Writing magazine article on ultimate HTPC - need XPMediaCentre's help

[AdamTurner]

I'll run it past the editor and see if he has a preference, but I'm leaning towards XP unless someone can convince me otherwise.

[vlad]

Just wait until tomorrow - they are all sleeping or drunk. But you will get more opinions tomorrow.

[slimf]

You know, this is the PERFECT opportunity for us to make Microsoft sit up and listen here.

If an article is on its way to the press reccommending an older OS over Vista because of Vista's media center issues in Australia then JUST MAYBE they might be inclined to seriously look at fixing the issues before going to press.

The EPG is by far the most serious problem (IMHO) - they can fix this. The nvidia problem will be fixed in time, and all the other bugs are minor in comparison to these two.

Sooo - maybe - just maybe if Microsoft can get their guys onto fixing the Aussie EPG so that it works with ICEtv reliably, you can choose Vista for your article.

[AdamTurner]

I'd like to think you're right, but sadly you're not. Practically every IT journalist is already saying don't move to Vista yet. Dell's move to reintroduce more XP options speaks volumes. Enough people will keep buying Vista that MS doesn't care if it's not ready yet - just like their other products.

Anyway, I can't wait for MS to get their act together - I want this box built by June so I think it will need to be XP. Unless they release Vista SP1 in the next week

[jgriffin]

I'd like to think you're right, but sadly you're not. Practically every IT journalist is already saying don't move to Vista yet.

And 99% of them are just regurgitating the same statments, most of which are based more on rumour than truth. There's nothing wrong with Vista for most purposes. It's currently not the best choice for HTPC's due to nVidia's and ATI's poor efforts at producing drivers, but that's hardly Microsofts fault. Personally i'm sick of these anti-vista articles written by ill educated journalists.

[AdamTurner]

And 99% of them are just regurgitating the same statments, most of which are based more on rumour than truth... Personally i'm sick of these anti-vista articles written by ill educated journalists.

I think that's a gross over-generalisation, but let's not get sidetracked. The matter at hand is HTPCs and, as you say;

It's currently not the best choice for HTPC

I'm thinking the best option for my story is to building a dual boot box, running XP MCE and Vista Home Premium, so I can try both. Vista might not be ready, but I think readers expect me to go into further detail than just "don't bother yet".

Is there anyone who has a dual boot XP MCE/Vista MCE box? Any words of advice to offer?

[badapple]

I'm thinking the best option for my story is to building a dual boot box, running XP MCE and Vista Home Premium, so I can try both. Vista might not be ready, but I think readers expect me to go into further detail than just "don't bother yet".

Is there anyone who has a dual boot XP MCE/Vista MCE box? Any words of advice to offer?

I run 2 dual boot rigs, one is day to day use and the other is a test rig of sorts.

Day to day rig runs constantly in XP as there are major shortcomings in Vista, such as sub standard graphics drivers, decoder instability or inferiority. The clincher is I am unable to run 4 tuners in Vista using the same Terratec Cinergy 2400i DT cards that work perfectly as a 4 tuner setup running XP.

Rig 2 as I say is a test rig, bit it too has some major driver issues in Vista such as no working driver for its Netgear wireless card and the same Nvidia video driver issues and sub par video decoder.

Now obviously most of the issues affecting Vista are 3rd party driver issues, and many members here vehemently defend Microsoft as blameless for this.

My opinion is that M$ obviously did not get its 3rd party suppliers a final build with sufficient time for them to write the drivers to coincide with Vista's launch because M$ were already being ridiculed for the time it took them to bring Vista to market.

So essentially the lack of 3rd party drivers is Microsofts fault anyway. 3rd party suppliers don't want to be rewriting drivers for their (in some cases) extensive suite of products over and over again as M$ tweeks the OS before final distribution, that's just a waste of money and resources.

Personally I'd lioke to run Vista on my day to day rig, my wife loves the look of the interface and I certainly prefer it to XP, but it's just not practicable as the functionality doesn't stack up to that of XP.

Just as an aside, I noticed that you have Corsair TwinX PRO RAM in your build spec. As I understand it, the PRO moniker doesn't make for better RAM, the PRO modules simply have an LED display on top of the heatsinks which is a bit of overkill for a HTPC, they're more for custom rig builders who go for perspex cases with cold cathodes and 'disco' innards. Save yourself the money.

