Windows 7 Media Center VM with Ceton Network Tuner to serve WMC Extenders

[dlandon]

I have a Windows 7 WMC VM setup with a Ceton InfiniTV6 network tuner serving Xbox 360 and Ceton Echo extenders.  I had a VM setup in Xen in the beta days of V6 that paused and skipped on extenders.  Since moving the VM to KVM, I have had excellent performance.  You don't need vt-d support because you will not be passing through a GPU.  In fact I don't recommend passing through a GPU to a Windows 7 VM.

 

Windows Media Center is no longer being enhanced or updated by Microsoft, but it will be supported in Windows 7 until support is dropped for Windows 7 (2020?).  As long as the TV Guide keeps working, WMC is a viable product that should keep working.  I have installed a plugin that shows station logos and allows some customization of the WMC experience.  I have also installed a Movie plugin that will play back DVD files in an Xbox 360 extender.  I have a separate vdisk set up to record TV shows and a daily batch file to move the TV shows to the array.

 

I have not tried any other tuner but the networked Ceton InfiniTV.  I suppose that a pci tuner could be passed through to the VM, but I've not tried.

 

I will go through the procedure I used to set up the VM and get everything about WMC working in a VM without a GPU.  I will also document some tips for good performance.

 

Start by setting up a Windows 7 64bit VM.  Use the following settings:

- Pin 2 CPUs to the VM.

- Set memory to balloon.  4,096 as minimum and 8,192 as maximum.  I know this sounds a bit strange, but I have had issues with anything other than this memory configuration.

- Set the VM vdisk to raw 60GB size.  That's all the Windows 7 OS needs.

- Set up a second vdisk to raw and a size enough to record a days worth of TV shows.  I would recommend between 100GB and 160GB.  This vdisk can be resized or removed and a new one installed at a later date so the initial size is not important.

- Use the virtio 0.1.100 drivers.  I have found that the NetKVM driver later than this version crashes when an extender is started.

 

Once Windows 7 is installed, do appropriate updates.  I went through any updates and only applied those that would apply to media center.  I didn't apply all updates.

 

Once the VM is working and updated, do the following.

 

Start a Command Prompt in administrative mode and execute each of the following commands.

 

Set up Media Center for auto logins.  Windows 7 will login automatically.

Run "control userpasswords2" and set for no logins.

 

Keep windows passwords from expiring.

net accounts /maxpwage:unlimited

or

lusrmgr.msc

 

Turn off hibernation.  This saves some disk space and hibernation isn't necessary.

powercfg.exe /hibernate off

 

Disable windows start up menu so a bad shutdown will allow the VM to startup without the startup menu.

bcdedit /set {current} bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures

 

Install the Ceton infinitv driver setup.  I used "ceton_infinitv_setup_w7_sp1_13_06_03_1088".

 

Start Media Center in the VM and install the Digital Cable Advisor.

 

Force Digital Cable Ready Test to pass.  This will get WMC to think the Digital Cable Ready test passed.  It won't pass using the Media Center procedure without a GPU.

C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL\UpdateMachineForDigitalCable\1.0.0.0__31bf3856ad364e35\UpdateMachineForDigitalCable.exe

 

Start Media Center in the VM and go through the tuner setup.  If Media Center only offers 4 tuners, reboot the VM and start the tuner setup again.

 

PlayReady will download and install.  Once that is done you should be able to connect your extenders and watch TV.

 

Tips for good operation:

- Use wired devices.  Don't use wireless for any devices.  Performance will suffer.

- Use a business grade network switch and connect all devices to the same switch.  Don't use a router as a wired switch to connect your devices.  Don't cascade switches.

- Set the Ceton InfiniTV tuner to a fixed IP address.

- Update all virtio drivers except NetKVM.  Leave the NetKVM driver at 0.1.100.

- Set the virtio network driver to 1GB speed, not 10GB.

- Set the VM for max performance in power options.

- Turn off the VM sleep.

- Don't install the Ceton Echo Setup.

- Be sure to install the unraid cache_dirs plugin.  WMC will display a "Network Issue" message when the update of media (pictures, music, movies, and video) is delayed by disk spinups.

 

Add in WMC plugins I use:

- My Channel Logos: http://www.mychannellogos.com/.  This adds station logos and let's you adjust the WMC guide for more entries.

- My Movies: http://www.mymovies.dk/.  This plugin lets you watch your ripped DVDs on an Xbox 360 extender and transcodes the movie.  It adds movie metadata to the movies.

 

This is the batch file I use to move recorded TV showws to the array.  I set this up as a schdeuled task to be run every night:

rem
rem Move the recorded TV shows to the Media Server
rem
move "d:\Recorded TV\*.wtv" "\\MediaServer\Recorded TV\"

 

Hopefully this will help anyone trying to set up a WMC VM.

 

EDIT: I've learned some additional tweaks that may or may not help with this situation and maybe others trying to stream media from a VM.

 

1) Windows 7 parks CPUs that are not needed at the time to try to save energy.  This is not appropriate on an unraid VM.  There are utilities available on the Internet to turn off CPU parkin.

2) Network Tweaks.

- Turn off TSO (Transmit Segment Offload) - ethtool -K ethX tso off

- Turn off Flow Control - ethtool -A ethX autoneg off rx off tx off

3) CPU assignments can make a big difference.  I isolate CPUs from Linux and assign them to the VM.  This keeps Linix (unraid) from using the CPUs.  This can have an impact on the VM latency.

 

These tweaks may help with choppy video and audio on media streaming applications.

[dlandon]

Place holder.

[BobPhoenix]

I don't have WMC but I do use SageTV on a Win7 VM running on unRAID 6.1.6 with passed through PCIe tuners: AverMedia Duet and Hauppauge HVR-2250 tuners.  So I would expect they would work on WMC as well.

[Chuccck]

Thank you very much for this.  I have been toying with the idea of converting my small HTPC to my first UnRAID machine as an HTPC that would serve live tv.    Couple of questions.

 

I have a infinitv4 right now and it works great.  Did the 6 tuner version add anything to make this process easier, specifically with network tuning? 

 

I am assuming because you have a Xeon and no gpu you don't use the UnRAID machine as HTPC.  Instead every TV is hooked up to an extender?

 

If I wanted to use the win 7 vm as the HTPC to be hooked up to my TV, could I get away with the integrated graphics of an i7 or i5 processor? If I wanted to do this and have 2 simultaneous plex streams, and crashplan, do you think I could get away with 6000-9000 passmark score?

[CHBMB]

If I wanted to use the win 7 vm as the HTPC to be hooked up to my TV, could I get away with the integrated graphics of an i7 or i5 processor? If I wanted to do this and have 2 simultaneous plex streams, and crashplan, do you think I could get away with 6000-9000 passmark score?

 

It's not possible  to use the integrated graphics to passthrough, so you'd need a discrete graphics card.

[Chuccck]

 

It's not possible  to use the integrated graphics to passthrough, so you'd need a discrete graphics card.

 

Thanks, any suggestion for cheap htpc graphics card? no gaming, just tv and hd video.

[dlandon]

Thank you very much for this.  I have been toying with the idea of converting my small HTPC to my first UnRAID machine as an HTPC that would serve live tv.    Couple of questions.

 

I have a infinitv4 right now and it works great.  Did the 6 tuner version add anything to make this process easier, specifically with network tuning?

 

Six tuners.  Other than that I don't think the network version added anything.

 

I am assuming because you have a Xeon and no gpu you don't use the UnRAID machine as HTPC.  Instead every TV is hooked up to an extender?

 

Yes.

 

If I wanted to use the win 7 vm as the HTPC to be hooked up to my TV, could I get away with the integrated graphics of an i7 or i5 processor? If I wanted to do this and have 2 simultaneous plex streams, and crashplan, do you think I could get away with 6000-9000 passmark score?

 

You can't pass through the integrated graphics.  I have also heard that gpu pass through for Windows 7 is pretty iffy.  Why not a Windows 8.1?

 

I'm not sure that Windows Media Center will be happy on a VM.  I think I read in the Green Button forum that video will fail on a VM because of video protection.

[dlandon]

 

It's not possible  to use the integrated graphics to passthrough, so you'd need a discrete graphics card.

 

Thanks, any suggestion for cheap htpc graphics card? no gaming, just tv and hd video.

 

I use an XFX 5450 passed through to a Windows 10 VM.  For a while, I also had it passed through to a Windows 8 VM.  Not expensive and a lot of people have reported success with the XFX GPU.  It will boot UEFI.

[austin]

This thread is awesome because it's exactly what I want to do. Are you still using this config?

 

I would recommend using mcebuddy to move your files each night instead of batch files. It strips commercials and converts to mp4.

 

I have the 4 tuner PCI card so that'll be a challenge.

 

Have you tried using Emby? Since wmc is losing support, I'm wanting to create win 7 VM to record with ceton and use emby for live TV and playback.

 

Sent from Galaxy S6 Edge

 

 

[garycase]

Emby has a MAJOR shortcoming relative to WMC => no support for DRM-protected channels.

