Watch NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics in Windows Media Center

re: Watch NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics in Windows Media Center

Bryan — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:40:21 GMT

TV TONIC FILLED UP MY HARD DRIVE!

I downloaded the 64-bit version when it became available AFTER the Olympics had already started, and bookmarked my favorite sports. Then I noticed a new icon in my system tray for the TVTonic Control Panel. I opened it and discovered that TVTonic was downloading huge video clips to my computer, some that were larger than 3.5GB! I should have uninstalled it then, but I let it sit for a couple of days and now my 1TB hard drive is FULL! Why is TVTonic downloading clips instead of streaming them on demand? I know HD video has high bandwidth requirements, but this is not a practical alternative.

Seriously, guys- nbcolympics.com is supposed to be the breakout showcase for Silverlight, right? Then surely the Silverlight team and Media Center team can figure out a way to get the Olympics content into Media Center without filling the user's hard drive. Power users will be able to resolve this, but I can't imagine the stress this will cause to novices.

***DO NOT DOWNLOAD*** this application unless you can dedicate unlimited storage to video clips.

Sorry guys, I'm not normally one to rant. I think Vista extraordinary, but this poorly-implemented 3rd party solution that you are promoting is not helping Vista's struggling reputation.

Stay up to date with Olympic Medal wins with the Olympic Medal Count Gadget

The Windows Experience Blog — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:06:42 GMT

Donavon West, Sidebar Gadget-maestro, is at it again! He just released a brand new Windows Sidebar gadget

re: Watch NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics in Windows Media Center

Ceinach — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:11:14 GMT

RandyB, the new version of 64-bit support is out. The install went okay on my test machine running Vista-64 w/ sp1. The new 64-bit update seems to work fine for installing the plug-in, so that's definately fixed now. The opening ceremonies were really cool to watch and the detail was great. It's a bit sluggish at times - even with 2 GB of ram on a Dual-core Q6600 there was a little bit of stuttering, so I'd recommend having 4 GB and it would probably be smooth as glass.

There is not a lot of content though at this time, but I'm assuming it will eventually be posted. What is there (ie. the opening ceremonies) is amazing. The amount of money that was spent on this must be truely staggering in the Billions of dollars.

Who cares about Vista or Microsoft...this is the olympics and they are just downright cool. If you can't watch them on your computer, then just turn on your TV and use common sense to deal with the problem - just don't miss it.

re: Watch NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics in Windows Media Center

gargross — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:31:15 GMT

So, I've got this thing installed.. I'm on 32-bit so not dealing with the issue many of you are seeing around 64 bit.. My problem is that there's no content. The only thing that seems to be updating is of course the Lenovo ads.. My 10 other channels haven't posted anything new and the olympics have been going on.. To be fair there was a women's basketball game and the opening ceremony posted, but that's pretty much it.. Anyone else getting what was promised? "Content becomes available as soon as NBC completes its primetime on-air coverage on the West Coast (i.e., beginning at 3 am EDT)"

re: Watch NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics in Windows Media Center

ZXTT95 — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:09:09 GMT

I'm a little bemused by some of the comments left here. Brandon tells us about something that works with WMC, and suddenly MS is being blamed because this stuff is slow with the 64-bit support, blamed because it can't tell someone's IP address is in the US.

Seriously now, this is 3rd party software. I see nothing on TVTonic's web page indicating any kind of relationship with MS. TVTonic is responsible for support - why would you expect support on this blog? Go to TVTonic and stop trying to turn every problem you have on your computer into an MS rant.

re: Watch NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics in Windows Media Center

renim — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 18:14:47 GMT

TVtonic released an update yesterday which makes it work with 64bit versions of Vista...

http://www.tvtonic.com/olympics/install/

re: Watch NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics in Windows Media Center

JoeDirt — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 23:03:39 GMT

Pretty funny to watch this all unfold. I was noticing the minimum recommended specs to use this software is 2 GB.

I'll also save Brandon some of his vauable time and allow him to get back to his Minesweeper game that seems to be occupying all their time nowadays with these blogs coming a distant second. I talked with the TVTonic support and I'm passing along the news that TVTonic isn't planning on fixing this issue for months...so the Olympic games are completely out if you are running Vista64. I can only say the irony of this incompatability is staggering, since Media Center was one of the 5 big features touted in Vista.

Might as well take this blog down. It's another stellar example of the failure of Vista to provide a solution to a common problem.

re: Watch NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics in Windows Media Center

bhubt — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:52:30 GMT

It took me a few hours to find this forum.

