vista home premium (or ultimate) impressions?

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FraGGleR

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 4, 2004
Messages
384
Has anyone played around with this yet from an HTPC standpoint? I have a perpetual tinker and upgrade bug that has me itching to switch to something new.

I am also trying to get things streamlined for my wife. My main concerns are upscaling DVD's, playing xvid, and then doing simple photo viewing and music listening. I don't use my htpc to record tv right now since I have an HD dvr from Comcast. And of course, having this be as streamlined as possible.
 
I was about to start a thread on this topic.

I love my MCE 2005, but would like to upgrade to Vista.
Since this is purely for media, I sure would like get some experience on Vista MCE.

Pics please. :D
 
I just purchased Vista a few weeks ago. From an HTPC standpoint I like it, but like any other frontend out it is not perfect. The TV aspect was pretty easy to setup and is easy to use.One bug I found in Vista media center is video card support. When searching through the menu's I get a white dotted diagnol line across the screen. I don't know if this is my ATI driver or just that VMCE does not like the card (X800GTO not a good HTPC card anyhow).

The music jukebox is one of my favorites. It displays tons of cd album covers at once on the screen.

Some other cool things: It gives you access to online media like movies, VONGO tv, VH1, MTV, sports scores and news. It lets you burn cd's from within the app.

DVD upscaling: I really have not ever screwed around with so I can't say much about that.

Things I don't like:
The way it forces you to organize your media is annoying. You just direct it at the drives with you media and it puts it in folders. So for example your pic library will have your video drive in it also. Basically, it does not isolate your library very well. There also is not really any plugins or skins that I have been able to find ( I could be wrong so please send me in the right direction if there is).

If they add some plugins and continue to work on Vista MCE I think it will end up being a great program. Right now its not bad, but it still really does not stand out.
 
I know this defeats the purpose but www.thegreenbutton.com is a forum that specifically focuses on the MCE's (MCE 2k5 or Vista MCE) and has screenshots, hacks, and everything else you could possibly want.
 
I had the same dotted diagonal line issue that j282 described when I tried out Vista with an X800 Pro.

The other issue I experienced was findign a sound card that would actually pas digital autio via SPDIF so I could get surround sound. This seems to be a common issue as audio drivers aren't ready for prime time with Vista.

The other thing is nVidia doesn't support the Purevideo codec under Vista. I was able to install it but Vista wouldnt use it.

Other than Digital Cablecard support it doesn't look like you have any advantages over XP MCE. Right now anyway.
 
Looks like I will hold off, then. I really like the picture I get from my HTPC right now, so I want to make sure that it stays nice. Also, I need to be able to pass through sound. Thanks for the input, everyone.
 
I jumped to Vista, but had horrible audio skipping problems, which research seemed to show were problems with my audio or disk controller drivers. I popped my XP drives back in, and will continue running XP MCE until Intel fixes their Vista Matrix array drivers.
 
watched a few dvds using vista ultimates media centre, and I like it very much, I dont know about an upscaling feature but the dvd qaulity was alot better than my usual encounters on my monitor, which is a dell 2407.

Got a bug where if I try to run videos off a normal dvd media centre dosent respond, but I watch normal stuff using windows media player, and I also love that. runs smooth and opens quicker than any media application I have had before.


Just my two cents ;)
 
I think the MCE interface went down a few notches on the family ease of use scale. Its nice, but just a little bit more complicated.
 
Given how important drivers are for HTPC use, I'd avoid Vista until it's a more mainstream OS. Basically, you have an OS to run the programs you need. XP will do that so there's really no point in Vista. It will just make you either buy more hardware so you can be amazed at 'how fast it runs' or your machine will be slower and will be able to do what it did before.
 
i ditched btv 4.6 for it. i run 3 analog tuners w/ vista ultimate/mce (happauge 500 and 150) -- used some freeware to add the 3rd tuner after configuring the first two. it runs great -- found all my drivers (well, i installed the latest nvidia drivers) for me -- i just installed codecs heh.
 
amromousa said:
latest version supports it, but i have yet to try it, i need to sit down and do it tho, comskip is important.
Click to expand...

You can say that again.
I don't know how I ever lived without commercial skip.

ShowAnalyzer works better than comskip and is dirty cheap.
 
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