Vista Media Centre

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sbiddle

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#14640 13-Jul-2007 09:31

I've had a dedicated PVR in my lounge for some time now hooked up to my 50" Pioneer Plasma and have been a great fan of GB-PVR which is a fantastic application written by a fellow Wellingtonian. I've just purchased some new hardware for my PVR (Asus M2A-HDMI motherboard running a X2 4800+ CPU) and thought I'd have a play with Vista Media Centre.

Is there anbody else out there making use of Vista's Media Centre and if so what plugins etc are you running on it? I only installed it yesterday so haven't actually looked around yet but did notice a few sites with plenty of XP MCE plugins - I'm guessing that these will work OK in Vista? For an EPG I'll be using XMLTVNZ + BladeRunner Pro which I still have to configure. I've already got XMLTVNZ running since I have also reinstalled GB-PVR on the PC.

Overall it's very snappy and seems to be a million miles ahead of XP MCE. GB-PVR also seems to run a lot smoother, video playback using VMR based applications seems to be far superior in Vista than XP and with the promised media centre upgrades coming in the SP1 upgrade as well the reality of running a PVR or PC in the loungeroom may finally become a reality for a lot more people.

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#77969 13-Jul-2007 10:55

I'm running Vista MCE on a setup in the lounge, it sits in the stereo cabinet very quiet and is slowly gaining a better WAF. I've got a 500 Hauppage card with Sky Digital in one put and the old vhs machine in the other input, so I can dub down old shows the kids have recorded.

Plug ins, I really haven't found that many that I need. The one good fun thing I've added is Google Maps available here, although originally designed for XP.

I've played with VideoRedo too, but in reality I don't keep too much stuff once I've recorded it.

And the only codec I've installed is called Vista Pack which plays my divx and other format videos.

EPG wise I'm using one supplied by Haventech which has failed only a couple of times - once saying no data for TV1 for a day, then it came right.

The one thing I haven't got sorted properly is a a better way of intergrating Freeview and Sky Digital.

I want Freeview for local TV and SD just for the docos and Food tv channel, but MCE it seems won't allow you to assign a particular input for a particular channel. Unlike MediaPortal. Plus the trick of having to sort out tuner channels, etc.
There's free beer if someone can suggest a cure for this problem

sbiddle

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#77974 13-Jul-2007 11:44

One of the biggest downfalls at present at present is the lack of MPEG4 support in Vista Media Centre. This means that once Freeview Terrestrial begins in February next year that you won't be able to use a DVB-T card with Vista.

MS are aware of this and as many countries are moving towards H.264 MPEG4 broadcasts it will be fixed but if it's part of the Fiji Media Centre core upgrade many people are still picking this for a mid to late 2008 update which is still a long way away..

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#77978 13-Jul-2007 12:41

OT: I've tried VideoReDo and it works great in XP MCE too. I might actually get it and use it for storing/converting DVR-MS to MPEG2. I have been looking for other tools to do this, but so far VideoReDo has my vote.

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askelon

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#78527 17-Jul-2007 18:57

I used Vista MCE for a couple of weeks and absolutely hated the interface over XP MCE. Ended up scrapping the lot, sticking XP MCE back on, then setting up MediaPortal. MP is pretty much doing all I want and then some atm but as soon as it gives me trouble I'll be back to XP MCE. Some day down the track I may give Vista MCE another shot - both XP & Vista MCE's seem to run alot quicker than MP admittedly..

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#78543 17-Jul-2007 22:06

askelon: I used Vista MCE for a couple of weeks and absolutely hated the interface over XP MCE.

Interesting. I like the interface changes in Vista and if it was stable for me with my nVidia GPU then i'd be running it instead of XP MCE.

Are you running into a widescreen 16:9 or regular 4:3 TV? The XP MCE interface was really better suited to the 4:3 screens.

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munchkin

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#78894 20-Jul-2007 00:44

I've been running Vista as the main MCE machine in the house since the beginning of February - the interface (on widescreen TVs at least) is vastly superior to that os MCe2k5 (which I have running in the other lounge). Most plugins from MCE2k5 will work, but be aware that the Media Center [sic] app. is very picky, and it will crash if something it doesn't like happens (that is my experience anyway).

As far as the plugins I use, if I were to use the term loosely, I'd recommend

The Nvidia PureVideo decoder - Make sure you grab this and give it a try, it works wonders compared to the default MPEG2 decoder built in to Windows.

The Vista Codec Pack - lots of obscure video/sound codecs (and some not so obscure ones) all in one handy package.

'Windows XP Video Decoder Check Up utility' - This can help if you need to change MPEG codecs for troubleshooting.

I think I've seen you around on Reven's forums, so you should know what to do regarding a guide, however [I've just discovered] if you plan to run xmlTVNZ 3.0 then you'll need to host and run it on an external server as it doesn't play well with BRP 3.0 and BRP 3.5 doesn't work at all on Vista - just a tip.

sbiddle

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#78901 20-Jul-2007 06:50

munchkin: I've been running Vista as the main MCE machine in the house since the beginning of February - the interface (on widescreen TVs at least) is vastly superior to that os MCe2k5 (which I have running in the other lounge). Most plugins from MCE2k5 will work, but be aware that the Media Center [sic] app. is very picky, and it will crash if something it doesn't like happens (that is my experience anyway).