 

Depending on who your provider is, this can be a minor nuisance or a major shortcoming ... we happen to have Time Warner, which marks just about EVERY channel with a protected flag, even if the network doesn't require it ... so no DRM support is a killer => no way I could use Emby.

 

The "good news" is that WMC will work at least through Jan, 2020 and PROBABLY through Jan, 2023, since 8.1 will be supported through then and I assume the EPG support for WMC isn't a function of which OS it's running on.    Worst case might be that I'd have to upgrade my Windows 7 system to 8.1, but I doubt that will be required.

 

One can only hope that there will be another DRM-enabled option before those dates 

[BRiT]

There are means of adding Windows Media Center to Windows 10. People have had great success with recording even DRM channels or shows too. I dont have the link handy right now, but i think I linked it before somewhere in these forums.

 

Emby would be usable to me for recordings if it supported DRM channels.

[dmacias]

Is it still true that you have to assign a dedicated tuner with the Ceton to WMC extenders? That's why I sold my Ceton and got 2 hdhr primes and eventually moved to Mythtv over WMC. I have Comcast so I just lost the paid channels which I don't have. But sometimes I do have paid channels if the package is cheaper so another DRM solution would be nice. Silicondust's HDHomeRun DVR looks promising with plans for DRM with Android and Windows 10 apps.

[BRiT]

Not certain on the WMC Extenders as there really arn't any readily available outside of the XBox 360. When I used my X360 as an extender I never assigned a dedicated tuner to it, it used what was available. This might be different depending on Copy Never flagged channels instead of Copy Once.

 

I gave up waiting for SiliconDust HDHomeRun DVR. It was scheduled to have DRM support delivered over a year ago. It doesn't seem like they're anywhere close either. They were also supposed to have more than a triple-tuner cablecard based product out that didn't require multiple cable-cards, but those are nowhere to be seen.

 

I got so fed up with it all that I switched over to Tivo and Tivo Mini setups. I then use PyTivo to transfer movies/shows to the Tivo to augment my cable subscription packages. It works well, albeit a bit pricey with the upfront costs. At least I don't have to deal with the horrible cable company DVRs or their other STBs in other rooms and don't pay those extra monthly rental fees.

[garycase]

I've not had any issues at all with XBox 360's and HDHomeRuns ... doesn't matter if they're DRM'd channels or not (in fact, as I already noted, with Time Warner they mark just about every channel with DRM).

 

I've got 3 HDHomeRun's (9 tuners total) and the extenders just use any available tuner.

 

I agree the Silicon Dust HDHomeRun DVR looks nice, but they've been promising DRM support for a LONG time now and, as you've noted, it's still nowhere to be seen.    Hopefully they'll have their ducks lined up before the WMC guide support disappears in a few years.

 

I've not tried the Ceton tuner ... but I'm surprised you have to dedicate a tuner to an extender.  Are you sure that was set up correctly?

 

[austin]

Is it still true that you have to assign a dedicated tuner with the Ceton to WMC extenders? That's why I sold my Ceton and got 2 hdhr primes and eventually moved to Mythtv over WMC. I have Comcast so I just lost the paid channels which I don't have. But sometimes I do have paid channels if the package is cheaper so another DRM solution would be nice. Silicondust's HDHomeRun DVR looks promising with plans for DRM with Android and Windows 10 apps.

I've never had to assign tuners to my Xboxes and I preordered the ceton when it first came out. Stills works as good today as day 1, really well built hardware. I have two Xboxes and medicenter PC. No issues using all at once and recording a show.

 

Sent from Galaxy S6 Edge

 

 

[CHBMB]

So, just for my own interest, WMC is the only way of using a PVR with encrypted channels?  And MS have dropped it?

 

Wow, that's a bit of a serious setback for PVR on home computers if that's the case.... 

[BRiT]

So, just for my own interest, WMC is the only way of using a PVR with encrypted channels?  And MS have dropped it?

 

Wow, that's a bit of a serious setback for PVR on home computers if that's the case.... 

Yes. Its the only one to be able to record CopyOnce flagged channels in the US.  For some cable providers that is every single channel, for others it's only the Premium channels like HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Epix.

[CHBMB]

So, just for my own interest, WMC is the only way of using a PVR with encrypted channels?  And MS have dropped it?

 

Wow, that's a bit of a serious setback for PVR on home computers if that's the case.... 

Yes. Its the only one to be able to record CopyOnce flagged channels in the US.  For some cable providers that is every single channel, for others it's only the Premium channels like HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Epix.