I have installed the NBC Olympics plugin for Vista Media Center but it is giving me an error when I try to activate it. The TVTonic forums are filled with angy people. This plug-in doesn't work for many, many people even my Vista 32-bit machine.

It is giving me error 50001. It says that I am barred from activation due to regional restrictions.

I live in California so the US limitation should not be the problem. WTF? Why does Microsoft software not work with Microsoft software? Is California not a state anymore?

All I wanted to do was watch the games. I apparently won't be doing it with Vista I guess. Sad.

re: Watch NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics in Windows Media Center

pokeyoats — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:39:08 GMT

I just wanted to say how disappointing it is that there is no support for the 64-bit version of Vista, particularly due to the fact that TV Tonic is a media based application.

I say this because I recently had to upgrade my PC to 8GB of memory because I use my 360 to watch videos and Media Centre items with much regularity.

However, with 2GB of memory the constant crashing, skips, falts, and reboots that were required was really getting to me, and more so my girlfriend.

All I wanted to do was to make sure that the household could do all they wanted; my girlfriend to be able to watch media and videos and if I wasn't interested in what she was watching, enough memory to play a game or comfortably use the Internet.

Thus I went for 8GB and subsequently needed to use the 64-bit version of Windows (2^32 = 4.2billion (4GB)).

So now, I have 8GB of memory my system is running better than it ever has and my girlfriend no longer complains that movies she is watching are interrupted by crashing.

But now we are locked out of any "additional viewing" that I became quite hopeful about when I saw TV Tonic pop up on my media centre.

But I guess I'm just one person, and what difference does that make?

I don't know really, but perhaps a lot, to advertisers...

re: Watch NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics in Windows Media Center

annaa — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:32:49 GMT

Brandon or Microsoft - your link does not work in 64-bit Vista and the Olympics have already started!

Does anyone at Microsoft realize how follish this makes Vista look when it won't even work in Vista? Wasn't application compatability the dealbreaker when Vista launched 18 months ago and we still have compatability problems even with Microsoft's own software that they prominently tout on their flagship Vista blog?

What's the deal with this problem and when will it be fixed? Brandon, the guy who posted this blog, hasn't responded back in over a week. This makes Microsoft look foolish and makes us all suspect that a bunch of amateurs running this show. Is Apple running the Vista show now?

re: Watch NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics in Windows Media Center

Ledon — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:48:19 GMT

Doesn't work. Who still uses 32 bit? Why post it if it doesn't work?

re: Watch NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics in Windows Media Center

Freddy Mercury — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:55:21 GMT

What a piece of garbage and a waste of my time. Doesn't work. All I get is a warning about this release of TVTonic doesn't support 64-bit OS. If you aren't going to support a Vista-branded compatible application in ALL versions of Vista, then your product development team needs to be sacked. 2 years AFTER Vista launches and we are STILl having major, significant media center compatability issues is astoundingly incompetent.

re: Watch NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics in Windows Media Center

Paul Creamer — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 03:21:39 GMT

Lets not forget.... thats how Microsoft operates .. it does a additional beta using the marketplace (ie; we consumers get to test the product that isnt fully there).

re: Watch NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics in Windows Media Center

Drakee — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:25:53 GMT

Microsoft,

Why do you hate us? Why do you launch a major 64-bit OS and convince us to move to it, show us the benefits and stability, and then always jack the people who are running 64-bit systems?

As per this title...no. It does not work at all. I cannot watch the "NBC's coverage of the Beijing...in Windows Media Center" because Microsoft doesn't care about releasing software that is compatibile with their own OS's.

This sucks.

re: Watch NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics in Windows Media Center

Paul Creamer — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 15:51:10 GMT

For me ...Im rapidly coming close to dumping wMC since there are some decent wmc ALTERNATIVES.

In fact, since i have in 2-3 weeks already gone thru everything else in WMC 'all the videos and etc that are in wMC currently.

All thats left that I care about is LIVe TV.

If I could I would eliminate WMC and replace it with only LIVE tv.

For me what WMC does is consolidate media to one app (pics,vids,tv)...

But the TV or 'movie/tv viewing' part of this is kinda sloppy.

For me, other than my cost of buying a new pc (3 weeks ago) and the previously incurred cost of cable... and FM I have no interest in any of the 'trialware' that is in WMC which is more marketing than useful.