Has anyone managed to get vista MCE to run component video at 50Hz? Like most people in this world I live in a country that broadcasts TV at 50 fields per second, however my XP MCE with Nvida forceware 93.71 only gives me the option to run at 60fps. I’m hoping MS will have discovered there is a world outside the US by now.
Can anyone shed any light?
Hey guys,
Am playing with MCE software for 1st time on Vista U., and need help with setup planning. I want to keep my pc in my office and DirecTV in the other room (just 1 TV). Do I HAVE to buy an extender (XBox for now) to do this, or can I simply install long runs (60 ft one way) for the audio/video and USB IR functionality between the STB and PC? I’ve been searching the net for info on this, but no cigar. I’m not a gamer and don’t want the fan/drive noise from the extender.
Thanks much, Ben
Hi Blake,
The black pixel on white issue is a videO card problem. You probably have an ATI video card. Best option is to go to device manager, right click on your display adapter and choose to upgrade driver. Follow the options to check for the driver online. Microsoft has the new drivers which will fix your problem in their Vista driver database. Once you restart all should be well.
Cheers.
Hi, Armando:
I have the same problem with ir hardware recognition. My ir on Hauppauge HR 1600 is working. The remote even controls windows media center functions, yet in tv setup, it’s not found. Did you (or anyone)ever solve this?
A few details I know about which are for certain in MCE.
You can enable a registry key and get the DVD Library feature to find and view all local or network shares where you have DVD VOB files. So time-shifted netflix is sweet. This even goes over the internet and pulls down the movie poster art for each so that the gallery view is rich. XVid movies can play also from the Videos Gallery if you install a good quality codec.
MCE on a laptop, a must in my opinion… best way to pass the time on a plane or catch up on favorite shows/movies/music… laptops with IR support are nice (HP laptops) as you can use your laptop as a TV with a remote, great for the hotel room business traveller scenario. When I travel, I copy shows from my main MCE to my laptop for viewing.
Most of the DVR-MS files can be converted easily to portable devices such as the Toshiba Gigabeat and even an IPOD such that you can watch all your favorites on the go with portable devices. I don’t understand the ITunes model of paying for “The Office” when I can record it and take it with me for free with my MCE.
DVB-T has always been supported in Harmony and later releases of MCE. More countries were added in the Emerald release (more tuning frequency maps). Guide listing data is provided for the major services in countries like UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain. Teletext is supported in PAL/SECAM tuner scenarios, digital TV support for DVB-Teletext and interactive TV (MHEG/MHP) is being worked on. Digital Satellite TV (DVB-S) is on the road map for future releases, and there are some clever mapper solutions to get some support in place now.
Clear QAM (US FTA Digital Cable support) - the ability to support this is quite possible with a simple powertoy. MCE support for US Digital Cable TV with CableCard added all the features that allow Clear QAM to be possible. Tuner driver vendors can update their drivers to expose QAM as a tuning space that Windows BDA will support, thus MCE will see it.
I’m new to media center, I’m running it on Vista Ultimate and I’ve been very impressed so far. Except I’m having some sound issues on the music player. My library is running from a USB2 7200 rpm external drive and at the end of the each track the sound distorts every time. No other music player has the same problem using the same source. Could this be a bug?
If you’re having problems with Vista Media Center, I highly recommend visiting the Green Button forums. That’s the best community on the 'net for all things Vista Media Center.
You’ll get much better help there than you will here:
Robert-
I just picked up a Linksys Media Center Extender to use with Vista and methinks we’re both phucked. I chatted online with a dude from Linksys and he said their product wasn’t certified to work with Vista. Swell. Do they make any extenders that work with Vista? I ask. Nope. Swell again.
According to a post above, the XBox 360 is the only thing that works as an extender with Vista. I don’t need nor do I want a friggin’ XBox. Confirmation of this would be appreciated.
Anybody get Vista to work with a media extender other than the xbox360? I have a Hauppauge Media MVP and would like to get that working with Mediacenter in Vista Home Premium.
Never mind Jeff. I figured it out. I didn’t understand fully what you said until now. WMC creates it’s genres after scanning my mp3’s. It creates however many genres my mp3’s say I have. wce had an acid jazz genre because one of my mp3’s says it’s genre is acid jazz. Looks like I do need to re-tag everything. Still, it would be nice if WMC was more customizable.
On a side note, does anyone know if the 360 controller has the same functionality as the MCE remote? I’d like to get a remote for WMC, but since I plan to get a 360, I’d just use the controller if it could navigate WCE as well as a remote could…
I’ve never used MCE before (have used Media Portal) and I just upgraded my htpc from XP Pro to Vista. I’m trying to see if I want to switch to WMC. What I don’t like, and maybe it’s just that I don’t know how to do it?, but Media Portal was so customizable and WMC is not. Specifically, in Media Portal I had set up my mp3’s by genre, and I created the genre’s. I don’t catagorize my mp3’s by album. I do it by artist, and then I place the artist into a genre that I decide. So Vista scanned my music and broke everything up and put various songs into genre’s that it decided. If I view my music by genre rather than album, it lists a jillion genre’s of which I have no music (like “acid jazz”). Any idea how I can delete the genre’s I don’t want listed (In Media Portal I broke my music down into just 15 genre’s) and can I force WMC to display certain artists in certain genre’s? Do I have to be a programmer to figure this stuff out? Any good websites on how to customize WMC in Vista? Any help ya’ll can provide will be appreciated!