[impact]

Time to throw my 2c in the ring... and I agree with a lot here - the ultimate HTPC is a personal thing - otherwise we would all just have the ultimate machine and it would be the same....

So - you want it under $2k easy...
You want it to be windows based - fine... I'd recommend the Vista route, as for me and my setup - its more stable and does what I want... From your articles perspective - its the new OS, the story of the moment, and it happens to include this media center thingo (with right versions) - so no need to install nothing... MCE2005 - yep its OEM, and yep a lot of us could buy a screw to get around any issues - but its the choice of the two...

You mention Windows - and there are other free packages available like Media Portal - Im just being the devils advocate here - a few people may question why windows, and then why not the other suites available... Just being the devils advocate - as for me Id go the Vista path...

So the ultimate HTPC eh? Assume that means DVB-T ? Would not the ultimate include DVB-S or even Analogue tuners for the community stations ?

Case - you mention VFD - I find it invaluable for the feedback to know what the machine is doing at a glance, playing which file or program or recording what station and things like that - it also gives me an indication that the machine is on and doing something or asleep or worst of all - offf !!! Ouch.

My first HTPC - Bigger the better... it ran hot... and was cludgy...
Current HTPC - Minimising the setup - runs cooler / quieter / more reliable...

Graphics Card - hmmm... an expensive piece of hardware, but from your comments why 2 DVI outputs... if your talking MCE or Vista - its only single monitor, otherwise you have all sorts of problems with focus. And why do you need to buy near top of the line graphics cards with full 3d rendering for just watching TV ? Today MY ultimate HTPC uses lower end graphics card - in fact onboard graphics - again less heat and cant get any quieter than that !!!

Tuners again - how many.... My machine has 6 - not just for recording 6 at once - cause there is hardly ever anything on tv for that... But its the overlap - I can record back to back shows and increase the recording times for 5 mins extra... or in the case of ch10 now that big brother is back - 30 or 60 mins extra... In the hope I never miss the start of a show or more importantly the end of a show....

I reckon an ultimate htpc for recording tv shows - should at least ensure it does not miss the end of a show!!!!

I ran dual boot at first, and withing a couple of weeks - just moved across to Vista. Yes there is one serious bug regarding loosing channels occassionally - but for me it is small consequence to the other benefits I receive. But again - its a users choice...
(You can have the recordings saved in the same directory - so no matter whichever you boot into, you can see and add to the recording list)


Lastly Adam - I believe MS have got their act together with Vista, its the end consumer who is always reluctant to change, If we search through the archives there was always a level of descent for each MS release, but unfortunatley with so much bashing going on, the level increases with every new release. Vista is certainly more stable than XP and if your wanting the ultimate HTPC you want something that is going to be stable...

Oh thats it for now - stirred enough further discussion for you guys for a few days....

[warren13]

Is there anyone who has a dual boot XP MCE/Vista MCE box? Any words of advice to offer?

I don't Dual-Boot as I am more of a purist and would use an external bay with two seperate HDD for this (Might be a bit difficult in a HTPC case). But one point that has been overlooked here is backup.

You build a HTPC to hold all your digital stored media, this means your entire music, photo and personal digital (home) movies for a lot of people and if you do not have a robust and working backup of these files you are open to them being lost!

So, the points before have all been great..boobies...Matrix and Smiley Terminator but without a proper backup it might all be in vain if you come across some bad luck or end up on the wrong side of the reliability % for manufacturers of HDDs etc..

Acronis is a favorite of people here for complete backup, Symantec also have a product called Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery http://www.symantec.com/smb/products...c&pvid=lsrdt30 $95 odd and an external drive to back up to makes absolute sense to me.

You can also use Microsoft's backup tools native to Vista and XP, the schedule in something like OneCare or annother 3rd party utility. This is also one of the major reasons for Microsoft's Windows Home Server, as it automatically does the job for all PCs in your home (MS ones at least) and also acts as a NAS device...so this might be a future option for your readers, especially those who have multiple PCs in the home.

MTC,
warren13

[vlad]

I'd recommend the Vista route, as for me and my setup - its more stable and does what I want... From your articles perspective - its the new OS, the story of the moment, and it happens to include this media center thingo (with right versions) - so no need to install nothing... MCE2005 - yep its OEM, and yep a lot of us could buy a screw to get around any issues - but its the choice of the two...

