Picked up Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and spent the better half of my day installing it and trying to get it to work with my digital TV card (VisionPlus DVB-T). I'd say that after a LOT of work, I'm three quarters of the way there. I got it to detect my card but a scan picks up only 2 of our 5 free to air digital channels.
The drivers I am using with my card are still in BETA so there is still plenty of room for improvement. Here are a few (tiny) screenshots of MCE 2005 in action.
I heard that it's faster than regular Windows XP, what's your experience regarding this?
this looks really nice, is it compatible with most VIVO video cards and HDTV cards?
--- 0wN3D by 3gG ---
Seems to run really well here. I wouldn't say it is FASTER but I havn't done any benchmarks to prove otherwise.Originally Posted by Conan
No not really. Thats the short answer :P
I believe MS has a list of supported cards on their website. I think over time more and more manufacturers will start to create supporting drivers. At least I hope so
I heard theres a few hardware tvtuners that are compatible right now. but they do now accept 2 tvtuners. also if you want to view dvds thru mce you should use the ndvd codecs. from what I read seems to work the best
So can you actually use MCE as an XP replacement? will other apps work ie. Office, etc
whats the difference between hardware tvtuners and 'normal' ones??
--- 0wN3D by 3gG ---
yes I replaced my xp with the mce and working fine. and havent had any issues with other apps not working. best way to explain it is like dos and win95...its basically a multimedia shell over xp. or you can shut it off so then it looks just like reg ol' xp.
my tvtuner is a [email protected] from msi and it strictly relies on the software to run. now I guess hardware tuners just utilize the drive and MCE controls the device via driver vs software. kinda like a winmodem or soft modem.
Cash, it is just XP SP2 with a few extra media type programs, one of which is Media Center which is a central remote controllable application to manage/view/watch/listen to your MP3s, TV, DVDs, MPGs and AVIs. You dont have to run the Media Center app if you dont want to, but it's there if you do and works really well with a great interface.
I'd say that all TV cards are hardware based, its just the MCE will only work with those that use WDM drivers (for analogue cards) or BDA drivers (for digital cards). At least I think thats how it all works.
Come over for a demo (it seriously rocks) but be advised that I only have two channels so far...so we can't watch The Simpsons.
This codec works great, thing is, you also need it to watch TV (not just DVD). It might be due to the fact that my TV card is digital, so the stream is MPEG2, but without some sort of codec, TV wont play.
I think MS have a list of compatible cards somewhere. Lots of manufacturers have announced support for it already with more to come I'm sure. It's just a matter of updating the drivers in most cases I'd imagine.
UPDATE: Here's the offical list from MS: http://oem.microsoft.com/downloads/M...s_for_MOSB.xls
Last edited by phishhead; October 27th, 2004 at 01:51 AM.
UPDATE
Newly released beta drivers for my card have got me scanning all channels. Scheduling works great, so I can catch all those shows that I'm not around to watch and there's no mucking around with tapes since it's all recorded on my HDD.
Time-shit features are really smooth and once you are used to it, going back to regular TV is frustrating.
One slight limitation of the software so far seems to be the inability to fast forward/rewind through divx movies. I don't yet know why that is, I've tried a few different codecs with no success.
Currently using uICE (http://www.mediatexx.com/) to interpret remote control signals and relay them to Media Center, since I dont have a Microsoft remote.
Nice update, good to hear it works... we got a copy of MCE2005 in our MSDN subscription, so might be time to upgrade and get a DVB-T cardcan you tell me if the Fusion DVB-T card and Ati 9200se is compatible?
--- 0wN3D by 3gG ---
Hmm, I've heard results of a few people having luck with the Fusion card. Are you running a 9200 yet or is it a planned purchase?
I am looking at getting the Fusion HDTV card - not sure if current PC can handle it though - but 9200 is current, hand-me down from cousin, he upgraded to 9600XT, so I ditched my beloved ATi Radeon 32DDR, and slotted this baby straight in... its made the obvious performance boost, but 800Mhz CPU is still too slow... would MCE actually work on my PC??
I think, if MCE works good with the fusion card, then I might get upgrade after XMAS, since Intel price cut 775 chips and 915 boards
--- 0wN3D by 3gG ---
I am looking at getting the Fusion HDTV card - not sure if current PC can handle it though - but 9200 is current, hand-me down from cousin, he upgraded to 9600XT, so I ditched my beloved ATi Radeon 32DDR, and slotted this baby straight in... its made the obvious performance boost, but 800Mhz CPU is still too slow... would MCE actually work on my PC??
I think, if MCE works good with the fusion card, then I might get upgrade after XMAS, since Intel price cut 775 chips and 915 boards
I think MCE will work. At least the TV watching and video/DVD playback aspect will. Time-shifting would prove interesting - I dont think it would be very smooth.
Can't hurt to try.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks