Like many people who've invested heavily in the Media Center ecosystem, I am still to this day, hesistant to move my primary recording machine to Vista. But that doesn't mean I want to miss out on High-Definition television either.
Unfortunately for us Canadians, Microsoft in it's infinite wisdom decided that Canadians can't have (or can't handle) Over-The-Air (OTA) HD. There are several websites / blogs out there that tell us how to overcome this situation but many of them have an eastern bias for Toronto. So I'm writing this post to help other Vancouver-ites get free OTA HD into their Media Center 2005 machines.
REQUIREMENTS
To get OTA HD you'll need two items:
- A Digital ATSC tuner card (I managed to get a hold of the Fusion HDTV5 Gold)
- An HDTV antenna available from Futureshop, The source, etc. (I am using a cheap $40 Indoor Antenna)
SETUP
Installing the ATSC card was very easy - Find a free PCI slot, Install the Card, Boot up PC and install the drivers. I had a situation where the drivers did not install correctly so I was forced to manually update the device drivers. Always make sure the hardware is correctly installed by looking at the hardware through the Device Manager and install them one by one if needed.
Running the Fusion HDTV application I had to first scan the airwaves, I was able to pick up both CBC and CTV on the first try. It also helps that my location is in Burnaby with a clear line of sight to Seymour Mountain.
- CBC HD 2.1 RF 58 Signal Strength 99-92%
- CTV HD 32.1 RF 33 Signal Strength 93-82%
If you don't get a good signal you may wish to move your antenna around for the best signal reception.
MCE CONFIGURATION
So at this point I've confirmed OTA reception and picked up both OTA channels available in Vancouver - not bad for 10 minutes of work. Now adding this to MCE 2k5 takes almost as long. This requires registry editing so please make a backup before you begin and as with all registry editting *BE CAREFUL*!
- Launch MC and in TV Setup tell it you are in the USA, find a ZIP Code near you and use it to setup a provider (I used a Blaine ZIP Code: 98230).
- Now let MC automatically detect the tuners.
- MC should have setup the digital channels automatically, but because we are fair distance away chances are you won't see any Seattle OTA HD feeds even though they are in your guide. What you need to do now is add the Vancouver OTA Feeds.
- Go to the Guide and Add Missing Digital Channels, here you will need to enter 2.1 for the channel (CBC) and the frequency 58 and also the name you want to give this channel (I chose CBCHD - yes very creative .. I know). Repeat this process for CTV.
- Verify you are able to see analog and OTA channels albeit with a screwed up guide at the moment. Close MC.
- Open regedit, search for systemgeoid (found under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\MCE.GlobalSettings) and replace the following keys with these values:
systemGeoID: 0x00000027 (39)
systemGeoISO2: CA
What this does is re-establish your region as Canada without losing the channels you manually added. - Relaunch MC, go into guide setup and re-run it (you don't have to redo the whole TV configuration process). The guide should now start with the Canadian region enter your postal code and setup your original provider.
- Yeah baby, the hard part is over - now test it out and ensure it all works.
You can hide the extra US OTA channels, and share listings for the Canadian OTA HD feeds under the Guide Setup which should be pretty straightforward.
WRAP UP
Basically this whole process took less than 40 minutes - but I was a novice who was bumbling around the internet for directions. Now armed with this information I'm sure you can too can add OTA HD to your MCE 2005 machine in a matter of minutes.
One word of warning, I now find myself watching CBC shows in HD that I had never ever watched before in standard broadcasts - HD really is that good!