TV Pack Installing & Startup Issues

   Two things I'll mention today - one is to do with development, one is a tip for those having trouble with Media Center startup since installing the TV Pack.

   Part 1 - Installing on Media Center with the TV Pack Installed

   'Fiji' - or the Media Center TV Pack - is a MUST have for Media Center owners in Australia. I find it criminal that it's only available to OEM's, but on the other hand I can also see it breaking some peoples configurations, since you do need to scan for new channels, play with your lineup and it interrupts 3rd party Guide applications, which are required in this country.

   Installing onto Fiji is done exactly the same way as usual (ie. using an installer based on the WiX example that comes with the Media Center SDK) - but there is a small glitch with the example.

   For Fiji, Microsoft changed the version number from 5.0 to 5.1 - and unfortunately, their example checks for a version number of '5.0'. This means that any installer based on the SDK example won't install on Windows 7 or on the TV Pack.

   The easiest fix? Just delete the condition from your WiX file. Simply search for the text '5.0' and erase the condition. It appears in TWO different places in your installer, so make sure you get both.

Part 2 - Startup Issues Since Installing Media Center

   Since installing the TV pack myself, I've been having two issues. The first is that all of my TV-Pack equipped Vista PC's are waking themselves up at approximately 4:00am, but that's not the actual problem I'm discussing here.

   The problem I had is that Media Center was starting up when the 'Welcome' screen was still showing. Technically, this sounds like a great idea since it should give you a seamless transition into Media Center after your machine starts up. Unfortunately, it was starting up so early that the video card didn't seem to be ready for it (or appropriate drivers were not installed quite yet) meaning that I would get an error message and when Media Center finally DID turn up, it was in the ugly 'GUI' mode (no smooth animations, glitchy playback etc.)

   How did I fix it? I grabbed a small utility called "Startup Delayer" from "r2 Studios". I'm not going to rabbit on too long about it - this isn't an ad - but it helped me resolve the problem by delaying the startup of Media Center until the Welcome screen had gone and my video drivers were fully up to speed. It also improved my startup time slightly. If you are having a similar issue, try downloading it from http://www.r2.com.au/software.php?page=2&show=startdelay