XP MCE 2005 Driver for Sony Giga Pocket TV tuner

Last time this came up, there was not, but that does not mean that still applies.

Have you tried Sony email support?

gerryf,

Is there a way I can review the previous post on this topic you are referring to? Thanks alot.

Shawneton, I did exactly the same as you and I'm even in a worse situation: I don't even have my old TV Tuner drivers. Do you know where I can get them?

I have a Sony Vaio VGC-V2S so if any of you know what I can do, I will really appreciate it!!!

mjtufro, try going to this site

http://esupport.sony.com

enter your model number and go to the drivers (everything) page. It had all of my OEM drivers. Good luck. If you had Vaio system recovery, you can reinstall its drivers then reinstall Vaio system recovery from a recovery media set you hopefully created earlier. I had to trick the recovery media disc 1, because with MCE 2005 on the system it did not want to believe it was the same computer. If it says it cannot start the recovery set, manually go into the disc 1 and open all the application programs on that disc until it starts up. It finally did start and i was able to recover all my Vaio programs (including Giga Pocket).

Thanks for the quick reply. I didn't create a recovery disk because when I tried, it said it was not a VAIO PC (which was not true, because it is) and I called Sony but they didn't answer, so I didn't bother. Big mistake. I got a virus some weeks ago and had to reinstall everything. When I realized I needed the drivers, I went into support and I downloaded the zip with all the drivers. Everything was there, except my TV Tuner driver. Do you remember under which of the directories the TV Tuner driver was? In my ZIP file, the only empty directory was MPEGEncoder. Is that where it's supposed to be?

I tried with all the other folders and it didn't work. In Device Drivers the only device with a question mark (not recognized) is a "Multimedia Video Controller". I guess that's the TV tunner. I tried upgrading the drivers with all the folders in the ZIP file and it didn't work. Any suggestions?

the mpeg encoder driver is what you need. If you cant find it at esupport under your model #, try a similar model.

I found it in VGC-V3S! thanks! but, as you say, it's not compatible with MCE 2005, so if i want to watch TV I need Vaio Zone (the equivalent of Gigapocket in my model) until somebody writes a compatible driver...

Yeah, or do what I did and buy a second Tuner card for MCE 2005. That way you can watch TV and record at the same time, and get full MCE functionality. You can find an ATI E-home wonder that in MCE 2005 compatible for about $75.00. I have one on the way now. Will let you know how it ends up working.

Yes, I thought about that as a last resort. I might do it anyway. The only thing that concerns me is how good USB TV Tuners are. I can't open my VAIO, so it has to be a USB tuner.

I live in London, so I will have to do some research on what's available over here. Let me know how the ATI performs. Thanks!

This may not be my place to say it, but the industries(microsoft cough* cough*) need to stop worrying about people ripping them outaf a few bucks from commission sales due to highly imposssible situations and need to work on compatabilitie and consumer support... yes they have alll that msn crap and loads of support but i still hate all the security features. And just perhaps they wouldnt have half of those pissed of hakers workin on taken em down if they had better business practices along with better development procedures... this reminds me, did anyone see that helarious episode of the simpsons where Homer Trys to start a web business? ahahahhahahahahahahaha!!! " Buy them out boy's"... oh wat a classic line!

: :

yes, you have a point there... they should try to make things compatible instead of making the vendors add a logo that says "it works with Microsoft Windows MCE". i'm pretty annoyed that i just bought a Hauppauge Win PVR USB 2 and I couldn't make it work with MCE 32005, even when I downloaded the compatible drivers. I get an error message by MCE saying that there's a "Decoder error" (by the way, if you know how can I solve this please let me know).

Anyway.... there's still some way to go until Linux becomes a massive OS. It's still not user friendly enough, but they've gone a long way in very little time!

In the meantime, we'll stick to PHP and MySQL and let ASP die (which, unfortunately, it will not...)

Here is the ftp site for Sony. They have most software downloads and drivers at this site. The Giga Pocket™ included!


ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/PUB/Vaio/

I was given a Sony VAIO a while ago. I've had nothing but problems with the Sony website. I did have windows seven installed and had to reformat using xp because Sony didn't have ANY drivers for seven on the site . Unfortunately my PC needed some of these drivers just to function properly. I to am having an issue with the driver for my TV tuner card. I downloaded an unstable version from a torrent which causes my system to freeze up. I've had no choice but to remove it. I now have a useless card on my PC. Nothing pisses me off more than when a simple driver search becomes a journey into [bleep]. Sony needs to become more "user friendly" and open. Microsoft needs to do the same. The whole "detect my model" option on Sony's website also appears to be a well meaning but poorly executed option. If anyone has a direct link to the drivers and software for this card please let me know.