Miscellaneous Update Rollup 2 issues and how to work around them

I wanted to list a few miscellaneous issues that have been found recently with Update Rollup 2 for Media Center 2005 and describe how to workaround them. Some of these have already been described individually elsewhere, but I wanted to make it more likely that they are found in search engines by posting them again.

1. DVB radio tuning causes a blue No TV Signal overlay

Peter Rosser described this issue and workaround in more detail in this blog post. He lists the registry value that needs to be changed to workaround this problem until it is released in a future Media Center rollup package. As a convenience, here is a command line that you can run to update this registry value do you do not have to use regedit:

  1. Click on the Start menu, choose Run and type cmd
  2. Run reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Video\Tuners\DVR" /v NearUnderflowCheckMillis /t REG_DWORD /d 4000 /f

Note: You can copy and paste this command into the cmd prompt by highlighting it in this blog post, pressing Ctrl + C, then right-clicking on the cmd prompt window and choosing Paste. Make sure that you copy the entire command as it is listed above, including the space between Media and Center, and do not add any extra carriage returns in the middle of the command line or it will not work correctly.

2. High-definition (ATSC) tuners stop working after uninstalling Update Rollup 2

Peter Rosser also described this issue in his blog, and you can find more information in this post. Here is a set of steps that will delete the registry value that is needed to restore ATSC tuner functionality if you uninstall Update Rollup 2:

  1. Close Media Center
  2. Click on the Start menu, choose Run and type cmd
  3. Run net stop ehsched and net stop ehrecvr
  4. Run reg delete "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Video\Tuners" /f
  5. Restart Media Center

Note: Like in the issue described above, you can copy and paste this command into the cmd prompt by highlighting it in this blog post, pressing Ctrl + C, then right-clicking on the cmd prompt window and choosing Paste. Make sure that you copy the entire command as it is listed above, including the space between Media and Center, and do not add any extra carriage returns in the middle of the command line or it will not work correctly.

3. Media Center will not correctly enter standby mode if the TV tuner was used prior to going into standby

This is a recently discovered regression introduced in Update Rollup 2 that we are currently working on a fix for. Once a fix is ready, it will likely be included in the next Media Center hotfix rollup package. The only known workaround at this time is to disable Media Center sounds by navigating to Settings | General | Visual and Sound Effects and unchecking the box labeled Play sounds while navigating Media Center.

4. ATSC minor channels are listed incorrectly in the Media Center television guide

Peter Rosser described this issue in his blog in this post. This is a known issue that will be fixed in the next hotfix rollup for Media Center 2005, but unfortunately there is not a way to workaround this issue in the meantime.