anywhere. The driver is updated.

 

[geniulmalefic]

try some codecs.

 

[Vertex]

Yes, I've seen this error when I was still using Windows Media Center on Vista. It happens when you don't have a compatible video card, your video card driver is not installed or incompatible or if you are using the standard built in video adapter which is too weak to fully support Media Center.

This HP ExpressCard Digital/Analog TV Tuner is a TV Tuner, NOT a video card.

A video card is something like an NVidia or a Radeon card which is attached to the Accelerated Graphics Port where you plug your monitor into. So make sure this is the driver you've updated.

You just recently installed Windows 7 so chances are some hardware drivers have to be reinstalled manually. If you do have a video card hardware labeled with something like NVidia, please install its driver from the setup CD that came with it or from Windows Update. Check if you have installed anything like this. Some hardware drivers have to be downloaded manually from the Internet.

If you are relying on the standard built in graphics adapter till now, you might as well buy a video card with at least 256-512 MB RAM.

Or maybe, if your TV tuner which is the HP ExpressCard Digital/Analog TV Tuner came with a setup CD, maybe it has its own program that can make you watch TV with less system requirements.

 

[hsquared]

Thank you for the great info. I was stuck on the fact that my TV Tuner was the problem. It was the video card. For others benefit, here a summary of what I had to do when after I installed Windows 7 Professional on a PC that came with Vista Home Premium:

When I went int Display adapters, it has something like "standard VGA adapter" and that the driver was okay. This was not okay. I have a NVIDIA GeFore 8600M GS and I installed that driver. I believe that was the Media Center problem.

I also had to install the driver for my intel processors. At this point, in the Device Manager, I still had some undefined ("Base System Device" or "Unknown device") under "Other devices". Running Windows Update with Optional updates solved that problem.

Here is a good link that helped, including what intel processors to install. Windows 7 Upgrade Guide for dv6000/dv9000 models - Drivers - HP Support Forum

Then I Installed Ricoh OEM HP SD Card Reader drivers - ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp45001-45500/sp45112​.exe

What really got me was the fact that there appeared to be a valid driver for the video card according the Device Manager.

One more thing to note, my PC is an HP Pavilion dv9740us. It came with Vista. The HP website does not have any drivers for Windows 7 as far as I can see. It only has drivers for this PC for Vista and lower. So you can't just go to the HP site and check for missing drivers b/c it just gives you a bunch of Vista drivers.

 

[Vertex]

If you still have your motherboard's setup CD, are you saying that not all the drivers from in there work with Windows 7????

Windows Update cannot search for drivers for all your devices. You have to manually locate, download and install certain drivers.

I do believe, strongly that they have drivers compatible with Windows 7.

I did a little Google search. I think they have links for drivers downloads for your system on this HP Support Forum. Look a little closer:

Re: HP Pavilion DV9740US Windows 7 - HP Support Forum

If you were relying on the standard VGA adapter because the driver for your video card which is NVIDIA GeFore 8600M GS is not yet installed by then, chances are your desktop didn't even have the transparent glass or Aero effects. Now that you installed the driver for this video card, can you now use the Aero effects??? And have you tried watching live TV on Windows Media Center again to see if its working fine now????

 

[hsquared]

To clarify, I believe my pc is running fine now with all necessary drivers. The media center problem was due to the video card driver.

When I go into the HP website and go into drivers and put in my model number, only Vista Drivers come up. I believe that the Intel drivers did not work, but I got them from Intel.

 

[Vertex]

Yes, but can you now watch live TV on Windows Media Center just to clarify things???

 

[hsquared]

Yes, sorry if I wasn't clear before.

 

[Vertex]

Thanks for clarifying and it seems the Media Center issue is done. Good luck.