Please help... what's wrong with my desktop?

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Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,903
10,228
136
As long as you have an extra boot partition, you could try another OS. Maybe LibreElec, with the Kodi plugin for your HDHomerun.
I kinda think the MyHD app wouldn't work in it, the threads at AVS Forums would have indicated non-Windows as an option if it was. I should really try Win7, though, even a 1 month trial.
 

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
14,559
248
106
At this point you should be "trying" Windows 10 (I say trying when in all honesty you should be getting ready to move to it). Extended support for Windows 7 ends in just over 1 year (January of 2020).
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,903
10,228
136
At this point you should be "trying" Windows 10 (I say trying when in all honesty you should be getting ready to move to it). Extended support for Windows 7 ends in just over 1 year (January of 2020).
I have Win10 on my every day laptops. My HDTV solution will not work with Windows 10, I have it on good authority. It will work with Win7, but I have to use the recommended workarounds to make that happen. It's not a biggie, it will work and fine, I'm told, but I haven't tried it yet. It certainly works with WinXP, and I even ran it perfectly on Windows 2000, and still could and in fact may! Non support by Microsoft is of course an issue but if I use the rig specifically for HDTV and don't expose it to exploits it might work fine FAIK.
 

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
14,559
248
106
No offense, but technology has come a long way since Windows 2000 (and I am sure you know that). There is some very good stuff out that will work with 10, based on what I have read.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,903
10,228
136
No offense, but technology has come a long way since Windows 2000 (and I am sure you know that). There is some very good stuff out that will work with 10, based on what I have read.
I imagine there are solutions for HDTV I could use. However, finding one that is best for me is downright formidable enterprise. I downloaded a chart of solutions and it's absolutely mind boggling. Dozens of solutions, asterisks everywhere. What I have works, well, can be made to work, evidently, although I have lockups and lip synch issues to deal with. I'm told that not everyone has them at all. I think my sound card may be implicated in these problems. It's full featured but no longer supported (Hercules Game Theater XP). My HDTV card has an app that's pretty good if it doesn't have those issues and it has the remote. I need the remote control.

If and when HDTV increases the resolution significantly, then I will be motivated to upgrade for sure. But AFAIK, I'm getting the best picture out there, so why move on... just yet? Why bother? I'm getting 1920x1080i. Can I do better in the USA? I don't think my projector can exceed that but I could get another projector or go with a flat screen monitor, but do the stations put out a higher def signal?

The five main ATSC formats of DTV currently broadcast in the U.S. are:

 
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VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,587
10,225
126
What about a Hauppauge card? They have some WinTV cards that receive ATSC/NTSC/QAM, I owned one for a while, but I never used it, sold it off. Was never a big TV viewer. I think it was an HVR1600 or something. It was PCI-E x1.

I know that it was supported in Win7 64-bit, but I don't know if those are still supported in Win10 or not, or even whether Hauppauge is still around. I used one of their Brooktree PCI cards to watch and record SD NTSC a long, long, time ago under XP. Unfortunately, don't think that those cards are supported in modern Windows versions, they wouldn't decode over 4GB, so couldn't use them with 64-bit PCs, I guess, with over 4GB of RAM. Maybe your PCI cards are similarly handicapped?

Edit: Have you considered a USB dongle? I really wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a Chinese-made generic HDTV (ATSC/QAM) dongle, that worked out of the box with Win10 64-bit.

I also used to have some of those, that used an ATI chipset, sold by VisionTek, a long time ago. They worked with Win7 64-bit with some workarounds, but were never fully supported past XP, sadly.

Edit: Well, look at that, they DO.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/PC-USB-Dig...ftware-For-Over-The-Air-Channels/253097636559
 
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Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
14,559
248
106
At this point you may want to send a note to BonzaiDuck and see how his system is going. Last I read he was still using Windows 7 and trying to make the transition to Windows 10, with similar intentions.
 

fire400

Diamond Member
Nov 21, 2005
5,204
21
81
Recommend ditching XP, the file system and security alone are both archaic, and upgrade to win7, which can normally still run a lot of WinXP apps just fine and move it to an SSD,
- or -

Run a separate HDD/SSD with WinXP and another SSD separately for win7, don't have to dual boot, you can select which hard disk to boot form from F keys.

eBay: 775 motherboard, most of those motherboards, not surprisingly still come with PCI (white) slots.

CPU specs: https://ark.intel.com/products/36547/Intel-Core2-Quad-Processor-Q8200-4M-Cache-2_33-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB

We're talking about a processor from 2008, most boards at the time mainly only supported DDR2.

Probably be far less work to just buy someone's old XP/win7 rig for a $100 and install your pci card into an available pci slot, and go from there.

The other day, I was attempting to fix an Alienware Aurora R3, i7-gen2, and parts of the motherboard were failing. Had to install RAID controller and disable onboard disk controller and USB 3.0 controller in order to get the OS to stabilize with the hardware.
Point is, dinosaurs have a place in the world, as fossils, where 'parts' of the overall whole can be properly enjoyed by the very few masses if you want to keep archaic systems running.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,587
10,225
126
Probably be far less work to just buy someone's old XP/win7 rig for a $100 and install your pci card into an available pci slot, and go from there.
He bought the 775 board that he's using, along with the CPU and video card (I think) from me. Which is why I've been trying to help him out so much.

I *did* however, strongly suggest moving to Windows 7, as that's the OS I had running on that kit. I don't know that I ever had XP running on that board, or how it behaves.