Patrick and Robert: the only extender that works with Vista Media CEnter at the moment is the Xbox 360.
As always, for the best info, use the Green Button Forums:
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/default.aspx?GroupID=17
Bob, I use Media Monkey for stuff like this-- Vista doesn’t set anything itself, it’s all determined by the the Genre tags in your music files. The basic version is free:
http://www.mediamonkey.com/
Thanks Jeff. I’ll check out Media Monkey. I wonder if there is a way to configure vista media center as I do Media Portal. Where I can tell Vista to display my music library as the 15 genre’s that I have specified, and then when I open a genre it displays the X number of artists that I have configured for that specific genre. All my mp3’s are tagged, but I have tagged them only with artist-song title tags. I don’t enter album, track number, or genre data. Hmm… There must be a way around this without have to re-tag everything. Besides, even if I do re-tag everything, I still don’t want the acid jazz genre to appear in my music library. Vista should not display any genre’s for which I have zero mp3’s. There’s got to be a way…
Can someone answer this?
If I use Vista Media Center to record a TV show, then burn it to DVD, can I use this DVD in a regular DVD player, one hooked up to a TV, not hooked up to a computer?
Thanks
Mike
Mike, yes. Windows Vista Media center has the ability to burn DVDs built in (unlike previous versions of Media Center). Any DVDs you burn from Vista Media Center will be playable on standalone DVD players.
This is a very well done write up for VMC…
Just wanted to point out a few things… There are 2 non-OTA digital tuners that VMC and XMC05 can use.
HD HomeRun. Dual Digital Network Tuner. It will tune to both ATSC OTA and clear cable QAM. Some citys have all their QAM clear (tho I suspect this will change), but for the most part the locals and weather chs are clear (both SD and HD versions in most areas)… Another exciting thing about this tuner, is it is a DUAL tuner (like the Hauppauge 500) and its a network tuner. meaning, ANY computer attached to the network can use the tuner… Using this tuner along with an analog tuner will allow you to recieve most of the cable channels (I dont get 7 HD channels in HD, my cable box passes them thru composite so I can capture them in 480i SD - FireWire is also an option fod HD depending if ur STB is able to stream across it)
ATI OCUR. USB CableCard Tuner. YES this tuner is avail (tho only thru OEMs at this point)… Why would you really want to use this tho??? A tuner that will make ALL your recordings protected!! But this is an option (if its the only computer ur using as an HTPC w/o an extender)
Hi Jeff,
excellent work you did. I completely agree with you, WMC is great, mainly in the graphics capabilities. But I Have a serious question to you: HOW did you add the music library and HOW MUCH TIME did it take?? I used to do it very simply and fastly in MCE2005 even using the “add to library” function in WMPlayer but …I’m honestly tired and desperated about this issue because I simply CAN’T make it work. HELP!
I have about 7000 songs in WMA Lossless that I’ve been classifying for years. Correct covers, years, composers, the original album in which every song appeared…etc, etc. And I’ve tried using the WMP or from the WMC itself, but it’s been WEEKS and NO ALBUM has appeared on the library!!! really HEEELP!
Thanks
Carl
From Mike K.'s entry:
“Then I discovered something cool. When I set the TV resolution inside Media Center, it does not effect my desktop resolution and vice versa. I was now able to do what I wanted to do form the start; have one resolution for TV veiwing and one for computer use. This also makes my PC games work great.”
Mike- This is a great feature of Vista Media Center, however, it’s not happening for me. If I set my desktop 1024x768, then my TV viewing is fullscreen and nice. However, if I go to a higher desktop resolution, the TV picture is smaller, and boxed up. I have found no way to correct this within Media Center. Can you tell everyone where you changed this setting?
Jeff -
If ur using the x64 version of MediaCenter, you might want to use the x64 version of Media Player (the x64 ver of Vista has both the x32 and x64 Media Player)… That way what you see in Media Player matches what you see in Media Center…
For album art, Media Center uses a file called folder.jpg that is located in the folder with the music files. Media Player creates this file (usually a hidden/system file). If this file is missing or if you want to use a diff pic just put a new file in that dir with the folder.jpg name
Kurt -
To change the display settings for Media Center
Green Button - Tasks/Settings - TV - Configure Your TV or Monitor
I have Media Center using a darker brightness and you can see the change when Media Center becomes the Maximised/Current Full Screen App
Hi,
I too think that Vista MCE is great however I have one major problem, Whenever I try to burn TV programme to DVD (Video Mode), my MCE crashees and restarts. Once it came up iwtht he error of the extensibility host is not working so I don’t know what that is about. Any ideas of how to get around this problem I have a Hauppauge Nova T500 installed and apart from the recording, works fine.
Help PLEEAASSEEEE