Long time US MCE User

shoult · **3rd June 2006, 06:22 AM**

Hey all...

I've been using MCE for several years now. I started with the original version, through MCE 2004 and then MCE 2005. I currently have two home built systems running MCE 2005 just fine. Both systems pretty much do nothing EXCEPT MCE duty. I have several other computers for general work.

Living room MCE unit:

Intel D845PEBT2 motherboard
Intel P4 2.4 Ghz
512MB RAM
Maxtor 160GB SATA HD
Intel Pro 1000 NIC
ATI
Avermedia MCE150 Tuner/Capture card
Panasonic 6.1 Audio reciever 100 watt per Channel RMS
Bose Surround Speaker system
No more DVD or VHS machines!

Bedroom MCE Unit:

Intel D845WN motherboard
Intel P4 2.0 Ghz
768MB RAM
Maxtor 160GB ATA HD
Intel Pro 1000 NIC
nVidia
Avermedia MCE150 Tuner/Capture card
2.1 Jensen Computer Audio Speakers

Waiting in the wings I have a unit I will be using to test Vista MCE on. I can't wait to see what's new in this version. Currently I'm running Vista beta 2 build 5384.4.

Intel D865PGLC motherboard
Intel P4 2.8 Ghz HT
1.5GB Dual Channel DDR400 RAM
Maxtor 200GB SATA HD
Intel Pro 1000 NIC
ATI 7200 w/128 MB Ram
I'm not sure which Tuner/Capture card I'll be using yet.

All machines are part of a Windows 2003 domain on a Gigabit network. All MCE machines record TV to local drives. Each MCE machine has it's local TV directory automatically mapped on all other domain machines when they log into the domain so that ANY machine on the network can play MCE recorded video over the Gigabit network. ALL other content is hosted on my 1.7TB Raid 5 array server. This includes 4400 different albums (nearly 58000 songs), 100s of DVD movies, Thousands of Mpg/AVI/Quicktime files and many thousands of pictures (mostly jpg).

The video and TV functions of MCE work great. The Music section SUX big time! Personally, I like to be able to just point to my Music root directory and say play songs from here randomly. MCE doesn't allow you to do this at ALL. It want to index everything and then play from a playlist. Have you ever tried to generate a playlist containing 58000 songs in MCE? It's absolutely rediculous.

Of course, this also applies to other music software such as the WiMP and Napster which I have to use to transfer songs to my 20GB Napster device.

Why can't I just use file explorer to say (this goes for MCE, Napster, WiMP and all other music programs) I want these files on my Napster, or Play everything in this diectory and ALL subdirectories randomly.

Sorry..... Just crabby I guess.

BTW, when I have to rebuild the music index it can take 8-12 hours! Just entering the My Music portion of MCE 2005 can take 15-20 minutes before I get control back.

This usually means I have to give up my 10 foot MCE interface and revert to using a mouse and file explorer to load up WiMP with the songs I want.

Banjo · **3rd June 2006, 08:54 AM**

G'day Shoult.

Welcome to the forum.

I have given up using MCE for music. I use Windows Media Player instead. The MCE remote still does most functions, so I can get by with that.

Cheers, Banjo

slmorgan42 · **5th June 2006, 04:12 PM**

Hello,

I am currenlty in the UK but moving back to the US at some point soon. I currently have an MCE working quite nicely with free digital TV here. No cable or sat. I will probably want to set up an MCE machine in the US to work with cable. Do you sue cable? Which connector is used to connect from the cable box to the MCE machine?

Can you think of any issues you had getting your call working?

shoult · **6th June 2006, 01:19 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by slmorgan42

Hello,

I am currenlty in the UK but moving back to the US at some point soon. I currently have an MCE working quite nicely with free digital TV here. No cable or sat. I will probably want to set up an MCE machine in the US to work with cable. Do you sue cable? Which connector is used to connect from the cable box to the MCE machine?

Can you think of any issues you had getting your call working?

It depends on what level of cable you're talking about. If you just want to get the standard 1-99 channels you can just run the cable coax right into the tuner card. With this setup you get direct control of channel functions.

If you want to get into the "digital" tier (500 channels of crap!) then you will most likely have to use the cable companies set top box to do the tuning and run the output of that into the tuner. You will have to use an IR blaster to control the set top box channels. It's clumsy, but it does work mostly.

I keep hearing that they getting ready to release MCE compatible CableCard enabled tuner cards, but I have yet to see one. This would do away with the need for the set top box. No more IR Blaster or set top box!

Good luck

GlenR · **6th June 2006, 12:08 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoult

Personally, I like to be able to just point to my Music root directory and say play songs from here randomly. MCE doesn't allow you to do this at ALL.

Hi shoult and welcome.

I don't know if there may be an issue with a database as large as yours, but I can get my entire uploaded collection (about 120-ish albums) to play randomly in MCE.

On the main page highlight My Music (but don't select it), right-click and select play.

If you then select random it will shuffle the whole collection. A similar thing can be done based on genre, artist, etc.

Give it a go if you have already tried it and found it doesn't work.

slmorgan42 · **8th June 2006, 03:29 PM**

Hi,

You were saying you can just plug the cable straight into your TV tuner without a topbox. Does this allow you get things like the movie channels and stuff or is this what you meant by the other channels (above 99)?

What TV turner card are you using?

Thanks