Agree, out of the box Vista is better than out of the box 2005. But fully tuned 2005 better because of 3 annoying problems.
1. Nvidia drivers inability to do custom resolution and timing.
2. Video library thumbnail view without text.
3. If your Video library is on network share it takes ages to build thumbnails or read them. If enought new files you have to wait for 5 min until thumbnails are built.

Graphics Card - hmmm... an expensive piece of hardware, but from your comments why 2 DVI outputs... if your talking MCE or Vista - its only single monitor, otherwise you have all sorts of problems with focus. And why do you need to buy near top of the line graphics cards with full 3d rendering for just watching TV ? Today MY ultimate HTPC uses lower end graphics card - in fact onboard graphics - again less heat and cant get any quieter than that !!!

I completely disagree with this statement after so many people having problens even with 6200. It depends on panel you have and what content you are using. For what I do 7600GS Silent is enough.

Tuners again - how many.... My machine has 6 - not just for recording 6 at once - cause there is hardly ever anything on tv for that... But its the overlap - I can record back to back shows and increase the recording times for 5 mins extra... or in the case of ch10 now that big brother is back - 30 or 60 mins extra... In the hope I never miss the start of a show or more importantly the end of a show

I am running 2 , but only occasionally have overlapping problems, - soon the big upgrade will come and I will move to 4 tuners, but Australian TV just don't have enough good programming for 6 tuners.

Oh thats it for now - stirred enough further discussion for you guys for a few days....

[impact]

See Vlad - its almost impossible to define an ultimate HTPC...

- Agree there are some short comings with Vista.. the Nvidia issue - well it only affects certain users... if your using an old CRT probably not a problem, some DVI users experience problems, some are more luckier than others as they dont need a customised resolution that currently is hard to get with Nvidia drivers... It will get better sooner or later...

- No need for 6 tuners ? Well it depends on your household - during the day a lot of kids programs get recorded on ABC and ABC2 - some of these may only be 5 minutes long, I can easily chew up 3 or 4 tuners simultaneously by having an overlap of 10 mins to ensure the recording takes place. With many people in the household who have differing tastes, can result in a lot of recorded programs...
Having a quick look at the next week - I record 7 news and 9 news nightly - and extend it by 5 minutes, also do the ACA / Today Tonight and extend that by 5 mins - So for that hour slot I have used 4 tuners... Means I can watch Today Tonight and delete it, knowing that the end of the news is still preserved on the Seven News recording... Now do I watch all this - typically not... I'll watch one news program, and only if there was a world breaking event, where I wanted to see a different perspective, would I bother watching the other. Similarly - ACA / Today Tonight gets watched only when there is a laughable story - like bashing of each other... Lol
Differing people in the house have differing tastes... and thats not to mention the ability of extenders capable of watching live tv - thus needing access to a tuner..

So a an Ultimate htpc - can not see how you can survive on 2 tuners... even with the so called 'crap' on aus tv.... certainly not everything is available as torrents.....

[slimf]

I think a few people here may have took my post as Vista Bashing.. And I can tell you - It was far from it. I use Vista at work, and as far as the OS goes, its light years ahead of XP. But my point still stands that if you want to build a stable, usable (wife/kids/neighbours) Media Center without loosing your Guide data/channels every now and random then XP MCE is still the way to go.

This will of course change.

Nvidia WILL bring out better drivers and Sooner or later someone will work around the guide issue in a permanent way (or MS might pull finger - who knows) and the other bugs will be ironed out.. When this happens Mike may as well let the xpmediacentre.com.au domain expire - because everyone will end up jumping ship to Vista. :-)

Vista is the future of MCE - NO doubt. But if adam wants to pass this box to someone to use and not get calls at 10pm at night asking where all the channels have gone he better use XP.

P.S Many here blame MS for the driver issues in Vista.. Its a loose loose situation for Microsoft when a new OS comes out. Infact I remember when Windows XP was in beta, I actually had to purchase a new video card to use XP beta because the card I had didnt have working drivers. The new card I purchased wasnt much better either.. It simply takes time for programmers to get used to the way things work. Early adopters should know this and be prepaired for teething problems.

In 2 years time, Vista will be so far ahead in peoples minds they will wonder why they ever wanted to use XP.

At the time of writing, the tread in these forums on the Vista channel EPG issue is 25 pages long... Almost as bad as the Divco tuner threads :-P