WHS and Media Center Integrated
Imagine a situation where you could install your TV tuner card/s into your Windows Home Server and watch TV in the lounge via one of the small nettops, which is accessing those tuner cards.
Imagine no more my friends as now you can, thanks to company DVBLogic who have just released the network tuner software DVBLink which is compatible with Windows Home Server.
The DVBLink software will work for tuners installed on your Home Server as long as there is driver support for Windows 2003 (most are), as this is the OS WHS is based on.
The DVBLink software comes in 2 parts, the DVBLink TVSource which you install on WHS and the DVBLink Server Network Pack which you install on a PC running Windows Media Center enabling you to watch TV on that computer. During the TV setup, Media Center will see your tuner/s as if you were on that physical machine although in reality they are on Home Server, just like a network tuner.
So, we can now have smaller media center PCs in the TV room, with the 1,2,3, or more TV tuners out of the way in WHS feeding (yummy!) the TV room or any where else that you have Windows Media Center running (bedroom PC, netbook, laptop – You get the picture).
Windows Home Server and Windows Media Center just became MORE integrated, for one, I am extremely happy.
The downloads to get this up and running as well as additional information is available from here.
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now we just need softsled and we have a complete system!
Interesting. Having just tried putting a analogue Hauppauge PVR150 tuner card in my home server and having it fail miserably to work, interested to see how others manage to do this.
Hopefully more media center features will be built into windows home server vail.
#Pete:
I am not sure where I read, but a member of MS’s WHS-team recently implied that they are working on integarting MCE and WHS.
It should work something like this: The server has the tuner-cards and records what the user wants to record. The clients may have a tuner (to enable them to watch TV directly, and “pause” a tv-show), but the MCE-app. will basicly be a “software-remote” for the app. on WHS.
This is for European signal only and not for the states. Bummer.
Good Job! To late for me, I already consolidated my WMC and WHS on one machine using VMWare Server. Windows 7 Ultimate 64bits (with WMC) is the host and WHS is the Guest running in VMWare. Why not WHS as Host you would say? Because then I have better driver support for Video and TV cards AND I still can use the superb functionality of WHS.
Best off both worlds I would say, all in one box. Works the best if your SATA controller shows up in your device list as a SCSI device because then you can “passtrough” the disks (native) to the WHS system to use drive-extender with duplication.
Crap…Europe only?
Does anyone have any experience using dvblogic on a HP MSS (Ex470) type host?
OK… So, why doesn’t Microsoft release a single box that includes WHS/WMS functionality? How about working with ATI and NVIDIA to create tuner cards for DirecTV, Dish, Comcast, + Digital Broadcast, Etc.? Shouldn’t open broadcast standards be something we here Microsoft fighting for in Congress? Apple is releasing their TV product as is Google…. yet MS is still stuck in a seeming backwater… It’s no wonder people make fun of this Gorilla… Between pissing away their Windows Mobile platform and the HUGE potential of WHS/WMS, you would think they were trying to fail!