As far as the plugins I use, if I were to use the term loosely, I'd recommend

The Nvidia PureVideo decoder - Make sure you grab this and give it a try, it works wonders compared to the default MPEG2 decoder built in to Windows.
The Vista Codec Pack - lots of obscure video/sound codecs (and some not so obscure ones) all in one handy package.
'Windows XP Video Decoder Check Up utility' - This can help if you need to change MPEG codecs for troubleshooting.

I think I've seen you around on Reven's forums, so you should know what to do regarding a guide, however [I've just discovered] if you plan to run xmlTVNZ 3.0 then you'll need to host and run it on an external server as it doesn't play well with BRP 3.0 and BRP 3.5 doesn't work at all on Vista - just a tip.

I've struggled to get XLMTVNZ working so far, I followed a guide on the xpmediacenter site using BRP 3.0 but coouldn't get it working. I haven't really been following the forums on Reven's site so had better have a look. Is it simply a case of running BRP and hosting the guide files on another server rather than running IIS on the same machine?

I've also had quite a few issues with video tearing on my new Asus M2A-HDMI motherboard. I seem to have minimised these as much as I can now but there is still some small tearing in very fast panning which is a little annoying.

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munchkin

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#78956 20-Jul-2007 11:11

If you have only a Vista MC machine and you're trying to use xmlTVNZ 3, then you'll need to have another server to host everything else.

You can follow the guide(s) on reven's site to setup BRP even if you're not installing it on the machine which actually needs the guide; just make sure that you've got the computers [the servers] own name instead of 'localhost' in the *.html files inside the '/Native/' folder that BRP is installed into, and point the Vista machine to the IIS server that is hosting everything.

I've found that BRP must be installed in the "C:\Windows\ehome\" folder or it won't work, so just change the default IIS website location to "C:\Windows\ehome\BladeRunnerPro" and you shuld be alright. The permissions side of it all can really complicate things too, as my server is on an intranet only, I've removed all the default permissions and set the /BladeRunnerPro/ folder and all subdirectories to 'Everyone'.

If you get stuck PM either myself or 'mark' on Reven's site, (I'm not sure f he is a member here) he helped me greatly when I figured out that BRP 3.0 was the cause of all my problems.

sbiddle

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#78959 20-Jul-2007 11:32

Thanks for that, I'll have a look at this over the weekend. I'm still using GB-PVR as my main PVR (running on Vista) but am definately keen to play with Vista Media Center further despite some of it's shortcomings. I have a webserver hosted at home on my server so will set up BRP on that and XMLTVNZ. Since this is on a Win 2k server I'm guessing BRP 3.5 will work fine and it's just an incompatibility between BRP 3.5 and Vista and not the files it actually generates?

lchiu7

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#79010 20-Jul-2007 16:28

I like gbpvr but the machine it was running on has problems now - locks up after running for a few hours and I have completely installed Windows again on it to no avail. The CPU isn't getting hot so it doesn't appear to be heat related

Thinking that it's probably hardware (probably MB related) since replacing the CPU and memory didn't fix it, I plan to build a new PVR. This will give me a chance to rethink the PVR software. I have a copy of Vista Home Premium and could install that so long as I could

1. get the xmltv feed to work (sounds like that's not so easy under Vista)
2. Make sure it runs the USB-UIRT okay
3. Supports my Hauppauge PVR250 card

Sounds like more than a weekend's worth of work to make this happen

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munchkin

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#79041 20-Jul-2007 22:39

sbiddle:

I'm guessing BRP 3.5 will work fine and it's just an incompatibility between BRP 3.5 and Vista and not the files it actually generates?

Exactly, BRP 3.5 just doesn't work on Vista. (While BRP 3.0 does, xmltvnz doesn't work with BRP 3.0 - it's giant mess)

lchiu7

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#79218 22-Jul-2007 17:28

sbiddle: Thanks for that, I'll have a look at this over the weekend. I'm still using GB-PVR as my main PVR (running on Vista) but am definately keen to play with Vista Media Center further despite some of it's shortcomings. I have a webserver hosted at home on my server so will set up BRP on that and XMLTVNZ. Since this is on a Win 2k server I'm guessing BRP 3.5 will work fine and it's just an incompatibility between BRP 3.5 and Vista and not the files it actually generates?

The new 1.08 release of gbpvr with a completely written GUI is quite nice. No idea if it works on Vista (suspect that it does). I think I will keep gbpvr on my PVR even though I am building a new one and incorporate a DVB-S card to complement the PVR250 I use to record TCL cable

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

sbiddle

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#79226 22-Jul-2007 18:57

lchiu7:
sbiddle: Thanks for that, I'll have a look at this over the weekend. I'm still using GB-PVR as my main PVR (running on Vista) but am definately keen to play with Vista Media Center further despite some of it's shortcomings. I have a webserver hosted at home on my server so will set up BRP on that and XMLTVNZ. Since this is on a Win 2k server I'm guessing BRP 3.5 will work fine and it's just an incompatibility between BRP 3.5 and Vista and not the files it actually generates?

The new 1.08 release of gbpvr with a completely written GUI is quite nice. No idea if it works on Vista (suspect that it does). I think I will keep gbpvr on my PVR even though I am building a new one and incorporate a DVB-S card to complement the PVR250 I use to record TCL cable

Yes GB-PVR works fine under Vista. I currently have Vista Ultimate on my PVR machine that I run GB-PVR on. The only issue I'm having is to do with sleep/suspend mode which is a Vista issue.