 

Wow, that's quite a problem for my Stateside cousins then.  So, you guys basically use WMC as a tuner farm then need extenders like X360 or other Win7 PCs?  What about the Kodi WMC plugin does that work well enough to make it a viable extender?

[garycase]

Kodi can't be used as an extender for DRM-protected content.  It works fine for non-protected content.

 

SO ... how bad a problem the DRM issue presents depends on your signal source and what set of channels you get ...

 

=>  If you record over-the-air TV (i.e. using an antenna) then there's no issue.    For those in major metro areas who don't care about cable-only channels that's an alternative, but clearly that significantly limits what you can watch.

 

=>  If your cable company only marks channels with CC restrictions that the content provider requires, you can still record a LOT of channels that won't be flagged ... these can be freely watched from any device that can play the recorded format => in other words you don't need an extender.  You can use Kodi, or any other PC running WMC, which can simply "point" to the recordings directory on the PC that did the recording and it'll play just fine.    Only Protected Content [wiht CC code "Copy Once"] requires an extender.

 

=>  As already noted, some cable companies -- notably Time Warner -- mark virtually ALL of their channels as Copy Once, so you MUST have an extender to watch this content.

 

Quite frankly, WMC works very nicely as a "Super DVR" with a good tuner like the HDHomeRun or Ceton units ... I have 3 HDHomeRuns, which enables recording/watching 9 channels at once [plenty for 2 of us  ... some might say "overkill] ... and have PLENTY of storage available for it => I have a 5TB recording drive; and have a schedule task that automatically moves recordings more than a month old to an UnRAID server with 25TB of space (which I can easily expand if I should ever need to).    Note that the playback restrictions caused by the DRM copy control flags only restrict where you can PLAY the content ... NOT where you can STORE it, so there's no probem storing it anywhere you want.    e.g. you can store it locally on the computer; on your network; or even archive it on external drives that you connect when you want to play it.    The CC flags simply mean it can only be played back on the same computer it was recorded on using WMC, or an extender connected to that PC.

 

I agree, however, that this is a major looming problem =>  WMC will, fo course, work just fine as long as the channel guide is maintained.    BUT that is very likely to end after Windows 8.1 support ends in Jan 2023.    It's not likely it will be a problem when '7 support ends in Jan 2020, since the channel guide is almost certainly not dependent on the OS version -- just on WMC.    [Anything's possilbe, of course]

 

SURELY there will be some alternative BEFORE those dates => The Silicon Dust DVR looks very good EXCEPT for the lack of DRM support.    Surely that will be resolved long before 2023 !!

 

... or for that matter, TV may well be obsolete by then 

 

... OR Microsoft may relent and release a Windows 10 version of WMC  (or perhaps a version for Windows 11, 12, or whatever the then-current version might be).

 

[BobPhoenix]

So, just for my own interest, WMC is the only way of using a PVR with encrypted channels?  And MS have dropped it?

 

Wow, that's a bit of a serious setback for PVR on home computers if that's the case.... 

Yes. Its the only one to be able to record CopyOnce flagged channels in the US.  For some cable providers that is every single channel, for others it's only the Premium channels like HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Epix.

 

Wow, that's quite a problem for my Stateside cousins then.  So, you guys basically use WMC as a tuner farm then need extenders like X360 or other Win7 PCs?  What about the Kodi WMC plugin does that work well enough to make it a viable extender?

I use a HDPVR to record from premiums.  Not as good as cable card quality wise but it works.

[garycase]

Yes, an HDPVR is a reasonable way to bypass the Copy Control codes.

 

Another alternative IF your cable company doesn't use switched digital video is a digital tuner card like a Hauppauge 2250.

 

In fact, until our cable company changed to SDV I had 4 2250's in my HTPC so I could record 4 channels at once, and there was no concern with CC codes with these tuners -- anything recorded could be watched on any device, with no need for extenders.    Of course that only worked for ClearQAM channels ... but virtually everything we watch was transmitted that way (and we don't have any premiums -- Showtime, HBO, etc.)

 

Then Time Warner moved to SDV, so I had no choice but to either use their boxes or get a cable card tuner; so I got the HDHomeRuns.    These work VERY nicely, but I did have to buy XBox 360's to use as extenders for viewing on other TVs.

 

This whole DRM thing is a PITA ... seems like if you can WATCH it, you should be able to RECORD it ... and of course the HDPVR allows exactly that.    Trouble is, you can only record what you're watching with that, so unless you have multiple cable boxes and multiple HDPVR's, you can't record multiple channels at a time.

 

For now, WMC works great => no problem recording as many channels at once as I want;  virtually unlimited recording space (a function of what you provide for it); and the 360's work VERY well as extenders -- you get the exact same interface as if you were using the main PC.    There are two MAJOR issues that bug me about this setup ...

 

(1)  If Microsoft discontinues support for the guide, WMC users are hosed.  [it would still work, but every recording would have to be manually configured -- which is clearly a BIG PITA]    This isn't likely to happen until Jan 2023, but it probably WILL happen then, unless the listing provider offers the guide as a paid service.    Fortunately, this is far enough in the future that I'm not overly concerned about it.

 

(2)  IF my HTPC was to break, I'd be HOSED big time.    Everything we've recorded would then be unwatchable, as it can ONLY be played back on the computer it was recorded on.    I don't think there's a "fix" for this.    I could, of course, build a new HTPC with '7 or '8 and all would be well going forward ... but all the archived recordings would be useless.    MOST of those recordings would have been fine if it wasn't for Time Warner's policy of marking everything Copy Once -- which just adds to the aggravation.    Fortunately it's a very reliable PC; is well cooled; I keep it pretty dust free (blow it our every couple months; it's exceptionally well backed up; and is never used for anything else -- so typical failure modes (hard drive; power supply; or memory) wouldn't have any impact on it.

 

 

[garycase]

One thing I WISH I'd tried when I switched to the cable card tuners (but didn't) was to reload everything into a VM running under VMWare.

 

MOST VM's can be freely MOVED to other hardware and will retain their activation of the OS and installed programs with no problem.    I've tried this with every version of Windows, and it's very consistent.    What I have NOT tried is to do that with the PlayReady setup you have to use to record protected content under WMC.  If THAT works okay, then the problem of a failing PC would be mute => as long as there's a backup of the WMC VM it could simply be run on a different host.

 

Since the tuners are network assets; and the primary storage library is on a server on the network, NOTHING would change ... and the concern about a PC failure would be gone.

 

One of my "one of these day" projects is to try that -- I simply haven't gotten around to it yet.    I could set that up on a VM on my desktop; give it access to one of the HDHomeRuns; and confirm it records okay and "talks" to an extender okay; and if so, then move the VM to another PC and see if all still works.

 

If so, then I could switch to the VM as a primary HTPC; and leave my current HTPC on to allow playback of all the already recorded content.

 

I'm curious if anyone's already done this with WMC in a VM using network tuners -- preferably under VMWare, since I think that's more likely to be "moveable" than the UnRAID VM's.

 

[BobPhoenix]

This whole DRM thing is a PITA ... seems like if you can WATCH it, you should be able to RECORD it ... and of course the HDPVR allows exactly that.    Trouble is, you can only record what you're watching with that, so unless you have multiple cable boxes and multiple HDPVR's, you can't record multiple channels at a time.

I don't watch live TV.  Everything is recorded first.  I have 5 DirecTV boxes with 4 HD boxes and 1 SD that I record from for all channels that are copy protected.

[garycase]

... I don't watch live TV.  Everything is recorded first.

 

Me neither.  EVERYTHING is recorded first; then I watch it at my leisure.  We often record an entire season of a new show before we get around to watching it        Actually, the wife sets up basically everything new to record the series; and as we hear from others what's good or not we will perhaps sit down and watch it -- basically binge watch as many episodes as we have.

 

 

... I have 5 DirecTV boxes with 4 HD boxes and 1 SD that I record from for all channels that are copy protected.

 

Five boxes plus a bunch of HDPVR will certainly do the trick.    What program do you use to control the Direct TV boxes and recordings?

 

[BobPhoenix]

... I don't watch live TV.  Everything is recorded first.

 

Me neither.  EVERYTHING is recorded first; then I watch it at my leisure.  We often record an entire season of a new show before we get around to watching it        Actually, the wife sets up basically everything new to record the series; and as we hear from others what's good or not we will perhaps sit down and watch it -- basically binge watch as many episodes as we have.

 

 

... I have 5 DirecTV boxes with 4 HD boxes and 1 SD that I record from for all channels that are copy protected.

 

Five boxes plus a bunch of HDPVR will certainly do the trick.    What program do you use to control the Direct TV boxes and recordings?

I use SageTV rather than WMC.  It has a user created Windows DLL that uses HTTP to tune the DirecTV HD boxes.  The SD box is tuned with SageTV built in RS-232 device to tune channels.  I just use a RS-232 to USB device to plugin to the SD DirecTV box.  Right now I'm using a Windows box for this but I plan on virtualizing on unRAID when I have the time and research what it will take to pass through the Serial port.  I might just try the SageTV docker directly on unRAID as well.  Whatever will work and not loose my metadata for the already recorded shows I have.